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trivia

WWDC 2022

For those who are not “in the loop,” WWDC is Apple’s developer conference, where they announce all the new software releases for the year. Usually the new updates are made available in September and October, but we get a preview of what’s coming in June.

So, what happened this year?

I don’t think there’s anything earth-shattering for Wandle Software. The improvement to SwiftUI should be beneficial, as should the enhancements to Catalyst. App Intents should make the Shortcuts that were included in Yummy 3.6 a little bit more useful.

I’m going to take a look at the new home screen widgets for iPhone, but I’m not convinced that this is the right place for Quick Calendar. You’ll also be disappointed that Apple did not allow widgets to be interactive, so the long wished-for ability to move back and forth between months is still not possible. Maybe next year.

My favourite new feature, PassKeys, is the beginning of the end for passwords, but there’s no immediate application of it in any of our apps.

All good stuff. We’ll continue to support the latest operating systems of course.

As a consumer, I’m most excited about the watchOS updates. The improvements to the Workout app look great. But — and this is important — I have not installed any of the new operating systems on my devices.

Please don’t install the betas on any of your devices!

I have not tested our apps on the new operating systems yet, and, even if I had, there has not been enough time to resolve any issues. Be patient.

Categories
news

Quick Calendar 1.3.2

Version 1.3.2 of Quick Calendar is currently with Apple and, with luck, will be available for download as you read this. This version is for Mac, iPhone, iPad and Apple Watch.

Version 1.3.2 checks off pretty much every feature request I’ve received for Quick Calendar since version 1.3 came out late last year.

  • Option to show the week number
  • Option to change the first displayed month
  • Option to use the “system” highlight colour
  • Customise the first weekday in the Watch app
  • Localised in French, German, Spanish and Portuguese

Most of these are self-explanatory, so I won’t go into any detail. A couple of them need some context.

The second feature I lied about: the ability to change the first month displayed is not a popular request. The request I get is “I’d like to be able to move to the next and previous months,” though often the message is not that polite. The amount of abuse I’ve received for removing this feature has been shocking. Pretty much every negative review on the App Store is about this.

But I didn’t remove the feature because I wanted to. I removed it because Apple provides no way to implement it! Big Sur uses a completely different way to display widgets and it does not provide interactivity. (So the people threatening to use a competing product were barking up the wrong tree.)

The best alternative I’ve been able to figure out so far is to have the ability to start on a different month other than the current one. I appreciate this isn’t ideal, but without the ability to add buttons I’ve not come up with anything better.

Finally, I’ve localised the widgets and the Watch App into a handful of languages other than English. If you have any corrections for what’s there in French, German, Spanish or Portugues, please let me know. Similarly, if you’re interested in localising into any other language, please get in touch.

I hope you’re enjoying using the widgets. Remember, if you do, I really appreciate any donations. It takes a lot of effort to keep it up to date with the latest Apple technologies — the widgets in iOS 14 and Big Sur were a complete rewrite of the older widgets — and other feature requests.

Update, 7 March. Apple approved the iPhone, iPad and Apple Watch version but rejected the Mac version, for reasons unrelated t the new features.

Update, 14 March. I submitted a fix to Apple. Second time lucky?

Categories
news

Yummy 3.4.3

New shortcut menu
Yummy

Yummy 3.4.3 has just been approved by Apple and should be available for download from the App Store shortly (if it isn’t already).

It’s a pretty small update, one of those “bug fixes and minor update” releases. The main user-visible change is that it now supports all the latest Apple devices and their new screen sizes. It’s built with the latest Apple developer kit but doesn’t currently take advantage of any of the new iOS 14 features.

I have heard a few reports of Yummy’s Share Extension not appearing correctly on iOS 14. I think this is a problem with iOS since I’ve not changed anything in Yummy and it’s been working since 2015. Indeed, Yummy 3.4.2 is still built against iOS 13. I can’t guarantee that this version will miraculously fix it, but that’s my hope.

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news

Quick Calendar 1.3.1 (for iPhone, iPad and Watch)

Quick Calendar

Approved in super-quick time: the latest update for Quick Calendar. This version runs the same code as the Mac version and has the exact same features in the iOS14 widget.

That means, new in this version is the ability to pick the first day of the week. Previously it always picked the day your system’s locale suggested, and that’s still the default. But now you can change it.

This was basically the number one feature request. Embarrassingly it only didn’t make it into 1.3.0 because of a silly off-by-one error. Anyway, better late than never!

Hope you like it. You can download it from the App Store now.

Categories
news

Quick Calendar (for iPhone and iPad)

Quick Calendar (iOS)

Following the success of Quick Calendar for Mac, I am happy to announce the imminent availability of Quick Calendar for iPhone and iPad. (Okay, the fact that I wanted it also factored into the decision to make it!)

Without wishing to undersell it, it’s basically the same as the Mac version. It shows the current month — or slightly less in the default “small” mode — in the Notification Center. It’s free but you can donate in the main app. There’s no obligation, but if you think it’s useful I’d appreciate the support. It helps keep it maintained on new versions of iOS and potentially funds new projects.

I use it all the time. I hope you find it useful, too.

Update (5 September): now available on the App Store!

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news

Yummy 2.7.10

I don’t think we’ve ever got as far as double-digits in patch version numbers — so that makes this new version of Yummy special!

Other than the number it’s a pretty minor update. There are two visible changes:

  • When you ask for tag suggestions, if there are none you now no longer get an error message
  • The Open Source library that I was using for the tabs in the edit bookmark screen was proving to be a little crashy, so I have removed in and am now using a standard Apple component in its place

In addition there is the usual collection of minor tweaks and fixes. Hopefully I’ll have more news about version 3.0 soon, once it’s feature complete.

Categories
news

Deprecation

If you read any of the Apple blogs, you may have seen this TUAW piece or one of the many others on the same theme:

Apple is slowly deprecating frameworks that iPhone 3G-compatible apps require from Xcode and app libraries, and the upcoming version of Xcode (4.5, currently in development) specifically states that it does not support armv6 devices or anything below iOS 4.3.

This deprecation also affects Yummy. Yummy is currently supported on every iOS device ever made, going right back to the original iPhone. (I know this because I still have one and usually conduct final release testing on it.) But that will change as soon as iOS 6 comes out. At this point I will be unable to continue to provide updates for these old versions.

To be clear: the app won’t just stop working but I won’t be able to add new features and I won’t be able to provide any bug fixes. I’m sorry if this affects you, but if you’d bought Yummy in 2008 when it first launched, you’ll have had 25 free updates and it’ll still work on any new devices you buy…