iOS Apps Megathread: Can HealthKit track my post count?

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Inspect Your Gadgets > iOS Apps Megathread: Can HealthKit track my post count?

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mawarannahr: May 21, 2019

is there an ad blocker that gets around �You�re using an ad blocker! gently caress you and here�s how to disable it.� 1Blocker doesn�t seem to work very well for me. Is AdGuard any better and are there any other worthy alternatives?

# ¿ Aug 22, 2022 06:34

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ¿ Apr 29, 2024 16:00

mawarannahr: May 21, 2019

cage-free egghead posted:

You could use uBlock Origin in Firefox to block that element. A lot of times though sites will have things in place that stop the page from scrolling until that box is gone.

Works on both desktop and mobile!

Oh I should have mentioned I want this for iOS safari

AnimeIsTrash posted:

I thought firefox addons weren't allowed in ios? Did that change?

Pretty sure they haven�t so it�s odd to recommend in the iOS apps thread. Firefox on iOS is basically a safari reskin.

mawarannahr fucked around with this message at 23:02 on Aug 24, 2022

# ¿ Aug 24, 2022 22:57

mawarannahr: May 21, 2019

Crime on a Dime posted:

would you mind dropping an example link so I can test my setup?

I switched to AdGuard from 1Blocker and I haven�t encountered any yet!

# ¿ Aug 28, 2022 14:20

mawarannahr: May 21, 2019

virinvictus posted:

I use and love Things, but I love the design of it so it�s worth the price.

JNCO BILOBA posted:

I�m the same way. It�s on all my devices and worth the cost of entry to me.

What makes it better than Reminders or Todoist?

# ¿ Sep 8, 2022 05:53

mawarannahr: May 21, 2019

fourwood posted:

I�ll look into Todoist and Things, thanks. I�ll also see if I can�t shoehorn my workflow into Reminders. I like to use it more for scheduled/timed/geofenced reminders, but have a separate list for generic �stuff you should try to get done today/soon� but, like, don�t care to get a notification or to have an app yell at me if it slips to tomorrow. I�ll see what I can manage though, first-party is always very appealing since I�m already paying Tim for it.

I used to have the same concern but there�s no requirement for a reminder to have a trigger.

# ¿ Sep 8, 2022 20:01

mawarannahr: May 21, 2019

I tried the beta of the new 1Password and didn�t like it. Is the Apple password app getting any improvements in the new iOS?

# ¿ Sep 10, 2022 18:17

mawarannahr: May 21, 2019

101 posted:

I moved off Gmail to Fastmail and switched back to Apple Mail with iOS 16 (and am eagerly awaiting Ventura for better search on Mac) so this doesn't really affect me:

Spark has now paywalled some basic features, and all non-premium emails have 'Sent with Spark' under the signature.

I guess they were missing out on a lot of potential income only charging enterprise and team customers. It's also now available on Windows.

I don't begrudge any company moving to subscription models, but it sucks to have an app auto-update and put features you previously had access to behind a paywall. The usual good faith way to do it is to give existing customers the features they already had beforehand�

They might feel a little crunched lately because they�re in Ukraine. I too use Fastmail but switched away from Spark due to account security concerns and general uncertainty after spring 2022.

# ¿ Oct 4, 2022 16:49

mawarannahr: May 21, 2019

Crime on a Dime posted:

you don't trust apps made in Ukraine?

101 posted:

Those are two different sentences. I don't think maw has an issue with them being in Ukraine. Just that, it explains why they want a bigger revenue stream now.

People's security concerns with Spark are about them storing all your emails on their server.

Yeah my more specific security concern was connected to something I read about how they handled account credentials.

My biggest concern for Spark with the war was that it just wouldn�t get updated or that they�d need to shift their product strategy to do such things. Maybe some security concerns from being caught in �cyber crossfire� or having servers seized.

Mail.app does most of what I need anyway and is better integrated so it was an easy choice even if I like how Spark searches and sorts.

# ¿ Oct 4, 2022 18:10

mawarannahr: May 21, 2019

just posting about a couple extensions that I find really helpful

https://underpassapp.com/StopTheMadness/

Search Ban - https://searchban.com

quote:

Search Ban is an iOS Safari web extension that removes spam and low value search results from search results. iPadOS, MacOS, and image search support coming soon.

It comes with some built in filters and you can add more manually or by clicking the ban hammer:

I also like mapper, which redirects google maps links to Apple Maps: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/mapper-for-safari/id1589391989

Vinegar is a popular extension for better YouTube but in case you don�t know:

quote:

Vinegar also replaces the YouTube player (written in who-knows-what) with a minimal HTML <video> tag.

Vinegar is commonly used as a household Tube cleaner.
The benefits include:
The removal of in-video ads.
Prevent YouTube from tracking your play/pause/seek activities.
Restore picture-in-picture functionality.
The videos don�t stop playing if you switch to another browser tab.
You can choose the audio-only stream to keep the music playing when Safari is in the background.

Post extensions you like

# ¿ Jan 12, 2023 22:42

mawarannahr: May 21, 2019

101 posted:

They've already all moved on to Mastodon anyway. Their API is already way better than Twitter ever was, and it's open source.

I'm in 7 Mastodon TestFlights. It's really thriving.

does mastodon have search?

# ¿ Jan 13, 2023 21:02

mawarannahr: May 21, 2019

I�m working on an automation to help post articles more easily. I�m using this code with the Transform tool from the actions from the actions app

with this code: https://pastebin.com/y3p0PLXp

(Adapted from http://skeena.net/htmltobb/)

still needs some work but suits my needs. anyone have a better one? I mean I could go through the code but I hate JavaScript so much.

e: also don�t post JavaScript code on the forums otherwise you get blocked by cloudflare. Jeffrey :argh:

# ¿ Jan 13, 2023 21:28

mawarannahr: May 21, 2019

Is there a reason to use an RSS app that isn�t NetNewsWire, which is mature and free of charge? I�ve gone through most popular ones and bought a few, like Lire, but NNW seems faster and more stable.

# ¿ Jan 14, 2023 20:10

mawarannahr: May 21, 2019

Ugh, I have the dreaded �Cannot Connect� error in the subscriptions screen on settings and in the App Store. Anyone getting this? This bug seems to be at least three years old.

# ¿ Jan 20, 2023 02:16

mawarannahr: May 21, 2019

priznat posted:

I�ve been moving off of gmail to icloud for my mail, but I would like something that does the auto filtering that gmail does. Any options for this without using another provider like spark?

I guess what I really want is server side filters which iCloud doesn�t have.

If you have an always on mac I think you can execute rules.

I checked out Shortcuts to see what you can do with emails. Well you can't really do anything.

# ¿ Feb 24, 2023 21:16

mawarannahr: May 21, 2019

I recommend paying for Fastmail. It's good

# ¿ Feb 24, 2023 21:21

mawarannahr: May 21, 2019

priznat posted:

Oh I hadn�t heard of that one, it looks interesting. I will try out the trial. I had used spark way back when and it seemed good too. $50/year seems reasonable for a good email service.

I don't know if spark offers email service but I had some privacy concerns although I enjoyed using the app for a week to read my fastmail account; it was better than any other iOS or mac mail app imo. They rewrote the app recently and I hear it sucks now.

Besides the existing privacy concerns, they're in Ukraine and Russian cyberattacks there "surged by 250% in 2022 when compared to two years ago," and well I'm sorry fellas I hope it works out for your company.

I have used fastmail for like a decade, it's got a great rules system and can be used with basically any email client.

# ¿ Feb 24, 2023 21:34

mawarannahr: May 21, 2019

priznat posted:

Would it work ok to forward icloud to fastmail as well? Just to keep using that email.

Probably, I forward my old school e-mail address there and some filtered ones from my gmail.

1Password has an integration with them to create masked emails too (also you can create your own email aliases like yourusername@one-of-their-domains.tld)

I still use the iCloud separately for signing up to random bullshit and that has also improved a lot with hide my email, which does the same thing and seems to work in more auto fill boxes than 1Password on safari mobile.

# ¿ Feb 24, 2023 21:45

mawarannahr: May 21, 2019

Clark Nova posted:

I love fastmail, though as far as I can tell it doesn't have a feature to automatically sort emails into promotions/social/updates buckets, which I miss, though I completely understand why a privacy-focused provider wouldn't offer that

I know what you mean. I do get a lot of mileage from making a white list of email addresses for Real poo poo and letting email addresses to any others go to a different folder. Filtering by "unsubscribe" or "subscription preferences" has helped too.

# ¿ Feb 25, 2023 02:51

mawarannahr: May 21, 2019

What subscription apps do you use?

I'm using Drafts Pro ($19.99/year, amazing general purpose text editing, processing, scripting), no ads for Overcast ($9.99/year, using it for badly recorded podcasts), and trying out TickTick ($2.99/month, persistent reminders that I can't ignore, multi-platform).

# ¿ Mar 9, 2023 02:35

mawarannahr: May 21, 2019

Skeezy posted:

Unless the dev removed it, 1Blocker should have a lifetime license. I forgot to add that one to my list.

It's still there

# ¿ Mar 9, 2023 03:04

mawarannahr: May 21, 2019

Corb3t posted:

Is 1Blocker that much better than Adguard Pro? I bought an Adguard Pro lifetime license a long time ago and never looked into other adblock extensions.

I haven't found anything that makes it better. I switched back to lifetime AdGuard after trying it out.

# ¿ Mar 9, 2023 04:16

mawarannahr: May 21, 2019

I'm not a fan of the overcast ui. Downcast is perfect in that regard but it has no audio processing so it's not good for poorly recorded podcasts. I tried pocket cats and the overcast audio is still better.

I tried castro for a while, and it was pretty good but after an iOS update all phone sound would stop if you used airplay on the app like half the time. and it would require a reboot of the phone to fix. I feel like it's probably not the developers fault -- too bad for them and their business!

# ¿ Mar 10, 2023 00:14

mawarannahr: May 21, 2019

Boris Galerkin posted:

Which podcast app do you guys use for discovery? The discovery feature of overcast sucks and all the recommended podcasts are questionable to me.

Awful.app

# ¿ Mar 10, 2023 05:55

mawarannahr: May 21, 2019

EC posted:

Could I use a NFC tag on my deep freezer that would prompt me to enter whatever I'm putting in and the date into some sort of easily searchable list/app? I've never messed with NFC tags and want to check it out.

You'd have to tap your phone right to it

# ¿ Mar 12, 2023 16:57

mawarannahr: May 21, 2019

Question Mark Mound posted:

I need to track how many journeys I have left on a handful of travel cards (there's no proper app or card payment system in this country, so I gotta juggle like 4 cards for the journeys I make a bunch for the best prices). Basically, I just need to have an app that'll show me multiple named items with number counters that I can easily tap to remove 1 from, or interact in some other way to add 10 to.

Right now I just have a Notes document with the four cards listed and I'm manually typing in how many journeys I have left on each one any time I travel with it or top it up, but something smoother would be nice.

I don't mind paying a few quid if it's slick, but even something as simple as this feels like it would be part of some kind of subscription service. Bonus points if there's an NFC hook that would let me tap the card to my phone to auto-remove 1 from it on the app, but just launching the app via the card with a normal Shortcut is fine, that's what I'm doing crrently to open the Notes app.

Is this not possible with a normal shortcut? You could add a little button or widget on the Home Screen to start a shortcut that adds or removes from a menu of named items. The main thing you want to look into is managing persistence, which you can do by saving and restoring to/from a dictionary in a file (or just lines in files).

The Toolbox Pro or Actions apps give you shortcut actions to help with persistence and making menus, but you dont actually need them. NFC should be possible by the automation tab of Shortcuts. If you need more control over NFC, Toolbox Pro can help there too.

Finally you can also make a custom home screen widget with Scriptable

# ¿ Mar 24, 2023 10:35

mawarannahr: May 21, 2019

Congrats. Shortcuts are great and thet make you feel accomplised. I do recommend looking into the Actions abs Toolbox Pro apps, theyre worth the few bucks for quality of lift imo.

I've been makin some Posting Tools in Shortcuts... i posted an earlier version of one I wrote to turn a webpage Into BBcode for easy posting. I've since been improving that to handle edge cases better, offer options for posting summaries with Twitter-style article thumbnails, re-host images on Imgur and so on.

Ive got a quotesearching shortcut too. If you automate it on a schedule you can get iOS notifications of you've been quoted on forums. I'll share these when the code doesn't look so embarrassing and wont break easily.

I also wrote a SAVBB syntax and action group for Drafts Pro. It's way better than Awful.app for writing a longer post (and you wont worry about crashes)

My posting is augmented :awesomelon:

# ¿ Mar 24, 2023 20:30

mawarannahr: May 21, 2019

I hate JavaScript and dragging shortcut elements so much though. There's an app called Rubyist that can he used to program and make shortcuts, automations, and widgets in Ruby:

Seems pretty nice to code:

code:

puts "Hello World!"
puts "Ruby Engine: " + RUBY_ENGINE
puts "Ruby Version: " + RUBY_ENGINE_VERSION
API = "https://api.my-ip.io/ip.json"
json = HttpRequest.get(API).body
ip = JSON.parse(json)["ip"]

# Rubyist is giving you access to native iOS APIs like Clipboard.
Clipboard.copy(ip)
puts "Current IP Address: " + ip

code:

puts "Hello World!"
puts "Ruby Engine: " + RUBY_ENGINE
puts "Ruby Version: " + RUBY_ENGINE_VERSION
API = "https://api.my-ip.io/ip.json"
json = HttpRequest.get(API).body
ip = JSON.parse(json)["ip"]

# Rubyist is giving you access to native iOS APIs like Clipboard.
Clipboard.copy(ip)
puts "Current IP Address: " + ip

The photo thing:

code:

# Let's build a widget that displays a random Unsplash picture.
random_image = Image.from_url("https://source.unsplash.com/random")

w = WidgetUI.new do   
  HStack {
    VStack(alignment: :leading) {
      Spacer()
  
      Text("Random Photo")
        .color(Color.white)
        .bold
    }  
    Spacer()
  }
  .background(random_image)
  .frame(width: :infinity, height: :infinity)
  .padding(15)
end

# Calling present will render it when running your script from a home widget or preview the widget inside the app by running the script. 
w.present

# ¿ Mar 24, 2023 20:47

mawarannahr: May 21, 2019

Apparently the developer of Toolbox Pro, the Shortcuts toolkit app, has just passed away

I hope it isn't true, but he did have cancer.
https://twitter.com/mralexhay/status/1412871532817309696
The "If Or" action alone is worth the price tag. https://apps.apple.com/us/app/toolbox-pro-for-shortcuts/id1476205977

The only comparable alternative is Actions, which doesn't implement everything (although it has its own unique features).

mawarannahr fucked around with this message at 16:44 on Mar 27, 2023

# ¿ Mar 27, 2023 09:31

mawarannahr: May 21, 2019

I've been using kybooks 3 for a few months now and it's pretty good. I prefer it to Marvin. It's pretty fast, can work ok with pdfs, syncs with iCloud and auto-imports from a given directory. Good set of preferences.

https://apps.apple.com/us/app/kybook-3-ebook-reader/id1348198785

# ¿ Jun 2, 2023 21:33

mawarannahr: May 21, 2019

Buff Hardback posted:

Fastmail plus Mail.app is the winning combo IMHO.

No labels :/

# ¿ Jul 3, 2023 05:12

mawarannahr: May 21, 2019

Warbird posted:

I like the idea of safari�s reader mode feature but don�t particularly care for using safari for reasons unknown. Is there an app that has similar functionality that�s decent? Is that just instapaper? Doesn�t have to be a �read it later� type thing or a service, just opening the URL and showing the page is plenty.

Here's a bookmarklet that makes use of Mozilla's Readability.js.
javascript:Promise.all([import('https://unpkg.com/@tehshrike/readability@0.2.0')]).then(async ([{default: Readability}]) => document.body.innerHTML = new Readability(document.cloneNode(true)).parse().content)

Save this link as a bookmark then edit the address it points to so it contains the code above:
Run Readability.js

Warning this enables arbitrary js execution from unpkg.

# ¿ Jul 26, 2023 05:00

mawarannahr: May 21, 2019

Cyrano4747 posted:

how is the siri integration with those other apps?

Because it's convenient as hell to just slap my watch and say "set a reminder to do that thing at 7pm on thursday"

With TickTick it's like "tell TickTick to remind me to gently caress my rear end at 7 pm on Thursday"

# ¿ Jul 26, 2023 22:07

mawarannahr: May 21, 2019

Corb3t posted:

Maybe one day Google will update their ~design language~ to make apps like Chrome and Maps more user friendly on mobile devices and put the address/search bar near the bottom of the app.

Actually, I'd like to correct you on this point - the address/search bar near the top of the app is more user friendly, which is why Safari had it there until recently.

# ¿ Jul 27, 2023 19:14

mawarannahr: May 21, 2019

unsure about pet phrenology + how the uk government will use this to automatically destroy anything tagged as "American Bully XL."

# ¿ Sep 19, 2023 21:17

mawarannahr: May 21, 2019

I was looking forward to iMessage getting emoji reacts like every other chat app and they just made them as stickers you have to go into a menu and tap and drag for. It's hard to use. How come Signal has a better interface than Messages? At least there are search filters, finally.

# ¿ Sep 22, 2023 18:06

mawarannahr: May 21, 2019

TransatlanticFoe posted:

I think this is still coming later:

https://www.macrumors.com/2023/09/21/ios-17-features-launching-later-this-year/

Ah, I wasn't aware. Thanks.

# ¿ Sep 22, 2023 20:19

mawarannahr: May 21, 2019

Alan Smithee posted:

How do I turn off this tab button in safari app it�s so drat annoying to me

101 posted:

Pretty sure your only option would be to switch to 'Single Tab' mode in Settings. That puts the bar back at the top as well though.

Did this little button exist before? It looks helpful

mawarannahr fucked around with this message at 17:23 on Oct 1, 2023

# ¿ Oct 1, 2023 17:19

mawarannahr: May 21, 2019

What's the best image resize app? Should support percentage, export to different image formats with compression settings, and ideally be a onetime payment. Bonus if it plugs into a shortcut in a way that's more usable than the built-in flows for resizing a picture.

# ¿ Oct 18, 2023 04:04

mawarannahr: May 21, 2019

Neurophonic posted:

Pixelmator is this app.

Nice. Scaled this screenshot 50%:

I also found that an app I already bought supports percentage now; I think it didn't used to. Here is Resize Picture

($0.99)

No color depth settings for export but it can do multiple images at once -- not sure pixelmator does but it seems useful in other ways so I think the $10 is probably worth it. Thanks.

# ¿ Oct 19, 2023 18:02

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ¿ Apr 29, 2024 16:00

mawarannahr: May 21, 2019

EwokEntourage posted:

Is there a way or an app to track wifi usage? apparently my phone uses 4x the wifi bandwith as any other phone in my office, though I don't use it for anything other than texting, calling, or infrequent internet use for things like discord or SA while at work (since can do whatever on my computer).

I don't know if you can reliably measure per app data usage on WiFi constantly. I think you could get an idea by:

enable Cellular > Cellular Data Options > Data Mode > Allow more data on 5G
Activate cellular data
Spend a day doing stuff
Examine Cellular > Cellular data > This Billing Period (maybe mark down the original numbers and subtract for a more accurate estimate)

In general, iCloud Private Relay, if enabled, might increase data usage in unexpected ways as well, iirc -- you might try disabling it depending on your security and privacy concerns.

You could get an overall data usage figure if your home router supports monitoring (I have been able to do this on Synology routers). It might be possible to do this another way if you find a VPN service that shows your usage in a panel or app somewhere.

If these ideas don't work, there seem to be some apps, but I haven't tried any of them. A lot are probably lovely and trying to sell a subscription. I'm not sure how much access Apple allows for apps to monitor other apps' data usage. I haven't tried this app and it might be unsafe but maybe:
https://apps.apple.com/us/app/my-data-manager-vpn-security/id477865384

quote:

My Data Manager has more than 20 million downloads worldwide since it launched in 2011.

The My Data Manager app is a simple and powerful tool to help users take control of their mobile data usage, maximise the value of their mobile plans, and prevent overspending on monthly phone bills.

Key features of My Data Manager:

Data Tracker: Monitor your data usage on mobile, Wi-Fi, and roaming
Call & Text Tracking: Monitor how many call minutes or text messages you have left
Alarms: Set custom usage alarms to avoid overage charges and bill shock
App Tracker: Know what apps are using the most data
Across Shared Plan and Multiple Devices: Track data usage across everyone in your shared or family plan and across your multiple devices
History: Track historical consumption to ensure you�re on the right data plan

Good luck

# ¿ Oct 25, 2023 22:37

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Inspect Your Gadgets > iOS Apps Megathread: Can HealthKit track my post count?

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