Another crackerjack essay on design and attention from Terry Godier. (Note that the Casio in the essay not only shows the actual time, but has functional buttons.)

Apple Newsroom today:

Apple today announced AirPods Max 2, bringing even better Active Noise Cancellation (ANC), elevated sound quality, and intelligent features to the iconic over-ear design. Powered by H2, features like Adaptive Audio, Conversation Awareness, Voice Isolation, and Live Translation come to AirPods Max for the first time. The new AirPods Max also unlock creative possibilities for podcasters, musicians, and content creators, with useful features like studio-quality audio recording and camera remote.

AirPods Max 2 will be available to order starting March 25 in midnight, starlight, orange, purple, and blue, with availability beginning early next month.

Seemingly no change to the Smart Case for the Max, which I know some people were hoping for. (I only use AirPods Pro, not Max, but when I tested the original AirPods Max I thought the case was fine.) Here’s a link to Apple’s Compare page showing all the differences between the Max 2 and original Max, with AirPods Pro 3 in the third slot. (Archived for posterity here.) One neat new feature: the Max 2 will support using the Digital Crown button as a remote camera shutter button for a paired iPhone or iPad.

“What that means in practice is that even a kernel-level exploit would not be able to turn on the camera without the light appearing on screen.”

David Pogue absolutely killed it hosting this live event last week. Glad I saved it to watch on my TV. Special guests include Chris Espinosa, John Sculley, and Avie Tevanian. A legit treat.

My thanks to Finalist for sponsoring last week at Daring Fireball. Finalist is a remarkable, ambitious, and novel app for iPhone, iPad, and the Mac from indie developer Slaven Radic. It’s a planner — a digital take on traditional paper planners — that (with permission) pulls in your calendars, reminders, and health data. Its motto: “Most productivity apps help you organize tasks. Finalist helps you finish them.”

Finalist first sponsored DF back in December, and I wrote quite a bit about it then. You should read that post. I’ve continued using Finalist, day in, day out, since then. It’s open on my Mac and on my first iPhone home screen. I’m even on the TestFlight beta list, using new builds as Radic releases them. Finalist was good enough back in December that I started relying on it, and it’s gotten even better in the three months since. It’s a great app, period, but it’s really fun to use an app that is getting better so quickly. Radic is cooking with gas. It’s just so obvious, just using it, that Finalist is his own dream app for daily productivity. Here’s a fun one-minute video showing what’s new in version 3.6.

Recent features include subtasks, calendar bookmarks, HealthKit data in Finalist’s journal, and a spoken daily briefing you can trigger from your Lock Screen. You can (and I do) run Finalist alongside the apps you already use. E.g., Finalist hasn’t replaced Fantastical for me — they just work great together because they both show me the same calendar events. Same goes for Apple Reminders. If you took a look back in December, you should check out what’s new. If you haven’t tried Finalist yet, you definitely should. Free trial from the App Store, with both subscription pricing and a one-time lifetime purchase.