Pcalc apple tv12/31/2023 The Mac version of PCalc has been around since 1992. Left to right: iOS from 2008, OS X from 2012, iOS from 2013, and iOS and macOS from 2021.įederico Viticci: In 2017, you wrote a retrospective about PCalc’s 25th anniversary. AppStories, Episode 38 – An Interview with James Thomson, Creator of PCalc and DragThingĪn Interview with James Thomson, Creator of PCalcĪ selection of PCalc icons.Apple Asks PCalc Developer to Remove iOS 8 Widget.PCalc’s Delightfully Insane About Screen.PCalc 3.8 Adds Support for iOS 12’s Siri Shortcuts, Including Powerful Clipboard Commands.PCalc 3.9 Adds Dark Mode and the Latest Shortcuts Features, Expanding the App’s Automation Capabilities.A Selection of MacStories and AppStories Coverage.PCalc on the App Store ( iPhone/iPad and Mac).As a result, we can think of no better app to award our first-ever Lifetime Achievement than PCalc. Any app that has been maintained and updated for nearly three decades is a labor of love, but with PCalc, the care, attention to detail, and whimsy that James brings to the app come shining through. PCalc’s About screen can render 3D objects and includes a car racing game and AR mode.įederico and I have had the pleasure of getting to know James well over the years we’ve covered his apps. Tap on the gear icon from the main screen and then ‘Help’ on the Settings page, where you’ll find a link to the app’s delightful About screen. Words and screenshots don’t do PCalc’s About screen justice. As I described it in 2017:Īs soon as I opened the view, I felt like I’d entered Thomson’s private playground where the constraints imposed by developing a calculator app were suddenly removed giving him free reign to experiment. More recently, PCalc’s About screen has taken on a life of its own with a full-blown 3D driving game, 3D bananas, coins, calculators, marbles, and other objects that can be dumped into the scene, and support for AR. The kerfuffle passed with Apple allowing PCalc’s widget and other interactive widgets to remain on the App Store. The App Store featured PCalc’s innovative widget, but App Review wasn’t quite as excited because Apple hadn’t anticipated developers building widgets that do anything other than deliver passive data from apps to users’ Today page. One memorable experiment was PCalc’s fully-interactive iOS 8 widget. James is also known for his experiments with the latest Apple technologies and pushing the boundaries of what people expect in a calculator. Since its beginning, PCalc has competed with Apple’s free system Calculator app on the Mac and iPhone but has succeeded by offering features that Apple doesn’t, like an incredibly deep set of customization options, and bringing calculations to the iPad, something which Apple still hasn’t done more than a decade after the iPad’s release. Today, PCalc is available on the iPhone, Apple Watch, iPad, and Mac (pictured) as well as the Apple TV. Before we get to the interview, though, I’d like to take a moment to introduce you to PCalc, which has a long and rich history that not all readers may know. James also joined us for a special segment of AppStories, covering the Lifetime Achievement award and other MacStories Selects winners. Supported By MacStadiumīelow, you’ll find a written interview that Federico conducted with James about PCalc’s history, what makes the app special, having to adapt to hardware and software transitions by Apple, and what the future may hold. Not only are James and PCalc longstanding pillars of the Apple community, but PCalc represents the sort of innovative and creative spirit that we value most at MacStories. In the end, PCalc by James Thomson, which started on the Mac and has been adapted to every possible Apple platform, was the obvious choice. Last month, I sat down with Federico in Rome to go over the Selects awards, and we began by scanning a list of potential Lifetime Achievement candidates that we’d put together over the previous weeks. In the end, it was the easiest pick of the lot. Thomson also talks about his favorite apps that he did not create, including Authy, Just Press Record, Sync Solver, and more.John Voorhees: I’d love to tell you that there was drama surrounding the selection of this year’s first-ever MacStories Selects Lifetime Achievement award, but there wasn’t. Plus, hidden driving games with bananas that rain from the sky and panda stickers. They discuss the 26-year-old history of PCalc, the free software movement, his work on the OS X dock, and how PCalc will work with iOS 12 Siri Shortcuts. Megan Morrone talks to James Thomson, developer and creator of PCalc and DragThing.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply.AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |