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Second Gear Launches First Glassboard Update for iOS 7

When I was beta testing Editorial in 2012, I used Glassboard every day to report feedback, send screenshots, and discuss the app’s feature set. Glassboard is a private chat for groups and small businesses that has threaded conversations, attachments, notifications for new messages on mobile devices, and other cool features such as location sharing and possibility to bookmark messages. Aside from the Editorial beta, I used Glassboard to communicate with friends in private boards, send feedback for other betas, and discuss features of MacStories. I was worried about the future of Glassboard when it was put up for sale and relived when Second Gear announced that they acquired it. I’ve always believed in the idea behind Glassboard and I wanted to see it thrive.

Glassboard’s future under Second Gear management begins today with the launch of a long overdue update to the iPhone app, which is ready for iOS 7. The app still isn’t available on the iPad, but this new version provides a solid new foundation to build upon and I’m confident that Second Gear will consider an iPad counterpart.

For those not familiar with Glassboard, the service lets you create discussion boards where you invite people. Nothing is ever shared publicly and everything is kept private with an invite-based system. People can post new messages and add comments to them, which will be grouped in a conversation. What’s unique about Glassboard is that, in the age of social networks that demand constant public activity with opt-out systems for privacy controls, Glassboard is a modern, elegant, and private forum board for groups of friends or teams. My use of Glassboard may have been limited to work-related communication, but I know of several people who rely on it to organize meet-ups or get together at conferences thanks to the service’s location sharing feature.

The new iOS app is simple and nice. There’s a sidebar where you can switch between boards and access your personal Settings; next to each board, you’ll find a gear icon to control your notification preferences and see every member of a board. The All Boards view at the top of the sidebar offers a unified view of all conversations from all boards, but you can of course open a specific board and view messages pertaining to it.

The entire app has been polished for iOS 7 but there are no major feature additions for this relaunch. I like the cleaner look and I’m a fan of the Views at the bottom of the sidebar to view all Photos and Videos and Notifications from all boards at once.

Glassboard is supported by its users. There are no ads; instead, you can pay $24.99/Year to become a Premium user, which will give you access to extras such as export options, up to 1 GB of attachments per board, and more features that Second Gear will roll out in the future. The Premium subscription is available as an In-App Purchase in today’s iOS update, or it can be unlocked on the web.

Even without new feature additions, I’m glad that Glassboard is back on iOS with a refreshed app and plans for the future. As I mentioned above, I’m looking forward to an iPad version and a redesign of the web app, which still carries the original Glassboard design.

Glassboard 3.0 is available on the App Store. I’ve had the chance to ask a few questions about Glassboard to Second Gear’s Justin Williams, and you can find the interview below. Read more

Second Gear Pit Pass→

This is a neat idea by Second Gear: instead of the regular newsletter, they’ll be using Passbook to gradually release information about their new app.

In Italy, I’ve seen a couple of services that are starting to use Passbook. Pit Pass is the first item that I’ve added to my Passbook since its launch last year, and I’m intrigued by the prospect of more developers using it to tease upcoming apps.

Lex Friedman has a nice overview of Pit Pass at Macworld. As an aside, I’ve also found out today that Passbook files can be viewed in Mountain Lion’s Mail through a popover.

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Photos+ 1.1 Adds Dropbox Support

Photos+, which I first covered in December when Second Gear launched it on the App Store, has today been updated to version 1.1, adding Dropbox integration and finding a new home at SilverPine Software.

Photos+ 1.0 was a simple Photos.app replacement with viewing features that supported EXIF metadata for location, time stamps, and more. From my original review:

Photos+ provides an alternative way to view photos you’ve taken on your iPhone if you don’t like the new Photos app of iOS 7. Photos+ doesn’t have any time or location-based sorting feature – it’s a mosaic of large photo thumbnails displayed in reverse chronological order (from newest to oldest). There are no settings, no filters to exclude screenshots from the list, and no special gestures to learn. As you scroll, you can tap thumbnails to open photos in full-screen; when you want to dismiss a photo, you flick it up or down like a card.

Photos+ 1.1 has kept the app’s straightforward approach and visualization of photos, but thanks to Dropbox integration it can now look for photos inside a Dropbox folder. Photos loaded from the Dropbox retain the same options of local photos: you can view metadata, share photos, and open a location panel to see where a photo was taken on a map. Obviously, the app requires a few extra seconds to load a full-resolution photo from Dropbox – thumbnails are loaded at a lower-res to speed up the experience – but everything else works just like the old app.

Unfortunately, I can’t use Photos+ 1.1 with my current Dropbox photo management workflow because the app doesn’t support sub-folders: the app can only load photos stored in a single folder (like the default Camera Uploads one in Dropbox), and this means that I can’t currently use Photos+as a photo viewer for my photo collection, which is organized in folders for years and sub-folders for months. I understand that most users who rely on Dropbox for photo storage and management usually keep photos in one folder, but I think it’d be nice to provide a setting to specify where and how the app should look for photos in your account (Carousel, released last week by Dropbox, shares a similar problem).

Photos+ 1.1 is available on the App Store.

deGeo: A Simple, Useful Geotag Remover for iOS

deGeo

deGeo

If you take pictures on your iPhone (or iPad) and you’ve allowed Apple’s Camera app to use your location, your photos will contain hidden, uneditable geotag data that are embedded in the files and that you can’t remove using system apps. Last week, I covered Photos+ by Second Gear, an alternative Photos app that allows you to view locations attached to photos through inline map views. deGeo, a $0.99 app for the iPhone and iPad, takes the opposite approach: it’s a geotag remover that lets you pick photos from your Camera Roll, clean them up to remove metadata, and share them or export them again with no location data attached.

Read more

Kick Off WWDC 2013 With MacStories’ Passbook Pass

As soon as I saw what Second Gear’s Justin Williams had done with PitPass.io, I knew that the system would be a great fit for our WWDC 2013 liveblog. I asked Justin if we could set up reader passes before WWDC, and he was kind enough to work with us. So while we’re putting the finishing touches on this year’s liveblog, you can now install a MacStories pass using this link.

The pass will do a couple of interesting things. Firstly, you can install it directly from an iPhone or iPod touch, or, if you’re on a Mac, using Safari, which will let you add the pass on your iOS devices through iCloud. The pass itself will show you a date and time for our liveblog (12:30 PM EDT, 9:30 AM PDT) on the front, and you can tap the “i” button in the bottom right corner to access more information. On the back of the pass, you’ll find a direct link to our liveblog, links to our Twitter accounts, and a “Giveaway” section.

Passbook supports push notifications, and we’ll use them to reward readers who install our pass on their devices. We will send two push notifications between today and June 10: one with promo codes to redeem apps we like; the last one with a reminder just before the liveblog will start.

I want to personally thank Justin Williams for his support and work on the WWDC liveblog pass. Make sure to check out his apps at Second Gear and upcoming Passbook service, PitPass.io.

You can install the MacStories WWDC 2013 Liveblog pass here.

Plain Text, Macros, Markdown, and Nebulous Notes

Nebulous Notes

Nebulous Notes

If there’s a category of iOS apps I’m always interested in checking out, that would be text editors. I write for a living, and while a better app won’t make me a better writer, a text editor that works for me can make me type and research more efficiently. Text editors are tools, and I’m always curious to see whether the market is offering new ones to get the job done with faster, smarter techniques. As Gabe said, fiddling often gets a bad rap, but my fiddling with text editors has actually allowed me to find apps that facilitate the only process that matters: typing words on a screen.

In the past year, I have taken a look at several text editors. I compared my favorite ones – picking Writing Kit as my go-to editor and research app – but I also kept WriteUp on my iPad’s Home screen, as the app received some interesting updates including iCloud support and swipe text selection. For the past two months, though, I have found myself coming back to another text editor that I had been previously recommended by various Internet pals: Nebulous Notes. And in spite of my publicly stated praise for Writing Kit, I have been getting lots of writing done with it – so much that I haven’t used any other app for my posts and notes. Read more

Session Videos From The One More Thing Conference Now Available For Purchase

For those of you who weren’t able to go to the ‘One More Thing’ conference back in May, the full sessions have been put together in video format and are now available for $49. It includes sessions from both days and for every one of the 17 iOS developers that spoke at the conference, including Raphael Schaad of Flipboard, Shaun Inman, Justin Williams of Second Gear, Loren Brichter of Atebits, Neven Mrgan of Panic and a whole slew of other, excellent, speakers:

  • Winter Wong - Quoord Systems
  • Lee Armtrong - Pinkfroot
  • Julian Lepinski - Debacle Software
  • Matt Rix - Magicule
  • Adam Kirk - Mysterious Trousers
  • Igor Pušenjak - Lima Sky
  • Kepa Auwae - Rocketcat Games
  • Dave Howell - Avatron Software
  • Karl von Randow - Tap Tap Tap
  • Layton Duncan - Polar Bear Farm
  • Jeff Broderick
  • Sebastiaan de With - Double Twist

For everyone who told us they wished they could come to the conference but couldn’t make it – this is for you. We’re making the full videos from both days of the One More Thing 2012 Conference available for download! It’s only $49, and you can come back to watch or download the videos again at any time up until the next conference. They’re all 720p, H.264 and encoded for most iOS devices.

If you want a taste of what the conference was like, the Q&A session of the main conference is also available for free.