On this week’s episode of AppStories, we talk about the way our iPad Home screens reflect our use of the device and how that has changed since we’ve been running the iOS 11 beta.
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MindNode - Delightful Mind Mapping.
Our iPad Home Screens 
Album Cool Travel Emojis I’m taking off for a family vacation soon, which means a lot of messages back and forth with my family planning what we want to do while we’re away. Cool Travel Emojis have been a nice way to decorate those conversations and get everyone excited about the trip. BunnyFace BunnyFace as...
Q&A Question: I have iMessage enabled on my iPad with the same account as on my iPhone. When there’s a video playing on my iPad (but I’m not necessarily focused on it), my Apple Watch doesn’t notify me when new messages are received (notifications are silently displayed on my iPhone lock screen). Is there a way...
App Debuts NewsBlur NewsBlur has been around for a long time. It’s one of the best RSS readers out there and continues to get useful updates. With the most recent update, version 7 supports real-time push notifications from any website. If your job requires you to know what’s happening as soon as it occurs or you...
Using SaneBox Reminders to Automate Follow-Up I’ve been using SaneBox for about a year. It’s a powerful email service that has a lot to commend it, but it wasn’t until recently that I started using SaneReminders to automate following up with someone after I send an email message. A typical scenario where I use SaneReminders is when someone emails me...
Google Earth got a big update on the web and Android earlier this year. Today, Google released the same features for the iOS version of the app.
The update features four major additions to Google Earth. ‘Voyager’ is designed to help you plan your next trip with over 140 stories organized by topic like ‘Museums Around the World,’ ‘Mexico City Street Food,’ and ‘Beautiful Hiking Destinations in Canada.’ When you pick a location, Google Earth offers ‘Knowledge Cards’ that you can pull up from the bottom of the map. Cards include galleries of photos for your chosen locale as well as basic facts and links to Knowledge Cards for points of interest and related searches. If you’re at a loss of where to go, tap the ‘I’m Feeling Lucky’ icon in the toolbar and Google Earth will whisk you off to a random destination to explore.
Finally, ‘Postcards’ is a basic screenshot utility built into Google Earth. If you find a map angle you like, tap the camera icon to create a link and screenshot and share it with the iOS share sheet. Oddly though, you cannot share Postcards via Messages.
Google Earth is available on the App Store.
On this week’s episode of AppStories, we discuss the current shortcomings of the iMessage App Store and what Apple is changing in iOS 11 to address some of its problems.
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Search isn’t the forte of many email clients. Too often I find myself resorting to gmail.com or the Gmail app on iOS to find a message because Google’s search is so good. However, a downside of Google’s approach is that it requires you to recall or look up special syntax to narrow your search using date, attachment, sender, and other parameters. An update to Readdle’s Spark for macOS avoids that pitfall with improvements to its search functionality that detect keywords in your searches as you type queries in plain English.
I haven’t used Spark’s improved search enough yet to give it a thorough review, but I like what I’ve seen so far. As you type a search query, Spark looks for keywords. For example, start typing ‘att…’ and Spark will suggest searching for attachments. Smart keywords include things like ‘to,’ ‘from,’ ‘attachment,’ ‘flagged,’ ‘forwarded,’ and dates. The parameters can be batched in plain English too, so I can type ‘emails from Federico from yesterday with PDF attachments’, and Spark knows to apply the sender, date, and attachment filters returning results almost instantly.
Spark is already a popular email client with a host of modern features, but the improvements to search have the potential to make a lot of new converts to the app.
Spark for macOS is available on the Mac App Store.
Federico
