Question: I use RescueTime on my Mac to track application usage and measure my productive vs. unproductive time. I upgraded my old iPad 3 to the 10.5” iPad Pro and have been using it a lot for work this week. I absolutely love it, but I’m missing my regular reports on how I’m spending my...
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Smileys in Hats If you’re tired of the standard smilies, check out these. Beautifully rendered in 3D, there are some great hats and glasses decorating this pack. Veggie Emojis Twenty smiling veggies and a solid set of speech bubbles with messages that will come in handy with the veggie stickers or in combination with...
AppStories, Episode 10 – iOS 11’s All-New App Store→
On this week’s episode of AppStories, we take a look at the upcoming changes to the App Store announced at WWDC, the challenges Apple will face producing original content about apps, and consider what it will mean for users and developers.
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- Zapier - Connect your apps and automate your workflows.
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AppStories Episode 10 - iOS 11’s All-New App Store
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Sega Forever Brings Sonic and Other Classics to iOS
Sega has been out of the hardware business for a long time, but still, has some of the most beloved video game franchises around. Today, Sega began releasing classic Sega games under the banner Sega Forever.
The first titles released are Sonic the Hedgehog, which was already available on iOS, Comix Zone, Altered Beast, Kid Chameleon, and Phantasy Star II. The games, which are standalone downloads, are free and include ads that can be removed with a $1.99 In-App Purchase. The Sega Forever website indicates that the next title in line for release is Virtua Tennis Challenge, which is currently $4.99 on the App Store and hasn’t been updated since 2013. For iMessage sticker fans, each game also includes a handful of animated stickers of game art.
John Markoff Interviews Original iPhone Engineering Team Members and Scott Forstall
Last night, the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, California hosted a two-two hour interview program. The event was split into two parts. The first half is an interview moderated by John Markoff who spoke with former iPhone team members Hugo Fiennes, Nitin Ganatra, and Scott Herz about the development of the original iPhone. The three engineers recount what it was like to be recruited to the secret project and detail the team’s efforts to bring the phone to market.
The second half of the program, which begins at about 1:07:00 in the video below, is a one-on-one interview by Markoff of Scott Forstall who led software development for the iPhone. The interview with Scott Forstall is his first public comment about the iPhone and Apple since he left the company in 2012 and covers a broad range of topics from early iPhone prototypes to demonstrating the iPhone to Cingular, the first carrier to offer the phone.
Both interview segments are full of entertaining anecdotes about the iPhone’s development and well worth watching by anyone interested in what it took to create the iPhone. Forstall is particularly engaging as a storyteller displaying the same enthusiasm and excitement that he used to show onstage at Apple keynotes.
Apple Posts Two Videos Highlighting Photos Memories
Apple posted two videos highlighting the Memories feature of its iOS Photos app. One, called ‘The Archives,’ is part of Apple’s ‘practically magic’ series of videos and features an elderly man creating a film called ‘Together.’ When the man pulls a photograph out of a cabinet with dozens of drawers, it comes alive with a short snippet of video like a Live Photo.
After gathering a cart-load of photos and film, the man begins the laborious process of splicing them together into a film. The heartwarming spot captures the time, care, and attention needed to painstakingly create a movie from analog photos and videos, making the unstated point of how easy it is to do the same thing in Photos.
The second spot is in stark contrast to the first. It demonstrates the three steps to using Photos’ Memories feature:
- Open the Photos app
- Go to the Memories Tab
- Choose a Memory
The two spots, which both feature Memories called ‘Together,’ are a clever one-two punch intended to convey how simple Photos has made it to create photo and video montages that once would have taken hours of work.
iPhone App Size Is Increasing at a Breakneck Pace→
According to a Sensor Tower report, the total space required for the top 10 most installed iPhone apps has increased more than 1000% since May 2013, increasing from 164 MB to a whopping 1.8 GB. During that period, Apple has raised the maximum app size from 2 GB to 4 GB and the minimum storage capacity of iPhones to 32 GB, but the size of the most popular iPhone apps has far outstripped those increases. iOS 11 will address the issue in part, with a feature that can offload apps that aren’t used often, while saving settings and user data.
We see the often sudden growth in size exhibited by apps such as Facebook and Snapchat as directly tied to the intense competition between them, which necessitates a steady rollout of new and more space-intensive features. Of course, some apps have likely grown in size simply due to a reduced need (or perception of a need) for optimization.
I’m sure that competition and perception play a role in the increases noted by Sensor Tower, but it would also be interesting to see how deep this trend extends beyond the ten most popular iPhone apps. I suspect it runs deeper than many people realize. Scrolling through the Update tab of the App Store, I have many recent updates on my iPhone that exceed 100 MB, including Apple’s own Keynote, which is 675 MB.
IKEA to Launch Augmented Reality iOS App in the Fall→
At WWDC, Craig Federighi demoed ARKit, Apple’s new augmented reality API and mentioned that Apple was teaming up with IKEA on AR. The collaboration was mentioned again recently by Tim Cook in an interview with Bloomberg Businessweek.
Now in an interview with Digital.di, Michael Valdsgaard, Digital Transformation Manager for Ikea’s parent company, has provided further details of its upcoming AR app:
This will be the first augmented reality app that allows you to make reliable buying decisions.
IKEA has big plans for the app:
At launch, 500-600 products will be in the app. In future, it will play a key role in new product lines.
According to Valdsgaard,
When we launch new products, they will come first in the AR app.
Based on the interview, IKEA and Apple feel like a natural fit. IKEA has hundreds of 3D models ready to use with ARKit and Apple has a huge install base of iOS users for IKEA’s app. Moreover, IKEA can help demonstrate the types of applications that AR can enable beyond the gaming industry.
Niantic Gives Pokémon GO Gyms a Makeover and Adds a New Raid Battle Feature
Niantic announced a major update to Pokémon GO today, including new gym gameplay mechanics and a feature called Raid Battle. Gym gameplay has been modified with a focus on how gyms are defended by controlling teams. Each gym will have six permanent slots, each of which must be populated by a different Pokémon.
Niantic is adding a new motivation system too. Over time and the course of battles, Pokémon will lose motivation, making them easier to defeat by rival trainers. Pokémon that lose all of their motivation will leave the gym and be returned to their trainers the next time they are defeated in battle. To maintain motivation, teams that control a gym can feed their Pokémon Berries, which should increase player interaction with the game.