Ryan Christoffel

984 posts on MacStories since November 2016

Ryan is an editor for MacStories and co-hosts the [Adapt](https://www.relay.fm/adapt) podcast on Relay FM. He most commonly works and plays on his iPad Pro and bears no regrets about moving on from the Mac. He and his wife live in New York City.
ryan@macstories.net

MindNode 5: Digital Mind Mapping Finally Clicked for Me

I have a confession: I’m not a big mind map guy. I know Federico uses a mind map for his iOS review each year, and lots of other people love visualizing their thoughts that way too, but mind maps have never really clicked for me – at least not on computers.

Up until recently, whenever I needed to do a brain dump and get my thoughts better organized, I would often turn to pen, paper, and a hand-drawn mind map. It’s an odd habit, since I shun paper for digital tools in every other case I can think of. Yet this one holdout remained.

My main problem with digital mind maps is that they have always felt unnatural. When using a traditional computer, moving and clicking via trackpad was cumbersome for me; with a format as creatively freeing as a mind map, it seems especially important to have freeform input methods. Even on devices like the iPad though, while touch input certainly helped remove a barrier, there was still always something missing in my view. Digital mind mapping still wasn’t quite right.

MindNode 5 on iOS fixes that.

MindNode has long been one of the premier mind mapping apps for Mac and iOS, and its version 5 is a huge update that, for me at least, centers around two main changes: a streamlined, intuitive user interface, and the adoption of drag and drop support. There’s a lot more to this update than those two things, with plenty of goodies that die-hard MindNode fans will appreciate, but for users like me – those dissatisfied with digital mind mapping, or even inexperienced at it altogether – the most important changes are those that make the app more approachable, and the new UI and drag and drop certainly do that.

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Focos: Powerful Depth Image Controls in a Fun Package

The iPhone’s camera has long been one of its most important features. Every year when new models are introduced, it’s a sure bet that camera improvements are part of the package. Last year that remained true, but it also proved an even more special year for the iPhone’s camera setup. The introduction of dual rear-facing cameras with Portrait mode was something different – pictures no longer just looked a little better than on older iPhone models, they looked almost professional-quality.

This year, whether you picked up a new iPhone or not, Portrait mode is a better feature than before. Part of this is due to software improvements in iOS 11, but another key benefit is that third-party developers now have access to the depth information in Portrait photos. For the first time, Portrait images taken with the iPhone can be edited and enhanced in unique ways, and Focos is a new app that takes full advantage of that opportunity.

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Can Clips Be a Modern Day Photo Booth?→

Karan Varindani considers the potential of Apple’s Clips to be a spiritual successor to Photo Booth:

With the iPad 2, back in early 2011, Apple brought Photo Booth to the iPad. I distinctly remember thinking that this was a no-brainer at the time. Growing up in Ghana, there weren’t that many Macs in my high school, but everybody that had one used Photo Booth. It was very regular to walk into the sixth form (senior year) common room and see groups of friends, myself included, behind a MacBook playing with the filters. Talking to several of my American friends, it sounds like it was the same deal here. I always thought that it was only a matter of time before Apple brought Photo Booth to the iPhone, but six years later it still just ships with Macs and iPads (and I don’t think that it’s been updated in that time).

Playing with the Selfie Scenes in Clips last week, I had the same feeling that I did playing with Photo Booth on my Mac many years ago. It was a little surreal, as someone with incredible front-camera shyness, to find myself having so much fun with it. The whole experience had me thinking: In a few years, once the Face ID technology has spread to the rest of the iOS line (and maybe even the Mac), could Clips be the successor to Photo Booth? Between Selfie Scenes, stickers, Live Titles, and fast sharing to social media, it seems the perfect fit.

I think the best modern equivalent of that Photo Booth social experience is Snapchat’s lenses, which I’ve observed can consistently deliver laughter and interest among a group of friends or family members. While Clips’ Selfie Scenes offer a similarly neat technical effect, if Apple is serious about being successful with the app, a couple big changes need to take place: the square orientation limit has to go, and Clips needs better hooks into apps like Instagram and Snapchat than the share sheet provides.

Photo Booth’s prime was a very different era than where we are today, and without the aid of a true social network it will be hard for Apple to replicate its success. So far, Animoji seem much closer to meeting that goal than Clips.

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Playground AR: A Physics Sandbox for Freeform Play

One of childhood’s simple joys for many of us was getting our creative juices flowing by playing with building blocks. It’s one of those tactile, imaginative outlets that adulthood features far less of. Blocks also brought the added benefit of getting to destroy the work you’d built – a task similarly delightful to the actual building.

Recently my wife and I were babysitting twin 1-year-old boys, owners of a big bucket full of colorful, cardboard bricks. All throughout the night I enjoyed building small towers with the bricks, and the boys would have a blast knocking those towers down. Even when they were on the other side of the room distracted by something else, if they saw me stack three or more bricks together, they’d quickly come running to play demolition crew.

Playground AR is a new app from developer Marc Sureda that uses ARKit to bring the joys of childhood play to all ages – and with no mess to clean up either. The app provides a variety of toys that let you both build and destroy, with a physics system backing it all up to make the experience a delight.

There are three main modes in Playground AR: one is for placing objects in your playground, another lets you better survey and capture photos of what you’ve built, and the last is for picking up and moving existing objects. Objects you can place of course include blocks of varying shapes and sizes, but there are also lots of other fun, interesting toys to experiment with – trucks, helicopters, dice, spinning widgets, and more.

The physics engine is what makes Playground truly shine. Stacking blocks too high, for example, will cause your creation to topple over if the stack isn’t well-balanced. Dominos can be strung together in an elaborate setup then knocked down by a rolling ball. Magnetized blocks will stick together even if gravity or another object forces them to fall. Balloons can be attached to objects, and depending on an object’s weight and the number of balloons, the object will eventually be sent flying into the stratosphere. But I would be remiss if I didn’t mention my favorite physics demonstration: placing bombs and TNT containers in your playground to blow everything up. It’s brilliant.

If you want to spend some time goofing around in an AR sandbox, building and destroying in all kinds of creative ways, you can pickup Playground AR on the App Store for $1.99.

iPhone X App Roundup: The Innovative, Beautiful, and Practical

The iPhone X’s display poses a challenge to app developers. Similar to when the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus debuted, there’s a different screen size to work with here, which requires app layout adjustments. But more than simply the new size, the iPhone X brings two extra complications: the notch and an extra tall orientation. In order to best optimize for Apple’s current flagship phone, developers need to carefully consider these two factors – failure to do so can result in a particularly unsightly notch, or a UI that’s difficult to navigate one-handed.

We’re only a week out from the iPhone X’s debut, so what we see from X-ready apps today will likely evolve over time as developers are able to live with the device longer. But despite it being early days still, there are several apps that stand out among the best the App Store has to offer for iPhone X.

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