This week, Federico and Myke discuss the Amazon Echo, Tim Cook’s letter to the FBI and Apple executives on The Talk Show.
A solid episode of Connected this week, with an interesting discussion on software quality and Apple’s focus. You can listen here.
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I’m a big fan of 2Do, and today’s 3.8.1 update packs some neat additions that heavy users of the app should check out.
Besides new settings for due dates and default collection lists, 2Do now comes with new search presets for dates, which will allow you to create smart lists for tasks due today, tomorrow, this week, and more. You can also look for tasks that have been completed within a specific date range – useful to build filters to see how much you’ve been productive in, say, the past week.
There are enhancements for automation with URL schemes, too: you can now perform quick searches without creating a smart list every time (imagine the possibilities with Workflow and Drafts here), and – this is something a lot of users were asking for – the URL scheme has a new parameter to pick an existing project/checklist to add a new task to.
2Do keeps getting more powerful on each release. You can get version 3.8.1 here.
No new information or interesting tidbits from this brief profile of Apple’s CEO and CDO on Vogue, but I liked this bit from Ive at the end:
“Both the hand and the machine can produce things with exquisite care or with no care at all,” says Ive. “But it’s important to remember that what was seen at one time as the most sophisticated technology eventually becomes tradition. There was a time when even the metal needle would have been seen as shocking and profoundly new.”
Big news for those who are into sharing GIFs on Twitter: the company has announced today a GIF button that will make it easy to do so.
Whenever you’re composing a Tweet or Direct Message, you can search and browse the GIF library. So if you’re looking for the perfect cat yawn or dance move to express exactly how you feel, just click the new GIF button. You can search by keyword, or browse categories of different reactions like Happy Dance, Mic Drop, or YOLO.
The new button isn’t available for everyone yet – as usual, it’ll roll out “in the coming weeks”. As Jack tweeted, it’ll show up in the “Tweetbox” (I can’t be the only one who misread that as Tweetbot at first).
In related GIF news, GIPHY is now integrated with Outlook on the web as well.
Terrific update to Panic’s SSH client for iOS, Prompt. The new version brings iOS 9 features such as Spotlight search and 3D Touch, but, most of all, it adds Split View support on the iPad and the ability to open multiple connections in separate tabs.
I’m planning to install AirSonos on my Synology DS214play soon (I haven’t gotten around it yet because the instructions aren’t exactly…user-friendly), and I plan to use Prompt for the job. What a great iOS app.
See also: Dan Moren at Six Colors.
Dave Teare, writing on the AgileBits blog about the latest addition to 1Password – a way to share 1Password securely with your family:
1Password for Families builds on our new Teams infrastructure to give you everything you need to protect your loved ones. And it’s only $5 a month for your family of 5.
It’s never been easier to share 1Password with your whole family. There’s no sync service to set up, vaults appear automatically, and there’s an Admin Console where you can invite people and manage sharing with your family.
Every family member gets their own copy of 1Password, and their own personal space to store private information. With this, you can give them the tools they need to stay safe without taking away their independence.
The service costs $5/month and it comes with the full suite of 1Password apps for every platform. It also offers 1 GB of document storage for attachments (2 GB if you’re already a 1Password user and sign up before March 21), and the interface to manage access and review permissions looks polished and friendly. I should seriously consider this so my parents can stop calling me about their forgotten passwords (I love them, but they’re terrible with online accounts).
You can read more and sign up for 1Password for Families here.
We all struggle with productivity. We are constantly pressured to accomplish more, and to do it quicker. There is no one definitive way to accomplish that, and we have all devised our own little method to make things work.
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Igloo is an intranet you’ll actually like.
Our thanks to Igloo for sponsoring MacStories this week.
Rogue Amoeba’s Paul Kafasis, writing on the latest version of their audio recording app, Piezo, and their decision to exit the Mac App Store:
A major reason for the initial creation of Piezo was our desire to allow recording from other applications on the Mac within the limits of what Apple’s Mac App Store rules allowed. We were pleased to provide audio capture to customers of the Mac App Store, and for a time, things worked just fine. However, Apple eventually changed the rules, requiring that all applications distributed through the Mac App Store be sandboxed. This was a problem. Piezo’s need to capture audio from other applications precludes the possibility of it being sandboxed. This new requirement effectively stopped our ability to upgrade Piezo in any meaningful way.
[…]
We’d like to provide customers with the option of buying Piezo through the Mac App Store, but it’s more important to us that we provide a quality product with full functionality. In the case of Piezo, that now means exclusively distributing the application via our site. Users have always had the option of downloading and buying Piezo direct, so this didn’t involve much in the way of additional work. The biggest issue was simply choosing to remove Piezo from the Mac App Store. Ultimately, we feel the decision was made for us by both technical and bureaucratic factors outside of our control.
It says a lot about the Mac App Store that, whenever another app exits it, our reaction isn’t “why” but “of course”.
What doesn’t work is easiest to say. Apps that try to re-create the functionality of an iPhone app simply don’t work. If you can perform a particular operation on an iPhone, then it is better to do it there. The promise of never having to take your iPhone out of your pocket just isn’t quite here yet. The Apple Watch may advance (in hardware and software) to a point where this is no longer true but the platform has a ways to grow first.
There seems to be only three kinds of apps that make sense given the current hardware and software on the Apple Watch.
Bingo. As I tweeted yesterday, my favorite Watch apps aren’t trying to mimic iPhone apps at all. If the same task can be completed on the iPhone, I don’t see why I would try on a smaller, slower device.
The best Watch apps will be the ones that wouldn’t be possible or make sense on an iPhone.
