Federico Viticci

10775 posts on MacStories since April 2009

Federico is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of MacStories, where he writes about Apple with a focus on apps, developers, iPad, and iOS productivity. He founded MacStories in April 2009 and has been writing about Apple since. Federico is also the co-host of AppStories, a weekly podcast exploring the world of apps, Unwind, a fun exploration of media and more, and NPC: Next Portable Console, a show about portable gaming and the handheld revolution.
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@viticci.macstories.net
viticci@macstories.net

Safari View Controller as Onboarding Tool→

Cluster’s Rizwan Sattar has been playing around with Safari View Controller on iOS 9, and he discovered that it can be used as an onboarding tool to make users sign up for web accounts in apps more easily:

In the past I always worried about building a seamless first-time experience for our users. None of the “magic” solutions felt elegant.

Using a hidden Safari View Controller to help identify your user removes user confusion and makes your app feel magical when users use it for the first time.

The videos show how much of a difference using Safari View Controller for authentication in the background makes compared to existing solutions. Even if the background method used by Sattar stopped working, the automatic login and dismissal flow (second video) seems magic compared to shared web credentials with iCloud Keychain, which is already very useful (I love it, for instance, in Junecloud’s Deliveries). Yet another reason why we should keep an eye on Safari View Controller and hope it’ll be widely adopted on iOS 9.

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New iPod Benchmarks and Notes→

Over at TechCrunch, Matthew Panzarino was able to run some tests on the newly updated iPod touch. Unsurprisingly, the device appears to be underclocked when compared to the iPhone 6 but has 1 GB of RAM. I noted this morning that the iPod touch would make for a decent test device, but I wonder if performance differences in CPU could be a problem there (I don’t think so – unless there are some graphically intensive apps that really push the A8 to the very limit?).

9to5Mac points out that the iPod touch comes with Bluetooth 4.1 – a first for Apple (the iPhone 6 has Bluetooth 4.0). The updated standard will likely be adopted on new iPhones in the Fall as it has some interesting upgrades for communication between LTE and Bluetooth radios, but it also includes changes for connected “Internet of Things” devices – perhaps Zac has a point when he envisions the iPod as a smart home remote.

Last, we noted this morning that the refreshed iPod nano doesn’t feature an updated user interface to match the post-iOS 7 era of design at Apple. John Gruber has heard the reason why that might be the case, and it’s quite sad.

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Apple Watch Workouts and Water→

Craig Hockenberry has published an in-depth report on the capabilities of Apple Watch while swimming in the Pacific ocean:

After the watch shipped, I discovered that I wasn’t the only person interested in the watch’s ability to be used during swim workouts. Ray Maker at the DC Rainmaker blog did a series of tests, including diving off a 10 meter (33 foot) platform and 40 meter (130 foot) pressure test. The Apple Watch passed these tests with flying colors, and along with the research below, I was convinced I wouldn’t have any problems. So far, that analysis has proven correct.

I suspect that the watch’s water resistance has been undersold by Apple just like battery life: it’s better to under-promise and over-deliver. Still, it’s a personal decision on whether you want to ignore Apple’s recommendation. You’re not likely to get much sympathy at any subsequent trips to the Genius Bar.

Now that we know the Apple Watch can go in the water, how does it work while submerged?

There’s a lot of interesting data in this post and some good ideas for how controlling workouts on the Watch could be improved in future versions of watchOS. It definitely seems like Apple hasn’t added proper support for swim workouts because they don’t want to advertise the device as being completely waterproof yet.

See also: Dr. Drang on stress corrosion cracking and Apple Watch.

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Beats 1 Schedule Calendar→

Created by Marc Boquet, this is an unofficial calendar for the schedule of Apple Music’s Beats 1. You can subscribe by visiting the link above on your Mac and iOS device, and then you’ll be able to check the schedule of upcoming shows directly from your calendar app of choice. Obviously, because this is an unofficial calendar, keep in mind that it may be subject to changes and inconsistencies.

Via Zac Cichy, who has been enjoying the ability to view the Beats 1 schedule on his Apple Watch. Handy, indeed.

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Design Your Next iPhone App with OmniGraffle [Sponsor]

Design your next iPhone app with OmniGraffle and a brand new iOS 9 stencil available to everyone on Stenciltown. (That’s right. Stenciltown.)

All the tools are included to do nearly anything involving shapes, design, layout, drawing, images, iconography – you name it. In practice, that means it’s easy to mock up your next iPhone or iPad app.

Download a free trial of OmniGraffle for Mac, or purchase for iOS and get started right away. And simply search for “iOS 9” in Stencils to start designing your next iPhone app.

Our thanks to OmniGraffle for sponsoring MacStories this week.

On Negative App Store Reviews During Betas of iOS and OS X

Earlier this week, Apple released the first public betas of iOS 9 and OS X El Capitan, and, knowing that would be the case, I cautioned MacStories readers against leaving negative reviews on the App Store for third-party apps that developers can’t update with new features and fixes yet.

It’s worth pointing out that, at this stage, third-party apps from the App Store can’t be updated to take advantage of the new features in iOS 9 and OS X 10.11, which could limit the potential benefit of trying a public beta for some users. On iPad, for instance, only Apple’s pre-installed apps can use the new multitasking features in iOS 9. For this reason, users interested in installing the public betas should also keep in mind that developers can’t submit apps and updates with iOS 9 and El Capitan features to the App Store – therefore, it’d be best not to leave negative reviews for features missing in apps that can’t be updated to take advantage of them yet.

Unfortunately, since yesterday I’ve already seen tweets from the developers of two excellent iOS apps – Screens and Day One – post screenshots of negative reviews they’ve received by users who are unsurprisingly running into problems when using their apps on the iOS 9 beta.

What’s even more unfortunate is that this happens annually for every single iOS and OS X developer seed, but I fear the problem will be exacerbated this year by the availability of public betas anyone can try. Therefore, this bears repeating.

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Linky 5.0 Brings Better Sharing for Twitter on iOS with Images, Textshots, and More

I covered Linky for iOS back in September, when the app’s iOS 8 update added a share extension that turned Linky into a supercharged share sheet for Twitter and Facebook thanks to excellent integration with any iOS app. I wrote:

Linky the share extension is a great way to tweet links from Safari on iOS 8. Once enabled, Linky will appear as an extension of Safari and other apps that can share URLs such as Instapaper or a Pinboard client. The design of the app’s composer is minimal and easy to understand. You can switch between accounts by tapping the profile picture, tap buttons to insert the title or link of a webpage (if they’ve not been automatically inserted), and there’s a character counter in the bottom right.

For the past nine months, I’ve been using Linky every day to tweet links and quotes from Safari and other apps. Unlike the built-in Twitter share extension, Linky comes with thoughtful touches such as highlighting for links and text that exceeds the 140-character count – if you share dozens of links on a daily basis, the convenience of details adds up, and Pragmatic Code found a good niche for Linky to thrive.

The problem with Linky was that it worked well for text, but it didn’t have support for images. Tweeting screenshots from my camera roll or so-called textshots accompanying links to articles has become a common practice for me, but Linky couldn’t be part of my social sharing workflow whenever I needed to post something that wasn’t just text. Linky 5.0, released today on the App Store, wants to fill this gap with built-in support for images – but like prior releases, there are several hidden details that make the experience of sharing with Linky superior to alternatives on iOS.

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