Craig Hockenberry:
So, the next time you’re seeing general slowness on your Mac, don’t forget to give Launch Services a kick in the pants. Guaranteed to be more effective than zapping your PRAM.
My MacBook Air was feeling slow – especially when opening the Finder, clicking menubar items, and after waking up from sleep (at the login screen, I’d have to wait around 20 seconds for the keyboard to become responsive). It’s much better thanks to Craig’s tip.
You can find the Terminal command here.
Interesting update to Apple’s often overlooked HTML5, CSS3, and JavaScript authoring tool for iAds: you can now create iBooks Author widgets, iTunes Extras, and iTunes LPs, alongside regular iAds.
You can create an iBooks Author widget for use in your iBooks Author projects. For example, you can create a widget that allows users to stream video from the Internet, draw using their finger, or interact with a timeline.
More information about iBooks Author support in iAd Producer 4.0 is available here. You can also find documentation for all the new features on the app’s official support page.
iAd Producer was first released in December 2010.
Pupil looks like a nice app to switch between multiple resolutions on a Retina MacBook Pro. The core feature of the app is a configurable menubar item that can list the resolutions you use the most, letting you instantly switch between them.
I can’t try Pupil because I don’t have a Retina MacBook Pro. However, Roman Loyola’s review at Macworld is positive. Pupil is $5 and there’s a free trial available.
I also like how you can “test” Pupil’s menu on the website.
Alongside bug fixes and improvements for a minor 4.5.1 update, Pocket for iOS has added sharing to WordPress, Quotebook, and Twitterrific.
Quotebook is, as MacStories readers know, my favorite app for storing and retrieving quotes. I already use it with RSS, and it’s good to see Pocket supporting it with the share menu that was revamped in version 4.5.
Pocket 4.5.1 is available now on the App Store.
Ever since its original release two years ago, I’ve always wished Tweetbot could provide filters to separate the standard timeline from a “media” one containing pictures and videos. After the launch of Twitter’s own photo service and rise in popularity of services like Instagram, usage of pictures – either photos or screenshots – among the people I follow has skyrocketed. Apps like TweetGlass (nèe Quip) succesfully explored the concept of letting users browse “media updates” in a dedicated feed, so why not Tweetbot?
The latest version of Tapbots’ client, available today, does just that: it adds a media timeline to show only supported images and video tweets (the ones that you’d normally see displayed inline as thumbnails). Read more
Mikey Campbell:
As seen in the image above, Apple is no longer allowing developers to submit app description edits with the unique character sets, which in this case includes a checkmark, explosion, “no symbol” and a speech bubble. It is thought that others are included in the new restrictions, but that has yet to be verified.
It appears that Apple has also started restricting usage of glyphs that aren’t necessarily emoji.
I would welcome a change to text-only release notes. While emoji and other characters can add a bit of fun and personality to otherwise boring release notes, some developers were overusing them.
Another neat web app following the release of Forecast.io last month:
Forecast Lines shows you the forecast spread for each field (temperature, precipitation intensity, pressure, etc.), overlaid with our best guess of what will actually occur. It’s a simple idea, but a powerful one: at a glance, you can see what will happen over the course of the next week, and where we are most–and least–confident in our predictions.
Essentially, Lines looks like a consumer version of Forecast.io’s API raw data sources, which is also available here.
I’m a big fan of the Dark Sky team’s work with web apps and developer APIs for weather data. I can’t use the main Dark Sky app in Italy, but I am testing various third-party apps that are implementing Forecast.io and I’m impressed with their accuracy so far.
I like the idea of Lines’ statistically-aggregated graphs, and, unsurprisingly, the iOS web app is solid.
Good find by Macworld’s Jonathan Seff. I’d love to see more download options for the App Store as well – such as something similar to CameraSync’s location monitoring, but for app downloads.
My thanks to Freeridecoding for sponsoring MacStories this week with DraftCode.
DraftCode is a new PHP development tool for iPad. With built-in offline PHP code execution (using standard PHP 5.4.10), DraftCode lets you build and run PHP projects right on your iPad. In addition to offline PHP execution, DraftCode also includes CGI handling and fully supports working with POST and GET forms, includes, and linking to other PHP files in your workspace. Via its built-in webkit based preview, DraftCode lets you work on javascript/AJAX, HTML and CSS in conjunction with PHP, making it a full featured workspace to develop your PHP website.
Other features of DraftCode include the possibility of sending files to other iPad apps, an extended keyboard, and an easy to use workspace for all your files.
DraftCode is available on the App Store for $8.99, and you can find more information here.
