Twitter has been releasing a string of minor but interesting changes lately, a symptom of the fact that the company seems to have found its product-shipping groove again.
Posts in iOS
Recent Twitter Changes
iOS 8.3 Released
Apple released iOS 8.3 earlier today, bringing a variety of bug fixes (with some of the most detailed release notes I’ve ever seen in an iOS update), new diverse emoji with skin tones, and various improvements to Siri and CarPlay. Josh Centers has a good overview of the changes at TidBITS.
I haven’t had much time to check out iOS 8.3 (I installed the developer beta on a loaned iPhone 6 Plus earlier this week), but, so far, everything seems a bit faster and generally fine on my iPad Air 2 (which I’ve been using all day for work).
I like the new emoji keyboard because it makes it easy to find different categories with a new scrollable UI (reminiscent of the excellent Emoji++, which I’ve uninstalled to take Apple’s new keyboard for a spin). The new emoji keyboard is especially nice on the iPad, with big previews and category icons at the bottom. Third-party keyboards seem to be faster when switching between them (but they’re still not as responsive or integrated as Apple’s native ones) and I’ve noticed no rotation problems on the 6 Plus so far.
iOS 8.3 appears to be the equivalent of iOS 7.1 last year – dozens of important fixes, nicely wrapping up most of the work on iOS 8 before WWDC.
Scanbot Adds Slack, Wunderlist Integration
I’ve recently accepted the fact that I’m never happy with my paperless setup, and this freed me from the burden of feeling bad whenever I’m trying different apps to scan documents and archive them online. One of the apps I’m trying alongside Evernote Scannable is Scanbot, which has received some interesting updates over the past few months (such as themes and smart naming features). Today, Scanbot was updated with Slack and Wunderlist support, and I’m a fan of these integrations.
1Password 5.3 Improves iOS 8 Extension
With version 5.3 of 1Password for iOS, the team at AgileBits has shipped considerable improvements to the app’s action extension, launched alongside iOS 8 back in September. In the updated app, the extension is now almost on par with the browser extension found in 1Password for desktop computers, which means I’ll no longer wish for the “real” 1Password extension whenever I’m logging into websites or setting up new logins on my iPhone and iPad.
Facebook Messenger’s “Optimized” Approach and App Discovery
Over at Fast Company, Sarah Kessler has a good summary of Facebook’s Messenger announcements from today’s F8 developer conference:
Facebook wants to turn its Messenger app into more than just a messaging app. At its F8 conference in San Francisco Wednesday, the company announced details on its much-rumored plans to integrate Messenger with purchases made on other sites, and to allow third-party developers to build apps that work within it.
Messenger users will soon be able to select from a list of services inside of the app. At launch, most of these apps help users create new content, like singing telegram app Ditty, GIF app Giphy, and voice app FlipLip Voice Changer. There’s also a fun special effects app available from J.J. Abrams and an ESPN app that provides users with sports GIFs. Facebook says 40 apps will be available today or in the days to come.
I was curious about Facebook’s plans for Messenger Platform, and the addition of an API immediately caught my interest. I tweeted:
Messenger Platform could be interesting for app discovery. How is Facebook picking which apps to show though? pic.twitter.com/BsNy6qdz3R
— Federico Viticci (@viticci) March 25, 2015
Also interesting that Facebook is basically doing their own “extensions” for Messenger. Imagine this for iMessage?
— Federico Viticci (@viticci) March 25, 2015
After reading more about how Messenger Platform works with third-party apps, though, I realized that my tweets from earlier today don’t exactly apply to what Facebook is doing.
After Six Months of Rejections, Launcher Returns to the App Store
When Greg Gardner, an independent developer based in San Francisco, released Launcher for iOS last year, he didn’t think his handy utility would make headlines around tech blogs and push other developers to approach widgets for iOS 8 differently. And yet, after months of not being available on the App Store despite being originally approved in September 2014, Launcher is about to be covered (and used as an example) by the press again. Launcher has been re-approved by Apple, and it’s coming back to the App Store today with the same feature set from six months ago.
iOS 8.2 and Health Follow-Up
Last week, Apple released iOS 8.2, bringing a variety of improvements to the built-in Health app and other general enhancements and bug fixes. Almost two weeks after publishing my Life After Cancer article, I thought I’d briefly mention the changes introduced in iOS 8.2 and follow-up on some of the apps I originally covered in the story.
Vesper for iPad
When I reviewed the original Vesper in June 2013, I noted how the lack of sync and an iPad app were problematic for my workflow. Vesper was an elegant and fast note-taking app that combined images and text; finding this combination in a lightweight utility can still be surprisingly difficult today. I started following the development of Vesper 2.0 with sync, and today the app has been updated with full support for iPad and iPhone landscape mode.
Paperless Expenses and Evernote Scannable
I was in the process of finalizing my taxes for the past year last week, and, much to my chagrin, I realized that I had a drawer full of printed invoices for purchases that I hadn’t converted to PDF and sent to my accountant. It was the perfect excuse to properly test Evernote’s Scannable app in a real-life scenario alongside the iPhone 6 Plus I’m trying for the next couple of weeks.