Posts in Linked

Apple Opens iOS 12 Public Beta→

Apple has released the first public beta of iOS 12. The first developer beta of iOS 12 was released at WWDC on June 4, 2018. iOS 12 includes new features such as Memojis, Siri Shortcuts, new notification, Do Not Disturb, and Screen Time features and settings for managing time spent on iOS devices, updates to Apple Books, Photos, Stocks, and Voice Memos apps, support for up to 32 simultaneous FaceTime users, ARKit 2.0, and more, which we cover in depth in our our iOS 12 overview.

You can sign up for the beta program here, but be sure to follow the instructions, which include backing up your iOS device, because it’s still early in the iOS 12 beta release cycle. There will be bugs and running a beta always runs the risk of data loss.

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Connected, Episode 198: The Prompt→

To celebrate five years of podcasting together, Myke, Federico and Stephen do what they do best: talk about iOS betas, ponder photo management and screw up a round robin.

On this very special, Prompt-themed episode of Connected, we discuss the changes coming to Photos in iOS 12 and round up some excellent apps we’ve been using lately. You can listen here.

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The Numbers Behind Monument Valley 2’s First Year→

Once an app has spent a while on the App Store, it’s difficult from a user perspective to know just how well or poorly the app has done. It’s unusual for developers to share detailed financial figures, though it does happen every now and then. One team that’s led the charge in this area is ustwo, creators of the Monument Valley series of games. For the first Monument Valley, ustwo shared comprehensive statistics for the game’s performance in its first and second years. Today, year one of Monument Valley 2 has received the same open treatment. Head of studio at ustwo games, Dan Gray, writes:

I’ve heard this kind of data has really helped some developers get a handle on what they might expect from a successful premium launch, and given that it’s bloody hard making premium mobile games nowadays, if there’s anything we can do to help other teams to succeed then we’re going to do it. Admittedly Monument Valley is a bit of a unicorn in this space with regards to how well it’s performed over the years (succeeding on a level we could never have expected or predicted), but we hope this latest set of data might help others to set a yard stick for something towards the top end of profitability.

Monument Valley 2 had a unique launch that almost no other apps could hope for, debuting on-stage during last year’s WWDC keynote. However, after the success of the first game, the sequel was certainly bound to get off to a great start no matter how it launched.

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Drafts 5.2→

Tim Nahumck:

When writing my review, I needed a way to navigate between the different sections, and all of the subheadings I had created. I had developed an action to navigate to each of the markdown headers, which I was happy with at the time. It was nice to have that functionality to switch around where I was in my review.

Well, I’m happy to say that I have been Sherlocked.

In the upper right corner of the editor, there is a small triangle icon; when you tap the icon, you are presented with a navigation menu. Not only does this navigate headers in Markdown, but it also navigates projects in TaskPaper, and code blocks in JavaScript. It also include a top and bottom button, as well as a select all button.

Drafts 5.2 came out while I was in San Jose for WWDC, and I’ve been meaning to check out the new features since I started getting back into a normal routine. Tim Nahumck, of course, has a great overview of the changes in this version of Drafts, along with some useful examples you can download.

As Tim points out, the ability to navigate headers of a Markdown document through a dedicated “section popup” is a terrific addition to Drafts. Few text editors designed for people who write in Markdown get this right; one of the reasons I still keep Editorial on my iOS devices is because it lets me navigate longer pieces with a header navigation tool. However, the implementation in Drafts 5 is more powerful, modern, and can be controlled with the keyboard (you can invoke the switcher with ⌘\ and, just like Things, dismiss it with ⌘. without ever leaving the keyboard).

Speaking of Editorial, every update to Drafts 5 is pushing me toward converting all my old Markdown workflows to Drafts actions powered by JavaScript. Automation in Drafts involves a lot more scripting than Editorial’s visual actions, but I feel like Drafts 5 is a safer bet for the future. I’ve been putting this off for a long time; maybe I should spend a few days finalizing the process before I start working on a certain annual review.

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Connected, Episode 197: Retire Hate for Negative Love→

Recovered from WWDC, Myke previews his summer’s work, Federico shares what he knows about Shortcuts and Stephen gets super nerdy about Dark Mode in macOS Mojave.

On the latest episode of Connected, I go into more detail on Shortcuts and discuss my initial plans and goals for this year’s iOS review. You can listen here.

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Fixing 3D Touch→

Eliz Kılıç:

I should start with the obvious. 3D Touch is broken! The user experience is far from great. Apple introduced 3D Touch and its new related interactions Peek and Pop in 2014. It’s been almost 4 years since its first introduction, yet people don’t know/use 3D Touch. Why would they? Even tech-savvy users don’t know which buttons offer 3D touch. Let alone regular users.

What would happen if we decide to make all links same color and style as the regular text? People would not know what to click on right? Why is 3D Touch be any different? We rely on our vision to decide actionability before anything else. If you can’t distinguish 3D Touchable buttons from those that are not, how are you supposed to know you can press on them? Look at this screenshot and see if you can tell which of the buttons can be 3D Touched.

I couldn’t agree more with the idea of “decorating” buttons with 3D Touch visual cues.

Here’s the thing: I use 3D Touch a lot, and I love the fact that it’s the modern equivalent of a contextual click, but, anecdotally speaking, I’ve never seen any of my friends or relatives use it. Not the quick actions on the Home screen, not peek and pop. It’s like 3D Touch just isn’t there for them. It’s hard to say whether the very concept of 3D Touch is flawed or if iOS’ design prevents discovery of this unique interaction. However, the argument that an interface with little depth doesn’t lend itself well to a gesture built around pressing into UI elements is a compelling one. It’ll be interesting to see what happens with future iPads and iPhones, too.

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Connected, Episode 196: Live from WWDC 2018→

In this very special live episode, Stephen is joined by Jason Snell and Serenity Caldwell to talk about macOS Mojave and Screen Time before going over the Happy-o-meter results and talking about Shortcuts with Myke and Federico.

Recording this episode of Connected last week was one of my highlights from WWDC. If you still don’t know the results of our Happy-o-meter, now’s a great time to catch up. You can listen here.

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Apple Music Gains ‘Coming Soon’ Section and Album Launch Dates, Plus Lyrics Search in iOS 12→

In an update rolled out last week, Apple fixed two of my longstanding annoyances with Apple Music: there is a new screen that lists popular albums coming soon, and every upcoming album now features an actual release date.

Here’s Mitchel Broussard, writing for MacRumors:

Apple appears to be rolling out a series of updates for Apple Music today, including a small but useful new section called “Coming Soon,” which allows subscribers to check out new albums about to be released over the next few weeks.
[…]
In another addition, Apple is now making it possible to easily see album launch dates on their respective pages on iOS and macOS. In the Editors’ Notes section, following the traditional encouragement to add the pre-release album to your library, there’s a new line that begins “Album expected…” followed by the album’s specific release date. Some albums not listed in Coming Soon still have a release date specified on their pages, so this update appears to be a bit more wide-ranging.

As someone who likes to keep up with new music, I’m glad to see Apple pushing these small but needed improvements to the service.

Furthermore, as noted by AppleInsider, the iOS 12 version of Apple Music features the ability to search for songs by lyrics. I’ve been using the beta on my iPhone and iPad for the past week, and lyrics search has already saved me a few minutes I would have otherwise spent looking for songs on Google. Built-in lyrics differentiate Apple Music from Spotify, so it’s good to see Apple expanding support throughout the app.

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