Posts in Linked

The Apple Music Festival Comes to an End→

Apple confirmed to Music Business Worldwide that the Apple Music Festival is coming to an end. The event, which was originally called the iTunes Music Festival, debuted in 2007. Over the course of 10 years the festival showcased some of the biggest names in music, as well as up-and-coming acts:

Artists who played the event over its decade-long run included Adele, Oasis, Mumford & Sons, Paul Simon, Ed Sheeran, Coldplay, Lady Gaga, Arctic Monkeys, Kendrick Lamar, Pharrell Williams (pictured), The Weeknd, One Direction and Beck.

The 2016 line-up included Elton John, The 1975, Chance The Rapper and Alicia Keys.

Music Business Worldwide says it expects Apple will concentrate on one-off concerts in the future and that ending the Apple Music Festival does not signal the end of the company’s involvement in live music events. I don’t think we’ve seen the last of Apple-sponsored live shows either, but I will miss the Apple Music Festival, especially streaming it to my Apple TV.

Permalink

Third-Party YouTube App ProTube Pulled from the App Store→

ProTube, a YouTube power-user app that I reviewed last year, has long had features that the official YouTube doesn’t have or was slow to implement. Features like background audio playback, support for 4K video at 60fps, Split View support, Picture in Picture, and a URL scheme for automation, put Google’s YouTube app to shame. However, as the YouTube app began to implement some of ProTube’s unique features as part of its $10/month YouTube Red service, I wondered what might become of ProTube. Unfortunately, it looks like the answer came late last week when Apple pulled ProTube from the App Store.

According to developer Jonas Gessner,

YouTube first requested Apple to remove my app well over a year ago, initially just stating that my app violates their Terms of Service. This was a generic takedown request they sent to many YouTube apps at once. They later started going into more detail, even stating that I could not sell the app as that alone violates their ToS. They basically wanted me to remove every feature that made ProTube what it is – that includes the player itself that allows you to play 60fps videos, background playback, audio only mode and more.

The app, which was pulled from the App Store on September 1st is no longer available for sale and will no longer receive updates, but remains available to re-download if you previously purchased it.

It’s a shame to see ProTube go. It implemented features Google didn’t care, or want, to add but that a subset of YouTube users wanted as demonstrated by the top charts numbers in Gessner’s post. However, ProTube also implemented features that YouTube wanted to reserve for paid subscribers and the result, while disappointing, is one of the risks of building an app on top of someone else’s service.

Permalink

A Behind-the-Scenes Look at Apple’s Fitness Lab→

Men’s Health got a behind the scenes look at the fitness lab where Apple fine-tunes the Apple Watch algorithms that track your health and fitness. Like so many things Apple does, the numbers are staggering. According to Jay Blahnik, Apple’s director of fitness for health technologies:

‘Our lab has collected more data on activity and exercise than any other human performance study in history…. Over the past five years, we’ve logged 33,000 sessions with over 66,000 hours of data, involving more than 10,000 unique participants.’ A typical clinical trial enrolls fewer than a hundred participants.

Men’s Health also takes a look at the motivational messages coming to watchOS 4 and talked to Blahnik about the thinking behind the feature:

“We wanted to really make it easier for people to encourage each other, as well as smack-talk when the moment calls for it,” says Blahnik. “That’s why we have phrases like ‘Shazam’ and ‘You’re on fire.’ I share my activity with about 20 people, and whenever I see what someone else has done, it spurs me to train a little harder. It’s also a fun way to stay in touch.”

The refinements that Apple has made to watchOS 4 seem minor in print, but having tried the beta for about a month, I’ve been pleasantly surprised at the impact they’ve had, especially with respect to the fitness features of the Watch. Now more than ever, it feels like Apple has figured out what the Watch does best and is putting all its wood behind those arrows.

Permalink

Apple Releases Developer Guidelines for ARKit Apps→

Apple’s developer site now contains Human Interface Guidelines for augmented reality apps. The guidelines are not hard, fast rules for developers working with ARKit, but more “best practices” Apple suggests for an ideal user experience. Guidelines that stand out include:

Use audio and haptic feedback to enhance the immersive experience. A sound effect or bump sensation is a great way to provide confirmation that a virtual object has come into contact with a physical surface or other virtual object.

To the extent possible, provide hints in context. Placing a three-dimensional rotation indicator around an object, for example, is more intuitive than presenting text-based instructions in an overlay.

Favor direct manipulation over separate onscreen controls. It’s more immersive and intuitive when a user can touch an object onscreen and interact with it directly, rather than interact with separate controls on a different part of the screen.

Suggest possible fixes if problems occur. Analysis of the user’s environment and surface detection can fail for a variety of reasons—there’s not enough light, a surface is too reflective, a surface doesn’t have enough detail, or there’s too much camera motion. If your app is notified of insufficient detail or too much motion, or if surface detection takes too long, offer suggestions for resolving the problem.

ARKit is a brand new technology that opens up a world of possibilities to app developers. But alongside its potential for magical, immersive experiences is the potential for user frustration as developers learn the hard way what works best. Apple’s guidelines – though released later than I’m sure many developers would like – should help minimize those frustrations.

Permalink

Connected, Episode 157: Your Legacy Chooses You→

Federico is back from the Genius Bar and joined by Stephen to discuss Time Machine and iCloud Backups, Apple’s push with Swift education and SMS filtering in iOS 11.

A fun collection of topics on this week’s episode of Connected. You can listen here.

Sponsored by:

  • Eero: Never think about WiFi again. Use code CONNECTED for free overnight shipping.
  • Ting: A smarter way to do mobile. Save $25 on selected devices or keep it as Ting credit.
  • Crimson Mesa: Announcing Shokem Nimai, The Ancient Game of the River.
Permalink

TechCrunch Shares Demos of ARKit Apps Coming to iOS 11→

TechCrunch’s Matthew Panzarino attended an ARKit demo event yesterday and got a taste of a wide variety of augmented reality apps coming to iOS 11. The apps shown off represent a broad range of categories including Ikea’s home decorating app, an interactive version of the popular children’s story, The Very Hungry Caterpillar, and a game based on The Walking Dead TV series that lets you fight zombies in your backyard.

As Panzarino notes, each of the apps demonstrated rely on very few onscreen controls or no controls at all other than the change of perspective accomplished by moving an iOS device. The apps also take very different approaches to prompting users to scan for flat surfaces when started, something which I expect to coalesce around consensus best practices as developers get their apps into the hands of customers. But perhaps most impressive of all is what developers have accomplished since WWDC. The development time, as Panzarino describes it, has been:

Incredibly short, all things considered. Some of the apps I saw were created or translated into ARKit nearly whole sale [sic] within 7-10 weeks. For asset-heavy apps like games this will obviously be a tougher ramp, but not if you already have the assets.

The TechCrunch roundup of six ARKit apps includes short descriptions and a video demonstration of each. The two demos that impressed me the most are Ikea’s app and the AR version of A Very Hungry Caterpillar, which you can watch after the break below, but be sure to head over to TechCrunch to see all the videos because each is a unique interpretation of what is possible with ARKit.

Read more

Amazon Announces Multi-Room Music for Echo Devices→

In a press release today, Amazon announced the newest feature addition to its Echo devices:

Amazon today announced an all-new Alexa feature that lets you control and synchronize music across multiple Amazon Echo devices in your home. Starting today, you can target music to a specific Echo device or a group of devices—just ask. Soon, this ability will be extended to control multi-room music on other connected speakers using simply your voice.

The feature is currently only available on Echo devices, but Amazon has also announced a couple new tools to help expand Alexa-powered audio to other speakers. There’s a new Alexa Voice Service SDK that device makers can adopt to enable their speakers to play music in sync with Echo devices. That SDK will be made available early next year. And there is also a new set of Connected Speaker APIs, available today, which allow third-party speakers to be controlled via an Alexa-enabled device.

It should be noted that multi-room audio is only available through a handful of music services. Amazon Music, Pandora, iHeartRadio, and TuneIn are available today, while Spotify and SiriusXM support is coming soon.

Permalink

Apple and Accenture Announce Enterprise Partnership→

Apple and Accenture announced that they are teaming up to help Accenture’s enterprise clients integrate iOS into their businesses. According to Apple’s press release.

Accenture will create a dedicated iOS practice within Accenture Digital Studios in select locations around the world. Experts from Apple will be co-located with this team. Working together, the two companies will launch a new set of tools and services that help enterprise clients transform how they engage with customers using iPhone and iPad. The experts will include visual and experience designers, programmers, data architects and scientists, and hardware and software designers.

Among other things, the two companies plan to collaborate on integrating existing back-end systems with iOS, building Internet-of-Things tools, and migrating legacy enterprise applications and data to iOS.

Today’s announcement marks another milestone in Apple’s iOS enterprise push, which began in earnest in 2014 when Apple partnered with IBM.

Permalink