Posts in Linked

Audiobus 3.0→

Even if I’m not a musician, I’ve always been fascinated by the concept behind Audiobus and its implementation on iOS. Audiobus is the premier iOS ecosystem for inter-app audio – it’s an app and an SDK for third-party developers to create audio apps that can collaborate with each other in complex workflows and routines. The developers of Audiobus describe it as creating “virtual cables” between apps, and it’s an apt analogy. Take a look at the hundreds of apps that integrate with Audiobus (over 900). Audiobus has fostered an entire mini-ecosystem inside iOS that also includes Apple’s own GarageBand.

Audiobus launched a major version 3.0 today and it comes with some deep changes. The MIDI routing system has been rewritten with support for Apple’s Audio Unit Extensions, a built-in mixer, superior preset management, and a new feature that can launch audio apps in the background. Just watch the video below to see how impressive Audiobus’ inter-app communication based on compatible apps and extensions can be:

I’m surprised every time I come across Audiobus and consider that Apple didn’t build this functionality natively into iOS. From a mere technical standpoint, Audiobus is one of the most intriguing and powerful additions to the iPad’s music ecosystem. If you’re a musician or like to play around with music apps, you should check out Audiobus 3.

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“Apple Is Pushing iPad Like Never Before”→

Fascinating research note by Neil Cybart on iPad sales and Apple’s new iPad strategy:

Apple is making its iPad sales pitch to two groups: existing iPad users and long-time PC users. According to my estimates, there are 100M users still using older iPads (iPad 1, iPad 2, iPad 3, iPad 4, iPad mini). A significant portion of these users are using devices that don’t even support the latest iOS release. Management thinks simpler storytelling and an aggressively low $329 price will entice these users to upgrade to the new 9.7-inch iPad.

The fact that 100M people are still using older iPads demonstrates that the product provides value. Apple is also confident that users will see the significant improvement between the latest iPads and models from five to seven years ago. As for PC users, Apple thinks the iPad Pro line is capable of handling the vast majority of tasks currently given to laptops. Apple looks at the iPad Pro line, which includes Apple Pencil and Smart Keyboard, as a better solution for consumers than even the Mac. This is quite telling as to management’s long-term motivation.

Strong iPad updates in this year’s iOS release would certainly help Apple steer the iPad’s narrative in a new direction.

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Twitter Replies No Longer Count @Usernames Against 140-Character Limit→

Twitter has announced a major change to the way replies are handled across all platforms – on the web and in iOS and Android apps. Presumably the Mac app will be included as well. Sasank Reddy writes:

Now, when you reply to someone or a group, those @usernames won’t count toward your Tweet’s 140 characters.

With this change, we’ve simplified conversations in a few ways:

  • Who you are replying to will appear above the Tweet text rather than within the Tweet text itself, so you have more characters to have conversations.
  • You can tap on “Replying to…” to easily see and control who’s part of your conversation.
  • When reading a conversation, you’ll actually see what people are saying, rather than seeing lots of @usernames at the start of a Tweet.

One potentially confusing detail worth mentioning: although the usernames of those you reply to will not count against the 140-character limit, if you add any new usernames to the body of your reply, those new mentions will count against your limit.

You can see today’s change in action by watching the following video:

https://twitter.com/twitter/status/847479110616047616

This update is rolling out to all users now. If you haven’t seen it yet, it should be coming to you soon.

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Connected, Episode 135: This Might Be Our Fault→

Workflow has been purchased by Apple and everyone has feelings about it.

On the latest episode of Connected, we share some initial thoughts on Apple’s acquisition of Workflow. I’m working on a feature story about this – in the meantime, this is a good starting point. You can listen here.

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Curtis Herbert on App Store Review Replies→

Curtis Herbert, creator of the excellent Slopes for iOS (I wish I was a skier or snowboarder to use his app), has some great tips for developers on dealing with replies to App Store reviews:

I’d recommend every app owner do the following, today. Head into the review section in iTunes Connect and sort by “Most Helpful.” These are reviews that customers have voted should be floated to the top, and that’s what Apple does. Take a quick look through there and see which ones you can address.

Future customers are most likely to see your replies to these reviews, so that’s the best bang-for-the-buck you can do right now. I went further than that, personally, and re-read a ton of my negative reviews and replied to the ones that met the above goals, but you don’t have to rush it.

If you’re a developer, you’ll want to start engaging with customers right away and work through your existing backlog of reviews. I have a feeling the new ability for developers to reply to customers will fundamentally change the tone and utility of App Store reviews.

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The Next Wave of New Emoji→

Jeremy Burge of Emojipedia has an in-depth look at the latest batch of emoji that have been approved as part of Unicode 10.0:

These include smileys, people, food, drink, flags, and for the first time: new fantasy characters such as a mermaid, genie, and vampire.

We are today releasing the final version of our sample images for this update. These have been designed in the “Apple style” to picture how these emojis may look when hitting phones later in the year.

Emojipedia has also put together a video highlighting each of the 69 new emoji.

This new wave of emoji is expected to launch in June, which means we may see them on Apple devices as soon as iOS 11’s release this fall.

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Remaster, Episode 31: ‘The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild’ Review→

Federico and Myke give their review of The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild.

On the latest Remaster, we go deep into Breath of the Wild with our thoughts on the game after 60-70 hours, tips on gameplay, and more. You can listen here.

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How Drake and Apple Music Broke Streaming Records with More Life→

Fascinating look by Micah Singleton at how Drake’s latest mixtape More Life broke streaming records on Apple Music despite not being exclusive to it:

After setting a record with 89.9 million streams in its first 24 hours on Apple’s streaming service — over 33 million streams ahead of Sheeran’s Divide in its first 24 hours on Spotify, which has around 80 million more users — it’s clear Drake and his favorite music service have cracked the streaming formula.

So how did Apple manage to break a record with an album that’s also available on Spotify, with only 20 million users compared to Spotify’s 100 million? The answer, according to the Apple Music team, is the power of Beats 1 and OVO Sound Radio.

For Drake, Beats 1 has essentially replaced SoundCloud, the platform he once dominated and released singles through — a move that Jackson and Apple VP of apps and content Robert Kondrk said was a risk for Drake at the time. “We weren’t a proven hit, we weren’t a proven entity at all, whatsoever,” says Jackson. SoundCloud just got a shoutout from Chance The Rapper at the Grammys, but the service has been having a rough time since Drake left, with Recode reporting it recently had to raise a $70 million debt round just to stay afloat.

I still wish Beats 1 shows were easier to access and discover, but clearly the system has been working out well for Drake.

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