Posts in Linked

Connected, Episode 129: Game of Sorrow→

This week, Stephen tries something new, Federico talks about camping, and Myke looks forward to a new television show.

On this week’s Connected, we discuss Apple’s upcoming Planet of the Apps show and a bunch of other fun topics. You can listen here.

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Remaster, Episode 28: The Current State of Games on the iPad→

The gaming scene on iOS is a vibrant place, but what about the iPad specifically? Is the App Store the right market for games on larger screens? Where are all of the tailor made gaming experiences?

On this week’s Remaster, we take a serious look at the state of gaming on the iPad, including the future of console-quality games for iOS and developers’ relationship with Apple. You can listen here.

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Making More Outside the Mac App Store→

After seeing the results of Kapeli’s exit from the Mac App Store, Rogue Amoeba’s Paul Kafasis compared sales of Piezo from the Mac App Store and their direct web store as well:

After seeing Kapeli’s chart, I was curious about the App Store’s impact on Piezo’s sales. The restrictions and limitations of the Mac App Store ultimately led us to remove Piezo on February 12th, 2016. We’ve now been selling it exclusively via our site for a year. This has provided about as perfect a real-world test case as one could hope for. Piezo’s removal came with minimal publicity, the price has remained constant at $19, and we’ve had no big updates or other major publicity for it in either 2015 or 2016.

His conclusion is perfectly reasonable:

In our case, however, it’s clear that we were serving Apple, rather than Apple serving us. By removing Piezo from the Mac App Store, we stopped paying a commission to Apple for the many customers who had found Rogue Amoeba on their own. Better still, we were able to improve the quality of the product while simplifying our work considerably. Ultimately, that alone was enough to convince us that leaving the Mac App Store was the right move. The subsequent revenue increase we’ve seen is merely a nice bonus.

At this point, I don’t understand why any independent developer would want to sell apps exclusively through the Mac App Store. The lack of meaningful improvements since 2011 don’t justify Apple’s high commission anymore. The Mac App Store has always been a second-class citizen; today, Mac developers like Rogue Amoeba are better served by controlling their own destiny.

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YouTube Enables Live Streaming for Broader Base of Creators→

Last summer YouTube announced its plans to put live streaming tools into the hands of its users. Today marks the first step toward making that happen, as mobile live streaming is now rolling out to all users with 10,000 or more followers. YouTube promises the feature will be available to all users soon, regardless of follower count.

Mobile live streaming has been built directly into the YouTube mobile app. All you have to do to start streaming is open YouTube, hit the capture button, and you’re live! Streamed videos will have all the same features as regular YouTube videos. They can be searched for, found via recommendations or playlists, and protected from unauthorized use.

Options when beginning a live stream.

Options when beginning a live stream.

Paired with its live streaming rollout, YouTube is also launching its previously announced Super Chat tool. Super Chat is a live stream feature that enables special monetization opportunities for creators. In a way it’s a digital tip jar. When watching a live stream, users can pay a fee to have a message they write receive special highlighting that makes it more noticeable to the video’s creator. Any highlighted message not only stands out visually, but also remains on screen longer than a normal message. The examples shown by YouTube so far involve a $5.00 fee to receive a highlighted message, though that number may vary based on the creator’s choice.

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Connected, Episode 128: Better Pizza and Better Pasta→

Myke has caused a chain-reaction of purchases, Stephen talks about the PowerPC transition and Federico tries some apps.

On this week’s Connected, Myke makes some great points about the iPad’s sales compared to the Mac, and I explain why I’ve been using Twitterrific and Apple News. You can listen here.

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Attention to Detail on Apple Campus 2→

Reuters’ Julia Love has published a look into the design process behind Apple’s Campus 2, based on interviews with a number of current and former workers on the massive architectural project.

Unsurprisingly, Love discovered that Apple’s attention to detail on the campus mirrors its attention to detail on consumer products.

Apple’s in-house construction team enforced many rules: No vents or pipes could be reflected in the glass. Guidelines for the special wood used frequently throughout the building ran to some 30 pages.

Tolerances, the distance materials may deviate from desired measurements, were a particular focus. On many projects, the standard is 1/8 of an inch at best; Apple often demanded far less, even for hidden surfaces.

Based on outside evidence, the completion of Campus 2 seems to be drawing near, so we can expect to hear more details about the project – and hopefully receive inside glimpses from Apple itself – over the next few months.

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Twitter Introduces New Tools to Combat Harassment→

After years of being accused of apathy toward the harassment and abuse that takes place on its platform, Twitter has so far marked 2017 with a stronger commitment to creating a safer environment for everyone.

Last week, Twitter announced a change to the way abusive tweets could be reported. Previously, if a user had blocked you, it would be impossible to report that user’s tweets as abusive or harmful, but that’s no longer the case.

Today Twitter introduced three more changes:

Stopping the creation of new abusive accounts:
We’re taking steps to identify people who have been permanently suspended and stop them from creating new accounts. This focuses more effectively on some of the most prevalent and damaging forms of behavior, particularly accounts that are created only to abuse and harass others.

Introducing safer search results:
We’re also working on ‘safe search’ which removes Tweets that contain potentially sensitive content and Tweets from blocked and muted accounts from search results. While this type of content will be discoverable if you want to find it, it won’t clutter search results any longer. Learn more in our help center.

Collapsing potentially abusive or low-quality Tweets:
Our team has also been working on identifying and collapsing potentially abusive and low-quality replies so the most relevant conversations are brought forward. These Tweet replies will still be accessible to those who seek them out. You can expect to see this change rolling out in the coming weeks.

These changes follow a series of tweets at the end of last month by Twitter’s VP of Engineering, Ed Ho, who claimed the company is committed to “moving with more urgency than ever” to make Twitter a safer place. Ho tweeted again as today’s changes were announced and reinforced that these actions represent just the beginning, and more changes would be made to the service in the coming days.

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iOS Stiffness: The Neglected Touch Down State→

Max Rudberg:

I would love to see iOS 11 bringing subtle touch down animations to standard system elements, such as navbar buttons, table view cells etc. By doing it to the default components, third party apps would be affected by it as well. This would make for a consistent and more compelling experience when touching iOS. And that sense of stiffness would be replaced with a much more fluid experience.

I like this idea. Apple Music’s new play button has a great touch-down state – I wish more parts of iOS followed the same approach.

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Google Updating AMP Pages with Easier Way to View, Copy Source URLs→

A few months ago, I decided to remove Google AMP support from MacStories due to the obfuscation of our permalinks by the AMP plugin. There was a good discussion about publishers’ AMP concerns, including a story on The New York Times.

Today, Google has announced that they’re introducing a new feature that makes it easier to see a publisher’s full URL and copy it. Here’s Alex Fischer, writing on the Google Developers Blog:

Today, we’re adding a feature to the AMP integration in Google Search that allows users to access, copy, and share the canonical URL of an AMP document. But before diving deeper into the news, let’s take a step back to elaborate more on URLs in the AMP world and how they relate to the speed benefits of AMP.

And:

In addition to the above, many users have requested a way to access, copy, and share the canonical URL of a document. Today, we’re adding support for this functionality in form of an anchor button in the AMP Viewer header on Google Search. This feature allows users to use their browser’s native share functionality by long-tapping on the link that is displayed.

Google is also hoping that browsers will add support for a new Web Share API (which sounds nice as long as it can only be manually activated by the user; I can imagine websites abusing programmatic activation of the system share sheet).

I’m still not going to re-enable AMP in the short term, but I’m glad to see Google is listening to publishers and iterating quickly.

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