This week Fraser and Federico change gears and focus on Read Later services.
A different episode of Canvas this week – we talked about the best apps and services to save articles for later, including Apple’s own Reading List and some alternative power-user methods. You can listen here.
Sponsored by:
Andrew Cunningham, writing for Ars Technica on a new warning that appears when running old 32-bit apps on the first beta of iOS 10.3:
Beta builds of iOS 10.3, the first of which was issued last week, generate warning messages when you try to run older 32-bit apps. The message, originally discovered by PSPDFKit CEO and app developer Peter Steinberger, warns that the apps “will not work with future versions of iOS” and that the app must be updated by its developer in order to continue running. The apps still run in iOS 10.3, but it seems likely that iOS 11 will drop support for them entirely.
Though the error message doesn’t explicitly mention the app’s 32-bit or 64-bit support, it’s definitely only older 32-bit apps that trigger the warning. Similar messages that did explicitly mention 64-bit support were present in the betas of iOS 10.0, but they were removed in the final release of the software. Apple has required 64-bit support for all new app submissions since February of 2015 and all app update submissions since June 2015, so any apps that are still throwing this error haven’t been touched by their developer in at least a year and a half (developers could add 64-bit support as early as 2013, but most of them opted not to until it became a requirement).
Note how, unlike the warning that was reinstated with iOS 10.1, this alert clearly states that “this app will not work with future versions of iOS” as opposed to “may slow down your iPhone”.
In my review of iOS 10, I had a couple of paragraphs on the warning that iOS displayed when launching a 32-bit app for the first time. The warning didn’t make it to the final version of iOS 10, so I didn’t cover it. I did, however, note that iOS 10 was accelerating the transition to 64-bit across the board.
Requiring apps to be compiled for 64-bit is going to introduce problems for software that is no longer maintained (especially classic iOS games), but Apple is moving toward cleaning up the App Store’s back catalog anyway. Enforcing the 64-bit requirement in iOS 11 wouldn’t be a complete surprise.
Chrome for iOS was historically kept separate from Google’s open-source Chromium project. Chrome uses a rendering engine called Blink on every platform except iOS where it must run WebKit. That made incorporating Chrome for iOS into Chromium complicated, but today Google announced that Chrome for iOS has rejoined Chromium and been added to the open-source repository. Now,
developers can compile the iOS version of Chromium like they can for other versions of Chromium. Development speed is also faster now that all of the tests for Chrome for iOS are available to the entire Chromium community and automatically run any time that code is checked in.
Stephen is away on an important mission. He left Myke and Federico behind to discuss the financial decline of Fitbit, and what’s missing from iOS 10.3. Myke also has some follow up about sleeping and lightbulbs, and Federico has been observing people.
A fun episode of Connected this week, with an interesting discussion of modern trends in iOS usage. You can listen here.
Sponsored by:
Good analysis by Ben Bajarin, who sums up various discussions I’ve read in my Twitter timeline lately about the quality of Apple’s services and the company’s approach to not collecting lots of data:
However, getting useful and good behavioral data is essential for Apple to make better products and services and, more importantly, compete with those services down the road. I’d almost prefer that, instead of Apple’s stance being not only to collect as little data as necessary and also to universally anonymize that data, they would simply say, “Trust us with your data. We will keep it safe and secure and we will deliver you superior products and services because of it.” I could also be satisfied with a hybrid approach where, for the most security conscious customers, Apple gives them the option to keep the existing privacy protocol as well as their differential privacy techniques, but also allow others to opt-in to giving them more data so that things like Siri, News, Apple Music, etc., benefit from that data and thus, deliver those customers a much more personalized and useful service. With some of the recent changes in iOS 10.3, I feel they are getting closer to exactly this scenario.
Ben refers to iOS 10.3’s upcoming iCloud data sharing option – a new (opt-in) setting to share iCloud-related data with Apple.
This is a complex problem: it’s still too early to understand the impact of Differential Privacy, and I don’t think Apple’s services are inherently terrible; but I also agree with the premise that by not collecting data, other companies may capitalize on Apple’s users in the future thanks to smarter services. I’d love to get more details on what Apple is working on for iCloud analytics.
I love it when two of my favorite apps come together with integrations that speed up and simplify my workflow. Last week, Scanbot – my go-to scanner app for iOS – rolled out a new Todoist integration that lets you scan and save a document as a task.
The feature is explained here, and it’s quite ingenious: tasks are saved with the name of a scanned document, which is also added as an inline attachment inside a task. You can add due dates and times directly from Scanbot, and you can even pick an existing project for automatic upload, which means that as soon as a document is scanned in the app, it’ll be automatically uploaded as a task to a Todoist project.
As I wrote two years ago, I was hoping Scanbot would consider integration with Todoist, and I’m glad it’s out now.
Reuters reports on the on-going battle among Apple, Amazon, and Google for control of the home automation market. The article focuses on the different approaches taken by Apple and Amazon, which are in stark contrast. Reuters explains what’s at stake for Amazon:
The strategic importance of the “connected home” niche looms large: Amazon wants a way to own its customer interactions -mainly shopping online - without an Apple phone or a Google Web browser as an intermediary.
In contrast to Apple’s relatively slow, security-conscious approach to HomeKit, Amazon has lowered the barrier to entry to Echo support, which has given it a lead over Apple in terms of the number of compatible devices, which may be hard to overtake. Yet,
Amazon acknowledges that unlike Apple, it can’t guarantee the security of third-party devices. A company spokeswoman did note that sensitive commands like unlocking doors have an extra layer of security such as a voice-controlled PIN.
Still, it’s not clear whether Apple’s elaborate but slow-to-develop system will have enough advantages to overcome Amazon’s widening lead.
That’s precisely where things get interesting. Amazon’s strategy has captured device manufacturer support faster, but it’s a risky one. One well-publicized, mainstream security scare story could ruin Amazon’s home automation aspirations. At the same time, if that moment never occurs, the Echo’s lead could effectively bury HomeKit.
Charles Joseph, developer of Picky, on the enhancements coming to the MediaPlayer framework in iOS 10.3:
I was genuinely surprised and elated to find that yesterday’s iOS 10.3 beta finally adds what looks like proper queuing functionality to
MPMusicPlayerControllerand I excitedly tweeted about it. Scott Edwards asked if I could “explain why that’s important to a non programmer”, so I’m going to try to do that here.Alternatives to Apple’s Music app (like Picky) need to be able to access and play the user’s iTunes library, unless they’re part of a streaming service (like Spotify) or providing their own syncing and library management and companion apps (quite the tall order). While developers can build incredibly advanced playback functionality with tools like AVFoundation, that’s only possible for an increasingly smaller subset of users’ libraries: only locally downloaded, non-DRMed content — nothing stored in the cloud and nothing downloaded from Apple Music. People are storing more and more of their music in the cloud and expect third-party apps to be able to keep up.
It sounds like Apple is listening to feedback from developers of third-party music players. The changes documented in the iOS 10.3 beta so far don’t address all the concerns Allen Pike covered last year, but it’s a good first step. I’m curious to see how apps will take advantage of the improved API.
Federico and Myke talk about what they’re excited for in 2017.
On the latest episode of Remaster, we also talked about the updated Pokémon Bank online service and considered what might be announced at videogame conferences this year. You can listen here.
Sponsored by:
