iOS 10 is here, and Federico has written the definitive review of it.
On the latest episode of Connected, we talk about the launch of iOS 10 and how my review was finalized. You can listen here.
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Connected, Episode 108: Confusion as a Discovery Mechanism→
How RAW Changes iPhone Photography→
Ben McCarthy, writing for iMore:
Editing RAW files feels like a huge leap forward in terms of mobile photography: With iOS 10, the iPhone is evolving from a great camera for taking casual photos with into a capable professional tool. It still has plenty of limitations, but I suspect we’ve passed a tipping point.
But shooting while out and about is one thing. What about using the iPhone in a studio? I gathered together a couple of friends to do a little impromptu photoshoot to see how the iPhone would hold up.
Ben is the developer of Obscura, which I featured in my review yesterday because of its native RAW support on iOS 10. He makes some good points on the limitations and advantages of shooting RAW on iPhone.
Austin Mann’s iPhone 7 Plus Camera Review in Rwanda→
I consider the iPhone a computer with a camera more than a computer that makes phone calls. Therefore, Austin Mann’s annual iPhone camera review is my favorite of the bunch. I’ve been linking them for the past couple of years, and I find Austin’s approach always fascinating and well-presented.
This time, Austin has outdone himself. To properly test the iPhone 7 Plus’ camera with optical zoom, they’ve flown to Rwanda in collaboration with Nat Geo Travel and Nat Geo Adventure to track gorillas and take close-up pictures, timelapses, test wide-color gamut photos, and more.
He writes:
As many of you know, in the past I’ve created this review in Iceland twice, Patagonia and Switzerland, but this year I wanted to really change things up. With indicators pointing toward possibilities of optical zoom I asked myself: where’s the best place in the world to test optical zoom? Africa of course.
So this year, in collaboration with Nat Geo Travel + Nat Geo Adventure we’ve set out to get you the answers. I’m writing you from deep in the Nyungwe rain forest in southwest Rwanda… we’ve been tracking gorillas in the north, boating Lake Kivu in the west and running through tea plantations in the south… all with the iPhone 7 Plus in hand.
I’ve had a blast playing with the wide spectrum of new features and tech but as always, our mission is to find out the answer to one question:
How does all this new tech make my pictures (and videos) better than before?
The result is beautiful. The video “review” is a mini-documentary/short film about tracking down mountain gorillas, and it’s 9 minutes long. Seeing how they found the gorillas brought a big smile on my face, and you can notice how the zoom interface of the iPhone 7 Plus was useful for that purpose.
Watch it below, and go check out Austin’s photos and summary of the experience here.
David Smith’s iOS 10 and watchOS 3 App Updates→
I’m a fan of David Smith’s apps for the Apple Watch. He gets what makes an app great on the Watch, and his focus on health and fitness resonates with me. David shipped some solid iOS 10 and watchOS 3 updates today – but Background Refresh in Sleep++ is my favorite:
Sleep++ has been updated to take advantage of the new Background Refresh mechanism in watchOS 3. Now rather than performing all of the sleep analysis in the morning when you wake up, instead it is able to analyze your night while you are sleeping. So when you wake up only the last few minutes of the night need to be processed. The end result of this is that you should barely seen the Analyzing Night progress dialog any more.
I have a feeling that Background Refresh will make me re-evaluate several Watch apps I stopped using (except David’s – one of the very few apps on my Watch).
Apple Explains Why It Eliminated the Headphone Jack→
Apple seems to get that eliminating the headphone jack will be a tough sell in some quarters. In a packed keynote, Phil Schiller spent a fair amount of time laying out Apple’s case for why switching to the lightning connector for wired headphones and moving to wireless AirPods is the right thing to do. But Apple also spoke to BuzzFeed’s John Paczkowski to add context and the detail that couldn’t fit into the keynote.
Apple’s Dan Riccio explained the challenge this way:
”We’ve got this 50-year-old connector — just a hole filled with air — and it’s just sitting there taking up space, really valuable space,” he says.
Eliminating the headphone jack helped enable the iPhone 7’s new camera, waterproofing, and better battery life. As Paczkowski explains:
The 3.5-millimeter audio jack has been headed to its inevitable fate for some time now. If it wasn’t the iPhone 7, it might have been the iPhone 8 (or, for that matter, the iPhone 6). In the end, it was simple math that did the audio jack in, a cost-benefit analysis that sorely disfavored a single-purpose Very Old Port against a wireless audio future, some slick new cameras, and the kind of water resistance that anyone who has ever dropped an iPhone in the toilet has long wished for.
Anyone who has used Bluetooth headphones knows that they promise freedom, but at the price of friction – charging, spotty connectivity, and poor audio quality. Apple’s answer to those headaches comes in the form of its new W1 chip that adds a layer of ‘secret sauce’ to its newly announced wireless AirPods that promises to eliminate the pain points.
According to John Ternus, vice president of Mac, iPad, ecosystem, and audio engineering at Apple:
“As you can imagine, by developing our own Bluetooth chip and controlling both ends of the pairing process there’s a lot of magic we can do,”
I was sold on wireless headphones a long time ago despite their limitations. That said, I hope Apple’s secret sauce is every bit as magical as claimed because the issues with Bluetooth are real and fixing them is a challenge that no other headphone manufacturer has fully conquered.
You can also follow all of the MacStories coverage of today’s Apple’s keynote through our September 7 Keynote hub, or subscribe to the dedicated September 7 Keynote RSS feed.
Canvas, Episode 18: Watching Video on iOS→
This week Fraser and Federico take a look at a leisure activity on iOS: watching video.
On the latest episode of Canvas, Fraser and I covered the best options for watching video on iOS. Whether you want to watch movies, TV shows, online video, or something else, there are plenty of options on iOS. You can listen here.
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David Smith on Changing App Business Models→
David Smith is an independent developer who launched his first iOS app in 2008. He’s seen a lot of change in the App Store since then, which he chronicles in an insightful post on his blog. Smith examines the revenue his apps have generated since 2012 and the pattern is unmistakable. Around 2013, the majority of his revenue flipped from being primarily from paid sales to advertising.
Looking back, Smith concludes that:
…the change is mostly been in the App Store market, rather than in my own attitudes. In many cases adding advertising to my apps has been something I’ve fought and resisted as long as possible. But in the end the pragmatic answer has been to not swim upstream and instead follow where my customers have moved to.
The market has been pulling me along towards advertising based apps, and I’ve found that the less I fight back with anachronistic ideas about how software “should” be sold, the more sustainable a business I have.
Smith readily acknowledges his experience is just one data point in a large App Store. If you’ve followed the fortunes of independent app developers over this period though, his conclusion rings true.
Be sure to visit Smith’s website to see the charts breaking down the components of his apps’ revenue. The short-term impact of app launches on overall revenue is an interesting footnote to the post’s main focus.
Tapbots Announces Pastebot for Mac Public Beta→
Pastebot by Tapbots was an early iOS clipboard manager that facilitated copying text, links, images and more. Today, Tapbots announced that it is bringing Pastebot to the Mac. As Tapbots did with Tweetbot for Mac, Pastebot is available as a public beta. As Tapbots explains:
We have been wanting to do a full blown Pastebot for Mac long before we first released it on the iPhone. Paul wrote a fantastic little utility app called PTH Pasteboard Pro on the Mac which I had always wanted to rewrite as a Tapbots app, but we were just too busy with iOS. After the release of Tweetbot 2 for Mac, it only made sense to have Todd start on Pastebot for his next big project. So we are very excited to release Pastebot for Mac…as a public beta.
I have been testing Pastebot for Mac for several weeks and it’s got some great features like the ability to create custom filters that allow you to transform clipped text in various ways.
If you are interested in joining the public beta, head on over to tapbots.com/pastebot.
Remaster, Episode 17: No Man’s Sky: Review→
The Remaster trio are reunited to give their thoughts and experiences of playing No Man’s Sky, and also take a look at why there’s such a backlash against the game.
We had a good discussion on No Man’s Sky, its strengths and shortcomings, and managing expectations on this week’s Remaster. You can listen here.
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