This week, Myke speaks about his two-iPad setup, Federico discusses his Telegram usage and Stephen interviews Kristen Gallerneaux from The Henry Ford Museum about their working Apple I.
This was a fun one: Stephen had a great interview with Kristen Gallerneaux of The Henry Ford Museum and we talked about Myke’s dual iPad setup. I also offered a bit of background on why we’re trying a Telegram channel for MacStories.
You can listen here.
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Ghost Digital Cinema released a documentary about professional skateboarder Sean Malto that was shot entirely on an iPhone using an app called FiLMiC Pro, which is just $9.99 on the App Store. The filmmakers supplemented the iPhone with equipment like professional lenses, a gimbal and a drone, but the heart of the operation was an iPhone and a $10 app.
In addition to the documentary, Ghost Digital Cinema posted a behind the scenes video explaining how they made the Malto documentary. The amazing things that people make on their iPhones never never ceases to amaze me.
Alissa Walker, writing for Gizmodo on a fascinating study about emoji implementations across different platforms:
A study by the GroupLens Research team at the University of Minnesota examines the variations between some popular emoji presentations and how they are perceived. The most widely misinterpreted is the “grinning face with smiling eyes” emoji, which—depending on the platform—can range from the rosy-cheeked cherubic face of glee to the anguished clenched-teeth look of constipation.
Just seeing the difference in emoji presentations is revelatory in itself. But then it gets even more interesting. GroupLens researchers asked subjects to rate 22 anthropomorphic emoji from five platforms by sentiment, using a scale that ranged from strongly negative (-5) to strongly positive (5). And here’s where you start to see where “grinning face with smiling eyes” goes so very wrong. Apple’s average sentiment ranking was almost -1, while Microsoft, Samsung, LG, and Google all were 3 or above.
It’s curious to see what happens when you only have a loosely defined standard.
Scanning with just the camera on the back of the device is an area of iOS that has been around for many years and has matured significantly over that time. The latest generation of iOS scanner apps, coupled with ever-better cameras on our devices are really very usable scanners indeed. Couple that with increasingly sophisticated post-scan workflows and you have a tool that James Bond could only dream of.
On last week’s episode of Canvas, we talked about one of the kinds of mobile software that has been reinvented by the iPhone’s camera – scanner apps. There’s a lot of choice when it comes to scanning documents and going paperless on iOS. You can listen here.
Since Microsoft acquired Sunrise last year and began the process of integrating it with Outlook, I’ve been wondering when they’d bring back the popular third-party integrations of Sunrise. That became clear today with the launch of three Calendar Apps for Outlook on iOS – Wunderlist (obviously), Facebook, and Evernote.
Here’s the Outlook team, writing on the company blog:
This is why we are launching Calendar Apps for Outlook on iOS and Android. With Calendar Apps, you can connect your apps—Wunderlist, Facebook and Evernote to start with—to see all your tasks, events and notes from your digital life in one place: your Outlook calendar. By connecting your calendar with a wide range of services, Outlook will be able to provide you with a far better view of your day, week and months ahead.
Those of you who use and love Sunrise will be familiar with this capability. Since the Sunrise team joined Outlook, we’ve been hard at work bringing all the goodness and extra features from their app directly into our calendar to give you a single, powerful app for managing your personal and professional life. Calendar Apps, along with a two-week mini-calendar, three-day view and iOS calendar widget, have already made it to Outlook, with Connected Calendars up next.
Smart move, and something I don’t see Apple doing either. I hope they’ll open up the platform to more services soon.
One of my favorite iOS games in recent years, Crossy Road, has received a Disney tie-in aptly named Disney Crossy Road. It’s out on the App Store today for free, and it features over 100 Disney and Pixar figurines hopping their way through worlds from The Lion King, Toy Story, Inside Out, and more.
It looks like Hipster Whale (creators of the original game) and Disney did a good job in keeping the essence of Crossy Road alive while also enhancing the formula with new gameplay mechanics and world-specific challenges. I’m going to play the game over the weekend – in the meantime, The Verge has a nice behind-the-scenes piece on how the game was created:
Disney Crossy Road goes in a different direction. While the first area is exactly the same as the world from the original game, the rest are all based on different Disney properties and feature new gameplay characteristics to suit them. Some of the changes are just visual — in the Lion King world you’re avoiding charging animals instead of cars — while others are twists on the Crossy Road formula. In the Tangled world you have to avoid barrels falling down a hill, while Inside Out tasks you with collecting colorful memory orbs.
Craig Grannell, writing on how Apple could make MFi controller-enabled games more user friendly on iOS:
That’s assuming anyone could find a compatible game in the first place, because Apple oddly broadly ignored controllers in the iTunes Store. You’d think the company would at least flag controller support on game pages (something it does on Apple TV), and also automate an App Store page listing compatible games. Instead, it’s left to third-party sites like Afterpad to pick up the slack, which is baffling.
Today, the MFi ecosystem is fairly mature, with a reasonable range of controllers. (My personal recommendation is the Nimbus, unless you’re desperate for a form-hugging option, in which case grab a Gamevice, in the knowledge it may not fit the next device you buy.) But Apple needs to do more to help.
It is baffling that the iOS App Store still doesn’t display controller support or offer a filter to show games with MFi controller integration. It seems like they’re not taking them too seriously.
Brian Stucki, writing on the Macminicolo blog, has some big news today:
In short, I’ve decided to sell ownership of Macminicolo and merge it with another company. I will stay on as President of Macminicolo and also serve as a Vice President of the parent company, MacStadium.
Now, I could just announce this with no explanation and be done with it . I could also write one of those generic acquisition posts focused on sunsets and brands and blah. Instead, I’ll be forthright and real like I’ve always tried to be with customers.
Macminicolo is the Mac mini hosting company in the Apple community, and this move feels right to me.
MacStories is hosted on Macminicolo (and has been for several years now). Moving to a dedicated mini has been one of the best decisions we’ve made in seven years of MacStories, and I’m excited to see what MacStadium brings to the table. I wish them all the best.
Anna Pickard, writing on the Slack blog, describes how Slack approaches writing release notes for their apps. In the modern App Store, Slack is one of the few companies that publishes good release notes – informative, just the right amount of funny, and detailed.
If you want to produce something that people will want to read, it’s only polite to make it enjoyable to read it. So in release notes — as in everything else we do — a large love for language, and a little humor, go a long way. Once you’ve gone that long way, it’s tempting to go further still, but we try and remind ourselves to hold back.
(Compare and contrast: the people who write release notes for Medium.)
