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Facebook Buys Popular MSQRD Face Swapping App→

Alex Heath, reporting for Tech Insider:

Masquerade’s app lets you overlay playful, animated filters over your face using your phone’s selfie camera. The effects range from Leonardo DiCaprio at the Oscars (right) to a monkey, and they’re fun to play with. You can record video in the app or take a still photo to share on other social networks.

And:

Expect Masquerade’s face swapping filters to show up in the Facebook app eventually.

The social network also plans to keep Masquerade operational as a standalone, free app, as well as integrating its technology into Facebook. The effects join a line of creative tools Facebook has added to its app already, like stickers, finger doodles, and photo filters.

Masquerade built impressive technology for real-time camera manipulation (I also featured the app in a recent collection of MacStories Weekly for Club members). The acquisition makes sense – from anecdotal experience, in the past couple of months I’ve seen a lot of my friends post selfies modified with Masquerade and Face Swap.

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Canvas, Episode 5: Typing→

On last week’s episode of Canvas, Fraser and I talked about typing on the iOS software keyboard. We covered some tips and tricks to become a better keyboard user on iOS, such as the ability to swipe on keys, tap & hold shortcuts, text replacements, custom keyboards, and more. It’s a good one. You can listen here.

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The Spaceship Rises→

Apple’s new campus has received significant attention during its development phase, from design renderings to blueprints to aerial footage captured by drones. Apple has shared with Mashable exclusive details and photos of its new corporate offices, including the theater that will serve as the venue for future Apple product launches.

Some great new photos of Apple’s Campus 2 project at Mashable today. It’s hard to look at that carbon-fiber roof without thinking of a UFO, though.

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Craig Federighi on Encryption and the FBI’s Demands→

Craig Federighi, Senior Vice President of Software Engineering at Apple, writing for The Washington Post:

That’s why it’s so disappointing that the FBI, Justice Department and others in law enforcement are pressing us to turn back the clock to a less-secure time and less-secure technologies. They have suggested that the safeguards of iOS 7 were good enough and that we should simply go back to the security standards of 2013. But the security of iOS 7, while cutting-edge at the time, has since been breached by hackers. What’s worse, some of their methods have been productized and are now available for sale to attackers who are less skilled but often more malicious.

A cogent argument from Federighi. It follows on from Tim Cook’s open letter and interview with ABC News, as well as Bruce Sewell’s testimony to a congressional committee.

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Pixelmator as a Screenshot Editor→

Gabe Weatherhead at Macdrifter highlights something that puzzled me when I wrote a roundup of screenshot apps last December:

While there’s a wealth of options on the Mac for image annotation, there are very few complete options on iOS. PointOut is wonderful for creating magnifier callouts but not much else. Pinpoint has really easy redaction, annotation and arrows but nothing more. Omnigraffle has everything plus a great deal of control but it’s too many taps to do anything basic.

The problem is compounded by the fact that many screenshot apps on iOS are unable to detect a screenshot once it has been edited by another app. As a result, there is often no good way to pass a screenshot from one app to another to apply multiple edits.

Gabe’s solution is clever. He uses Pixelmator, one of the most powerful image editors available on iOS, to create call-outs, redact sections of a screenshot, and draw arrows. I use Screenshot++ and Pinpoint regularly, but it’s good to have Pixelmator as an option for more complicated combinations of edits. Check out Gabe’s post to see how it’s done.

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Connected: I’m Like a Butterfly→

This week, Myke and Federico console Stephen over the Mac mini before discussing Siri and the next version of iOS.

This week on Connected, a discussion on Siri for iPhone (and maybe Mac in the future), plus some first thoughts on what iOS 10 could bring. You can listen here.

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App Store Shifts to Updating ‘Best New Apps’ More Often→

Jeff Benjamin, writing at 9to5Mac:

Schiller is now in charge of all App Stores, taking over responsibilities from Eddy Cue, which most prominently include the iOS App Store and the Mac App Store.

It’s been less than three months since the move occurred, but we’re already beginning to see a change in the way the App Store operates. For example, we’re now seeing more regular updates of the Best New Apps section at the top of the App Store’s Featured page. In a tweet today, Schiller acknowledged the changes and indicated that more changes were on the way.

I’ve been noticing the same, particularly on the front page, which makes sense. The App Store used to be refreshed every Thursday with Editor’s Choice and featured apps. Frequent updates to the ‘Best New Apps’ section could help in promoting apps multiple times throughout the week.

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Amazon Expands Echo Line→

Amazon announced two additions to the Echo family this morning – the portable Tap and the Chromecast-like Dot. Dan Moren has a breakdown of the announcement and details.

I’m relatively new to the Amazon Echo (I shared the story of how and why I bought one on Connected), but, like many others, I’m liking it a lot. In my three weeks with the Echo, the ability to play music, set timers, and turn my lights and espresso maker on and off from anywhere around the kitchen without having to wait for Siri is starting to become second nature.

(In theory, this is exactly what Siri on the Apple Watch should do. Realistically, though, the Watch is simply too slow and HomeKit commands fail too often.)

Amazon is doing good work with expanding the Echo’s list of supported third-party services (unlike Apple). I’m intrigued by the Dot.

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Apple Launches @AppleSupport Account on Twitter→

As first reported by MacRumors, Apple has today launched @AppleSupport, a support account on Twitter:

Apple today created an official Twitter support account to provide customers with tips, tricks, and tutorials about the company’s product and services. One of the account’s first tweets provides users with step-by-step instructions on how to turn lists into checklists in the stock Notes app on iPhone.

Apple’s presence on social media is slowly but surely expanding. This is now the second support account that Apple runs on Twitter, following last October’s launch of @AppleMusicHelp which provides help and tips relating to Apple Music.

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