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tvOS 9.2 to Bring Support for Dictation→

Juli Clover, reporting for MacRumors on the the third beta of tvOS 9.2 seeded to developers earlier today:

There’s now support for onscreen text entry via dictation in countries where Siri is available. When updating to tvOS 9.2 beta 3, users will be prompted to enable or disable dictation. With dictation, Apple TV users can dictate text and spell user names and passwords rather than typing them. With dictation enabled, the tvOS search bar alternates between a blank search field and an option to hold the Siri button to dictate text.

Feels like another feature that should have been there since tvOS debuted. Maybe the ability to actually link to tvOS apps will be next.

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Canvas, Episode 3: Photo Management→

Federico and Fraser go in-depth on modern photo management on iOS devices.

Photo management is traditionally one of the trickier areas to deal with in an iOS-only lifestyle. This week, we focus on the modern era of photo management by looking in-depth at iCloud Photo Library, which can minimise or even eliminate many of the difficulties in handling a large library of photos. We also discuss apps that work well with iCloud Photo Library and tell you how to spot ones that don’t.

As listeners of Connected (and, before that, The Prompt) may remember, photo management is a topic very dear to me. It only felt appropriate to tackle it in one of the first episodes of Canvas. This week, we started with the basics of iCloud Photo Library, alternative backup solutions, and more. You can listen here. (Next up: editing photos on iOS.)

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Khoi Vinh Is Done with MacBooks→

Khoi Vinh:

I’ve been using laptops for decades. The first one I ever owned was a PowerBook 3400c, and I’ve never not owned one since then. But now, in contrast to my iPad, my laptop seems altogether much more cumbersome than I prefer to deal with. It’s much, much heavier and bulkier than my iPad, especially when you factor in its power supply and a carrying case.

It’s much more fragile, too—I regularly toss my iPad around in ways that I would never do with my MacBook—and as a result, it’s much less versatile, at least for me. This is partly because the MacBook also restricts my movement; I have to be sitting or standing in a way that accommodates typing, whereas I have so much flexibility with my tablet that I’ve become accustomed to using it while positioned in just about any variant of laying down, sitting, standing or even walking.

He’s not done with OS X – an important distinction.

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CloudKit Gets Server API→

A notable addition to CloudKit announced by Apple today – an API for server-to-server requests:

In addition to providing a web interface for users to access the same data as your app, you can now easily read and write to the CloudKit public database from a server-side process or script with a server-to-server key.

Benjamin Mayo explains what this means in practice:

Until now, interaction with CloudKit has been limited to the APIs Apple provided in apps. Although this was useful, it lacked the options for more advanced use — most modern apps rely on servers to perform tasks whilst users are away. With the addition of the web API, developers can create many more types of applications using CloudKit as the backend. For instance, an RSS reader app can now add new feed items to the CloudKit stack from the server. Before, this action could only occur when a user opened a CloudKit-powered app, which was essentially impractical and meant developers had to use other tools.

Somewhat coincidentally, the announcement follows the news of Facebook shutting down Parse, the popular backend-as-a-service tool for developers. I’ve tried a few CloudKit apps over the past year that would have benefitted from a web counterpart checking for changes in the background – hopefully this change will enable more functionality for those types of apps. A feed reader built entirely off CloudKit with timely updates would be interesting.

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Touch ID and Error 53→

Christina Warren has a good roundup of Error 53 – an iOS system error that makes an iPhone unusable (bricked) if it detects a third-party Touch ID module when performing a software update:

Thousands of iPhone users have been left with bricked devices after having their home buttons repaired by non-Apple authorized technicians.

The Guardian on Friday reported on the issue, known as “Error 53” that apparently affects the iPhone 6, 6 Plus, 6S and 6S Plus.

The basic problem happens if you get your iPhone’s home button repaired anywhere other than an Apple Store or Apple-authorized repair center. If the home button — which includes the Touch ID sensor — is replaced, you run the risk of getting a dreaded “Error 53” on your phone.

What is Error 53? Well, it basically turns your iPhone into a brick. Why? Well it all ties into the Touch ID sensor on your phone.

As Apple notes in a support document (and in a statement provided to the press today), “iOS checks that the Touch ID sensor matches your device’s other components during an update or restore”, but the check could also fail because of an unauthorized or faulty screen replacement.

The problem isn’t Apple’s underlying reasoning, which makes sense from a security perspective, but the fact that a device gets bricked by an obscure error. Future versions of iOS should change this behavior and Apple should do a much better job at explaining what’s going on. A bricked device is an extreme measure (and a badly communicated one) when trying to save money by not going to an Apple retail store is so popular.

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Using Classic Mechanical Keyboards on Modern iPads→

Kevin MacLeod, following up on one of the geekiest photos I’ve seen on Twitter in a while:

You found a mechanical keyboard. An old Apple keyboard, or Dell, IBM, Focus, Acer, Cherry - doesn’t matter. It has good mechanical switches, and you want to use it with your iPad.

The good thing is, once you connect your keyboard to the iPad, iOS is fully capable of using it - the keys all work, you don’t need to install any drivers, jailbreak anything, or take any special steps. The tricky part is actually connecting these keyboards to your iPad.

I’ve never tried a mechanical keyboard myself (I probably should, given that I write at my desk quite a bit?), but I know this is going to be a fun weekend project for many.

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Pocket Adds New Typographic Controls for Premium Subscribers→

It’s nice to see Pocket is continuing to add new features exclusive to Premium subscribers. In the 6.2 update released today, Pocket has introduced 7 new fonts (including two of my favorites – Whitney and Ideal Sans), plus controls for line height and margin width. There’s also a new Auto Dark Mode setting (which could be a nice companion to Night Shift on iOS 9.3).

I’ve been trying Pocket again because of Recommendations (you can follow mine, too), and I had already bought a Premium subscription last year, but I haven’t found much utility in the permanent archival and auto-tagging functionalities. More typographic controls is something I deeply appreciate, and I hope we’ll see more Premium features this year.

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Connected: Dreaming Is Enough→

This week, Stephen and Federico talk about Stephen’s 20th Anniversary Mac, Airmail, Federico’s new NAS and the iPad Air 3.

If you didn’t catch my thoughts on the Synology NAS I bought in the latest Monthly Log for Club MacStories members, this week’s Connected elaborates on the subject quite a bit. You can listen here.

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Nintendo’s Second Mobile Game to Feature “Familiar” Character→

Nintendo didn’t only announce details for Miitomo and My Nintendo this week. Here’s Takashi Mochizuki, reporting for The Wall Street Journal:

Videogame giant on Tuesday posted a sharp drop in quarterly net profit, but it stoked the hopes of fans by promising that its second smartphone game would feature one of the company’s best-known characters.

And:

“The second game won’t be another communication app, and we plan to adopt one of our characters that fans are very familiar with,” Nintendo CEO Tatsumi Kimishima said.

Mario is the obvious choice (as is Pikachu, also given this year’s 20th anniversary of the Pokémon franchise), but I’ve long argued that WarioWare mini-games would be great candidates for multitouch gameplay and, possibly, In-App Purchases. Still, Nintendo has plenty of options to choose from.

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