This Week's Sponsor:

SoundSource

New Year, New Audio Setup: SoundSource 6 from Rogue Amoeba

Posts in Linked

Petition for Apple to Keep Headphone Jack Reaches 200,000 Signatures→

There’s a petition on SumOfUs.org, calling on Apple to keep the standard headphone jack on the iPhone, following more reports that Apple is planning on removing it with the next iPhone.

This is right out of the Apple corporate playbook. A few years ago it swapped out the original iPod-dock connector with a new one, making countless cords, cables and chargers obsolete.

Apple plays up its green credentials, but the truth is that Apple only invested in renewable energy, and began phasing out toxic chemicals when public pressure became too strong to ignore. People power did it before, and we can do it again.

Tell Apple to keep the standard headphone jack and ditch planned obsolescence!

Look, this is a ridiculous and hysterical petition which blows the situation completely out of proportion. But having said that, the fact that this petition (on a website I’ve never heard of before) has exceeded 200,000 signatures in just a single day just goes to show how big a task Apple has if it does decide to remove the headphone jack with this year’s iPhone (remember, these are just rumors for now).

Last month, when these rumors first started circulating, I took the time to document some of my own thoughts about how Apple could minimize the frustration of consumers – as well as explaining why it will be a more painful transition than the 30-pin to Lightning switch, and some other tangential questions that this scenario raises. I don’t want to rehash it all again here, but here’s a snippet:

In essence, I think Apple should do three things. Firstly, acknowledge the trade-off Apple have made and the frustration some customers may feel. Secondly, clearly enunciate the benefits of switching away from the 3.5mm audio jack to the Lightning connector and Bluetooth audio. And thirdly, make the customer’s transition away from the 3.5mm audio jack as painless as possible. I’ll leave the first two up to Apple’s marketing team, but I do have some thoughts on the third.

Who knows if these rumors will even turn out to be true, but there’s an awful lot of smoke already. But even if it doesn’t happen with this year’s iPhone, it will inevitably happen – and when it does, expect an almighty backlash. The real question is how many steps Apple takes to reduce the pain to consumers.

(Via 9to5Mac)

Permalink

Apple Acquires AI Company Emotient→

The Wall Street Journal, reporting on Apple’s latest acquisition of AI company Emotient (confirmed by Apple):

Apple Inc. has purchased Emotient Inc., a startup that uses artificial-intelligence technology to read people’s emotions by analyzing facial expressions.

It isn’t clear what Apple plans to do with Emotient’s technology, which was primarily sold to advertisers to help assess viewer reactions to their ads. Doctors also have tested it to interpret signs of pain among patients unable to express themselves, and a retailer used it to monitor shoppers’ facial expressions in store aisles, the company had said.

As I argued in a section of my iOS 9 review last year, my experience with Apple services is that, when it comes to intelligence, they’ve consistently been less proactive and slower than Google’s. Two examples: I can search for photos by subject in Google Photos, and the Google mobile app sends me time to leave alerts that actually make sense.

The differences in intelligence between Google and Apple come with separate sets of trade-offs. The question for Apple should be: are there more ways to leverage AI to provide useful services while still prioritizing user privacy? How can Siri and iOS’ Intelligence features expand without comprising on Apple’s vision? Is that even possible without having to rely on cloud-based deep learning for user data in the long term? Is Apple considering new approaches that are somewhat in the middle?

It’s from such standpoint that I consider Apple’s AI acquisitions (Perceptio, VocallQ, and now Emotient), and it’ll be interesting to see what iOS 10 holds in this area.

Permalink

Putting iOS Screenshots in Device Frames with Workflow→

A few weeks back in an issue of MacStories Weekly for Club MacStories members, I replied to a reader question on the inability to automate the process of putting iOS screenshots into device frames. I recommended doing so manually with Pixelmator or using LongScreen, noting that, at the moment, Workflow doesn’t offer a “paste image on top of another image” action. I knew there were workarounds with Workflow and Pythonista, but I wanted a streamlined solution.

Here’s Jordan Merrick, writing on his blog:

Federico isn’t wrong - there isn’t really any way to automate the placement of a screenshot inside an existing image of something like an iPhone or iPad using something like Workflow. However, if we come at this from a different angle, it actually is possible to achieve the desired result with Workflow.

Instead of looking to insert a screenshot inside device image, a screenshot can be “wrapped” by slicing a device image beforehand. Then, with some creative use of the “Combine Images” action and a few variables later, it’s possible to wrap a screenshot in a way that results in a perfect image of an iOS device containing a screenshot.

This is what I had in mind but didn’t build. Jordan put together one of the most clever workflows I’ve seen in a while – another good demonstration of the power of this app.

Permalink

Bringing the App Store to the Web→

Rene Ritchie, writing on the lack of a web interface for the App Store to buy any app from any device using a web browser:

Instead, imagine if the web intermediated, providing all App Store links on all platforms. Click on an App Store link on your Mac or PC and, instead of iTunes, you go to iTunes Preview and there’s a Get or Buy button right there. Click the button and you can choose to open in iTunes or log into your Apple ID account and initiate the Get/Buy right from the Web.

Instead of iTunes Preview, though, it’s now App Store for iCloud, or whatever best fits the model Apple wants to use.

This is one of those omissions that continue to surprise me almost nine years into the iOS App Store. Even companies like Sony and Nintendo have enabled purchasing of software from the web while you’re not using the device where games will have to be installed on – I do it all the time to buy PlayStation games from Safari via the PSN website and download them later when I’m at my PS4.

Not only should Apple figure out how to let any platform/device purchase iTunes and App Store content from a web browser – there should be an account management page to view all your purchases and select apps or media you want to start downloading on a remote device, too.

Permalink

Record-Breaking Holiday Season for the App Store→

Apple Press Release:

In the two weeks ending January 3, customers spent over $1.1 billion on apps and in-app purchases, setting back-to-back weekly records for traffic and purchases. January 1, 2016 marked the biggest day in App Store history with customers spending over $144 million. It broke the previous single-day record set just a week earlier on Christmas Day.

“The App Store had a holiday season for the record books. We are excited that our customers downloaded and enjoyed so many incredible apps for iPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple Watch and Apple TV, spending over $20 billion on the App Store last year alone,” said Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Marketing. “We’re grateful to all the developers who have created the most innovative and exciting apps in the world for our customers. We can’t wait for what’s to come in 2016.”

These are some incredible numbers and unsurprisingly Apple dedicates a significant portion of the press release to spruiking how Apple creates and supports 1.9 million jobs in the U.S., 1.2 million jobs in Europe, and 1.4 million jobs in China.

Apple also details some of the most popular apps in the App Store:

Gaming, Social Networking and Entertainment were among the year’s most popular App Store categories across Apple products, with customers challenging themselves to Minecraft: Pocket Edition, Trivia Crack and Heads Up!, and staying in touch with friends and family using Facebook Messenger, WeChat and Snapchat. Games and subscription apps dominated this year’s top grossing titles including Clash of Clans, Monster Strike, Game of War - Fire Age and Fantasy Westward Journey, as well as Netflix, Hulu and Match.

The launch of the all-new Apple TV® and Apple Watch® have paved the way for entirely new app experiences, changing how people consume content through their television and providing useful information at a glance on Apple’s most personal device yet. Since its launch in October, the new Apple TV’s most popular apps include Rayman Adventures, Beat Sports and HBO NOW. Chart-topping apps for Apple Watch owners include fitness apps Nike+ Running and Lifesum, and iTranslate and Citymapper in the Travel category.

Curiously (or perhaps not), there was nothing in the press release specifically about the Mac App Store – which today celebrates its fifth anniversary (more on that shortly).

Permalink

Connected: What’s a Heart, Really?→

This week, the boys talk about how Apple could differentiate the next big iPhone and check back in on iOS 9 after several months of daily usage.

On this week’s Connected, we’ve begun talking about possible changes in the next iPhones and our experience with iOS 9 so far and features we haven’t been completely satisfied with. You can listen here.

See also: a very special b-side.

Sponsored by:

  • Casper: Because everyone deserves a great night sleep. Get $50 off with the code ‘CONNECTED’
  • Squarespace: Build it beautiful. Use code ‘WORLD’ for 10% off.
  • Braintree: Code for easy online payments.
Permalink

Apple’s App Charts: 2015 Data and Trends→

For the past two years, Gilad Lotan (Chief Data Scientist at Betaworks) has been collecting data from Apple’s App Store RSS feeds. Last week Lotan published nine interesting findings in a post on Medium – complete with over a dozen fascinating charts.

Here we can clearly see both weekly cycles in app usage, but also longer term trends throughout the year. Facebook Messenger, which relaunches as ‘Messenger’ in June, stays very close to the top position throughout the whole year, while both Viber and Tango start strong and slowly drifts down the chart. Find My Friends, on the other hand, displays high volatility — drastic changes in ranking, hence app engagement — especially throughout the summer months, and Twitter has clearly weekly cycles.

The best part of Lotan’s story is definitely the accompanying charts, which really help tell the story alongside his commentary. But here’s one more snippet to encourage you to read his whole article:

Here we look at new applications that not only reach a notable spot in the top chart, but also sustain it to some degree. As you can see below, a handful of these apps are music related: SongFlip (free music streaming), Musicloud (stream music from your Dropbox mp3’s), and Free Music HQ (what it sounds). Moments is the Facebook app that helps you find yourself in friends’ photos, and Triller helps users make music videos on their phones. There are also two applications that help upload content into Snapchat. See a trend here? Media, media, and more rich media!

Permalink

The Medium.com Hosted Press Kit→

Robleh Jama has been using Medium to share press kits for apps:

When you put everything a blogger needs for their article in one spot, they’re going to like that. They’re going to appreciate you because you didn’t just do what’s most convenient for you. You actually thought about them. And even if they don’t write about you now, it starts the relationships on the right foot.

We kept it as unlisted because we figured that it’d be best for bloggers and journalists to get the details first, before passing it along to their audiences. Unlisted posts on Medium are visible to only those who have the link. It won’t be listed on Medium’s public pages or your profile. You can choose to keep it as a draft, or publish the post as an Unlisted post, like we did, or a public post.

I agree with this. I’ve been sent a few Medium-hosted press releases over the past few months – most recently, one for Pigment – and the experience was better than having to download a bunch of PDFs and folders full of screenshots. Perhaps Dropbox could leverage the convenience of easily editable/linkable documents with Paper (imagine if you could combine text and media stored somewhere else in your Dropbox within a single shared document).

Side note: if you’re looking for something a bit more customizable and advanced, I can’t recommend presskit() enough.

Permalink

iPad Pro and OS X with Screens→

Eddie Vassallo, writing on the Entropy blog on using the iPad Pro in combination with a Mac mini via VNC:

The beauty of a single machine fully dedicated to the iPad Pro is that we always have a full OS X instance at the ready for anything that arises - from exporting and compiling app builds to transcoding video, to downloading and uploading large files. Heck, we’ve even found it useful for firing up a desktop instance of Chrome when pesky sites misbehave on mobile Safari. It has truly filled the gap for any desktop-class workflows we require (that have not already been fulfilled with an iOS App or Web-based method).

Before switching to the iPad as my only computer and before iOS 9 multitasking (I would say between 2011 and 2014), this is also what I did. I set up a personal mini at Macminicolo (a fine company which also hosts this very website) and relied on Edovia’s excellent Screens app to access desktop apps like iTunes and Chrome. I also used to keep the mini always running for Hazel rules (here’s an archive of posts about it) and other desktop automation. I do most of this stuff directly on iOS now, but if you need a Mac for some key tasks, Screens with iOS multitasking sounds better than ever.

Permalink