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Real Design Work on an iPad

Khoi Vinh makes some good points about using an iPad for design work. Among his list of suggestions, I’d point out better clipboard support on iOS:

Robust clipboard. The Mac’s clipboard is still relatively simple—it holds one thing at a time and allows you to paste it in any app that supports its current contents—but iOS’s clipboard isn’t even as capable as that. It would be a boon in itself to have more pervasive support for that simple level of copy and paste throughout the app ecosystem, but I would argue that iOS’s far more constrained interaction model should sport an even more advanced clipboard than the Mac’s. You should be able to save multiple clipboard items of multiple media types; each app that supports the clipboard should allow you to paste the most recently copied compatible item. That would significantly reduce the friction inherent on iOS in pulling together content from multiple sources.

Requests for better clipboard management on iOS go back a long way. Even trivial tasks such as copying rich text from one app and pasting into another one can be problematic on iOS (for “fun”, try to build workflows to paste rich text in iOS 9’s Notes. I’ll wait.). There are excellent solutions for third-party clipboard management (Clips and Copied – I use the latter now), but it should be native to the OS. There’s still plenty of low-hanging fruit for Apple to pick on the iPad.

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Sketch Is Leaving the Mac App Store

Sketch, the popular image creation and design tool for OS X and winner of an Apple Design Award in 2012, is leaving the Mac App Store. Developer Bohemian Coding has announced the move in a blog post today:

Today, we’re announcing an important change in how you receive updates to Sketch. After much thought, and with a heavy heart, we’re moving Sketch away from the Mac App Store. If you’re a Mac App Store customer, all you need to do is download Sketch from our website, launch it and enter your email address to receive your license.

As for the reasons behind this decision, Bohemian Coding mentioned a few usual suspects:

There are a number of reasons for Sketch leaving the Mac App Store—many of which in isolation wouldn’t cause us huge concern. However as with all gripes, when compounded they make it hard to justify staying: App Review continues to take at least a week, there are technical limitations imposed by the Mac App Store guidelines (sandboxing and so on) that limit some of the features we want to bring to Sketch, and upgrade pricing remains unavailable.

Sketch is, quite possibly, one of the most popular image editing apps for professionals who use Macs nowadays, and it’s yet another high-profile departure from the Mac App Store. Bohemian Coding doesn’t rule out returning to the Mac App Store if things change, but, for now, they are going to be selling the app directly on their website.

At this stage, we are far beyond the point of acknowledging there is a problem on the Mac App Store. We are not talking a bunch of isolated cases anymore – leaving the Mac App Store has become an accepted trend among developers, which is compounded by the sad state of abandon in which Apple has left it and other issues developers illustrated in the past.

The simple reality is that, gradually, developers of the best apps for OS X are finding it increasingly hard to justify doing business on the Mac App Store. I hope Apple also sees this as a problem and starts doing something about it.

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Can the MacBook Pro Replace your iPad?

This article by Fraser Speirs is going to upset some longtime Mac users – for me, it perfectly encapsulates all the reasons why I decided to move from a MacBook to an iPad (and now an iPad Pro) as my main computer. Two highlights:

Firstly, consider the hardware. The huge issue with the MacBook Pro is its form factor. The fact that the keyboard and screen are limited to being held in an L-shaped configuration seriously limits its flexibility. It is basically impossible to use a MacBook pro while standing up and downright dangerous to use when walking around. Your computing is limited to times when you are able to find somewhere to sit down.

And:

If you are a road warrior, the MacBook’s total lack of cellular connectivity options would be a serious hinderance to a cloud-based storage lifestyle in any case. You would think, for a device that costs up to twice as much as the most expensive cellular iPad, that Apple could afford to offer LTE radios in these devices. Sadly, MacBook Pro owners are stuck with tethering to their iPhones and burning through data plans. While tethering Macs to iPhones has improved in recent years, it will never be as good as a built-in LTE radio.

I couldn’t have said it better and the entire premise of the article is genius. This is exactly why I don’t want to use a MacBook any longer – I simply feel constrained by what others see as benefits of the platform.

One particular mention for Fraser’s note at the end – “If journalists reviewed Macs like iPads”.

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Virtual: You Make Your Own Classics

This week Federico and Myke discuss whether old games are really still worth playing today, before talking about Goat Simulator, and a Hydraulic set-up for GTA V.

If you’ve ever wondered whether you still like old games or if you’re looking at the past with rose-colored glasses, this week’s Virtual should help in your quest. You can listen here.

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Facebook SDK for tvOS

Chris Pan, writing on the Facebook developer site:

The new Apple TV brings the App Store to the big screen, and today we’re introducing the Facebook SDK for tvOS beta to help you build immersive social experiences on that platform.

The key feature of the Facebook SDK for tvOS apps is an easy way to log into apps without having to type emails and passwords with the Siri Remote:

A fast and easy way for people to log into your app and for you to provide rich, personalized experiences. To log into an app with their Facebook account, people can simply enter a confirmation code displayed on the TV into their smartphone or computer, rather than entering their username and password with the remote.

For developers who don’t mind adding Facebook code to their apps, this seems like a decent stopgap solution until Apple builds something similar for iPhone users (as I assume it would be nice to log into apps with iCloud Keychain and Touch ID).

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iPad Pro in the Classroom

Karan Varindani has a great story about the role of the iPad Pro in his college studies, and how he’s been consolidating his textbooks, notes, and more into a portable, digital workflow:

I saved writing about my experience doing Linear Algebra homework for last because it is, by far, my favorite anecdote about the iPad Pro. I usually have the assignment sheet open on my Mac in front of me, the textbook open on my iPad to my left, and sheets of A4 paper scattered everywhere else on my desk. I first go through the assignment, making lots of mistakes along the way, then rewrite everything again neatly on the second run. Next, I scan the 10–15 pages to my Mac, merge them into a single PDF document, and upload them to the course server. The entire process takes about 3–4 hours depending on the number of questions assigned and leaves me with a pulsing wrist every time. Last week, I did the entire assignment on the iPad Pro. I had both Notability and PDF Expert open in Split View; the former was a blank canvas where I wrote down my answers and the latter had both the assignment and textbook open in tabs. I was able to erase mistakes as I made them and I didn’t have to scan anything afterwards, both of which saved me a tremendous amount of time. I uploaded the document in Safari using iCloud Drive when I was done.

Almost immediately after I got the confirmation email, I decided that I wasn’t going to be returning the iPad Pro.

A good primer for those who argue that the iPad is only being used by tech bloggers – with a fair assessment of the Pro’s portability trade-offs.

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The Worst App

An odd App Store story by Allen Pike:

One of the various things I do at Steamclock is provide support for our apps. Our music apps don’t require much support, and much of the email we get is positive, so tending to support is generally pleasant.

Or at least it was pleasant, until recently. On September 30 I received a very concerning support email.

I don’t know what the solution to these App Store problems is, but it doesn’t seem right to me that developers have to spend time dealing with them over the course of several weeks.

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Connected: Being in Charge of a Space Rocket

This week, Federico talks about how he is changing his automation workflows with 1Writer and Workflow, and Myke talks about his Apple Pencil review.

This week’s episode of Connected is all about changes in my workflow (including posting articles to WordPress) and Myke’s thoughts on the Apple Pencil from his unique perspective. You can listen here.

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How Readdle Launched Their First Mac App

Readdle’s Denys Zhadanov has put together a good article detailing how Readdle launched PDF Expert for Mac (which Graham likes) and got to #1 in the Mac App Store. I particularly liked this bit on how they positioned the app in the research stage:

Many people told me that it doesn’t make sense to build a product that already has some decent alternatives. But honestly, I like competition. Healthy competition indicates that there is a good addressable market out there. Having a superior product that does things better and is differentiated enough can lead to a successful and sustainable business.

Thanks to our research and preparation, we were able to position PDF Expert for Mac really well. It steps in where Apple Preview is too basic and Adobe Acrobat is too cumbersome. With PDF Expert, people can actually do their PDF work much faster and easier, including reading, annotating, form filling, and signing documents.

As I argued on Connected last week, too many developers think that making a good app is all it takes to achieve “success”. Preparation, research, and understanding the position of an app beforehand are just as essential. Denys has some other practical tips and fascinating stats, so make sure to check out his post.

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