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Facebook Confirms Background Audio Issues in iOS App, Releases Fix→

In a post on Facebook, Ari Grant, engineering manager for iOS at Facebook, has confirmed that the Facebook app was affected (among other bugs) by background audio issues which caused high battery consumption.

The second issue is with how we manage audio sessions. If you leave the Facebook app after watching a video, the audio session sometimes stays open as if the app was playing audio silently. This is similar to when you close a music app and want to keep listening to the music while you do other things, except in this case it was unintentional and nothing kept playing. The app isn’t actually doing anything while awake in the background, but it does use more battery simply by being awake. Our fixes will solve this audio issue and remove background audio completely.

From what I’ve heard, today’s update to Facebook for iOS has removed the background audio permission completely. Facebook is working on more fixes, which, as Grant also mentions, include improvements to the app’s network code.

At this point, I don’t think it’s productive anymore to speculate on how long the problem has been around. I’m glad that Facebook has publicly acknowledged issues that were affecting battery life on iOS and it’s good to see fixes being released to address them.

I’m going to reinstall the Facebook app and see how it goes.

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YouTube Announces ‘YouTube Red’ Subscription, Launching in the US First→

Earlier today, YouTube introduced Red, a new subscription option to watch ad-free videos, save them offline, and listen to them in the background:

On October 28, we’re giving fans exactly what they want. Introducing YouTube Red – a new membership designed to provide you with the ultimate YouTube experience.

YouTube Red lets you enjoy videos across all of YouTube without ads, while also letting you save videos to watch offline on your phone or tablet and play videos in the background, all for $9.99 a month. Your membership extends across devices and anywhere you sign into YouTube, including our recently launched Gaming app and a brand new YouTube Music app we’re announcing today that will be available soon.

YouTube Red will launch in the U.S. first on October 28 (with limitations if you leave the U.S.), and at $9.99 it’ll also include access to Google Play Music. Once it rolls out in more countries, there’s no way around it – it is a strong offering, and YouTube is big and loved enough to convince a lot of people to pay for ad removal and offline consumption.

I’m curious to see how their original content initiative will play out (here’s a full list of YouTube originals), not to mention the reaction of YouTubers to the altered deal (my prediction: every popular channel will end up accepting it).

Here’s a thought: should YouTube finally enable Picture in Picture on iOS 9 for Red subscribers? With official background play, it would make sense (the main problem would be cards being unavailable via Picture in Picture, though).

See also: Ben Popper’s story at The Verge, with feedback from YouTube creators.

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Emojipedia’s iOS 9.1 Emoji Overview→

Fantastic overview of all the new emoji in iOS 9.1 by Emojipedia’s Jeremy Burge:

In addition to emojis approved in Unicode 8.0 (mid-2015), iOS 9.1 also includes emoji versions of characters all the way back to Unicode 1.1 (1993) that have retroactively been deemed worthy of emoji presentation by the Unicode Consortium.

Every emoji that has been approved by Unicode is included in iOS 9.1; no matter how obscure, redundant, or outdated.

The article includes this bit about the Symbols category of the updated emoji keyboard:

Symbol emojis are grouped by color in iOS 9.1, which not only looks pleasant, but also makes finding the correct emoji easier.

Like millions of other people today, I’m having fun discovering the new emoji in iOS 9.1. Jeremy’s overview makes for a great starting point.

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Twitter Teases New Twitter for Mac Coming Soon→

At its Flight developer conference earlier today, Twitter showed a brand new version of Twitter for Mac – the company’s neglected desktop client – coming soon with a refreshed design and modern Twitter features. In addition to a revamped look (see screenshot above), the new app will include inprovements to Direct Messages in line with the mobile versions, such as group DMs and the ability to share photos and large emoji in private conversations. Also, the next Twitter for Mac seems to offer a dark mode.

Twitter for Mac has been ignored for a long time. Even if I’m not using my Mac as my primary computer anymore, I’m curious to see what Twitter – now under Jack Dorsey’s guidance (who was in an apologetic mood today) – does with it.

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OS X 10.11.1, watchOS 2.0.1 Also Released→

In addition to iOS 9.1, Apple has also released OS X 10.11.1 and watchOS 2.0.1 today. On both updates, there are a bunch of performance improvements and new emoji characters are supported. On watchOS, there are some welcome fixes: Apple has revolved a problem that prevented software updates from completing successfully, and it has fixed various issues that were impacting battery life.

Both software updates are available now for over-the-air installations.

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3D Touch: Beyond Peek & Pop→

Speaking of 3D Touch, Victor Baro has put together some examples of how the technology can be used to build custom controls on iOS 9:

Since I discovered 3D Touch, I have been thinking about new ways of interacting with the content. Peek & pop is a great interaction; but what I really want is to create my own controls.

We need to take into account that, because 3D touch is only available in iPhone 6S and 6S Plus, no action should be completed just by using this feature. The user should be able to achieve any action without using 3D touch (just like peek & pop does), and 3D touch should only provide an extra level of interaction.

It’s a technical read, but make sure to check out the demo videos. As 3D Touch trickles down to Apple’s entire lineup over the coming years, it seems obvious that these new types of interactions will become the new default.

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3D Touch Canvas Demo→

Nice demo by Lim Chee Aun, showing how you can use 3D Touch on the web in a simple drawing app:

This is a demo for 3D Touch on Mobile Safari on iPhone 6S and 6S Plus. It’s a simple line drawing app which you can use the force of the finger to control the width of the drawn line.

Mobile Safari on iOS 9 for iPhone 6S and 6S Plus introduces 3D Touch for web developers. The line drawing code is heavily inspired by (or copied from) @kangax’s 2013 article: Exploring canvas drawing techniques.

Make sure to apply different levels of pressure to get thicker lines. You can play around with the demo here.

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How Emoji Find Their Way to Phones→

Good explanation of how new emoji are approved and made available to modern devices by Jonah Bromwich at The New York Times:

In deciding which emojis to add, the Unicode Consortium considers factors including compatibility (if a pictorial symbol in broad use has not been translated into Unicode), and frequency of use (whether people will be interested in using a certain picture often enough to justify its existence).

Another factor is “completeness.” For instance, at one point, the group added a mosque, a synagogue and a generic place of worship to complement the Christian church symbol that was already included.

Side note: The New York Times pluralizes emoji as “emojis”, but I use “emoji” for both singular and plural variations. That seems to be Apple’s preference, too.

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Christina Warren Interviews Jony Ive→

Mashable’s Christina Warren sat down with Jony Ive, Vogue’s Anna Wintour, and Costume Institute Curator Andrew Bolton earlier this week to discuss fashion in the age of technology, Apple Watch, and more. From the interview:

Ive made an interesting observation about form and function. “What I’ve noticed is if something works but emotionally you don’t feel a connection — it’s ugly — you’ll use it, but you’ll use it begrudgingly and you’ll change at the first opportunity and you’ll build no relationship with the brand or the people behind it. And so you really have to be successful in both.”

Last week, Apple announced they will sponsor the 2016 ‘Fashion in an Age of Technology’ Met Gala.

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