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How iPads Are Changing the Way We Visit Museums→

Good story by Thomas McMullan on how iPads are changing the way we visit museums:

The majority of these projects have a distinct focus on children. Is it simply easier to convince kids to use iPads and apps in a museum? “Yes,” says Rice. “I can’t tell you how blown away I was by these kids. I think kids are totally comfortable with the technology, and I also suspect that they’re more disciplined than adults in looking around. Whereas the adults tend to look at their phones, kids are more willing to do what feels right at the time.”

Unrelated to iPads, but fascinating (especially given this week’s events): Satoru Iwata interviews Shigeru Miyamoto on the Nintendo 3DS Louvre guide.

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Diet Coda Relaunches as Coda for iOS→

The excellent Diet Coda for iOS (which I first covered three years ago) has been relaunched by Panic as Coda for iOS today, bringing a new iPhone version, support for Panic Sync, and tons of other enhancements that make this a desktop-class text editor and file manager for web developers.

As I noted on Twitter, I’m no developer, but Coda feels exactly like the type of app we need on iOS. A full-featured iOS counterpart – not a “remote” or “companion” app – that brings over features that make sense on iOS and that can be even better because of the portability of an iPhone or iPad. While not everyone will always manage a site completely from iOS, such goal doesn’t sound ridiculous anymore, and I’m glad that Panic has brought Coda back and made it more powerful in the process. Between this and OmniFocus 2.6, it’s been a good week for productivity software on iOS.

Coda for iOS is $9.99, but a free update for old Diet Coda customers. Great deal.

(Please note: the tweet above is sarcastic.)

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Safari View Controller as Onboarding Tool→

Cluster’s Rizwan Sattar has been playing around with Safari View Controller on iOS 9, and he discovered that it can be used as an onboarding tool to make users sign up for web accounts in apps more easily:

In the past I always worried about building a seamless first-time experience for our users. None of the “magic” solutions felt elegant.

Using a hidden Safari View Controller to help identify your user removes user confusion and makes your app feel magical when users use it for the first time.

The videos show how much of a difference using Safari View Controller for authentication in the background makes compared to existing solutions. Even if the background method used by Sattar stopped working, the automatic login and dismissal flow (second video) seems magic compared to shared web credentials with iCloud Keychain, which is already very useful (I love it, for instance, in Junecloud’s Deliveries). Yet another reason why we should keep an eye on Safari View Controller and hope it’ll be widely adopted on iOS 9.

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New iPod Benchmarks and Notes→

Over at TechCrunch, Matthew Panzarino was able to run some tests on the newly updated iPod touch. Unsurprisingly, the device appears to be underclocked when compared to the iPhone 6 but has 1 GB of RAM. I noted this morning that the iPod touch would make for a decent test device, but I wonder if performance differences in CPU could be a problem there (I don’t think so – unless there are some graphically intensive apps that really push the A8 to the very limit?).

9to5Mac points out that the iPod touch comes with Bluetooth 4.1 – a first for Apple (the iPhone 6 has Bluetooth 4.0). The updated standard will likely be adopted on new iPhones in the Fall as it has some interesting upgrades for communication between LTE and Bluetooth radios, but it also includes changes for connected “Internet of Things” devices – perhaps Zac has a point when he envisions the iPod as a smart home remote.

Last, we noted this morning that the refreshed iPod nano doesn’t feature an updated user interface to match the post-iOS 7 era of design at Apple. John Gruber has heard the reason why that might be the case, and it’s quite sad.

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Apple Watch Workouts and Water→

Craig Hockenberry has published an in-depth report on the capabilities of Apple Watch while swimming in the Pacific ocean:

After the watch shipped, I discovered that I wasn’t the only person interested in the watch’s ability to be used during swim workouts. Ray Maker at the DC Rainmaker blog did a series of tests, including diving off a 10 meter (33 foot) platform and 40 meter (130 foot) pressure test. The Apple Watch passed these tests with flying colors, and along with the research below, I was convinced I wouldn’t have any problems. So far, that analysis has proven correct.

I suspect that the watch’s water resistance has been undersold by Apple just like battery life: it’s better to under-promise and over-deliver. Still, it’s a personal decision on whether you want to ignore Apple’s recommendation. You’re not likely to get much sympathy at any subsequent trips to the Genius Bar.

Now that we know the Apple Watch can go in the water, how does it work while submerged?

There’s a lot of interesting data in this post and some good ideas for how controlling workouts on the Watch could be improved in future versions of watchOS. It definitely seems like Apple hasn’t added proper support for swim workouts because they don’t want to advertise the device as being completely waterproof yet.

See also: Dr. Drang on stress corrosion cracking and Apple Watch.

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Beats 1 Schedule Calendar→

Created by Marc Boquet, this is an unofficial calendar for the schedule of Apple Music’s Beats 1. You can subscribe by visiting the link above on your Mac and iOS device, and then you’ll be able to check the schedule of upcoming shows directly from your calendar app of choice. Obviously, because this is an unofficial calendar, keep in mind that it may be subject to changes and inconsistencies.

Via Zac Cichy, who has been enjoying the ability to view the Beats 1 schedule on his Apple Watch. Handy, indeed.

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Jason Snell’s Hands On with Photos for Mac 1.1→

Good overview by Jason Snell on the new features coming with Photos 1.1 in El Capitan. Improvements to geotagging caught my attention, primarily because batch-editing of hundreds of files works best on a Mac:

Yes, in Photos 1.1 you can add a location to an image or batch of images that weren’t geotagged, as well as edit the location of data of already-geotagged images. To do this, you open the Inspector window. A not-yet-geotagged image will offer a section of the window labeled Assign a Location. Clicking in this area will let you enter a street address or a name of a point of interest, and Photos will search Apple’s Maps database. If that location isn’t good enough for you, you can always click on the pin and drag it around the map, placing it wherever you like.

See also: Jason’s first look at the El Capitan public beta for Macworld.

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Jonathan Poritsky: “Apple Music Connect Is Too Good to Waste on Artists”→

Jonathan Poritsky has a thought on Connect in Apple Music:

Artists postings thus far have been less than stellar. I think Apple has made a massive mistake billing Connect as a place to follow musicians. Connect is actually a wonderful service being squandered by Apple. The things that Apple is expecting artists to post just aren’t that interesting. Links to their own music and original photos or videos are relatively weak sauce, and the posts have been few and far between for most artists.

However, Connect is great for sharing exactly what I came to the Music app for: music. The trouble is most artists aren’t posting music; they’re promoting themselves in a fairly bland manner. I’ve found the best people to follow are DJs and performers with shows on Beats 1, as well as Apple’s in-house “curators.”

What he envisions is dangerously close to what Ping used to be, but the difference of following curators for updates on playlists could be key. I’ve also noticed that most artists on Connect tend to simply post links to their YouTube videos (often shortened to track clicks), so this is an interesting idea.

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Connected: Bingo Machine for Schedules→

This week, the guys talk about Stephen “going indie,” Apple Music, and Federico’s second Apple Watch.

A good episode of Connected this week, with more thoughts on Apple Music a week after its launch and some questions for Stephen on his future workflow. You can listen here.

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