Posts in Linked

A Watch Guy’s Thoughts On The Apple Watch→

The Apple Watch can take an integrated strap or bracelet, or one with wire lugs. It totally changes the look of the watch, and swapping them couldn’t be any easier. Changing straps is one thing, but the attention to detail on the straps and bracelets themselves is downright incredible, and when I mentioned above that nothing comes close in this price range, it is very visible when talking about straps.

I’ve argued that the Apple Watch is first and foremost a watch. Benjamin Clymer has a great analysis of Apple’s announcement from the perspective of a “watch guy” with a deep expertise in this field.

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Apple Watch Dimensions→

Apple didn’t announce a lot of specs of the Apple Watch besides the 2 different face sizes. There’s a 42 mm one and a 38 mm one. Thickness or screen size are nowhere to be found in Apple’s marketing material.

Based on the 42 mm Watch and several images on Apple’s website I did some measurements to determine some of the specs we don’t know yet.

Nice work by Paul Sprangers. To me, the watch looks as thick as many other watches in that price range on the market today. It’s interesting to imagine how this could look in four years (think original iPhone to iPhone 4).

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Supertop Buys Unread→

Great news for Unread fans: Supertop, the makers of Castro, have acquired the app from Jared Sinclair and will continue to develop it going forward.

Jared writes:

Supertop, the folks behind Castro — my favorite podcast app — are the new home for Unread, the RSS reader for iPhone and iPad that you have probably heard of by now. I am really happy for this news. Since I moved on to my new job at Bloglovin, Unread had become something akin to a beloved but grumpy family dog in a home with a fragile new baby. It’s better for everyone that Unread has moved on to a new home: better for me, for Supertop (obviously), and most of all for Unread’s users.

From the Supertop blog:

Unread makes an excellent companion to our podcast app, Castro. Both apps are news/entertainment focused, share similar design goals and even rely on the same underlying feed technology. We are grateful to Jared for trusting us with the future of Unread and look forward to developing and refining both of these apps for years to come.

Unread is a fantastic app, and I hope that Supertop will soon add a native share sheet and better cache management. You can read my original review of Unread here.

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iPhone 6 Screens Demystified→

Few days ago, Apple introduced iPhone 6 Plus. The new iPhone substantially changes the way graphics are rendered on screen. We’ve made an infographic to demystify this.

Over the past two days, I’ve seen a lot of designers and developers ask questions about the new screens in the iPhone 6. The folks at PaintCode have posted a useful guide to understand the new resolutions. I’d be curious to know how the Display Zoom feature works, though.

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Connected: Stabbed By a Glass Corner→

This week, the boys tackle the new iPhones, Apple Pay and Apple’s entry into the wearable market with Apple Watch.

More thoughts on the Apple Watch (in addition to this), plus my current doubts about which iPhone and iPad to buy this Fall. Get the episode here.

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iOS 8 App Marketing Checklist→

Is your app ready for iOS 8? Have you updated it and added all the great functionality iOS 8 provides? That sounds great, but what should you do next? There are a few helpful (I hope) tips that I’m going to share.

Solid series of tips by Readdle’s Denys Zhadanov.

I’ll add these:

  • Use Tokens for promo codes;
  • Get in touch with the press early to give them (us) time to properly test apps and prepare coverage;
  • Consider Vine videos as a way to create easily shareable and digestible previews of new features in your app (see);
  • If you’re working on iOS 8 extensions, get in touch with other developers and try to figure out possible bugs together.
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The Hidden Structure of the Apple Keynote→

One of Apple’s most successful products—which rarely gets recognized as such—is made not of aluminum and glass, but of words and pictures. The Apple keynote is the tool the company uses a few times a year to unveil its other products to millions of people.

To understand their hidden structure, Quartz reviewed more than a dozen Apple keynotes, logging and analyzing key elements. Here’s what we found.

Dan Frommer collected interesting data about Apple keynotes over at Quartz. Good preparation for tomorrow.

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Mac Menu Bar Apps→

Ask any Mac power user about their menubar and you’ll get a different list of 5-10 must-have applications and utilities that boost productivity. The menubar is the mission control of a user’s computer, giving them an at-a-glance view of stats and apps that are important to them. The menubar can become so crowded, in fact, that’s there’s a menubar app that collects menubar apps. So meta.

Speaking of OS X features that haven’t been ported to iOS, Zach Hamed published an interesting look at the history of Mac menu bar apps last month.

As his images show, the landscape of menu bar apps is a jungle of different sizes, interfaces, keyboard shortcuts, and colors. It’s no surprise that Apple is setting strict and specific guidelines with iOS 8 widgets – admittedly, the closest thing to menu bar utilities we’ll soon get on our iPhones and iPads.

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