I’m a fan of Yahoo News Digest simply for the fact that it breaks me out of the tech news bubble in short spurts. The latest point update adds atoms for Weather and Statistics, new sharing options such as the ability to tweet Cover Posters, and a new “What You’ve Read” overview has been added that shows you a grid of what digests you’ve browsed through. Shown above, there’s also a little “Did you know?” section that now precedes extra articles in the app. Yahoo News Digest is free to download from the App Store.
Posts in Linked
Yahoo News Digest 1.1 Adds “What You’ve Read” and Other Improvements→
Macworld’s FAQ on Apple’s SSL Bug in Plain English→
On Friday, Apple issued what seemed at first to be a run-of-the-mill security update. According to the update’s initial documentation, the patch was supposed to “provide a fix for SSL connection verification.” But when Apple posted the patch’s security information to its website, the company revealed that the fix was for something quite serious: Without the patch, “an attacker with a privileged network position may capture or modify data in sessions protected by SSL/TLS.” That was hardly run-of-the-mill.
The next time your friends, family, or coworkers tell you that Apple has been hacked or if they ask you what’s going on, send them this article by Macworld. A few of the authors on the site put together some nice tidbits of information explaining what the SSL bug is, what’s vulnerable, and what you can do to secure your communications online. Update your iOS devices if you haven’t already, and use an alternate web browser on your Mac until a patch can be downloaded.
Memories Of Steve Jobs→
I’ve been following the work Jim has been doing with The Loop Magazine, and today they published an issue dedicated to Steve Jobs and his accomplishments. There’s a great list of writers in this issue:
I gathered together people that worked with Steve and those that were influenced by his extraordinary life. Former Apple executive, Richard Kerris, tells of introducing Jobs to The Rolling Stones to show off iTunes before it was released to the public; Don Melton, former head of the Safari team at Apple, tells of a number of interactions with Jobs; Industry analyst, Tim Bajarin, recounts how he watched Steve grow into the showman we all saw on stage; Actor Matthew Modine played John Scully in the recently released “Jobs” movie and talks about that experience; Matt Gemmell believes we’ve all met Steve through his work; and Jonathan Zufi talks about why he set out to photograph as many Apple products as he could to publish “Iconic,” a design book about Apple.
The Loop Magazine is available on iTunes.
WriteRight and Tag Journal→
Our thanks to WriteRight and Tag Journal for sponsoring MacStories this week. WriteRight and Tag Journal are two excellent apps for writers who want to enhance their writing workflows on iOS.
WriteRight is a unique text editor with synonyms, antonyms and phraseology. With support for Markdown and full iCloud and Dropbox integration, WriteRight lets you easily select words and expressions to check for synonyms/antonyms, choosing from a set of A4, Letter, and Manuscript previews with colored folders.
You can find out more about WriteRight for iPhone/iPad here.
Tag Journal is a complete diary to record your thoughts and ideas with photos, videos and sound recordings. Tag Journal supports Markdown for fast text entry and formatting, and you can add multiple photos per entry. Entry/note merging helps and speeds up your writing workflow, and notes can be shared on Facebook, Twitter, iMessages, Mail, or as PDF.
You can find out more about Tag Journal for iPhone/iPad here.
Federico’s note: I personally use WriteRight (which was developed in Italy and the US) when I write on my iPad, and I truly enjoy the app’s feature set for synonyms and antonyms that lets me quickly replace an active selection in the text editor with other words.
Releasing Games Through Apple, Valve, Nintendo And Sony’s Digital Storefronts→
Swedish indie development studio Image & Form has released games for iOS, Nintendo devices, and Steam; next month, they will release Steamworld Dig for PS Vita and PlayStation 4. CEO Brjann Sigurgeirsson spoke to Edge about the differences between digital storefronts, suggesting that Apple could do a better job at selecting and working with indies:
The developer’s experience with Apple – or rather, the lack of it – suggests that the App Store’s greatest strength is also its greatest weakness. “So many games are coming out every day and the largely DIY submission procedures are so effective that it’s impossible for Apple to keep up personal relations,” says Sigurgeirsson. “A year and a half after having released a Game of the Week I met my first Apple representative in person, and many developers probably couldn’t tell you who ‘their’ person is. The ‘right’ Apple e-mail addresses used to be hard currency, real bargaining chips.”
In throwing its doors open and welcoming all comers, Apple has made it easy for developers to release a game, certainly, but perhaps it’s too easy right now. Sigurgeirsson would like to see Apple raise the entry level to the App Store – “make it a tiny bit harder to become a licensed developer, so that the average quality of the games goes up,” he says.
The Prompt: An Isolated Experiment→
After recovering from the news about Facebook’s purchase of WhatsApp, Stephen and Federico discuss the problems users face while using Apple’s App Stores.
In this week’s episode of The Prompt, we started a mini-series about the App Store’s problems for developers and users, discussing possible solutions for search, discovery, and curation. Get the episode here.
Apple Expands Two-Step Verification To New Countries→
Jordan Kahn:
Back in May of last year, a long list of readers in countries around the world reported having access to Apple’s two-step verification security feature for their Apple ID. Shortly after the news broke, the feature disappeared in many countries signaling it had been launched prematurely. The only officially supported countries listed on Apple’s website included the “U.S., UK, Australia, Ireland, and New Zealand.” However, today the feature has appeared in several new countries including Canada, France, Germany, Japan, Italy, & Spain.
Apple’s list of compatible international carriers for SMS verification is available here. I just enabled two-step verification for my Italian account, and everything worked right away without any issues.
See also: our guide from last year on enabling two-step verification for your Apple ID.
Fleksy Launches SDK for iOS Developers→
Fleksy is an alternative keyboard for iOS that I first tested when Launch Center Pro, an initial partner, implemented it a few months ago. Within the limitations of iOS, Fleksy provides a different typing experience that can be faster than Apple’s default keyboard.
Today, Fleksy has opened up their SDK for any iOS developer to implement in their apps. The public SDK allows apps to feature colorful keyboards (there are themes) and a button in the Copy & Paste menu to quickly switch to the Fleksy keyboard. These system replacements are much more useful on Android because they can be activated anywhere in the OS, and it’ll be interesting to see how many iOS apps will add support for Fleksy as a user option.
Check out the Fleksy SDK here.
WhatsApp: The Inside Story→
From an excerpt of David Rowan’s profile of WhatsApp, which was acquired today by Facebook:
We’re the most atypical Silicon Valley company you’ll come across,“ says Acton, a clean-cut, red-faced 42-year-old from Michigan, whose appearance contrasts markedly with Koum’s 188cm-tall, dark, unshaven look. “We were founded by thirtysomethings; we focused on business sustainability and revenue rather than getting big fast; we’ve been incognito almost all the time; we’re mobile first; and we’re global first.” He and Koum, he adds, are “the yin and yang – I’m the naïve optimist, he’s more paranoid. I pay attention to bills and taxes, he pays attention to our product. He’s CEO. I just make sure stuff gets done.
One of the reasons WhatsApp worked was its simplicity. There was no “bloat”, as the WhatsApp co-founders told Wired. That’s not a concept that’s usually associated with Facebook.