Posts in Linked

Curator→

New app created by Daniel Nordh aimed at letting you organize notes visually. iPad-first, I’ve been trying Curator for the past week and it’s a nice version 1.0: sort of like Pinterest, but without social features and focused on collecting photos, text notes, and live websites that you can pin on your boards. Everything happens through drag & drop and the app looks good on iOS 7 and the Retina display.

If you want more, you can import images from Dropbox, Flickr, iOS photos, and more services using a built-in media picker based on Filepicker.io. Curator has essentially no learning curve, and I see it as the Vesper of Pinterest-like apps: it’s fast, easy to use, but it has no sync or advanced features for now. I’d recommend Curator to people who use an iPad as their primary computer and just need a simple app to organize the things they like without signing up for a web service or learning to use Evernote.

The business model is also interesting: the app is free, but there’s a $6.99 In-App Purchase if you want to create more than five boards.

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Reminders.app Tips and Tricks→

Reminders.app on OS X is somewhat limited and inconsistent, but for its simplicity offers a lot of possibilities. For many this is all they need to keep control of their tasks and reminders.

Sven Fechner has a nice list of tips, tricks, and links for the OS X Reminders app. I use Reminders every day through Fantastical 2 on my iPhone, but I have to rely on Apple’s apps on my iPad and MacBook Air. I would love to see better consistency between all platforms (just one example: clickable URLs in notes).

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Dropbox Teases iOS App Update with Business Integration→

From the Dropbox blog:

We thought about this from scratch and designed a solution we’re excited to share: connecting your personal Dropbox to your Dropbox for Business account. This’ll give you a personal Dropbox and a work Dropbox on all of your devices so you’ll never have to choose between them. It’ll be like having your house keys and your work keycard on the same keychain.

But this is about more than having two places for all your stuff. Take the mobile app — once you connect your Dropboxes, you’ll be able to get to both Dropbox folders from the same Files tab. Dropbox is also smart about making sure your stuff goes where it’s supposed to. For example, photos you add via Camera Upload will instantly show up in the Photos tab, but they’ll stay for your eyes only.

This is probably a smart choice considering that people tend to find a way to access their personal files on their work devices and vice versa, likely compromising the security standards required by IT departments in large businesses.

More interesting to me is the iOS 7 app update shown in the screenshots. I don’t know if Dropbox will manage to add the kind of functionality found in Boxie into the official client, but a new iOS 7 design and features (background fetch?) are needed.

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Monument Valley→

TechCrunch’s Natasha Lomas has a preview of ustwo’s next game for the iPad, Monument Valley. Inspired by the drawings of Dutch artist MC Escher and somewhat remiscent (based on the screenshots and announced mechanics) of Echochrome, the game is coming out in Q1 2014 and it’s going to be iPad-only at launch.

The work of M.C. Escher is great and popular because he found a way to describe geometric and spatial concepts through everyday elements like water, buildings and animals. I think what Monument Valley brings to the table is an exploration of how to bring an interactive, emotionally engaging experience to a wide audience through a set of simple mechanics and a world that feels at once familiar and fantastical,” Wong added.

Whale Trail by ustwo is one of the iPhone games I’ve spent the most time playing to date. I’m looking forward to Monument Valley.

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App Developers Can Now Generate 100 Promo Codes Per Release→

I saw some reports in my Twitter timeline this morning, and it does indeed look like Apple updated iTunes Connect to allow app developers to generate 100 promo codes for each release. Previously, the limit was set to 50 codes per app release; for years, developers have been asking (among other things) to see an increase in the amount of promo codes they can use to gift their apps to members of the press, friends, or other users.

The news hasn’t been confirmed on Apple’s Developer News website yet, but screenshots of the new promo code count have been posted by various developers. Based on my tests in iTunes Connect, the limit for book publishers is still set to 50.

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Recreating the Everpix Flashback→

Thomas Verschoren came up with a nice solution that uses Automator and Dropbox to replicate the Everpix Flashback feature without Everpix:

Now that Everpix is gone, I’m missing its daily flashback feature. I loved going into the app each morning and seeing images from the past year. Since there’s no alternative available, I decided to build my own Flashback feature based on my existing Dropbox photo-storage.

While there is no algorithm that can pick the “best” photos from any given day, it’s better than nothing and it relies on Automator, which is a built-in OS X tool. To replicate the daily reminders, I would suggest setting up a recurring item in the Reminders app with a link to the shared Dropbox folder, so that you’ll always be taken to a day’s flashback photos when clicking it.

After last week’s challenge on The Prompt, we have received some interesting scripts and ideas for workflows that recreate the Everpix Flashback. We’ll discuss the results on Wednesday, so, if you haven’t yet, you still have time to enter our “contest”.

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Does Mavericks’ Mail Update Fix Everything?→

Joe Kissell, in a follow-up to his original article on Mavericks and Gmail:

If you were holding off on upgrading to Mavericks because of the Mail problems, all I can say is that it’s safer now than it was at first. I can’t guarantee you a trouble-free experience, and without a doubt, some people upgrading from Mountain Lion will feel the new version of Mail is a distinct downgrade. It all depends on how you use Mail, and as we’ve seen, each person approaches it a bit differently from the next.

I’ll let you read Joe’s article to see what’s been fixed and which issues persist after Apple’s update. As I said earlier today, I’ve been fine with MailMate.

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