Posts in Linked

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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Inside Apple’s Spaceship Headquarters→

Kyle Vanhemert:

In these images, we see for the first time the space port-like entrance to the development’s subterranean parking lot, a cavernous cafeteria that spills into the grassy landscape beyond, and the glass pavilion that will serve as the entrance to Apple’s new underground auditorium — a secure lair where press will gather for future product launches. In short, these documents give us the most complete picture of Apple’s new home yet, a campus that Steve Jobs himself thought had a shot at being “the best office building in the world.” Here’s a peek at life in the mothership.

Wired has obtained new renderings of Apple’s spaceship headquarters. The cafeteria looks like an Apple retail store; photo #6 gives you a good idea of the proportions of the massive building.

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PDFpen: Powerful All-Purpose PDF Editing Tool For Your Mac [Sponsor]→

Our thanks to Smile for sponsoring MacStories this week with PDFpen.

PDFpen is the premiere Mac app for editing PDFs to add signatures, text, and images, as well as make changes to correct typos. PDFpen can perform OCR (Optical Character Recognition) so that pictures of text in your document will be turned into real text that you can use. With support for cloud services, PDFpen can keep your documents available across OS X and iOS thanks to PDFpen for iPhone and iPad.

With version 6.1 of PDFpen, Smile added support for PDF stamps: you can now browse a library of standard business stamps (e.g. Approved, Confidential, Sign Here) to quickly apply to your documents without complex editing required. In this version, Evernote users can also save PDFs directly to Evernote Business notebooks.

PDFpenPro –  the advanced version of PDFpen – received some cool new features as well. The new version adds support for automatically detecting and creating form fields for an entire document (in addition to per page) and there’s a new “Create Links from URLs” command to detect and create links in a document.

PDFpen is available on the Smile Store and the Mac App Store. A free demo can be downloaded on the Smile site.

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Revolved→

Speaking of crafting apps, here’s one that I’ve been playing around for the past two weeks and that’s pretty impressive. Revolved, developed by Bartosz Ciechanowski, is a $0.99 iPad app that lets you draw lines and watch them turn into 3D shapes in real-time.

Even if you don’t have any particular artistic skills, it’s just cool to play with the app and see how the split-screen layout renders lines on the right as shapes on the left. The app has been built for iOS 7, so there’s minimal interface chrome getting in the way and you can focus on your creations with controls for curves, colors, and sharing.

Seriously fun and a unique concept. $0.99 on the App Store.

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