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The Later Box→

An interesting workflow by Jeff Hunsberger:

What Mailbox pointed out to me is that I need is a Later box. A place to stick emails that I don’t want jamming up my Inbox but I really do need to act on “later”. Ideally, the number of emails flagged in this way should be relatively few. If it is more than a handful, it is probably pointing to a different kind of problem – the last thing I need is an interim archive. I need two things – a place to hold emails until I return to my Mac and the discipline and discernment to act on them when I get there.

I like the idea of using Keyboard Maestro to automatically put emails back in the Inbox every day. I use Triage on a daily basis now, but I’m curious to see how Mailbox will change under Dropbox.

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There’s an Ad for That→

A good take by Harry Marks on the differences between Apple and Samsung ads. You know where I stand.

Towards the end, I especially liked this bit:

It’s been rumored that iOS 7 is going to bring a drastic overhaul to the UX, including a new home screen and enhanced features. This will inevitably bring a level of complication users haven’t had to deal with yet. Seeing as how this is Apple we’re talking about, I doubt these updated bells and whistles will be difficult to trigger, but there will most likely be a bit of a learning curve in the beginning. Every familiar paradigm starts out as something new and unknown.

I don’t know how much ads can be an effective teaching tool for users, but I agree: there will be a new learning curve, but some changes are necessary.

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Rovio Introduces “Rovio Accounts” For Syncing Game Progress→

Rovio:

Some of you may have noticed a new feature in your Rovio games called Rovio Account. Our fans have been asking for a way to play their game on different phones or tablets without losing their progress when changing the device. This is exactly what Rovio Account lets you do!

Another developer who ends up shipping an in-house implementation that doesn’t rely on iCloud or Game Center. For Rovio, I guess that cross-platform syncing was also an important factor to consider.

More details are available in the FAQ.

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Pocket Adds Drafts Sharing→

After an update that added support for Quotebook, Pocket for iOS has been updated today to let users send text to Agile Tortoise’s Drafts.

In the current implementation, the app will send an article’s title and shortened URL if no text is selected; if there is a text selection, Pocket will send quoted text and shortened URL to Drafts. I like it, but I wish there was a setting to send the shared link with its original, non-shortened URL.

I’m very glad Pocket added Drafts integration. In this way, you can tweak my Evernote workflows to, say, append bits of text to a single note.

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Messages.app Primer→

A useful collection of tips for Messages for Mac by Amit Jain. I’ve always thought there wasn’t a way to add new lines or switch between conversations, so I’m glad Amit put together this post.

Unfortunately, these tips don’t fix Messages’ problems with memory usage and out-of-sync conversations – which I have been experiencing since the app’s first release.

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Mojang Sells 10 Million Copies of Minecraft - Pocket Edition→

Not only is Minecraft - Pocket Edition listed as one of Apple’s All-Time Top Paid Apps for both the iPhone and iPad on the App Store, Mojang has been announcing their own incredible milestones this month. Following an astounding 10 million copies of the PC edition sold at the beginning of April, Mojang wrote on their blog Monday that the company has sold 10 million copies of Minecraft - Pocket Edition across mobile platforms. “We are very thankful to all the support that we have gotten and people playing and talking about our game,” Daniel Kaplan wrote. “We have been working hard on restructuring the backend of a lot of things for Minecraft – Pocket Edition to make future updates smoother.”

Minecraft - Pocket Edition feels very much like Minecraft its beta days, giving players a choice between simpler creative and survival modes. Mojang plans to continue updating the mobile edition of the popular franchise, with the company preparing to release Minecraft Realms as a multiplayer component by the end of May. Realms is a cloud service that will let players easily create their own Minecraft servers for friends and family, giving small groups of players an easy way to play together. For Minecraft - Pocket Edition on iOS, Mojang plans on letting players rent server space through an IAP subscription, which only hosts will have to pay.

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Goalie for HockeyApp→

Goalie is a $9.99 app that developers can use to manage their HockeyApp accounts on the iPhone.

I’m not a developer, but I use HockeyApp on a daily basis to install betas of apps I’m trying, and I know how the service works. So I asked for a test account, and played around with Goalie. The feature set is solid: you can view all your apps, get stats on versions (such as installs and crashes), view crash groups and full crash logs, manage team members, and even access the feedback area where you can delete or reply to threads. If you’ve been looking for a way to manage HockeyApp on the go, I think Goalie deserves a look. Make sure to check out the app’s website for screenshots and details.

Goalie is $9.99 on the App Store.

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