Posts in Linked

Adobe Marks World Emoji Day with Findings of Key Emoji Survey→

Today on World Emoji Day, Adobe has shared the results of its recent survey of 1,000 US emoji users:

Among the emoji users surveyed, the overwhelming majority use emojis to lighten the mood of conversations (93%) and show support to people (91%). Aligned with this finding, emoji users’ top three favorite emojis are ???? (#1), ❤️ (#2), ???? (#3). Interestingly, a majority (81%) of emoji users believe that people who use emojis are friendlier and more approachable.

The survey included participants ages 16-73 who use emoji at least weekly. The full report is interesting to explore, as it lists favorite emoji by users’ gender and the region of the US they live in. Across all tracked demographics, the laughing emoji was most-used, but the differences in runner-ups are well worth checking out.

Yesterday Apple got a head start on World Emoji Day by sharing a preview of its new emoji coming in iOS 13 this fall. Though there aren’t any obvious standouts that seem destined to achieve high levels of use, my personal favorites so far include the sloth and yawning face.

Permalink

Connected, Episode 251: The Worrier Warrior→

On last week’s episode of Connected:

Myke has a story about the beach, Federico has a plan for NFC stickers, and Stephen has some thoughts on this week’s MacBook news.

You can listen below (and find the show notes here).

AppStories+ Deeper into the world of apps
0:00
01:22:50

Connected, Episode 251

AppStories+ Deeper into the world of apps

Sponsored by:

  • Pingdom: Start monitoring your websites and servers today. Use offer code CONNECTED to get 30% off.
  • Astropad Studio: Turn your iPad into a professional graphics tablet. Get started today with a 30-day free trial.
  • ButcherBox: Thoughtfully sourced meat delivered directly to your door. Get free bacon for life.
Permalink

Adapt, Episode 5: Desktop-Class Safari and the Magic of OCR→

On last week’s episode of our iPad-focused show Adapt:

Safari is growing up this fall in iPadOS 13 to a true desktop-class browser, and Federico and Ryan detail everything that’s new; also, this week’s challenge involves using apps to perform OCR on a 400+ page PDF.

You can listen below (and find the show notes here), and don’t forget to send us questions using #AskAdapt and by tagging our Twitter account.

AppStories+ Deeper into the world of apps
0:00
01:05:38

Adapt, Episode 5

AppStories+ Deeper into the world of apps

Permalink

Video Game Narrative Design and Writing Science Fantasy Novels with Carrie Patel (Part 1)→

Today on Dialog, we are joined by video game narrative designer and novelist Carrie Patel. In this first part of our conversation, we explore narrative design in games Patel has worked on at Obsidian Entertainment, including Pillars of Eternity and The Outer Worlds, which is coming to consoles and PC in October.

In this installment of our conversation, Patel explains what narrative design is, how it fits into the video game development process, balancing gameplay and narrative, working collaboratively with a large team from different disciplines, and more. Next week, we’ll dive into Patel’s Recoletta trilogy of novels and how she balances the demands of writing books and working on video games.

You can find the episode here or listen through the Dialog web player below.

Sponsored by:

  • Astropad Studio – Turn your iPad into a professional graphics tablet. Get started today with a 30-day free trial.
  • Hullo – Your favorite pillow, guaranteed.
Permalink

AppStories, Episode 120 – Changes to Photos Coming in iOS 13 and Catalina→

On this week’s episode of AppStories, we take a close look at the upcoming changes to the Photos app on iOS and the Mac.

Sponsored by:

  • Secure Shellfish – Connect your servers and your apps.
  • Remote for Mac – Remote Control for Mac.
  • Linode: High-performance SSD Linux servers for all of your infrastructure needs. Get a $20 credit.
AppStories+ Deeper into the world of apps

AppStories Episode 120 - Changes to Photos Coming in iOS 13 and Catalina

0:00
45:00

↓

AppStories+ Deeper into the world of apps

Permalink

Apple Disables Walkie-Talkie App Due to Security Vulnerability→

Matthew Panzarino, writing for TechCrunch:

Apple has disabled the Apple Watch Walkie Talkie app due to an unspecified vulnerability that could allow a person to listen to another customer’s iPhone without consent, the company told TechCrunch this evening.

Apple shared an official statement with TechCrunch:

We were just made aware of a vulnerability related to the Walkie-Talkie app on the Apple Watch and have disabled the function as we quickly fix the issue. We apologize to our customers for the inconvenience and will restore the functionality as soon as possible. Although we are not aware of any use of the vulnerability against a customer and specific conditions and sequences of events are required to exploit it, we take the security and privacy of our customers extremely seriously. We concluded that disabling the app was the right course of action as this bug could allow someone to listen through another customer’s iPhone without consent. We apologize again for this issue and the inconvenience.

Panzarino rightfully points out the parallels of this issue with the highly-publicized FaceTime bug from earlier this year. The one key difference: whereas with the FaceTime bug, when it was reported by a user, Apple didn’t respond or take action until the problem received widespread media attention; with this Walkie-Talkie bug, Apple followed up on a customer’s report and addressed the issue seemingly before anyone else knew about it. Hopefully this is the sign of improved processes inside the company for handling serious bugs and vulnerabilities.

Permalink

AppStories, Episode 119 – You Downloaded What?→

On this week’s episode of AppStories, we look at our strange assortment of recently-downloaded apps.

Sponsored by:

  • Pingdom: Start monitoring your websites and servers today. Use offer code APPSTORIES to get 30% off.
  • Astropad Studio: Turn your iPad into a professional graphics tablet. Get started today with a 30-day free trial.
AppStories+ Deeper into the world of apps

AppStories Episode 119 - You Downloaded What?

0:00
34:10

↓

AppStories+ Deeper into the world of apps

Permalink

Connected, Episode 250: Tonight Will Be in the Future→

On this week’s episode of Connected:

Federico reminds everyone that it’s okay to not have strong feelings about Jony Ive leaving Apple, while Stephen feels tempted by iOS 13. Meanwhile, Eddy Cue talks about rumors of Tim Cook meddling with Apple TV+ scripts and Project Catalyst continues to make news.

You can listen below (and find the show notes here).

AppStories+ Deeper into the world of apps
0:00
01:25:39

Connected, Episode 250

AppStories+ Deeper into the world of apps

Sponsored by:

  • Squarespace: Make your next move. Enter offer code CONNECTED at checkout to get 10% off your first purchase.
  • Away: Thoughtful luggage for modern travel. Get $20 off a suitcase with promo code connected.
  • Astropad Studio: Turn your iPad into a professional graphics tablet. Get started today with a 30-day free trial.
Permalink

GoodNotes Transitioning Mac App to Catalyst→

Today on its blog GoodNotes shared that the upcoming macOS version of GoodNotes 5 would be based on the iPad app using Catalyst:

Earlier this year, we launched our all-new iOS app GoodNotes 5. It has been rewritten from scratch with a much more stable and flexible internal architecture, paving the way for the future of GoodNotes. Rewriting the iOS app also meant that we had to rewrite the MacOS companion because the new GoodNotes 5 was no longer compatible with the outdated existing Mac app. A lot of people were disappointed that we didn’t launch a Mac app together with the iOS version because they still had to stick with GoodNotes 4 if a Mac version was crucial to their workflow. Thanks to the hard work of our Mac team, we released an early-access version shortly after the iOS launch. This beta version is available for everyone who signs up for access. We shipped updates with new features and improvements on a regular basis and were almost ready to launch it publicly when Apple officially announced the start of “Project Catalyst” during their annual developer’s conference in June. It’s a framework that allows developers to bring their iPad apps to the Mac, with a relatively low effort. It still requires a lot of work to create a great Mac app but at least developers don’t have to rewrite significant portions of the code, as it was the case previously.

We believe that it is a great opportunity for us to unify the GoodNotes experience between iOS, iPadOS, and MacOS and will launch the new GoodNotes for Mac using Apple’s new framework.

GoodNotes is a noteworthy Catalyst app not just because it’s a very popular iPad app, but because it already has an existing Mac app. Catalyst makes the most sense for iPad apps that don’t currently have Mac counterparts, but GoodNotes’ plans demonstrate the advantages offered to other apps too. By adopting Catalyst and moving toward a more unified codebase, GoodNotes ensure that users on the Mac will never be left behind again, because new features can be developed and shipped on both iOS and macOS with little added effort.

Our John Voorhees, in his recent Catalyst story, listed GoodNotes as an example of a Mac app that’s fallen behind its iOS version feature-wise, so it’s great to find out that will change in the near future. The only real drawback, as noted in GoodNotes’ post, is that Catalyst apps will require macOS Catalina to run, so users on older versions of macOS won’t be able to download the new GoodNotes 5 for Mac.

Permalink