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Newton: Supercharged Email [Sponsor]

Newton rethinks email from the ground up. That starts with a rock-solid foundation. Newton works with all your email accounts whether they’re based on IMAP, Gmail, iCloud, Office 365, or another platform and syncs with all your devices.

Built on top of that foundation are cutting-edge features you expect from a modern email client. You can also schedule messages to be sent later and let Newton clean up your inbox by putting things like newsletters to the side until you have time to look at them. Other key functionality includes calendar integration, the ability to save email messages to Evernote, Trello, Todoist, Pocket, and other apps, read receipts, undo send, snoozing messages, and sender profiles, so you know more about the people with whom you interact.

With its latest update, Newton is taking email to a new level by re-imagining the inbox. Traditional email’s folder system meant you had to leave your inbox and go to the Sent folder to find the latest messages you’d sent. With True Inbox, Newton treats sent messages more like chat apps displaying them in your inbox even before someone responds to you. Conversations are sorted by activity when you reply too, so they float to the top of your inbox. Finally, every message can be found in just one place.

Harness the power of Newton to get control of your email once and for all. Download Newton today and start your free 14-day trial immediately.

Thanks to Newton for sponsoring MacStories this week.

Apple Q2 2018 Results: $61.1 Billion Revenue, 52.2 Million iPhones, 9.1 Million iPads Sold

Apple has just published its financial results for Q2 2018. The company posted revenue of $61.1 billion, an increase of 16% from the year-ago quarter. Apple sold 9.1 million iPads, 52.2 million iPhones, and 4.1 million Macs during the quarter.

“We’re thrilled to report our best March quarter ever, with strong revenue growth in iPhone, Services and Wearables,” said Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO. “Customers chose iPhone X more than any other iPhone each week in the March quarter, just as they did following its launch in the December quarter. We also grew revenue in all of our geographic segments, with over 20% growth in Greater China and Japan.”

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AppStories, Episode 53 – In Search of Apple TV Apps→

On this week’s episode of AppStories, we cover how we use the Apple TV and highlight a handful of notable Apple TV apps.

Sponsored by:

AppStories+ Deeper into the world of apps

AppStories Episode 53 - In Search of Apple TV Apps

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AppStories+ Deeper into the world of apps

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CardioBot: Heart Rate and Activity Tracker for Apple Watch [Sponsor]

Make sense of the heart rate data the Apple Watch collects with CardioBot. The Apple Watch measures your heart rate throughout the day. In fact, the Watch captures your heart rate every four minutes. That adds up to a lot of data very quickly. With CardioBot’s beautifully-designed charts and graphs, understanding what it all means is easy.

Collecting data is simple. The hard part is recognizing patterns in the data that help you make healthy lifestyle choices. CardioBot, which has been featured in the App Store in over 85 countries, combines heart rate data collected throughout the day, workout data, and sleep analysis to provide you with a comprehensive dashboard that includes data for individual days, detailed timelines, and day-over-day comparisons. The app also categorizes your heart rate data into low, resting, high-resting, and elevated levels assigning a separate color to each making it simple to spot trends.

Just this past week, CardioBot was updated to support Heart Rate Variability (HRV) analysis. HRV is the the variation in intervals between heartbeats. It’s believed that high HRV readings are good and that an increasing HRV trend indicates improved fitness, whereas declining HRV can indicate overtraining and accumulated fatigue. With its all-new HRV tracking, CardioBot has even more tools to track your fitness and health, which makes it a must-have addition to your iPhone and Apple Watch.

CardioBot is available on the App Store for just $2.99.

Our thanks to CardioBot for sponsoring MacStories this week.

Google Launches New ‘Tasks’ App for iPhone

Google Tasks is a service many Google users may be unfamiliar with. Historically it’s been a somewhat hidden feature of Gmail and Google Calendar, but today alongside a redesign of Gmail, Google is helping Tasks break out and receive slightly better treatment with the launch of a new iPhone app.

I have to say up front: if this app wasn’t a Google property, tied to an existing Google service, it likely wouldn’t merit much attention. Essentially it’s a barebones home for task lists, with a couple small task manager-like functions. Each task you create can include additional details in a note area, be assigned a due date, and can include embedded subtasks. And that’s basically it. You can create multiple lists to store your tasks, but there’s not even a smart list that consolidates all your tasks containing due dates.

Ultimately, this is an extremely lightweight task manager that makes Apple’s Reminders, its closest analog, seem like a heavy duty task powerhouse by comparison. Rita El Khoury of Android Police sums it up well in her take on the Android app:

https://twitter.com/dcseifert/status/989144268005658624

I struggle to see who Tasks is for with this first version, and hope it’s quickly iterated upon. If you’re deeply invested in the Google ecosystem, and have very minimal task needs, but want something integrated with Google’s other products, I guess Tasks could be for you. But only on the iPhone; there’s no iPad version at this time.

Google Tasks is available as a free download on the App Store.

Google Launches Major Gmail Redesign

Today, Google announced a long list of updates to Gmail. The new features, which are beginning to roll out worldwide are focused primarily on security, artificial intelligence, and the incorporation of modern email features, some of which were first tested in the company’s Inbox app.

Google has addressed phishing with new, prominent warnings in the Gmail update. For sensitive information, Google is adding a ‘confidential mode’ in the coming weeks that will let users set expiration dates for messages and even revoke previously-sent messages. Google is also implementing per-message level two-factor authentication, which requires authentication via text message. Finally, users will be able to preclude message recipients from forwarding, copying, downloading, or printing messages.

Google is adding AI-powered functionality to Gmail. Nudging is a feature that will remind you of messages you haven’t responded to yet, so they don’t get lost. Gmail is also adding quick replies, which suggest responses based on the contents of the messages you receive.

The web interface of Gmail is getting several new features too. There’s a sidebar on the right-hand side of the screen for quick access to several Google apps and Gmail Add-Ons from third parties. A hover-over menu lets users RSVP to meeting invitations, archive message threads, and snooze messages. You can also view attachments without opening the message to which a document is attached. A new offline mode is available too, which will be a welcome addition for travelers when an Internet connection is unavailable.

Most of the changes to Gmail are to its web interface, but a couple of changes are coming to Gmail’s mobile apps in the coming weeks including high-priority notifications that only notify users of important messages and a one-tap unsubscribe feature.

Many of the new Gmail features are being rolled out globally in phases, so you may not see them right away. Google says others will be available in the upcoming weeks. Individual Gmail users can check the Settings menu for the updates and pick ‘Try the new Gmail’ to activate the new functionality. If you use G Suite, the new functionality can be turned on by participants in the G Suite Early Adopter Program from the Admin console.

Clean Up Your Inbox Today (and Keep It That Way Forever) with SaneBox [Sponsor]

What if you had someone who would sort through your email and find only the important messages? That is exactly what SaneBox does. After you set it up, SaneBox leaves your important messages in your inbox and moves the rest to a SaneLater folder for reviewing later. That initial inbox purge is powerful because it reduces your inbox to a manageable number of messages. With additional training to tell SaneBox what’s important to you, it only gets better at dealing with the daily deluge of messages.

There’s much more to SaneBox than shuffling unimportant messages into a designated folder, though. If there’s something you never want to see ever again, send it to the SaneBlackHole, which is much easier than unsubscribing to unwanted messages.

You can also set up SaneReminders by sending messages to an address that sends a reminder to you at a later date if the recipient of your message hasn’t responded after a certain amount of time. Or forward messages to SaneReminders to have them pop back into your inbox at a later date when you are ready to deal with them.

SaneBox works on top of your existing email setup. There’s no app to download or new email account to set up. It all works server-side so you can use any email client you want.

Sign up today for a free 14-day SaneBox trial to take back control of your email. MacStories readers can receive a special $25 credit automatically by using this link to sign up.

Our thanks to SaneBox for sponsoring MacStories this week.

Apple Marks Earth Day with Donations, Daisy the Recycling Robot, and an Apple Watch Challenge

Apple has issued a press release announcing that from today through April 30th, the company will make a donation to Conservation International for each device turned in for recycling through Apple’s GiveBack program. The company also took the opportunity to introduce Daisy, its next-generation iPhone recycling robot.

Through Apple GiveBack, devices can be recycled in person at an Apple Store or using apple.com. In exchange for eligible devices, customers will receive in-store credit or an Apple gift card and Apple will donate to Conservation International, which:

…uses science, policy and partnerships to protect the natural world people rely on for food, fresh water and livelihood. Founded in 1987, the organization works in more than 30 countries on six continents to ensure a healthy, prosperous planet.

Apple introduced the world to its iPhone disassembly robot dubbed ‘Liam’ in 2016. According to Apple, its successor Daisy:

…is the most efficient way to reclaim more of the valuable materials stored in iPhone. Created through years of R&D, Daisy incorporates revolutionary technology based on Apple’s learnings from Liam, its first disassembly robot launched in 2016. Daisy is made from some of Liam’s parts and is capable of disassembling nine versions of iPhone and sorting their high-quality components for recycling. Daisy can take apart up to 200 iPhone devices per hour, removing and sorting components, so that Apple can recover materials that traditional recyclers can’t — and at a higher quality.

Apple’s press release includes a video showcasing Daisy in action too.

Finally, notifications are being sent to Apple Watch users today announcing an Earth Day fitness challenge. Users who complete a 30-minute workout this Sunday, April 22nd will earn a special badge in the Apple Watch and iOS Activities apps and iMessage stickers.

Dropbox iOS App Receives Drag and Drop Support, Fullscreen iPad Navigation

The latest version of Dropbox for iOS includes some nice improvements, the most noteworthy of which is drag and drop support.

Now if you need to add files to your Dropbox from another app, you can just pick them up and drop them right into the Dropbox app in exactly the folder you want. Equally exciting to me personally is that you can also use drag and drop for file management inside the app – just tap and hold on a file or folder and it will lift from its place, letting you drag it around and move it to other locations inside the app. I’ve always felt Dropbox’s method of moving files required too many taps, so drag and drop is a perfect solution for that. Also, I’m happy to report that file moving via drag and drop works on both iPad and iPhone.

Drag and drop capabilities have technically been available already for Dropbox users via managing your documents in Apple’s Files app, but if you need or simply prefer to use Dropbox’s own app, these are great features to have.

Another change in today’s update is that on the iPad, you can now close the file previewing pane to get a fullscreen browsing experience with your files – just hit the X in the upper left portion of the preview pane to get fullscreen navigation. I find that this feature is especially helpful when you’re using the grid view for files, but it could also be of benefit in list view if you have a lot of long file names that will no longer be truncated.

The app’s release notes also state that there is improved previewing and new text editing abilities for more than 120 file extensions, but the specifics of those extensions are unknown. I was hoping one of them would be Markdown (.md) files, but unfortunately those still can’t be edited in-app.

Despite the fact that Dropbox users can now do most document management inside the Files app, Dropbox continues to improve its app and make it a solid option for those who prefer not to use Files.