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Try a Mac Server with MacStadium [Sponsor]

MacStadium is the premier Mac hosting company that provides dedicated Mac hardware and private cloud. They have thousands of Macs in multiple data centers where your hardware is secure, always available, and supported by a full team of Mac experts.

In addition to an established Atlanta location, MacStadium has recently opened data centers in Dublin, Ireland and Las Vegas, NV. You might be familiar with Mac hosting in Las Vegas thanks to Macminicolo, which has been operating in that location for over a decade. MacStadium and Macminicolo merged earlier this year, joining forces as a single Mac hosting company with excellent uptime and technical support.

MacStories has been hosted on Macminicolo’s hardware for years now, and I can personally vouch for this service. It’s one of the best decisions I ever made for this website.

The best part is – MacStadium continues to find ways to improve their offerings, like their recently patented Mac Pro chassis sleds. Or if you don’t want to rent Mac hardware but send your own, you can do that too. There are plenty of use cases for Mac hardware as a remote server – whether it’s for personal backups, automation, continuos integration, or services like Plex.

The folks at MacStadium are running a new promo you can sign up for until August 28. You can trial a Mac mini in their data center for a full month at no cost. On the signup page for rental Mac minis you just choose the location, the hardware, and signup for the trial using coupon code “SPREADTHEWORD” and you’ll be all set.

You can go check out MacStadium’s latest promo here.

Our thanks to MacStadium for sponsoring MacStories this week.

Microsoft Office for iPhone Gets Drawing Support→

Tom Warren, writing for The Verge:

Microsoft was quick to optimize its Office suite of apps for the iPad Pro and Apple’s Pencil stylus, but the company held off on any inking support in Office for iPhone. Starting today, Microsoft is updating Word, Excel, and PowerPoint for iPhone to include a new drawing tab option. Just like the Windows and iPad variants, Office on iPhone will now let you use your finger to write, draw, and highlight documents.

Another great update for Word, Excel and PowerPoint on iOS.

Because space is limited on an iPhone screen, these drawing features are a little hidden. So in order to access these drawing features on the iPhone you’ll need to tap the icon on the top navigational bar that looks like an A with a pencil cutting through it. That will trigger a pop-up on the bottom half of the screen. From there, on the top-left of the pop-up should be a drop-down menu, tap that and choose “Draw”.

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Google’s Chrome Browser to Block Flash

Yesterday, Google announced that its Chrome browser will begin blocking Flash that runs in the background of webpages in September and make HTML5 the ‘default Chrome experience’ in December. According to Google:

Today, more than 90% of Flash on the web loads behind the scenes to support things like page analytics. This kind of Flash slows you down, and starting this September, Chrome 53 will begin to block it. HTML5 is much lighter and faster, and publishers are switching over to speed up page loading and save you more battery life. You’ll see an improvement in responsiveness and efficiency for many sites.
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In December, Chrome 55 will make HTML5 the default experience, except for sites which only support Flash.

It has been more than six years since Steve Jobs penned an open letter titled ‘Thoughts on Flash,’ in which he concluded:

Flash was created during the PC era – for PCs and mice. Flash is a successful business for Adobe, and we can understand why they want to push it beyond PCs. But the mobile era is about low power devices, touch interfaces and open web standards – all areas where Flash falls short.

The avalanche of media outlets offering their content for Apple’s mobile devices demonstrates that Flash is no longer necessary to watch video or consume any kind of web content. And the 250,000 apps on Apple’s App Store proves that Flash isn’t necessary for tens of thousands of developers to create graphically rich applications, including games.

New open standards created in the mobile era, such as HTML5, will win on mobile devices (and PCs too). Perhaps Adobe should focus more on creating great HTML5 tools for the future, and less on criticizing Apple for leaving the past behind.

Jobs’ open letter was controversial when it was published. In 2010, Flash was everywhere, serving much of the video on the web and acting as a platform for online gaming. HTML5 was making headway, but it was the clear underdog.

Adobe’s initial response to Jobs came from none other than Kevin Lynch, who was the CTO of Adobe in 2010, but is now a Vice President of Technology at Apple, leading the development of watchOS. Lynch announced that Adobe was shifting its focus away from the iPhone and iPad in favor of implementing Flash on Android and other mobile platforms.

Flash never got a firm foothold in the mobile world. Roughly eighteen months after Jobs’ open letter, Adobe abandoned Flash for mobile and began to embrace HTML5. Since then, HTML5 has been incorporated into many of Adobe’s products and Adobe has actively participated in its development. The decline of Flash on PCs has been slower, but is likely to accelerate given Chrome’s browser market share, which, according to NetMarketShare, exceeds 50%.

Chrome is notoriously hard on laptops’ battery life. In what struck me as a significant understatement, Google says that:

Aside from [being prompted to enable Flash on Flash-only sites], the only change you’ll notice is a safer and more power-efficient browsing experience.

In a consumer PC market dominated by laptops, better battery life and safety may be the ‘only’ benefits users will notice, but they are nonetheless significant.

Apple Responds to Australian Banks’ Request to Collectively Boycott and Negotiate Over Apple Pay

Late last week Apple made a preliminary submission to the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission in relation to the request for permission from various Australian banks to boycott Apple Pay and collectively negotiate with Apple. Apple’s submission is comparatively brief at just three pages, but it clearly highlights the approach Apple will take in opposing the banks’ request.

In its submission, Apple is quick to highlight the collective dominance of the banks in Australia which account for 66% of credit card balances in Australia, whilst characterising itself as the “new entrant to the Australian market” having only launched Apple Pay in November 2015.

The other angle of attack from Apple is more surprising, and in the submission it appears quite clear that Apple is asserting that the closed nature of the NFC antenna in the iPhone is pivotal to maintaining the security of its users.

Now they ask the ACCC for explicit permission to negotiate with Apple as a collective group. The goal of which is to force Apple and other third party providers to accept their terms, allow them to charge consumers that choose to use Apple Pay, and force Apple to undermine the security of its mobile payment service by opening access to the NFC antenna, placing at risk the consumer experience of a simple, secure, and private way to make payments in store, within, applications, or on the web.

Apple notes that it will make a further, more comprehensive submission, at a later date. But a key purpose of this prelimary submission was to persuade the ACCC that the banks should not be given any interim approval, and that the ACCC should take the “normal 6 month statutory period for assessment”.

A few other interesting tidbits from Apple’s submission:

  • Apple’s discussions with Australian banks in relation to Apple Pay began in “late 2014”. Apple Pay launched in the US in October 2014.
  • One of the applicant banks “has refused to even enter into a confidentiality agreement with Apple to allow for preliminary discussions about the terms under which it would participate in Apple Pay”.
  • Apple argues that “interim authorisation of a collective boycott will have a lasting and irreversible impact on the adoption of Apple Pay and other third party wallets, and the Australian payment market”.
  • Apple suggests that Apple Pay is not a competitive threat to the banks; “Unfortunately, and based on their limited understanding of the offering, the applicants perceive Apple Pay as a competitive threat”.
  • Apple writes “These banks want to maintain complete control over their customers”, I would wager the banks would say the exact same thing about Apple.

(via AFR)

Homescreen.me Adds Track, Follow and Notifications→

Homescreen.me, which we first covered in June, has today received a big update which significantly enhances the utility of the website. Préshit Deorukhkar writes:

Ever wondered how your Homescreen has evolved over time? What if you could go back in time and see which apps you were using a month ago? Well, now you can.

You can now browse all your Past Homescreens on the site. All the screenshots that you’ve uploaded since you signed up here are available for your perusal. So go ahead, take a trip down memory lane.

I love this feature, and although I’ve only uploaded four Home screens to Homescreen.me so far, I look forward to regularly uploading my Home screen and seeing how it changes over a longer period of time. I’m still hoping that the folks at Homescreen.me implement a reminder system that sends me an email once a month reminding me to upload a new Home screen. But until that happens, I’ve created a recurring reminder in Due.

The other big new feature to come to Homescreen.me is the ability to follow your favorite users. Home screens from the people you follow will appear on the Timeline page of Homescreen.me. Also, because Homescreen.me is a website that you may only visit occasionally, you’ll also get an email notification for when someone you follow posts a Home screen.

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Update to Apple Store App Adds Personalized Recommendations→

First rumored by Bloomberg last week, Apple has updated its Apple Store app to include personalized product recommendations that use customers’ buying history to make suggestions. Contrary to rumors, the recommendations are not part of a separate ‘For You’ tab in the Apple Store app. Instead, product recommendations and local Apple Store events are included under the app’s ‘Discover’ tab. In addition, Apple has unified the Apple Store iPhone and iPad apps into a single Universal app that is available to download free from the App Store.

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Modern Atlas, Your Travel Companion

Before I travel, I like to scout out a location to see what’s nearby. I don’t like to have a set schedule, but I do prefer to have a list of a few activities, sights, and restaurants in mind when I arrive somewhere. Modern Atlas, a new Universal app on iOS, is perfect for that. Whether you’re planning a trip, wandering around a new city, or just armchair traveling, Modern Atlas has a wealth of information and stunning photography that’s presented in a beautifully-designed app.

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1Password Adds Subscription Plan for Individuals

Last year, Agile Bits debuted a 1Password subscription plan for teams, which was followed by a family plan in February. So it only seems natural that today, Agile Bits added a subscription plan for individuals. Dave Teare, Agile Bits’ founder, writing on the company’s blog, lays out the unique features of the $2.99/month subscription:

Our new individual hosted service comes with everything you expect from 1Password, along with these new features:

  • Built-in automatic sync across all devices
  • Data loss protection
  • Web access to your data on 1Password.com
  • Item History for restoring deleted or changed items
  • Secure Document storage
  • Brand new multi-factor security model

In addition, an individual subscription includes 1Password on all platforms (even Android and Windows) and any updates during your subscription period at no additional cost. The main difference between the individual subscription and a family plan is that the individual plan does not include password and document sharing, permission controls, or account recovery for someone who gets locked out of their account.

Although Agile Bits now has three separate 1Password subscription plans, you can still license a copy of each app without signing up for a subscription if you prefer. The Mac app will remain $64.99 and the In-App Purchase that unlocks the Pro features of 1Password for iOS will remain $9.99. If you do decide to sign up for the individual subscription and do so before September 21st, 2016, you get the first six months free.

Agile Bits’ new subscription strikes a good balance. A 1Password.com account is backed by some serious encryption, but even so, not everyone wants to, or can, use a cloud-based sync solution for sensitive data like passwords, so it’s nice to see that you can still be license the apps separately. At roughly $36/year, an individual subscription is a good deal relative to the cost of licensing the apps separately, especially after you account for the unique features the subscription provides, and the fact that the first six months are free if you sign up before September 21st.

App subscriptions are becoming a popular business model because they ensure recurring revenue that helps developers continue to maintain the apps they sell. As a longtime user and fan of 1Password, I’m glad to see Agile Bits moving to what I hope will sustain 1Password over the long term. I’m also happy to see that in implementing a subscription model, Agile Bits has not done so at the expense of providing its customers with choice and a great value. If you are not already using 1Password, I highly recommend you give it a try.

Instagram Introduces New Stories Feature

Today, Instagram is rolling out a separate feed of photos and videos called Stories, which expire after twenty-four hours, much like Snapchat’s stories feature. Instagram’s Stories, introduced with a post on the company’s blog, adds a separate row of circular avatars to the top of your Instagram feed. According to The Verge’s Casey Newton, who has an in depth look at the new feature and interview with Kevin Systrom, Instagram’s co-founder and CEO:

Each bubble represents an account that you follow on Instagram, and contains every photo and video clip (up to 10 seconds) that they’ve posted to their stories feed within the past day. (The avatars are displayed according to an algorithm that attempts to show your favorite accounts first.) Tap a bubble and their story will open in full screen, advancing automatically with a slick rotating cube effect. Unlike Snapchat, you can tap on the left-hand side of the screen to rewind the feed back to an earlier post.

Unlike the main Instagram feed there are no likes or public comments, but you can tap a photo to send a private message to the user. Privacy settings work the same way as your existing Instagram settings. If you account is private, only your followers will see your Stories. If your account is public, your Stories will be too.

The point of Stories is to get people to use Instagram more often. According to Newton:

Instagram describes its stories product as a way to promote the sharing of moments that don’t meet the higher bar of a traditional Instagram post. But it’s also designed to get people to share more, period. The Information reported in June that the average number of Instagram posts per user declined between 2013 and 2015. Meanwhile, consumption of video alone on Snapchat increased 25 percent between February and April, to 10 billion views a day, according to Bloomberg.

To reinforce the message that Instagram Stories are an informal place to share candid photos with friends, Instagram has added a series of tools to decorate your photos by using a limited set of filters, drawing tools, text and emoji.

Screenshots courtesy of Instagram.

Screenshots courtesy of Instagram.

It will be interesting to see to what extent Instagram users take to Stories. I know friends who view the relatively low volume of their Instagram feed as a feature of its own because it doesn’t need to be checked as frequently to stay current. I also wonder how well informal stories will co-exist with the more curated, artistic feel of the existing Instagram feed. However, in a world where attention and engagement are the main drivers of social networks, it certainly isn’t surprising that Facebook would take Instagram in this direction. The only question is how many users will follow.

You can watch Instagram’s video introducing Stories below.

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