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CriticMarkup: Plain Text Syntax for Editorial Reviews

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Gabe Weatherhead is a good friend who writes and makes great stuff. Together with Erik Hess (MacStories readers may remember his particular iPad workflow), he launched CriticMarkup, a new project I’ve helped testing for the past few weeks.

Essentially, CriticMarkup is a plain text syntax for marking up text in editorial reviews. For someone who writes in Markdown and works with a team on a daily basis, CriticMarkup is the missing piece of a puzzle that required using clunky software like Word for Mac to do any sort of change tracking or markup. CriticMarkup feels like an extension of Markdown in that it allows you, through a simple and easily understandable syntax, to insert additions, deletions, substitutions, comments, and highlights into plain text.

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Apple Releases iOS 6.1.1→

Apple Releases iOS 6.1.1

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Apple has just released iOS 6.1.1. The software update is, at the moment, available only for the iPhone 4S, where the changelog says the new version “fixes an issue that could impact cellular performance and reliability for iPhone 4S”.

The last update to iOS 6, iOS 6.1, was released on January 28, adding Siri support for purchasing movie tickets, iTunes Match improvements, and more carriers for LTE compatibility.

iOS 6.1.1 is available for direct download here.

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Apple, Adobe & Microsoft Forced To Appear Before Australian IT Pricing Inquiry

Apple, Microsoft and Adobe have been summoned to appear before a Federal Australian Parliamantery Committee that has been investigating IT pricing in Australia. The move forces the three companies to appear on March 22nd after they had refused to do so voluntarily. Ed Husic, a driving member behind the creation of the committee and one of its members, put out a press release welcoming the move, but stating it is one “we shouldn’t have to take”.

 “Adobe, Apple and Microsoft are just a few firms that have continually defied the public’s call for answers and refused to appear before the IT Pricing Inquiry.”

The IT Pricing Inquiry has been examing whether a price difference exists between Australian and international pricing of IT goods and services, and if so, why they exist, what impact they have and what actions can be taken to reduce the disadvantage of Australian consumers. Formed in May last year, the committee received 100 submissions from individuals, organisations and companies and has so far held 5 public hearings which included the appearance of Australian Recording Industry Association, the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, consumer group CHOICE and many others.

It should be noted that Apple, Microsoft and Adobe all made written submissions to the Committee but refused to appear before the committee to answer questions of the committee members.

Poster Adds Improved URL Scheme and 1Password Integration

Poster is my favorite iOS app to post articles to WordPress. I recently took a look at version 2.0 and the improvements developer Tom Witkin made to further streamline the app’s posting workflow. Today, Tom released another update that adds support for custom fields to the URL scheme and brings 1Password integration.

Like other apps have done in the past weeks, Poster now sports a 1Password button when setting up a new site that requires authentication. The button will take you directly to 1Password, searching for “wordpress” by default. Once you’ve found your login item, you can copy the password and go back to Poster. I believe this sort of non-forced integration is really nice and ultimately beneficial to the end user, as it makes using multiple apps for a single task less cumbersome. Read more

Sponsor: Today Weather

My thanks to Savvy Apps for sponsoring MacStories this week with Today Weather.

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Today Weather is a clean, elegant, and intuitive weather app for the iPhone. From the creators of Agenda, Today Weather sports the same amount of care and attention to simple and fast touch interactions: you can tap on a location to enter its detail view, swipe left to get a hourly forecast of the next few days, and swipe right to see a beautiful graph for each day’s average temperature and conditions. If you live in the US, you’ll also get a radar view with storms, showing rain and snow. The Forecast view is based on NOAA gradients and the data presented is fast and accurate.

I personally keep Today Weather on my Home screen and I’ve been using it every day since its release. My two favorite features are the Today view – which gives me a quick overview of the current day – and the Forecast, as it lets me visually understand what my week will be like in terms of temperature and weather conditions. I’m a big fan of Today Weather’s design and animations, and I’m looking forward to an iPad version of the app, coming soon.

Find out more about Today Weather here.

Tweetbot Adds Support For Chrome and 1Password Browsers, Vine and Flick Inline Previews

Tweetbot 2.7, released today for the iPhone and iPad, comes with a new Browser setting to specify an external app for opening links. I have been testing the feature and I’m a big fan of this update.

In the Settings, you can now choose to open links directly in Safari, Google Chrome, or 1Password. There are two ways to do this: you can choose to keep opening links in Tweetbot’s own web view and then forward them to your browser of choice; or you can skip Tweetbot’s web view altogether and go directly to a different browser upon tapping a link.

Opening links in Safari and 1Password doesn’t have anything special to it aside from the fact that you’ll be taken out of Tweetbot and into another browser. The 1Password integration is particularly useful as it is, essentially, the same idea behind my bookmarklet, only available inside Tweetbot: if you see a link for a website that you also want to log into, you can use 1Password’s built-in browser to access it.

Using Chrome alongside Tweetbot is my new favorite option, as it leverages Chrome’s support for x-callback-url to enable a completely automated workflow to open Chrome and go back to Tweetbot. If you open a link in Google Chrome, a new tab will open showing a back button labeled “Tweetbot”; once you’re done reading, you can hit that button to automatically close the tab and be taken back to your position in the Tweetbot timeline. Chrome is smart in hiding the back button if you navigate to other pages from the Tweetbot-created tab; the browser also remembers the “special” tab if you switch to other tabs and then go back to the one created by Tweetbot. There’s a minor bug in this version that will redirect to the Tweetbot’s Timeline when you open a link from Mentions, but Tapbots is aware of it. For me, this is a very welcome addition to Tweetbot as it allows my two most-used iOS apps to better communicate with each other without requiring me to manually move between apps. I can get all the benefits of using an external browser (Facebook sharing, using bookmarklets) while still being able to go back to Tweetbot seamlessly.

For Flickr and Vine users, Tweetbot 2.7 also adds inline previews. Vine’s short videos are shown with a standard iOS video player that has a play/pause button.

Tweetbot 2.7 is a minor, yet useful update for Chrome and 1Password users who have been wishing the app could open links in other browsers. You can find the update on the App Store (iPhone, iPad).

Pinbook 1.3

Pinbook is my favorite app to create and manage Pinboard bookmarks on iOS. Developer Collin Donnell released version 1.3 of the app today, which includes support for Google Chrome, x-callback-url, more editing options, and browsing tags.

Tag browsing is probably the biggest new feature in this update. You can tap on a new button in the bottom toolbar to bring up a Filter menu containing a search bar, shortcuts for Private/Public/Unread/Untagged bookmarks, and an alphabetical list of all your Pinboard tags. Each tag shows the number of existing bookmarks assigned to it in your account and can be tapped to view them in the main screen. To go back to viewing all bookmarks without browsing by tag, you can enter the screen again and select Clear Filter. You can also tap & hold a tag to share its Pinboard URL.

I like how you can select multiple tags, but I wish the app was capable of showing me results that matched all criteria, rather than any of them; for instance, I often browse a page that contains bookmarks tagged with “python” and “pythonista”, while Pinbook will show it as “python” or “pythonista”. It’s a minor difference that I’m sure Collin will consider.

Bookmarks can now be edited from the Bookmarks screen. Hitting Edit will open an editing interface to modify single bookmarks or multiple ones at once if you want to delete them or make them as read. You can now also tap & hold a bookmark to quickly show an Edit/Mark as Read/Share menu.

My favorite new feature of version 1.3 is the addition of x-callback-url and support for opening links in Chrome. Thanks to x-callback-url, a link opened in Chrome will show a “Pinbook” button to go back to the app (shown above); with x-callback-url built-in, you can also construct URLs that will take you back to other apps after a bookmark has been added. Therefore, I update my Safari and Chrome bookmarklets to take advantage of the new functionality.

Safari

javascript:window.location='pinbook://x-callback-url/add?url='+encodeURIComponent(location.href)+'&title='+encodeURIComponent(document.title)+'&x-source=Safari&x-success='+encodeURIComponent(location.href)+'&x-cancel='+encodeURIComponent(location.href)

Chrome

javascript:window.location='pinbook://x-callback-url/add?url='+encodeURIComponent(location.href)+'&title='+encodeURIComponent(document.title)+'&x-source=Chrome&x-success=googlechrome://&x-cancel=googlechrome://'

You can imagine the sort of workflows that are made possible by x-callback-url. Just to name two: you could create a Mr. Reader service that sends selected text from an article to Pinbook as description (alongside title and URL) and then goes back to Mr. Reader; or, you could create a Launch Center Pro action that sends a URL in the clipboard to Pinbook and then launches the Pinboard website in Safari or Google Chrome.

Pinbook continues to be one of my most used iOS apps. Version 1.3 is available on the App Store.

Twelve South Releases SurfacePad for iPhone, with Smart Cover-like Protection

Twelve South, makers of excellent Mac and iOS device accessories, have announced today the latest product in their family of accessories for the iPhone: the SurfacePad. Made of Napa leather and weighing less than an ounce, the SurfacePad is a modern, minimal design that beautifully complements the stylish design of iPhone.

What makes SurfacePad special is what it’s not: a military-style rubber grenade for your iPhone. SurfacePad is an ultra-thin, luxury leather cover that shields iPhone 5 or 4/4S from the more typical hazards of life, like the change in your pocket, jump drive in your backpack or the nail file in your purse. It allows you to set your iPhone down on rough spots like a concrete bench or stone tabletop without worrying about scratching the sleek surface of your iPhone.

Check out more photos of the SurfacePad here, and a video below. Read more

Evernote Relaunches Penultimate: Free, Evernote Sync, Search

In May 2012, Evernote acquired Penultimate, one of the most popular handwriting apps for the iPad. Today, Evernote is relaunching Penultimate as a free app with built-in Evernote sync and search for handwritten notes.

I have been beta testing the new Penultimate, and, overall, I like the update. I have to admit that my usage of the application is limited to importing images into the app’s notebooks and drawing a few callouts and simple illustrations on them. I usually prefer Evernote’s other app, Skitch, for quick image annotations, but I don’t mind using Penultimate every once in a while when I need something more complex than a straight line or callout. Still, keep in mind that I don’t store hundreds of notes in Penultimate. Read more