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Fantastical 1.3 Adds Reminders Integration

Flexibits’ Fantastical, a menubar-based calendar application to quickly enter new events with natural language recognition, has today been updated to include native integration with Reminders, a feature that Apple rolled out with its own app in iOS 5 last year. I have been testing the new Fantastical (version 1.3) for the past weeks, and its integration with calendars, reminders, and natural language input is as solid as ever.

One of Fantastical’s biggest advantages over similar apps to quickly add items to synced calendars is its built-in CalDAV engine, which ensures the app can directly communicate with online calendars without having to leave iCal open in the background. As with events, Fantastical 1.3 lets you create reminders with a few keystrokes, using reminder lists already configured in your calendar app of choice, such as iCal or Outlook. Because Fantastical is capable of directly communicating with the syncing engine behind Reminders – not just the calendar application that displays them on the desktop – you’ll be able to add reminders in Fantastical and have them synced across devices without leaving iCal open. In my tests, Fantastical 1.3 indeed took reminders I added from the menubar, and synced them to iCloud.com and other iOS devices within seconds. If iCal opens, as Flexibits explains in the FAQ, it’s because of a Lion default setting related to push; switching iCal’s refresh rate to 30 minutes doesn’t compromise Fantastical’s ability to create events and reminders independently of iCal.

Fantastical can create, edit, and delete reminders with natural language recognition. In testing the app, I told Fantastical to “remind me to take out the trash”, and the app intelligently parsed the command as just “take out the trash”, interpreting the initial portion of the sentence as a reminder input. Similarly, commands like “remind” and “todo” will trigger reminder creation in Fantastical 1.3, which, generally speaking, tries to associate every new item without a date to a reminder list. This, however, can be reverted at any time, as the interface to switch between reminders and events includes a handy switch to jump through both options.

Reminders can be given a specific date or priority, assigned a note, but they don’t support location and time-based alerts, as those features are exclusive to iOS’s Reminders and Siri. In the app’s UI, reminders are displayed alongside calendar events, and they use the same floating popover windows for modifications.

In testing Fantastical 1.3 with my iCloud calendar and reminders, I found the app to be remarkably fast and reliable. As you would expect from Fantastical, adding new reminders takes seconds thanks to keyboard navigation and shortcuts, and the syncing engine didn’t miss a beat when communicating with iCloud and iOS. Unsurprisingly considering previous versions of the app, the parser doesn’t disappoint when it comes to automatically switching between event and reminder creation (try to add a date to a reminder, and check out the animation).

Fantastical 1.3 is a great update if you’ve been looking forward to Reminders integration, and another solid release for an app we’ve previously recommended. Fantastical is $19.99 on the App Store.

Tim Cook at D10 [Updated with Highlights and Storify Recap]

A dapper Tim Cook will be sitting down with Walt Mossberg and Kara Swisher this evening in Racho Palos Verdes, California, where AllThingsDigital’s D10 Conference will be held for the next three days as tech industry heavyweights are invited to speak and demo new products. Since last August, Tim Cook has continued to drive Apple’s success with new product launches of the iPhone 4S and the iPad 3. Apple has given stock dividends, joined the Fair Labor Association, and has reported its best quarter ever since Cook was promoted to CEO. We expect most of tonight’s interview to focus on his tenure at Apple, what’s in the company’s future, and how Cook views the tech industry and the pace of innovation that’s currently happening.

All Things Digital has made available an iPhone/Android app so readers can stay updated on upcoming events and interviews during the conference. Livestreams will be made available for certain speakers, and Twitter users can follow the conversation around D10 through the hashtag #atd10. A livestream for Tim Cook’s talk will not be available, but there should be a recorded session available by Wednesday.

As the conversation with Tim Cook gets underway, we’ll be highlighting some of the key takeaways and sharing thoughts and opinions from around the web that occur as a result of what Tim Cook says or doesn’t say. We’re looking forward to the interview, and hope you’ll tune in with us at 9:00 EST as we quietly follow along with the live transcripts.

Update 9:23: Tim Cook is on stage! We’ll be posting highlights past the break.

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Change Displays Your Stock’s Current Value

Every time I think that there are enough stock and weather apps for iOS, I find a new one. And every time, I think something like “Please, let this one be cool”. Of all the apps that I regularly check out as a possible new topics, just 1% of them is usually worth a try. The rest is rubbish. When it comes to weather and stock apps, though, that rubbish part is also somehow twice as large. It’s as rare as an edelweiss in the Sahara that a new app with such purposes can offer a unique concept. Change by Jon Wheatley, however, is a perfect example of uniqueness and simplicity applied to stock UIs on the iPhone.

Wheatley reduced his app’s feature set to the question any stock owner always asks himself: have I gained or lost money with the stocks I own? Nothing more, because let’s be honest – more data is typically for the intellectual academics who call themselves stock analysts when reviewing iOS apps. Change is divided in two parts: a main information window, and a detailed list view to add or delete stocks you own. No preferences, no graphs, no predictions – just the current situation of your investments.

After the first launch, you have to enter the information about the stocks you own. Adding new ones afterwards is just a tap on the top right + button away. In the second panel, you have to type in the amount of stocks you own, the price you paid for them, and the stock symbol (like AAPL) of the respective company. Although the developer kindly implemented number fields for the first two panels, he did not manage to implement a search feature for the symbols, something which is totally common and useful, and definitely needs to be added in future updates.

What follows is an easy calculation in the background. The overall difference (all entered stocks are included in the main window) between your stocks’ value today and the time you bought them is then displayed in a large circle in the center of the screen. If it’s red, you lost money; if it’s green, you gained some. Additionally, you get your total gain (or loss) over time and the total value of your stocks via smaller numbers below the circle.

Tap on the diagram button in the top left corner, and you get to the mentioned list view where you can also add new stocks you recently purchased. Here, a more detailed look at single stocks is provided: you can see which part of your portfolio was more profitable today and over time.

Besides the fact I had to restart Change the first time I tested it (it crashed when I refreshed the calculation by tapping the circle), Change ran flawlessly on my iPod touch 3rd Gen. The simplicity in functionality can also be seen in the app’s UI. There are no distracting tones except for the aforementioned red and blue colorization of the circle. This way, nothing is distracting the user from the app’s purpose: easily displaying changes in stock value. The rest of the app is monochrome and easy to overview – this is mainly the case due to the very tastefully chosen sans-serif typefaces in which the headlines and information are set, and the subtle, but unique background texture.

Change takes the area of stock surveillance into a whole new direction: simplicity. And another great decision Wheatley made with Change is the app’s price: you can get Change for free on the App Store.

Cleaning Mona Lisa: Showcasing the Potential for iBooks

Cleaning Mona Lisa Book Cover

Cleaning Mona Lisa Book Cover

Behind a beautiful portrait of Mona Lisa and a blue ribbon denoting its newness to my iBooks shelf, I discovered a world of rich and vivacious color drowned out by the ill effects of aging varnish, dust, and improper lighting. Restoring the world’s most famous paintings requires not only an understanding of the fine arts, but an even deeper understanding of the tools artists used to create the wildly vivid and awe-inspiring paintings we often observe in museums and art galleries. As you’ll come to learn in Lee Sandstead’s interactive iBook, preserving a painting is an art itself.

Sandstead’s 30-page digital iBook is nothing short of an exemplary example of what iBooks Author can produce when great minds meet great developers. The concise text, coupled with interactive images, galleries, and interviews, provides a much more personal platform for learning and engagement than my history textbooks ever could. That’s not to say “Cleaning Mona Lisa” was written for study — it’s an intriguing, personalized story from a passionate and talented art historian.

Cleaning Mona Lisa Lighting Page

Cleaning Mona Lisa Lighting Page

Covering the history of painting techniques from tempera to oil painting, Sandstead has to first recreate the methods artists used to create their paintings. As you’ll learn, the tools artists used and our neglect about how these paintings were intended to be preserved has been detrimental to the quality of the paintings themselves. Sandstead made it his mission to understand both what affects the quality of a painting and how to do undo the toll of time itself to reveal what are truly beautiful masterpieces.

iBooks Author has enabled the creation of an interactive e-book, that as Apple intended, flows perfectly no matter what orientation you decide to read it in. Videos guide you through the author’s investigative process, while interactive word bubbles clue you in on the observations made on a particular painting. Tapity’s iteration of engagement immerses you with the content — it doesn’t detract you from the author’s message. The author’s prose, combined with the layout of images and interactive content, make for an ebook that’s accessible and clever.

“Cleaning Mona Lisa” is an iBook for all ages that can be read in an evening. It didn’t take me long to read through, but the material was genuinely interesting, and I have nothing but good things to say about the book’s presentation and content. Only $2.99 on the iBookstore, “Cleaning Mona Lisa” sets the example for what an iBook should aspire to be.

Apple Confirms WWDC Keynote on June 11

Following the release of the WWDC 12 app and official event schedule, Apple just confirmed that an opening keynote will be held on Monday, June 11, in San Francisco.

Jim Dalrymple at The Loop was first to report about invitations being sent to the press for the keynote, which will be held at 10 am. Speakers haven’t been revealed yet, but it wouldn’t be a surprise to see CEO Tim Cook kick off the keynote, with other executives following up on news and announcements during the event.

Apple’s upcoming conference will see the company unveil “the latest news about iOS and OS X Mountain Lion with developers”. Apple is widely expected to unveil the next major version of iOS, as well as provide new information on OS X Mountain Lion, set to ship in “late summer”, at the event.

Apple Posts Initial WWDC 2012 Schedule, Releases Official App

With less than two weeks to go until WWDC 2012 kicks off, Apple has this morning released the conference schedule as well as the official iOS app and some guides for the conference goers. Developers who were lucky enough to snag tickets to WWDC ‘12 can access the schedule here. There are over 100 sessions and labs that have been categorised into six technical tracks covering:

  • Essentials
  • App Services
  • Developer Tools
  • Graphics, Media and Games
  • Safari and Web
  • Core OS

One interesting change is that the Apple Design Awards will this year be held on Monday at 3:45 PM - usually the event was held later in the event and during the evening.

The official WWDC app is also live now, featuring a detailed schedule, daily news and photos, a map of Moscone West and the ability to plan your week by favoriting sessions and detecting session conflicts. For those who might be new to the WWDC experience, Apple has also created a handy ‘Attendee Guide’ for WWDC that you can access here - it’s nothing huge but does have handy links to other resources that will likely be useful to new attendees. Lastly, there is guide to the WWDC labs including what they will cover, when and where they run and which require a reservation.

Espionage 3: Effortless Encryption for your Mac

Tao Effect’s Espionage has always taken a novel approach to encrypting data on OS X. In contrast to applications like TrueCrypt or Knox that protect data in individually encrypted virtual disks or vaults, Espionage does its best to mask encrypted disks from the end user. Rather than interfacing with virtual disks that are individually encrypted, Espionage uses the folders you want to protect as a reference point and applies a 1Password approach to the protected folders on your system. Espionage solves two problems: it centralizes all of your protected data and makes that data easy to access through a single master password. Espionage’s approach to securing your data means that you can interface with folders on OS X as if they were regular folders — tasks like mounting and unmounting encrypted volumes are taken care of for you in the background through a streamlined interface. Protecting your data shouldn’t have to come at the cost of convenience.

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Quickly Share iOS Photos With Your Mac (And iOS Devices)→

Quickly Share iOS Photos With Your Mac (And iOS Devices)

Kirk McElhearn at Macworld shares an interesting method to automatically import iOS photos on OS X, originally via The Iconmaster:

I gave up on Image Capture and used Dropbox. But if you’ve used Dropbox for this purpose, you know it involves several steps: launch the app, tap the Uploads tab, tap the add button, tap the photo, etc. etc. It works, but it wasn’t convenient enough.

I wanted something instantaneous. Fortunately, Ryan McCuaig was able to point me in the right direction.

Photo Stream is great, but it’s not 100% reliable. While I can typically wait a couple of minutes for iOS screenshots to show up in iPhoto (or Finder, based on the tip above), sometimes I don’t have that kind of flexibility, as I need access to those images right away. For those times, I use Scotty.

Developed by Galarina, Scotty (my review) is a $1.99 universal app that can send images to computers (on OS X, it uses File Sharing) and other iOS devices. Scotty is fast, well designed, and remarkably intuitive – it is even integrated with the Camera+ lightbox. I also use Scotty as Photo Stream doesn’t work on 3G, and I couldn’t find a better way to send iPhone screenshots to my iPad over Bluetooth.

The screenshots above were imported with Scotty, and processed with Keyboard Maestro.

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