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PlaceTagger 2 Releases Universal Build, iCloud Support, Mac App Store Version

PlaceTagger is a veteran iPhone app that has been around for years – originally an app that allows photographers to use their iPhone to geotag the photos taken with a traditional digital camera. Return7, the company behind PlaceTagger and other great apps like Billminder and Debtminder, has a reputation for innovating in every App Store category they take on. This release of PlaceTagger 2.0 including a universal build for iOS devices, a new Mac App Store version, and even iCloud support binding them together, has certainly lived up to their outstanding reputation.

There is no shortage of iOS apps tailored to photographers but PlaceTagger has really excelled in the niche area of providing a quality geotagging product to users of all experience levels. Version 2.0 does a remarkable job at implementing a simplistic user experience for what could have been an extremely complicated outcome. The iOS app is designed to run on iPhones as well as 3G enabled iPads. Although it is possible to run this app on a wifi-only iPad or an iPod touch connected to a wifi network, the results may vary and it is not officially supported. Overall, I found the user interface to be pleasantly minimal while still providing the necessities required to effortlessly start capturing GPS data.

When I first launched the iOS app, my eyes were drawn to a large clock and message reminding me to ensure the time on my camera matched the time on my phone. This was easy to check and was honestly the only thing I had to configure during my entire time using the suite of PlaceTagger apps. Once I had my camera’s clock synced to my iPhone I simply tapped the “Begin” button and stuffed my phone back in to my pocket so I could snap some pictures with my digital camera. I am not a professional photographer or even a decently skilled photographer so I usually rely on my iPhone to take outstanding photos. While I was testing PlaceTagger, I used my point-and-shoot Canon IS770, an iPhone 4S to log GPS data, and PlaceTagger on my MacBook Air to tag the photos. Apart of the new features in version 2 is the ability to tag photos on the iPad with the camera connection kit, however I had neither of these available so I opted for the Mac app. When I was finished taking pictures of my two Jack Russell Terriers, Bob and Daisy, I pulled out my phone and tapped the “Finished” button. That was the only interaction with the iOS app that I had – two taps on one button.

I jumped over to my MacBook Air, popped in my camera’s SD card and pointed the Mac App Store version of PlaceTagger to the pictures on the memory card. Below each picture was a bit of text saying “Location Matched” and all I had to do was select the “Tag Photos” button to complete the process. Right then it clicked, PlaceTagger had magically synced all of the GPS data between my devices with no settings, options, or configuration – it just worked.

PlaceTagger 2 has the most invisible implementation of iCloud I have ever seen.

When the tagging process was complete, I simply imported my photos in to iPhoto just as I normally would and experienced no issues. In iPhoto’s “Info” section for each of these photos is now a little Google Map containing the exact location the photo was taken.

If you are a user of a standard digital camera and have an iOS device then I highly recommend PlaceTagger 2 to add GPS data to all of your future photos. This suite of geotagging apps does not just add functionality to your Apple devices, but it also breathes new life in to older technology like my Canon SD770. You do not have to be a prosumer to enjoy the benefits of PlaceTagger because its polished user interface and refined feature set makes it the ideal companion app to photographers of any skill level.

PlaceTagger 2 is currently available on the iTunes App Store for $4.99 and there is also a version on the Mac App Store priced at $4.99

Metanota Brings Simplenote Organization To OS X

At some point during a writing career there comes that moment, in which you have to decide how to sync your text to all your devices. Some people use Dropbox; others, like me, prefer Simplenote. Metanota is a “new & noteworthy” OS X client for Simplenote which enhances the service’s feature set with different organizing possibilities on the desktop.

My reason for sticking with Simplenote (and Notational Velocity as a Mac client) instead of Dropbox is pretty simple: it’s easy, and it works. There’s a feature, however, that’s lacking in Simplenote – a feature that Federico also pointed out as an advantage of Dropbox: organizing your notes. Especially when you have to manage many lists, information, and text, Simplenote through Notational Velocity can get pretty cluttered and confusing, despite its powerful searching feature, which doesn’t just titles but content as well. Often, I get overrun by my own notes.

Metanota has decent search abilities, and although its note creation is not as smooth as in NV (which incorporates the search and creation features in one single interaction), it possesses a comfortable writing environment. While using Metanota and NV in parallel, text was not always synced properly with the first try, but the app did not create duplicates or deleted notes. Its design isn’t really pleasing, but it’s functional and serves the basic needs of a good note-taking app. Metanota can sync automatically every 20 seconds, 60 seconds, 5 minutes, and 60 minutes; with automatic sync in the background, notes were quickly synced to the Simplenote web app running in my desktop browser. Notes deleted on Simplenote’s website were deleted automatically on Metanota, and, similarly, updates made to a note from the Mac app were saved as “versions” on Simplenote’s website.

I want to focus on the most advantageous feature the app has to offer: sorting notes in folders. Simplenote itself features note tagging — these tags are also shown in the sidebar and on top of any tagged note in Metanota as folders. I believe tagging is not incorporated well in NV, where you just can sort notes after their tag, but not list only those notes with a specific tag with one click. Metanota imports Simplenote tags and allows you to create your own “folders” in the sidebar: these will be synced to Simplenote as tags, but Metanota doesn’t (surprisingly) lets you drag & drop notes between “folders”.

Overall, Metanota is a visually well-arranged Simplenote client with the biggest feature in its two sidebars. It more or less seamlessly syncs with the Simplenote service, it offers some nice features to cope with a large amount of notes and with the task of organizing them, but it doesn’t come with more advanced features such as Markdown support or keyboard shortcuts.

You can try Metanota for free on the Mac App Store (the built-in, unobtrusive ads can optionally be removed through a $9.99 in-app purchase).

Alfred 1.2 Adds 1Password Support, New Themes, Improved Matching Algorithm

Alfred – the productivity tool for Mac OS X that started off as a simple application launcher – has now evolved in to a tool that has literally changed the way so many people now use their computers. The team at Running With Crayons has been hard at work preparing the next release of Alfred, and today they are happy to make version 1.2 available to everyone. It has taken months of hard work, but their software development team has managed to integrate some outstanding new features and general improvements in both the free Mac App Store version as well as the Powerpack version available on their website.

Without a doubt, the single greatest feature added to the latest version of Alfred is one reserved exclusively for paid Powerpack customers which gives users access to the their 1Password 1Click Bookmarks. There has already been a lot of buzz around the web after the developer preview of this feature rolled out, but to see it in action is truly amazing. There is very little to configure and Alfred will attempt to find your 1Password keychain, then store your bookmarks automatically. I was quite impressed because my 1Password keychain is in an obscure spot in my Dropbox folder; however, Alfred had no troubles finding it and accessing my bookmarks. From there, it is a simple command ‘1p’ to begin searching the 1Click bookmarks. In typical Alfred fashion, it searches as much of the criteria as possible including the name and URL of the bookmark to ensure it finds the right one.

I am certain that this feature was a popular request among users, and I love when developers take the time to not only listen to what their customers have to say, but actually deliver updates that reflect that actual desires of those using the software.

In both the paid and the free MAS version, Alfred 1.2 has brought tremendous improvements to the matching algorithm it uses to find files as the developer noted on his blog last week. Sometimes these performance enhancements are hard to visualize when you actually get your hands on the software, but I am confident you will see improved search results in this latest version.

Let me tell you a quick story to illustrate just how great the matching algorithm is in version 1.2. One of my fellow MacStories writers had sent me an iMessage consisting of only a quote that, judging by his continued conversation, it was one he expected me to be familiar with, yet I had no idea. I copied the text from Messages and pasted it in to Alfred intending to search Google in hopes of finding out whom he was quoting. Before I could hit enter, Alfred had found that quote inside a PDF that my fellow constituent had dropped in our shared Dropbox folder. I had no idea this file was even on my computer let alone the quote he had sent was apart of its contents. In the time it took me to type Command+V and hit Enter, Alfred had found the file and opened it for me. Expecting Safari to open with a Google search completed, it took a few seconds for my brain to comprehend what had just happened. Alfred knew exactly what I was searching for despite the fact I had no idea. That is great software.

Other new features in both the paid and free versions of Alfred include two new themes as well as large type support. The two new themes called “Dark and Smooth” and “Pistachio” are a couple of great looking themes that were created by actual Alfred users and then voted on for a the opportunity to become default themes in the application. There are more details about these new themes available on the Alfred website.

Now, not every new feature is going to appeal to everyone. This Large Type support was apparently highly requested among users but I have yet to find a reasonable use for it in my day to day workflow. The basics of this feature are as such – you type any bit of text in to Alfred and then hit Command+L. Alfred will then fill the screen with that text in an extremely large font. According to the release notes, this is great for phone numbers and email address; I have only found it useful for showing dirty words to my wife from across the living room.

I also wanted to briefly mention some of the improvements on Global Hotkeys because it was partly a request of mine. Powerpack users will find a new check box option under Global Hotkey extensions that will allow any selected text to be passed to an extension when the Global Hotkey is triggered. It is hard to comprehend the usability added by this one small feature through simply reading about it so be sure to also check out David Ferguson’s video on how to use the new feature as he also demonstrates his “Drop in Pocket” extension.

Also added to Global Hotkeys was the option to paste the latest history item as plain text and the ability to assign a Global Hotkey to a text snippet. I have already started using the latter to manage my different email signatures with single keystrokes.

As with most general releases of Alfred, these are not the only new features and improvements, but they are some of my favorites. The release notes are quite exhaustive and contain all the additions in great detail. If you have the Mac App Store version then there is an update waiting you in the App Store so go ahead and grab it. If you have the Powerpack version then be even more excited because you also have an update waiting, but with even more awesome features!

April 2012 In Review

April was a little bit of a slower month, with no keynotes or big announcements from Apple - with the exception of yet another huge earnings call. However, MacStories did celebrate its third birthday on April 20th, and welcomed our seventh MacStories writer, Lukas Hermann, who is focused on reviewing some great apps with Inspiring UIs - you’ll see a list of those articles below the break. In news, we did see the announcement of WWDC this month (it sold out in less than 2 hours) and some incredibly successful Kickstarter projects. On the apps front there continued to be a number of app updates for the new iPad, two Tweetbot updates, Clear 1.1 and Read It Later relaunching as Pocket. Lastly, we had a number of great stories this month including a great one on iCloud in which Federico interviewed some of the developers who have implemented it and what their thoughts on it are.

WWDC 2012

On April 25th, Apple “finally” announced WWDC 2012, to be held over June 11th to 15th this year in San Francisco. The $1599 tickets went on sale immediately at around 8:30am EDT and promptly sold out in less than 2 hours. Along with the WWDC dates and tickets, Apple also announced that nominations for the 2012 Apple Design Awards were open - so if you are a developer an want to suggest an app for the award you can do that here. If you’re a student and missed out on WWDC tickets (or they were too expensive), you have until tomorrow May 2nd to lodge an application for a WWDC Student Scholarship.

Apple’s Q2 2012 Earnings Call

Yet again, Apple had a stunning quarter - its second best ever, only beaten by the last (holiday) quarter. Apple sold 35.1 million iPhones, 11.8 million iPads and saw $39.2 billion in revenue for the quarter. Our full post includes the usual graphs that really highlight the growth Apple has had in nearly all aspects of their business over the past few quarters and even years.

Flashback

April saw what was perhaps the most serious malware incident the Mac has ever seen with ‘Flashback’. Apple, after taking some time to respond, eventually revealed they will provide a Flashback removal tool - which they soon did, as well as provide a Java update to remove various Flashback variants. F-Secure also released an automated Flashback removal tool (and did so before Apple released their tool).

Kickstarter Projects

The Pebble e-paper watch saw an absolute explosion of support when it launched on Kickstarter this month. As of today, about $7.5 million has been pledged to the project - far exceeding the initial goal of $100,000. Then there is the Bydge, an iPad dock that’ll turn your iPad into somewhat of a MacBook look-a-like. Not everyone is a fan of the premise, and it hasn’t set the world on fire, but it has also easily surpassed the $90,000 goal on Kickstarter with about $360,000 pledged so far (and there’s still a month to go).

Everything Else:

 

 

The Really Big Reviews

Everything Else

Lukas’ Inspiring UI Series

 

iTunes Match Launches In Italy [Update: Coming To Greece, Portugal, Austria and Slovenia Too]

Earlier today, Apple updated its Terms and Conditions for the Italian iTunes Store to include information about iTunes Match, the company’s music service powered by iCloud. Launched in November 2011 in the United States (here’s our original hands-on), the service was later brought to more countries on December 15 and January 17, including South America, the UK, and other European countries.

Lei può abbonarsi a iTunes Match pagando un canone annuale. Per abbonarsi Lei deve aver registrato una carta di credito valida nell’archivio di iTunes. L’abbonamento non è rimborsabile (salvo richiesto dalla legge applicabile), e si rinnoverà automaticamente per periodi di un anno finché Lei non lo cancellerà. Il Suo account sarà addebitato non più di 24 ore prima della scadenza del periodo di abbonamento corrente. Lei può annullare il rinnovo automatico modificando le impostazioni dell’account iTunes Store sul Suo computer. Lei non sarà più in grado di accedere ai Suoi Contenuti iTunes Match su iTunes Match dopo la scadenza del Suo periodo di abbonamento.

Back in March, it was reported that Apple was holding a series of meetings with SIAE – the Italian association that represents “artists and editors” – to get the green light on launching iTunes Match in Italy.

According to Apple’s official support document about iTunes Match and iTunes in the Cloud availability, Italy still isn’t listed among the countries with support for Match and iTunes in the Cloud; as of today, iTunes Match is available in 37 countries worldwide.

Whilst the update of iTunes’ terms and conditions to include additional iTunes Match certainly confirms the company has made progress on obtaining rights to launch the service, it should also be noted that, back in February, Japan was rumored to be getting support for iTunes Match soon. In the case of Japan, however, only support for iTunes in the Cloud was spotted (and was eventually launched), whilst today’s updated agreement specifically mentions iTunes Match in Italy. Read more

Should Apple Acquire Square and Foursquare?→

Should Apple Acquire Square and Foursquare?

Mor Naaman makes the case for an acquisition of Square and Foursquare by Apple:

To summarize: after the deal, Apple will immediately become a giant payments company, with an installation base that is expected to encompass half of all mobile devices sold. The company will have the best local search abilities, far exceeding any existing recommendation engine. And due to its enormous reach, it will possess a payment system that merchants will line up to support. Who’s betting against this holy trinity? Not me.

The possibilities are certainly intriguing, and Naaman crunches some interesting numbers to show how making these two products “native” on iOS would benefit all the parties involved in terms of adoption, financials, and innovation. Obviously, while the possibility of Apple acquiring other companies always leads to interesting speculation and discussions, we should also keep in mind how Apple has been considering integration with third-party services lately. Twitter, for instance, didn’t get acquired by Apple, yet its mobile usage surged since the native implementation in iOS. While not nearly as “mainstream” as Twitter, Foursquare would certainly make for a possible third-party candidate to be directly supported in iOS, at least in theory (in practice, how would Apple implement a check-in service at a system level?).

It gets even more intriguing with Square. The company is very Apple-like in its approach to design and marketing, but it relies on extra hardware to work securely with credit cards. Assuming Apple would like, someday, to enter the mobile payment scene with the iPhone – perhaps through the oft-rumored NFC – wouldn’t it make more sense for Apple to consider an all-iPhone technology that handles payments exclusively through iOS and embedded hardware? A while ago, some people suggested Apple could even play around its marketing taglines and call an iOS payment feature “AirPay”. I actually believe such strategy would be perfect to push a possible next iPhone as an independent, no-extra-dongles-necessary payment device.

Location and payments are two areas that Apple will eventually address via new hardware and software, and Naaman makes a good case for the two biggest players in the field. Apple is also expected to show new features of iOS and OS X Mountain Lion at the WWDC 2012, which kicks off on June 11 in San Francisco.

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Tweetbot 2.3 Adds New Gestures, Integrations, UI Refinements

Less than a month after a major 2.2 update that added iCloud sync for timelines, DMs, and mute filters, Tweetbot is back today with a significant update on the iPhone and iPad that redefines some of the gestures and interactions introduced with the original version 1.0 (2.0 on the iPhone). Overhauling the standalone tweet detail and conversation views that, based on intuitive gestures, were two of Tweetbot’s hallmark features, Tweetbot 2.3 unifies single tweets, actions, replies, and conversations within redesigned screens that, with a bit of practice, I believe will ultimately help saving time and precious taps around the app.

New Tweet Detail View

Quick access: swipe right to left on a tweet.

The single tweet view – the screen that displays a user’s single tweet alongside the action bar, geo-location and client info, and other data – has been redesigned to accomodate inline conversations and replies. Providing the usual context for author, buttons to reply, retweet, fave, share, and view, the new tweet detail view elegantly puts a banner-like notification up top to indicate how many replies a specific tweet received; if the tweet belongs to a conversation, Tweetbot 2.3 displays a “In reply to…” section at the bottom (down to the original tweet that started the conversation), with additional replies above.

The developers have managed to cram a lot of information and elements into a single screen without sacrificing usability and clarity – unlike other apps, it’s always clear which tweets belong to a conversation and which ones generated other replies.

To go back to the timeline from the tweet detail view, you can now quickly swipe with one finger from left to right. Here’s a recap of all the gestures and tap actions supported in Tweetbot from our review of the iPad version (interactions are mostly the same on iPhone).

New Conversation View & Sharing

Quick access: swipe left to right on a tweet.

Similarly, the new conversation view of Tweetbot 2.3 displays both conversations and replies inline. Accessible with the usual swipe-to-reveal action, the conversation view loads replies in a neatly separated section just like the aforementioned tweet detail view.

New in 2.3, conversations can now be uploaded directly to social curation platform Storify for further sharing with the world; the uploading process is automatic and doesn’t require a dedicated login, meaning that Tweetbot will simply publish a conversation, such as this one, to Storify using your Twitter account. Whilst I hope for a future version of Tweetbot to let me save “all replies” to a specific tweet from the detail view (right now, it’s only enabled in the Conversation window), I think Tapbots did the right thing in simplifying the curation aspect of Storify and make it available as a direct option without additional configuration required.

Also new in the 2.3 conversation view (but enabled for single tweets and DMs as well): the app now has an improved email format when sending tweets to someone else via email.

More Features in 2.3

Several additional refinements and improvements went into the development of Tweetbot 2.3. First off, Droplr support: for URLs, images, and videos, users have now the option to choose Droplr as a sharing service in the Settings. When shared, videos now have a dedicated “play” thumbnail to differentiate them from images, and thumbnail support has been added for Vimeo links, too.

The app now correctly recognizes $stock links, allowing you to easily fire up a search for $AAPL or your favorite stock, and save it for future usage.

The tweet drawer has been reorganized, with the last two buttons gaining more order in the process.

Last, some minor touches in version 2.3 will contribute to improving usability and to allowing users customize their timelines to their needs and tastes: retweets from specific users can now be disabled at any time, and it’s possible to quickly open the last saved draft by holding down the tweet compose button. The timeline sync bookmark icon is now an optional setting, and Tweetbot is capable of uploading high-res images when on WiFi.

With important improvements and UI refinements aimed at increasing the app’s ease of use and display of information, Tweetbot 2.3 is another solid and rich update that adds powerful functionality without compromising the app’s interaction and workflow. You can get Tweetbot 2.3 on the App Store today.

- Tweetbot for iPhone

- Tweetbot for iPad

DevRocket Is A Photoshop Plugin To Boost Your iOS Design Workflow

Just a few hours ago I wrote a bit about Screeshot Journal, an app to easily manage and investigate your iPhone and iPad screenshots in order to ease your design workflow. But to take pictures of an app which deserves to be viewed in such large resolutions, such app must have a solid UI design. To speed up and simplify the process of creating iOS UIs, developers at UI Parade — one of the greatest resources for UI inspiration by the way — just released their own Photoshop plugin called DevRocket.

DevRocket is a sweeping blow of all design presets and saving possibilities iOS UI designers could need for their process of designing new apps. It supports designing for all devices (iPhone and iPad) and Retina resolution presets as well. With DevRocket, you can:

  • generate portrait, landscape and splash display canvases, which include the native iOS status and navigation bars
  • design the same interface for Retina and non-Retina devices at the same time
  • save those designs with one click cut down the complete UI to individual “UI snips” for Xcode
  • create icons out of preset canvases (with adjustable corner radius and correct naming for Xcode)

Besides all these features, DevRocket looks nice and easy to use. It is definitely worth a try for all iOS designers who use Photoshop to design their app UIs, and who are constantly after a nitro boost for their productivity and workflow. There’s also a little demo video on Vimeo (and embedded after the break) showing the plugin in action. You can get DevRocket for $10 (payment via PayPal).
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Rovio: Angry Birds Space “Fastest Growing Mobile Game” with 50 Million Downloads in 35 Days

Angry Birds maker Rovio has today announced the impressive milestone that the latest entry in the Angry Birds franchise, Angry Birds Space, has become the “fastest growing mobile game yet” with 50 million downloads in 35 days.

Angry Birds Space hit 50 million downloads within 35 days, making it the fastest growing mobile game yet and breaking all our previous records. This has been simply amazing, and the whole Rovio team is thrilled to see such a fantastic reception for the game.

It’s unclear whether Rovio is counting desktop versions in the total number of downloads for the mobile game, but the figure is still impressive and substantial nevertheless of how iOS, Android, PC, and Mac downloads have been split so far. Considering Rovio’s previous numbers, it is safe to assume the majority of downloads are really coming from mobile platforms like iOS and Android.

Angry Birds Space was released on March 22. In the three days following the launch, the company announced users had already downloaded the game over 10 million times.