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Flipboard’s Move From “Social Magazine” To “Internet Magazine”

Last night, Flipboard released a 1.9 update for its iPhone and iPad app that, among various fixes and new features, introduces one important addition to the social magazine: audio. As the company writes on their blog:

Our Content Guide is now chock-full of some of the best sounds we could find. We’ve launched new partnerships with NPR and PRI and scoured SoundCloud’s massive community of sound creators to bring you some of our favorites—artists like Snoop Dogg and Diplo; music labels like Atlantic Records and Ninja Tune; podcasts from The New Yorker and Slate; and segments from shows like Radiolab and Science Friday.

Right now, support for audio content is mainly implemented through SoundCloud, which received a new login option in the app’s settings, and NPR and PRI, which have agreed on a partnership with Flipboard to make content available in the app’s content guide, properly reformatted to fit Flipboard’s unique style and interactions. In Flipboard 1.9, support for audio means you can start playing a podcast featured in the content guide (such as TWiT or TNW Daily Dose) or any content available in your SoundCloud account, and go back to browsing links and photos as Flipboard can keep playing audio while you’re reading something else. The app will show up as an audio source in the iOS multitasking tray, and you can control audio playback from within the app itself too with a “note” icon in the upper toolbar (on iPhone) that will display a folder-like animation for viewing and pausing audio.

Looking back at Flipboard’s evolution over the past months, I think support for audio in version 1.9 is yet another example of how the company has been gradually and relentlessly drifting away from a system that simply aggregates “your social links” to embrace a broader vision that’s turning Flipboard into “an Internet magazine”, whether it’s social or not.

Flipboard started off as a neat app to give a magazine-like layout to links shared on Twitter and Facebook. Then came Google Reader, Flickr, and Instagram with more content types and visual previews. The company started announcing partnerships with publishers to display their content beautifully inside Flipboard, and with more content came an explosive growth that led to a re-imagined version 1.5, focused on showcasing “popular stories” and making more great content available to users through a content guide that wasn’t necessarily social – rather, it was aimed at letting users know that more content was available on Flipboard beyond their existing social accounts. After that, Flipboard released the long-awaited iPhone app, unifying accounts with over-the-air sync and bringing Cover Stories – a dedicated view for interesting and popular stories – over to the iPad app.

While still prominently “social” in the way it puts the focus on accounts and supported services, Flipboard has become perfectly usable and enjoyable even without necessarily configuring a Twitter or Facebook account. The company has put great effort on building a content guide that spans different countries, themes, content types, and publishers. Flipboard aggregates top content shared by Pocket, it collects the best things found on the Internet under the “Cool Curators” section, and, alongside the usual Tech and Business news, displays popular videos from YouTube, Vimeo, and even Colbert Report in a Video category. With version 1.9, audio has been brought into the mix.

The social component of Flipboard is still strong (version 1.9 also brings “related sections” for social networks, such as “tweets mentioning you”), but it hasn’t been the only way to enjoy Flipboard for quite some time, and this is more visible than ever in the latest update. Flipboard doesn’t simply create a personalized magazine out of content “being shared with me” anymore – it still does that, but at the same time, it allows me to find other great content that I wouldn’t have discovered otherwise.

More than a “social magazine”, the “Internet magazine” aggregates and reformats content that is also social, but not strictly so. Curation and APIs are keys here. Flipboard was already rumored to be considering support for movies and TV shows last year. Would it be too absurd to think the app will someday gain compatibility with Rdio and Spotify to let you find the best music from your favorite streaming service? How about YouTube and Vimeo, to let users also find videos that are bring shared in those social accounts? According to TechCrunch, “Flipboard will look into other ways it can do more with video”.

With social accounts, APIs, search, and curation, Flipboard has become more than a social magazine: it is restructuring Internet content for the screens of mobile devices with the help of a strong social counterpart.

Preview iOS Designs Instantly With Skala

A while ago I wrote a quick review about Screenshot Journal, a utility to archive and investigate iPhone and iPad screenshots on the go. It features a zooming capability of up to 400% to inspect single pixels in order to easily find design flaws, but to transfer those screenshots back and forth, I personally use Pastebot. As I recently found out, developer Bjango offers a kind of a mixture of these two worlds: Skala.

Skala is a tool for designers to easily check iPhone or iPad UI designs (or other creations like wallpapers, etc.) they made on their computers on the screen of iOS devices. Skala comes in two apps: Skala Preview on the Mac — which ironically features a 3D version of the feared OS X beachball as its icon — and Skala View on iOS. The latter obviously works on both the iPad and iPhone, but because the design is the same in both cases, I’m going to focus only on the iPhone version here. Read more

David Leatherman Is A New And Unique Growl Theme

In February, design agency Yummygum posted a exciting Dribbble shot presenting a design idea for a new Growl notification. The tanned leather-styled design, which got inspired by a (also very cool) Growl theme idea of Manu Gamero, was designed in order to create a completely new and innovative theme, which would be different from any other Growl theme:

“The goal was making something else than a (what seems to be the default) semi-transparent dark or light box with tooltip.”

After publishing roundup with 10 really gorgeous Growl themes last month, they’ve now finished their own. It’s called David Leatherman, was coded by Patrick van Marsbergen from Mimbee, looks a bit like a leather credit card, and definitely fulfills the aim of being unique and stylish, though I think it won’t fit everyone’s taste in design.

Nevertheless, it’s pleasant to see that the Growl community is still alive. If you like its style, the David Leatherman theme can be downloaded for free.

EdgeCase Stops Your Cursor Where Your Monitors Meet

I don’t use more than an external display or my MacBook’s internal display since managing a multi-monitor setup isn’t practical with Lion, but in the rare occasions that I do, my cursor always finds a way of wandering off the display I’m working on. EdgeCase boxes your pointer in the current display by putting up a virtual barrier that prevents your cursor from crossing onto the other display unless you hold down a specific key or wait a half-second.

As a simple menubar utility, EdgeCase lets you disable and enable the utility and click one of a few options to get it up and running. By default, EdgeCase will require you to bounce your cursor when it reaches the meeting edge before it transverses displays, but you can turn it off if you desire. Holding down the ctrl key or command keys will grant you access to third party displays: command-dragging app windows will let you carry your application between displays.

I’ve been using EdgeCase to process email and write on one display while watching videos on the other: it’s pretty useful for keeping work and entertainment displays separate. EdgeCase is $4.99 from the Mac App Store.

Chrome 19 Syncs Open Tabs Across Computers and Smartphones→

Chrome 19 Syncs Open Tabs Across Computers and Smartphones

Google Chrome 19: Tab Sync

Google Chrome 19: Tab Sync

From the Google Chrome blog:

With today’s Stable release of Chrome, you can. When you’re signed in to Chrome, your open tabs are synced across all your devices, so you can quickly access them from the “Other devices” menu on the New Tab page. If you’ve got Chrome for Android Beta, you can open the same recipe tab right on your phone when you run out to the store for more ingredients. The back and forward buttons will even work, so you can pick up browsing right where you left off.

Signing into Google Chrome synced items such as your bookmarks in the past, but this release brings us closer to the continuity many of wish for with our web browsers: tab syncing between our devices. Google Chrome should automatically update in the background, but you can visit About Google Chrome in the wrench menu to manually update to the latest stable version. Chrome 19 is available today, while the tab sync feature itself is rolling out over the coming weeks.

Also updated in the latest version of Google Chrome is the apps Settings. The new Settings view makes seeing history and clearing out browsing data a cinch by moving them to the first menu. The Extensions sub-menu has pretty much stayed the same, but the Settings sub-menu now contains an expansive list of options you can use to set how Chrome tracks privacy data and how Google Chrome will connect to the Internet (this is where you’ll make Chrome your default browser as well). The options themselves aren’t new, but rather the presentation has been updated to show you general preferences first, while making advanced options a simple extension of the more commonly used browser settings.

In other Chrome related news, Google could be gearing up to release their web browser on iOS according to a tidbit found by Macgasm. If gushing over this mockup was any indication, we’ve been wishing for Chrome to land on iOS devices for a long time now. While Google hasn’t officially announced Chrome for iOS (we’re talking mere speculation), iOS devices may soon be able to take advantage of the tab syncing that was introduced in today’s update.

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The iPad Is The Future Of Education

For the past years, Apple has been showcasing the educational advantages of devices like Macs, iPhones and iPods on its Apple in Education website. Since the introduction of the iPad in 2010, however, the company has been making an effort to position the device as the best tool now available to teachers and students to improve the quality of education and level of engagement. The dedicated iPad in Education webpage showcases recent moves by Apple such as iBooks Textbooks and the iTunes U iOS app.

While we have covered schools and educational institutions adopting iPads in the past, the latest profile posted by Apple today on their UK website is quite possibly the best example of iPad in education to date. Those of you who have been following the progress of iPad deployment in schools may remember Fraser Speirs’ iPad Project, which made headlines throughout 2011 as it was the first one-to-one iPad deployment to every people in a school. Speirs documented the process of giving an iPad to every teacher and student at Cedars School of Excellence (Scotland) on his personal website, and today Apple has posted a video profile showing how “Cedars students boost learning with iPad”.

The full video is available here, and it shows teachers and kids using the iPad as a modern, regular tool in their daily lives that has improved the way they create and share content of any kind. One particular segment towards the end of the video struck a chord with me:

I don’t think we could ever go back from where we are right now with the iPad. The only way’s really forward – to more access to knowledge, more empowerment, more creativity…all these things in the classroom”.

As I wrote before, Apple’s education strategy will be interesting to follow. Actually seeing kids and teachers who have been using the iPad as a real substitute for and enhancement over old learning tools for over a year now, however, reminds me that, no matter Apple’s strategy as a company, software is the future of education, and the iPad is giving our kids a bit of that future today.

Detractors of the iPad as a learning tool point at the management required by connected devices to ensure that, in the classroom, the possibilities offered by the Internet don’t get in the way of teachers’ requirements and students’ attention. Fortunately, this is something Apple has been addressing since day one, and that has recently improved with more tools.

Every major change in our society and culture will be awarded an equal amount of optimism and skepticism. As someone who’s been lucky enough to find his dream job in the possibilities offered by the Internet and software, I tend to see skepticism as a challenge, rather than a roadblock. People like Fraser Speirs are proving that, beyond analysts and blog posts, a better education for our kids is possible, today, every day, with a device that’s making kids eager to learn.

Free of the constraints of paper and old, disconnected learning material, the iPad brings new challenges and practical issues to overcome. With time, patience, and willingness to look past rules established in societies different than ours, we must make sure these devices we have built and ecosystems we have nurtured won’t be remembered for Angry Birds, because among other things, our kids deserve a better, modern education. And we have to start building it today.

Perian to Retire After a Final Update→

Perian to Retire After a Final Update

From the Perian homepage:

We began the Perian project over 6 years ago. We wanted to simplify viewing your content. Our team has attained that goal and with that in mind, Perian will be retired soon. Our stewardship has been a blast but it’s time for all of us to move on.

When I first purchased my Mac, Perian was one of the must-have applications that should’ve been installed as part of your initial setup alongside Quicksilver, MacFUSE, and Growl. Perian, the can-play-anything System Preferences drop-in, was considered essential for anyone with folders of DivX files (even though it could play so much more). While Perian’s developers are dropping support for the over six year old product, the OS X community will have the chance to maintain the product once Perian’s source code is shared after development ends.

Starting 90 days after the final Perian release, we will no longer provide support. We’ll wrap up our loose ends, pack up our bags, and move on to new and exciting projects.

Perian’s developers are asking that the community step forward to handle support requests, and they are directing new users to download Niceplayer as an alternative. Perian should continue to work on Lion as time permits, but its compatibility with Mountain Lion is undetermined. The source code will be posted to Google Code or GitHub soon for developers to learn from. If developers are interested in maintaining Perian, the #perian IRC room on irc.freenode.net will provide a hub where developers can communicate, ask questions, and get in contact with the founders. As it stands right now, Perian’s development will end within the next few months.

 

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Compare Timezones On The Go With Timelanes

When I ask myself what timezone a friend (or more recently, colleague) lives in, I fire up the Clocks app on my iPhone or Every Time Zone when I’m on my Mac. In many cases, this needs quite some time and disrupts my workflow; I need to go back to my mail or calendar or any other situation which required this knowledge (meetings, mails or projects) and apply the time differences to them. Yesterday, I stumbled upon Timelanes by B-ReelProducts, immediately bought it, and from time to time while trying it out, I remembered some awkward situations in which I could have needed exactly this app to enhance my workflow.

Timelanes basically is Every Time Zone on the go — with some handy extras and a different, but in no way worse UI. When launching it for the first time, the app automatically locates your current timezone and displays it styled as a horizontal lane. This way, it centralizes your chosen hour of the day, plus indicating the exact current time with a small clock indicator. At the same time, you can easily switch between the days or come back to the current time using the arrows and the clock button at the center of the navigation bar at the bottom of the screen, or you can scroll horizontally until you reach the exact point in time you need (Timelanes works both in portrait and landscape mode).

From here, comparing timezones and times is just two taps away. Using the plus button, you can search for any city in the world — not just those standard “indicating” cities like NYC or Mumbai — and add them to your lanes. Those behind your current timezone are displayed above, those ahead are arranged below it. Tap the weekday information and it will change to the actual date, so you can see when the new day begins in every timezone; swipe one, and you can delete them again. Here lays a small and more or less the only design flaw of the app: the edges of the delete button are scruffy and look pretty ugly in my opinion. Read more