The Powerful Code Editor for iPad and iPhone — Now Free to Try
On this week’s episode of AppStories, we interview Edwin Smith of Feral Interactive, the developer and publisher of Mac and iOS games about the design challenges of bringing complex desktop games to the iPad and iPhone.
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iPhone Backup Extractor is a powerful macOS app for working with iOS data. The app was launched a decade ago by Reincubate founder Aidan Fitzpatrick from his apartment out of frustration at having lost contacts he’d painstakingly entered into his iPhone. Now, not only can iPhone Backup Extractor recover contacts, it can retrieve deleted conversations from apps like Messages and WhatsApp, edit and browse iTunes backups, and export iPhone or iPad data into formats such as PDF, VCard, and iCal. The app also helps users find lost photos and extract data from individual apps.
iPhone Backup Extractor got a lot of love in 2018 with major updates throughout the year including support Mojave and iOS 12. The app’s UI was also overhauled, the restrictions passcode recovery feature was updated to support forgotten Screen Time passcodes, drag and drop support was added, and an all-new “Info” mode that provides a deep-dive into the various codes, serials, and IDs associated with an iOS device was launched.
iPhone Backup Extractor is available here. The free version of the app allows users to view their data and export four files at a time, which is a great way to give the app a test run. For a limited time, you can upgrade to the basic edition of iPhone Backup Extractor for just under $32 with this MacStories-exclusive 20%-off link. Help is always available too, whether you need assistance with your backups, recovering lost passcodes, or anything else.
Reincubate is always looking for ways to improve iPhone Backup Extractor too and would love to hear from MacStories readers about how it can do more to help people get deeper access to their own data. Feel free to get in touch with the Reincubate team at [email protected] or on Twitter at @reincubate or @afit.
Our thanks to iPhone Backup Extractor for sponsoring MacStories this week.
Earlier this week we rounded up all of the important Apple-related announcements from the first couple days of CES. Some of the highlights were major TV manufacturers adding AirPlay 2 and HomeKit support, the first HomeKit doorbell, and accessories to complement Apple’s latest devices. If you haven’t seen it yet, be sure to check out that first roundup.
As much ground as we covered in that initial piece, the convention has continued on these past few days with plenty more announcements worth noting. Here are more of the top accessories, HomeKit devices, and other interesting products announced at CES.
Before I get any further, let me tell you that some of what I’m going to say here was already covered by David Sparks in this post from almost six years ago. This was just a year and a half after the “beta” introduction of Siri with the iPhone 4S, and David was pleased with what Siri could do. I like a lot of what Siri can do with dates, too, but there are still some frustrating blind spots and inconsistencies. In fact, with one of David’s examples, Siri isn’t as convenient as it was six years ago.
Context has always been one of Siri’s weaknesses, and that’s where it failed Casey. Any normal human being would understand immediately that a question asked in January about days since a day in December is talking about the December of the previous year. But Siri ignores (or doesn’t understand) the word “since” and calculates the days until the next December 18.
Solid collection of examples of date calculations with Siri by Dr. Drang. As he notes, it’s not that Siri can’t answer complex questions involving dates – it’s that you often have to phrase your questions with an exact syntax that a computer program can understand. This is frustrating because Apple promotes Siri as a smart assistant that can infer context without a refined syntax. I still run into a similar problem with time zone conversions; of course, the old trick I used to rely on no longer works for me unless I preface the question with “Ask Wolfram”.
Stephen, Myke and Federico kick off 2019 with annual predictions, a look at Apple’s recent TV moves and the most amazing Shortcut of all time.
On this week’s episode of Connected, we share our predictions for Apple in 2019. You can listen here.
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Apple Frames, my shortcut to add device frames to screenshots taken on modern Apple devices, has been updated with support for the 11” iPad Pro and 40mm Apple Watch Series 4. This marks the second major update to Apple Frames, which now supports the following Apple devices:
Apple may not be exhibiting at CES, but its presence is felt nonetheless. More than ever, Apple’s technologies like HomeKit and AirPlay are showing up in third-party hardware. What’s different this year is the first appearance of Apple video content on third-party devices in what is undoubtedly the first step in the company’s emerging video strategy, which breaks from the traditionally tight integration between Apple hardware and software.
As in past years, the MacStories team is sifting through the hundreds of press releases to find the announcements that are most relevant to our readers. CES has only just begun, and we’ve already seen a long list of product announcements that affect iOS and Mac users. Below are the highlights of those early announcements. We’ll follow up with another roundup later this week collecting additional products showcased at CES.
It’s worth noting that CES announcements rarely indicate the countries in which new products will be available, so it’s worth keeping an eye out for additional details if you see something that interests you.
When Spotify was my music streaming service of choice, one of the features I really liked was its personalized Wrapped report generated at the end of the year. I’ve always been a fan of geeky annual reports and stats about the usage of any given web service – be it Spotify, Pocket, or Toggl. I appreciate a detailed look at 12 months of collected data to gain some insight into my habits and patterns.
I’ve always been annoyed by the lack of a similar feature in Apple Music; I’m surprised that Apple still hasn’t added a native “Year in Review” option – a baffling omission given how the company is already collecting all of the necessary data points in the cloud. Official “Apple Music Wrapped” functionality would bolster the service’s catalog of personalized features, providing users with a “reward” at the end of the year in the form of reports and playlists to help them rediscover what they listened to over the past year.
But Apple doesn’t seem interested in adding this feature to Apple Music, so I decided to build my own using Shortcuts. The result is the most complex shortcut I’ve ever created comprising over 540 actions. It’s not perfect due to the limitations of iOS and Shortcuts, but it’s the closest I was able to come to replicating Spotify’s excellent Wrapped feature.
On this week’s episode of AppStories, we discuss the themes that run throughout our 2018 iOS and Mac must-have apps and what they mean for 2019.
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