Khoi Vinh on iPhone X’s Portrait Mode→

Fair and balanced take on the iPhone’s Portrait mode by Khoi Vinh, who generally prefers a DSLR to capture special moments:

More to the point, quibbling over the finer points of photographic effects is somewhat (though not entirely) pointless. What really matters here is that there will be tens if not hundreds of millions of these cameras in the hands of countless people everywhere before too long, and those people will take billions of pictures with them. Only a vanishingly small number of these people will ever object to the details I’ve listed here; most will be incredibly pleased with how portrait mode performs and will share the fruits of their labors avidly.

Just on the merits of sheer volume alone, portrait mode will become a part of our collective visual vocabulary.

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MindNode 5: Digital Mind Mapping Finally Clicked for Me

I have a confession: I’m not a big mind map guy. I know Federico uses a mind map for his iOS review each year, and lots of other people love visualizing their thoughts that way too, but mind maps have never really clicked for me – at least not on computers.

Up until recently, whenever I needed to do a brain dump and get my thoughts better organized, I would often turn to pen, paper, and a hand-drawn mind map. It’s an odd habit, since I shun paper for digital tools in every other case I can think of. Yet this one holdout remained.

My main problem with digital mind maps is that they have always felt unnatural. When using a traditional computer, moving and clicking via trackpad was cumbersome for me; with a format as creatively freeing as a mind map, it seems especially important to have freeform input methods. Even on devices like the iPad though, while touch input certainly helped remove a barrier, there was still always something missing in my view. Digital mind mapping still wasn’t quite right.

MindNode 5 on iOS fixes that.

MindNode has long been one of the premier mind mapping apps for Mac and iOS, and its version 5 is a huge update that, for me at least, centers around two main changes: a streamlined, intuitive user interface, and the adoption of drag and drop support. There’s a lot more to this update than those two things, with plenty of goodies that die-hard MindNode fans will appreciate, but for users like me – those dissatisfied with digital mind mapping, or even inexperienced at it altogether – the most important changes are those that make the app more approachable, and the new UI and drag and drop certainly do that.

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Apple Celebrates the Hour of Code with In-Store Events, a Swift Playgrounds Challenge, and Teacher Resources

Apple has participated in Code.org’s Hour of Code challenge for the past several years. This year, the company is back again with a series of workshops for kids that run from December 4 - 10, 2017, which coincides with Computer Science Education Week. During free sessions:

Young aspiring coders can learn coding basics during a Kids Hour session, while those age twelve and above can use Swift Playgrounds on iPad to learn coding concepts and even program robots.

In addition to the in-store lessons, Apple has added a new coding challenge to its Swift Playgrounds iPad app with which students build and customize a digital robot and new teacher resources as part of its Everyone Can Code curriculum.

You can sign up for the Hour of Code sessions here, but act quickly because in years past, these sessions have filled up fast.

Apple Posts iPhone X Videos Promoting Face ID and Animoji

Apple has posted four videos highlighting exclusive iPhone X features. Three of the videos focus on Face ID and Apple Pay, while the fourth spotlights Animoji.

One Face ID video is a broad introduction to the iPhone X, Face ID, and using Apple Pay with Face ID. The other two Face ID videos have a narrower focus. One demonstrates that Face ID works even if you change your look. The spot features a woman with different hair styles, jewelry, glasses, makeup, and clothing unlocking her iPhone X with each new look. The other Face ID video shows that the feature works in complete darkness.

The final spot embraces the Animoji karaoke phenomenon. As a woman sings All Night by Big Boi, a series of Animoji sing along with her just like the many Animoji karaoke videos that have been posted to Twitter and elsewhere.

The four short videos, which you can view after the break below, are available on YouTube and will likely begin showing up on television soon.

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Spark: The Future of Email [Sponsor]

Email steals precious time from everyone. Spark recovers those lost moments by identifying what’s important and organizing it all for you neatly and automatically.

Spark’s smarts start with its Smart Inbox. Messages are categorized as Personal, Notifications, and Newsletters making it easy to focus your efforts on what’s important and save the rest for later.

Powerful search makes it simple to find messages no matter where you may have filed them. Spark’s natural language search thinks like you do. Just search for messages the way you would if you were asking a friend.

Notifications can spin out of control quickly with email too, sending you alerts about everything. Spark filters out the junk with Smart Notifications that only notify you of what you need to know now.

In addition, Spark features beautifully designed card-style calendar invitations that can be accepted with just one tap, the ability to send later and set up reminders for messages that don’t receive a reply, message snoozing, and Quick Replies that let you acknowledge a message with a single tap. Spark also has customizable gesture actions and works with Dropbox, Box, iCloud Drive, and more. Spark looks great too with a beautifully threaded design that makes following a conversation simple.

As if that weren’t enough, in just a few short months, Spark 2.0 will introduce Spark for Teams, which will change the way teams collaborate.

The future is now. Download Spark today for free and take control of your inbox.

Thanks to Spark for sponsoring MacStories this week.

Canvas, Episode 49: Long-Form Editors – Honorable Mentions→

In this episode, we wrap up our look at long-form editors with a look at the honourable mentions for other interesting apps on iOS.

In the final episode of our long-form writing mini-series on Canvas, we take a look at Editorial, 1Writer, Pages, and more. You can listen here.

Sponsored by:

  • Balance Open: Find out more about Balance Open and get $2 in Ethereum.
  • Sanebox: Clean up your inbox in minutes. Sign up for a two-week free trial and a $20 credit.
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