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Apple Announces Date and Time of Its WWDC Keynote Event→

Following the announcement in February of WWDC’s dates and location for this year, Apple today has notified members of the press that the conference will kick off with a keynote event, as has become tradition. Jordan Kahn writes for 9to5Mac:

The keynote is scheduled for 10AM PT on June 5, the first day of the conference, and will likely play host to new product unveilings as well as our first previews of Apple’s operating systems, iOS, macOS, watchOS, and tvOS, as well as new developer tools to go with them.

June 5 is coming up quickly, and our team will be present in San Jose to witness Apple’s announcements firsthand. We’ll provide all coverage from the keynote, as well as the conference as a whole, on our site here.

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Snapchat Adds Magic Eraser, Emoji Brush, Limitless Snaps, and More

In an update released today, Snapchat has added a slew of new tools to enhance the creation and sharing of Snaps.

The Magic Eraser is a tool for removing unwanted objects from a picture. You can use it by tapping the scissors icon, then the stars icon. The tool works very much like the Repair Tool found in Pixelmator, the powerful photo editing app. Simply tap and drag on the part of the image you’d like to ‘erase,’ and after a couple seconds of work Snapchat will remove the object. When it works properly, what’s left in the absent object’s place will blend in nicely with the rest of the photo. As with all tools like this, the reliability can vary depending on the particular photo and object.

A second new tool is the Emoji Brush, which lets you draw with emoji on an image like you might draw with a standard colored brush. Tap the brush icon, then the heart emoji, to pull up the emoji picker. Currently only a select few emoji are available to choose from, including the heart, fire, star, flower, and a few others. If you tap and hold on the bottom of the emoji lineup, it will expand to temporarily reveal a variety of colored heart options.

Additional changes in the app include the new Loop tool, which lets you set a Snap to loop until your friend taps forward to the next Snap. This pairs nicely with the new option to remove a time limit from your Snap, so friends can view it as long as they’d like before moving on. Once the Snap is closed though, it will still delete as usual.

iShows Adds ‘Watch Now’ Feature to Stream Episodes in Other Video Apps

A few days ago, I asked on Twitter for a TV show tracker that could sync with Trakt.tv and show where each episode could be legally streamed. I’ve been using Trakt.tv to organize my TV show library and keep track of new episodes for a couple of years now, but I couldn’t find a Trakt-compatible app that also supported showing streaming sources for episodes – like Apple’s TV app does, for instance. In the few weeks I spent using the TV app, I thought that was one of its best options.

Today, iShows – a longtime MacStories favorite – has added this feature, which is called Watch Now. After selecting the country you want to use for streaming (useful, for instance, if you live in Europe but use a VPN for American streaming services like HBO Now), iShows will display where each episode can be streamed or, alternatively, purchased or rented.

I tested Watch Now with the dozen of TV shows I’m tracking in iShows/Trakt, and it works as advertised; with one tap, iShows will open the link for an episode’s streaming source, which thanks to Universal Links on iOS will deep-link directly into the associated video app (if installed). It couldn’t be easier, and I appreciate that I don’t have to look up each show’s information on the web to learn where it can be streamed.

While there are a number of great Trakt-compatible apps at this point (some favorites of mine include Couchy and Television Time), iShows has regained a spot on my devices because of the addition of Watch Now.

You can get iShows 2.9 from the App Store.

Workflow Update Restores Google Chrome and Pocket Actions, Extends Apple Music Integration

In the first update following Apple’s acquisition in late March – and despite rumors that claimed the app would no longer be supported – Workflow has today restored some of the features that were removed in version 1.7.3 of the app (which was released when Apple confirmed the acquisition) and has brought a variety of changes and improvements, including new Apple Music actions.

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SQLPro Studio: A Cross DB Management Tool for macOS [Sponsor]

Do you work on a Mac, but need to interface with Enterprise Databases such as Oracle or Microsoft SQL server? Are you tired of firing up a Windows virtual machine just to run a query? Have you ever wished for a native Mac client? SQLPro Studio is the answer you’ve been looking for.

SQLPro Studio is a native Mac application that works with MSSQL server (both on premise and in Azure), Oracle, MySQL, PostreSQL and SQLite. The interface is fast and responsive, just like you’d expect from a native Mac app. It should go without saying, but SQLPro Studio can connect to databases hosted on Windows, Mac or Linux operating systems and supports either direct connection, or tunneling over SSH.

Write and execute queries in the tabbed query interface, SQLPro Studio supports all the features you’d expect: drag and drop fields from the SQL browser on the left to the SQL editor, auto complete SQL statements including table and field names, even reformat your SQL code to make it ‘pretty.’

You can easily export results as CSV, JSON or XML, and you can edit your results inline so long as you have a primary key on the table.

SQLPro Studio is your all in one solution for managing databases of all kinds, natively, from your Mac!

SQLPro Studio - macOS database management UI is available for $109.99, but MacStories readers can get 20% off by using the promo code MACSTORIES.

SQLPro Studio Studio is also available on the Mac App Store.

AppStories, Episode 4: App Discovery and the iTunes Affiliate Program with AfterPad’s Kevin MacLeod→

On this week’s episode of AppStories, we talked about the iTunes Affiliate Program and its importance for app discovery and independent curation with Kevin MacLeod of AfterPad. The episode was recorded before Apple’s clarification of changes to the program.

Sponsored by:

  • SQLPro Studio – A simple, powerful database manager for macOS. Download a 7-day free trial and use promo code APPSTORIES at checkout for 20% off.
  • CardioBot – use heart rate data captured by your Apple Watch to improve your health.

You can listen to the episode below.

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Apple Clarifies That Affiliate Program Changes Affect In-App Purchases Only

On April 24th, Apple sent an email to participants in the iTunes Affiliate Program that said:

Starting on May 1st 2017, commissions for all app and in-app content will be reduced from 7% to 2.5% globally. All other content types (music, movies, books, and TV) will remain at the current 7% commission rate in all markets. We will also continue to pay affiliate commissions on Apple Music memberships so there are many ways to earn commissions with the program.

The drastic cut in the rate on apps and In-App-Purchases and the short notice took participants in the program by surprise.

The May 1st deadline came and went seemingly without any change to the payout rate on apps. Apple has since posted a clarification to the iTunes Affiliate Resources website that says:

We’d like to clarify some changes being made to the Affiliate Program. Commissions for all iOS in-app purchases will be reduced from 7% to 2.5% globally, and all other content types (including music, movies, books, paid iOS apps and TV) will remain at the current 7%.

Anecdotal evidence since May 1st supports the clarification that the change to affiliate commissions affects In-App Purchases only. Links to apps and other content sold by Apple will continue to earn 7%, which is welcome news for websites and developers who rely on that revenue.

Game Day: Antitype

The clean, elegant design of Antitype caught my eye immediately. It’s a scrambled word game from BorderLeap that’s all about opposites. From its design to its gameplay, what makes Antitype unlike other word games is its unique approach that requires you to think about its puzzles differently than you would other word games. That makes the rules a little hard to grasp when you first try Antitype, but once you have the system down, it’s addicting.

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