The Shrinking App Store→

Sarah Perez, reporting for TechCrunch:

The App Store shrank for the first time in 2017, according to a new report from Appfigures. The report found the App Store lost 5 percent of its total apps over the course of the year, dropping from 2.2 million published iOS apps in the beginning of the year to 2.1 million by year-end.
…
Appfigures speculated the changes had to do with a combination of factors, including stricter enforcement of Apple’s review guidelines, along with a technical change requiring app developers to update their apps to the 64-bit architecture.

With the previously announced App Store cleanup and iOS 11’s 32-bit purge, it’s no surprise at all that the App Store shrank during the year. To the average user though, a store with 2.1 million apps is no different than one with 2.2 million. Plus, in theory the apps that remain are of a higher overall quality than what was removed, so this should turn out to be a net gain for users.

Another way users benefit: the App Store’s search engine has long had a reputation for being ineffective, so a smaller App Store should mean it’s easier to find what you’re looking for.

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Finances for iOS Adds Invoice Scanning Powered by iOS 11’s Vision Framework→

Matthias Hochgatterer, in a blog post detailing the invoice scanning feature he brought to Finances for iOS with an update released today:

I’ve just recently worked on invoice scanning for Finances. It lets you scan invoices on iPhone or iPad and add them as a PDF document to transactions. In this post I will show you how I’ve implemented that feature using the frameworks available on iOS.

Let’s start by looking at the final result. You can see the invoice scanning in the Finances trailer. The user interface looks very similar to the document scanning UI in Apple’s Notes app on iOS 11. That’s not a coincident. I’ve reimplemented the exact same user interface, because most iOS users are already familiar with it. Also I found it an interesting challenge to implement it myself.

I’ve been considering Finances (which is available both on Mac and iOS and is on sale for both platforms today) as a replacement for the system I built in Numbers last year, which isn’t scaling anymore (my accountant now wants me to upload PDF receipts to a Trello board, and traditional spreadsheets do not support inline file attachments). I’m intrigued by the cross-platform nature of Finances, its double-entry bookkeeping system, and this new Notes-like scanning mode built using Vision technologies in iOS 11. I haven’t seen other apps publicly advertise scanning functionalities built using Vision and the implementation in Finances looks extremely well done.

I will be playing around with Finances over the weekend (I know; usually, this isn’t what I do with my weekends but I also need to keep my accountant happy). You can take a look at Finances’ new trailer below.

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Connected, Episode 187: On the Edge→

This week, the trio ponder the future of Apple’s Mac and iOS platforms and explore what merging them may look like before talking about a recent Apple hire.

This week’s episode of Connected is a good one: following rumors of Apple developing their own ARM chips to use in future Macs, we discuss the potential of a single unified Apple platform to supersede both iOS and macOS. You can listen here.

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Medical ID Record Provides an Extended, More Flexible Solution to Storing Medical Data

Many of the stock system apps installed with iOS are designed to meet the needs of most people, but they rarely satisfy everyone. Apple leaves it to third-party developers to fill in the gaps. That comes with the risk of being ‘Sherlocked’ in the future, but it’s also an opportunity for developers to attract users who want more than Apple provides.

Medical ID Record is a perfect example of such an app. It takes a feature of the Health app and extends it. The depth of functionality in Medical ID Record may not be needed by everyone, but it’s an excellent option for anyone who has felt constrained by the Health app’s Medical ID feature.

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Scanbot 7 Adds Customizable Filters, Document Merging, Improved Search, and New Themes

Scanbot 7 was released today, the latest update to the popular document scanning app for iOS. This is the first major version bump for Scanbot since Apple introduced its own scanning feature into the built-in Notes app, making it especially of interest. Every time Apple introduces a free app or feature that competes with existing third-party options, the impetus falls on those developers to prove their app’s continued value. Scanbot already offered a variety of features that Notes’ scanning doesn’t, but it adds to those in today’s update with a handful of thoughtful enhancements that make a great app even better.

In Scanbot 7, each of the app’s five color filters for scans can be tweaked to your exact preferences. There are sliders included to make three types of adjustments for each filter. On most filters, those options are Brightness, Color, and Contrast, and with the Gray filter they’re Brighter, Darker, and Color. Not every scan is the same; a good scan depends on the type of document being captured and your lighting conditions, so it’s great having more control over filters to make every scan look as good as possible.

A second new feature is the ability to merge multiple existing scans into a single PDF. This is done by hitting the checkmark in the top-right corner when browsing previous scans, then selecting multiple scans and hitting Merge. You’ll then be able to rearrange the page order of the soon-to-be-merged documents, and choose whether to replace the original documents altogether, or keep them intact post-merge. This kind of task can be accomplished in other apps, such as PDF Expert, but it’s nice to bring it in-app, especially in situations when you need to consolidate scans to send to someone else.

Search has been upgraded in Scanbot 7, with auto-complete suggestions that appear even before you’ve typed a single character. These make Scanbot’s search screen one of the best I’ve used in any app. Also added in today’s update are five new theme options, my favorite of which is High Contrast: it uses true black and white to provide beautiful contrast in the interface, especially on the iPhone X’s OLED display.

If you’re in the market for a scanning solution, and want more power and customizability that Apple Notes provides, Scanbot 7 makes the app a better option than ever. All its power features are easy to use, and the app is full of thoughtful design touches that make for a delightful experience.

Scanbot 7 is available on the App Store.

How to Adjust iOS’ Volume via Workflow When Streaming Audio to HomePod

One of Workflow’s least known functionalities is its ability to get details about the hardware it’s running on and control some system features. Among these, Workflow can both retrieve an iOS device’s current volume level and set the volume. A few days ago, I realized I could make a workflow to quickly adjust my iPhone’s volume when streaming music to one of our HomePods. Unlike other automations I’ve crafted over the years, this workflow was quite a success in our household and I felt like it was worth sharing with the wider MacStories audience.

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Apple Hires John Giannandrea, Google’s Chief of Search and Artificial Intelligence→

According to The New York Times, Apple has hired John Giannandrea, Google’s chief of search and artificial intelligence. In a memo obtained by The Times, Tim Cook said:

“Our technology must be infused with the values we all hold dear,” Mr. Cook said in an email to staff members obtained by The New York Times. “John shares our commitment to privacy and our thoughtful approach as we make computers even smarter and more personal.”

Giannandrea joined Google in 2010 as part of the company’s acquisition of Metaweb and is credited with infusing artificial intelligence across Google’s product line. Giannandrea will report directly to Apple CEO Tim Cook.

This is a huge ‘get’ for Apple and comes fast on the heels of reports that the company is hiring over 100 engineers to improve Siri.

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iOS 11.3 and HomeKit’s Software Authentication→

Mikah Sargent, writing for iMore, on the importance of software-based authentication for HomeKit devices that Apple officially rolled out with iOS 11.3 last week:

Up to this point, commercial accessories were also required to incorporate Apple’s hardware-based Authentication Coprocessor in order to obtain HomeKit certification. The coprocessor handled Apple’s strict rules for encryption and security for HomeKit-enabled accessories. Apple takes HomeKit security seriously — the company says all HomeKit sessions are end-to-end encrypted and mutually authenticated (authenticated by all parties). Each communication session also includes something called “perfect forward secrecy,” meaning that encryption keys aren’t reused — a new key is generated for every session.

These strict rules meant most companies had to build accessories specifically with Apple’s HomeKit requirements in mind. It was a beneficial rule for consumers in terms of privacy and security, but it also meant — at least at the beginning — fewer available HomeKit-enabled accessories. Companies who already had smart home products on the market would need to rethink their products if they wanted to offer HomeKit-enabled accessories. That changes as of iOS 11.3.

I was under the assumption that HomeKit software authentication was already available since Apple announced it at WWDC ‘17 (in fact, I covered it in my iOS 11 review here). As Sargent notes on Twitter, however, accessory makers only received support for software authentication with iOS 11.3, which explains why we haven’t heard of major “HomeKit software updates” yet. Assuming that Apple’s certification process for HomeKit accessories is still going to take weeks, I’m curious to see if software authentication will at least make it easier for third-party manufacturers to consider HomeKit integration.

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Progressive Web Apps on iOS 11.3→

Great overview by Maximiliano Firtman on progressive web apps, which are now supported on iOS 11.3 thanks to new web technologies Apple adopted in Safari 11.1.

I wouldn’t call progressive web apps a “replacement” for native software from the App Store (just read the list of technical limitations from Firtman’s article), but they are indeed a remarkable improvement over how Safari used to save web apps to the Home screen. I recommend checking out these two lists to try some progressive web apps and see how they work on iOS. I spent way too much time playing around with Web Flap, a Flappy Bird clone that runs as a progressive web app and even supports offline mode on iOS 11.3.

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