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Apple Pay Launches in Ireland, Coming Soon to Italy→

Benjamin Mayo, writing for 9to5Mac:

As we reported exclusively last night, Apple Pay is now live in Ireland. The service allows iPhone and Apple Watch owners to use the NFC chips in their devices to pay for their shopping at contactless terminals in retail stores across the country.

Apple Pay requires iPhone 6, iPhone 6s, iPhone SE, iPhone 7, or any Apple Watch, and is launching with support for Ulster Bank and KBC in Ireland. Apple has also announced that the service is coming soon to Italy.

I’ve been waiting for Apple Pay to launch in Italy, and I’m glad to see Apple has confirmed the service will roll out “soon”. However, as I feared, my bank – despite being one of the largest banking groups in Italy – is not going to be supported at launch. This has happened with 14 other countries (including Ireland) before, though, and I hope Apple will quickly get other major Italian banks on board.

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GAget: Google Analytics Widgets and Alerts for macOS

GAget is a Google Analytics app for macOS that started life as a Dashboard widget. These days, GAget resides in macOS’s Today widget panel of Notification Center. If you’ve ever used Google Analytics, you know that its web interface is complex. There’s a place for digging through Google’s many tabs of data, but when all you want are the highlights, GAget is better. It takes Google Analytics’ data and boils it down into cleanly-designed dashboard widgets and alerts that make it easy to understand what is going on with your website at a glance.

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Game Day: The Escapists

The Escapists is an award-winning indie title from Mouldy Toof Studios and Team17 that has been available on consoles and PCs since 2015. This week marked the title’s first appearance on mobile systems, though, with simultaneous releases on iOS and Android. The goal of the game is straightforward – escape from a series of prisons with varying levels of security – but there are so many complex variables at play that The Escapists is good for many hours of exploration.

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Apple’s Latest iPad Pro Videos Highlight Note Taking and Decluttering

Apple released two more short ads on YouTube highlighting features of the iPad Pro. The first, called ‘take better notes’ starts, like similar recent videos, with a tweet: ‘My math notes are a mess since I’m half asleep.’ In response, the narrator explains ‘You know, iPad Pro and Apple Pencil have revolutionized the way we take notes.’ The camera cuts to someone taking notes in Notability, the note-taking app that Federico highlighted in the iPad Diaries this week. The spot concludes with the narrator pointing out that even if you fall asleep, you’re covered if you use Notability’s audio recording feature.

The second video is called ‘need less stuff,’ which emphasizes the ways the iPad Pro can cut down on clutter in your life. In response to a ‘There are way too many things on my desk’ tweet, the narrator explains that an iPad Pro can replace a scanner, a pad of paper, and laptop, using the iPad version of Procreate as the example of an app that replaces a pad of paper.

Apple continues to strike a nice balance with these videos, highlighting a couple features of the iPad Pro that set it apart from a laptop or smart phone but keeping the tone light and humorous by responding to the sort of frustrated tweets with which many people are all too familiar.

Apple Highlights HomeKit’s Potential on New Webpage→

Today Apple’s webpage about HomeKit and the iOS Home app has been completely revamped. It includes a new 45-second video where Siri commands and scenes in the Home app are used to control lights, window shades, door locks, coffee makers, and more. The video highlights how easy and convenient it can be to control smart devices once they’re set up in Home.

Besides the featured video, the new Home-centric page includes sections covering various aspects of the Home platform, such as:

  • Every type of home accessory that is available with HomeKit, with a link to the full list of devices that are either on sale now or have been announced for future release.
  • An explanation of how the Home app organizes devices by different rooms.
  • Short videos showcasing several different scenes that can be set up, like ‘Good Morning’ or ‘I’m Home.’ Each of these features parts of the featured video mentioned above, but with different music.
  • Examples of voice commands that can be used with Siri to control HomeKit devices.
  • A description of the Apple TV’s role as a home hub.
  • Automation’s presence in the Home app as a tool for enabling certain actions automatically.

This past year has seen the first major smart home push from Apple since HomeKit’s announcement nearly three years ago, at WWDC 2014. It comes at a time when Amazon’s Alexa is quickly expanding its reach beyond the Echo and into devices of all kinds. It will be interesting to see if any announcements are made at this year’s WWDC to further bolster HomeKit against increased competition.

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iPad Diaries: Apple Pencil, Notability, and the Joy of Note-Taking

Please don't judge me by my terrible handwriting. I have other qualities.

Please don’t judge me by my terrible handwriting. I have other qualities.

iPad Diaries is a regular series about using the iPad as a primary computer. You can find more installments here and subscribe to the dedicated RSS feed.

Ever since I first got the 12.9-inch iPad Pro, I’ve wanted to use the Apple Pencil more. However, every time I tried to fit the Pencil into my workflow, I stumbled upon the realization that, no matter the excellence of the tool at hand, I’m no artist.

I spend most of my time typing with a keyboard (either a Bluetooth one or the iPad’s software one) and, while it’s fun to pretend I know what I’m doing in Linea or Paper, the sad reality is that I’m downright terrible at sketching or drawing. Moreover, unlike others, my background doesn’t involve a passionate appreciation of pen and paper. Therefore, I’m attracted by the Pencil’s concept and technology, but I don’t need it for my main line of work; plus, handwriting stopped being a daily habit after I graduated high school in 2007.

I was inspired by a story Ryan wrote, though, to reconsider if my work routine could still benefit from a different note-taking perspective. Testing fresh approaches and new ideas has always been the underlying theme of my switch to the iPad, after all. So when Ryan shared his thoughts on using the Pencil for non-artistic purposes, I took it as an opportunity to try out the Pencil as a complement to my writing needs rather than a futile diversion.

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AIM Starts Cutting Off Access for Third-Party Apps→

Adam Clark Estes:

In what feels like a death blow to everyone’s early-Aughts nostalgia, it looks like AOL will soon cut off third-party access to its famous Instant Messenger service. The service turns 20 years old this year, and at this point, it’s unclear if it will see its 21st birthday.

AOL shared news of this tragedy quietly. Adium users, at least, got a brief warning when they signed on Wednesday morning, explaining that their AIM access had less than a month to live. It reads like sad notice for an imminent memorial service.

Adium was one of the first apps I installed when I switched to the Mac in 2008. (Does anyone remember checking out the latest Adium skins and icons on MacThemes?)

End of an era, though AIM feels like a lifetime ago in the age of Facebook and iMessage.

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The Cases for (and Against) Apple Adopting USB-C on Future iPhones

Jason Snell, writing for Macworld on the possibility of Apple adopting USB-C on future iPhones:

But the Lightning paragraph–that’s the really puzzling one. At first parsing, it comes across as a flat-out statement that Apple is going to ditch Lightning for the USB-C connector currently found on the MacBook and MacBook Pro. But a second read highlights some of the details–power cord and other peripheral devices?–that make you wonder if this might be a misreading of a decision to replace the USB-A-based cords and power adapters that come in the iPhone box with USB-C models. (I’m also a bit baffled by how the Lightning connector is “original,” unless it means it’s like a Netflix Original.)

Still, the Wall Street Journal would appear to be a more visible and reputable source than an analyst or blog with some sources in Apple’s supply chain. It’s generally considered to be one of the places where Apple has itself tactically leaked information in the past. So let’s take a moment and consider this rumor seriously. What would drive Apple to kill the Lightning connector, and why would it keep it around?

I’ve been going back and forth on this since yesterday’s report on The Wall Street Journal. Like Jason, I see both positive aspects and downsides to replacing Lightning with USB-C on the iPhone, most of which I highlighted on Connected. Jason’s article perfectly encapsulates my thoughts and questions.

USB-C represents the dream of a single, small, reversible connector that works with every device, and it’s being adopted by the entire tech industry. USB-C isn’t as small as Lightning but it’s small enough. More importantly, it’d allow users to use one connector for everything; USB-A, while universal on desktop computers, never achieved ubiquity because it wasn’t suited for mobile devices. USB-C is.

Conversely, Lightning is under Apple’s control and Apple likes the idea of controlling their stack as much as possible (for many different reasons). A transition to USB-C would be costly for users in the short term, and it would be extremely perplexing the year after the iPhone 7 fully embraced Lightning.

Furthermore, unlike the transition from 30-pin to Lightning in 2012, Apple now has a richer, more lucrative ecosystem of accessories and devices based on Lightning, from AirPods and Apple Pencil to keyboards, mice, EarPods, game controllers, Siri remotes, and more. Moving away from Lightning means transitioning several product lines to a standard that Apple doesn’t own. It means additional inconsistency across the board.

Like I said, I’m not sure where I stand on this yet. These are discussions that Apple likely has already explored and settled internally. I’m leaning towards USB-C everywhere, but I’m afraid of transition costs and setting a precedent for future standards adopted by other companies (what if mini-USB-C comes out in two years?).

In the meantime, I know this: I’m upgrading to USB-C cables and accessories as much as I can (I just bought this charger and cable; the Nintendo Switch was a good excuse to start early) and I would love to have a USB-C port on the next iPad Pro. If there’s one place where Apple could start adopting peripherals typically used with PCs, that’d be the iPad.