Flipboard 4.0 launched today, introducing a redesigned app that revolves around one core new feature: Smart Magazines. The magazine analogy isn’t altogether different from Flipboard’s previous interface, where certain topics or news sources made up a grouping of stories through which users could flip. The main difference here is found in the deeper level of personalization available with Smart Magazines.
Flipboard 4.0 Presents Deeper Personalization Options
Touch Bar Support is Available to Microsoft Office Beta Testers
Touch Bar support for Microsoft Office was announced last fall at Apple’s MacBook Pro event and on Microsoft’s blog. Those features are beginning to appear in some of the apps in Microsoft’s Office suite through Office Insider, a public beta program that anyone can join. Touch Bar support is currently available in Word, Excel, and Powerpoint, and is expected to be added to Outlook and Skype later. Although the features are currently only available through the Office Insider program, they should be available to other users later this year. I updated to the latest Office beta and tried its new Touch Bar features.
In Word, Touch Bar support includes formatting, style application, and table editing buttons. A ‘Focus Mode’ has also been added to Word that eliminates all menus, controls and status bars from the app, leaving nothing but the document you are drafting on a black background. Focus Mode highlights one of the best use cases for the Touch Bar. By moving commonly-used controls onto the Touch Bar you get the best of both worlds: an uncluttered minimal writing environment in an app historically known for just the opposite, but with commonly used formatting tools close at hand.
Excel includes formatting buttons similar to Word but adds styling options specific to spreadsheets and quick access to common chart types. The style buttons are particularly nice because the Touch Bar’s OLED display allows the buttons to provide a full-color preview of the formatting that they apply. Excel also shows equation search results in on the Touch Bar as you begin typing one into a cell.
PowerPoint users get a series of mini slide images in the Touch Bar in presentation mode that make it easy to jump to a specific part of a presentation. PowerPoint also includes buttons for adding slides, tables, and shapes. Word, Excel, and Powerpoint have a button that lets you access recent documents from the Touch Bar too.
The Touch Bar is a natural fit for the feature-rich apps in Microsoft’s Office Suite. It feels like there is even more that Microsoft can do with it in each app, but it’s still early in the testing phase, so I wouldn’t be surprised if more Touch Bar functions are added in the coming weeks. If you are interested in testing Office’s Touch Bar support, you can sign up for the Office Insider program here.
Stagehand Review: Living Platforms
One of my first memories of a portable platform game takes place in the summer of 1996 and it involves Super Mario Land 2 for the original Game Boy. I was 8, and until that point, my only console experience had been with a Super Nintendo my parents bought me for Christmas. I could play with it a few hours each week, which didn’t satiate my infinite curiosity for videogames. When I saw Super Mario Land 2 on a friend’s Game Boy, I was taken aback by two distinct aspects: the contagious fun of a platformer (my only SNES game was Stunt Race FX – don’t ask) and its ubiquitous availability – provided you had enough daylight and 4 AA batteries.
Later that year, I convinced my mom to buy me a Game Boy. A couple of years later, I got a Game Boy Color. For the past 20 years, portable consoles and Nintendo’s Mario games have shaped my taste in videogames and defined my moments of quiet downtime. From Super Mario Advance 1 and 3 (both remakes of games I had never played) to New Super Mario Bros and, to an extent, the recent Super Mario Run for iOS, all my favorite 2D platform games agreed on a basic idea: you control a surprisingly athletic plumber who runs and jumps from left to right.
Conversely, Stagehand, the latest creation by Big Bucket (makers of The Incident and Space Age), upends decades of platformer conventions by turning the genre on its head. You don’t maneuver a character with meticulously timed jumps across retro-styled stages filled with floating platforms and spikes; rather, you sloppily modify the stage itself with touch, dragging platforms to accomodate the hero’s run and making sure he doesn’t run headfirst into cliffs, fall into pits, or get eaten by the inexorable advance of the left side of the stage.
Stagehand is an endless runner combined with a dynamic platform game, only you don’t control the character – you facilitate his run by reshaping the stage around him.
YouTube Enables Live Streaming for Broader Base of Creators→
Last summer YouTube announced its plans to put live streaming tools into the hands of its users. Today marks the first step toward making that happen, as mobile live streaming is now rolling out to all users with 10,000 or more followers. YouTube promises the feature will be available to all users soon, regardless of follower count.
Mobile live streaming has been built directly into the YouTube mobile app. All you have to do to start streaming is open YouTube, hit the capture button, and you’re live! Streamed videos will have all the same features as regular YouTube videos. They can be searched for, found via recommendations or playlists, and protected from unauthorized use.
Paired with its live streaming rollout, YouTube is also launching its previously announced Super Chat tool. Super Chat is a live stream feature that enables special monetization opportunities for creators. In a way it’s a digital tip jar. When watching a live stream, users can pay a fee to have a message they write receive special highlighting that makes it more noticeable to the video’s creator. Any highlighted message not only stands out visually, but also remains on screen longer than a normal message. The examples shown by YouTube so far involve a $5.00 fee to receive a highlighted message, though that number may vary based on the creator’s choice.
Connected, Episode 128: Better Pizza and Better Pasta→
Myke has caused a chain-reaction of purchases, Stephen talks about the PowerPC transition and Federico tries some apps.
On this week’s Connected, Myke makes some great points about the iPad’s sales compared to the Mac, and I explain why I’ve been using Twitterrific and Apple News. You can listen here.
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Attention to Detail on Apple Campus 2→
Reuters’ Julia Love has published a look into the design process behind Apple’s Campus 2, based on interviews with a number of current and former workers on the massive architectural project.
Unsurprisingly, Love discovered that Apple’s attention to detail on the campus mirrors its attention to detail on consumer products.
Apple’s in-house construction team enforced many rules: No vents or pipes could be reflected in the glass. Guidelines for the special wood used frequently throughout the building ran to some 30 pages.
Tolerances, the distance materials may deviate from desired measurements, were a particular focus. On many projects, the standard is 1/8 of an inch at best; Apple often demanded far less, even for hidden surfaces.
Based on outside evidence, the completion of Campus 2 seems to be drawing near, so we can expect to hear more details about the project – and hopefully receive inside glimpses from Apple itself – over the next few months.
Twitter Introduces New Tools to Combat Harassment→
After years of being accused of apathy toward the harassment and abuse that takes place on its platform, Twitter has so far marked 2017 with a stronger commitment to creating a safer environment for everyone.
Last week, Twitter announced a change to the way abusive tweets could be reported. Previously, if a user had blocked you, it would be impossible to report that user’s tweets as abusive or harmful, but that’s no longer the case.
Today Twitter introduced three more changes:
Stopping the creation of new abusive accounts:
We’re taking steps to identify people who have been permanently suspended and stop them from creating new accounts. This focuses more effectively on some of the most prevalent and damaging forms of behavior, particularly accounts that are created only to abuse and harass others.Introducing safer search results:
We’re also working on ‘safe search’ which removes Tweets that contain potentially sensitive content and Tweets from blocked and muted accounts from search results. While this type of content will be discoverable if you want to find it, it won’t clutter search results any longer. Learn more in our help center.Collapsing potentially abusive or low-quality Tweets:
Our team has also been working on identifying and collapsing potentially abusive and low-quality replies so the most relevant conversations are brought forward. These Tweet replies will still be accessible to those who seek them out. You can expect to see this change rolling out in the coming weeks.
These changes follow a series of tweets at the end of last month by Twitter’s VP of Engineering, Ed Ho, who claimed the company is committed to “moving with more urgency than ever” to make Twitter a safer place. Ho tweeted again as today’s changes were announced and reinforced that these actions represent just the beginning, and more changes would be made to the service in the coming days.
BeatsX Earphones Launch February 10th
Today Beats revealed in a tweet that its BeatsX Earphones will be available for purchase this Friday, February 10th. BeatsX come in a variety of color finishes, including the previously announced white and black. CNET also reports that gray and blue finishes are in the pipeline, though it’s unclear whether they’ll be available at launch or a later date.
Announced in Apple’s September keynote alongside Apple’s AirPods and two other Beats products, Beats Solo3 and PowerBeats3, Phil Schiller described BeatsX as “affordable, light, comfortable headphones for all throughout your day.”
BeatsX contain the same W1 chip found in those other products, which improves power efficiency and enables easy connections with Apple devices. Unlike those other products, however, BeatsX did not see the light of day in 2016; they stand alone in being delayed into 2017.
BeatsX are the lowest cost earphones Apple announced in September, barely edging out AirPods’ cost with a $149.95 price tag, nearly $10 less than AirPods. BeatsX claim better battery life than AirPods, with up to 8 hours on a full charge versus AirPods’ 5 hours. BeatsX may also appeal to anyone who is uneasy about the possibility of wire-free AirPods getting lost more easily.
