iPad Diaries: Transmit Replacements and FTP Clients

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.

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Even though I never depended on Transmit for my daily iPad file management needs, I was sad to read that Panic couldn’t find a market for it on the App Store. Thousands of iPad owners use Panic’s app to manage their FTP servers and Amazon S3 buckets; integration with the latter is particularly important as it’s hard to find apps that combine FTP access with S3 support and aren’t hindered by questionable interface choices or a lack of updates.

Transmit for iOS was (and, until it is removed from the App Store, still is) one of a kind. Its excellent Mac foundation was adapted to iOS with taste and elegance, leveraging a split-pane UI long before iPad users were comfortable with Apple’s native Split View; thanks to Panic’s penchant for beautiful and intuitive design married to power-user functionalities, the Mac-like approach worked surprisingly well on iPad too.

It’s difficult to pin down what, exactly, made Transmit for iOS unprofitable. The iOS counterpart always lagged behind the cloud integrations from the Mac app (Backblaze B2 and Rackspace Cloud Files, for instance, never made it to iOS); Panic didn’t update Transmit to take advantage of major additions to iOS 11 such as Files and drag and drop; perhaps more importantly, Transmit for iOS is a product of the pre-iOS 11 era, back when the concepts of desktop-like file management and drag and drop were alien to the platform. Ultimately, I think Transmit for iOS lived and (slowly) died because we had it too soon.

But this isn’t a post-mortem for Transmit on iOS, which, according to Panic, may even relaunch as a new app on the Store someday. Instead, I’d like to take a quick tour of some of the alternatives for Transmit available on iPad today. In case Panic decides to pull Transmit from the App Store, or if the app stops working in a future release of iOS, these FTP clients and file managers should compensate for the features of Panic’s app. Most of them don’t offer the same sophisticated and polished UI design, but some of them may even turn out to be more flexible and better integrated with iOS than Transmit.

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Connected, Episode 176: A Kernel Panic at the Disco→

What does the death of Transmit mean for pro apps on the iPad? Should Apple make a laptop that runs iOS? Does Myke understand how hypothetical questions work?

I liked our discussion about pro apps on iPad and the idea of a laptop that runs iOS on this week’s episode of Connected. You can listen here.

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AppStories, Episode 38 – An Interview with James Thomson, Creator of PCalc and DragThing→

On this week’s episode of AppStories, we interview James Thomson about the origins of PCalc and DragThing, life as an indie developer, selling apps on the App Store and Mac App Store, and more.

Sponsored by:

  • Spark – The future of email.
AppStories+ Deeper into the world of apps

AppStories Episode 38 - An Interview with James Thomson, Creator of PCalc and DragThing

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AppStories+ Deeper into the world of apps

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Evolving the Apple Watch in watchOS 5→

Matt Birchler has published his list of requests for watchOS 5, and I wholeheartedly agree with all of his major feature ideas. His top request is identical to my own: letting third-party apps populate the Siri Watch face introduced last year.

Essentially, Apple should be making the Siri watch face the smartest, most useful watch face someone can choose. It already is the smartest, but to be useful to everyone, they need to make the apps people are actually using work with it.

I’ve been using the Siri face nearly non-stop since installing the watchOS 4 beta. Because I use a lot of first-party apps, it still offers me enough value to be the best Watch face for me. Once third-party apps can tap in though, it could end up becoming the best face for everyone.

Pair Siri face improvements with Birchler’s other major requests – always-on Watch faces, an Apple Podcasts app, and further updates to Activity and Workout – and watchOS 5 would stack up to address all my outstanding issues with the platform.

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Twelve South’s PencilSnap Upgrades Your Smart Keyboard with a Pencil Holder→

One of the longstanding frustrations with the iPad Pro’s Smart Keyboard is that it contains no place for holding the Apple Pencil. Last year Apple released separate accessories – the Leather Sleeve and Pencil Case – that could house the Pencil, but many iPad users still wanted something simpler: a Smart Keyboard with Pencil holder.

Twelve South, with its new PencilSnap accessory, appears to have made that possible.

The PencilSnap is a small leather holster, very similar to Apple’s own Pencil Case, but with one significant difference: it includes magnets for attaching to other accessories, including Apple’s Smart Keyboard and Smart Cover, and Twelve South’s own SurfacePad. While we haven’t been able to test the product yet, Twelve South stresses the strength of the magnets and tight grip of the Pencil holder – in other words, they’re confident the PencilSnap won’t get easily disconnected from its attachment point, nor will the Pencil come loose when you don’t want it to.

PencilSnap is available for $29.99 in two colors: Black and Camel. If it works as advertised, it may well become the new go-to Pencil storage solution for iPad Pro users.

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Smart Audio Report on Smart Speaker Adoption in the U.S.→

Thuy Ong, reporting for The Verge on new research about smart speaker adoption in the United States:

One in six US adults (or around 39 million people) now own a voice-activated smart speaker, according to research from NPR and Edison Research. The Smart Audio Report claims that uptake of these devices over the last three years is “outpacing the adoption rates of smartphones and tablets.” Users spent time using speakers to find restaurants and businesses, playing games, setting timers and alarms, controlling smart home devices, sending messages, ordering food, and listening to music and books. Over half of respondents keep their smart speaker in the living room, followed by the kitchen (21 percent), and master bedroom (19 percent).

The survey of just under 2,000 individuals found that the time people spend using their smart speaker replaces time spent with other devices including the radio, smart phone, TV, tablet, computer, and publications like magazines. Over half of respondents also said they use smart speakers even more after the first month of owning one. Around 66 percent of users said they use their speaker to entertain friends and family, mostly to play music but also to ask general questions and check the weather.

I’m a bit skeptical about adoption of smart speakers outpacing “smartphones and tablets” (it sounds like a vague statement), but this is what the numbers seem to show.

What stands out to me is the fact that, after cars, people who participated in this research study would like to have smart speaker functionality on their phones. However, a similar study conducted by Creative Strategies in 2017 showed that the most common actions owners of smart speakers invoke on a weekly basis include setting timers, checking the weather, playing music, and controlling lights; all these tasks can also be performed by the digital assistants on our smartphones. To me, this suggests that either owners of smart speakers aren’t familiar with smartphone assistants (I doubt it) or that there is indeed something useful about stationary speakers that smartphones can’t fully replicate.

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Spark: The Future of Email [Sponsor]

Email robs you of precious time. Spark recovers those lost moments by knowing what’s important and organizing it for you neatly and automatically.

Spark’s smarts start with its inbox. Messages that arrive in Spark’s Smart Inbox are automatically categorized as Personal, Notifications, and Newsletters, which makes it easy to focus on what’s important and return what’s not later.

Intelligent search makes it simple to find messages no matter where they are. Spark’s natural language algorithm thinks like you do. Just ask for messages the way you would if you were asking a friend.

Email notifications are a problem that can spin out of control quickly. Spark uses Smart Notifications to filter out the junk and only notify you 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. You can even customize Spark’s sidebar with favorite folders and saved searches.

As if that weren’t enough, soon Spark 2.0 will introduce Spark for Teams, which will change the way teams collaborate giving them the ability to do things like comment and discuss messages and write messages together.

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

Thanks to Spark for supporting MacStories this week.

The MacBook Air: A Decade’s Worth of Legacy

Today, all of our notebooks are thin and light. We’ve traded our optical drives in for a series of dongles and our spinning hard drives for fast, silent SSDs.

It wasn’t always like this. Once upon a time, notebooks had optical drives and a full array of ports, complemented by features like removable batteries.

A decade ago, we entered the current era of notebook design when Steve Jobs pulled the future out of an envelope.

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Apple’s Updated Security Guide for iOS 11.1 and iOS 11.2→

Apple’s iOS Security guide is one of the most fascinating technical documents I’ve read in recent years. While the topics are intricate, they’re presented clearly in readable English. Earlier this week, the document was updated with new information on the latest additions to the iOS ecosystem – including Face ID, Apple Pay Cash, and Password AutoFill. There are some interesting details I didn’t know in each section.

On Face ID:

Facial matching is performed within the Secure Enclave using neural networks trained specifically for that purpose. We developed the facial matching neural networks using over a billion images, including IR and depth images collected in studies conducted with the participants’ informed consent. Apple worked with participants from around the world to include a representative group of people accounting for gender, age, ethnicity, and other factors. The studies were augmented as needed to provide a high degree of accuracy for a diverse range of users. Face ID is designed to work with hats, scarves, glasses, contact lenses, and many sunglasses. Furthermore, it’s designed to work indoors, outdoors, and even in total darkness. An additional neural network that’s trained to spot and resist spoofing defends against attempts to unlock your iPhone X with photos or masks.

On Apple Pay Cash, which details the new ‘Apple Payments Inc.’ subsidiary:

When you set up Apple Pay Cash, the same information as when you add a credit or debit card may be shared with our partner bank Green Dot Bank and with Apple Payments Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary created to protect your privacy by storing and processing information separately from the rest of Apple and in a way that the rest of Apple doesn’t know. This information is only used for troubleshooting, fraud prevention, and regulatory purposes.

[…]

Apple Payments Inc. will store and may use your transaction data for troubleshooting, fraud prevention, and regulatory purposes once a transaction is completed. The rest of Apple doesn’t know who you sent money to, received money from, or where you made a purchase with your Apple Pay Cash card.

To read more, get the full PDF here and check out the document revision history for January 2018.

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