Apple released a new ad in its ‘practically magic’ series featuring the iPhone 7 Plus Camera app’s Portrait mode called ‘Take Mine.’ Set in Greece, the video starts with a young woman arriving to visit her grandmother. They sit in a cafe where the young woman takes a photo of her grandmother using Portrait mode, which simulates a shallow depth of field.
The grandmother gasps when she sees the photograph exclaiming ‘What a great photo!’ which gets the attention of others nearby. That leads to the young woman being asked to take portraits of people all over her grandmother’s village. The action cuts between the woman taking photos and the portraits she takes, ending with the tagline ‘Portrait mode on the iPhone 7 Plus.’
Island Delta is an action-packed puzzle game from indie development studio Mantisbite and Noodlecake. The game follows heroes Zoe and Baxter who are on a mission to save Zoe’s robot, Harold, from the evil Dr. Gunderson.
The universal app looks great on an iPad where the high-resolution graphics and silky-smooth animations can be appreciated to their greatest extent. You are Zoe or Baxter depending on which level you’re playing. In all, the three-fourths perspective game has thirty levels spanning five chapters. Although there is an ‘iCloud save’ setting, which I assumed saved progress and synced it to multiple devices, I was unable to sync progress from my iPad to my iPhone.
The game starts on Dr. Gunderson’s island stronghold, which is protected by robots, lasers, and other defenses. You must solve a series of puzzles to advance through the levels while avoiding Gunderson’s minions. The primary tool for interacting with your surroundings is an anti-gravity gun. Tap on something to pick it up, then tap again where you want to throw it. You can toss enemies to defeat them, batteries into power panels to activate doors, and boxes onto platforms to trigger switches. The anti-gravity gun is fun to use and a nice touch that sets Island Delta apart from similar games.
The controls for moving around each level are probably the weakest aspect of Island Delta. You have a virtual joystick under your finger that you drag in the direction you want your character to move. It works but can be frustratingly imprecise at times.
Island Delta’s storyline is engaging, and the pace was comfortable. There are no timers or other mechanics that force you through levels, which I appreciate. The game also includes collectibles throughout that open up secret areas in the game and are an incentive to explore and enjoy each level thoroughly.
Island Delta is one of the best-looking iOS games I’ve played recently. The game is infused with lighthearted humor and a soundtrack that give it a retro-futuristic spy vibe. It’s fun and exciting without the stress of gameplay mechanics that force the pace. Although the controls for navigating levels could be better, the puzzles, artwork, and other aspects of Island Delta make up for those shortcomings.
The story of Time is one that you’d expect to hear on stage at WWDC: two teenage developers, Shaan Singh (17) and Erik van Der Plas (15), create an app to help you be more productive. It’s upvoted on Product Hunt almost 650 times in two days and climbs the productivity charts in the App Store.
But what is Time, and what do two teenagers know about being productive in your work?
In anticipation of the Chinese New Year, which begins January 28th, Apple commissioned wallpapers for the Mac, iPad, and iPhone from five artists. Apple describes the wallpapers, which are available on its websites in China, Hong Kong, Singapore, and Taiwan, as ‘new interpretations of traditional Chinese New Year Nianhua folk art.’
Each of the wallpapers was created using a variety of Apple products, including the MacBook Pro, iMac, iPad Pro, and Apple Pencil and third-party apps, like Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, and Procreate. The artists who designed the wallpapers will also be participating in ‘Meet the Artist’ programs at Apple Stores in China and Hong Kong.
I try not to obsess over every single announcement from CES, but it seems like “Alexa everywhere” is a common theme of this year’s event. Jacob Kastrenakes has a useful roundup of Alexa devices and integrations at The Verge – but there are also smartphones and cars launching support for Amazon’s assistant.
It feels like Amazon is taking the “Netflix approach” with Alexa – to be on as many devices as possible and gain mindshare through convenience and simple user interactions (like Netflix, primarily in English-speaking countries in the first couple of years). I wonder if we’re going to see a proper Alexa app for iOS this year to issue commands from an iPhone. I wouldn’t be surprised to see something along the lines of Astra, only made by Amazon itself and integrated with most of the skills supported by the Echo speakers.
Myke, Federico and Stephen draft their predictions for Apple’s 2017 before talking a little bit about some resolutions for the new year, tech-related and otherwise.
If you want to know what we think is going to happen in the Apple world this year, you don’t want to miss this week’s Connected. You can listen here.
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Apple announced today that the App Store smashed records in 2016 and on New Year’s Day. App developers earned $20 billion in 2016, up 40% from 2015. In addition, on New Year’s Day Apple set a single-day App Store record when customers spent $240 million on apps.
2016 was a record-shattering year for the App Store, generating $20 billion for developers, and 2017 is off to a great start with January 1 as the single biggest day ever on the App Store. We want to thank our entire developer community for the many innovative apps they have created — which together with our products — help to truly enrich people’s lives.
Apple revealed that Super Mario Run, the much anticipated game from from Nintendo, was the number one most downloaded app on both Christmas Day and New Year’s Day. Apple’s Apps for Earth and Games for (RED) campaigns also raised over $17 million for charity in 2016 and app subscription billings increased 75% in 2016.
Having an Apple Watch on your wrist is not ideal for some activities. Twelve South introduced an interesting solution at CES today. The ActionSleeve is an armband for the Apple Watch. Slide your Apple Watch out of its band, pop it into the ActionSleeve, and you’re ready to go.
The ActionSleeve is already available to order on TwelveSouth’s website for $29.99. For anyone who participates in an activity where having something on your wrist is an issue, the ActionSleeve could enable fitness tracking that wasn’t possible before. For others, the fact that the ActionSleeve makes it hard (if not impossible) to glance at real-time statistics while you are exercising may be a nonstarter.
Personally, I’m intrigued. I like collecting fitness data while out on a run or walk, but I sometimes find the availability of glanceable information a distraction. Putting my Apple Watch in an armband has the appeal of enabling me to collect data that I can review later without the distraction of real-time statistics.
We’ll have more on the ActionSleeve soon. In the meantime, here is TwelveSouth’s promo video for the product:
If you read and listen to enough opinions in the Apple-sphere, you know that there are widely varying views of 3D Touch. Some quickly gave up on it, others found it indispensable, and there seem to be plenty of people in between. When Apple first announced the feature alongside the iPhone 6s, I was intrigued by the potential of 3D Touch to add a new dimension of depth to an otherwise flat slate of glass.
When I got an iPhone 6s, I immediately found that some uses of 3D Touch were handy, but those uses were overshadowed by Apple’s marketing message that focused on peek and pop, distracting from the more valuable benefits the feature offers. However, when I pushed aside the Apple-marketing-infused expectations of how 3D Touch should be used, I quickly discovered how valuable it can be in many cases.
It has been over fifteen months since I began using 3D Touch, and I’m convinced that the true value of it only becomes evident through dedicated practice. If you just use 3D Touch now and then, you may find yourself frustrated by not knowing or remembering what all it can be used for. The lack of iPad support doesn’t help here.
The start of a new year is a perfect time to learn new habits. As we reflect on the year gone by, it is a good time to consider changes for the year ahead – new habits to form, improved practices to follow – with an aim to make our lives better. Train yourself to use 3D Touch, and you’ll benefit in the long run. The closest analogy to 3D Touch I can think of is keyboard shortcuts. Nobody has to learn keyboard shortcuts, but if you’re a power user, you learn them because you know they’ll make your life and work easier and more efficient. 3D Touch can do the same; it improves interactions with my iPhone on a daily basis.
