Apple Releases iBooks StoryTime for Apple TV→

iBooks StoryTime, an Apple TV-only app, was released with no announcement by Apple today. Apple explains in the release notes that:

With Read-Aloud narration and beautiful illustrations, every handpicked title in the app transforms Apple TV into an engaging place for young readers to enjoy the stories they love.

iBooks StoryTime comes with a free Dora the Explorer book.

iBooks StoryTime comes with a free Dora the Explorer book.

The app, which comes with a free Dora the Explorer book, is designed for young children. Additional books can be purchased from the Featured Books section of the app. The number of books available is modest, but high-quality with a nice mix of classic children’s books and familiar modern characters.

iBooks StoryTime offers several classics, including Dr. Seuss favorites.

iBooks StoryTime offers several classics, including Dr. Seuss favorites.

The read-aloud feature can be turned on or off. When the feature is on, the book is read by a narrator while the words in the book are highlighted in sync with the narrator’s voice. In read-aloud mode the pages are turned automatically. Pages can also be turned by swiping on the Siri Remote when the read-aloud feature is turned off.

iBooks StoryTime (currently US-only) is a free download on the Apple TV App Store.

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51 New Emojis Proposed for 2017→

The Unicode Consortium proposed 51 new emojis for inclusion in Unicode 10. According to Emojipedia.org:

New emojis include a giraffe, pretzel, vampire, bearded man, soda/milkshake, breastfeeding, a “shhh” face, pie, starry-eyed face, woman in hijab and zebra.

Image courtesy of emojipedia.org.

Image courtesy of emojipedia.org.

The proposal also includes broccoli, a coconut, a sandwich, two kinds of dinosaurs, yoga, rock climbing, socks, and an orange heart. The final decision on which emojis will be included in Unicode 10 will be made in mid-2017.

For the complete list of proposed emojis and more images, check out Jeremy Burge’s post on Emojipedia.

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Instagram Adds Boomerang Mode, Mentions, and ‘See More’ Links to Stories→

Instagram Stories continue to evolve with three new features introduced today. The first is called Boomerang. Swiping below the shutter button in the Stories UI switches between ‘Normal’ and ‘Boomerang’ mode. Tapping the shutter button in Boomerang mode takes a burst of photos that is turned into a short video that is played continuously forward and backward.

Instagram also added Mentions to Stories that work just like they already do in captions and comments. Add ‘@‘ followed by a username to an Instagram Story and the username becomes a link that will take you to the person’s profile. The person mentioned also receives a notification that they were mentioned in a Story.

Finally, verified Instagram users can add a ‘See More’ link to Stories that opens an external web page inside the Story. ‘See More’ links are described by Instagram as a test feature. To try them, Instagram suggest checking out the accounts of Duane Johnson (@therock), Chance the Rapper (@chancetherapper), and Bustle (@bustle).

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Amazon Prime Reading Comes to the US Kindle App→

Last month, Amazon announced a new perk for Prime members in the US called Prime Reading, a collection of approximately one thousand books and magazines that Prime members can read for free. Today, Amazon added Prime Reading to its Kindle app for iOS.

From the Kindle app’s Library view tapping the Prime Reading link opens a searchable list of 1,016 books that are available as part of the program. The selection of books and magazines is a small fraction of what is available to purchase from Amazon or download with its Kindle Unlimited program, but it includes several classics like The Hobbit and Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, as well as newer selections like What If?: Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions and the first volume of the Scott Pilgrim’s Precious Little Life graphic novel series. Also, unlike paid Kindle books, which you can only purchase from Amazon’s website, Prime Reading books can be downloaded directly within the Kindle app, a reminder of how I wished the app worked for all books.

Adding a Prime Reading book.

Adding a Prime Reading book.

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tvOS Apps Can Now Be Purchased on iOS Devices and Macs

When the fourth generation Apple TV was introduced, Apple proclaimed that the future of TV is apps. tvOS debuted complete with its own App Store. The trouble was, though, there was no way to link to tvOS apps or buy them anywhere other than on your Apple TV. All developers could do was ask potential customers to search for their app on the Apple TV App Store, a cumbersome process that made it difficult to acquire new customers.

Apple has been chipping away at the problem all year. In April, it introduced the ability to link to web previews of tvOS apps. The previews didn’t include buttons to buy or download tvOS apps, but it did allow potential customers to read app descriptions and view screenshots. Then in September with tvOS 10, Apple added an automatic downloads option to tvOS. That meant that if a tvOS app was associate with an iOS app, it could be installed automatically on your Apple TV if you bought or downloaded the related iOS app, effectively making the link to the iOS app a proxy for its tvOS counterpart.

Apple TV-only apps can be purchased on the iOS App Store and automatically downloaded to your Apple TV.

Apple TV-only apps can be purchased on the iOS App Store and automatically downloaded to your Apple TV.

Today, Apple added tvOS apps to its iTunes Link Maker web app and enabled tvOS app purchases on iOS devices, even if the tvOS app is available only on the Apple TV. iTunes Link Maker lets you search for and generate links to iTunes content. tvOS app links generated by the iTunes Link Maker open in iTunes on macOS and the App Store app on iOS where the apps can be purchased or downloaded. If automatic downloads are enabled on your Apple TV, any apps acquired this way should show up on your Apple TV the next time you turn it on. Links generated with the iTunes Link Maker also work with the iTunes Affiliate Linking program. This means that for the first time a customer can click or tap a link and purchase a tvOS app without leaving their Mac or iOS device and have it waiting for them they sit down in front of the TV.

This is a welcome change for tvOS-only apps that greatly expands developers’ ability to reach potential customers. The change is not, however, without limits. As of the publication of this article, tvOS apps do not appear to be searchable from the iOS App Store’s Search tab. In addition, tvOS app results are not currently returned when the iTunes Search API is queried, though there seem to have been changes made to the API in anticipation of adding tvOS apps. Notwithstanding those limits, the changes today should help make tvOS-only apps a more viable option for developers.

Connected, Episode 116: Undead Zombie Echo Fish→

Myke is back to talk about dongles. Stephen has opinions about the Mac Pro. Federico is trying a new notes app.

More than you ever wanted to know about dongles and terrifying Alexa experiments on this week’s Connected. Also, we talk about Bear and the business of indie apps towards the end of the show. You can listen here.

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GIPHY Updates with Saving and Syncing of GIF Favorites→

GIPHY’s iPhone app was updated today with the ability to save favorite GIFs. What’s more, you can sign up for, and into, a GIPHY.com account from the iOS app so those favorites sync across GIPHY’s website, the iPhone app, and its companion Messages app. It’s a relatively simple change, but one that makes a big difference in the utility of the app. If you have a go-to reaction GIF, now you only need to save it as a favorite once to access it from the web, the iPhone app, or the Messages app.

In my limited testing, syncing was seamless and immediate. The update does not include GIPHY Keys, GIPHY’s custom iOS keyboard. Favorites saved in the keyboard app do not sync to your GIPHY account. In addition, the lack of an iPad app is curious; I find myself wanting a GIF at least as often on my iPad as on my iPhone. That said, this is a welcome update that should make GIPHY much more useful to diehard GIF fans.

GIPHY is a free download on the App Store.

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