Panic Discontinuing Status Board→

Panic announced that it is discontinuing its Status Board app and remove it from the App Store within the next couple of weeks. Status Board was inspired by the custom webpage pictured above that Panic developed and displayed on a large display in its offices to track company statistics. Panic brought its status board to iOS in 2013 with pre-made modules and the ability to create custom widgets and display the whole thing on an iPad or TV.

Panic decided to discontinue Status Board for a few reasons:

First, we had hoped to find a sweet spot between consumer and pro users, but the market for Status Board turned out to be almost entirely pro, which limits potential sales on iOS — as we’ve learned the hard way over the past couple of years, there’s not a lot of overlap right now between “pro” and “iOS”. Second, pro users are more likely to want a larger number of integrations with new services and data sources, something that’s hard to provide with limited revenue, which left the app “close but not quite” for many users. Finally, in the pro/corporate universe, we were simply on the wrong end of the overall “want a status board” budget: companies would buy a $3,000 display for our $10 app.

I’m sad to see Status Board go. One of the first programming projects I ever created was a custom Status Board widget. I’ve used the app on and off over the years and just last weekend I was thinking I should revisit it and make myself a board for my current projects. I may still do that because despite the fact that Status Board will no longer be supported, it will remain available to anyone who previously purchased it and will continue to work until something in iOS changes that breaks it.

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Mac App Store Results Polluted with Questionable Results→

Justin Pot, writing for How-To Geek, walks through some damning examples of apps on the Mac App Store that seem designed to create the false impression that they’re apps like Microsoft Excel:

Seemingly official applications of dubious value are way to easy to accidentally find by searching. It’s understandable that Apple wants the App Store to appear full, but leaving things seemingly designed to deceive people is hardly an answer.

This is an issue I raised in June in the context of the problem of app discovery where I cited similar tests run by Ben Lovejoy of 9to5Mac on the iOS App Store. My point was that developers suffer from ineffective search results polluted with irrelevant and questionable results. But as Pot demonstrates from the reviews of the apps he uses as examples, Apple’s customers also suffer when they purchase an app thinking it’s something that it’s not.

Apple has made some progress in cleaning up search results in the iOS App Store. However, in an all too familiar trend, Pot shows that the Mac App Store lags behind its sibling store and needs attention.

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Castro Makes Accessing Podcasts Easier Than Ever and Drops Price

Castro is designed around the philosophy of making it easy to access the podcast episodes you want to hear. The focus of Castro 2.0 when it launched in August was to make it simple to assemble a single queue of podcast episodes using an inbox to triage episodes from your podcast subscriptions.

Version 2.2 of Castro leverages its flat inbox/queue hierarchy to its advantage with new ways to get at your favorite podcasts. On the iPhone, Castro adds a new widget and 3D Touch support. By default, both display the first four podcast episodes in your queue with buttons featuring show art that can be tapped to start or resume an episode.

Castro’s widget can be expanded to reveal up to twelve episodes at the top of your queue. The use of show art makes identifying and playing an episode easy. The one downside of this approach though, is that there is no way to distinguish between different episodes if you have multiple episodes of the same show near the top of your queue.

In addition to displaying the first four episodes in your queue, 3D Touch adds shortcuts to other functionality, including the ability to kick off a search for new shows in Castro’s Discover tab using text on your clipboard, a feature that is handy if you read about a podcast somewhere that doesn’t include a ‘subscribe’ link. You can also set a sleep timer or jump directly to your inbox or queue with 3D Touch.

Finally, Castro 2.2 adds CarPlay integration, which I previewed in my CarPlay review last week. With just a queue and inbox to contend with, Castro makes navigating podcast episodes in your car a breeze. Instead of drilling through layers of playlists to find what you want to hear, you can go straight to your queue, or jump to your inbox if you’ve exhausted the queue, using the tabs at the top of Castro’s CarPlay interface.

Castro 2.2 is a free update for existing customers and $3.99 for new customers, a $1.00 price reduction from its launch price.

Studio Neat Reveals Canopy, a Magic Keyboard Case and Stand

Studio Neat has opened pre-orders for a new combination Magic Keyboard case and iOS device stand called Canopy. I used an Origami stand by Incase Designs with my early iPads, but they are designed for Apple’s previous generation Bluetooth keyboards, which were a little bulky and heavy for my taste. Canopy is a case for Apple’s latest Magic Keyboard that folds open to create a stand that can be used with any iOS device, which should make it more practical to carry regularly.

Federico spent time with a prototype of the Canopy over the Summer as he wrote his iOS 10 review. We haven’t had a chance to try the final design yet, but when we do, we’ll post a review.

For a preview of the Canopy, head on over to Studio Neat’s website and check out the video preview of their upcoming product.

The New MacBook Pro Is Kind of Great for Hackers→

Adam Geitgey:

A million hot takes have been posted about how the late-2016 MacBook Pro with USB-C is the undeniable proof that Apple doesn’t care about developers anymore. They took away all the ports! No Esc key! It’s just a more expensive MacBook Air!

But in some ways, the new MacBook Pro is the most techy and expandable laptop Apple has ever made. They are trusting their pro users to wade into murky USB-C waters in search of the holy grail of a universal, open standard for moving data and power between devices.

I’m not here to change your mind about the MacBook Pro. Yes, it’s probably too expensive and more RAM is better than less RAM. But everyone posting complaints without actually using a MBP for a few weeks is missing out on all the clever things you can do because it is built on USB-C. Over the past week or two with a new MacBook Pro (15in, 2.9ghz, TouchBar), I’ve been constantly surprised with how USB-C makes new things possible. It’s a kind of a hacker’s dream.

His examples make me wish the iPad Pro had a USB-C port to plug anything into it without having to buy adapters.

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iOS 10 and Default Apps→

Kirk McElhearn, writing for Macworld, returns to the issue of iOS not having the ability to set different default apps:

We’re at iOS 10, and Apple still hasn’t allowed users to make these choices. It seems ridiculous that, with a mature operating system, we’re still locked into Apple’s default apps. It’s not rocket science to make these changes; after all, there are protocols that funnel requests to specific handlers, the same way they do on the Mac. Let us choose the apps we want to use: It’s time to let iOS users have the same freedom of choice as Mac users.

I’ve argued in favor of third-party default apps many times in the past (see ‘Personalization’ here). Clearly, this isn’t a technical problem per se; I think Apple is more concerned about the strategic and security implications of default apps.

Opening up system default apps to any third-party app could result in users choosing alternatives for Apple Music, Maps, and Photos/Camera (among others). These apps are key to Apple’s ecosystem of services and iPhone experience as a whole. They are essential differentiators, unlike, say, TextEdit or Calendar. The comparison between default apps on macOS and iOS only goes so far – I believe Apple sees certain iPhone apps as more important than their Mac counterparts and critical to controlling the iOS ecosystem.

Should Apple allow a third-party to replace the Health app? What about iMessage (a new platform inside iOS) or FaceTime? Bringing user-configurable default apps to iOS isn’t as easy as flipping a switch – there are ramifications that go beyond opening .txt files in an alternative text editor on macOS.

I think there should be the option to set different defaults for some iOS apps, and I think we will get such feature, albeit in a limited fashion. Look at SiriKit and the rollout of a few domains in iOS 10.0; that’s a good indicator of how Apple tends to tackle these problems. Different default apps would be welcome for iPad productivity (especially the web browser and email client), but I’d be surprised if Apple rolled out extensive support to change just about any default system app on iOS.

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Game Day: Treasure Buster

Part 80s arcade game, part rogue-style dungeon crawler, and part pinball, Treasure Buster is a strange combination of game genres that work surprisingly well together. The result is an entertaining game that’s hard to put down.

You play as one of six heroes who must defeat a series of enemies. Each hero has different traits that affect their performance in battle. When you enter a room in a dungeon, you start a battle by pulling back with a swipe on the screen Angry Birds-style to launch yourself at your enemies. When you let go, you bounce around like a pinball slamming into enemies and obstacles, shaking loose treasure from your foes, and collecting the loot.

Periodically, the enemies will stage their own attack, which causes damage to your hero. Clear a room of enemies and you can move to the next part of the dungeon to face new challenges and the occasional boss. Treasure you collect can be traded for new abilities, helping you survive the more difficult later stages. The game ends when you run out of health.

Treasure Buster has two modes of play – Arcade and Endless. In Arcade
mode you move around a map exploring each room of the dungeon. Endless mode eliminates exploration of the map, moving you from one room to another automatically and setting the difficulty level based on a coin flip. Of the two modes, I prefer Arcade where I feel more in control of the part of the game I try next.

The art of Treasure Buster has a retro-pixel style reminiscent of old arcade games. There is a lot of attention to detail at each stage of the game, including a wide variety of enemies, treasure and other elements that keeps the game entertaining.

Treasure Buster is Universal and equally playable on an iPhone or iPad. The mechanics are simple enough to play one-handed on an iPhone and the game is enjoyable in short bursts, though I’ve found it hard to play just one round. If you play Treasure Buster long enough, it can start to feel a little repetitive given the simplicity of the mechanics, but as a way to kill time and take short breaks from something else, Treasure Buster is a good choice.

Treasure Buster is available on the App Store for $0.99.

Canvas, Episode 24: Workflow – Third-Party Apps→

This week Fraser and Federico continue the Workflow series by looking at integrating Workflow with third-party apps.

In the latest episode of Canvas, our Workflow series continues with an in-depth look at third-party app integrations and several examples of our own workflows.

If you haven’t listened to the previous episodes of the series yet, you’ll want to go back and start from there.

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