Google released a nice update to their iOS keyboard, Gboard, earlier today.
Cursor control can now be activated with 3D Touch, which is consistent with the behavior of Apple’s keyboard. Gboard can’t move the cursor freely on the screen like the system keyboard, though, which makes it more limited when it comes to swiping across multiple lines of text. Also, Google didn’t implement haptic feedback when switching between contextual keyboard menus (such as holding down on the dash key), which is another detail that I appreciate in Apple’s keyboard on the iPhone 7.
Similarly, Gboard now features Contacts integration to look up a person’s contact card directly from the keyboard – but it’s not as tightly integrated as QuickType suggestions in iOS 10. However, I prefer the presentation of contact cards in Gboard and I think Google’s is a sweet solution as well.
Apple has begun working with large US-based home builders, like Lennar and KB Home, to incorporate HomeKit-enabled systems into newly-constructed homes. HomeKit was introduced with iOS 8. Makers of home automation equipment were initially slow to adopt HomeKit, but it has begun to gain momentum in recent months.
With device manufacturers embracing HomeKit in greater numbers, Bloomberg reports that Apple has turned to large homebuilders to help get those devices into homes. One drag on home automation adoption is cost. As Bloomberg points out, a touchscreen deadbolt lock costs $200 compared to $32 for a traditional lock. Another issue is incorporating smart devices into older homes that were not designed with them in mind. To address both problems, Apple is focusing on new homes:
’We want to bring home automation to the mainstream,’ said Greg Joswiak, Apple’s vice president of product marketing. ‘The best place to start is at the beginning, when a house is just being created.’
By focusing on new construction, the cost of smart devices can be rolled into a homeowner’s mortgage at the time of purchase, making the cost easier to rationalize. New construction also has the advantage that it is easier to design devices into a home when it is built than to retro-fit existing homes.
Integration with native iOS features and apps has always been one of Workflow’s strong suits. With an update released today, however, the Workflow team is considerably expanding the scope of the app to work with any web API, giving Workflow a virtually infinite feature set that goes beyond iOS alone.
Bramhill previews some of what he has planned if the Kickstarter succeeds:
In one episode, I pitch an emoji for adoption in the international Unicode standard, following it all the way from a concept through the bureaucracy of the emoji-industrial complex. In another, I trace the surprisingly dramatic past of an app that was on the forefront of the MP3 revolution. And there are a whole bunch of others. Beginning next summer: eight brand new episodes for Season 3.
The kind of show that Bramhill produces is time consuming, hard work, and it takes money. So for Season 3, Bramhill has launched a Kickstarter. He is trying to raise $10,000 to cover everything from file hosting, to travel expenses. The campaign is off to a good start and includes some nice perks for backers like vinyl stickers and t-shirts. Mark is a natural storyteller. Check out the past episodes of Welcome to Macintosh and the short episodes he will be releasing during the Kickstarter campaign. I bet if you do, you’ll find yourself on his Kickstarter page backing Season 3.
Daylite is a business productivity app for Mac, iPhone, and iPad.
Organize you and your team’s contacts, calendars, projects, tasks, emails, notes, and new business opportunities all in one app.
Track sales and set reminders for follow-ups. See a full history of all emails, calls, and notes for each customer. Customize your own pipelines to track sales and projects. View your whole team’s calendar to make scheduling meetings simple. Daylite even integrates with Apple Mail so you can update customer info, set tasks and reminders, and add appointments to your calendar – all without leaving Mail.
Automate lead generation from online web forms with Daylite & Zapier integration. When someone fills out a form on your website through Google Forms or Wufoo, a new contact and business opportunity are creating in Daylite. You can then segment leads for specific email campaigns and track all of your communication with them in Daylite.
Always have your business info no matter where you go. Daylite is a native app so you can access your information on your Mac, iPhone, or iPad even when you don’t have an Internet connection.
Apple’s high-level goal here should be to include responses that increase your faith in Siri’s ability to parse and respond to your question, even when that isn’t immediately possible. Google Search accomplishes this by explaining what they’re showing you, and asking you questions like “_Did you mean ‘when is the debate’?_” when they think you’ve made an error. Beyond increasing your trust in Siri, including questions like this in the responses would also generate a torrent of incredible data to help Apple tune the responses that Siri gives.
Apple has a bias towards failing silently when errors occur, which can be effective when the error rate is low. With Siri, however, this error rate is still quite high and the approach is far less appropriate. When Siri fails, there’s no path to success short of restarting and trying again (the brute force approach).
The comparison between conversational assistants and iOS’ original user interface feels particularly apt. It’d be helpful to know what else to try when Siri doesn’t understand a question.
The PlayStation VR is finally out. Federico, Myke, and Shahid share their views on the hardware, the experience, and the launch lineup.
Sony’s PlayStation VR platform launched earlier this week, and we’ve been playing with several launch titles for the past few days. On the latest Remaster, we discuss our impressions of the hardware, the gaming experience, and its future potential. You can listen here.
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The Nuisance Commitee: Please stay tuned after the show for a special message about the 2016 election.
iOS gaming is epitomized by games with short, simple interactions, which is why arcade and puzzle games dominate the platform. There’s nothing inherently wrong with that – it plays to the strengths of the iPhone where most iOS game are played. But the success of Apple’s smallest iOS device doesn’t have to be at the expense of its bigger cousin, the iPad. With lots of power under the hood, a big battery and a gorgeous screen, the iPad has a lot to offer as a gaming platform. Yet, games that take advantage of the iPad’s strengths feel few and far between.
Earlier this month, Klei Entertainment, the Canadian studio behind Don’t Starve, released Invisible, Inc., an iPad-only turn-based stealth and strategy game that demonstrates what’s possible on the iPad. Invisible isn’t a new title. The game debuted on the PC and Mac in 2015 and earlier this year on the PS4, but this is Invisible’s first appearance on a touch-based device.
Invisible is set in a future where the world is dominated by corporations. Your security team has been compromised and you have 72 hours to solve a variety of missions leading up to a counterstrike against your enemy. Each mission poses unique challenges and obstacles that require stealth and strategy. The missions are also necessary to collect gear you will need to make your final assault on your enemy’s base.
The turn-based nature of Invisible gives you time to consider the best way to get around guards, cameras, drones, and other obstacles, but at the same time, Invisible creates a sense of urgency. Each turn you take raises the alarm status in the facility you’ve infiltrated, which leads to further complications as you navigate your enemy’s defenses. Guards you take out don’t remain unconscious indefinitely either. Waste too many turns and guards start to come to and look for you. Add to that an ominous electronic soundtrack, and you’ve got a game with a nearly perfect level of intensity.
Invisible is a deep game that is worth playing multiple times. You can unlock ten different agents to take through the missions, which are procedurally generated, adding variety to each play-through. You will fail missions over and over, but Invisible gives you ‘rewinds’ to retry missions, learning the best way to navigate their threats. On top of that, there are five game modes, all of which adds up to hours of challenges that are never the same twice.
Klei’s experience with bringing desktop gaming to the iPad shows. Invisible feels perfectly natural as an iPad app. The choice to bring the game to iPad only for now was a smart one. The game benefits from the larger screen. Klei did the same with Don’t Starve, but eventually did bring that game to the iPhone too. I could see that happening here as well, but doing so would undoubtedly require significant effort to make the interface work on a smaller screen.
I would love to see more games of Invisible’s ambition and quality on the App Store. The success of a game like Invisible on iOS seems like a no-brainer. A high-quality game for $4.99 that would cost you $20 on another platform is a great bargain. Unfortunately, people have been conditioned to expect games on iOS that are free or maybe a dollar or two at most. That’s a problem for the future of gaming on iOS, but with releases of top-notch games like Invisible, Inc., I remain optimistic that there is still a place for premier games to carve out a place for themselves on iOS.
