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Virtual stickers are all the rage on social networks and in messaging apps. Just two weeks ago, Apple jumped on the sticker bandwagon at WWDC with the upcoming version of the Messages app that will ship with iOS 10. This is not something particularly new (remember Gowalla?), but the pace of adoption seems to have accelerated in the past year with the growing popularity of apps like Snapchat and Facebook Messenger.

Adding stickers to photos in Twitter.

Adding stickers to photos in Twitter.

Now Twitter is going all-in with hundreds of custom stickers and rotating seasonal sticker packs you can use to decorate photos. As reported by the The Verge this morning, Twitter will be rolling out stickers to all users in its official app over the next few weeks.

Twitter has its own special take on stickers. From within the official Twitter client, you will be able to

search them like hashtags. Tap on a sticker inside a tweet and you’ll be taken to a new timeline that shows you how it’s being used around the world.

It appears that stickers will be available through Twitter’s official client only, which undoubtedly will be viewed by some people as yet another advantage of third-party Twitter clients, but I can’t help but wonder if sticker-mania will have a net negative impact on third-party clients like Tweetbot and Twitterrific.

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Apple’s Data Collection in iOS 10

Ina Fried, writing for Recode, got more details from Apple on how the company will be collecting new data from iOS 10 devices using differential privacy.

First, it sounds like differential privacy will be applied to specific domains of data collection new in iOS 10:

As for what data is being collected, Apple says that differential privacy will initially be limited to four specific use cases: New words that users add to their local dictionaries, emojis typed by the user (so that Apple can suggest emoji replacements), deep links used inside apps (provided they are marked for public indexing) and lookup hints within notes.

As I tweeted earlier this week, crowdsourced deep link indexing was supposed to launch last year with iOS 9; Apple’s documentation mysteriously changed before the September release, and it’s clear now that the company decided to rewrite the feature with differential privacy behind the scenes. (I had a story about public indexing of deep links here.)

I’m also curious to know what Apple means by “emoji typed by the user”: in the current beta of iOS 10, emoji are automatically suggested if the system finds a match, either in the QuickType bar or with the full-text replacement in Messages. There’s no way to manually train emoji by “typing them”. I’d be curious to know how Apple will be tackling this – perhaps they’ll look at which emoji are not suggested and need to be inserted manually from the user?

I wonder if the decision to make more data collection opt-in will make it less effective. If the whole idea of differential privacy is to glean insight without being able to trace data back to individuals, does it really have to be off by default? If differential privacy works as advertised, part of me thinks Apple should enable it without asking first for the benefit of their services; on the other hand, I’m not surprised Apple doesn’t want to do it even if differential privacy makes it technically impossible to link any piece of data to an individual iOS user. To Apple’s eyes, that would be morally wrong. This very contrast is what makes Apple’s approach to services and data collection trickier (and, depending on your stance, more honest) than other companies’.

Also from the Recode article, this bit about object and scene recognition in the new Photos app:

Apple says it is not using iOS users’ cloud-stored photos to power the image recognition features in iOS 10, instead relying on other data sets to train its algorithms. (Apple hasn’t said what data it is using for that, other than to make clear it is not using its users photos.)

I’ve been thinking about this since the keynote: if Apple isn’t looking at user photos, where do the original concepts of “mountains” and “beach” come from? How do they develop an understanding of new objects that are created in human history (say, a new model of a car, a new videogame console, a new kind of train)?

Apple said at the keynote that “it’s easy to find photos on the Internet” (I’m paraphrasing). Occam’s razor suggests they struck deals with various image search databases or stock footage companies to train their algorithms for iOS 10.

Game Day: SEQ

SEQ is a number sequencing puzzle game from 1Button with 280 levels. The premise is simple – each level is a series of squares laid out in a pattern. There are colored squares with numbers in them and grey squares with zeros in them. Your job is to trace a path from the colored squares to the grey squares. Each square along your path is given a number that is one less than the square before it. For example, if you start with a colored square with a ‘5’ in it, you need to fill squares with 4 - 3 - 2 - 1 before landing on a grey zero square. If you have multiple number sequences to complete in a single puzzle, things get trickier. One sequence cannot cross the path of another unless the number in the earlier sequence where the two cross matches what you need to advance the current sequence. It’s easiest to understand by watching 1Button’s video:

SEQ starts with very simple puzzles that gradually get more complex. You cannot skip around, except among the puzzles you have completed or ahead if you have purchased keys to bypass puzzles you cannot solve. SEQ works well on iOS with its simple path tracing and the ability to play for short periods of time. SEQ is also the sort of game that I like to play while I’m listening to a podcast or music, and fortunately the sound effects, which can be disruptive when you are simultaneously listening to something else, can be turned off by swiping to the view to the left of the puzzles.

SEQ is $1.99 on the App Store with a $0.99 in-app purchase to buy five keys that allow you to bypass puzzles you cannot complete.

Remaster, Episode 12: E3 2016→

Just back from E3 2016, Shahid shares his personal history with E3, and gives the lowdown on what was announced this year.

Shahid did an amazing job telling his E3 stories in the latest episode of Remaster. You can listen here.

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Dropbox Adds Scanning Feature to iOS App→

Alongside some welcome improvements to their desktop client, Dropbox announced today they’re adding a document scanning feature to their iOS app:

With document scanning, you can now use the Dropbox mobile app to capture and organize scans from whiteboards, receipts, and sketches, so your ideas are right at your fingertips. Dropbox Business users can even search inside the scans.

The feature is detailed here, and it looks like it’s been integrated with the ‘+’ button to behave as any other file you’d manually import into Dropbox.

I don’t think of Dropbox as an app on my phone – it’s my online filesystem, which is why right now I’m struggling to imagine using it to scan documents. Essentially, I keep Dropbox on my iOS devices for two reasons: to share files with others and to grant other apps access to Dropbox. I don’t spend a lot of time in the Dropbox app itself.

However, it appears that Dropbox has done a nice job in streamlining the functionality as much as possible, and I like how they’re moving more and more features to Business-only users, so I’m going to give this a try.

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Connected, Episode 96: Simplified the Paradigm→

With post-WWDC flu raging throughout Europe, most of the Connected crew talks about the winners and losers of WWDC including watchOS, macOS Sierra and the iPad.

I couldn’t join Myke and Stephen for Connected yesterday – I’m still recovering – but they had a fun episode about post-WWDC thoughts. You can listen here.

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Marble: A Portable 2-in-1 USB-C Dock & Charger [Sponsor]

Marble by Mofily is a portable 2-in-1 USB-C docking & charging station that can expand USB-C to HDMI, DisplayPort, 4x USB, MicroSD, and charge 4x devices simultaneously with a built-in 60w AC adapter.

Marble offers a single compact way to connect multiple devices to your USB-C ported laptop, including the new MacBook and many more. Marble gives you all the functionality of having your devices nearby. It’s as though they are still plugged right into your computer. When it’s not connected to an AC outlet, you can still use Marble as an on-the-go multifunctional hub for your laptop. The power supply of the USB ports will automatically switch from AC to laptop.

Safety has always been Mofily’s priority, which is why they built Marble with advanced protection technology. Marble protects all your plugged-in devices from overcurrent, overvoltage, overtemperature and short-circuiting, giving you a stable power supply and peace of mind.

For details on how to get a Marble – plus photos, videos, and more technical information – you can check out their campaign on Indiegogo.

Our thanks to Mofily for sponsoring MacStories this week with Marble.

Twitter Releases Tweet Analytics App Engage

It’s easy to make fun of Engage, the analytics app launched by Twitter today. Using terminology like engagement, influencers, and verified users, Twitter isn’t doing itself any favors. But here’s the thing, Twitter is different things to different people. For some it’s a public forum for chatting with friends. For others, Twitter is a broadcast medium. For still others, Twitter is all about marketing. Engage is designed to help you maximize the reach of your tweets through analytics. If that’s not your thing, you may view the app as useless, but that doesn’t mean it should be dismissed out of hand.

What Engage does, it does well. This is not a replacement for your Twitter client, including because it pops up an alert offering to track your tweet stats in real-time after every post. Engage is more akin to a tool like Google Analytics.

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