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Avian: Global Tweets Mapped on the Apple TV

Most of my time on the new Apple TV (probably around 90%) revolves around watching video (a combination of Plex, Netflix, Stan, iTunes or ABC iView). The final 10% is games and novelty apps like the hilarious GIFtv. The latest novelty app to catch my eye is Avian – a Twitter client.

But Avian is not a Twitter client like Tweetbot – that would be impractical for the Apple TV. Instead, Avian displays one tweet at a time, and literally places it on a map of the earth. You might be reading a tweet from the heart of New York City, and then Avian will surface a tweet from a user in Brazil, China, or New Zealand. As you transition from tweet to tweet, Avian zooms in and out, and rotates the map to the location of the tweet.

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Learn Swift Interactively with TapCoding

TapCoding is an iOS app that teaches Swift programming. In the two years since Swift was announced, it has seen a lot of change, but with the language starting to stabilize and mature, now is a good time to dive in and learn Swift. TapCoding breaks Swift down into bite-sized mini-lessons with a curriculum that spans difficulty levels from first-time novice to intermediate.

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Instagram Adds Basic Extension Support

Tucked away in an update to Instagram described as “Bug fixes and performance improvements” is a share extension that allows you to share photos to Instagram from Apple’s Photos app or any other photo app that supports share extensions. A share extension is a long time coming to Instagram, which previously required you to import photos into Instagram from your Photo Library or take a snapshot or video using Instagram.

Unfortunately, the Instagram share extension’s functionality is limited. All you can do is add a title to the photo you post to Instagram. There is no way to crop your shot, apply filters, tag people, select a location, or select social networks on which to share your photo, all of which are available in the main app. Even so, the addition of a share extension is a welcome addition to Instragram, which received a significant design refresh and new icon last month.

Apple Releases ‘Shot on iPhone’ Videos

Apple released eight short, fifteen-second videos as part of its ‘Shot on iPhone’ series today. The videos highlight each of the seven continents, plus a bonus video set in the sky between North and South America. Each video highlights features of the iPhone camera or effects that can be accomplished in apps like iMovie such as image stabilization, slow motion, reverse playback, and time lapse.

The videos, which you can watch after the break, also feature snippets of an eclectic variety of music.

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Improve Your Speeches with Ummo

It’s a scene I’ve been a part of too many times: standing up in front of a group of people, I stumble through a speech while asking myself why I hadn’t prepared more. You may know how it feels – discomfort, regret, and even fear.

Ummo, described by the developer as “your personal speech coach,” is here to make the process significantly more comfortable by providing key data on your presentation. Paired with a feature that annoys you every time you use a filler word, the functionality of Ummo is enough to make you wish you had it sooner.

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LiquidText 2.0 Brings Support for Multiple Documents

While I don’t work with a lot of PDFs for what I do at MacStories, I’ve had to annotate documents and collect research material in the past, and I’ve been impressed with LiquidText for iPad.

LiquidText is one of the most innovative iPad apps I’ve seen in recent years. The app lets you read and annotate PDF documents, but it looks nothing like a traditional PDF editor. Text can be highlighted and pulled aside with a delightful tap & hold interaction; multiple excerpts can be grouped together in a cluster of bits of text, and you can also add your own notes to the mix. LiquidText is uniquely spatial in the way it lets you organize notes and annotations visually, moving them around, and linking them together. I like, for instance, how you can tap an excerpt in the side panel to see where it links back in the original document. LiquidText is full of interesting, useful features like that.

Today, LiquidText has launched a major 2.0 update that adds the ability to work with multiple documents and easily import webpages in a single LiquidText file. I’ve been playing with the beta, and it’s solid: multiple documents can be opened simultaneously, and you can pull together annotations from different sources in the same space. You can also add notes that reference multiple documents, as well as search for text across all documents at once. I’ve never seen a PDF app for iPad that made annotating and referencing multiple PDF documents this simple and intuitive.

Given the option to import PDF documents and webpages in a single LiquidText file, I think I’m going to give this a shot as I prepare my research for iOS 10 this summer. LiquidText 2.0 can export every excerpt and note as plain text, which I should be able to import in Ulysses to start writing. I haven’t tried importing Apple’s developer documentation webpages in the app yet, but it should be possible. LiquidText’s annotation engine and option to compare files is perfect for that kind of research spread across multiple topics related to each other.

Finally, the upgrade price. LiquidText has always been free (which is crazy if you ask me), but the Multi-Document Pack is a $8.99 In-App Purchase. If you want to support and enjoy one of the most powerful, original iPad apps I’ve tried in years, it’s a no-brainer.

Daylite: A Business Productivity App for Mac and iOS [Sponsor]

This week is sponsored by Marketcircle, the developers of Daylite.

Daylite is a business productivity app for the Mac, iPhone, and iPad. It organizes your contacts, calendars, tasks, notes, emails, projects, and new business opportunities all in one app. What’s special about Daylite is that it links all these things together so get the full picture. Daylite is used by small businesses world-wide in all different industries.

Mark McClung and his team at Starbuck Realty in Denver, Colorado use Daylite to segment customers for marketing campaigns. They also use it to track their sales funnel when selling properties, and to delegate tasks to each other.

Barbora Sablova and her team at Skyform in Slovakia use Daylite in their design studio to organize their clients and projects. Barbora loves that Daylite integrates with Apple Mail so her and her team can link all their client emails to each project. When a client calls, she can quickly see all the emails her team has had with the client, and where they are in the project.

Daylite is a native app so you don’t need an Internet connection to use it. When you do get an Internet connection, it syncs in the cloud across your devices and with your team.

To learn more about Daylite and how it helps businesses to be more productive, visit Marketcircle’s website.

Message Your Journal Using Ipsum→

Ipsum, an app released today from developer Sam Ghobril, is a journaling app with a twist. Instead of fiddling with titles, formatting, and tags, you’ll simply type – like you would in iMessage – and Ipsum will log what you write. Other than the text, the only other piece of information in the timeline is the date an entry is written.

Sam said in a Medium post that he built Ipsum as a chat-only journaling system because he wanted users to “feel okay writing down even the smallest of thoughts.”

I’ve spent some time with Ipsum and am pleasantly surprised. It’s ridiculously easy to use, so much so that it made me afraid I was missing something else entirely. But no – all you have to do is type your thoughts, hit send, and they are in Ipsum for as long as you use the app.

If you’re looking for a new journaling experience, Ipsum should definitely be on your radar. You can pick it up in the App Store (iPhone only) for $1.99.

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Remind Me Makes Quick Work of Reminders Task Entry

Remind Me by Nick Leith is one of those apps borne out of frustration with a stock Apple app – in this case, Reminders. Reminders has some compelling features like iCloud syncing between iOS devices and with Macs, shared reminder lists, and the ability of some third-party apps like OmniFocus and 2Do to import reminders. Yet despite these benefits, Reminders can be tedious and frustrating when you want to enter a reminder with a due date. Remind Me is a handy lightweight iPhone utility dedicated to fast Reminders task entry.

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