I find myself dealing with time zone conversions more often these days. The MacStories team has grown and we’re all in different time zones; with AppStories, we’ve begun interviewing guests, and it can be tricky to coordinate times that work for everyone. While I’ve mostly learned to perform time zone calculations in my head, it can still be difficult when I’m dealing with cities I don’t know, or when countries change to DST in different periods of the year. I still appreciate a good utility that converts time zones for me.
Fast Time Zone Conversions with Zones
Apple Watch Support Removed from Major Apps→
Neil Hughes of AppleInsider reports that major apps like Google Maps, Amazon, and eBay have all quietly removed support for the Apple Watch.
Google released a comment on the story stating their intention to reinstate Watch support in the future.
While apps like Amazon and eBay may not be well-suited for the Apple Watch to begin with, the bigger story here is how long it took for anyone to notice that the Watch apps were removed. Hughes writes:
The fact that these high-profile removals have gone largely unnoticed could be a sign that the apps simply were not widely used. In contrast, removing iPad support from an iOS app, for example, would likely be noticed immediately and generate headlines.
The Apple Watch has proven to be a challenging platform for developers to find success on. Initially that could be attributed to slow hardware and limited developer tools, but Apple has made significant improvements with watchOS 3 and its 2nd-generation hardware. Perhaps part of the challenge is that not every app belongs on the Apple Watch, and for the ones that do, the implementation has to be just right.
Dispelling the Apple Services Myth
Apple is known for its quality hardware and software, but services are another story.
Cloud-based services are the future – there’s no denying that. And Apple historically has struggled with its cloud offerings. From MobileMe, to the early growing pains of iCloud, to the Apple Maps fiasco, the company gained a poor reputation in the area of services.
Only in the last two years has Apple publicly touted services as a core part of its business. Company press releases as recent as May 2015 ended with the following self-definition:
Apple designs Macs, the best personal computers in the world, along with OS X, iLife, iWork and professional software. Apple leads the digital music revolution with its iPods and iTunes online store. Apple has reinvented the mobile phone with its revolutionary iPhone and App Store, and is defining the future of mobile media and computing devices with iPad.
There’s a lot that feels outdated here, including the fact that both Mac and iPod are highlighted before the iPhone. But one major way this paragraph fails to describe the Apple of today is that the word ‘services’ is nowhere to be found.
Amid a variety of other changes, Apple’s current self-definition includes the following:
Apple’s four software platforms — iOS, macOS, watchOS and tvOS — provide seamless experiences across all Apple devices and empower people with breakthrough services including the App Store, Apple Music, Apple Pay and iCloud.
Services are a key component of modern Apple. The way the company defines itself, along with the numerous services shoutouts in quarterly earnings calls, prove that.
Despite Apple’s increased focus on services, the common narrative that the company “can’t do services” still hangs around – in online tech circles at least.
But is that narrative still true, or has it grown outdated?
I want to share how I use Apple services in my everyday life across three important contexts of life:
- As I work,
- On the go, and
- Around the house.
My aim is not to perform an in-depth comparison of Apple’s cloud offerings and competing products. Though competitors and their features will come up occasionally, the focus here is on my experiences in everyday living – my experiences, not yours. I understand that just because something does or doesn’t work for me, the same isn’t necessarily true for you. The point of this piece is not to try proving anything; instead, I simply want to assess and share my current experiences with Apple’s services.
Apple Q2 2017 Results: $52.9 Billion Revenue, 50.8 Million iPhones, 8.9 Million iPads Sold
Apple has just published its financial results for Q2 2017, which covered the period from January 1, 2017 through to April 1, 2017. The company posted revenue of $52.9 billion with a quarterly net profit of $11 billion. Apple sold 8.9 million iPads, 50.8 million iPhones, and 4.2 million Macs during the quarter.
“We are proud to report a strong March quarter, with revenue growth accelerating from the December quarter and continued robust demand for iPhone 7 Plus,” said Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO. “We’ve seen great customer response to both models of the new iPhone 7 (PRODUCT)RED Special Edition and we’re thrilled with the strong momentum of our Services business, with our highest revenue ever for a 13-week quarter. Looking ahead, we are excited to welcome attendees from around the world to our annual Worldwide Developers Conference next month in San Jose.”
AppStories, Episode 3: App Camp for Girls with Jean MacDonald and Grey Osten→
On this week’s episode of AppStories, we invited Jean MacDonald and Grey Osten, co-founders of App Camp for Girls, to talk about their organization and the goals of the program. App Camp for Girls, now at its fifth year, helps middle-school age girls get started with app development, and, for the first time, there will be a Camp in Chicago later this year.
Sponsored by:
- Working Copy – a powerful Git client for iOS.
- Narwhal – fast, gesture-based Reddit browsing.
You can listen to the episode below.
AppStories Episode 3 - Interview: App Camp for Girls with Jean MacDonald and Grey Osten
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Monthly Log: April 2017
Canvas, Episode 34: Password Managers→
This week Fraser and Federico look at another aspect of personal security on iOS: password managers.
On this week’s Canvas, we talk about password management with a focus on 1Password and their modern subscription offerings. You can listen here.
Sponsored by:
- Sanebox: Clean up your inbox in minutes. Sign up for a two-week free trial and a $20 credit.
Game Day: Invert
Invert from Copenhagen-based Glitchnap stretches the concept of tile flipping games in new directions. The only constants in the game are that each flippable tile has two different colored sides, and the goal is to flip them, so the board is one, uniform color. Glitchnap describes Invert as a 2D Rubik’s cube-like puzzle game, which is apt on many levels.
Invert starts with fairly simple puzzles laid out in a grid with only a few flipped tiles. The challenge is that you can only flip whole rows of tiles at once requiring you to consider the impact on other tiles in the row. As the game progresses, Invert introduces the ability to flip tiles in patterns other than rows. The buttons at the end of each row of tiles indicate the shape of the flip pattern. It’s a small difference that adds complexity because it forces you to consider how each pattern interacts with the others adjacent to it.