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Microsoft Launches Hub Keyboard for iOS→

Microsoft has been on a roll on iOS lately. In addition to the news from the Outlook team that Sunrise integrations are coming back as Calendar Apps for Outlook on iOS, Microsoft Garage, its experimental apps project, launched an iOS keyboard called Hub.

Hub, which has a nice clean design, is tightly integrated with Microsoft Office 365. Hub has an extra row at the top of the keyboard that lets you paste from a clipboard history, your contacts, or your OneDrive and Sharepoint documents. Hub, which is a free download on the App Store, can also help you translate what you type into other languages.

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Microsoft Bringing Back Sunrise Integrations as Calendar Apps for Outlook→

Since Microsoft acquired Sunrise last year and began the process of integrating it with Outlook, I’ve been wondering when they’d bring back the popular third-party integrations of Sunrise. That became clear today with the launch of three Calendar Apps for Outlook on iOS – Wunderlist (obviously), Facebook, and Evernote.

Here’s the Outlook team, writing on the company blog:

This is why we are launching Calendar Apps for Outlook on iOS and Android. With Calendar Apps, you can connect your apps—Wunderlist, Facebook and Evernote to start with—to see all your tasks, events and notes from your digital life in one place: your Outlook calendar. By connecting your calendar with a wide range of services, Outlook will be able to provide you with a far better view of your day, week and months ahead.

Those of you who use and love Sunrise will be familiar with this capability. Since the Sunrise team joined Outlook, we’ve been hard at work bringing all the goodness and extra features from their app directly into our calendar to give you a single, powerful app for managing your personal and professional life. Calendar Apps, along with a two-week mini-calendar, three-day view and iOS calendar widget, have already made it to Outlook, with Connected Calendars up next.

Smart move, and something I don’t see Apple doing either. I hope they’ll open up the platform to more services soon.

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Activity++ Review

After creating the wildly useful Sleep++ and Pedometer++, iOS veteran David Smith has returned with Activity++. Smith’s newest venture is set on improving what’s already been done with activity tracking for the Apple Watch. Along with its $2.99 price tag, Activity++ is a bold move in the progression of solid apps from Smith and one that, rather unsurprisingly, looks to be a great step forward.

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Reddit Launches Official iOS App

For a long time, Reddit was unique among large online communities for its lack of an official mobile client on any platform. That gap was filled by third party developers who made popular Reddit clients like Alien Blue and Narwal. Then in 2014, Reddit purchase Alien Blue, which has been the official Reddit client for the last 18 months.

Today, Reddit launched a new official iOS client called appropriately, Reddit. At the same time, Reddit has removed the iPhone version of Alien Blue from the App Store. The iPad version of Alien Blue remains in the App Store and is free because for now at least, Reddit is iPhone only.

Some of the highlights of the new Reddit app include card and compact views, a dark mode called ‘Reddit night’, which was also available in Alien Blue, a ‘safe for work browsing’ toggle, and support for multiple accounts. In addition, if you log into Reddit during launch week, you get a free three-month trial of Reddit’s gold membership, which is normally $3.99/month or $29.99/year. Based on my initial use of the app, Reddit is a solid debut. The card view is nice for browsing media, but switching to compact mode is great for skimming through lots of items quickly. I also appreciate the inclusion of a night mode.

Reddit, which is iPhone only, is available for download on the App Store for free.

Disney Crossy Road→

One of my favorite iOS games in recent years, Crossy Road, has received a Disney tie-in aptly named Disney Crossy Road. It’s out on the App Store today for free, and it features over 100 Disney and Pixar figurines hopping their way through worlds from The Lion King, Toy Story, Inside Out, and more.

It looks like Hipster Whale (creators of the original game) and Disney did a good job in keeping the essence of Crossy Road alive while also enhancing the formula with new gameplay mechanics and world-specific challenges. I’m going to play the game over the weekend – in the meantime, The Verge has a nice behind-the-scenes piece on how the game was created:

Disney Crossy Road goes in a different direction. While the first area is exactly the same as the world from the original game, the rest are all based on different Disney properties and feature new gameplay characteristics to suit them. Some of the changes are just visual — in the Lion King world you’re avoiding charging animals instead of cars — while others are twists on the Crossy Road formula. In the Tangled world you have to avoid barrels falling down a hill, while Inside Out tasks you with collecting colorful memory orbs.

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Improving MFi Controller Support on iOS→

Craig Grannell, writing on how Apple could make MFi controller-enabled games more user friendly on iOS:

That’s assuming anyone could find a compatible game in the first place, because Apple oddly broadly ignored controllers in the iTunes Store. You’d think the company would at least flag controller support on game pages (something it does on Apple TV), and also automate an App Store page listing compatible games. Instead, it’s left to third-party sites like Afterpad to pick up the slack, which is baffling.

Today, the MFi ecosystem is fairly mature, with a reasonable range of controllers. (My personal recommendation is the Nimbus, unless you’re desperate for a form-hugging option, in which case grab a Gamevice, in the knowledge it may not fit the next device you buy.) But Apple needs to do more to help.

It is baffling that the iOS App Store still doesn’t display controller support or offer a filter to show games with MFi controller integration. It seems like they’re not taking them too seriously.

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Record Your Mind with Thoughtful

Tim Cook, during his discussion of privacy at Apple’s latest media event, called the iPhone an “extension of ourselves.” As one might imagine, such a claim is based around the amount of our personal information we put into our phones: credit card information, personal thoughts, and other sensitive data we wouldn’t want others to have access to.

Thoughtful, a self-described “thought tracker,” is the epitome of that extension. It’s an app that, for the sake of self-improvement, you’ll put personal thoughts into – and, through some helpful features, will attempt to promote better habits.

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Introducing Club MacStories Web Archive, Ongoing Development, Workflow Corner, and Reader Home Screens

When we launched Club MacStories in September, it was my goal to build a sustainable addition to MacStories with extras our readers would find worth paying for.

In the past seven months, the success of Club MacStories has exceeded my most optimistic expectations, and I’m thrilled to announce more great additions that our members will be able to enjoy on a weekly basis.

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See the World With Streets 3

I almost didn’t get this review finished. While I should have been writing, I found myself wandering the globe with the help of Streets 3, a browser for Google Street View from FutureTap. I started at a remote church on the coast of Iceland, stumbled into a pub in London, and then made stops in Kings Park in Perth, El Calafate, Argentina, and finally, Plaza Navona in Rome. From the remotest location to the biggest cities, Streets’ panoramas were gorgeously detailed and easy to navigate.

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