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Apple Classroom First Impressions→

Fraser Speirs:

Yesterday, I got Apple Classroom up and running at school thanks to the release of Casper 9.9, which supports the new features of iOS 9.3. Here are some early impressions. I’ll mostly focus on the technology and how well it works, rather than how effective it is for teaching since I’ve only had a day or so to play with it.

There are some missing features and issues in this first release (low frame rate for screen monitoring or the use of Bluetooth, for instance), but it sounds like Apple shipped a solid foundation for Classroom on iOS 9.3.

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Run Better Meetings with Agenda Minder

Sometimes it feels as though meetings are designed purposefully to waste time. Research suggests that some simple steps can make meetings far more productive. Internodal has synthesized the research on planning better meetings into a new Mac app called Agenda Minder that tackles the problem by facilitating the setting of objectives, and the creation and sharing of agendas. If you care about your own time and respect others’ time, you’re already half way there, and an app like Agenda Minder may help you turn those good intentions to action.

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Apple’s Short Films for Autism Acceptance Day→

Katie Dupere, writing for Mashable on Apple’s two short films about Dillan, an autistic teen who found his voice thanks to an iPad:

Dillan Barmache can’t speak, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t have anything to say.

In fact, Dillan has complex and powerful thoughts, and thanks to easily accessible technology paired with innovative apps, you can hear his perspective.

Dillan, who is autistic and nonverbal, is the star of a new short film created by Apple to celebrate Autism Acceptance Day. Notably, the film tells Dillan’s story through his own words, typed out on an iPad then spoken out loud via an augmented and alternative communication (AAC) app.

It’s difficult to watch these two videos without tearing up. A beautiful story, and an excellent reminder that there’s more to iOS than the apps we usually talk about. This, ultimately, is why what Apple does matters.

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Apple’s First 40 Years: Inspiring New Generations to Create

Anniversaries are a good time to look a back and reflect on the past. I’m a relative late-comer to Apple products, but at the same time, Apple has been in my peripheral vision since before the introduction of the very first Mac in 1984. My relationship with Apple is the story that has taken a long time to unfold, but in recent years has made a big dent in my universe.

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Apple Posts Apple Music Ad Featuring Taylor Swift

Apple posted a new Apple Music ad on YouTube earlier today, featuring Taylor Swift listening and singing along to Drake and Future’s Jumpman while running on a treadmill.

The ad, which is called ‘Taylor vs. Treadmill’ and was posted on Apple’s Beats 1 Radio YouTube channel, features the ‘Distractingly Good’ and ‘All the music you want’ taglines at the end as Swift falls off the treadmill while still continuing to rap along.

Most notably, however, the ad focuses on Apple Music’s support for Activity Playlists, which include selections of songs for various scenarios such as working out or relaxing at home. In this ad, the playlist picked by Taylor Swift is called #GYMFLOW.

You can watch the ad below or check it out on Beats 1’s YouTube channel here.

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Snapchat Does It Different→

Louis Harboe makes some good points about Snapchat and how it continues to change and attract users:

You see, there are lots of messaging apps out there. So many that it’s almost like there’s a template now for these sort of things. Because popular messaging apps all implement the same features: texting, video calling, stickers. But Snapchat continues to impress me in the ways it adds small, entertaining, irregularities to conventional communication methods. Snapchat’s implementation of these template features go beyond exception. They are seemingly familiar but undoubtedly unique.

Admittedly, I don’t use Snapchat a lot. But I find it remarkable how, in less than two years, Snapchat went from being a barely known app here in Italy to a full-blown phenomenon that is used by virtually all of my friends and is constantly mentioned on TV (the “Follow us on Twitter/Instagram/Snapchat” type of mention). I wish I had paid more attention.

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Answers to Ulysses Questions→

David Chartier:

When preparing my review of Ulysses 2.5 for MacStories, I asked my fine Twitter followers for any questions they’d like me to answer. I covered some of them in my review, but it occurred to me that I left quite a few on the table. Here is my attempt to clean up.

Lots of great answers here. In addition to our review, I also posted an in-depth note on how I’ve been using Ulysses as my text editor in the latest Monthly Log for Club MacStories members. I’m liking this app a lot.

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Apple Releases iOS 9.3.1 with Fix for Unresponsive Links

Apple released iOS 9.3.1 earlier today, bringing a fix for a problem related to Universal Links that caused apps to become unresponsive after tapping web links.

Last week, a number of publications reported on a bug that was causing Safari, Mail, and other iOS apps to stop responding after a user tapped on a link to a webpage. As it was outlined by some developers, the issue was likely related to Universal Links – a feature introduced with iOS 9 that allows links to open in their native iOS apps.

Today’s iOS update seems to only include a fix for that problem, and it’s available now in Software Update.

Capture Ideas Quickly and Easily With Yeti

Yeti is all about quick capture and effortless export. Yeti’s main interface is dominated by four colorful buttons that allow you to capture your thoughts with a note, a photo or video, audio, or a sketch. What you create is stored on iCloud Drive in one of a handful of non-proprietary formats that can be easily opened in other apps. And while Yeti does an admirable job of making it fast and easy to record information on your iPhone, the lack of support for capturing data from other devices or apps, will limit Yeti’s utility for some people.

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