As we highlighted yesterday, among the components of Apple’s new Union Square store are Creative Sessions that will be held in what Apple has dubbed ‘The Forum.’ Today, VSCO announced a partnership with Apple highlighting iOS photography:
From May 26th until July 7th, Apple Union Square will host four Creative Sessions, each led by an established photographer from the VSCO community. Each photographer will share their story, inspiration, and creative process, and will lead a hands-on lesson based on their unique style and techniques.
Fascinating look at the second year of Monument Valley – particularly after a cameo on House of Cards and a promotion on the App Store:
Underwood turned out to be a great pitch man, one of several reasons why Monument Valley was actually more successful in its second year of existence, compared to the first. According to developer Ustwo, the game has been downloaded more than 26 million times to date, and more than 23 million of those downloads came in the second year after it released. “We’ve actually had to spend a lot of time maintaining the game,” says Dan Gray, head of studio at Ustwo Games, “and finding new opportunities for people to find out about it.”
For the second year in a row, Ustwo has released a detailed infographic that showcases how well the game performed on various platforms. While year one showed that it was still possible for a premium game to make money on mobile, year two shows just how huge of an audience you can reach by offering your game for free — the biggest reason behind _Monument Valley_’s enduring success wasn’t a fictional US president, it was the lack of a price tag.
The difference in downloads between the first and second year on iOS is remarkable, but even more impressive is the performance in China.
Apple’s history with events scheduled around WWDC has been stormy. In 2013, CocoaConf scheduled an alternative conference for developers who were unable to get a ticket to WWDC called CocoaConf Alt. The conference was set to coincide with WWDC until CocoaConf organizers received an email from the Intercontinental Hotel that they could not hold the conference due to a contractual conflict with Apple. More recently, AltConf (originally AltWWDC and changed) planned to stream the 2015 WWDC keynote and State of the Union presentations at the Metreon Theater across the street from Moscone West. Initially, Apple threatened legal action, but ultimately, agreed to allow AltConf to stream the sessions that Apple streamed itself.
Glenn Fleishman, writing for Macworld on a recent change to Touch ID authentication in iOS 9:
When iOS 9 was released, Apple updated its list of cases in which iOS asks for a passcode even when Touch ID is enabled. A previously undocumented requirement asks for a passcode in a very particular set of circumstances: When the iPhone or iPad hasn’t been unlocked with its passcode in the previous six days, and Touch ID hasn’t been used to unlock it within the last eight hours. It’s a rolling timeout, so each time Touch ID unlocks a device, a new eight-hour timer starts to tick down until the passcode is required. If you wondered why you were being seemingly randomly prompted for your passcode (or more complicated password), this is likely the reason.
This explains why I’ve been seeing the passcode prompt during the weekends (when I stay up late and occasionally sleep more than 8 hours).
Apple today revealed its new store on San Francisco’s Union Square, offering many new features and services rolling out to Apple retail stores worldwide. The new store will open its signature 42-foot tall sliding glass doors to customers on Saturday, May 21 at 10 a.m.
“Fifteen years ago today Apple opened its first two stores and we’re thrilled to mark the occasion with the opening of Apple Union Square in San Francisco,” said Angela Ahrendts, Apple’s senior vice president of Retail and Online Stores. “We are not just evolving our store design, but its purpose and greater role in the community as we educate and entertain visitors and serve our network of local entrepreneurs.”
Apple Union Square’s glass doors open the store to Post Street and Union Square. The building’s unique position connects San Francisco’s most famous square to a rejuvenated plaza to the north, creating a beautiful gathering place for the community. The art-filled plaza offers seating, public Wi-Fi, a 50-foot tall “green wall” and regular acoustic performances. The store is powered by 100 percent renewable energy, including power produced by photovoltaic panels integrated into the building’s roof.
Matthew Panzarino, Rene Ritchie, and Harry McCracken have shared photos of the new location in San Francisco, which include a “Genius Grove” and a “Plaza” that will only be found at the “most significant stores”. The new elements are looking good and I like the community ideas; I wonder if we’ll ever get something like this in Rome.
Today Readdle updated PDF Expert for the Mac and iOS with two new features - Apple Pencil support for the iPad Pro and file transfer between the Mac and iOS. In my initial tests, Apple Pencil worked well in most circumstances and file transfer may come in handy for some people, though it’s a little cumbersome compared with saving PDFs to a cloud storage service.
Mac Power Users co-host David Sparks has released his latest MacSparky publication: The Hazel Video Field Guide. Hazel is one of my favorite automation tools, and was recently updated to version 4. I bought it before I even downloaded the new version. That’s how great of a tool it is.
As David says: “The thing I love about Hazel is the way it can turn mere mortals into automation gods. Anybody can do this. You don’t need a lick of programming knowledge.” He’s right. Hazel is easier than Folder Actions, and a lot more powerful too. If you can write Mail.app rules, you can automate your Mac with Hazel.
But what if you’ve never used Hazel and want to jump right in and learn the best of what it has to offer? That’s where David comes in. In almost 2.5 hours of video, David will walk you through Hazel, showing you everything from the basics to more advanced features using AppleScript. I’ve been using Hazel for years and would call myself a power user, but I learned some new tricks from David in this guide.
At its I/O keynote earlier today, Google announced that it would venture further into messaging and video calling with two new apps: Allo and Duo. A familiar combination of text messaging and video chat, the two will provide a new way to chat with friends and obtain useful information within Google’s ecoystem.
The apps, which will be released this summer, will come to both Android and iOS, directly challenging the latter’s own iMessage and FaceTime services. Although Google did not put a strict release date on Duo or Allo, it did offer a sneak peak of what’s next.
Allo
Drawing inspiration from iMessage, Slack, and Google’s own Inbox, Allo looks to enrich the messaging experience by providing contextual information in a typical conversational format.
Based on your phone number, Allo will use your contacts to create a conversation. In many ways, Allo is a familiar messaging app, promoting back-and-forth conversation and displaying the responding status of the other party. However, Google has added a few features to make conversing easier and smarter.
Smart Reply
Mirroring Inbox, Allo supports Google’s Smart Reply system, a feature that scans the conversation and presents pre-written responses for your choosing. This can be anything from a simple “Hello!” to a response to a dinner request and, more impressively, a comment on a photo. Google claims that Smart Reply can identify the context of the action in a picture and suggest responses based on what it’s seen. As with much of Google’s software, the service will learn how you interact and adjust its replies based on your language patterns.
Google’s Assistant
Within a conversation, Google will present relevant search results based on the information you type. If, for example, you wanted to suggest to your friend that you should get coffee, the assistant would display an option to perform a search for coffee shops nearby.
After selecting the search, the assistant will insert options in a carousel with rating and distance. Choosing one of the shops would provide the opportunity to call, make a reservation, and so on. This isn’t limited to restaurants, of course, and Google said that it will be working with developers to bring tailored results straight into your conversation.
The assistant also works by itself, using natural language processing to perform actions like searching the web or getting the day’s schedule. One example from the keynote involved asking the assistant in a private conversation the result of the user’s favorite team, returning the latest result for Real Madrid.
Miscellaneous
Allo provides a simple way to send and draw on pictures – when sending an image, a pencil icon can be selected to write on the image. This was only demoed for a few seconds, so it’ll be interesting to see the customization options this features.
Also included is “WhisperShout,” a method for adjusting the text size to fit the desired message. By tapping and holding on the send button, users can slide a finger up or down to change the size of the message.
Incognito mode also makes an appearance in Allo, providing “end-to-end encryption and discreet notifications” for conversations. According to Open Whisper Systems, the company is partnering with Google to use their Signal Protocol technology, a “modern, open source, strong encyrption protocol for asynchronous messaging systems.” Incognito mode is not on by default, it seems, but it’s a welcome feature for those desiring more privacy.
Duo
Along with text messaging, Google also showed Duo, a video messaging service akin to Skype or FaceTime. Essentially, it’s much of the same story: a video call between two people through their phone numbers. Google claims Duo will show video in “crisp HD video” (up to 720p) and will switch between cellular and WiFi when it deems necessary. It also claims that video quality will adjust based on connection, ensuring that it’s still possible to continue the call.
The biggest differentiator between Duo and its competitors is what Google calls Knock Knock. With Knock Knock, the caller’s video stream will start before the video is accepted, meaning that the receiver is able to see the other party before picking up. Once the call is accepted, the video call will start between the two.
Without a firm launch date, Google is left with the task of providing information along the way to keep potential users interested. So far, it seems that both Allo and Duo are contenders in their respective categories; unfortunately, all we have of the apps today are the few screenshots, GIFs, and a blog post. In the coming months, it’d be nice to see a beta release from Google to get a better understanding how Allo and Duo work.
