The Powerful Code Editor for iPad and iPhone — Now Free to Try
Nice move from Reddit (via MacRumors): if you bought a Pro upgrade for Alien Blue (which was acquired by Reddit in 2014), the latest update will get you a four-year Reddit Gold subscription for free.
I realize that I’m spending quite a bit of time on Reddit each day (some subreddits can be surprisingly civil and informative), but I never really considered the Gold membership. It’s got some intriguing perks.
For a long time, Articles by Sophiestication Software was my favorite Wikipedia app on iOS. But Articles is showing its age because it hasn’t been updated since September 2013 when developer Sophia Teutschler took a job on the UIKit Frameworks team at Apple.
Wikipedia has had its own official app for years, but for much of that time it wasn’t very good. Apps like Articles filled the gap, presenting a cleaner, better-designed experience. After years of using Articles, I lost track of Wikipedia’s iOS app, but was pleasantly surprised when I downloaded the just-released version 5, which has evolved into a great all-around Wikipedia utility.
Annalee Newitz, writing for Ars Technica, has a great profile of Slack and its impact on virtual offices and team communication:
Working in Slack feels like working at Slack for one simple reason. Henderson and his team built the software for themselves when they were developing the game Glitch with Tiny Speck, a company whose staff was split between San Francisco and Vancouver. “We started with IRC because we needed to chat somehow,” Henderson recalls. “We tried things for collaboration, like having a constant video link or open Skype calls all day. But the thing that was consistent was IRC.”
IRC, or internet relay chat, is a 28-year-old protocol for text-based communication that’s open and incredibly versatile. Henderson and his colleagues built their entire workflow on top of it. They shared game assets, migrated a game server with it, committed code—and, of course, maintained contact with the whole team. When they ceased work on Glitch in 2012, Henderson says, they agreed that they would never work together again without a customized IRC system like what they had at Tiny Speck.
The article goes deep into the possible negative aspects of a “Slack culture” where everything is an emoji reaction or private message. (See also: breaking up with Slack.)
Personally, having a small team that’s scattered around the world (we’d never be able to have physical meetings on a regular basis), I love how Slack’s virtual office enables us to work together every day. But, I recognize some of the concerns shared by Newitz. A recommended read.
As first reported by John Paczkowski at BuzzFeed, Apple has announced a media event for Monday, March 21, in Cupertino.
Apple invites are out for March 21st event in Cupertino pic.twitter.com/t9eEIiLbjm
— Tim Bradshaw (@tim) March 10, 2016
In the event invitation (pictured above), Apple says “let us loop you in”, possibly in reference to the fact that the event will be held at the company’s campus at 1 Infinite Loop.
According to recent speculation and rumors, Apple is widely expected to introduce a new “iPhone SE” which will feature a 4-inch display, a new 9.7-inch iPad Pro, and new bands for the Apple Watch. It is also expected that Apple will likely announce the official release of iOS 9.3, which has been in public beta since January. iOS 9.3 includes a number of new features including Night Shift, improved News and Notes apps, and more advanced tools and features for using iOS devices in education.
The event is also one day before Apple and the Department of Justice will make oral arguments before Magistrate Judge Sheri Pym in the San Bernardino case.
Update: Apple has set up a special page for the event, confirming that it will be streamed live on March 21. The video will be available here.
In a blog post discussing layoffs and the evolution of music streaming services, Sonos CEO John MacFarlane included a cryptic final section on voice recognition and Sonos products:
We’re fans of what Amazon has done with Alexa and the Echo product line. Voice recognition isn’t new; today it’s nearly ubiquitous with Siri, OK Google, and Cortana. But the Echo found a sweet spot in the home and will impact how we navigate music, weather, and many, many other things as developers bring new ideas and more content to the Alexa platform.
Alexa/Echo is the first product to really showcase the power of voice control in the home. Its popularity with consumers will accelerate innovation across the entire industry. What is novel today will become standard tomorrow. Here again, Sonos is taking the long view in how best to bring voice-enabled music experiences into the home. Voice is a big change for us, so we’ll invest what’s required to bring it to market in a wonderful way.
I have no idea what MacFarlane is trying to say here – it could be an Echo/Sonos integration on the horizon (possible with a firmware update) or future Sonos hardware with voice tech built in (seems more likely given the overall tone of the post). “Taking the long view in how best to bring voice-enabled music experiences into the home” doesn’t mean much, but I’d love to ask Alexa to play music on my Sonos.
Speaking of iMore – they asked me to work on a guide to get started with Workflow, which was published today.
Workflow is the Minecraft of iOS productivity: By deeply integrating with native iOS features and apps, Workflow’s hundreds of actions are the building blocks that will help you save time when performing any kind of repetitive task. For both novices and more advanced users, Workflow is a beacon for iOS automation, and there’s nothing else like it on the App Store.
It’s the most powerful app on my iPhone and iPad — I wouldn’t be able to work without it, and, almost two years after its release, I’m still discovering its infinite potential. And, with luck, this article can help you along your Workflow journey, too.
I’m happy with how this turned out. If you’re intimidated by the many features of this amazing app, hopefully this should be a good place to start playing with it.
Serenity Caldwell, writing for iMore, would like to see iOS gaining handwriting recognition at a system level, especially now that iPad users have the Pencil:
There are plenty of reasons why Apple hasn’t yet implemented system-level handwriting recognition in iOS: For one, you need an exceptionally good pen input, and — until the introduction of the Pencil — no third-party stylus had the precision or the lag reduction to be a truly useful tool.
There’s also both the processing power and stigma to consider. Like Siri, handwriting recognition works as a transcription service; in order for it to translate your physical marks into typed characters, however, it needs a substantial dictionary and the power to transcribe your words using your phone’s processor or online servers. That means more cloud infrastructure or more powerful iOS devices — or both — as well as the engineers to craft a smart dictionary.
If Apple does add this to the Notes app – and I believe it would make sense – OCR for images and documents would also be another welcome text-related improvement.
Alex Heath, reporting for Tech Insider:
Masquerade’s app lets you overlay playful, animated filters over your face using your phone’s selfie camera. The effects range from Leonardo DiCaprio at the Oscars (right) to a monkey, and they’re fun to play with. You can record video in the app or take a still photo to share on other social networks.
And:
Expect Masquerade’s face swapping filters to show up in the Facebook app eventually.
The social network also plans to keep Masquerade operational as a standalone, free app, as well as integrating its technology into Facebook. The effects join a line of creative tools Facebook has added to its app already, like stickers, finger doodles, and photo filters.
Masquerade built impressive technology for real-time camera manipulation (I also featured the app in a recent collection of MacStories Weekly for Club members). The acquisition makes sense – from anecdotal experience, in the past couple of months I’ve seen a lot of my friends post selfies modified with Masquerade and Face Swap.
Maybe I’m biased because I’m a writer, but when it was announced in 2010, the iPad struck me as a device which could become a great tool for, amongst many things, my craft. A number of good writing apps (and accessories) have appeared in that time, but when I found Ulysses about a year ago, something clicked.
Made by an 11-person team in Germany called The Soulmen, Ulysses is pitched to authors, bloggers, students, and every writer in between. Much more than a typical ‘distraction-free’ Markdown editor that hooks up to Dropbox, I think of Ulysses as a writing environment. It has a full suite of tools including a post-Finder document system, the most thorough Markdown shortcut keyboard I’ve ever seen, the ability to split and merge documents, a unique approach to attachments, and so much more.
I’m writing this review because The Soulmen just released Ulysses 2.5 for iPad, Mac, and, for the first time, iPhone, though I’ll focus on the iOS version for this review. The company told me this is the largest iOS update it’s ever released, and having helped test the beta for the last couple of months and perusing the release notes, I believe it. Surprisingly, not only is this major upgrade that makes the iPad edition universal, it’s free to existing owners.
With the modern maturity of the App Store and no shortage of writing apps with myriad specialties, though, how does a premium app stand out from the crowd?
Let’s find out.
