Linky 5.3 Adds ‘Markup’ Feature for Image Annotations

Linky's new Markup mode.

Linky’s new Markup mode.

I’ve been using Linky for a few years now to share images, links, and app deals to Twitter. The app has a powerful share sheet with support for multiple Twitter accounts, and its developer introduced clever additions such as textshots and suggested images when sharing from the web. It’s a solid app that comes in handy every day.

Today, Linky has reached version 5.3, which brings compatibility with Twitter’s accessible image captions (useful for textshots) and a new Markup option to edit and annotate images before sharing them.

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Building a Photography Workflow with the iPad Pro→

Perhaps it should have been obvious to me — and maybe it’s always been obvious to you — but I’m just now realizing that the more and more I embrace each creative process, the less time I want to give to anything but the act of creating. Over time I begin to build negative associations with each creative act, mentally, but it’s not because of the ‘art’ itself; it’s because of all the work I put into a thing after the component I love most is over and done with.

These realizations have led me to try and create ‘less workflow’ in my life, not just in writing, but across the board. For photography, that means if I innately desire more than anything else to just shoot, then I need to learn more about composing and ‘editing’ in camera, and being happy with the result.

So, I’ve begun building a new way of processing photos using only the device I love — the iPad Pro — but it’s been a challenge.

Drew Coffman has been trying to rebuild his established photography workflow on an iPad Pro. His post has a good rundown of photo editing apps (with a final pick I didn’t know), but, more importantly, it highlights how iOS still needs improvements for basic tasks such as bulk editing and exporting.

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Tweetbot 4.3 Introduces ‘Topics’ for Easier Tweetstorm Creation

A topic in the new Tweetbot 4.3.

A topic in the new Tweetbot 4.3.

Picture this: it’s WWDC keynote day and you’re following the event. You want to live tweet as the event unfolds. What do you do?

The answer is that, so far, Twitter the company has mostly failed to provide users with ways to rapidly tweet commentary and have tweets intelligently grouped together once an event is over. Sure, you could append the same hashtag to every tweet, “tagging it” for context, but that wouldn’t fix the underlying problem of a bunch of messages related to the same event and yet treated as atomic units with no relationship between them.

Thus Twitter the community came up with the idea of the tweetstorm, a clever workaround based on how Twitter threads work. If you want to post multiple tweets in a row and establish a thread between them from start to finish, reply to your own tweet, removing your username at the beginning of the message, and you’ll “fake” a series of topical tweets which Twitter sees as part of a conversation…with yourself. It’s not the most elegant solution, and it doesn’t work well for rapid fire live tweeting, but it sort of works and a lot of people use it by now.

Tweetbot, the excellent Twitter client developed by Tapbots which relaunched with version 4.0 in October, is introducing an update today that fully embraces the concept of tweetstorms with a feature called “topics”.

Topics simplify the process of chaining tweets together with an intuitive interface that makes it look like Twitter rolled out support for topics. Under the hood, Tapbots is still leveraging the aforementioned @reply workaround, but they’ve been clever enough to completely abstract that from the UI, building what is, quite possibly, one of the most ingenious Tweetbot features to date.

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Apple Music Introduces Student Subscription With 50% Discount→

TechCrunch’s Sarah Perez reports that Apple has today introduced a new student subscription plan for Apple Music which cuts the cost of the subscription to just $4.99 per month.

The option isn’t just arriving in the U.S., though. Students in other countries, including the U.K., Germany, Denmark, Ireland, Australia, and New Zealand, will also be able to take advantage of the new membership option.

However, because Apple Music is priced slightly differently in other markets, the cost of the student membership will vary. But in all markets, it will be 50 percent off the standard subscription price.

This is a smart move to boost subscription numbers. At just $5 per month, Apple Music becomes a really good deal - even for cash-strapped students. The new student subscription plan is available from today, but it does require you to verify that you are a student.

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Annotable Is the Most Versatile Image Annotation Tool for iOS Yet

Over the years of writing at MacStories, I’ve covered a fair share of image annotation apps. As reviewing apps is part of what I do for a living, I end up taking a lot of screenshots of software on a daily basis, and, often, those screenshots need to be annotated.

I’ve tried them all – Skitch (let’s pour one out), Pinpoint (née Bugshot), PointOut, image annotations in Workflow, and others. A problem persisted: I couldn’t find an image annotation tool that would pack the simplicity of Pinpoint and Skitch and the variety of tools I’d expect from a Mac app. Every app ended up missing one or two functionalities I needed, which resulted – and if you work on iOS, you’ve likely been in this situation, too – in having to keep a folder of multiple annotation apps, each serving a different purpose.

This changes today with Annotable, a new app for the iPhone and iPad created by developer Ling Wang. Annotable builds on the foundation of Skitch – with a layout heavily reminiscent of Evernote’s product – and adds annotation features seen in Pinpoint, PointOut, and various Mac apps to provide a powerful annotation environment with support for screenshots and photos.

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With Launcher 2.0, I’m Rethinking My Notification Center Widgets

When iOS 8 came out, I thought I’d stop using URL schemes altogether. Until two years ago1, my attempts at working on iOS had focused on overcoming the lack of inter-app communication with URL scheme automation, as our old coverage here at MacStories can attest. iOS 8 showed a new way to get things done on the iPhone and iPad thanks to extensions, eschewing the limited functionality (and security concerns) of URL schemes for a native, integrated foundation.

Two years later, I’ve largely reappraised my usage of URL schemes, but, unlike I first imagined, they haven’t disappeared completely from my iOS computing life. iOS automation has taken on a different form since 2014: thanks to its action extension, Workflow has brought deeply integrated automation to every app, while Pythonista remains the most powerful environment for those who prefer to dabble with Python scripting and advanced tasks (also while taking advantage of an action extension to be activated from apps).

Today, URL schemes are being used by developers and users who want to go beyond the limitations of system extensions: apps like Drafts and Workflow use URL schemes to invoke specific apps directly (which extensions can’t do – see Airmail and its custom app actions) and to link more complex chains of automated actions. URL schemes are also the best way to set up templates and import workflows for dedicated functionalities – a good example being The Omni Group with their latest automation options for template generation in OmniFocus.

While Apple’s goal with iOS 8 might have been to “kill” URL schemes by turning them into a niche technology mostly supplanted by extensions, that niche has continued to quietly thrive. iOS automation is drastically better (and more secure) today because of extensions, but, for many, URL schemes still are the backbone of app shortcuts and complex workflows. Where extensions can’t go, there’s a good chance a URL scheme will do the trick.

It’s in this modern iOS automation landscape that Launcher, first released in 2014, is graduating to version 2.0 with a focus on what it does best: standalone app shortcuts. Launcher 2.0 offers more control than its predecessor over widget customization and activation, with new features and settings that have pushed me to reconsider how I use Notification Center widgets on both my iPhone and iPad Pro.

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SketchParty TV 4.0 with New Look, Improved Gameplay

When my family gets together, we like to play games. One game has been a mainstay of our gatherings for the last four years: SketchParty TV.

SketchParty TV is a multiplayer game similar to Pictionary which uses an iOS device as the marker and your Apple TV-connected television as the drawing board. If you have a 2nd or 3rd-gen Apple TV, you can use the iOS version with AirPlay Mirroring. For 4th-gen Apple TV owners, there’s a native Apple TV app that connects to the iOS version.

The 4.0 update to SketchParty TV is a big one, with a visual overhaul for iOS 9+, a redesigned canvas, updated scoring system with speed-based rewards, and full support for the Apple Pencil on iPad Pro devices.

The Team Setup interface was always usable, but it got a lot of special attention in this update. In addition to improved word list settings, entry of team members is easier and now you can drag to reorder and even switch between teams.

If you own a compatible iOS device and a 2nd-gen or higher Apple TV, SketchParty is an excellent game for friends and family gatherings. Right now it’s on sale, too, for $5.99 (normally $9.99). Check it out in the iTunes App Store.

SoundShare Launches an Ambitious Social Network For Music Fans

Today, Mateus Abras launched SoundShare 2.7, a social network for music lovers. SoundShare is an iPhone-only app designed to break down the walls between competing streaming services so that it’s easier to share music with your friends. Integration with Apple Music, Spotify, and Deezer allows music sharing with others and collaboration on playlists regardless of which service your friends use.

The social aspect works on the familiar follower/following model. When you play songs in SoundShare by giving it access to your streaming service, they are added to your SoundShare music stream after thirty seconds. If you prefer to listen to your music through a different app, you can add songs to your stream, or a SoundShare playlist, with SoundShare’s extension. Your followers can then listen to the songs in your stream using whichever service they prefer, add your songs to their streaming service, incorporate songs into SoundShare playlists, post comments, send SoundShare links, and like songs in your stream. The only limitation is that the songs shared must be the libraries of both services for you and your friends to enjoy them.

SoundShare shows a lot of promise. The music streaming market is fragmented and there is little incentive for service providers to build tools to share music across platforms. As a result, third-party developers have begun to step into the void.

I recently reviewed SongShift, a simple utility for transferring music from Spotify to Apple Music and back again. SoundShare aims to take third-party integration of streaming services in an entirely different direction by building a social network on top of streaming services. Social networks are notoriously hard to grow to a size where they reach critical mass and I have some doubts about the extent of the demand for music sharing beyond what is already achievable with existing social networks, but it will be interesting to watch SoundShare try with what in my limited testing is a well-considered, solid app.

SoundShare is a free iPhone-only download from the App Store.