Fall Developer Conference Organizers Offer Discounts→

There is no doubt that San Francisco is an expensive place to visit for a week, which puts WWDC out of reach financially for some developers. Fortunately, there are a lot of other Mac and iOS conferences held throughout the year that cost less and provide an opportunity to learn and meet fellow developers. To highlight their events, a group of Fall conference organizers have gotten together to offer a discount on admission to their events:

For the next 24 hours the following iOS / Mac community conferences are offering a 10% discount on the price of admission:

  • 360|iDev | August 21–24 | Denver, Colorado
  • try! Swift NYC | September 1–2 | New York, New York
  • Indie DevStock | September 16–17 | Nashville, Tennessee
  • Release Notes | September 27–29 | Indianapolis, Indiana
  • CocoaLove | October 14–16 | Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
  • Úll | November 1–2 | Killarney, Ireland

Use the coupon code “COMMUNITY” before April 20th at 9am Pacific Time time to receive the discount.

I attended the inaugural Úll and Release Notes conferences and highly recommend both.

The cost of admission to any of these conferences is already less than a ticket to WWDC, but if you want to save an extra 10%, act fast because the offer is good for only 24 hours.

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BitTorrent Sync: For Privacy, Speed, and Control

BitTorrent Sync (or “BTS” for short) is a newer player in the space of personal file syncing compared to Dropbox or Google Drive, but it has some power and flexibility that I have not found anywhere else. Today I want to tell you about the first of what I suspect will eventually be a series of posts about “How I Use BTS” over the coming months.

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App: The Human Story Team Shoots for June Premiere and Launches Quantify

Last week, Story & Pixel announced that it is pushing to release the upcoming documentary App: The Human Story in early June, just before WWDC. I remember being at The Talk Show live recording at WWDC in 2014 when Jake Schumacher and Jedidiah Hurt, the team behind Story & Pixel, captured some of their first footage for the film. That was followed by a successful Kickstarter later that summer, and a whole lot of work since then. This past Fall, Story & Pixel debuted fifteen minutes of opening footage for App at XOXO Fest in Portland.

During production of App, the Story & Pixel team needed a discrete way to timestamp footage while they were filming as a sort of bookmarking system that would allow them to quickly jump to certain footage during the editing process. They tried things like taking notes, but found that it disrupted interviews. To solve the problem, Story & Pixel, working with developer Ryan Newsome, created an iPhone app with four large buttons that can be discretely tapped while filming to create up to four different types of bookmarks. The bookmarks can be exported into Adobe Premiere Pro (subscription required) when you’re ready to edit your footage.1

Quantify

Quantify

The app, called Quantify, launched last week and is free with a choose-your-own-price subscription model. Subscribing adds the ability to export to Adobe Premiere Pro and premium support.

App has been in production for almost two years now and it’s great to see that Story & Pixel are in the final home stretch. Judging from the footage that has been previewed so far, I think we are in for a real treat.

  1. One thing that immediately occurred to me when playing around with Quantify is that something like this would be handy for podcasters who want to mark portions of audio that need editing, contain information that should be added to show notes, or where a chapter marker could be added. ↩︎

Apple Updates MacBook: Faster, Longer Battery Life, Rose Gold Option

Apple has today updated its MacBook line with faster processors, an extra hour of battery life and the option to pick a Rose Gold finish. The MacBook now comes with the sixth-generation dual-core Intel Core M processors that go up to 1.3GHz, with Turbo Boost speeds up to 3.1GHz. It also now comes with faster PCIe-based flash storage and faster 1866MHz memory.

“MacBook is the thinnest and lightest Mac we have ever made and it’s our vision for the future of the notebook,” said Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Marketing. “Customers are going to love this update to MacBook, with the latest processors, faster graphics, faster flash storage, longer battery life and a beautiful rose gold finish.”

Graphics performance has also been improved by up to 25 percent on the refreshed MacBooks as a result of the inclusion of an Intel HD Graphics 515 card. With the improved battery life, the refreshed MacBook should last up to 10 hours for web browsing and up to 11 hours of movie playback.

US Prices for the MacBook are unchanged and start at $1,299 for a MacBook with a 1.1 GHz Intel Core m3 processor, 8GB of memory and 256GB of flash storage.

The MacBook Air has also received a minor refresh, with 8GB of memory now standard across all configurations of the 13-inch MacBook Air.

You can read Apple’s full press release here.

Apple Pay Expands to Singapore Through American Express Partnership→

Juli Clover, writing for MacRumors, reports that Apple Pay has today launched in Singapore:

Apple today updated its website and its Apple Pay support document to note the expansion of the Apple Pay payment service to Singapore. With the addition of Singapore, Apple Pay is now available in six countries, including Canada, China, Australia, the United Kingdom, and the United States.

Apple Pay is available in Singapore through a partnership with American Express, first announced by Apple in October of 2015. By partnering with American Express, Apple has brought Apple Pay to Singapore, Canada, and Australia and will expand it to Hong Kong and Spain later this year.

Unfortunately, Apple’s partnership with American Express is once again limited to those who have a credit card issued by American Express for now. Those with an American Express card issued by their local bank will not be able to use Apple Pay – it is the same situation to Apple Pay in Australia and Canada. However, things may soon change, as Apple has listed on the Singaporean Apple Pay website that Visa support is “coming soon”, as well as support for DBS, UOB and Standard Chartered.

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Apple Launches Developer Insights Webpage→

Alongside yesterday’s WWDC 2016 announcement, Apple also added a new webpage providing tips and insights from other developers.

The App Store makes it simple for users around the world to discover, download and enjoy your apps. Grow your business with resources designed to help you create great apps and reach more users.

The featured developers and topics are Seriously (focusing on building a brand), Grailr (bringing CARROT Weather to Apple Watch), Evernote (localising its app for Japan), and Smule (growing a thriving community of loyal users).

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Apple Announces WWDC 2016: Kicks Off June 13 with Sessions Live Streamed Daily

After confirming the dates via Siri earlier today, Apple has announced the official dates for WWDC 2016 with a press release and a website update. This year’s WWDC will start in San Francisco on June 13 and runs through June 17.

“With four innovative operating systems and a new, intuitive programming language powering over 1 billion devices worldwide, there has never been a more exciting time to bring our developer community together,” said Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Marketing. “WWDC 2016 is going to be a landmark event for developers who are coding in Swift, and building apps and products for iOS, OS X, watchOS and tvOS. We can’t wait for everyone to join us — in San Francisco or through the live stream.”

For the first time, the initial keynote address and Monday’s kickoff events will be held at the Bill Graham Civic Auditorium in San Francisco; the rest of the event, including the technical sessions, will be held at the usual Moscone West location (the company’s traditional Bash event will also be held at the Bill Graham Civic Auditorium on Thursday).

Apple writes:

The Apple Worldwide Developers Conference kicks off at the historic Bill Graham Civic Auditorium for an unforgettable Monday as Apple’s renowned developer community comes together to learn about the future of OS X, iOS, watchOS, and tvOS. The Keynote and State of the Union promise exciting reveals, providing inspiration and new opportunities to continue creating the most innovative apps in the world. End the day by honoring the most remarkable developers of the year at the Apple Design Awards.

Like last year, Apple will be awarding tickets to attendees through a random selection system (effectively, a lottery). Developers will be able to apply today through April 22 at 10 AM PDT, and they will know their status by Monday, April 25 at 5 PM PDT. There are also 350 WWDC Scholarships available, giving students and members of participating STEM organizations a chance to get a free ticket.

This year, Apple will celebrate apps that apps that “demonstrate technical excellence, innovation and outstanding design” with Apple Design Awards for all their major software platforms – iOS, OS X, tvOS, and watchOS.

In addition to a heavily Swift-themed website, Apple has also confirmed that they will live stream sessions from WWDC daily through the WWDC app and website. Those interested in attending WWDC can check out the dedicated webpage here.

Apple Announces WWDC 2016 via Siri


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Apple has announced (or inadvertently leaked) the official dates for WWDC 2016. This year’s WWDC will start in San Francisco on June 13th and runs through June 17th. Unlike past years, Apple appears to have announced the dates today via Siri. 9to5Mac discovered that if you ask Siri when WWDC will be held, you get the response “The World Wide Developers Conference (WWDC) will be held June 13 through June 17 in San Francisco. I’m so excited!” Just this morning, Siri’s response to the same question was that WWDC had not been announced yet.
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We expect that ticketing and other details will be announced soon.

New Promo Video for Apple Music Starring Taylor Swift→

Apple just posted a new video on the YouTube Beats 1 channel promoting its Apple Music streaming service. The video, called Taylor Mic Drop, features Taylor Swift who picks a ‘Getting Ready to Go Out’ playlist from Apple Music. When she sees The Middle by Jimmy Eat World, she plays it, dancing and lip syncing along to the music. The video is fun and does a nice job of highlighting what Apple Music calls Activity Playlists.

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