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Emulate Classic Game Consoles with the New Apple TV→

A must-read guide by Andrew Cunningham if you’ve considered emulating classic games (for me, that means SNES, Game Boy, and Game Boy Advance) on a new Apple TV:

Right now there are two notable emulation projects targeting tvOS. One is a distant relative of the MAME arcade emulator, though it doesn’t seem as though it’s being maintained. Another, Provenance, is the one we’ll be spending the most time with. It’s a multi-system emulator that supports most major 8- and 16-bit consoles, including the NES, SNES, Sega Master System, Sega Genesis, Sega CD, Game Boy, and Game Boy Advance.

That’s basically it for now, but more consoles could show up in the future. Provenance is already heavily based on open source code from OpenEmu and other projects, so anyone with a little patience could port other emulators without much extra work.

That’s my kind of holiday side-project, too.

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SCOTTeVEST – Multi-Pocket Clothing to Carry All of Your Gadgets [Sponsor]

You know the “gadget dance”, that moment of panic when you frantically try to find your smartphone? SCOTTeVEST eliminates that stress.

SCOTTeVEST designs multi-pocket clothing that lets you carry and use all of your gadgets and daily essentials. For over 15 years, SCOTTeVEST has catered to tech lovers by cleverly engineering pockets to balance the load and keep you comfortable while giving you easy access to your electronic devices.

With up to 42 pockets in a single item, you’ll have space for your iPhone, iPad, MacBook, iPod and other gadgets, plus your wallet, keys, sunglasses and more. Their patented Personal Area Network (PAN) solution provides built-in wire management and quick, tangle-free access to your earpiece. Additional features include an attached eyeglass chamois to keep your lenses and screens smudge-free, detachable key holders, and clear touch pockets that let you see and use touch screen devices without removing them from the pockets.

SCOTTeVEST knows that time is your most valuable asset. Their clothing keeps your
gear organized and within reach, making for the perfect gift for all of the gadget lovers in your life – including yourself. Go to scottevest.com/macstories and get 20% off with the coupon code ‘macstories’.

Our thanks to SCOTTeVEST for sponsoring MacStories this week.

OpenEmu 2.0→

Fantastic update to my favorite videogame emulator for OS X: OpenEmu 2.0 has brought support for new systems, better integration for SteelSeries controllers (I have one for my Apple TV), a modernized interface, and even a way to organize screenshots and save states. The highlights: support for PlayStation, PSP, and Nintendo 64 games, plus real-time gameplay rewinding.

How I wish this was around ten years ago, when I was really into emulation on my PSP (which I still keep around, running homebrew software). If you haven’t tried OpenEmu in a while, now’s a good time to play with it again.

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Finding the Best Apps→

Nick Statt, writing for The Verge, has a suggestion to make sure you end up using the app that’s right for you:

And therein lies the secret to finding the best apps: don’t use what works until you know it works better than the rest. In an era of free services and near-instant downloads, it often costs us nothing but our time and a little bit of effort to experiment with half a dozen products before settling on the one we’re most comfortable with. And nothing is ever perfect. No matter what we read, or how many stars or good reviews something has, it takes a firsthand investigation to see if it’s perfect for you.

This pretty much sums up the way I look at years of app coverage here at MacStories, and why I’m not a big fan of “the best app for X” roundups with a single recommendation. In today’s sea of mobile apps, “best” is a fleeting reward, often reset with weekly updates, semi-annual redesigns, features adopted by other apps, and discontinued services.

“What works for you” is, I think, a more approachable, relatable consideration. There’s an argument to be made about evaluating dozens of similar apps and pointing out an absolute “winner” in terms of amount of available features, stability, price, or other objective metrics, but a single “best” implies a one-size-fits-all nature that just doesn’t work with the App Store anymore. Maybe seven years ago, when you could count iPhone apps in the hundreds, but not today. To mention a recent example: I could say that 2Do is my favorite task manager or the one with the most customization options or free updates, but it’s not necessarily the best for everyone.

This is also why I strive to keep a fresh mind and stay curious about apps. The only way for me to stay on top of the ever-changing App Store ecosystem is to try as many apps as I can and challenge my preconceptions – always asking myself “Would this app make me save time, be more efficient, and work better?”.

Sometimes it’s not fun, it’s a time-consuming process, and it’s definitely not cheap, but, after all, this is what I chose to do. And it often pays off with some nice surprises.

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On Touch ID Being Too Fast→

Dr. Drang, in response to an article by Craig Mod arguing that Touch ID has gotten too fast on the iPhone 6s’ Lock screen and that it shouldn’t unlock a device by default:

But would you really want to go back to the slower Touch ID? How often, when you unlock your phone, do you want to use one of the lockscreen affordances? And how does the time you lose in those cases compare to the time you gain in all those cases when you don’t want to use the lockscreen? Since I’m in a betting mood, I’ll bet the time you’ve saved overwhelms the time you’ve lost. And I’ll bet Apple studied iPhone usage enough to know that would be the case long before the improved Touch ID was released.

Despite the annoyance of my Lock screen being dismissed by the faster Touch ID on the 6s, I think the trade-off is worth it. The number of times I was glad my iPhone unlocked quickly have, in my experience, outweighed the disruption caused by having to re-open Notification Center to view my missed notifications.

As I wrote in October, I’d rather see Apple explore 3D Touch as a way to wake an iPhone’s screen without the commitment of unlocking it with Touch ID:

If we assume that Touch ID is staying in the Home button for the foreseeable future, I wouldn’t be surprised to know that Apple is exploring the idea of using the display itself to wake the device. Think about it: why rely on a sensor that is used to unlock the iPhone and why continue to press a button hundreds of times each day when you could turn on the screen just by pressing on it? I shared my theory before, and now that the iPhone’s display has a new layer to account for, it seems odd that it’s not being used to wake the device without unlocking it. I want to be able to wake the 6s Plus with 3D Touch: this way, I’d be able to press anywhere on screen to do it, and I’d only use the Home button when necessary.

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A Screenshot Is Worth a Thousand Words

OneShot, Screenshot++, and Napkin

OneShot, Screenshot++, and Napkin

The easiest way to make a point about an app is often with a screenshot. This is especially true on Twitter with its 140 character limit, but it is equally true in a wide variety of other contexts. Designers use screenshots to communicate with clients and developers, or create mood boards and Pinterest-style collections that convey a look and style visually. Developers create screenshots to market their apps and writers use them to illustrate ideas for readers.

Regardless of the context, every screenshot is fundamentally about communication. But sometimes, a quick screenshot isn’t enough – you want to call out a feature or perhaps you have so many screenshots you need a tool to manage them. That’s where screenshot apps come in.

Screenshot apps tend to fall into one of two categories: managers and editors. On iOS, screenshot management apps dominate, likely because until Apple added a ‘Screenshots’ album to the Photos app with iOS 9, there was no good way to separate screenshots from snapshots of family and friends. On the Mac there are fewer apps, but their feature sets tend to be deeper.

The screenshot app market intrigues me. Although most apps address one of a couple basic problems, execution varies widely and there are gaps in functionality, especially on iOS. As a result, the screenshot app category is somewhat fragmented, but in a good way, leaving room for interesting solutions from clever developers.

Screenshots serve an important role at MacStories as revealed by the number of Federico’s 2015 must-have apps sprinkled throughout this article.1 After all, any post about apps that you read here is likely to include at least a few screenshots. But what works for MacStories may not serve your needs. Therefore, this article casts a broad net to provide an overview of the top screenshot apps on iOS and Mac and help you find the apps that meet your specific needs.

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VLC Update Adds Support for iOS 9 Split View→

The VLC app for iOS was yesterday updated to version 2.7.0, adding support for a number of iOS 9 features, as 9to5 Mac reported:

The latest update includes an updated watchOS 2 app for Apple Watch users and several new iOS 9 features for iPhone and iPad.

VLC now supports system wide search through Spotlight, Split View for side-by-side apps on the latest iPads, and Touch ID unlocking on iPhones and iPads with fingerprint scanners.

A solid update to VLC, with new features and adding support for iOS 9 and watchOS 2. But I must admit, I was surprised to realize that although they added support for iOS 9’s Split View, VLC still doesn’t work with iOS 9’s Picture in Picture mode.

The initial release notes incorrectly stated that the update added an Apple TV app for VLC – in fact it does not. But the VLC Apple TV app is coming, and soon.

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Pete Souza’s Year on Instagram→

Pete Souza, Chief Official White House Photographer, writing on Medium:

Many followers have inquired about whether a certain photograph is taken with an iPhone or DSLR (digital single lens reflex camera). In choosing the photographs for my year on Instagram, I decided to select only iPhone photographs that were captured in the square format on an iPhone. For many purists, the square format was the original inspiration for Instagram. And I certainly admire those that continue to post only square photos taken with a smart phone.

My approach to my Instagram feed continues to be all square photos are taken with an iPhone, and full-frame horizontals and verticals are taken with a DSLR (usually a Canon 5DMark3, but I’ve also posted some from Sony, Nikon and Leica cameras).

There’s a beauty about Instagram’s original square format – a creativity derived from the boundaries of constraint – that I still see as the purest expression of mobile photography. Some of Souza’s photos are somewhat staged, but the majority of them have taken on the spur of the moment, where a smartphone makes for an excellent storytelling tool. Fantastic shots. I love the last one.

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Re/code: Beatles Coming to Apple Music, Other Streaming Services This Week→

I don’t usually link to rumors, but Peter Kafka’s report on the Beatles coming to Apple Music and other streaming services on Christmas Eve sounds like pretty much a done deal:

You can spend Christmas streaming the Beatles.

The world’s most famous band will finally be available on streaming music services, starting this Thursday, Christmas Eve. And they’ll be available very, very widely: Industry sources say that the Fab Four’s music will be on all of the obvious music services, including Spotify, Apple Music, Google Play and Tidal, as well as some you might not expect, including Amazon’s Prime Music.

Also relevant: Kafka says that you can now stream a big selection of Beatles songs on YouTube, “legally, for free”.

Seems like Thursday is going to be a day we’ll never forget.

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