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Apple Airs New ‘Ridiculously Powerful’ and ‘Hey Siri’ iPhone 6s Commercials

Apple shared two new iPhone 6s commercials last night, once again focusing on the more powerful hardware of this year’s iPhone model and hands-free Siri activation via voice.

In the first ad, titled ‘Ridiculously Powerful’, Apple highlights a number of apps and system features that are faster or more capable thanks to the 6s’ hardware. From 3D Touch and games to multitasking, Apple Pay, and camera improvements, the ad follows the style of the company’s “The only thing that’s changed is everything” campaign with a quick rundown of apps and use cases that are more efficient on the new hardware. Notably, the ad features Jon Favreau and closes to what resembles a Siri command for HomeKit lights, which turn off at the end of the video.

The new ‘Hey Siri’ commercial is shorter and it includes a few examples of how Siri can be activated without pressing the Home button to reply to messages, look up information on the web, play music, and more. The ad also features actress Penelope Cruz asking a question to the virtual assistant with ‘Hey Siri’.

You can watch the videos below.

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Connected: The Opposite of Perfect→

This week, Stephen and Federico talk about the Mac App Store, iCloud Photo Library and (sigh) iPhone 7 rumo(u)rs.

Some of my favorite topics on this week’s Connected: iCloud, Google’s intelligence for online services, and photo management. You can listen here.

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Daylite 6 for Mac and iOS

Daylite 6 was released today for both Mac and iOS, and it’s a major upgrade for the business productivity app. Already boasting a complete set of tools for managing projects, clients, and tasks for an individual or workgroup, the new version adds a slew of new features that take the app even further.

One of the major highlights of this release is the announcement of “Daylite Cloud.” Previously, centralizing a group’s Daylite data required running a copy of Daylite Server. With Daylite Cloud, it’s all handled seamlessly, allows offline access, is cheaper, and has no barrier to incorporating it into your company workflow.

The task management features of Daylite have also expanded. The constraints of the previous Pipeline/Activity Set features have been augmented by a “Task Lists” feature, allowing free-form creation of task lists that might not be assigned to a linear timeline, with complete control over ordering, a new entry interface, and additional fields for time, location, estimated time, and other details. There’s also a new “Smart Filtering Bar” for viewing tasks by details such as assigned team member, category, or keyword.

The iOS version has new goodies as well, with features including Today Widgets, full filtering capabilities, and improved editing of Daylite entries. It also adds file linking tools which allow you to snap a photo and link it to one or more items in Daylite.

If you’re a Mail.app user, also check out the Daylite Mail Assistant. It’s not a new feature, but it’s impressive. It allows you to link emails to Daylite items, schedule meetings, and share data without a chain of cc’s and forwards, all from within Mail.

For a complete rundown of all the new features, check out the announcement post on the Daylite blog. You can learn more about Daylite on the Marketcircle website.

iCloud for iOS Onboarding→

Sebastian Kreutzberger has posted a plea for developers to consider implementing iCloud authentication in their apps in lieu of traditional emails and passwords. The idea is that iCloud is inherently secure and anonymized, making for a superior solution to login information reused across multiple services.

The “magic” of iCloud authentication lays in its invisibility to the user.

With iCloud an app does not need to ask the user for an email address or a password to be able to uniquely identify who is running the app (and to later spam the user in marketing campaigns).

With the built-in, invisible iCloud authentication every app (developer) automatically can get a secure, globally unique representation of the currently logged-in iCloud user from iOS itself which it then can use to replace email and password as identifiers.

I don’t know if iCloud authentication would work for every web service with an iOS app, but I certainly am annoyed by having to create online accounts for almost every app I try these days. I have relied on iCloud signup for a couple of apps so far, and the experience has been really nice. I would like to see it used more.

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Real Design Work on an iPad→

Khoi Vinh makes some good points about using an iPad for design work. Among his list of suggestions, I’d point out better clipboard support on iOS:

Robust clipboard. The Mac’s clipboard is still relatively simple—it holds one thing at a time and allows you to paste it in any app that supports its current contents—but iOS’s clipboard isn’t even as capable as that. It would be a boon in itself to have more pervasive support for that simple level of copy and paste throughout the app ecosystem, but I would argue that iOS’s far more constrained interaction model should sport an even more advanced clipboard than the Mac’s. You should be able to save multiple clipboard items of multiple media types; each app that supports the clipboard should allow you to paste the most recently copied compatible item. That would significantly reduce the friction inherent on iOS in pulling together content from multiple sources.

Requests for better clipboard management on iOS go back a long way. Even trivial tasks such as copying rich text from one app and pasting into another one can be problematic on iOS (for “fun”, try to build workflows to paste rich text in iOS 9’s Notes. I’ll wait.). There are excellent solutions for third-party clipboard management (Clips and Copied – I use the latter now), but it should be native to the OS. There’s still plenty of low-hanging fruit for Apple to pick on the iPad.

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Sketch Is Leaving the Mac App Store→

Sketch, the popular image creation and design tool for OS X and winner of an Apple Design Award in 2012, is leaving the Mac App Store. Developer Bohemian Coding has announced the move in a blog post today:

Today, we’re announcing an important change in how you receive updates to Sketch. After much thought, and with a heavy heart, we’re moving Sketch away from the Mac App Store. If you’re a Mac App Store customer, all you need to do is download Sketch from our website, launch it and enter your email address to receive your license.

As for the reasons behind this decision, Bohemian Coding mentioned a few usual suspects:

There are a number of reasons for Sketch leaving the Mac App Store—many of which in isolation wouldn’t cause us huge concern. However as with all gripes, when compounded they make it hard to justify staying: App Review continues to take at least a week, there are technical limitations imposed by the Mac App Store guidelines (sandboxing and so on) that limit some of the features we want to bring to Sketch, and upgrade pricing remains unavailable.

Sketch is, quite possibly, one of the most popular image editing apps for professionals who use Macs nowadays, and it’s yet another high-profile departure from the Mac App Store. Bohemian Coding doesn’t rule out returning to the Mac App Store if things change, but, for now, they are going to be selling the app directly on their website.

At this stage, we are far beyond the point of acknowledging there is a problem on the Mac App Store. We are not talking a bunch of isolated cases anymore – leaving the Mac App Store has become an accepted trend among developers, which is compounded by the sad state of abandon in which Apple has left it and other issues developers illustrated in the past.

The simple reality is that, gradually, developers of the best apps for OS X are finding it increasingly hard to justify doing business on the Mac App Store. I hope Apple also sees this as a problem and starts doing something about it.

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Thoughts on the Inevitable Demise of the 3.5mm Audio Jack on the iPhone

There are once again rumors that Apple is going to remove the 3.5mm audio jack from the next iPhone, this time courtesy of a report from Japanese website Macotakara. The Macotakara report goes on to suggest that audio output on the iPhone 7 will be handled via the Lightning connector and Bluetooth, and that the EarPod included with every iPhone will be upgraded and use the Lightning connector.

It’s too early to tell whether Apple really will get rid of the 3.5mm audio jack on the iPhone 7 next year, but I think the real question is when will they get rid of it, not if they get rid of it. In my eyes, it’s either going to happen in 2016 with the iPhone 7 or 2018 with the iPhone 8. I will be amazed, probably dumbfounded, if we get to 2020 and our phones still have the same 3.5mm audio jack. Although Macotakara implied that the reason for removing the audio jack is to make the iPhone thinner, I think the more likely reason is a combination of making it thinner, but also freeing up the volume of space that is occupied by the audio jack internally. Every extra cubic millimeter that they can stuff a battery into is no doubt important (and one of the reasons the Lightning port is so much smaller than the older 30-pin connector).

Given the premise that I think Apple will (at some point) ditch the audio jack, the next question is how they can possibly achieve that with the smallest adverse impact on customers, which should surely be the top priority. The easiest answer, is of course, not to do it. The iPod touch is already just 6.1mm, compared to the iPhone 6 which is 6.9mm, and the iPhone 6s is 7.1mm (thicker because of the addition of 3D Touch). You’ll note that despite being an entire millimeter thinner than the iPhone 6s, it still has an audio jack — as does the iPod nano which is just 5.4 mm thick. So there’s a question as to whether 2016 is really the year that Apple should remove the audio jack — maybe they can hold out a few more years.

But for the sake of argument, let’s say that Apple wants to remove the audio jack from the next iPhone and that they’ve already decided to do this. Yes, it will be a painful transition, but I also think that there’s a lot that Apple can do to ease the transition.

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iBedside and Prop ’n Go [Sponsor]

iBedside is an elegant bedside caddy for storing and charging your iPad and iPhone overnight. A magnetic shelf flips down with a flick and 3 full-size pockets hold most any gadget or book. Two discreet side holes and inner loops keep charging cables out of sight and right in place every night. iBedside starts at $30 and is available in 5 different color options.

Prop ’n Go is a comfortable stand for iPads and MacBooks with 14 easily adjustable angles. Wrapped in cozy memory foam, Prop ’n Go is perfect for keeping gadgets at just the right angle while lounging on the couch or laying in bed. It starts at $30 in 7 different colors.

Both iBedside and Prop ’n Go are in-stock and shipping for free worldwide via Amazon US, CA, and EU, and make for great holiday gifts. Made in Seattle by crafters making liveable wages.

Our thanks to Padded Spaces for sponsoring MacStories this week.

Can the MacBook Pro Replace your iPad?→

This article by Fraser Speirs is going to upset some longtime Mac users – for me, it perfectly encapsulates all the reasons why I decided to move from a MacBook to an iPad (and now an iPad Pro) as my main computer. Two highlights:

Firstly, consider the hardware. The huge issue with the MacBook Pro is its form factor. The fact that the keyboard and screen are limited to being held in an L-shaped configuration seriously limits its flexibility. It is basically impossible to use a MacBook pro while standing up and downright dangerous to use when walking around. Your computing is limited to times when you are able to find somewhere to sit down.

And:

If you are a road warrior, the MacBook’s total lack of cellular connectivity options would be a serious hinderance to a cloud-based storage lifestyle in any case. You would think, for a device that costs up to twice as much as the most expensive cellular iPad, that Apple could afford to offer LTE radios in these devices. Sadly, MacBook Pro owners are stuck with tethering to their iPhones and burning through data plans. While tethering Macs to iPhones has improved in recent years, it will never be as good as a built-in LTE radio.

I couldn’t have said it better and the entire premise of the article is genius. This is exactly why I don’t want to use a MacBook any longer – I simply feel constrained by what others see as benefits of the platform.

One particular mention for Fraser’s note at the end – “If journalists reviewed Macs like iPads”.

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