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“A Fundamental Point of Interface”→

From Tony Chambers’ interview with Jony Ive on the Apple Pencil:

I think there’s a potential to confuse the role of the Pencil with the role of your finger in iOS, and I actually think it’s very clear the Pencil is for making marks, and the finger is a fundamental point of interface for everything within the operating system. And those are two very different activities with two very different goals.

So we are very clear in our own minds that this will absolutely not replace the finger as a point of interface. But it is, and I don’t think anybody would argue, a far better tool than your finger when your focus becomes exclusively making marks. The traditional pencil could have been replaced by a dish of powdered charcoal, which you dipped your finger into to make marks with. And that didn’t happen.

The interview also has some interesting thoughts by Ive on avoiding to model the Pencil after specific physical tools.

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Apple Debuts Five Short Apple TV Ads Featuring Apps and Games

Apple on Tuesday uploaded the first collection of adverts for the Apple TV since the device was released late last month. Each of the five adverts are short 15 second videos which give a quick introduction to some of the most high profile apps and games that launched with the Apple TV.

The five featured apps are Crossy Road, Asphalt 8, Disney Infinity, Netflix and HBO Now. You can view them all below the break or on Apple’s YouTube account.

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Instagram Updates Its Platform Policy, Prohibits Third Party Instagram Feed Apps

As reported by TechCrunch, Instagram yesterday announced several changes to its ‘Platform Policy’, the document that developers must agree to abide by if they want to use Instagram’s APIs. The changes will impact a number of developers, but one of the most significant consequences is that third-party apps which would present a user’s Instagram feed will not be permitted under the new rules.

That means the many third-party apps which sprung up to offer the Instagram feed on platforms which Instagram has never supported, whether it be Flow for the iPad, Photoflow for the Mac, or Tangram for the Apple TV, will no longer be permitted.

On its Developer Blog, Instagram notes that the changes are aimed at improving “people’s control over their content and set up a more sustainable environment built around authentic experiences on the platform”. Instagram wants developers using its API to work on apps that do things such as:

Help individuals share their own content with 3rd party apps, such as apps that let you print your photos and import an Instagram photo as a profile picture.

Help brands and advertisers understand and manage their audience, develop their content strategy, and get digital rights to media. Established apps in this space may apply for our newly announced Instagram Partner Program.

Help broadcasters and publishers discover content, get digital rights to media, and share media using web embeds.

Instagram is adopting a phased approach to implementing the new policy - new apps will be reviewed under the new policy, and Instagram will begin granting full API access starting December 3, 2015. Existing apps will need to be re-approved under the new policy, but they will have until June 1, 2016, to do so. Instagram is also introducing a new Sandbox Mode which will give developers access to the Instagram API so that they can privately build and test their apps whilst their app is being reviewed by Instagram.

Connected: I’m Holding a Billboard→

This week, the guys talk about their iPad Pros and what the device means for the future.

This week’s episode of Connected is a good one: we talked about the iPad Pro, answered some listener questions, and spent some time discussing pricing for pro apps on the iOS App Store. You can listen here.

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New Tricks for Old Dogs→

Jason Snell, who’s been a using a Mac for 26 years, has been trying to do as much as possible on an iPad Pro for the past few days. His takeaway is spot on:

That’s sort of how I view the iPad and the Mac today: One is not fundamentally better than the other, but the Mac is the one I know by heart. The Mac is the one on which I’ve built numerous scripts and workflows and shortcuts to make my work manageable. Leaving it isn’t something I can do lightly, and would need to provide large, tangible benefits.

As I argued in today’s Connected, instead of continuing to spend time on discussing what is a “computer” and what’s “better” for other users, perhaps we’d be better served by understanding what works for us.

This “Mac vs. iPad” debate is taking us nowhere. Today – right now – millions of people are using phones, laptops, and tablets as their computers. They couldn’t care less about the traditional idea of a computer. Most of them don’t even call them “computers” anymore. That’s powerful and empowering. It gets rid of the weight of any preconceived notion of how technology should be used. For some, this change is uncomfortable. For others, it’s liberating. And somewhere along this spectrum, there’s the “computer” for each one of us.

As far as Apple devices go, I believe it’d be more interesting (and intellectually motivating) to talk about how OS X and iOS can improve in their individual areas and as part of the iCloud ecosystem. Exploring the present and imagining where we could go next, rather than telling others how they’re supposed to get work done.

Jason’s probably not going to stop using a Mac, and I’m going to keep using an iPad. No one’s right or wrong here.

Use whatever works for you.

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Behind the Scenes of Austin Mann’s iPhone 6s Camera Review→

For the past few years, Austin Mann’s iPhone camera reviews have been at the top of my list of articles I want to read whenever a new iPhone is released. This year, Austin went to Switzerland to test the iPhone 6s and 6s Plus, with some impressive results.

Today, he posted a behind the scenes video that is possibly even more fascinating than the photos themselves as you can see how everything was made and, more importantly, where. Pretty amazing to see what Austin and his team go through to make their reviews possible. The video is 17 minutes long, but worth watching until the end.

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iPad 2015 Display Technology Shoot-Out→

In their annual iPad display technology shoot-out, the experts at DisplayMate have compared the new displays of the iPad mini 4 and iPad Pro to 2014’s iPad Air 2. The result surprised me:

The nicest surprise this year is the tremendous improvement in the display quality and performance of the iPad mini 4 after the poor showings of previous minis – the mini 4 is now very impressive and breaks many Tablet display performance records. The iPad Pro has also made a strong entrance and first appearance.

If you’re into this kind of technical overview, you may want to save a couple of hours to dive deep into this. Incredible research.

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PDF Expert for Mac: A Better Preview for PDFs

PDF Expert has been an indispensable app for my iPad for almost as long as I can remember (I’m fairly certain it was one of the first apps I bought when I got my iPad). It’s a fantastic app on iOS because it enables me to not only read, annotate, and add comments to PDFs, but it also gives me a cloud-based ‘Finder’ of sorts – enabling me to browse my Dropbox and OneDrive files and sync them to my iPad.

Given my longstanding appreciation for Readdle’s PDF Expert on iOS, I was pretty keen to try out the Mac version of PDF Expert, which launched late last week. But it must be said, I was sceptical of the value it would bring to the table, because unlike iOS, OS X has the Finder, and cloud services like Dropbox and OneDrive already sync files locally. But most significantly, Preview on the Mac is a fantastic Swiss Army knife for viewing documents and already does a pretty great job at viewing PDF documents, annotating them, adding comments, and even performing some basic page re-organization functions.

But despite my scepticism I was pleased to discover that for those of you who deal with PDFs regularly (myself included), you’ll find value in what Readdle has developed in PDF Expert. Rather than a traditional, wide-ranging, review, I’ve decided to focus on three key features which make PDF Expert worth the money – features that ultimately convinced me to turn my free trial into a purchase.

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Igloo: An Intranet You’ll Actually Like [Sponsor]

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