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Recovering Deleted Files and Data from iCloud→

Dan Moren, writing for Six Colors on Apple’s new iCloud feature to restore deleted files and data:

A few weeks back, I noted that recovering lost files from iCloud required a trip to the web interface. At the time, the only data available for recovery were files stored in iCloud, but in the intervening weeks, Apple’s added new capabilities and reorganized the layout in the process.

Rather than Apple squirreling away data recovery options under “Advanced > Data & Security”, you now scroll down to an Advanced section, which contains direct links to file recovery and adds the option to restore both contacts and calendar/reminder data. Clicking any of those links will open the restore data dialog box with the correct tab pre-selected.

On both MacStories and Connected, I’ve often noted how the lack of visible file versions and ability to restore deleted files has pushed me away from iCloud to embrace the safety of Dropbox. I’m still going to need Dropbox for the foreseeable future (and there’s still no comparison with what iCloud is offering when it comes to recovering deleted files and viewing versions), but this is a start by Apple and I like how it applies to iCloud data as well – not just files. More of this, please.

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Photoflow: An Instagram Client for the Mac

I’ve been using Instagram (shameless plug) almost since day one, and although I don’t post to it that frequently, I do look at my feed on a daily basis. For the most part I’ve always used the official Instagram client, except for a brief period when I also used Flow, an iPad Instagram app. Until this week, I’d never tried an Instagram client for the Mac, which is what Photoflow is.

I was pleasantly surprised to find that Photoflow includes virtually every single feature that the official Instagram app has. Of course there is one giant exception; you cannot post images to Instagram from Photoflow. But that’s a restriction that Instagram has imposed on all third party apps, it’s not a failure of Photoflow. But almost everything else, whether it be liking images (but not commenting), interactive hashtags, featured images, viewing profiles or searching nearby locations is available in Photoflow. It also supports easy account switching and can send you notifications for new images, comments, likes and followers.

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The Colors Of An App Icon→

Stuart Hall from AppBot has previously written articles about common trends amongst popular apps when it comes to app names, descriptions, screenshots and countries, and he is back today with one about the colors of app icons.

Hall was able to extract the dominant colors from app icons and then plot them on a color wheel. The article features several different ‘color wheels’ showing the top 200 free iOS apps, paid iOS apps, iOS social apps, iOS games and free Mac apps.

You really need to view the article for yourself, but I have embedded one color wheel below. Hall shared a draft of the article with me and I suggested he generate one more color wheel which plotted the app icons based on their major color and sized to reflect their position on the charts (#1 is largest). Hall kindly obliged and you can see the chart below, representing the top 100 free iOS apps.

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Apple Music Festival Arriving in September for Ten Nights at London’s Roundhouse

Apple today announced that it will host an Apple Music Festival at London’s Roundhouse for ten nights running from September 19 through to September 28. Headlining the festival will be performances from Pharrell Williams, One Direction, Florence + The Machine and Disclosure.

“We wanted to do something really special for music fans this year,” said Eddy Cue, Apple’s senior vice president of Internet Software and Services. “The Apple Music Festival is a greatest hits set of ten unbelievable nights featuring some of the best performers on the planet appearing live and interacting directly with their fans on Connect and Beats 1.”

The performances will be broadcast live and on-demand on Apple Music, iTunes and through the Apple Music Festival channel on the Apple TV. Apple is also promising coverage on Beats 1, and “backstage news and footage” on Apple Music Connect.

You can learn more about the Apple Music Festival in Apple Music on your iOS device or in iTunes. Additionally, for those who live in the UK, you can apply to win tickets to the Apple Music Festival.

The event was previously called the iTunes Music Festival which Apple has hosted at the Roundhouse since 2007. Unlike in previous years where the event usually ran for an entire month (September in recent years), this year’s festival run has been shortened to ten nights.

Automatic: Your Smart Driving Assistant on Your Smartphone [Sponsor]

There’s a mountain of data inside your car waiting to be unleashed, and all you have to do is plug in a quick little connector and download a mobile application.

Automatic is a smart driving assistant that plugs into your car’s data port and lets you connect your smartphone (either iPhone or Android) with your car. By  talking to your car’s onboard computer and using your smartphone’s GPS and data plan to upgrade your car’s capabilities, Automatic will allow you to easily diagnose your engine light, never forget where you parked your car, and save hundreds of dollars on gas.

Automatic learns your driving habits and gives you suggestions through subtle audio cues to drive smarter and stop wasting gas. Thanks to a map view available on your phone, Automatic can display a trip timeline after every driving session, showing you how you’re doing with a Drive Score; the app can even track local gas prices and tell you how much you’re spending.

In case of engine problems, Automatic can decipher what the “check engine” light means and show you a description of the issue with a possible solution. And thanks to a feature called Crash Alert, Automatic can detect many types of serious crashes and automatically alert local authorities as well as your loved ones when you can’t.

Automatic is currently available in the US for iPhone and Android devices, with a 45-day return policy and free shipping in 2 business days.

MacStories readers can go to automatic.com/macstories to get $20 off and buy Automatic at just $79.99. For more information, check out Automatic’s website.

Our thanks to Automatic for sponsoring MacStories this week.

Apple Posts New Apple Music Ads with the Theme of “Discovery”

Today Apple released three new videos advertising Apple Music, all focused on the discovery aspects of the service. The new tagline debuted in the ads is “All the artists you love and are about to love”.

While that tagline seems like a bit of a mouthful, I suppose it makes its point. Apple wants to position Apple Music as the new home for your music: there’s no downside to trying it because all of the artists you already know and love are there waiting for you, but it’s also the best place to discover new artists you’ll love that you are currently missing out on.

To showcase this, two of the ads are almost entirely made up of performances by artists James Bay and Kygo. At the end of the “Discover James Bay” and “Discover Kygo” ads, some text and buttons scroll down on top of the video. It is the artist’s name, a “Following” button, and three radio buttons: All, My Music, and Connect. This is the view you see in Apple Music when you open an artist’s page.

Amusingly, while in both ads the “Connect” radio button is selected, Kygo does not actually even have a Connect page at this time (meaning that “Connect” button which is selected doesn’t even exist on his page in Apple Music), and James Bay has only ever posted a single item. Probably not the best two artists to use to drum up interest in the Connect features of Apple Music.

The third video, titled simply “Discovery” is voiced by Trent Reznor, and features a variety of artists (including Bay and Kygo) preparing to be filmed. Reznor’s narration describes the motivations behind starting Apple Music, leading up to the new tagline. I would be surprised if we didn’t see some more of these “Discover [some artist]” videos soon, featuring the other artists that were shown in “Discovery”.

You can check out all three ads below.

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Zane Lowe Talks Beats 1’s First Weeks→

Good interview with Apple’s Zane Lowe on Billboard. Sounds like he’s in a charge of a lot of aspects of Beats 1, with Trent Reznor providing overall vision and strategy, and artists having pretty much carte blanche for their own shows.

Beats 1 is supposed to be formatless, but there do seem to be parameters to what’s played. How would you define the Beats 1 sound?

The personality of the station is developing over time. We started with a selection of records. That came down to four or five of us going, “What’s popping?” Then you ask around about the artist, do a bit of due diligence. After the first week, it was really exciting to hear how it all fit together, but also at times it was jarring. For instance, we would come out of big shows by Q-Tip or Disclosure, and the first song was really slow – you’re immediately losing the impact you’ve gained from the previous song. So we made some changes. We also noticed in the first week people listened for really long amounts of time, which meant songs got tired quickly, so we revised our rotations. And we’re working on a replay service and we want to get full on-demand ready.

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The Rise of (i)Phone Reading→

Jennifer Maloney, writing for The Wall Street Journal last week on the rise of phone reading has some interesting stats regarding the iPhone 6:

Since the release of the bigger, sharper iPhone 6 and 6 Plus last September, Apple has seen an increase in the number of people downloading books onto iPhones through its iBooks app. Some 45% of iBooks purchases are now downloaded onto iPhones, an Apple spokeswoman said. Before that, only 28% were downloaded onto phones, with most of the remainder downloaded onto iPads and a small percentage onto computers.

This increase isn’t limited to Apple’s iBooks app:

Amazon has also noted the development. Among all new customers using Kindles or the Kindle app, phone readers are by far the fastest-growing segment, an Amazon spokeswoman said, declining to disclose figures. Among those who use the Kindle app, more people now read books on the iPhone 6 or 6 Plus than on any other Apple device, even the popular iPad Mini, she said.

Note how Apple said “downloaded onto iPhones” and not “entirely read on iPhones” – but still, it makes sense for people to read books (and I would assume, web articles) more continuously and ubiquitously on an iPhone than an iPad, especially thanks to the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus.

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Browser Fairy Overcomes Browser Commitment Phobia

Browser Fairy allows you to set different browsers to open different links, rather than having to use the same browser for everything.

If this sounds familiar, you might be remembering Choosy, which worked as a Preference Pane and did a very similar thing. I have written about Choosy on several occasions, and MacStories covered it back in 2009! However, Choosy has not been updated in a long time, and I have happily moved to Browser Fairy, if for no other reason than its ability to import/export its own settings, so I can move those settings between Macs and back them up.

I generally use Safari as my web browser, but I make two exceptions: I use Google Chrome for any Google-related sites, and I use a Facebook-specific Fluid browser for anything related to Facebook, which I do to prevent Facebook from tracking what I do on other websites. (I started doing this before I started using Ghostery.)

This is especially important if you are trying to maximize battery life on a laptop, where Safari is far superior to Google Chrome (“Using Safari full time is like getting a new battery. Not even kidding.” — @bradleychambers), but need/want to use Chrome for some websites.

Bonus Tip: If you are looking at a website in Safari and need/want to quickly open it in Chrome (for example, if you come across a page that, for some inexplicable reason, still uses Flash), Bradley Chambers has an Alfred workflow to open the current Safari URL in Chrome. Browser Fairy also has browser extensions to send the current URL to another browser easily.

Browser Fairy ($5, Mac App Store) requires OS X 10.7 or later.

Thanks to Abby for first introducing me to Browser Fairy.