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iOS 10: The MacStories Review

Sometimes, change is unexpected. More often than not, change sneaks in until it feels grand and inevitable. Gradually, and then suddenly. iOS users have lived through numerous tides of such changes over the past three years.

Credits

This review wouldn’t have been possible without the help, feedback, and existence of the following people, animals, beverages, and pieces of software:

  • My girlfriend Silvia, for her patience, love, and design skills
  • My two dogs, who are adorable
  • Alessandro Vendruscolo, who squashed many bugs and brought this web layout to life
  • John Voorhees
  • Graham Spencer
  • Brett Terpstra
  • Myke Hurley
  • Stephen Hackett
  • Frank Towers, who created 1-2-3 Trip Planner (don’t tell developer Myke Hurley, though)
  • CGP Grey
  • Jeremy Burge
  • _David Smith
  • Casey Liss
  • John Gruber
  • Diego Petrucci
  • Workflow, Pythonista, Scrivener, iThoughts, and Editorial – essential apps that helped me create this story
  • Sketch and Meng To’s Angle Mockups
  • Every app developer who sent me betas
  • Every engineer at Apple who always makes reviewing iOS each summer fun
  • @TiccisEspresso, for a daily dose of energy
  • Every Club MacStories member
  • And finally, every MacStories reader, for allowing me to do what I love. Thank you.

    Mario Stickers Make Their Debut

    Last Wednesday, Shigeru Miyamoto of Nintendo was a surprise guest at Apple’s iPhone 7 event. Nintendo announced that Super Mario Run, an endless runner game starring Mario, would be coming to iOS in December. At the end of Miyamoto’s presentation, he added that Mario stickers would be launching alongside the introduction of iOS 10. Apple’s new iPhone operating system won’t be out until tomorrow, but sticker packs and iMessage apps have been showing up on the App Store all day, including the Super Mario Run sticker pack.

    I really like these stickers and it demonstrates how developers can use sticker packs as a way to market upcoming products. We’ve tried dozens of iMessage apps and sticker packs over the past few weeks here at MacStories. In fact, I don’t think it would be an exaggeration to say Federico and I have exchanged hundreds of stickers and app messages over just the last few days as we prepare for the iOS 10 launch. Keep an eye on MacStories, because we will be sharing some of our favorite iMessage apps and sticker packs in a roundup tomorrow.

    MacStadium Offers Large-Scale Mac Private Clouds for iOS Testing [Sponsor]

    MacStadium offers Mac CI infrastructure at a scale that no one else can match. Recently ranked #44 on the Inc. 5000 list of America’s fastest growing private companies, they offer Mac private clouds for iOS testing in some of the largest startups in the world.

    With new versions of iOS and macOS, there will be a lot of development and testing to get apps updated and created. MacStadium can put together a Mac cloud at the size you need. They can usually do it quicker and with less expense than doing it in-house for your company. Some benefits:

    • From a few Mac Pros to hundreds, MacStadium can scale with you quickly
    • Pure flash storage provides up to 150,000 32K IOPS at <1ms average latency
    • Three global locations to offer fast access to all your developers and testers
    • 24/7 support with unlimited Internet and network usage
    • Consolidate to a completely private network for macOS, Linux and Windows in one place

    Chat with an engineer or customize your Mac Cloud on the MacStadium Private Cloud page.

    Our thanks to MacStadium for sponsoring MacStories this week.

    Club MacStories, Year One: Celebrating with Club MacStories Anniversary Month

    When I announced Club MacStories almost a year ago, I wrote:

    But, at the same time, I’m also ready for more – something a bit more focused and dedicated to our biggest fans, built with care every week and delivered with the same passion that we put into MacStories every day. Club MacStories is a new challenge for us, but I know that I, Graham, and the rest of the MacStories team can pull it off consistently and with the quality you expect from MacStories.

    If you love MacStories as much as we love making it, I hope you’ll consider becoming a Club MacStories member. This isn’t just about good feelings and supporting MacStories directly (although that’s pretty great): you’ll receive what I believe are useful and informative newsletters every week, plus a recap of everything MacStories and more every month.

    A year later, I couldn’t be happier with the progress of Club MacStories and the response from Club members. In twelve months, we’ve delivered 60 newsletters (if you’re counting: 48 issues of MacStories Weekly out of 51 weeks). We’ve featured discounts, giveaways, and eBook downloads exclusive to members, and our team has grown thanks to John’s contributions to the Club.

    I’m happy, signups to the Club keep growing on a weekly basis, and we continue to think about how to offer even more content for Club MacStories. I’m extremely thankful to everyone who’s considered the Club and signed up.

    I don’t like dwelling on self-celebrations, but a year of weekly content in addition to the site is an important milestone for us. And so, as the anniversary date was approaching, I thought it’d be appropriate to give back to our readers, show our appreciation, and celebrate the first year of Club MacStories together.

    What better way than discounts on great software, exclusively for Club MacStories members?

    Read more

    Game Day: Nightgate

    In Nightgate, by Semidome, you navigate a glowing sphere through a grid of 3D geometric shapes guided by another sphere. This is where I suspect some people might stop me and ask ‘Didn’t you review this game last week?’ No, but I wouldn’t blame you if you mistook Nightgate for Gemini at first glance. There are some superficial similarities, but the two games are very distinct.

    Nightgate is a follow up to Semidome’s Last Voyage, which was among Apple’s Best of 2015. The game features 50 levels of puzzles. The goal of each puzzle is roughly the same – guide your sphere through a maze of obstacles by dragging your finger anywhere on the screen to move over specific spots identified by dots surrounded by a circle. After you have flown over each node your companion sphere takes you to the next stage of the game.

    Read more

    Apple Watch Series 2: Our Complete Overview

    Yesterday morning during their keynote event, Apple introduced the first ever hardware update to the Apple Watch. The Apple Watch Series 2 retains the same basic body design as predecessor. While it is thicker by 0.9mm, the internal components have received a significant refresh in power as well as capabilities. With the Series 2, Apple seems to be repositioning the Watch to be more directed toward health and fitness rather than an all purpose device, and the choices of hardware upgrades reflect this idea as much as the keynote highlighted it.

    Read more

    Google Photos Updated

    Google released version 2.0.0 of Google Photos today to integrate better with other Google products and to give customers greater control over their photos.

    In June, Google released Motion Stills an app that can turn Live Photos into GIFs or movies and does an amazing job eliminating camera shake. Version 2.0.0 brings that same functionality to Google Photos. From the menu, choose ‘Save as video’ and Google Photos will save a video version of your Live Photo.

    It is also easier to upload your videos to YouTube. Select a video, tap share, pick the ‘YouTube’ icon from the share sheet. Google Photos will prepare the file and send it to the YouTube app where you can edit it further before posting if you like.

    Finally, Google added a couple of user-friendly features to Google Photos. The first is the ability to sort photos in albums either chronologically or by recently added. The second is the ability to change the thumbnail used in the ‘People’ view to a photo of your own choosing.

    As we saw from the introduction of the iPhone 7 yesterday, photography and the apps surrounding it continue to be some of the most competitive areas in mobile computing. With Google Photos 2.0.0, Google continues to refine its approach to photo management and tie it more closely with its video products.

    iPhone 7: Our Complete Overview

    Today during Apple’s keynote event at the Bill Graham Civic Auditorium in San Francisco, the Cupertino company announced the latest iteration on their most successful product. Despite rumors of a mostly laid back upgrade year, the iPhone 7 did not disappoint. While only minor changes have been made to the enclosure, there are significant upgrades to almost every other aspect of Apple’s flagship iPhone.

    Read more