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Jason Snell’s Hands On with Photos for Mac 1.1→

Good overview by Jason Snell on the new features coming with Photos 1.1 in El Capitan. Improvements to geotagging caught my attention, primarily because batch-editing of hundreds of files works best on a Mac:

Yes, in Photos 1.1 you can add a location to an image or batch of images that weren’t geotagged, as well as edit the location of data of already-geotagged images. To do this, you open the Inspector window. A not-yet-geotagged image will offer a section of the window labeled Assign a Location. Clicking in this area will let you enter a street address or a name of a point of interest, and Photos will search Apple’s Maps database. If that location isn’t good enough for you, you can always click on the pin and drag it around the map, placing it wherever you like.

See also: Jason’s first look at the El Capitan public beta for Macworld.

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Jonathan Poritsky: “Apple Music Connect Is Too Good to Waste on Artists”→

Jonathan Poritsky has a thought on Connect in Apple Music:

Artists postings thus far have been less than stellar. I think Apple has made a massive mistake billing Connect as a place to follow musicians. Connect is actually a wonderful service being squandered by Apple. The things that Apple is expecting artists to post just aren’t that interesting. Links to their own music and original photos or videos are relatively weak sauce, and the posts have been few and far between for most artists.

However, Connect is great for sharing exactly what I came to the Music app for: music. The trouble is most artists aren’t posting music; they’re promoting themselves in a fairly bland manner. I’ve found the best people to follow are DJs and performers with shows on Beats 1, as well as Apple’s in-house “curators.”

What he envisions is dangerously close to what Ping used to be, but the difference of following curators for updates on playlists could be key. I’ve also noticed that most artists on Connect tend to simply post links to their YouTube videos (often shortened to track clicks), so this is an interesting idea.

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Apple Launching iOS 9, OS X El Capitan Public Betas Today

Following the official introduction at WWDC last month, Apple is launching the first public betas of iOS 9 and OS X 10.11 El Capitan today. According to Ars Technica, betas for the general public will be available later today; both iOS 9 and El Capitan public betas should be available to any user with an Apple ID interested in installing them.

The public betas will soon be available from Apple’s Beta Software Program website and they follow the launch of the third developer beta seeded to registered iOS and OS X developers yesterday. With the public betas, Apple aims to offer a larger pool of users the possibility of testing the upcoming versions of the operating systems for Mac and iOS devices, with built-in tools to provide feedback and report issues during the beta testing period. As usual, Apple recommends to keep a backup of a stable version of iOS and OS X before installing the public beta.

It’s worth pointing out that, at this stage, third-party apps from the App Store can’t be updated to take advantage of the new features in iOS 9 and OS X 10.11, which could limit the potential benefit of trying a public beta for some users. On iPad, for instance, only Apple’s pre-installed apps can use the new multitasking features in iOS 9. For this reason, users interested in installing the public betas should also keep in mind that developers can’t submit apps and updates with iOS 9 and El Capitan features to the App Store – therefore, it’d be best not to leave negative reviews for features missing in apps that can’t be updated to take advantage of them yet.

Apple’s public beta website with more information will be updated at this link later today. You can read our overviews of iOS 9 and OS X El Capitan here and here.

Connected: Bingo Machine for Schedules→

This week, the guys talk about Stephen “going indie,” Apple Music, and Federico’s second Apple Watch.

A good episode of Connected this week, with more thoughts on Apple Music a week after its launch and some questions for Stephen on his future workflow. You can listen here.

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Apple Details Two-Factor Authentication in iOS 9 and El Capitan→

New webpage published by Apple today detailing the new two-factor authentication that will be directly built into iOS 9 and El Capitan. Most notably, Apple is using six-digit verification codes and passcodes by default, and the feature will be rolled out alongside the public betas of iOS 9 and El Capitan. “During the iOS 9 and OS X El Capitan public betas, enrollment in two-factor authentication will be limited”, according to Apple.

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iOS 9 Beta 3 Adds Albums for Selfies, Screenshots→

In the third beta of iOS 9 released to developers earlier today, Apple has included two new default albums in the Photos app – Screenshots and Selfies. The albums automatically collect screenshots and pictures taken with the front-facing camera (anything taken with the front-facing camera, as there’s no facial recognition in place yet – maybe it’ll be added later?).

As someone who takes dozens of screenshots on a daily basis – and I’m not alone – this sounds like a welcome change. Since iOS 8, I’ve been using apps like Screeny and Sharkie to delete all my screenshots, but native integration with the Photos app to view all screenshots and organize them should speed up my workflow even more.

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Streaming Music and Offline Modes→

Writing for Wired, David Pierce argues that most music streaming services aren’t optimized for offline listening:

Streaming music has an offline problem. As they’ve fallen all over themselves reminding us how wonderful it is to have 30 million songs only a few taps away, all for the low, low price of $10 a month, these companies have forgotten that the key to a great music experience is pressing play and hearing music. That shouldn’t be as hard as they’re making it.

Sure, offline listening is an option in Rdio, Spotify, Google Play Music, and Apple Music, but it always feels like it’s hidden just enough to make you forget it exists.

As I noted last week on Connected, I don’t usually need to keep music saved offline because I’m either on WiFi or I have plenty of 4G data on my plan for streaming not to be an issue. But I occasionally prefer to save some music offline because of poor cellular coverage (such as at the beach where I go every summer), and browsing offline content feels like a bet against the streaming service.

Even in Apple Music – the successor to the iPod and Music app – browsing offline content in Airplane Mode mostly breaks everything else (static, last-seen previews aren’t cached in the For You and New tabs), and playlists saved for offline listening are still displayed alongside those that are not (even after toggling the offline switch).

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Ben Bajarin’s Week Without Apple Watch→

An interesting experiment by Ben Bajarin:

When I told people about my experiment, many were curious if I used my phone less as a result. For a few weeks prior to this experiment, I had been using an app called Moment, which tracks your iPhone usage each day and how many times you pick the phone up, turn the screen on and look at it. While I didn’t see my iPhone usage in terms of hours per day decline during the week without the Apple Watch, I did see a significant drop in the number of times I looked at it. The average number of times I picked up and looked at my phone my last week with the Apple Watch was 74. This last week without the Apple Watch my average number of daily pickups was 102. I charted it to see the difference.

I went through a similar realization last week. I was supposed to pick up an Italian Apple Watch review unit (the one I’ll be testing for the next few weeks), so I gave my Apple Watch to my girlfriend, reinstalled iOS 8, and didn’t configure my Apple Watch Sport on the new system. For three days, I went without an Apple Watch, and I didn’t think I’d miss the simple ability to quickly look up messages, songs, and the time as much as I did. I haven’t worn a watch in a decade, and I’m surprised by how much I’ve come to expect daily updates to follow me around and tap me only when necessary.

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