Creatable has a build-your-own-bundle promo running right now with some impressive Mac apps to choose from. You can pick any 10 apps out of the 30 options, and pay $39 (which is less than the individual value of some of them). The choices include some of my current favorites, such as Paw, Scrivener, and Soulver. You’ll also find Mail Pilot 2, Scapple, Emulsion, and another 20+ apps to choose from.
“Pick a Bundle” of Mac Apps→
Apple’s Updated Privacy Website→
Apple updated its Privacy website earlier this week with new details on iOS 9 and El Capitan. Matthew Panzarino writes:
If you click your way through it, you’re going to see a product that looks a lot like the pages that are attempting to sell you iPhones. There is a section that explains Apple’s philosophy; one that tells users in practical terms how to take advantage of Apple’s privacy-and security-related features; an entire section on government information requests; and, finally, its actual privacy policy.
Some of the highlights for me, as I didn’t know these details before:
To make it even easier to get to just the right spot in your favorite app, we’ve built support for deep linking into iOS. A user can tap a link and it will open in the corresponding app if the app has been installed and supports deep linking. We do not associate this with your Apple ID, and Apple does not know which links you tap.
On HomeKit:
Apple does not know what devices you’re controlling, or how and when you’re using them. Siri only associates your HomeKit devices with your anonymous Siri identifier, not you personally. Apps supported by HomeKit are restricted by our developer guidelines to using data solely for home configuration or automation services. Data related to your home is stored encrypted in the keychain of your device. It’s also encrypted in transit between your Apple device and those you’re controlling. And when you control your accessories from a remote location, that data is also encrypted when it’s sent. So HomeKit doesn’t know which devices you’re controlling or how you’re using them.
On Siri’s suggestions:
Certain features do require real-time input from Apple servers. For example, event addresses and a user’s location are sent to Apple so that we can provide accurate Time to Leave predictions that take into consideration traffic and local transit schedules. Information like a user’s location may be sent to Apple to provide localized suggestions as well as relevant news and search results. When we do send information to a server, we protect your privacy by using anonymized rotating identifiers so that searches and locations can’t be traced to you personally. And you can disable Location Services, our new proactive features, or the proactive features’ use of your location at any time.
One thing’s for sure – Apple is going all-in on protecting privacy and user data as much as possible.
Safari View Controller and Automatic Safari Reader Activation
In my review of iOS 9, I included a link in a Safari footnote mentioning the possibility for developers to activate Safari Reader programmatically in their apps. Apple has some documentation on this: if available, apps can choose to switch Safari View Controller to Reader mode automatically, without requiring users to tap the Reader button first. I wrote that I hadn’t seen any example of the feature, but I was curious.
Newsify, a powerful (and highly customizable) RSS reader for Feedly, has recently been updated with a watchOS 2 app and support for iOS 9 multitasking. Among the various new options, Newsify lets you pick Safari View Controller (called “in-app Safari” in its Settings) for viewing articles, with an additional Reader view that can also be toggled in Settings. This way, every time you tap on an article’s web view in Newsify, it’ll open Safari View Controller in Reader mode by default, stripping away unnecessary content.
Here’s what you can do to try this out. Open Newsify, go to Settings > Article Browser > Globe Button Action and choose ‘Open in Safari’. In the same screen, under Safari Open Action select ‘Open Safari In-App (Reader view)’.
Now, go back to the list of articles, tap one, and tap the globe icon to open the article’s web view. Safari View Controller will open the webpage, briefly load the main content, and then Reader will activate automatically, with the same appearance settings you used the last time you opened it elsewhere on iOS.
I think this is a great way to provide a “readability” mode in apps by combining the benefits of Safari View Controller with the convenience of Safari Reader. I hope that more apps will consider this option.
The Cost of Mobile Ads→
Fascinating research by The New York Times on Content Blockers and performance gains in iOS 9:
Ad blockers, which Apple first allowed on the iPhone in September, promise to conserve data and make websites load faster. But how much of your mobile data comes from advertising? We measured the mix of advertising and editorial on the mobile home pages of the top 50 news websites – including ours – and found that more than half of all data came from ads and other content filtered by ad blockers. Not all of the news websites were equal.
Don’t miss the charts here. Also, from the related article:
As for me, the test results spurred me to keep Purify enabled on my iPhone. While I’m browsing, the app lets me easily denote a website whose ads I want to allow to be shown, an action known as “whitelisting.”
That means the websites I enjoy visiting that have slimmer ads — like TheGuardian.com, and, ahem, NYTimes.com — will be whitelisted. But sites saddled with ads that belong in digital fat camp will remain blocked for the sake of my data plan.
It’s fascinating to see how many are coming to the same conclusions.
What It Means to Be Great→
I didn’t read this widely shared article by Horace Dediu two days ago:
Greatness is transcendental. It’s hard to pin down. It inspires debate. It divides as much as it unites. It creates emotions as much as thoughts. It builds legends. It engages and persists. It lives in memory and penetrates culture. It implants itself in our consciousness persistently, to linger and dwell in our minds while we are bombarded with stimuli.
We use words such as “iconic” or “epic” to capture this permanent “mental tattoo” that we get from greatness. As important as this notion is, we struggle to define it. We don’t even have a proper word for it. Perhaps it is what art tries to be, or what drives us to achieve beyond surviving. As vague a notion as it may be, it is one of the most important notions I can think of. Greatness is the cause, perhaps, of our ascent.
A great piece, with a clever conclusion.
Skype for iPad Updated for iOS 9→
The Skype app for iPad has been updated today with support for iOS 9. Version 6.3 now supports Slide Over and Split View to have Skype chats next to other apps, quick text replies from notifications, and Spotlight search for usernames. Another update to Skype for iPad was released a while back bringing a redesigned UI for managing conversations, and I feel like the entire app has gotten considerably better over the past several months.
While I won’t be able to stop using my Mac to record podcasts in the near future, I want to believe that my dream of having a full podcasting setup on iOS isn’t so absurd anymore. Skype in Split View alongside Safari is a first step, but the road ahead is long (on my requirements list: Split View for Google Docs; the ability to plug a Rode microphone into my iPad; a way to record local audio during a Skype call).
Tweetbot 4 Review: Bigger Bot
There have only been two great Twitter apps for iPad since 2010: Loren Brichter’s Twitter, and the original Tweetbot for iPad.
As I reminisced last year in my look at the state of Twitter clients, iOS apps for Twitter are no longer the welcoming, crowded design playground they once were. Developing a Twitter client used to be an exercise in taste and restraint – a test for designers and developers who sought to combine the complex networking of Twitter with a minimalist, nimble approach best suited for a smartphone. Twitter reclaimed their keys to the playground when they began offering “guidance” on the “best opportunities” available to third-party developers. Four years into that shift, no major change appears to be in sight.
For this reason, I’d argue that while the iPhone witnessed the rise of dozens of great Twitter clients in their heyday, the iPad’s 2010 debut played against its chances to receive an equal number of Twitter apps specifically and tastefully designed for the device. Less than a year after the original iPad’s launch (and the Tweetie acquisition), Twitter advised developers to stop building clients that replicated the core Twitter experience; a year later, they started enforcing the 100,000-token limit that drove some developers out of business. Not exactly the best conditions to create a Twitter client for a brand new platform.
Largely because of the economic realities of Twitter clients, few developers ever invested in a Twitter app for iPad that wasn’t a cost-effective adaptation of its iPhone counterpart. Many took the easy route, scaling up their iPhone interfaces to fit a larger screen with no meaningful alteration to take advantage of new possibilities. Functionally, that was mostly okay, and to this day some very good Twitter apps for iPad still resemble their iPhone versions. And yet, I’ve always felt like most companies had ever nailed Twitter clients for a 10-inch multitouch display.
With two exceptions. The original Twitter for iPad, developed by Tweetie creator and pull-to-refresh inventor Loren Brichter, showed a company at the top of their iOS game, with a unique reinterpretation of Twitter for the iPad’s canvas. The app employed swipes and taps for material interactions that treated the timeline as a stack of cards, with panels you could open and move around to peek at different sets of information. I was in love with the app, and I still think it goes down in software history as one of the finest examples of iPad app design. Until Twitter ruined it and sucked all the genius out of it, the original Twitter for iPad was a true iPad app.
And then came Tweetbot. While Twitter stalled innovation in their iPad app, Tapbots doubled down and brought everything that power users appreciated in Tweetbot for iPhone and reimagined it for the iPad. The result was a powerful Twitter client that wasn’t afraid to experiment with the big screen: Tweetbot for iPad featured a flexible sidebar for different orientations, tabs in profile views, popovers, and other thoughtful touches that showed how an iPhone client could be reshaped in the transition to the tablet. Tapbots could have done more, but Tweetbot for iPad raised the bar for Twitter clients for iPad in early 2012.
Three years later, that bar’s still there, a bit dusty and lonely, pondering a sad state of affairs. Tweetbot is no longer the champion of Twitter clients for iPad, having skipped an entire generation of iOS design and new Twitter features. Tweetbot for iPad is, effectively, two years behind other apps on iOS, which, due to how things turned out at Twitter, haven’t been able to do much anyway. On the other hand, Twitter for iPad – long ignored by the company – has emerged again with a stretched-up iPhone layout presented in the name of “consistency”. It’s a grim landscape, devoid of the excitement and curiosity that surrounded Twitter clients five years ago.
Tweetbot 4 wants to bring that excitement back. Long overdue and launching today on the App Store at $4.99 (regular price will be $9.99), Tweetbot 4 is a Universal app that builds upon the foundation of Tweetbot 3 for iPhone with several refinements and welcome additions.
In the process, Tweetbot 4 offers a dramatic overhaul of the iPad app, bringing a new vision for a Twitter client that’s unlike anything I’ve tried on the iPad before.
Billings Pro 2 with iOS 9 Multitasking Features→
Billings Pro 2 is out, with full support for iOS 9 multitasking features. I mentioned Billings Pro in August, and adding these features to the set of iOS (and Apple Watch) features I covered extends its usefulness for freelancers and business owners even further.
Nintendo’s LINE Stickers→
Andrew Webster on Nintendo’s latest mobile product:
Most recently, the North American Line store was updated with stickers from Nintendo’s beloved life sim Animal Crossing, no doubt to help promote the new 3DS game Animal Crossing: Happy Home Designer. I spent the necessary $2 to acquire them immediately; I didn’t realize how much I needed an animated sticker of rock star dog KK Slider playing a guitar until I had it. In Japan, Nintendo recently released a second sticker pack, this one based on the wonderful new Wii U shooter Splatoon, and I absolutely cannot wait until Nintendo releases them in the English-speaking world. (Because they definitely will, right?)
I had no idea Nintendo offered LINE stickers.
I like how Nintendo is trying different mobile approaches before launching their full game initiative with DeNA. You have to wonder if amiibo (a lucrative segment for Nintendo) will ever get its own iPhone app.