Apple has now posted the video of its ‘Spring Forward’ keynote held earlier today in San Francisco. The video can be streamed here, and a higher quality version should be made available in a few hours through iTunes (on the Apple Keynotes podcast). To avoid streaming errors, Safari is recommended for the best viewing experience.
For more coverage, check out our ‘Spring Forward’ keynote news hub and follow @macstoriesnet on Twitter.
The good news is that the rumors about HBO Now[1] were true:
Apple and HBO today announced HBO NOW is premiering next month [April 2015], making an HBO subscription available directly to Apple customers for the first time ever. iPhone, iPad, iPod touch and Apple TV users can purchase HBO NOW directly in-app as a standalone service to watch every episode of every season of the best of HBO’s original programming, as well as the biggest and latest Hollywood hit movies, groundbreaking documentaries, sports and exclusive comedy specials—for just $14.99 a month.
This is good news, especially for those of you anticipating the upcoming premier of Game of Thrones season five. Hopefully some of this money will go towards solving HBO’s previous problems keeping up with video demand for Game of Thrones. However, there was some very small print at the bottom of the screen (and which isn’t mentioned in the press release): “HBO NOW is only accessible in the US and certain US territories. Some restrictions may apply.”
Assuming that Apple handles this the same way it handles other subscriptions, one big convenience of HBO Now will be the ability to cancel your HBO subscription without having to call your cable/satellite TV provider and sit through a “Retention Specialist” trying to convince you to keep it. So if you only want to keep it while Game of Thrones is on, that will be easier.
In related news, Apple had news about the AppleTV! But if that made you excited because you hoped they were going to update the AppleTV, or at least the user-interface, well, sorry. It’s not getting better, but it is going to be cheaper. It will now sell for $70 instead of $100. Which is a good price, but the AppleTV really looks outdated and clunky compared to the Roku and Amazon Fire TV.
Apple press release about HBO Now
Apple and HBO want you to capitalize it “NOW” but there’s no need to be that shouty. ↩︎
Those with an Apple TV can now access the Apple Events channel, ahead of today’s ‘Spring Forward’ keynote. The channel will allow users to stream the keynote live, from 10am San Francisco time, as Apple previously announced. The channel also allows users to stream past Apple events, just in case you have some time to kill whilst you wait for today’s event to start.
For those without an Apple TV, you will also be able to stream today’s keynote from Apple’s website if you use Safari on Mac or iOS. You can also follow our March 9 Event hub for updates, or subscribe through RSS to our dedicated March 9 event feed.
We’re always trying to think of new and interesting stories to publish on MacStories, and often times they’re articles that are a complete experiment that we honestly don’t know how they’ll turn out – this is one of those articles.
Earlier this year I published an article that was essentially just a list of indie iOS/Mac developers and we got a great reaction to it (and we promise an update is coming). Inspired by the developers featured in that article, I asked a handful of them to write a journal of what they do in a week of development, and for some crazy reason, they agreed to contribute. Those generous developers are (in no particular order) Oisin and Padraig from Supertop, David Smith, Philip Simpson from Shifty Jelly, Greg Pierce from Agile Tortoise, and Junjie from Clean Shaven Apps.
I asked each of the developers to keep track of the work they did in the week of Sunday 22 February to Saturday 28 February. But I wasn’t specific in the format, other than to say I wanted something along the lines of a journal crossed with a time sheet. That was partly because I really didn’t know what would work well, but also because I wanted to be flexible and let the developers just write what they thought was appropriate. I had no idea what to expect, and was a bit nervous that the whole thing might fall apart because I hadn’t been specific enough about what I was looking for.
Fortunately, the result is fascinating, I found myself not only entertained but educated as I read through each of their journals. You’ll find that each journal is quite vastly different, not just in their writing style but also how they work as an indie developer. I know it’s a long read (certainly longer than I had anticipated), but stick with it – there are some great surprises throughout.
Brendan Klinkenberg, writing for BuzzFeed on Apple’s new ad campaign for iPhone 6 photography:
Last December, when the Bay Area had one of its rare rainy days, Cielo de la Paz took her kids out to play. She’s an avid photographer, “willing to wake up at five in the morning and hike 10 miles to get that shot of the sunrise,” and when she saw the reflection of her red umbrella on the wet concrete, she knew she had a good one.
“It took a few shots,” she said, “this was the last one I took, I was finally happy with how the wind arranged the leaves for me.”
She edited the shot with Filterstorm Neue, uploaded the picture to Flickr (she was taking part in the photo365 challenge), where Apple found it.
Very nice of Apple to use these real photos in billboards around the world, too.
La campagna “scattata con iPhone 6” https://t.co/dW2soTJK3d anche davanti agli uffici italiani di Apple, a Milano pic.twitter.com/UIx0SXMTOB
— setteB.IT (@setteBIT) March 4, 2015
“Shot on iPhone 6” billboard in LA. Pretty cool. pic.twitter.com/oBcG9rbdns
— Beau Colburn (@beaucolburn) March 2, 2015
Hello Tokyo Apple billboard pic.twitter.com/R4t8yyAT76
— Cory Staudacher (@withhearts) March 2, 2015
Apple Billboard has been spotted in Brooklyn, Columbus and at the IMAX Theatre in London! pic.twitter.com/HnrGFpiKQi
— Julian Bialowas (@julianbialowas) March 3, 2015
Dave Tach, writing for Polygon on the story of Crossy Road:
Crossy Road is the rare story of success at the intersection of art, commerce, design and marketing. It’s about lessons learned in hard times and a games maker who thought he might never go back to GDC after one terrible year. It’s about a pair of developers who, in fact, did set out to create a video gaming phenomenon — and succeeded.
An inspiring tale of success, especially because the developers purposefully tried a different free-to-play model and didn’t simply experiment without consideration. A good lesson.
Cool idea by the newly launched WatchAware: interactive demos for Apple Watch apps ahead of the device’s release.
At WatchAware, we’re excited to bring you our take on industry news about Apple Watch and the impact of wearable technology in general. But we’re even more excited about our new, just-launched Apps section. There, we’re giving third-party developers their own little corner of the site, where readers can come to check out their wares, see how their apps will look and run, and even interact with them. It’s really cool, and we’re really proud of it.
The Apps webpage they launched features a collection of apps previously shown in September but also new ones provided by indie developers. I’m particularly intrigued by Feed Wrangler, Todoist (obviously), and Run 5k. Besides the device itself, I’m excited to see how third-party apps will adapt to the Watch – Run 5k (video here) will display heart rate, distance, and pace directly on your wrist, which wouldn’t be possible with an iPhone app.
The cat is out of the bag… we’re working on an Apple Watch app for @LaunchCenterPro: http://t.co/AePlhE33Z5 pic.twitter.com/ooi5d1jG1N
— David Barnard (@drbarnard) March 1, 2015
Launch Center Pro, my favorite utility to launch actions and apps on iOS, is coming to Apple Watch. As shown by Contrast’s David Barnard, Launch Center Pro for the Watch will feature a list of actions with a simplified interface in line with Apple’s guidelines for the new device.
I’m excited about the potential of bringing discrete automation to the wrist. And I’m curious to see how Contrast will slim down the experience to make sense on the Watch. The actions in the screenshot seem to be primarily web-based (likely powered by IFTTT) and they can work well with one-tap interactions and dictation, but I’m wondering if the more complex workflows of Launch Center Pro for iOS could have Watch counterparts as well.
The last hundred years or so have brought us a very, very long way. From the invention of the telephone and the automobile to telephones you can use to… order an automobile, technology has empowered and enabled not just gadgets and toys, but massive changes in the way we design, create, and produce objects of every size and shape.
And there are roughly seven billion people on this planet right now. So… who is all this stuff for?
The latest video in Dave Wiskus’ excellent Better Elevation series reflects on designing experiences for more diverse audiences. This is an important message for any type of designer, and one that I should follow more often for the accessibility of MacStories.
