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.

Todoist App Coming to Apple Watch→

This morning, Todoist announced an Apple Watch version of their app. Joe Rossignol writes:

Todoist aims to bring its popular to-do app for iPhone and iPad to the wrist with a simplistic Apple Watch app that will provide task management at a glance. When paired with an iPhone, the app will enable users to view their upcoming tasks and categories, reply to comments, and schedule or mark complete tasks. Todoist tells us that the video below is missing the task filter view, but plans to add the feature soon.

The past few weeks in the tech news cycle have been full of intriguing, but ultimately useless, examples of Apple Watch “concepts”. This is an actual WatchKit app coming soon to Apple Watch.

I’m excited because Todoist is my task management service of choice, and the ability to quickly mark a task as completed or defer it from my wrist could be interesting. The app looks standard – as I suspect most initial Apple Watch apps will be like – but make sure to hit the source link for a short demo video.

Also: considering Todoist’s integration with IFTTT and Zapier, how cool would it be to trigger automated workflows from an Apple Watch?

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Twitter Instant Timeline→

Vindu Goel writes about Twitter’s new “instant timeline” feature, which will allow users to sign up and start reading tweets without curating a following list manually:

Over all, however, the quality of the instant timeline was so good that I was almost tempted to dump my regular Twitter account, where I follow more than 700 other accounts, probably one-third of which are no longer important to me.

But:

The first part of the sign-up process is unchanged. After you pick a user name and password, Twitter asks for access to your smartphone’s contact list. Once you grant that access, the service scans it for people with Twitter accounts and suggests them as people to follow.

The feature has currently rolled out to a small percentage of users on Android. On multiple occasions, Twitter stated that getting people to sign up and enjoy the service without the burden of choosing accounts to follow is a priority for the company, and the results reported by The New York Times sound encouraging.

Still, I wonder how scanning contacts to find accounts based on common interest would work for people who have heard of Twitter but don’t have friends who use it (example: my parents). Keeping this instant timeline in addition to the traditional way of creating an account and picking people to follow sounds good though, and I’m curious to see when it’ll roll out to iPhone users.

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Virtual: My Friends Thought I Was a Genius→

This week Federico and Myke talk about their experiences with Grim Fandango Remastered and the Code Name S.T.E.A.M demo.

A great game and a promising demo featured in this week’s Virtual. You can listen to the episode here.

For more Grim Fandango reads, I recommend this story by Polygon on how Grim Fandango came to life again, Laura Hudson’s article on playing the game today, and Kotaku’s guide to why so many people love Grim Fandango.

Sponsored by:

  • Igloo: An intranet you’ll actually like, free for up to 10 people.
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The iPad Introduction, Five Years Later→

Five years later, Federico, Myke and Stephen re-visit Steve Jobs’ announcement of the original iPad.

On January 27, 2010, Steve Jobs introduced the iPad. Five years later, the iPad has sold over 200 million units and it has become my main computer. So, obviously, we’d have a special episode of Connected to revisit the keynote and its message after five years.

I’m very happy about how this turned out. We put a lot of work into it – don’t miss the rumor section before the actual keynote – and it’s been fun to look back at the origin of the device I now use every day. You can listen to the episode here.

Sponsored by:

  • lynda.com: An easy and affordable way to help individuals and organizations learn. Free 10-day trial.
  • Automatic: Your smart driving assistant. Get $20 off by visiting our link.
  • Igloo: An intranet you’ll actually like, free for up to 10 people.
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Igloo: An Intranet You’ll Actually Like [Sponsor]

Why invest in the latest, sleekest devices if you are going to use them to stare at an intranet website that looks like it was built in the 90’s?

Not only can Igloo be customized to look exactly like your brand, but with its responsive design, it’s automatically optimized for almost any device you’re using, including the latest iPhone 6 or 6 Plus. And just like your favourite Apple devices, Igloo helps you do your best work.

Share files, coordinate calendars, provide status updates and manage projects. Igloo’s not just for your traditional intranet stuff like HR policies and expense forms. It also lets you work better together with your teams. And it keeps getting better.

Our latest upgrade, Viking, gives you more control over how you interact with documents, gather feedback and make changes. We’ve even added the ability to track who has read critical information (like read receipts in your email, but less annoying) to keep everyone on the same page.

Not convinced yet? We understand love doesn’t happen overnight. If you sign up now, we will let you try our platform for free for as long as you want.

Our thanks to Igloo for sponsoring MacStories this week.

Microsoft Releases Outlook for iOS→

Microsoft today released an iPhone and iPad version of Outlook, their well-known email app from the Office suite of productivity apps. The app is free and does not require a subscription to Office 365.

Outlook for iOS supports email accounts from Microsoft Exchange, Office 365, Outlook.com, iCloud, Gmail, and Yahoo Mail - but does not yet support custom IMAP accounts. Interestingly, the app also directly connects to online storage services such as OneDrive, Dropbox and Google Drive so you can easily attach and send files.

Outlook makes it simple to share files stored in the cloud. With just a few taps, you can insert a link to any file from OneDrive, Dropbox and other popular accounts in your email message. Recipients are automatically granted permission to view these files, with no extra steps.

Need to find a file quickly? No problem. Outlook provides a view of your recently received email attachments, so you don’t have to go searching through email to find that document you need. Outlook also lets you search across both your cloud storage and your email attachments at once, with Quick Filters to let you quickly sort by file type.

Be sure to read the full announcement blog post from the Microsoft Office team, they highlight a number of neat features that might convince you to try the app out. And if you’re ready to try the app out, here’s the direct link to Outlook on the App Store.
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Andy Baio on The Internet Archive→

Andy Baio writes about a topic that is dear to me: The Internet Archive and software preservation.

The Internet Archive is a chaotic, beautiful mess. It’s not well-organized, and its tools for browsing and searching the wealth of material on there are still rudimentary, but getting better.

But this software emulation project feels to me, like the kind of thing Google would have tried in 2003. Big, bold, technically challenging, and for the greater good.

Read the post, then go listen back to episode 13 of Connected if you missed it.

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Slack to Add Voice, Video, and Screen Sharing→

Today, Slack announced they have acquired Screenhero, a real-time collaboration service with support for video and audio. Their technology will allow Slack to integrate voice, video, and screen sharing in the main Slack apps.

Around the same time we started building Slack, another team began building their vision; a service specializing in voice, video and screen sharing that would allow people working remotely to work as if they were in the same room, and people in the same room to work better than ever.

That team was Screenhero. And the more we got to know them, the more we liked the cut of their jib.

We use Slack at Relay, and, like many others, I like its integration with other services and apps. I always wondered if Slack would ever take on Skype, and I’m curious to see if what they’re building could be a possible solution for podcasters who are forced to use Skype today.

See also: The Verge and TechCrunch on today’s news, and Mat Honan’s profile of Slack founder Stewart Butterfield from last year.

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