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Phraseology Adds “Show Spelling Issues” Option→

Cool new addition to the latest update to Phraseology by Greg Pierce:

This update adds a cool new “Show Spelling Issues” option in syntax highlighter. When used, possible spelling errors (based on the same spell checking used by auto-correct) will be highlighted in red. Tapping on one triggers the suggestion menu for replacements. The spelling issue highlighting cannot be used at the same time as part of speech highlighting, so will disable other highlights when turned on.

With version 2.0, Phraseology (which was already a great app) turned into a powerful solution for writers who want to enhance their writing workflow on iOS. Today’s update brings a minor but important addition: when I write in Editorial, I keep spelling turned off because I want to reduce distractions as much as possible. Phraseology is meant for highlighting words, so adding native spell checking to the app makes sense.

Phraseology is $2.99 on the App Store.

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Crashlytics Announces New Beta Distribution Tool→

Matthew Panzarino from TechCrunch highlights a new beta distribution tool from Crashlytics, which was acquired by Twitter last year.

The new distribution tool is cross-platform — meaning that it works on both Android and iOS. That puts it on rough parity with Hockey, the other major player in the beta distribution space, though Hockey also supports Windows Phone.

The new tool comes out of Crashlytics Labs, the experimental arm of the crash-reporting and analytics firm. It’s been in private beta for a bit but is now expanding into public beta …

Crashlytics has their own blog post about the new venture here, where you can sign up to try their new tool.

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My Finances Lets You View Your Income and Expenses at a Glance→

If you just want to keep tabs on your expenditures and income without the overhead of managing a budget, My Finances is a lightweight iPhone app that gives you a glance at how you’re spending your money and what your net worth is at any given time. Put expenditures into categories, track how you’re spending over time, and make quick decisions on whether you’re spending too much. To begin tracking, My Finances lets you enter a starting value in the settings to create a baseline. The app doesn’t connect to your bank to automatically track spending, but it does you mindful since you have to enter each transaction yourself. Setting up basic categories for gas, groceries, public transportation, and eating out can go a long way towards becoming aware of where your money is really going. The app is free to download, but an in-app purchase for $3.99 unlocks all of the features.

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The Effective Way To Ask For An App Review→

The developers at Supertop, makers of Castro for iPhone, write:

Castro 1.0.4 had received 10 App Store reviews in the first three days of its release. After three days 1.0.5 had 48.

We wondered if the dramatic increase was a coincidence so when 1.0.6 was released we left the request out. Three days later we had only 4 new reviews, after a week we had 8. It took three weeks to get 24 reviews, half of what we had after three days for the previous version.

It’s good to know that asking for something nicely on the Internet can still produce satisfying results. Castro’s audience is certainly used to reading release notes, so until Apple changes how App Store reviews are reset for each app update, this might just work as a viable alternative to review prompts.

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Understanding Apple’s New Deployment Programs→

Fraser Speirs explains the changes Apple introduced yesterday for deployment programs.

Yesterday Apple released two new deployment programs for iOS and Mac, and rolled out enhancements to another. I want to explain as best I can how they work together.

The Volume Purchase Program has been significantly enhanced and there are two new programs: Device Enrolment Program and AppleID for Students. Let’s look at each of these in turn.

I assume the topic will also be covered soon in Fraser’s podcast, Out of School.

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Documents 5 Brings iOS 7 Update, New “Add-On” Features for Inter-App Communication

With Documents 5, released today on the App Store as a free update, Readdle is seeking to build its own ecosystem of interconnected apps on iOS. By leveraging inter-app communication features currently available on iOS but mostly ignored by Apple’s apps, Readdle is turning Documents into a centralized location for files, which can be sent to other Readdle apps and modified without creating duplicate entries.

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Plink Crowdfunding Campaign→

I’ve always wished for a simple and powerful image uploader for iOS. On my Mac, I use Cyberduck to manage uploads to our CDN (Rackspace Cloud Files) and for Editorial I had to put together a script with Python. Neither is a great solution for my workflow – all I really want is a dedicated iOS app that can upload files, get URLs back, and communicate with other apps.

Jeff Mueller is building just that: Plink is (will be) an image uploader for iOS with support for a variety of services, image URL formats, and URL schemes for inter-app communication. The app will use Essence and is being built with power users in mind from the start.

To fund development for the app, Mueller has launched a crowdfunding campaign on Backer. He writes:

Plink solves this problem by providing a bridge between your online storage host and your text editor. Right now, it’s in an alpha state that provides a limited subset of the overall intended functionality. We want to finish it, but we need to know we’ll see a return on our investment

And:

We’ll be honest: there aren’t a lot of people who will find Plink useful. However, those who do find it useful will likely be very big fans of the simplified workflow it provides. If it gets enough exposure, I expect that Plink will be the app equivalent of a cult movie hit.

Our definition of success for Plink is simple. I need enough money to fund about 20 hours of development at my typical hourly rate for iOS work. Once Plink launches, it will be entirely free to download. The Backer campaign will provide all of the funding for this project. No revenue will be generated directly through the App Store.

If Mueller can reach the basic goal of $2,500, he will release Plink for free on the App Store. Personally, though, what I would love to see realized is the stretch goal of $3,500: with that, Plink will also support S3, Rackspace, Flickr, and Photobucket.

Plink has the potential to be an extremely niche app that will become a must-have for a few nerds around the world. You can check out Plink’s website, and contribute to the campaign here.

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Directional: Virtual Console and Blue Ocean Reprise→

This week Myke and Federico address a whole host of follow up and awesome listener mail, before completing their Nintendo discussion from last week. They talk about Nintendo’s move towards smartphones, using the 3DS as a Wii U controller, the problems with the Virtual Console and if this could be a potential short term solution for them.

In this week’s Directional, we also touched upon the idea of a Nintendo app for iOS and why a Spotify-like subscription model for games could be problematic for indie developers. Get the episode here.

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