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Shared iCloud Photo Streams for Backup→

On the same day, we got two good posts highlighting how Photo Stream works and why Shared Photo Streams can be used without the sharing part for photo backup purposes.

Ben David Walker:

Shared Photo Streams, however, can be used as both storage and backup for your photos. Yesterday, my friend Tom Klaver opened my eyes to this possibility by highlighting that, in spite of the name, Shared Photo Streams don’t actually have to be shared with anyone. And unlike the standard Photo Stream, photos in Shared Photo Streams are never removed from iCloud. They are eternal. Apple offers a great cloud photo service with many benefits over other services, and it’s hidden in plain sight.

And David Chartier:

You must manually create Shared Photo Streams and manually add photos and videos to them whether they are already in My Photo Stream, your Camera Roll, or, if you’re on a Mac using iPhoto or Aperture, from other sources like apps or the web. Like My Photo Stream, photos added to Shared Photo Streams do not count against your total iCloud storage (however, it sounds like videos do; Apple needs to clear this up too). However, the great thing about Shared Photo Streams is they do not disappear and never automatically dump older photos to make room for new ones.

I am going to try a shared photo stream, but the truth is that Apple needs to simplify a lot of things here. Photo Stream was bolted onto iPhoto on the Mac, there is no web app, and albums can be local on an iOS device and they don’t sync but there are streams and, actually, you have two kinds of photo streams but only one is automatic and has limitations.

It’s seriously confusing, and people don’t have time for this. Cue Everpix.

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Automate iOS Contacts, Location Services, and Open In Menu with Pythonista 1.4

Pythonista 1.4

Pythonista 1.4

Pythonista is the app that changed my iOS workflow a year ago. A Python interpreter with native access to iOS system features like photos, URLs, and interface elements, Pythonista allowed me to convert the scripts and macros that I was using on OS X to the iPad, automating iOS in better and sometimes unexpected ways. Pythonista eventually led to Editorial, also developed by Ole Zorn, which changed the way I write and work on my iPad every day.

Pythonista 1.4, available today on the App Store, is the biggest update to Zorn’s app to date. It includes a new UI for iOS 7 (the app is also iOS 7-only starting today), new modules and enhancements to existing ones, and, more importantly, it doubles down on iOS integration by bringing native support for contacts, location, and Open In. Read more

Pixelmator 3.0 FX [Sponsor]→

Our thanks to Pixelmator for sponsoring MacStories this week.

Pixelmator is a full-featured, award-winning image editing app for OS X that is fully ready for Mavericks and faster thanks to support for Apple’s latest technologies. Pixelmator has long been one of the premier image editing apps for the Mac, and version 3.0 adds powerful new features such as Liquify Tools and Layer Styles.

Pixelmator 3.0 integrates with Mavericks features like App Nap and Compressed Memory to make the app faster, more responsive, and better optimized for high performance. The image editing engine has been rewritten, and the app is ready for Apple’s Retina displays in modern MacBook Pros.

Pixelmator 3.0 FX is a free update, and it’s available at $29.99 on the Mac App Store. A free 30-day trial is available here.

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The New, Adjustable Glif

In 2010, we wrote about an interesting Kickstarter campaign for an iPhone stand and tripod mount called Glif. Simple and elegant, the Glif allowed you to easily mount an iPhone 4 on a tripod or act as a kickstand to prop it up at an angle. After the Kickstarter success, the duo behind the project, Tom Gerhardt and Dan Provost, went on to form Studio Neat; in the past three years, they have released other products that include the Cosmonaut stylus, iPhone apps, and a book.

Today, Tom and Dan are back with an update to the original Glif (called, in a very iPad 3-esque way, “The New Glif”) that makes it adjustable for practically any smartphone size. From their description:

The Glif will fit virtually any smartphone, between 58.4–86.4mm wide and 3.1–12.7mm thick. Some exceptions include “phablets” like the Samsung Galaxy Note, or phones with incredibly bulky cases.

With the new Glif, you’ll get a 5/32 hex key to adjust the device for your smartphone. Besides non-Apple phones, I think that having an adjustable Glif is a good idea for users who like to keep their iPhones cases that don’t fit with the original Glif design (which is still available for purchase).

The new Glif is $30 and available here.

Mark Jardine Interview→

Sam Rosenthal interviews Tapbots’ Mark Jardine. The interview isn’t too long and it’s a good read.

Allow me to quote a single answer by Jardine, in which he talks about the reaction of some people to iOS 7:

I think a fair analogy is when photography started to go digital. There were the early adopters that embraced DSLR’s and the use of Photoshop for post. And then there were the film guys who refused to move on. In many ways, film was still better than digital, but we knew where the future of the industry was headed. And a lot of die hard film guys got left behind. iOS 7 is a reboot and it will get better over time. I’m learning and embracing the design language now so our future apps can be better because of it.

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Dayli→

Nice app by Adam Swinden: Dayli lets you take a picture every day and create a timelapse video to see how things have changed over time. The app produces best results with selfies and it’s reminiscent of Everyday, although Daily is fully ready for iOS 7 (which is also required).

There are some details worth mentioning. The app can create multiple “daylis” (albums) that can contain separate collections of pictures. You can set reminders for each dayli and a frequency (you will get a local notification on your iPhone); once you have a collection of pictures you want to put together, you can create a video at 2, 4, or 8 FPS. In the camera view, you can create and turn on guides to better align your face with the iPhone, and there’s a button to overlay a previous pic on the screen so you’ll always capture pictures with the same angle/distance.

The app is relatively new, so I can’t comment on its reliability over several months with a library of hundreds of photos (which, by the way, can be saved to the Camera Roll or kept in the app). I’ve been taking a picture every day for the past two weeks; Daily has worked fine for me and I like its design and feature set.

Dayli is $1.99 on the App Store.

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Fantastical for Mac Gets Due Times For Reminders→

With the release of Fantastical 2 for iPhone, using the Mac app revealed an annoying bug that I either hadn’t noticed or just forgotten about: you couldn’t assign due times to reminders created inside the app.

The bug has been fixed with version 1.3.11, available on the Mac App Store. You can now write “todo Buy Zelda at 5 PM” and Fantastical will parse every piece of your command correctly. In the process, Flexibits also fixed some iCloud-related errors, which I’ve been noticing in the past few weeks.

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The Prompt: Radioactive Chocolate Cake→

This week, Jason Snell puts on his best Italian accent and joins Stephen and Myke to talk about online collaboration, keyboards and the third rail of 5by5 podcasting — comic books.

Bad news: as you may know by now, I couldn’t record on Wednesday due to issues with my ISP.

Good news: Myke and Stephen had a great discussion with Jason about iPads, comics, and more. And: my Internet should be back next week. Get the episode here.

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