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Simplenote is Relaunching With Improved Syncing for Mac, iOS 7, and Android→

From the guys who make sharing notes between iOS, Android, and your desktop computer simple:

We’ve been beta testing new versions of Simplenote for Mac, Android, and iOS 7. They look a lot different: cleaner, simpler, and more lightweight. Our approach was to return to first principles and build anew.

A side effect is that some less frequently used features won’t be available, at least at first. Some people will cheer. Others, like those who adore sorting notes by reverse chronological creation date, may mourn. More details are coming soon.

Also of note are improvements to Simperium, which should make syncing between your devices faster and more seamless.

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Mirimage’s Editorial Workflows for Pocket and App.net→

Great demonstration of Editorial’s scripting capabilities. First, a workflow to fetch a random article from Pocket:

I’ve made 3 workflows; two for the authentication (Pocket Auth 1 & 2), and one that fetches a random article from the user’s unread queue and opens it in the Editorial browser. The Pocket authentication only needs to run once.

And then one to post on App.net (which could be nicely chained to my Post To WordPress workflow):

If you’re an App.net Developer, you can post to App.net directly from Editorial. I integrated this workflow into Federico Viticci’s Post to WordPress workflow, to post new articles to App.net in addition to Twitter.

Side note: I’m keeping track of Editorial workflows I find over at this Pinboard tag.

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ReadKit 2.3→

ReadKit, my favorite RSS/read later client for OS X, has been updated today to version 2.3, which brings a new icon, several bug fixes, and some new welcome features.

For me, the two most important additions are the improved sharing system and a global preference to group items by date or feed. The latter is available in Preferences > General, but there’s also a smart folder-specific setting that can override the general preference (so if you like to group a smart folder by feed instead of date, you can do that). Sharing is reminiscent of Reeder in that it supports services like Evernote, Twitter, Facebook, and Pinboard and it lets you assign custom keyboard shortcuts to each sharing service.

I’m a fan of the new sharing options, as they are faster to activate than drag & drop between sources (which was already supported). As the developers write:

ReadKit started out as a read later application for Instapaper, Pocket and Readability and it wasn’t so important to share articles between these services, despite the fact that it has worked with a simple drag-and-drop. Then RSS abilities has been added to the application, but the way of sharing remained unchanged. It’s time to improve this functionality, so this version introduces the new sharing menu, customizable sharing shortcuts and the ability to send articles into non-premium Instapaper accounts as well. Additional improvements and services are coming soon.

I’ve been using ReadKit every day since version 2.0 and I highly recommend it. The 2.3 update is available on the Mac App Store.

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A Very Mild Defense of In-App Purchases→

In this part of his post on In-App Purchases, John Moltz sums up my feelings quite well:

What we should be asking is simply whether or not we’re spending what the app is worth. We’ve spent a lot of time decrying the race to the bottom in app pricing. Now we’re complaining because app developers have found a way to make more money.

Not surprisingly, the study cited above says the freemium model works out well for developers. Almost exclusively, of course, it’s all the wrong developers. Because the good ones, the ones we like and go drinking with at WWDC, would rather drag a nail across a Retina MacBook Pro than go freemium.

Exactly. I am complaining because the wrong developers are leveraging In-App Purchases to create “games” that nickel and dime players and keep asking for more money. Funnily, just as we thought the arcade was dead, it’s back and it’s more expensive than ever with mobile games.

My problem is with games designed not for fun, but for profit. Games that are optimized for shady IAP tactics, rather than great gameplay. But I don’t want to repeat myself – here’s what I’ve written about my bias for quality games, Apple and its culture for gaming, and the value of In-App Purchases.

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The Prompt: X→

On the 10th episode of the The Prompt, Federico, Myke and Stephen discuss their awesome fans, Apple and gaming and gold-colored iPhones. They close with Federico’s review of Editorial for iPad, a discussion about creating things on the Internet and Stephen’s super power.

I can’t believe it’s been 10 episodes since we started The Prompt. Support from listeners has been amazing, and I’m excited about the future of The Prompt.

As an aside, if you’re reading this now, make sure to check out the #1 Prompt-related Twitter account, @timerkoalasing. He/she is live-tweeting the X episode as he/she listens to it. I’ll let you guess what his/her comments are like.

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Stuart Hall’s App Store Experiment→

This is an excellent series by Stuart Hall: he developed a 7 minute workout app, and he’s been posting details, numbers, and comments on what it’s like to enter the App Store market today.

Particularly interesting is the switch to a free model with In-App Purchase, detailed in part two:

How does In App Purchase (IAP) stack up against a paid download? For this app it’s been an increase of over 3x from around $22 per day to around $65 per day. The IAP converts at approximate 2-3% of the downloads per day.

[…]

IAP increases revenues - For better or worse for the ecosystem as a whole, it’s been proven over and over again it makes more money.

While Stuart’s story won’t apply to every kind of app category and pricing scheme, there are several data points and charts worth considering. Make sure to check out part one and part two – I hope there will be a part three as well.

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Shared Accounts In Google’s iOS Apps

Alex Chitu, reporting on a feature that I also noticed after YouTube’s 2.0 update:

If you enter the credentials of a Google account in the YouTube app and then open the AdSense app, you’ll find the new account and you can sign in without entering the password. If you remove an account, it will be removed from the other Google apps that support this feature. I assume that most Google apps for iOS will be updated to use this brilliant feature.

Once I logged into YouTube with my account (on an iOS 7 device), I then fired up the AdSense app (that I had just downloaded from the App Store) and my account was already listed in the screen with available accounts. It does seem like the YouTube and AdSense apps are capable of sharing accounts so users won’t have to log into their account every time in each Google app. AdSense didn’t bring up an authorization screen in YouTube – it just recognized the account that I had set up in YouTube.

Google’s documentation for YouTube confirms this, but doesn’t specify which iOS apps support shared accounts:

If you’ve signed in with another Google app on your iOS device, you may see this account listed.

Google’s explanation isn’t clear; the shared account option isn’t mentioned in the documentation for Gmail and Chrome. Upon signing out from the YouTube app, an alert dialog reads:

To sign in again, just select one of your Google accounts saved on this device. You will not be required to enter your password. To remove a saved account, tap “Sign In” > “Manage” > “Remove”.

It’ll be interesting to see if and when shared accounts will be integrated with Google’s other iOS apps. In the past few months, Google enhanced the inter-app communication capabilities of Gmail, Maps, Drive, and Chrome with the ability to open links in other apps, completely foregoing the need to launch Apple apps like Safari, Maps, or Mail.

Furthermore, Google is also providing an SDK for developers to add this functionality to their apps (for web links), showcasing examples of third-party apps that support Chrome. While Google apps won’t have the same kind of system integration that they have on Android, the combination of URL callbacks and shared accounts could help the creation of a “Google app ecosystem” on iOS.

Hype HTML5 Creation Tool Gets New Features, iOS Previews with 2.0 Update

Tumult Hype, a powerful HTML5 content creation tool for OS X, was updated today to version 2.0. Designed to allow web developers and designers to create rich, animated web content without relying on plugins (like Flash) or other native code, Hype – launched in 2011 by former Apple engineers – has always been at the forefront of HTML5 editing software on the Mac thanks to a polished interface, powerful features, support for Apple’s iBooks Author, and compatibility with several web browsers and technologies. MacStories readers may be familiar with our series on Entertainment Ecosystems, which featured animated HTML5 graphics created entirely in Hype by our Graham Spencer.

Today’s version 2.0 is a major update that builds on the solid foundation of Hype to provide further support for modern web standards as well as iOS devices. In terms of additions to the Mac app, Hype now supports web audio through audio actions, a way to stop and play audio depending on a user’s interaction with a specific scene or timeline. Hype now has support for web fonts (via Google Fonts), curved motion paths (for more natural animations of objects on screen), and JavaScript improvements for developers.

On the mobile side, one notable new feature is proper recognition of touch and swipe events: this means that Hype content supports interactions through taps and swipes on a mobile device with the same speed and controls provided by standard clicks and drags with a cursor on a computer. Based on what the Hype team showed in a video and explained in the 2.0 changelog, this should result in more fluid interactions with HTML5 content on mobile devices (not just iOS ones); developers won’t have to write touch-specific code from scratch anymore, as the app will take care of handling the transition from desktop to mobile browsers. Read more

The Problems Facing App.net→

Mat Honan of Wired writes about App.net and the problems it faces in getting both people and developers interested in its service. The article is great since it puts in laymen’s terms exactly what it is and what it provides, something that’s needed after being confused as an alternative to Twitter for so long.

In simple terms, App.net is a tool that affords you control of your data and network. It lets developers write apps and tap into users’ existing social graphs and stored files. Its first app was a Twitter-esque status updating service. But over the past year, it’s been quietly transforming itself, and with its free tiers and passport service, it may finally be ready to change the world — but first it has a lot to overcome, not the least of which are the many misconceptions about what the hell it is exactly.

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