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IFTTT for iPhone: A Different Kind of iOS Automation

IFTTT for iPhone

IFTTT for iPhone

I used to heavily rely on IFTTT for my daily automation workflows that involved appending bits of text to files in my Dropbox, forwarding tweets to my OmniFocus inbox, generating PDFs, or archiving Instagram photos to my Dropbox account. IFTTT, acronym of If This Then That, is a web service that lets you connect other web services together to create automated workflows that run every time a piece of data is triggered: by leveraging a variety of APIs from compatible channels (such as Facebook, Dropbox, Evernote, Feedly, and more), IFTTT lets you automate the web in powerful (and sometimes unexpected) ways. Browsing Popular recipes on the IFTTT website can give you an idea of the scope of web automation that’s made possible by the service, and we’ve covered IFTTT in the past on MacStories as well.[1]

However, I stopped depending on IFTTT because, once I got more comfortable with my own Mac mini server as a remote automation assistant, I wanted to control the pipes of my personal data. I’m still using IFTTT for things like receiving an email if it’s going to rain tomorrow or a new SMS for press releases published by Apple (just an example of the power of IFTTT channels and recipes), but it’s not the primary system that I rely upon for automating daily tasks. The new IFTTT app for iPhone, which I have been testing and has been released today on the App Store, may make me (partially) reconsider my decision. Read more

The Next Five Years of App Store

Five

Five

A great man once said that we should look up at the stars, be curious, and keep asking questions. With the App Store now a five-year-old business, I would like – allow me to paraphrase that great man for a much more trivial endeavor – to look ahead and trying to imagine what the next five years of the App Store could look like. I already wrote my in-depth App Store retrospective last year, and I touched upon the changes introduced with iOS 6 back in September 2012. Now, it’s time to think about what’s next. The past can be functional to contextualizing the future, but eventually somebody has to think of that future. This is my humble, brief attempt.

The App Store will soon hit the impressive milestone of 1 million apps available for iPhone and iPad. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised to know Apple is figuring out a way to time the announcement of 1 million apps with the release of iOS 7 (and possibly new iPhone hardware) this Fall. The App Store’s soon-to-be-millionaire catalogue pales in comparison to the iTunes Store’s music offerings, but it’s still impressive when considering that the modern concept of app was born only five years ago, whereas music goes, euphemistically, “a long way” back in human history.

I don’t think that the App Store’s growing catalog will ultimately change the nature of the Store itself: if you look back at the past 10 years of iTunes, you’ll see that, in spite of new releases and additions, the iTunes Store’s core mechanics haven’t changed much. Customers go to iTunes, they buy music, and they enjoy that content on their devices. With the App Store, I think we’ll keep seeing a front page, categories, charts, and a download/purchase mechanism that will go unchanged for the foreseeable future. Apple doesn’t need to alter the simplicity of the App Store model, but they must enhance it and modernize it.

I discussed many of my ideas for a better App Store in my piece from February, and I’ll revisit them today with a knowledge of the announcements Apple made with iOS 7. Read more

Google Announces Google Maps App Coming to iPad “Soon”

In a a blog post published today to detail the new features of Google Maps for Android devices, Google has announced that the app will also be released for iPad “soon”. Following the removal of the native, Google-based Maps app in iOS 6 (replaced with a new Maps app using Apple data), Google released a native iPhone app last December.

In describing the tablet version of Maps for Android, Google says that the larger screen makes “exploring the world from the comfort of your living room much more fluid, smooth and fun”. Based on the Android screenshot shown on Google’s blog, it appears the Maps app for iPad may be somewhat influenced by the new Google Maps for the web with fullscreen map views and floating cards for menus and discovery.

The updated Google Maps app will focus on exploration to browse and discover new places through a new cards interface that shows “great places to eat, drink, sleep and shop”. Alongside improvements to navigation and reporting of traffic conditions, Google will also bring Zagat and Offers integration, retire Latitude and My Maps, and release new location sharing and check-in options for Google+ (coming soon to iOS). According to Google, the My Maps functionality will return to future versions of the app.

You can read Google’s blog post (with screenshots of the new Google Maps app for Android) here.

The Dropbox Platform→

At its first developer conference that kicked off today, Dropbox CEO Drew Houston announced the Dropbox Platform, a new initiative aimed at making Dropbox the “best foundation to connect the world’s apps, devices, and services”.

Part of the Platform is the new Datastore API, which will allow developers of Dropbox-enabled apps to sync more than just files:

Our Sync and Core APIs already take care of syncing files and folders, but as people use mobile apps more and more, a lot of their stuff doesn’t really look like a file at all. It could be anything — settings, contacts, to-do list items, or the latest doodle you drew.

With the Datastore API, we’re moving beyond files and providing a new model for effortlessly storing and syncing app data. When you use an app built with datastores your data will be up-to-date across all devices whether you’re online or offline. Imagine a task-tracking app that works on both your iPhone and the web. If it’s built with the Datastore API, you can check off items from your phone during a cross-country flight and add new tasks from your computer and Dropbox will make sure the changes don’t clobber each other.

It’s unsurprising to see various comments on how Dropbox Datastore looks like what Apple should have done with iCloud for third-party developers. Last month at WWDC, Apple acknowledged the issues that troubled iCloud’s Core Data sync and promised several fixes coming with iOS 7 and OS X 10.9.

It’ll be interesting to see if a new architecture based on drop-ins (components) that include (for now) a Saver and Chooser (for saving files to and picking them from Dropbox, respectively) will convince third-party developers of iOS apps to keep avoiding iCloud and embracing Dropbox. For as much as Dropbox improves upon its platform, key aspects of the iOS experience such as photos, videos, music, mail, contacts, and todos remain natively tied to Apple’s iCloud service. Can Dropbox apps, developers, and users grow faster than Apple can improve iCloud? Assuming that iCloud will work reliably in iOS 7 and Mavericks, will developers of groundbreaking and innovative apps support both iCloud and Dropbox? How many platforms is too many?

Dropbox says they now have 175 million users; the latest number from Apple is the 300 million iCloud accounts shared at WWDC ‘13. A first result of the new APIs will soon be shown in an update to Mailbox, which Dropbox owns.

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Sponsor: Smile

Our thanks goes out to Smile for sponsoring MacStories with TextExpander.

TextExpander takes the pain out of typing the same mundane things over and over again. If you work in customer support, respond to inquiries, work with various signatures, or find yourself typing the same boilerplate text, TextExpander saves you time. On the Mac, TextExpander lets you create short phrases and keywords that can expand into dates, addresses, and paragraphs of text with just a few keystrokes. You can even create pre-formatted forms that let you add in things like a person’s name. For those who want to take TextExpander to the next level, TextExpander even lets you perform custom actions on text that you might regularly copy and paste from somewhere else, like a technical support guide. If you work with words, TextExpander will prove to be an invaluable tool for your Mac.

TextExpander touch 2.0 on iOS devices now comes with the same great features that are found on the Mac, such as formatted text and fill-ins. If you’re working on the go, it’s a great way to get the same benefits from of the desktop onto your iPhone or iPad.

Try TextExpander for your Mac today by downloading a free trial. If you like it, be sure to try TextExpander touch, which can be downloaded  from the App Store.

Learn more about the benefits of TextExpander here.

Evernote for Mac Gets Direct Skitch Integration

Evernote and Skitch

Evernote and Skitch

With a new version released today, Evernote has updated its Mac app to include a brand new communication layer with Skitch, the company’s image/document annotation and sharing tool.

When Evernote acquired Skitch in the summer of 2011, I wondered how they would manage to deeply integrate the two apps in a way that would make storing a note and annotating it a seamless experience. In the past two years, Evernote focused on revamping its desktop and iOS clients and on launching a new version of Skitch with Evernote integration – meaning that Skitch could sync notes to Evernote, and those notes would show up inside an Evernote notebook with inline previews and changes, but Evernote couldn’t direct plug into Skitch for further editing. Here’s what I wrote in 2011:

According to Evernote, the engineers at the two companies will be working closely in the coming months to deeply integrate Skitch and Evernote with each other, as right now the only way to let the apps communicate on a Mac is by annotating an image in Skitch, and manually drag it into Evernote. It wouldn’t be a surprise if the app gained a feature to push annotations to Evernote’s cloud to avoid drag & drop — considering the app is coming to mobile devices, this has been certainly considered by the Evernote team.

Users could drag and drop images between Evernote and Skitch, but that would result in duplicate files and wasted storage space – an issue that was exacerbated by iOS’ inferior sharing capabilities and limited “Open In” menu. In short, it always struck me as unusual that Evernote couldn’t figure out a way to let its apps “talk” to each other, avoiding manual interaction in favor of simple, intuitive inter-app communication that treated Evernote as a storage space and browser, and Skitch as an editor.

Today’s Evernote 5.2 for Mac does exactly this, and quite admirably as well. I have been testing the new version, which has gained a new Skitch button in the note editor that allows you to send any note – either as text, image, or combination of both – directly to Skitch for editing. When you’re done annotating in Skitch, you can send a file back to Evernote – and not just back to Evernote’s cloud, but back to the Evernote app itself, which will automatically come in the foreground again, showing the new version of an image/document already inside a note. Read more

Watermarker 1.2 with Editable Custom Image Watermarks→

I first looked at Watermarker, developed by my friend and colleague Don Southard, back in January when version 1.1 added batch processing:

Watermarker provides a simple and automated way to add watermarks to images. You can choose between various options including text, your own logo, or even a customizable strikethrough. The app has a clean interface with the “canvas” (the area where you can drop an image) displayed on the left, and watermarking settings on the right. I like how you can save presets (so I can have one for my “large” MacStories watermark, another one for the smaller version), and the fact that an image’s size is reported right below its preview.

Version 1.2 of the app, released today, comes with several enhancements for custom image watermarks, which are now editable. You can resize an image watermark that you want to place on top of other images through a pinch-to-zoom gesture or manual controls. Aside from the default positions, you can also click to drag a watermark around or use the arrow keys for additional precision. I’m happy with the feature because I often end up with watermarks that are either too big for a screenshot/photo, or that I would like to position elsewhere on an image.

You can check out Watermarker here. The app is available at $7.99 on the Mac App Store.

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CoolIris for iOS Adds Evernote Integration→

Gabe Weatherhead on CoolIris’ latest update:

There is now support for connecting with Evernote. Importantly, it can be configured to show photos for a specific tag as well, searches or all photos. This is a nice option for using Evernote as a photo locker. I’m loving it for the scans of my daughter’s school art I collect in Evernote.

This is an interesting idea – I imagine I could plug CoolIris into Evernote’s “skitch” tag to view a stream of my Skitch notes, or perhaps the “Paperless” notebook to view the most recent receipts and bills I have scanned. I don’t use Evernote as a photo locker (my photos are all backed up to Dropbox, shared through Instagram and backed up with IFTTT, or uploaded to Droplr), so I guess I would only rely on CoolIris for screenshots or documents archived as images.

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