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iOS 7 Confirmed: New Banners Up at Moscone West [Update: OS X Too]

It’s been three days since Apple started decorating Moscone West with WWDC 2013 banners, and today the company has started publicly showing off new signage hinting at the next iteration of iOS, iOS 7. In a press release published in April, Apple said developers attending WWDC would learn about the future of iOS and OS X.

Using a very simple layout compared to last year, Apple is simply saying “7” on the banner that’s being put up at Moscone West right now. According to speculation from the past few months, iOS 7 will be a departure from previous versions of the operating system in terms of user interface design. After last year’s reorganization of the executive team, Tim Cook himself confirmed at D11 that Jony Ive, now head of the Human Interface Group at Apple, has been working on a new “look and feel” for iOS.

Update: Apple has also just started assembling banners hinting at OS X, which, similarly to the “7” banner, simply say “X”. The background of the banner seems to depict an ocean wave.

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Get Hype for WWDC 2013 With These Colorful Wallpapers

MacStories WWDC 2013 Wallpaper Banner

MacStories WWDC 2013 Wallpaper Banner

Designed by my friend Silvia Gatta of Icons & Coffee, MacStories’ WWDC 2013 wallpapers are simple, colorful, and delightful. Made to capture the spirit of this year’s upcoming event, these wallpapers have been tailored to look great on any of your devices. Below, you’ll find the perfect match for your iPhone, iPad, or Mac. And if you want the whole set, you can download it all in a simple bundle.

MacStories’ WWDC 2013 Wallpapers:

Please be sure to thank @aylys on Twitter if you enjoy her wallpapers.

Kick Off WWDC 2013 With MacStories’ Passbook Pass

As soon as I saw what Second Gear’s Justin Williams had done with PitPass.io, I knew that the system would be a great fit for our WWDC 2013 liveblog. I asked Justin if we could set up reader passes before WWDC, and he was kind enough to work with us. So while we’re putting the finishing touches on this year’s liveblog, you can now install a MacStories pass using this link.

The pass will do a couple of interesting things. Firstly, you can install it directly from an iPhone or iPod touch, or, if you’re on a Mac, using Safari, which will let you add the pass on your iOS devices through iCloud. The pass itself will show you a date and time for our liveblog (12:30 PM EDT, 9:30 AM PDT) on the front, and you can tap the “i” button in the bottom right corner to access more information. On the back of the pass, you’ll find a direct link to our liveblog, links to our Twitter accounts, and a “Giveaway” section.

Passbook supports push notifications, and we’ll use them to reward readers who install our pass on their devices. We will send two push notifications between today and June 10: one with promo codes to redeem apps we like; the last one with a reminder just before the liveblog will start.

I want to personally thank Justin Williams for his support and work on the WWDC liveblog pass. Make sure to check out his apps at Second Gear and upcoming Passbook service, PitPass.io.

You can install the MacStories WWDC 2013 Liveblog pass here.

Hulu Announces a Completely Redesigned iPad App→

Last year, Hulu refreshed their website to put an emphasis on all the shows and programming you love to watch, removing much of the chrome that adorned video players and promotion carousels, and making thumbnails and artwork bigger for easier navigation. Hulu also implemented a new “Shows You Watch” feature for logged in users so you can quickly jump to your favorite show.

Today’s iPad update brings the same minimal redesign to the iPad, adding new features such a discover panel which will tell you more can you expect from a show based on your viewing history. But the coolest feature is the new minimized player, which lets you continue watching a show while browsing for something else.

You can learn more about Hulu for the iPad here.

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Vesper Review: Collect Your Thoughts

Vesper for iPhone

Vesper for iPhone

It wouldn’t be fair to judge Vesper solely by the names of its creators. A new note-taking app for iPhone released today, Vesper has been designed by Dave Wiskus, developed by Brent Simmons, and directed by John Gruber. There’s more to Vesper than the fame of the all-star team behind it, though.

Long-time MacStories readers should be familiar with the iOS apps that I like and use for taking notes, collecting thoughts, and organizing tasks. For years, my entire workflow was based on Dropbox: I would save articles, notes, random bits of text, and even tasks in text files handled by apps like Writing Kit, TaskAgent, Byword, nvALT, and Notesy. Those are still excellent apps, but my setup is more variegate now: my daily thoughts and memories are collected in Day One; longer articles are still stored in Dropbox and edited with specific text editors like Sublime Text; my bookmarks are saved in Pinboard, while everything else – from reference material to annotated screenshots – goes into Evernote. On iOS, Agile Tortoise’s Drafts plays a fundamental role in the way it launches ready to receive any text and is capable of forwarding it to multiple destinations – all while allowing power users to achieve faster, automated workflows.

Specific apps, different services, all with a common thread: sync to a remote backend that ensures my text is always available anywhere.

If you take into account the apps that I have reviewed over the past two years, Vesper may seem anachronistic and uncharacteristically simple: it’s a general-purpose note-taking app with no sync, no URL scheme, no iPad version, and no Markdown integration. When I first tried Vesper a couple of weeks ago, I was skeptical in regard to the app’s reason of existence. But now, in spite of its 1.0 nature and many missing features, I see one – and, more importantly, I believe Vesper gets several things right. Read more

Dropbox for Mac Beta Brings Automatic Screenshot Sharing, iPhoto Import, New “Move” Menu

Dropbox public betas – known on the company’s forums as “experimental builds” – serve as a field test for new features that are being taken in consideration for the app’s desktop clients. And while they don’t always see the light of day in the public release channel, they do help Dropbox collect feedback for future updates and revisions.

Today, Dropbox has released a new public beta for Mac that contains some noteworthy new functionalities to speed up the process of adding files to your Dropbox account through the Finder, and particularly images.

The first one, an automatic screenshot sharing feature, is somewhat reminiscent of tools like Droplr and CloudApp: once enabled in the Preferences, it will allow Dropbox to redirect every screenshot taken on OS X to a /Screenshots folder in your Dropbox, sharing that file and putting a public link in your system clipboard. While not as full-featured as the aforementioned third-party tools, automatic screenshot sharing could indeed make for a nice solution to quickly share screenshots on Twitter and IM – retaining control over files that are simply located in the Finder.

In line with Dropbox’s renewed focus on photos, an iPhoto import feature should let the app turn iPhoto albums and events into Dropbox albums also viewable on the web. In practice, I haven’t been able to test the import feature in spite of my MacBook meeting the requirements mentioned on the forums (iPhoto 7.0 or higher). Based on the description, it does seem like Dropbox wants to replicate the Everpix experience with an automatic desktop importer taking care of fetching files from iPhoto and organizing them in Dropbox albums.

The last new feature of the beta is a “Move to Dropbox” contextual menu that will show up “for most files or folders outside of your Dropbox”. Essentially, this allows you to right-click on any file or folder and quickly send it to your main /Dropbox folder, but without automatic sharing. In my tests, the menu worked as advertised.

Dropbox experimental builds should be taken for what they are: public betas from a company seeking feedback from its users. Features introduced in these builds are sometimes kept, often tweaked, occasionally removed and re-engineered for a future implementation. You can download today’s new experimental build here.

Introducing The Prompt Podcast

 

A few months ago, my friend Myke Hurley asked me if I wanted to launch a new podcast. There are many tech podcasts these days – maybe too many – and, back then, I didn’t know what I wanted to do. I have thought about this very deeply, and I’ve come to this conclusion: the great thing about the Internet is that everyone is free to produce their own content, because the readers will eventually decide what they like and what they don’t. Or, in our case, the listeners: today, Myke, Stephen, and I are announcing The Prompt.

From Stephen’s blog post:

Each week, we’ll be looking at not only the news, but the ecosystem and culture around Apple and its products.

The real twist is what we do with guests. Instead of the three of us running around trying to cover everything, we’re building an army of correspondents.

I am extremely grateful for the opportunity, and I look forward to beginning this new adventure with Myke and Stephen. I realize that there are several podcasts about Apple and technology nowadays; my hope is that, like MacStories, 512 Pixels, and 70Decibels, The Prompt will distinguish itself because of quality, not trends. Our listeners will decide.

We haven’t recorded the first episode of The Prompt yet, but, when we’ll do after WWDC, you’ll find it on the 5by5 network. Here’s something cool: if you subscribe to the 512 Podcast today, you’ll be automatically migrated over to The Prompt feed when it launches. And, to kick off things properly, you can listen to the just-posted penultimate episode of the 512 Podcast, where I was invited to announce The Prompt and discuss iOS 7 and WWDC predictions.

I have big expectations for The Prompt, and I hope that you’ll pardon my accent. You can follow @_theprompt on Twitter, and check out the beautiful artwork by Jory Raphael above.

Camera Noir→

I bought Pacific Helm’s new app yesterday following Gruber’s recommendation, and I like it. Camera Noir’s purpose is to take “beautiful black & white photos” with three brightness adjustments. I have been taking some photos today, and I’m a fan of the high-contrast choices and the way photos taken with Camera Noir look. I think Camera Noir’s three filters are far superior to Instagram’s Willow and Inkwell.

The best part, however, is the attention to details. The camera UI is minimal and functional; I love how the app shows a green horizon line when you’re level, and I think using the native iOS share sheet for sharing photos is a good idea. And, the app’s website is just great.

Camera Noir is $1.99 on the App Store.

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Why the Studio Behind Civilization is Embracing Mobile→

Revision3’s Adam Sessler visits Firaxis Games and chats with Sid Meier, Jake Solomon, and Steve Martin (among others). Firaxis is the development house behind franchises like Civilization and Pirates, and they’re bringing their 2012 hit XCOM: Enemy Unknown to iOS this year.

It’s a good interview (as usual with Sessler’s video content). I like how Firaxis has its own skunkworks to experiment with mobile games for iOS. You can watch the video below.

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