Apple Brings New Features, Design Changes To iWork for iCloud

In an update released earlier today, Apple brought various design changes and feature additions to iWork for iCloud, the company’s suite of iWork applications for web browsers available at iCloud.com. Today’s update (the first since November 2013) focuses on collaboration, editing, Accessibility improvements, and bug fixes.

All of Apple’s three web apps (Pages, Numbers, and Keynote) have been refreshed with an iOS 7-inspired design that Apple first introduced to iCloud.com last year. The new design, however, has only been applied to the apps’ document libraries for now, as the document editors retain the service’s old user interface. From the main screen, it’s now possible to view a list of shared documents you have access to by clicking on the clock icon in the top toolbar, which will display a “Shared with Me” popover, listing shared documents. The three apps have also received support for sharing documents protected with passwords, a feature that will be added to iWork’s OS X and iOS counterparts as well.

The same new features were also added in terms of editing: keyboard shortcuts for object manipulation and support for floating tables (with formatting) are now available on iCloud.com, alongside other app-specific changes such as endnote editing in imported documents for Pages, or text flowing to adjacent cells in Numbers.

Apple first introduced iWork for iCloud as beta in October 2013, when the company also unveiled the next generation of iWork apps for OS X – both of which were met with widespread criticism. Following the launch of the new iWork suite, Apple confirmed that it was listening to its users and promised to bring back old features to the Mac apps while rolling out updates to its iWork for iCloud public beta.

You can read the changelog of today’s iWork for iCloud update below. Read more

Etymologies, Pronunciation, and Notes with WordBook

WordBook

WordBook

I was recently looking for a dictionary app that could handle standard dictionary features (thesaurus, synonyms, web lookups, etc) as well as user notes for words, and I decided to check out WordBook after reader Jeff Clatworthy recommended it to me on Twitter. As I mentioned last night on The Prompt, WordBook isn’t the prettiest app around, but it does exactly what I need for definitions and notes.

Because English isn’t my first language, I often want to associate Italian expressions with English words to remember the context of a definition – for instance, I would associate “for the umpteenth time” with “per l’ennesima volta” in Italian, which makes it easier for me to remember the word “umpteenth”. Surprisingly, I wasn’t able to find a dictionary app with this kind of feature (Terminology, my favorite one, doesn’t have one) and, of course, Apple’s built-in dictionary lookup functionality on iOS is limited to the basics. WordBook has an option to add notes to words and, in trying the app, I also found other features that I like.

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#MacStoriesDeals: January 23, 2014

MacStories Deals

MacStories Deals

MacStoriesDeals is the best place to find great deals for Mac and iOS apps and games, Apple hardware deals, and some great book and audio specials.

There are thousands of software and hardware deals online. We carefully pick the best ones and collect them in a single post with links to buy or share discounted products. You can find us as @MacStoriesDeals on Twitter, where we tweet the best App Store deals every day.

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Stockfish For Mac with Chess Analysis→

Developed by Daylen Yang, Stockfish is a free and open-source chess app for Mac based on the Stockfish chess engine.

The app does a couple of interesting things: it’s Retina-ready and it can go full-screen, so you’ll enjoy a chess game on your MacBook Pro’s display without distractions. It supports two-player games and it’s got exporting capabilities and keyboard shortcuts. But more importantly, it comes with advanced chess analysis that lets the computer tell you who’s winning and calculate the best move. I’m fascinated by the technological premise: the app can let you choose to optimize analysis for maximum performance so that more cores will be used to compute chess analyses; even the amount of memory to use can be adjusted. It should be pretty impressive on a new Mac Pro.

Stockfish is free on the Mac App Store and open-source. The Stockfish engine is available here.

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Keep Your iTunes Wishlist in Mentio for iPhone→

If you’re saving up for a that special movie, latest iTunes albums, or popular new app, keep track of it with Mentio. The wishlist app lets you add media by searching iTunes and the App Store, lets you share your wishes with friends, and has both light and dark themes for your viewing pleasure. Each item you add contains a small summary (like descriptions for movies), and the option to purchase the item once you’re ready to buy. Useful if you buy apps and media using iTunes gift cards. Download Mentio for a dollar on the App Store.

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Twitterrific 5.6 With Live Streaming

Hey! Live streaming for Twitterrific is really here. It works over Wi-Fi, and can be enabled by toggling the setting in the settings. Live streaming works similarly to “pin timeline” settings in other apps, where enabling live streaming makes it so that you’re always viewing the latest tweets in your timeline. You can scroll around, but the timeline will jump to the most recent tweet when left idle (useful for anyone who docks their iPhone in a cradle at their desk). On the flip side, Live streaming keeps the display turned on, which can unintentionally drain your battery if you set your phone down or forget to put it to sleep. I think it needs some fine tuning before it’s just right.

Something to keep in mind is that Twitterrific enabled background refreshing in a previous update, which fetches tweets when you’re outside of the app. If you only check the app a few times a day, Live streaming might not be such a big deal. If you’re always on Twitter, however, Live streaming is worth turning on, despite some caveats.

The other biggie found in Twitterrific 5.6 is list management. You can create, add people to, and remove people from lists. You can create and delete lists, as well as set whether they’re private. I would expect to find a lot of this functionality in the sidebar, but Twitterrific has it tucked away in a contextual menu. Creating and managing lists is done by tapping and holding on an avatar in your timeline, selecting “Manage in Lists,” and going from there. I kept looking for list settings, a hidden add button, and kept wondering what I was missing — it’s pretty well hidden. You can also get to it by tapping the gear icon when viewing someone’s profile.

As for the smaller things, you can now view images in Direct Messages, as well as copy discussions from the share menu.

Live streaming for Twitterrific has obviously been a long time coming. Twitterrific 5 has been a series of big incremental improvements, starting with things like Push Notifications and Muffling, and performance continues to blow me away. To celebrate their big update, Twitterrific 5.6 is $0.99 for a limited time in the App Store, and those who’ve previously purchased the app can download the update for free. And you’re getting a lot of bang for your buck: the app works across iPhone and iPad.

Perhaps the last remaining question is when is The Iconfactory going to bring these updates back to the Mac?