This Week's Sponsor:

Copilot Money

The Apple Editor’s Choice App for Managing Your Money

Posts tagged with "featured"

iOS 9: Our Complete Overview and First Impressions

Apple announced iOS 9, the next major version of its mobile operating system, at WWDC 2015 this week, with a focus on iPad productivity, enhancements to built-in apps, better intelligence, and improvements to performance and security.

Part an iterative update aimed at refining missteps and missing features of iOS 8 and part a new beginning for Siri and iPad users, iOS 9 isn’t the “Snow Leopard release” that some tech pundits were asking for. iOS 9 is building upon the foundation of iOS 8 with dozens of new features – many of which could profoundly impact the way we interact with our apps and devices every day.

Read more

watchOS 2 Overview

watchOS 2

watchOS 2

At today’s WWDC 2015 keynote, Apple announced watchOS 2, the next revision of its Apple Watch operating system. Despite being announced only two months after the Apple Watch itself was released, watchOS 2 includes a multitude of powerful new features that have the potential to greatly improve the experience of the Apple Watch.

WatchKit for watchOS 2

WatchKit, the development framework for Apple Watch apps, is seeing a huge update with watchOS 2. WatchKit apps are now able to run natively on the Apple Watch, meaning they no longer need to communicate back to the iPhone to get all of their information. This should result in huge improvements in the speed and efficiency of Apple Watch apps on launch and during use.

Furthermore, in watchOS 2, WatchKit apps will have access to the hardware components and sensors on the Apple Watch. Developers will be able to incorporate the Digital Crown, Taptic Engine, heart rate sensor, accelerometer and microphone into their apps. This will open up a whole new world for third party apps, giving them just as many abilities as Apple’s built-in apps and letting them access the full set of features the Apple Watch has to offer.

New to all Watch apps, Apple’s included (with the exception of the phone app), WatchKit apps can now play audio and video directly on the Apple Watch, as well as run animations. Yes, this means using the built-in speaker for more than just taking phone calls.

Read more

OS X El Capitan Overview

OS X El Capitan

OS X El Capitan

This morning at Apple’s WWDC 2015 keynote event, SVP of Software Engineering Craig Federighi took the stage to announce OS X El Capitan. The next major version of Apple’s Mac operating system, El Capitan has two major areas of focus: Experience and Performance.

Experience

The improved experience in OS X El Capitan revolves around three main categories: Spotlight search, built-in apps, and window management.

Improved Spotlight search

Improved Spotlight search

Spotlight search has greatly improved search functionality, making the feature smarter and more powerful by building in natural language processing and integrating it with more services. Now you can perform searches with phrases such as “big sur sunset,” and Spotlight will surface videos from the web that show the sunset in Big Sur. Spotlight has also gained some other nice touches such as the ability to resize or move the spotlight window around on your screen and integration with weather, stocks, sports, transit, and the aforementioned web video.

Read more

iOS 9 Wishes

I concluded last year’s assessment of iOS 8 on a positive note:

The scope of iOS 8’s changes will truly make sense as developers keep building brand new experiences over the coming months. iOS has begun to open up, and there’s no stopping at this point.

For some Apple observers, it’d be easy – and justifiable – to argue that Apple is “done” with improving iOS given the software’s maturity and sprawling app ecosystem. With long-awaited technologies such as action extensions, widgets, custom keyboards, folders for iCloud, and external document providers finding their way to iPhones and iPads, iOS has seemingly reached a zenith of functionality, an ideal state with no low-hanging fruit left to lust for.

Except that iOS 8 wasn’t a culmination aimed at ending on a high note. As I wrote last September, the changes introduced with iOS 8 laid the foundation for a more flexible, customizable, and ultimately more powerful mobile OS that would pave the road for the next several years of iOS updates.

There’s always going to be new low-hanging fruit in iOS. And 2015 is no exception.

iOS 8 changed how I work on my iPhone and iPad. For years, I had been entertaining the idea of going all-in with iOS, but I was never able to take the leap. I couldn’t manage to leave my MacBook behind and let my workflow rely on iOS apps. My lifestyle dictates being able to write, communicate with others, and manage MacStories from anywhere, free from the constraints of a MacBook. Thanks to iOS 8 and the improved hardware of the iPad Air 2, I chose the iPad as my primary computer – and instead of being cautiously concerned about the trade-offs of iOS, I just felt relieved.

The iPad, for me, is a product of intangibles. How its portable nature blurs the line between desktop computers and mobile. How a vibrant developer community strives to craft apps that make us do better work and record memories and enjoy moments and be productive and entertained. The iPad, for me, is a screen that connects me with people and helps me with my life’s work anywhere I am. Transformative and empowering, with the iPad Air 2 being its best incarnation to date. Not for everyone, still improvable, but absolutely necessary for me. And, I believe, for others.

Liberating. The iPad is a computer that lets me work and communicate at my own pace, no matter where I am.

Beyond the conceptual implications of using a portable 10-inch screen as a computer every day1, extensions and widgets had the strongest practical effect on me. The ability to push select pieces of information to widgets and the objectification of apps through extensions have allowed me to augment the apps I use with functionalities taken from other apps. I can automate Safari with the Workflow extension; I can copy multiple bits of text in a row and trust that a clipboard manager will hold them all for me. For someone who works on iOS, version 8.0 was a massive change with far-reaching potential for the future.

As with every year, I’ve been pondering where I’d like to see iOS go next. Software is never done, but iOS 8 made a compelling argument for the maturity of the platform – if anything, from a feature checklist perspective. That’s not how I look at it, though: I suspect that the next major version of iOS – likely to be called iOS 9 – will use the visual and technical foundation of iOS 7 and iOS 8 to unlock new levels of integration and communication between apps, iCloud, gestures, and voice input.2

While it’s possible that Apple will bring some of the design expertise and taste acquired when finalizing the Watch UI back to iOS, that won’t be the focus of this article. Instead, like every year since 2012, I’ll elaborate on the software additions and corrections I would like to see on iOS, from the perspective of someone who works from an iPad and even came to appreciate the iPhone 6 Plus.

For context, you can check out my old wishes for iOS 6, iOS 7, and iOS 8 to reflect on my motivations and what Apple ended up announcing at past WWDCs.

Read more

iPhone 6 Plus Review

I was wrong about the iPhone 6 Plus.

For years, I thought that big Android phones were meant to address a market segment made of people with abnormally voluminous hands. I had never tried one, but preconceptions are easier (and cheaper) to subscribe to than facts. When Apple released the iPhone 6 family in two sizes last year, I assumed that, among the People Who Have Big Hands And Like Big Smartphones, there could be a few millions who happened to want a 6 Plus.

I also am one of those people.

For the past two months, I’ve been carrying a 128 GB iPhone 6 Plus (white model) that Apple loaned to me for review purposes. I was curious to see if a larger iPhone could fit in my daily iOS usage, and, if so, how it would impact my iPad habits. The iPad is my primary computer; would an iPhone 6 Plus replace some of its advantages, or would the bigger size simply make some iPhone tasks better?

I’ve used the iPhone 6 Plus intensively, and I’ll have to return it to Apple. But I really wish I didn’t have to go back to my iPhone 6.

Read more

Photos for OS X Review

Editorial Preview

Let me begin this review with a disclaimer: I am not a photographer. In high school I took a class called Photo Imaging, which taught me how to use Photoshop and attempted to teach me how to take quality pictures. Now I know the Rule of Thirds, and can create images of middle schoolers defeating lions in battle, but it didn’t fix the problem that I simply don’t have a natural eye for photography, nor the patience to develop one.

What I do have, however, is a world-class camera that I carry in my pocket everywhere I go. While I might not be taking world-class photos with it, I do take pictures of my family, my friends, and my life. These pictures are not thoughtfully composed, they are not shot in Raw, and I do not spend hours meticulously editing them. Despite that, they are very dear to me.

As someone who’s written tens of thousands of words on automation, you might expect me to have some crazy photo management workflows in place, or at least to be using one or two or five different services devoted to the practice. In truth, I don’t use any photo management workflows or services. I’ve always been interested in them, and I’ve tried almost all of them, but they’ve all been too much of a hassle for me.

I take all of my pictures on my iPhone, and I take a lot of them. I have a habit of hitting the shutter button at least three or four times whenever I’m trying to capture something, because often at least one or two of them are blurry, or someone’s eyes are closed, etc. Eventually I get around to going through and deleting all but one of these groups of multiple pictures, but sometimes this isn’t until days or weeks later, and any third party photo management service I’ve used will have already uploaded the duplicates. The result is huge amounts of extra photos taking up often limited space and cluttering companion apps built to let me view my stored photos. Worse, making changes to the photos on my phone won’t sync to the backups, and vice versa.

Eventually I’ve grown tired of every third party service I’ve tried and reverted to just cramming everything into iPhoto (so that I at least had some sort of backup) and ignoring it. iPhoto is outdated, slow, and ugly. Any time I’ve wanted to look through my photos, I just go to my iPhone and look there. Any necessary edits are similarly completed on my phone, and the extra features that iPhoto may have offered (smart albums, faces, etc.) I’ve simply gone without.

Enter, Photos for OS X.

Read more

Fantastical 2 for Mac Review: Reinvented

Fantastical for Mac, originally released in 2011, redefined calendar apps for OS X and my idea of a modern calendar client.

Developed by Michael Simmons and Kent Sutherland – together known as Flexibits – Fantastical pioneered features and design choices that, with time, have become a staple of other calendar apps and OS X utilities: natural language input is now expected in popular todo apps and services; the OS X menu bar has grown into a popular destination for desktop utilities; integration with multiple calendar services in a single app is now a de facto standard.

Fantastical was a powerful calendar assistant. Four years later, Flexibits wants Fantastical 2 for Mac – their latest creation years in the making – to be the only calendar app you’ll ever need. While the original Fantastical was a companion to the full Apple iCal experience, Fantastical 2 reinvents itself as a full-blown calendar client that retains the most important aspects of the app’s debut and adds a whole new calendar interface to the mix. And in the process, it exudes the finesse and attention to detail that Simmons and Sutherland are known for.

In 2011, Fantastical raised the bar for modern calendar interaction. Fantastical 2 builds on that solid foundation, bringing design changes and new functionalities that will define the evolution of the Fantastical family.

Read more

Life After Cancer: How the iPhone Helped Me Achieve a Healthier Lifestyle

I’ve been struggling to get back in shape after chemo.

Since being diagnosed with Hodgkin Lymphoma (Stage IV) in late 2011, my life changed. Beyond the psychological and emotional consequences of how cancer affected me, my family, and my relationships, it is undeniable and abundantly clear that cancer took its toll on me from a physical perspective.

Last year, I decided to regain control of my body, my life habits, and my health. I started tracking everything I could about my activities, my exercise routine, the food I ate, and the time I spent working with my iPad instead of walking, sleeping, or enjoying time with my family. Since then, I’ve made a decision to not let cancer and its consequences define me any longer.

I want to be healthier, I want to eat better, and I want to take the second chance I was given and make the most of it. What started as an experiment has become a new daily commitment to improve my lifestyle and focus.

And it wouldn’t be possible without my iPhone.

Read more