In this issue: Adobe Slate, Volume 1 of Federico's Favorite Watch Apps, Home Screens from Sally Shepard and Brett Terpstra, plus the usual Weekend Pick, Tip, Links, and recap of MacStories articles.
Announcement: There won't be an issue of MacStories Weekly next week, as we're going to take a week off. But rest assured, we'll be back with Issue 35 on June 5.
MacStories Favorite
Every week we highlight one app that is truly great and deserves to be on everyone's iPhone, iPad, or Mac.
Adobe has been making a bunch of great apps for iOS, and Adobe Slate is one of the newest. It's an iPad app that will let you create a great looking webpage in minutes (seriously). It's focused on telling visual stories and it can do a great job at that, with nifty animations and themes to make a webpage that looks stunning. You could use Adobe Slate to share highlights of your recent holiday with friends and family in a way that is more thoughtful than just uploading them all to Facebook, but that doesn't take as much effort as curating them into a video slideshow in iMovie. But it could just as easily be used for creating visual school reports, a newsletter for a sports club, or to provide details of an event.
I should also note that some of my criticisms in my review of the app (notably the lack of bold and italics) have since been resolved in a recent update, which also brought new features, so I'm excited to see where Adobe takes this app.
Nuzzel is a fantastic utility to see what links people you follow are sharing the most on Twitter, and the Watch counterpart is a slimmed down version that presents top links every time you refresh the app. You can't change time filters like you can in the iOS app, but it's still convenient to instantly see what your Twitter network has been sharing in the past few hours. You can read excerpts of stories on your Watch and continue reading on the iPhone with Handoff, and the latest update added a Force Touch menu to quickly save links for later to other services such as Pocket and Instapaper.
I've been using Twitterrific to view my Twitter mentions and direct messages on Apple Watch and, while I didn't think I'd come to rely on this type of app on the Watch, I've found myself using it every day in brief interactions when I'd rather not pull out my iPhone. I like that I can stay up to date on messages and notifications from my wrist, and I especially appreciate the ability to save quick replies on the iPhone and use them to reply to tweets with one tap on the Watch. There's also a glance to view a summary of Twitter changes (such as retweets and faves) in a single screen.
I love the ability of customizing and turning my lights on/off from an iPhone, and I've enjoyed having Philips' Hue app on my Apple Watch. With Hue on the Watch, I can turn my lights on and off from anywhere in my house, which is convenient when I'm in bed or on the couch and I don't want to get up to grab my iPhone. You can manage which lights show up in the Apple Watch app from the Hue app's settings, which also control the shortcuts you see in the iOS widget.
I've been using Weather Nerd on my iPhone, and while some of its in-depth data are beyond the scope of what I need in a weather app, I enjoy the way it compares temperatures between days and how it visualizes wind and chance of rain. On Apple Watch, Weather Nerd has a useful glance with a summary of forecasts; in the full app, you can view the forecast with a weather graph for the current day as well as a 6-day forecast that includes temperatures and icons for weather conditions.
Marco Arment's excellent podcast client for iOS offers a Watch app that comes with a glance to see what's playing and what's coming up next, as well as a full app to control the currently playing episode and browse all your subscriptions and playlists. I especially like how more options are only revealed if you press firmly on the screen, making the main view all about essential information and controls. With Force Touch, you can bring up your subscriptions, change effects, and recommend an episode. I've been using Overcast to control playback on my iPhone as I'm doing chores around the house, and I'm a fan of not having to carry an iPhone with me all the time for that.
Relax, it's the Weekend!
It's the weekend (or almost is) so Federico and Graham recommend something they enjoyed watching, playing, reading, or listening.
Federico: AMC’s award-winning Mad Men has come to an end this week, wrapping up the stories of Don Draper, Peggy Olson, Joan Harris, and the rest of the cast with an emotional and satisfying finale.
Mad Men is one of my favorite TV shows ever made. Taking place during the decade of the ’60s and ending just on the verge of the ’70s, Mad Men primarily tells the story of Don Draper, an advertising man who works on the historical Madison Avenue in NYC, and his colleagues at the Sterling Cooper ad agency. It would be reductive, however, to describe Mad Men as “an advertising show”, because there’s so much more to it: over the course of seven seasons, Mad Men explores themes of family, love, friendship, happiness, career aspirations, betrayal, raising kids, and finding your place in a world – America in the sixties – that is changing rapidly but also stuck on old dogmas and ideas. There is advertising and the epic pitches on top of all that, but Mad Men is, ultimately, an introspective show about the life of a group of people, with a special focus on Don Draper and his family.
There’s nothing like Mad Men, and I’m sad that it’s over. But its end also means that it’s easier to re-watch older series (that go as far as 2007), so if you’ve never watched the show, now’s a good time to start from the beginning.
Graham: I just have to say that I wholeheartedly concur with everything Federico said. Mad Men is a series that I highly recommend.
Graham: If you've finished listening to Relay FM's terrific Behind the App series, you might be interested in Welcome to Macintosh. Created by Mark Bramhill, Welcome to Macintosh is another highly produced and well made show about the world of Apple. So far we've had episodes on the rise and fall of skeuomorphism at Apple, the "sweet solution" of web apps on the iPhone, an Apple ][ synthesizer, and the end of Macworld. New episodes come out every two to four weeks, and each one so far has been not only interesting, but also educational.
Tips with TJ
Tips and tricks to master your apps, this week by TJ Luoma.
Most Mac users these days are probably using some version of a MacBook, whether it’s the new MacBook, a MacBook Air, or a MacBook Pro. You probably know that leaving your laptop plugged in all of the time isn’t good for the battery, but how much time should you spend on battery every day? How much time have you spent on battery today, or in the past week?
I never knew until I started using FruitJuice, a $10 app (14-day demo available) that will monitor your actual usage, report it in the menu bar, and recommend changes as appropriate. I’ve been using the app for a few months and found that it’s very good at keeping me informed about keeping my usage in the recommended range, and doing so isn’t difficult, but it’s not something I ever would have done without the app to help keep track of it for me.
Since MacBooks no longer have easily replaceable batteries, it’s more important than ever to keep your battery healthy for a good, long life. $10 is a good investment towards making your battery live longer and work better.
Carbo is a new app that lets you scan handwritten notes and sketches to turn them into editable documents on an iPhone and iPad. Carbo retains the expressiveness of original drawings while also turning them into vectors with a hybrid technology. $3.99 on the App Store.
Apple’s iTunes affiliate dashboard has been updated with a new responsive design.
Sunrise has added integration with Wunderlist. Microsoft’s calendar app continues to integrate with external services in what’s clearly become the most innovative calendar solution for multiple platforms.
We ask interesting people to share their Home Screen and briefly explain why it is the way that it is.
Sally Shepard
Twitter: @mostgood. iOS Developer, Consultant and Speaker.
[Ed: Sally is running a Kickstarter campaign to make an Inclusive Toolkit, which will help developers make inclusive and accessible apps. We think it's a great initiative and encourage you to have a look.]
The most recent addition to my home screen is the Kickstarter app since I recently launched a Kickstarter campaign. It’s been great for managing my campaign on the go, keeping in touch with backers and discovering new projects. I started using Evernote at the beginning of the year and now I use it for organising everything related to my projects, outlines for talks, and drafting blog posts. Tweetbot is my favourite Twitter client, and I save almost everything in Pocket.
My ‘Tracking' folder is the first thing I see in the morning. Sleeping can be a difficult thing for me so I use Sleep Time to sleep in a soundscape of the rainforest, and wake up gently with some chirping birds. After turning off my alarm, Timehop is the first app I open, I love to see what I was doing a 1/2/3/4/5 years ago. I also use Heyday to journal where I’ve been and what I’ve done.
I read quite a few books, mostly iOS/hardware related titles, so iBooks and the Kindle app are indispensable for me. I’m also taking/following a few courses for an upcoming project – iTunes U and edX are great for this.
Although I’m pretty terrible at it, Qiktionary has become one of my favourite games. I spend far too much time playing Alto’s Adventure and Two Dots. I will also generally try to get anyone and everyone to play Spaceteam with me.
I really like the old Foursquare app so I still haven’t updated it (there is a permanent ‘1' badge on the App Store app).
I have a slight addiction to downloading apps which has resulted in me having ten pages of apps, for any app that isn’t on my first two screens I use spotlight to open them.
My Home screen is all folders. Given the the number of apps on my phone (hundreds), along with the fact that I use Spotlight as my primary launcher, it’s simply easier to remember where apps are by using categorized, alphabetically sorted folders. Each folder is named with a verb, so categorizing an app is as easy as thinking “in what context will I want to launch this?”
The apps that don’t go in folders and remain one tap away:
App Store. Because an app junky needs it on tap.
Shazam. Because what good is an app designed for spur-of-the-moment capture if it takes two taps to get to it?
Settings. Control Center gives me great access to toggles (and the camera, which is why it’s not outside a folder), but there are a lot of settings I change while otherwise distracted, so it’s a commonly-accessed app.
