iOS

New location options in iOS 8

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In a nutshell, you now have the ability to restrict an app from accessing your location data while running in the background.

Details emerge on Apple HealthKit, including trials by Stanford and Duke

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From last week’s Apple press release:

Healthcare providers can now monitor the data their patients choose to share through apps such as Mayo Clinic or Epic’s MyChart app that will be used by Duke Medicine and Stanford Children’s Health/Stanford Medicine, among others.

Details are now starting to emerge on the Duke and Stanford efforts.

Five basic iOS tips that might surprise you

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[VIDEO] There’s some good stuff in this video. The biggest surprise was the two finger tap in a paragraph of text. Worth the price of admission right there. Nice job, Joshua.

Google launches iOS version of Ingress, a massively multiplayer augmented reality game

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[VIDEO] Ingress was created by a startup within Google called Niantic Labs. From the Wikipedia page:

The gameplay consists of establishing “portals” at places of public art, landmarks, cenotaphs, etc., and linking them to create virtual triangular fields over geographic areas. Progress in the game is measured by the number of Mind Units, i.e. people, nominally controlled by each faction (as illustrated on the Intel Map).

Here’s a link to the iOS version of the game. It’s free. Note that you’ll need to login with a gmail or other Google account.

Note also that you’ll need to share your location with the game and that your location will be shared with other players. There is a bit of risk there, both in privacy and in sharing your actual location with people you don’t know. This is the one aspect of the game I find worrisome.

The trailer is embedded below.

How to quickly put your apps in alphabetical order

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My iPhone is a bit of a mess. My front page contains the apps I use the most, but the rest of my pages are in a random order that slightly resembles the order in which I purchased the apps, shuffled in my attempts to move apps to my front page. Sound familiar?

The linked article talks you through the relatively simple process of sorting all your apps in alphabetical order. This might not work for all people, but it does make it much easier to home in on an app when you have 9 pages of apps.

Read the full post for an exception and solution.

Apple brings 5 megapixel iSight camera, $199 price to iPod touch

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Apple announced a 16GB iPod touch with a 5 Megapixel camera for $199. Not too shabby. Though it’s clearly not a replacement for the iPhone, if you have regular WiFi access, this is a pretty nice alternative, one that doesn’t come with a monthly contract.

Why developers still develop for iOS before Android

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Quartz:

Most promising app startups with venture capital investments that we analyzed are either building apps for iOS and Android simultaneously or are still iOS-only. Looking at 119 recent Y Combinator incubator participants and Google Ventures seed investments, of those offering apps, more than 90% had iOS apps, about half had both iOS and Android apps, and fewer than 10% only had Android apps. Among those with both, their iOS app typically launched several months ahead of their Android app.

Why is this true? Read on.

Yahoo loses prime real estate on iOS 8 weather app

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Yahoo currently provides the data that powers the built-in iOS weather app. That is about to change.

The situation Yahoo finds itself in is due to a very crafty deal engineered by former Yahoo board member and Weather Channel CEO David Kenny, who has essentially shoved Yahoo off the key smartphone to be replaced by a new offering that he has been developing since he took over the weather news and information service last year.

Lego Fusion scans your bricks into a virtual world

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Build a 16×16 facade, including a door. The Lego Fusion app (iOS and Android compatible) scans the facade and imports it into a virtual world. Build on your facade inside the world and defend it from attack.

Bitcoin back in the iOS App Store

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One announcement from WWDC that didn’t get much fanfare was a rule change concerning virtual currencies.

Apps may facilitate transmission of approved virtual currencies provided that they do so in compliance with all state and federal laws for the territories in which the app functions

This allowed the Coin Pocket app in to the App Store.

With iOS 8, the iPhone will become your digital hub

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Interesting case being made for the iPhone, and not iCloud, being the center of the coming universe.

With iOS 8, Apple encourages this trend by pushing nascent ecosystems to focus on mobile. Nearly every aspect of the “new” ecosystem Apple showed this week revolves around having the iPhone as the center of your digital experience

Safari in iOS 8 uses camera to scan and enter credit card info

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9to5mac:

When entering a credit card number into a form online to, for example, make a purchase, Safari already allowed users to quickly select credit cards stored in its Passwords & AutoFill settings. You can still do that, but in iOS 8 you’ll now also have the option to select “Scan Credit Card” and snap a picture of the card. Apple then uses optical character recognition of sorts to input the number into the text field in Safari.

That’s pretty cool!

Escape rooms, the real life video games

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I am a big fan of escape rooms. The basic premise is, you are locked in a room and need to solve a series of puzzles to get out, perhaps to another escape room. There have long been virtual escape rooms. My favorite of these is The Room series on iOS.

The linked article explores some real life escape rooms. They range from pure puzzle sets to a more theatrical presentation. Personally, I’d love to see a video game that marries the best of both worlds: A multi-player implementation of an escape room that gives you a virtual presence in an escape room, a real social experience.

Video takes you through the iOS 8 interface

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[VIDEO] The video in the original post does a great job of walking you through a nice chunk of the interface changes that come with iOS 8. Many of these were shown off in the keynote, but I thought this video made each feature easier to grasp. Definitely worth a watch.

Handoff let you effortlessly switch focus between your Mac and iOS device

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Handoff is perhaps my favorite of all the new features announced at yesterday’s WWDC keynote.

From Apple’s web site:

When your Mac and iOS devices are near each other, they can automatically pass whatever you’re doing from one device to another. Say you start writing a report on your Mac, but you want to continue on your iPad as you head to your meeting. Handoff lets you switch over and pick up instantly where you left off. Or maybe you start writing an email on your iPhone, but you want to finish it on your Mac. You can do that, too. Handoff works with Mail, Safari, Pages, Numbers, Keynote, Maps, Messages, Reminders, Calendar, and Contacts. And app developers can easily build Handoff into their apps.

Yosemite and iOS 8 let you make and receive calls on your Mac

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There have long been devices that allowed you to use your Mac as a speaker phone. In the long ago, you’d plug some device into a phone jack in your wall (assuming you even had such a thing), then plug another cable into your Mac. The results were spotty at best. Nowadays, you’ve got solutions like iChat and Skype, but they don’t connect to your iPhone.

With the combination of Yosemite and iOS 8, you’ll get a notification on your Mac when your iPhone rings, giving you the option of accepting the call, or ignoring it. You can answer the call from your iPhone, of course, but having the ability to minimize the interruption, keep your focus on your Mac, is a godsend to me.

iOS 8 and Family Sharing

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Let’s say you have a spouse and between zero and four children. If that’s you, iOS 8 has a fantastic new feature, called Family Sharing, that will make your life easier.