iOS

Taking and managing screenshots in iOS 11

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[VIDEO] Every time I watch an iOS 11 tutorial, I get a larger appreciation for how big a leap forward this latest rev is. In this one (embedded in the main Loop post), Jeff Benjamin talks through the process of taking and managing screenshots in iOS 11.

The apps are too damn big

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Matt Birchler:

Auto updates only happen when you are connected to Wifi, but iOS won’t stop you from updating on cellular if you tap the update button. The fact that someone could blow through 10% of their monthly data plan (2GB) just by updating Snapchat and Messenger once. This could be tough if you do it once, but Facebook updates Messenger all the time. They’ve updated the app 5 times in the past month, which could work out to upwards of 400-500 MB over just a month.

And:

“App thinning” is not a magic bullet that erases this problem though, as Facebook Messenger, which shows as being 154 MB, still downloaded 99MB of data for its update.

And:

So are giant app sizes a problem? Yes. Do delta updates allow these updates to use less data? Yes. Do delta updates make these large apps a non-issue? Hell no!

And from this Washington Post article, titled It’s not just you: Your iPhone storage isn’t going as far as it used to:

Apple has announced some features that may be able to help with this problem down the line. In iOS 11, due out in the fall, there is a feature that lets you “offload” apps you use less often — deleting the apps themselves from your phone, but retaining enough data so that you don’t have to set them up again.

Screens are getting larger, pixels denser, which means the resources used to support those bigger/denser screens are growing larger. Add to that the steadily increasing complexity of Apple’s SDKs, and it is clear that device storage availability continues to be a tricky balancing act.

But this is “same as it ever was”. Ever since the dawn of the modern computing era, memory and drive size was always a constrained resource and memory and drive sizes grew and software techniques were developed to meet demand with every new generation.

In iOS 11, App Store editorial comes out of the shadows

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Jason Snell, Six Colors:

while the App Store has indeed had an editorial team for quite a while, Apple’s approach to App Store editorial has been nearly invisible. Editors select apps to highlight and might write short bits of text for use in collections, but for the most part the job has seemed to be more about curation than words.

This is not meant to disparage curation—it’s an important job and one of the ways the App Store can highlight the hard work of app developers who are making polished, impressive products.

Damn right! Curation is a skill and highly polished curation a valuable skill.

With iOS 11, though, Apple’s really showing that it has redefined what the App Store editorial team is for. In the redesigned App Store app in iOS 11, app highlights go way beyond buttons that would present an app’s App Store page when you tapped. The new Today tab is populated with full-fledged feature articles, with screen shots, videos, animations, pull quotes, and real writing.

The change is pretty impressive. To get a sense of this, take a look at the Monument Valley 2 screenshot in Jason’s post. That’s some beautiful prose there. And well written copy helps the user get a sense of the game’s value, helps the developer by spurring sales, and helps put more coin in Apple’s bank. Win, win, win.

Siri’s iOS 11 evolution

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[VIDEO] Nice video (embedded in the main Loop post) from Mac Rumors, showing off Siri’s deep-learning powered iOS 11 voices, as well as advances in contextual awareness. Well done, worth watching.

Hands on with iOS 11

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[VIDEO] If you missed the keynote and want to learn more about iOS 11, Jeff Benjamin from 9to5Mac has your back.

The video embedded in the main Loop post does an excellent job walking you through the interface changes, and there are a lot of them. This video is definitely worth your time.

Will my iPhone run iOS 11? What apps will I lose access to?

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iOS 11 is a 64-bit only operating system. That means that any phone made before the A7 chip was released won’t be able to upgrade to iOS 11.

The first iPhone with the A7 chip was the iPhone 5s. The iPhone 5 and 5c do not have the A7. The iPad Mini 2 does have the A7. The iPad Air does. The iPad 4 (iPad with Retina Display, released September 2012) does not.

As to your apps, head over to Settings > General > About, then tap Applications. You’ll likely see a list of applications under the heading NO UPDATES AVAILABLE. Those are the apps you’ll likely lose access to if you upgrade to iOS 11.

Once you make the transition to iOS 11, if you follow the same path, you’ll see a similar list. If any of these apps are critical to your workflow, check with the developer to see if there’s an update planned. If not, start looking for a replacement and a way to port any data you may still need.

iOS 11 allows you to remove apps without deleting app data/settings

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CydiaGeeks:

In iOS 11, managing your storage just got a lot easier. Apple has renamed the Storage & iCloud Usage into iPhone storage. Within this page, the design looks a bit different too. The interface didn’t capture my attention as much as a new option called Offload did.

This is a real boon to folks with storage issues, especially valuable for 16GB phones.

[Via The Verge]

What If the iPad Smart Keyboard Had a Trackpad?

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John Gruber, Daring Fireball:

Here’s an idea I tossed out on the latest episode of The Talk Show, while talking with Jim Dalrymple about what Apple might do with the iPad Pro: what if they added a trackpad to the Smart Keyboard?

And:

I’m not talking about adding an on-screen mouse cursor to iOS for clicking and dragging. That’s a terrible idea.

And:

When you’re using the iPad’s on-screen keyboard, you have a crummy (or at the very least sub-par) keyboard for typing but a nice interface for moving the insertion point around. When you’re using the Smart Keyboard (or any other hardware keyboard) you have a decent keyboard for typing but no good way to move the insertion point or select text. Using your finger to touch the screen is imprecise, and, when an iPad is propped up laptop-style, ergonomically undesirable.

Great read. Moving the insertion point and selecting text is one of the least satisfying things about iOS. Not sure this is exactly the right answer, but it is a thoughtful talking point, well worth chewing on.

The newly redesigned Shazam

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Ryan Christoffel, writing for MacStories, walks through the new look for Shazam. I do like the new design. The old one was cluttered, and sometimes confusing.

Messages, iPhone rotation, and that pesky handwriting view

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Grab your iPhone, bring up Messages, tap on the text field to start a message to someone, then rotate your iPhone sideways. Did a giant scribble box take over your screen? If so, this is for you.

A tiny tip, but one that many people seem unaware of. In the lower right corner of that scribble box is a keyboard icon. Tap it, and your Messages screen returns to its normal, rotated self. And that will stay the default rotation view for Messages.

Want to return to the scribble view? Tap the button again (the label changed to a curlicue).

Apple patents accessory that embeds your iPhone into a laptop

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This is like an external keyboard case with a slot for an iPhone (or an iPad), except with this model, there’s an external display that is driven by the iOS device’s processor.

Neat idea. A bit of a missing link between iOS and macOS.

Reporting a problem with a Mac or iOS purchase

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Have a problem with an app purchased on the Mac or iOS app store, or via iTunes? Looking for a refund?

Apple’s got a page for that. Click the link, then enter your AppleID password. You’ll see a scrolling list of all your recent purchases, with a Report a Problem link for each one.

The list includes purchase for music, movies, TV shows, apps, and books. Good to know, pass it along.

Getting your mind around Apple’s newly purchased Workflow app

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As reported yesterday, Apple bought the Workflow app and team. This could be great news, assuming this signals a move on Apple’s part to open up the black box and give users the ability to automate pretty much everything their heart desires, something they’ve long been able to do on the Mac.

Federico Viticci, MacStories:

At this stage, it’s not clear what Apple’s plans for Workflow in the long term might be. I have a few theories, but this isn’t the time to speculate. I’ll say this, though: Workflow has been the driving force behind my decision to embrace the iPad as my primary computer. Workflow is a shining example of the power of automation combined with user creativity and its underlying mission has always been clear: to allow anyone to improve how iOS can get things done for them in a better, faster, more flexible way. Workflow is the modern bicycle for the mind. There’s nothing else like it.

In my mind, no one has embraced and written about Workflow quite as much as Federico. If you are interested in learning more about Workflow, download it here (it’s free), then dig into this archive of Federico’s Workflow articles.

Indie game promotion takes over the iOS and Mac App Stores

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John Voorhees, MacStories:

The App Store looks a little different today. If you opened it and thought you accidentally landed on the Games category page, it would be understandable. But that’s not what’s happening. Instead, Apple has launched a major promotion of the finest indie games available on iOS. According to the App Store Games Twitter account, the promotion is running for the next twelve days.

Lots of great games.

Making your iPhone take dictation

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J. D. Biersdorfer, New York Times, points out a variety of ways to do dictation on your iPhone:

Hold down the iPhone’s Home button (or say “Hey Siri” to wake up the software), say “Make a new note,” and then speak your thoughts — reciting the punctuation like “period” or “comma” aloud. The resulting note can be emailed, copied, pasted or shared with a compatible text app.

And:

In Settings, go to General and then to keyboard to find the Dictation option buried at the bottom of the screen. When the setting is enabled, a small microphone appears on the keyboard of text-entering apps like Notes, Google Docs, Microsoft Word for iOS, or Apple’s own Pages word processor.

That setting is off by default. Check it. Good to know where this is.

Of course, you can also use a variety of apps to do dictation. J. D. highlights a few. Good stuff.

Overcast 3: Marco’s walk through a huge design update

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Marco Arment, on the design remake of Overcast:

Overcast 3 is now available, and it’s a huge update, mostly in the design and flow of the interface. I’ve been working on it since last summer, informed by over two years of testing, usage, and customer feedback.

I designed Overcast 1.0 in 2014 for iOS 7, and it was a product of its time: it used ultra-thin text and lines against stark, sharp-edged, full-screen white sheets and translucent blur panes, with much of the basic functionality behind hidden gestures. That fundamental design carried through every update until today.

Marco clearly went over every inch of this app with an interface updater. The app still feels familiar, but there are a ton of nuanced changes.

If you are a podcast fan, take a few minutes to make your way through this post, learn about the tweaks, bells, and whistles.

How to type the trademark and copyright symbols in iOS

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Interesting tip. The QuickType solution doesn’t seem to work for me. This a setting of some kind? Seems to me, the (c), (r), and TM shortcuts used to work, at least on the Mac. But no more.

The emoji solution always works. Copy and paste works too, especially if I do the copy on my Mac and paste on my iOS device.

UPDATE: Thanks to a big wave of Twitter response, I can see that there are some iOS installs with default text substitutions for (c), etc. But others do not have these substitutions. Perhaps they were replaced? Regardless, you can add them back in via Settings > General > Keyboards > Text Replacement.

iOS and the neglected touch down state

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Visual and user interface designer Max Rudberg compares the touch down state (the visual change when you press, but before you release, a button) in Apple Watch, Android, and iOS. There are excellent animated GIFs for each example.

Max makes his case well. By comparison, iOS does feel a bit stiff.

How to use iPhone’s built-in Magnifier tool

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iOS comes with a built in magnifying glass, perfect for reading fine print, clarifying small detail. The linked post walks through the setup and use. Nicely done.

iOS beta alert spells the end of the line for 32-bit apps

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Andrew Cunningham, Ars Technica:

Beta builds of iOS 10.3, the first of which was issued last week, generate warning messages when you try to run older 32-bit apps. The message, originally discovered by PSPDFKit CEO and app developer Peter Steinberger, warns that the apps “will not work with future versions of iOS” and that the app must be updated by its developer in order to continue running. The apps still run in iOS 10.3, but it seems likely that iOS 11 will drop support for them entirely.

Apple planted the seeds for this a few years ago when they mandated that all new apps be 64-bit compatible. Then, last summer, warning alerts appeared when 32-bit apps were run, reminding the user that using the app “may affect overall system performance”. So this is simply the next step in the progression.

Sharing bigger, faster, more nimbly with AirDrop

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Steffen Reich pulled together a nice post on the advantages of sharing from device to device using the oft-neglected AirDrop. A nice set of use cases here. Well done, Steffen.

All about Apple File System – Make a backup before you install iOS 10.3 beta

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Apple has announced that iOS 10.3, just released as a first beta, will automatically migrate your data to Apple File System (APFS). APFS is already part of macOS Sierra, but in a limited form.

Make a backup before you install the iOS 10.3 beta. And hop over to the main Loop post for some resources to learn more about APFS.

How to use your iPhone to translate foreign words to English (no app required)

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Steffen Reich, iDownloadBlog:

The tutorial below is going to highlight the difference between the two main subsets of dictionaries (thesaurus vs. actual language to language translation) and scrutinize if your language of choice is one of the few lucky ones Apple decided to support beyond the thesaurus. Following that is a quick demonstration on how to translate the words in question to English. Read on to find out why some dictionaries are simply better than others.

As an example, if you install the French-English dictionary (in addition to your regular dictionaries), you’ll now have a powerful, built-in translation tool.

Well worth the time to read through the tutorial and, if you have the space on your device, install an extra dictionary or two.

The first trillion dollars is always the hardest

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Horace Dediu, Asymco:

In its first 10 years, the iPhone will have sold at least 1.2 billion units, making it the most successful product of all time. The iPhone also enabled the iOS empire which includes the iPod touch, the iPad, the Apple Watch and Apple TV whose combined total unit sales will reach 1.75 billion units over 10 years. This total is likely to top 2 billion units by the end of 2018.

And:

The revenues from iOS product sales will reach $980 billion by middle of this year. In addition to hardware Apple also books iOS services revenues (including content) which have totaled more than $100 billion to date.

This means that iOS will have generated over $1 trillion in revenues for Apple sometime this year.

Simply remarkable.

The Mac and the mouse cursor

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See the main Loop post for a look at two thought experiments, one from Rob Rhyne (via John Gruber) and the other from Mark Hibber. Both quite interesting.

The iPhone interface that came in second

Written by

Sonny Dickson:

While it has always been known that Apple considered a variety of ideas when they were deciding to enter the mobile phone market (with ex employees discussing it behind closed doors, as seen in this Cult Of Mac article, not much was known about alternate versions of the iPhone until now.

Much like the first production iPhone, the prototype features many of the same features including an aluminium chassis, multi-touch compatible screen, 2G connectivity and WiFi radios. However, despite carrying a similar design, the phone itself is extremely different from the iPhone we know today.

Check out the video in the main Loop post to see the so-called Acorn OS at work. Fascinating.