Cody Fink

1547 posts on MacStories since January 2010

Former MacStories contributor.

[email protected]

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Apple Announces New MacBook Airs: Ivy Bridge, USB 3, and More

Today at Apple’s WWDC 2012 Keynote, Phil Schiller announced the updated MacBook Air, featuring Intel Ivy Bridge processors, more RAM, a pair of USB 3 ports, faster flash storage for high speed performance (500 MBps read speed), 60% faster graphics, and an updated FaceTime camera that can record up to 720p.

The 11-inch base model MacBook Air starts with a 1366x768 display, 1.7 GHz dual-core i5 processor, 4 GB RAM, 64 GB of flash storage, Intel HD Graphics 4000, and 5 hours of battery life, starting at $999.

The larger 13-inch base configuration features a 1440x900 display, 1.8 GHz dual-core i5 processor, 4 GB RAM, 128 GB of flash storage, Intel HD Graphics 4000, and 7 hours of battery life, starting at $1199.

The MacBook Airs can be updated with a 2 GHz core-i7 processor (with Turbo Boost up to 3.2 GHz), 8 GB of RAM, and 512 GBs of flash storage.

The updated MacBook Airs start shipping today. Customers who purchase a MacBook Air will be eligible for a free upgrade to Mountain Lion when it’s released. You’ll find the full press release after the break.

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iOS 6 Confirmed: New Banners Up at Moscone West

It’s been a couple days since we last checked in on the progress at Moscone West, and today it appears that new banners at WWDC are confirming expected discussion around iOS 6, Apple’s next iteration of their mobile OS. Banners in the halls of Moscone West are showing off a slick blue logo with a silver 6 inside, perhaps signifying that fresh coat of paint Rene Ritchie discussed as a possibility on iMore. We’re looking forward to Monday’s Keynote, and in the meantime we’ll continue updating our Moscone West 2012 post with great photographs as they come in.

The first floor layout of Moscone West is different from last year — in the photo above you can see the iOS 6 signage in comparison to last year’s open floor with rope lines. Banners have been hung on the 2nd floor of Moscone West, and there’s different banners for Mac Messages, Mac Notification Center, and for a Mac Game Center. WWDC 2012 is already shaping up to be a big event, and we’ll have more photos soon.

Past the break, we have a couple more photos for your viewing pleasure. Thanks again to @SteveStreza for the amazing pictures!

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Reviewed: The iPhone Half of Track 8’s Universal Update

The Metro flavor — that recognizable blend of Swiss minimalism and Segoe typography — is still, by far, one of the most intriguing design languages to be employed. Perhaps Microsoft’s edgy futurist appeal will wear off as Windows 8 PCs and tablets normalize the trend of text driven interfaces, but the current novelty of Metro driven applications continues to leave us entranced and occasionally optimistic about the future of UI design. In stark contrast to skeuomorphic or icon driven designs of iOS and Android families, one has to wonder if Microsoft’s modern brainchild could find itself comfortably at home when integrated with other platforms and without clashing with the native’s traditional mechanisms of in-app navigation and interaction.

The now defunct Zune brand never made an appearance on iOS, and for good reason, but Ender Labs’ Track 8 trendy reimplementation of the Windows Phone 7 music player on the iPad had left us considering if both the aesthetic and function of a Metro designed application could be capitalized on iOS. Track 8 intentionally ignores the conventions of iOS, extending Microsoft’s interface onto the dimension of Apple’s touchscreen displays.

Originally conceived for the iPad, Track 8’s second version (yes, 2.0) delivers a few important enhancements. An AirPlay button is now built into the app, presenting itself only when an AirPlay device is available above the shuffle and continuous playback buttons on the Now Playing Screen. Per navigation, a navigational gripe is resolved thanks to the inclusion of a long press on the back button to return to the main menu. Additionally, artist backgrounds can be restricted to downloading only over Wi-Fi via a toggle in the settings. While all of these additions, especially the long press, greatly improve the Track 8 user experience, it is the app’s Universal signification that denotes the 2.0 convention and Track 8’s appearance on the iPhone.

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TestFlight Introduces their TestFlight Desktop App Beta for Developers→

TestFlight Introduces their TestFlight Desktop App Beta for Developers

This afternoon, Hjalti Jakobsson (@Hjalti) announced the availability of the TestFlight Desktop App private beta.

TestFlight Desktop App, now in private beta

We’re really excited to share an early version of TestFlight’s Desktop App. We think this will be a significant and much needed change in developers’ beta release workflow. Since we’re still in beta, we’d really appreciate you testing the app and providing feedback.

TestFlight’s Desktop App brings TestFlight’s powerful management features to the desktop, resulting in iOS archive detection from the menubar, the ability to set permissions for testers, automatic dSYM detection, and faster upload speeds. Developers can simply visit https://testflightapp.com/desktop/ to download the beta app and provide feedback before TestFlight’s public release.

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Airfoil Speakers Touch is Back in the App Store, But…

Paul Kafasis on Apple’s takedown of Airfoil Speakers Touch and its reintroduction into the App Store:

We’re pleased that Airfoil Speakers Touch is once again available in the iOS App Store, enabling you to use Airfoil to send audio from your Mac or PC to Airfoil Speakers Touch running on your iPhone, iPod Touch, or iPad. However, in order to get Airfoil Speakers Touch back into the store as a receiver for Airfoil, we had to remove its ability to receive audio directly from iOS and iTunes via AirPlay. This was quite disappointing to us, as we’d provided a feature that thousands of users found quite useful.

Airfoil Speakers Touch was removed from the App Store on May 24th, specifically for its Enhanced Audio Receiving feature which turned your iPhone or iPod into an AirPlay receiver. For instance, you could stream audio from iTunes to an iOS device that was connected to your home audio equipment. The feature was sold as an in app purchase — Kafasis states that over 7,000 customers paid extra for the functionality.

We now know that Apple’s issue with Airfoil Speakers Touch was specifically related to its recently-added ability to receive audio directly from iOS devices and iTunes. This was not properly conveyed in our initial conversations prior to the removal of Airfoil Speakers Touch from the store, and Apple’s representatives apologized for the fact that the entire process was “poorly handled”.

Apple’s problem with Enhanced Audio Receiving stems from Rogue Amoeba’s use of AirPlay in the app — Apple hasn’t made available any APIs for iOS devices to act as AirPlay receivers. Rogue Amoeba made clear that they weren’t using any Private APIs in their implementation. As John Gruber speculated, perhaps it wasn’t the issue of an API, but rather that Apple simply didn’t want a high profile AirPlay Receiver in their App Store.

John Gruber:

I think the bottom line is that Apple is saying that apps are not allowed to act as AirPlay receivers on iOS, but there’s no App Store guideline that explicitly forbids that. So they’re citing App Store Review Guideline 2.5:

Apps that use non-public APIs will be rejected.

Kafasis specifies what guidelines Apple used to remove Airfoil Speakers Touch from the App Store:

Regardless, Apple is using the authority they provide themselves in the guidelines and program license agreement to remove apps they don’t like. Specifically, they cited a provision in the App Store Review Guidelines which allows them to reject apps “for any content or behavior [they] believe is over the line”. That’s certainly disappointing, and frustrating, but it’s the nature of the system Apple has created.

Kafasis is upset, and rightfully upset, this his customers paid for a feature that was swiftly taken away without good reason. It’s also frustrating for customers, who may have specifically downloaded the app to pay for and use this feature. Instances like this can have negative impacts on the reputation of the developer if customers are unaware that the removal of a feature they paid for was mandated by Apple. Kafasis writes that Apple licenses AirPlay to lots of vendors, and that Apple might not want their own products to compete with AirPlay enabled hardware sold in stores. Rogue Amoeba had no choice but to comply and do the best they can to provide the remainder of the app’s functionality for existing customers. As far as outcomes go, I think it was the best compromise, but certainly not ideal.

[via Rogue Amoeba, The Next Web]

Can a command line shell be Mac-like?→

Can a command line shell be Mac-like?

Introducing a new command line shell from Ridiculous Fish (@ridiculous_fish):

The new fish is a POSIX command line shell with delightful, intuitive features like autosuggestions, 256 color syntax highlighting, web based configuration, and lots more. Best of all, these features just work, out of the box. No arcane syntax, no twiddling obscure knobs.

It’s easy to install and integrates seamlessly into iTerm or Apple’s Terminal. Fish (fishfish) is optimized for speed and is packed with easy-to-use features that allow newbs like me to customize my environment to my liking. Setting up and using fish is simple:

Edit /etc/shells as root, and add the line (if missing): /usr/local/bin/fish
Then run: chsh -s /usr/local/bin/fish

You can download fish here.

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Angry Birds Space Downloaded 100 Million Times in 76 Days

This morning, Rovio Entertainment (@RovioHQ) tweeted that their latest franchise hit, Angry Birds Space, has been downloaded 100 million times in just over a period of two months.

When we last heard from Rovio, Angry Birds Space was touted as the “fastest growing mobile game” after hitting 50 million downloads within the first 35 days, and 10 million downloads within the first 3 days. Comparatively, when Angry Birds first launched in December of 2009, it took until June, 2010, to reach 5 million downloads.

As the popularity of the iPhone and Angry Birds has exponentially increased, Angry Birds fans are more than happy to get a dose of the kid and adult friendly gameplay. Rovio recently reported that Angry Birds was downloaded one billion times in May, after reporting 648 billion downloads in December. Apple’s all time record charts noted Angry Birds as the top paid iPhone app, with an HD version on the iPad being the second top paid app.

When we looked at Angry Bird’s success last November, we charted its exponential growth and made note of its addictive gameplay. At the time, gamers were racking up more than 300 million minutes per day playing Angry Birds, putting in well over 200,000 years of pig crushing, crate smashing, and star collecting fun.

[Rovio via iDownloadBlog]

Comic Zeal Updates with Retina Graphics on the iPad→

Comic Zeal Updates with Retina Graphics on the iPad

From the App Store:

Hi all, do we have retina for you! CZ 5 looks wonderful with retina graphics on the new iPad. Hope you all enjoy. Also added auto sorting and the ability to put comics in the home page. Turn both of those on if you’re after the ‘ol CZ 4 experience.

- Added option to auto-sort a series when new comics are added to it on import.
- Added option to auto-sort the home page after an import.
- Retina graphics throughout.
- Comic Zeal will generate high resolution thumbnails when the device has a retina display.
- Comic Zeal will now try harder to find thumbnails to represent a series if there are dividers present in the series.
- Comics downloaded from bitolithic are no longer backed up.
- The ‘new comics are western/manga’ is infinitely more reliable.

I don’t read too many comics, but when I do, I always use Comic Zeal. I’m very happy to see this much awaited update finally happen for the 3rd generation iPad — comics have always showed up fine but the pixelated interface was a letdown when we last checked out a group of comic apps in May. Bitolithic’s blog post discussed the update on May 3rd in anticipation for its eventual release — Comic Zeal 5.1.4 was finally made available on June 3rd. Comic Zeal is available on the App Store for $4.99.

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Trickster Keeps Your Recent Files and Applications at your Fingertips

Remember Stacks? These days I keep my Dock hidden at the bottom of my display, with Stacks occasionally providing quick shortcuts to downloads and recent documents. My workflow is funny since I don’t quite want to work in full-screen mode in most applications, but I still want to have windows fill the display. This way I can still bring up my Twitter app without switching to another window, I can use a hot corner to temporarily hide windows as I access whatever mess is on my Desktop, and I can quickly bring up the Dock without swiping down twice. Too, I have the benefit of bringing up a Finder window when I need it — more often than not I’m accessing the Downloads folder from a stack for press kits, images, and files I grap from our work channel. Trickster, a rebranded Blast which I reviewed a couple years ago, fixes having to go through the motions of unhiding the Dock, opening my Downloads stack, then clicking the “more” button or on the file itself. Basically, Trickster is a quick-access panel for applications, documents, music, photos, and video that supplants Stacks and All My Files in the Finder.

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