Ryan Christoffel

684 posts on MacStories since November 2016

Ryan is an editor for MacStories and co-hosts the Adapt podcast on Relay FM. He most commonly works and plays on his iPad Pro and bears no regrets about moving on from the Mac. He and his wife live in New York City.

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Doctors Report Findings from ResearchKit Study of Seizures→

Tim Hardwick of MacRumors reports on the results of a recent ResearchKit-powered study:

The 10-month study involved 598 people who tracked their seizures with an iPhone app called EpiWatch, which was built by Johns Hopkins using Apple’s ResearchKit software framework. The app features a custom Apple Watch complication that provides patients with one-touch access to record accelerometer and heart rate sensor data. When participants felt a seizure aura coming on, they were asked to launch the app to let it record their heart rate and movements for 10 minutes.

Apple reported on the launch of this study back in October 2015, so it’s exciting to have some of the data from the study brought to light. Triggers for seizures was a major data point gleaned from those participating in the study.

Stress was revealed to be the most common trigger, and was linked to 37 percent of the seizures, while 18 percent of sufferers identified lack of sleep as another contributing factor. Meanwhile, menstruation was found to be a cause in 12 percent of recorded seizures, and overexertion accounted for 11 percent.

In the full press release on the study’s results, study author Gregory Krauss, MD, notes:

“Seizures are very unpredictable,” said Krauss. “Our eventual goal is to be able to use wearable technology to predict an oncoming seizure. This could potentially save lives as well as give people with epilepsy more freedom. The data collected in this study helps us take a step in that direction.”

ResearchKit was first announced by Apple in March 2015 at its spring event. At March 2016’s event, we received an update on the health initiative. If recent tradition holds true, we may receive another update from Apple soon.

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Instagram Posts Expand to Include Multiple Photos

Today Instagram announced a new feature that will be rolling out to all users soon: the ability to share multiple photos or videos within a single post.

Here’s how it works:

When uploading to your feed, you’ll see a new icon to select multiple photos and videos. It’s easy to control exactly how your post will look. You can tap and hold to change the order, apply a filter to everything at once or edit one by one. These posts have a single caption and are square-only for now. On your profile grid, you’ll notice the first photo or video of your post has a little icon, which means there’s more to see.

As you browse your feed, a post that contains a collection of photos or videos will show a number of small dots underneath the first image, with each dot representing a photo or video you can swipe through.

This update comes with Instagram 10.9, released yesterday, but isn’t yet available to all users. According to TechCrunch, it will roll out globally over the next few weeks.

Alto’s Odyssey Trailer and Release Date Announced→

Today on their blog, to commemorate the second anniversary of Alto’s Adventure, Snowman published the first trailer for the game’s sequel, Alto’s Odyssey. They also revealed that the game will launch this summer.

From the brief glimpse of gameplay in the trailer, the game appears very similar to its predecessor, with the most significant visible change being the setting: Alto’s Odyssey takes place in the desert.

Today’s news follows last week’s announcement that another of Snowman’s upcoming titles, Where Cards Fall, will launch this fall. We now know that Alto’s Odyssey will precede that game’s release.

As part of celebrating Alto’s Adventure’s anniversary, Snowman has put the game on sale for a short time. It is now available on the App Store for $1.99, down from its regular $4.99 price.

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Release Details Unveiled for Where Cards Fall, a Game from the Publishers of Alto’s Adventure→

Where Cards Fall is the newest title coming from Snowman, publishers of the beloved Alto’s Adventure. Today the company announced a fall 2017 release date for the game and confirmed its release platforms: iPhone, iPad, Apple TV, Mac, and PC.

Snowman also shared a new trailer today that contains the most revealing look at the game so far.

A blog post from Snowman breaks down the trailer and provides additional details about the core of the game:

In Where Cards Fall, you’ll build houses of cards to form and shape the world around you. These houses not only help you move through imaginative puzzles, but also bring to life vivid memories of adolescence.

This particular memory [from the trailer] is of teenagehood in the suburbs. Filled with far more cacophonous uncertainty than the playful magic of the forests, the suburbs are home to a crucial question: who will you become? Would you rather remain comfortable at home, or venture into the world outside?

At its core, Where Cards Fall is an exploration [of] these questions, and a look at the way our most fragile memories of the past can become the strongest foundations of our future.

On the heels of the success Snowman found with Alto’s Adventure, it’s exciting to see the company continue to push themselves to explore new and unique ideas in their next game. Where Cards Fall looks like it will be a highlight of the gaming scene when it hits later this year.

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Caavo: An AI Box to Control Your TV Experience→

Yesterday at Recode’s Code Media event, a new TV box called Caavo was unveiled. Rather than being a competitor to existing products like Apple TV, Roku, or Fire TV, Caavo is a hub into which you plug those other streaming boxes. Once a device is connected, Caavo can navigate through each box’s interface in a way that’s hidden from the user, all for the purpose of promptly and easily delivering the content you want.

Caavo is controlled primarily by voice, using the microphone-equipped remote control or an Amazon Echo. Tell Caavo what you’d like to watch, and it will turn on the necessary devices, find what you’re looking for, and play it – no navigation necessary.

The Verge’s Nilay Patel reports on the technology that’s at work behind the scenes in Caavo.

[Caavo is] processing the video your TV streaming boxes send over HDMI, using machine vision to figure out what’s on-screen, and then determining what command to send next based on that information.

Essentially, Caavo has built an AI that simulates a human user to control any device you might attach to a TV, through whatever method the system can use, whether it’s IR, HDMI-CEC, or direct control over an API on your home network. They’re calling this system “visual analytics,” or VA, and it is quite possibly the thing that will crack the entire living room convergence game wide open.

He gives a practical example of Caavo navigating an Apple TV:

There are still some hacks involved in the Caavo system, and ways for other companies to potentially block the device. Caavo can’t control the Apple TV unless you install the Caavo app, for instance — but the way it works is wild: when it decides to control the Apple TV, it goes to the home screen, sends a bunch of scroll commands to the box, uses machine vision to locate the Caavo app icon, and then opens the app so it can pass a URL to the streaming app you actually want to use.

Caavo’s creators gave a demonstration at Code Media, which can be viewed below:

Caavo will be available in June at a price of $399. If it can deliver on what it promises to do, in a fast and effective way, it may be an appealing device for those looking to bring smart home technology to their TV experience.

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First HomeKit Camera Available from Online Apple Store→

One of the longest HomeKit equipment absences has been security cameras. Despite Apple expanding HomeKit to support cameras in iOS 10, nothing has hit the market before today. MacRumors reports on the end of the camera drought, as D-Link’s Omna 180 Cam HD is now available for purchase.

The cylindrical Omna 180 Cam HD features a 1080p camera with a 180-degree field of view, a built-in microphone and speaker with two-way audio, infrared night vision up to 16 feet, and motion detection with the option to record motion-triggered video clips directly to a microSDXC card up to 128GB with no subscription costs.

HomeKit support enables users to control the Omna 180 Cam HD with an iPhone or iPad through Apple’s Home app on iOS 10. When the camera detects motion, users can receive Lock screen notifications to get a snapshot of what’s happening in their homes. The camera can also trigger Scenes with other HomeKit products.

The Omna 180 Cam HD is not currently available in Apple retail stores, but can be purchased from Apple.com in the US for $199.95, and it’s available from Apple’s online stores in other countries as well.

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A Recap of the Code Media Conference Interview with Eddy Cue

Last night Recode’s Peter Kafka hosted an interview with Apple’s Eddy Cue, SVP of Internet Software and Services, who was joined by television producer Ben Silverman at Recode’s Code Media Conference. The discussion centered around Apple’s video ambitions, with new information and trailers being released for two of Apple’s upcoming original shows: Planet of the Apps and Carpool Karaoke. Additionally, Cue commented on work Apple’s doing with Apple Music and in a variety of other areas.

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Google Maps Adds List Creation and Sharing

Today Google introduced a new feature for Google Maps that allows curating lists of places you want to remember and sharing those lists with others.

In previous versions, Google Maps allowed saving a location in a way that’s similar to marking a place as favorite in Apple Maps. Every saved place went on one list, and there was no way to further categorize items you had saved. Today’s update is a helpful expansion of that feature, making it possible to save places to pre-set lists like “Favorites” or “Want to Go,” or to your own custom created list.

The ability to create custom lists opens so many possibilities: future vacation planning, restaurants to try, date night ideas, or whatever else you can think of. Any list that you’ve created can be shared with others via a link. When you share a list with others, they’ll have the option to follow that list, meaning any future updates made to it will be visible to them.

Last fall my wife and I took a vacation to New York City for the first time. In researching places we would want to visit in the city, I would look up a location in Apple Maps, then use the share extension to add that location to a note in Apple Notes that was shared with my wife. Throughout our trip, we would use the links in that note to get us where we wanted to go. It wasn’t a terrible system, but if Google’s list feature had been around at the time, it would have been a perfect solution for us.

The new list feature will be rolling out in the next version of Google Maps for iOS, expected soon.

Working from an iPhone

One of my goals in 2016 was to make working from my iPhone as efficient as possible. The desire to make this happen initially sprung from experiences raising a baby. My wife and I began foster parenting in July of 2015, and one of our foster children was AJ, a four-week-old baby boy. AJ ended up staying with us for about a year before returning to his birth mother, and in that year I learned that when raising a baby, there are frequently occasions when only one hand is available for computing. I would often have a hand tied up feeding AJ or carrying him around, and if I needed to get any work done during that time, my iPad Pro was no help. iPads are built for two-handed computing, while iPhones work great with one.

In addition to the motivation of being able to get work done with one hand, one of the things I’ve learned during the past couple years is that the best computer for work is the one you have with you. Despite the iPad Pro being more portable than most Macs, it still pales in portability compared to the iPhone. Because my iPad doesn’t travel with me everywhere, I need to be able to do anything on my iPhone that I can on my iPad.

Between my two current jobs, much of my work can be done while on the go – whether I’m waiting for an oil change to be completed, standing in a seemingly endless DMV line, or any similar scenario. In these short intervals of life, there are moments work can be done – which is where my iPhone comes in, because it’s with me wherever I go.

If and when a pressing work issue comes up, in many cases it can’t just be ignored until I get back to my desk; my iPhone needs to be capable of handling the task. Even if the issue isn’t time-sensitive, getting things done while I’m out makes the load lighter when I do get back to my desk.

I’ve grown extremely proficient in using my iPhone to get things done, and there are six key things I’ve identified that make that possible.

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