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.

[email protected]

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Turn Touch: A Smart, Flexible Remote Control

Samuel Clay, the founder of NewsBlur, is seeking funding on Kickstarter for an interesting new project: Turn Touch.

Turn Touch is a four button remote control carved out of solid wood. Get instant control of your devices and your home. With only four buttons, your Turn Touch connects you to apps, lights, speakers, and more.

While most smart devices found in the home today are designed to be controlled via a smartphone or a voice-controlled device like Amazon Echo, Turn Touch is a more tactile option. It’s designed to look less like a standard remote control and more like a piece of decor in the home.

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Flipboard 4.0 Presents Deeper Personalization Options

Flipboard 4.0 launched today, introducing a redesigned app that revolves around one core new feature: Smart Magazines. The magazine analogy isn’t altogether different from Flipboard’s previous interface, where certain topics or news sources made up a grouping of stories through which users could flip. The main difference here is found in the deeper level of personalization available with Smart Magazines.

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YouTube Enables Live Streaming for Broader Base of Creators→

Last summer YouTube announced its plans to put live streaming tools into the hands of its users. Today marks the first step toward making that happen, as mobile live streaming is now rolling out to all users with 10,000 or more followers. YouTube promises the feature will be available to all users soon, regardless of follower count.

Mobile live streaming has been built directly into the YouTube mobile app. All you have to do to start streaming is open YouTube, hit the capture button, and you’re live! Streamed videos will have all the same features as regular YouTube videos. They can be searched for, found via recommendations or playlists, and protected from unauthorized use.

Options when beginning a live stream.

Options when beginning a live stream.

Paired with its live streaming rollout, YouTube is also launching its previously announced Super Chat tool. Super Chat is a live stream feature that enables special monetization opportunities for creators. In a way it’s a digital tip jar. When watching a live stream, users can pay a fee to have a message they write receive special highlighting that makes it more noticeable to the video’s creator. Any highlighted message not only stands out visually, but also remains on screen longer than a normal message. The examples shown by YouTube so far involve a $5.00 fee to receive a highlighted message, though that number may vary based on the creator’s choice.

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Attention to Detail on Apple Campus 2→

Reuters’ Julia Love has published a look into the design process behind Apple’s Campus 2, based on interviews with a number of current and former workers on the massive architectural project.

Unsurprisingly, Love discovered that Apple’s attention to detail on the campus mirrors its attention to detail on consumer products.

Apple’s in-house construction team enforced many rules: No vents or pipes could be reflected in the glass. Guidelines for the special wood used frequently throughout the building ran to some 30 pages.

Tolerances, the distance materials may deviate from desired measurements, were a particular focus. On many projects, the standard is 1/8 of an inch at best; Apple often demanded far less, even for hidden surfaces.

Based on outside evidence, the completion of Campus 2 seems to be drawing near, so we can expect to hear more details about the project – and hopefully receive inside glimpses from Apple itself – over the next few months.

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Twitter Introduces New Tools to Combat Harassment→

After years of being accused of apathy toward the harassment and abuse that takes place on its platform, Twitter has so far marked 2017 with a stronger commitment to creating a safer environment for everyone.

Last week, Twitter announced a change to the way abusive tweets could be reported. Previously, if a user had blocked you, it would be impossible to report that user’s tweets as abusive or harmful, but that’s no longer the case.

Today Twitter introduced three more changes:

Stopping the creation of new abusive accounts:
We’re taking steps to identify people who have been permanently suspended and stop them from creating new accounts. This focuses more effectively on some of the most prevalent and damaging forms of behavior, particularly accounts that are created only to abuse and harass others.

Introducing safer search results:
We’re also working on ‘safe search’ which removes Tweets that contain potentially sensitive content and Tweets from blocked and muted accounts from search results. While this type of content will be discoverable if you want to find it, it won’t clutter search results any longer. Learn more in our help center.

Collapsing potentially abusive or low-quality Tweets:
Our team has also been working on identifying and collapsing potentially abusive and low-quality replies so the most relevant conversations are brought forward. These Tweet replies will still be accessible to those who seek them out. You can expect to see this change rolling out in the coming weeks.

These changes follow a series of tweets at the end of last month by Twitter’s VP of Engineering, Ed Ho, who claimed the company is committed to “moving with more urgency than ever” to make Twitter a safer place. Ho tweeted again as today’s changes were announced and reinforced that these actions represent just the beginning, and more changes would be made to the service in the coming days.

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BeatsX Earphones Launch February 10th

Today Beats revealed in a tweet that its BeatsX Earphones will be available for purchase this Friday, February 10th. BeatsX come in a variety of color finishes, including the previously announced white and black. CNET also reports that gray and blue finishes are in the pipeline, though it’s unclear whether they’ll be available at launch or a later date.

Announced in Apple’s September keynote alongside Apple’s AirPods and two other Beats products, Beats Solo3 and PowerBeats3, Phil Schiller described BeatsX as “affordable, light, comfortable headphones for all throughout your day.”

BeatsX contain the same W1 chip found in those other products, which improves power efficiency and enables easy connections with Apple devices. Unlike those other products, however, BeatsX did not see the light of day in 2016; they stand alone in being delayed into 2017.

BeatsX are the lowest cost earphones Apple announced in September, barely edging out AirPods’ cost with a $149.95 price tag, nearly $10 less than AirPods. BeatsX claim better battery life than AirPods, with up to 8 hours on a full charge versus AirPods’ 5 hours. BeatsX may also appeal to anyone who is uneasy about the possibility of wire-free AirPods getting lost more easily.

Evernote 8: A Review and Comparison with Apple Notes

Evernote has a long and storied history. It once reigned as king of note-taking services, successfully blossoming in an increasingly mobile world. But as the service grew larger, it became a less efficient tool for the core task of viewing and creating notes. New features and tangential apps added over time created bloat and became distractions. For a time, there weren’t many worthwhile alternatives for Apple users to explore. That changed in June 2015, when Apple introduced a revamped Notes app for iOS and macOS.

I’d been unhappy with the clunky state of Evernote at the time iOS 9’s Notes was unveiled. My experience with Notes in the past had been frustrated by poor syncing that led to data loss on multiple occasions. But what Apple demonstrated with Notes’ overhaul looked promising, and I gave it a shot.

Notes has kept me satisfied since its big update, and I know many people are in the same boat. But Evernote recently launched version 8 of its iOS app, which led me to give that service another try.

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Flappy Bird Creator Releases New Ninja-Themed Game

Ninja Spinki Challenges!! is the new game from Flappy Bird’s famed creator, Dong Nguyen. The game puts players in the role of a ninja who must face a variety of mini-game-like challenges.

There are six types of challenges in total, ranging from avoiding a bouncing cat to throwing shuriken at creatures. Though six challenges don’t seem like many, beating one unlocks a more difficult version of that mini-game. In total there are five levels to each mini-game, so there are several opportunities to replay challenges.

The aspect of Ninja Spinki that aids replayability the most is Endless mode. Every time you beat each of the six main challenges, it unlocks the Endless mode for that mini-game. Endless mode is where the addictive, competitive element that made Flappy Bird famous comes in; it’s all about surviving as long as you can to obtain the highest score possible.

The game seems well-polished, and each of the mini-games is plenty of fun, particularly as you reach more challenging levels of each one.

Ninja Spinki Challenges!! is available on the App Store as a free download for iPhone and iPad.