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iOS 6 Mockups→

iOS 6 Mockups

The Verge Forums member “gizmosachin” created some nice mockups of iOS 6 and the next-generation iPhone based on recent rumors.

Well this week we saw the “composite” image of the new iOS 6 Maps app, the blurrycam photos of the new iPhone, and with the WWDC 2012 app it seems that iOS 6 will make most UI elements silver like their counterparts on the iPad. Thought I’d make some mockups of the new iPhone running Safari and the supposed new Maps app just for fun. I couldn’t find any high res C3 Tech images so I just used the OpenStreetMap maps that Apple currently uses in iPhoto.

According to speculation surrounding the next major version of iOS, Apple will switch to a “silver” theme – roughly the same that has been used on the iPad since iPhone OS 3.2. Marco Arment believes the iPhone UIKit widget styling (the stock blue element) is out of style. Cult of Mac thinks that the recently released WWDC app and iPhoto for iOS set the stage for silver coming to the iPhone soon.

In theory, apps that use stock UI items provided by Apple would work “out of the box” with an updated color scheme. However, developers who relied on custom icons, colors, and other patterns would still need to optimize their apps for the new UIKit – and that’s exactly why Apple “previews” new version of iOS at WWDC before their Fall release.

Composite mockups of iOS 6 Maps based on “leaked” screenshots of the software first surfaced last week. Check out more mockups at The Verge.

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The Siri API→

The Siri API

Samuel Iglesias has written an excellent post detailing the (possible) challenges developers will have to cope with if Apple decides to release a Siri API.

The second half of Siri integration, Semantics, is the tricky part: something that most iOS developers have never dealt with. Semantics will attempt to capture the various ways a user can ask for something, and, more importantly, the ways Siri, in turn, can ask for more information should that be required. This means that developers will need to imagine and provide “hints” about the numerous ways a user can ask for something. Sure, machine learning can cover some of that, but at this early stage Siri will need human supervision to work seamlessly.

This is exactly what I have been wondering since speculation on the Siri API started last year. How will an app be capable of telling Siri the kinds of input (read: natural language) it accepts? Will developers have to do it manually? Will Apple provide a series of automated tools to associate specific features (say, creating a task in OmniFocus) with common expressions and words? And how is Apple going to look into the natural language processing developers will implement in their apps?

Of course, the Siri API is still at the speculation stage, but it does make sense to greatly expand upon Siri’s capabilities as an assistant capable of working with any app. The TBA sessions at WWDC are intriguing, and Tim Cook said we’ll be pleased with the direction they’re taking with Siri. Right now, I’d say integrating with third-party software would be a fantastic direction.

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Mac App Store vs Buying Direct→

Mac App Store vs Buying Direct

Wolf Rentzsch has published a good piece outlining the pros and cons of buying software through Apple’s Mac App Store, or directly from a developer’s website.

Some developers are going out of their way to allow seamless cross-grading from Mac App Store versions of their apps to direct apps, which is commendable and helps alleviate somewhat the situation Apple has created. Sandboxing is just the latest App Store rule change, I’m sure there’s more to come. All things being equal, it’s safer to buy directly instead of being cut off from your own software based on an arbitrary Apple policy change.

Sandboxing may be the latest requirement to get apps on the Mac App Store, but the trade-off involved with selling software through Apple’s channel has stayed the same since 2011: exposure vs. risk of change due to Apple’s policy. Because the environment is controlled and actively promoted by Apple, a developer gets all the perks of a store pre-installed on every Mac: millions of potential customers whose buying decision is just a click away, and nicely designed sections to showcase new apps (though Apple has to do more). On the other hand, because Apple gets to decide which apps and which functionalities are safe for the App Store, changes happen, like Sandboxing.

For the user, the convenience of the Mac App Store is obvious. Purchases are tied to an Apple ID, updates are easy, and the ecosystem is integrated with an existing structure (iTunes). Unlike John Gruber, I don’t think Sandboxing will be compelling for typical users, as I don’t see Apple showcasing Sandboxing-enabled apps the way they did for iCloud-enabled apps or apps updated with Lion features. It’s too technical, but Apple may figure out a way to market it (perhaps again the “Apps Enhanced for OS X Lion” section with new additions).

For developers, the Mac App Store means exposure to millions of eyeballs but also to Apple’s ever-changing strategies and technologies. The problem with Sandboxing, I believe, is that it introduced a change that is forcing developers of existing apps to reconsider functionalities that are not compatible with the Mac App Store anymore. If this will lead to serious fragmentation of Mac software with a proliferation of deeply different Mac App Store and “website versions” of the same apps, we’ll see.

Also worth reading: Lex Friedman’s story at Macworld on the first day of Sandboxing in the Mac App Store.

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Harry McCracken Reviews the Original Apple MessagePad→

Harry McCracken Reviews the Original Apple MessagePad

When Jobs decided to shut down the Newton division, color screens were still unaffordable, touch input was crude and wireless data didn’t get much more exciting than two-way paging. When he launched the first iPhone nine years later, technology allowed Apple to build the sort of devices it wanted to create in the 1990s, but couldn’t. He may have killed Newton, but he didn’t kill the dream behind it so much as press a giant pause button–and after finally spending quality time with a MessagePad, I’m more convinced than ever that he made the right call.

Apple’s MessagePads were devices that were both ahead of their time and poorly executed. It embodied everything Apple wanted to do — its tie-ins with the iPhones and iPads of today are clearly evident — but the Newton platform and the MessagePads just barely teetered on self-proclaimed success before their eventual hiatus. Despite the MessagePad’s lack of sales and its post-designation as a failed product, Harry McCracken re-visited John Sculley’s infamous product, reviewing the original MessagePad while investigating market demand and how the press received the product at the time of its unveiling. The three page article left me with some interesting take-aways about the climate of technology at the time of the early 90s, and how the Newton platform itself contributed to Apple’s later successes in both hardware and software design. A bulk of the article focuses on the technology introduced with the original MessagePad itself, but that insight is used to build a timeline of the product’s evolution whose concepts lead us to the devices we have today.

Image Credit: Time Techland

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MG Siegler: Facebook Integration Coming To iOS 6→

MG Siegler: Facebook Integration Coming To iOS 6

According to MG Siegler at TechCrunch, Apple’s upcoming new version of iOS – set to be unveiled at WWDC – will feature Facebook integration, similarly to how Twitter was integrated into iOS 5 last year.

It’s important to note that Apple being Apple, something could change in the next week and a half (see again: Facebook/Ping). But as of right now, Facebook is a go in iOS “Sundance”. One thing still being hammered out according to our sources is how sharing will work. Sharing is the other big part of the iOS/Twitter integration, and will be important for iOS/Facebook integration as well. But Facebook is significantly more complicated than Twitter in that there are all kinds of permissions for what you can post where and who can see what. And Open Graph adds another layer of complexity to all of this.

It is unclear for now how Facebook integration could work at a system level on iOS, presumably allowing users to share status updates, photos, and videos. Taking Twitter integration as a reference, it is worth noting how Apple doesn’t let users casually tweet at any time from iOS, having enabled the “tweet sheet” only in specific applications such as Safari and Photos. Facebook is more complex than Twitter in terms of privacy controls and functionalities, and we can only assume the system integration Apple has worked on will still strive for simplicity and intuitiveness when communicating with the service.

There are a series of factors as to why Apple could add Facebook integration to iOS. Firstly, such integration was spotted years ago into an unreleased build of iOS 4. Then, recent remarks by Apple CEO Tim Cook confirmed the two companies have mutual respect for each other, and that they are working closer together to provide the “best experience” with Facebook to iOS users. Tim Cook himself said to “stay tuned” about it. Last, Facebook’s own apps for iOS (including the recently released Facebook Camera) and the plethora of third-party Facebook-connected apps could incredibly benefit from direct integration on iOS.

Apple’s WWDC kicks off on June 11 in San Francisco.

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Quotebook 2.0→

Quotebook 2.0

Last year, I reviewed Quotebook, an iPhone app to save your favorite quotes, and organize them by tags, authors, and sources. I wrote:

Quotebook’s greatest strength is that it’s built for quotes, and nothing else. It doesn’t want or need to be a replacement for your notes and daily thoughts. The interface has been designed to make it easy to jot down a quote, and set correct attribution like author and source, or perhaps fiddle with ratings. The app goes one step further and makes it super-simple to import quotes found in your iPhone’s clipboard, and plays nicely with @author names, automatically opening a Twitter profile within a web view. That’s very nice of the developers — this got me started on saving some tweets I find inspiring. Quotes can be searched and filtered, shared on Twitter, Facebook and Tumblr, or browsed by author and tag using the buttons in the bottom toolbar. Pretty standard stuff for an iPhone app.

Months in the making, Quotebook 2.0 has been released today, and it’s a major update that makes the app universal, and fully iCloud-enabled so you’ll be able to keep your Quotebook archive in sync across the iPhone and iPad.

I have tested the new version, and it’s a solid update that you should definitely check out regardless of whether you’re a new user, or haven’t launched Quotebook in a while (in that case, you’ll get version 2.0 for free). iCloud sync has been implemented reliably, with fast sync times across devices and clear, and visible settings to indicate if iCloud is turned on or disabled. The app syncs full quote information, including ratings and tags. An export feature is still available to back up your database on a computer, and of course you can share quotes on a variety of networks including Facebook, Tumblr, and Twitter (with iOS 5 integration). The iPad interface is simple and elegant, with a purposeful focus on content and a subtle leather texture that, I believe, is functional to the app’s core concept – being a notebook for your favorite quotes.

Quotebook is $2.99 on the App Store.

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Timer→

Timer

Designed for function and intuitiveness, Timer is a new app by AppCubby, makers of Launch Center and Tweet Speaker. Timer is simple – dramatically so – and it was born out of a need to focus on one feature: touch. David Barnard writes:

I’ll leave the in-depth discussion to past and future posts, but suffice it to say — HUGE buttons are incredibly well suited to quickly taking action on touchscreen devices. For all the love complex, nebulous gestures have gotten in recent months, tapping a HUGE button is still the ultimate — and often overlooked — gesture.

So that’s Timer in a nutshell. Twelve HUGE buttons designed to scratch my own itch.

The twelve buttons will start a timer upon tap, and they can be customized (tap & hold) to turn off the preset, change color, and alert tone. By default, twelve buttons are presets, and three at the bottom are  alerts you can set manually with the numeric keyboard. I have been testing Timer, and I am a big fan of the app’s extreme simplicity and focus on doing one thing right. I often need to set up the same quick timers – especially in the kitchen – and Timer is just faster than Siri and Apple’s Clock app thanks to its preset implementation.

Timer is $0.99 on the App Store.

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Quickly Share iOS Photos With Your Mac (And iOS Devices)→

Quickly Share iOS Photos With Your Mac (And iOS Devices)

Kirk McElhearn at Macworld shares an interesting method to automatically import iOS photos on OS X, originally via The Iconmaster:

I gave up on Image Capture and used Dropbox. But if you’ve used Dropbox for this purpose, you know it involves several steps: launch the app, tap the Uploads tab, tap the add button, tap the photo, etc. etc. It works, but it wasn’t convenient enough.

I wanted something instantaneous. Fortunately, Ryan McCuaig was able to point me in the right direction.

Photo Stream is great, but it’s not 100% reliable. While I can typically wait a couple of minutes for iOS screenshots to show up in iPhoto (or Finder, based on the tip above), sometimes I don’t have that kind of flexibility, as I need access to those images right away. For those times, I use Scotty.

Developed by Galarina, Scotty (my review) is a $1.99 universal app that can send images to computers (on OS X, it uses File Sharing) and other iOS devices. Scotty is fast, well designed, and remarkably intuitive – it is even integrated with the Camera+ lightbox. I also use Scotty as Photo Stream doesn’t work on 3G, and I couldn’t find a better way to send iPhone screenshots to my iPad over Bluetooth.

The screenshots above were imported with Scotty, and processed with Keyboard Maestro.

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Using an iPad to Report from Pit Row→

Using an iPad to Report from Pit Row

I upgraded to the iPad 2 over the winter for the weight break and camera, and all has gone smoothly in 2012. I no longer bring my MacBook Air on the road, and am thrilled that the TSA doesn’t require that the iPad be removed from my carry on! Using the iPad for what I do has proven to be efficient and entertaining. And, as usual for an Apple product, IT JUST WORKS. I’ve had to put a baggie over it a time or two in a rain situation, but other than that it absolutely does the job.

Jordan Golson of MacRumors has written a fantastic report on Dave Burns, a Pit Reporter for ESPN who covers NASCAR Nationwide and Sprint Cup series races with his iPad. Burns’ use of the iPad is the focus of the story here, and he does an excellent job explaining how he ended up choosing the gear and accessories that best suited his needs on the track. Not wanting to deal with the bulk of paper, but then having to compensate for sun glare, heat, and occasional rain showers, Burns had to devise a system that helped him stay mobile yet offered the greatest potential benefit. Equally as important as the process that Burns’ shares, the report gives insight into just how adaptable the iPad is. Proven to be much more than a generic business tool, the iPad is being used in unexpected places for unique applications: in this case it’s being used to bring you coverage from pit road in America’s most exciting motorsport.

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