This Week's Sponsor:

Incogni

Put an End to Spam, Scams, and Robocalls on Your iPhone

Posts in links

Siri Date Calculations and WolframAlpha→

Siri Date Calculations and WolframAlpha

SiriLOL

SiriLOL

Speaking of Siri, David Sparks posted a great overview of how you can perform date calculations with Siri. I didn’t know any of those tips, and I was surprised to find out they are based on WolframAlpha. I have been doing date calculations in WolframAlpha for years, and I didn’t even think about using Siri for that purpose.

David’s post convinced me to do the same with Siri’s Italian sister. Unfortunately, but unsurprisingly, the results were disappointing. First, I asked Siri to calculate the days between April 3, 2010 and September 1, 2010. The query was parsed correctly, but Siri said she couldn’t find a contact in my Address Book.

For the second test, I asked which day it’ll be in 20 days from now, and Siri replied with the following mix of Italian and English:

E’ Tuesday, February 26, 2013

It basically told me that today is (“E’” in Italian) February 26th, completely ignoring my date query. Last, I asked which day it was 17 days ago, and this time Siri didn’t combine languages, but it replied with 17 days from now – March 15th, 2013.

I believe part of the culprit is that iOS 6 can still get confused if you use Siri in Italian but keep your device’s settings to English. Another example is how, with a device set to English and Siri in Italian, Maps navigation in iOS 6 still speaks Italian directions…in English. You can imagine how that sounds. But generally, it’s Siri’s own parsing engine that’s inferior to the “real” English Siri.

Like I said many times in the past, Siri has still a long way to go with the Italian language, and the software hasn’t improved much since I last checked in November 2012.

WolframYAY

WolframYAY

What I have been using for quick and reliable date calculations is WolframAlpha. On iOS, the company has a native Universal app that understands my queries just fine 99% of the time and that allows me to type characters faster with series of extra keyboard rows. It’s not pretty, but it is efficient and it also displays additional information related to your date query – such as date formats, events on a specific day, and time difference from today. I may not have the same date calculation skills of Dr. Drang, but WolframAlpha never disappointed me.

The WolframAlpha app is $2.99 on the App Store.

Permalink

Siri Vs. Google Voice Search, Four Months Later→

Siri Vs. Google Voice Search, Four Months Later

Rob Griffiths, comparing Siri to Google Voice Search at Macworld:

Because of the speed, accuracy, and usefulness of Google’s search results, I’ve pretty much stopped using Siri. Sure, it takes a bit of extra effort to get started, but for me, that effort is worth it. Google has taken a key feature of the iOS ecosystem and made it seem more than a little antiquated. When your main competitor is shipping something that works better, faster, and more intuitively than your built-in solution, I’d hope that’d drive you to improve your built-in solution.

When the Google Search app was updated with Voice Search in October 2012, I concluded saying:

Right now, the new Voice Search won’t give smarter results to international users, and it would be unfair to compare it to Siri, because they are two different products. Perhaps Google’s intention is to make Voice Search a more Siri-like product with Google Now, but that’s another platform, another product, and, ultimately, pure speculation.

When Clark Goble posted his comparison of Siri Vs. Google Voice Search in November, I summed up my thoughts on the “usefulness” of both voice input solutions:

I’m always around a computer or iOS device, and the only times when I can’t directly manipulate a UI with my hands is when I’m driving or cooking. I want to know how Siri compares to Google in letting me complete tasks such as converting pounds to grams and texting my girlfriend, not showing me pictures of the Eiffel Tower.

From my interview with John Siracusa:

And yet the one part of Google voice search that Google can control without Apple’s interference — the part where it listens to your speech and converts it to words — has much better perceptual performance than Siri. Is that just a UI choice, where Apple went with a black box that you speak into and wait to see what Siri thinks you said? Or is it because Google’s speech-to-text service is so much more responsive than Apple’s that Google could afford to provide much more granular feedback? I suspect it’s the latter, and that’s bad for Apple. (And, honestly, if it’s the former, then Apple made a bad call there too.)

Now, four months after Google Voice Search launched, I still think Google’s implementation is, from a user experience standpoint, superior. While it’s nice that Siri says things like “Ok, here you go”, I just want to get results faster. I don’t care if my virtual assistant has manners: I want it to be neutral and efficient. Is Siri’s distinct personality a key element to its success? Does the way Siri is built justify the fact that Google Voice Search is almost twice as fast as Siri? Or are Siri’s manners just a way to give some feedback while the software is working on a process that, in practice, takes more seconds than Google’s?

I still believe that Siri’s biggest advantage remains its deep connection with the operating system. Siri is faster to invoke and it can directly plug into apps like Reminders, Calendar, Mail, or Clock. Google can’t parse your upcoming schedule or create new calendar events for you. It’s safe to assume Apple’s policy will always preclude Google from having that kind of automatic, invisible, seamless integration with iOS.

But I have been wondering whether Google could ever take the midway approach and offer a voice-based “assistant” that also plays by Apple’s rules.

Example: users can’t set a default browser on iOS but Google shipped Chrome as an app; the Gmail app has push notifications; Google Maps was pulled from iOS 6 and Google released it as a standalone app. What’s stopping Google from applying the same concept to a Google Now app? Of course, such app would be a “watered down” version of Google Now for Android, but it could still request access to your local Calendar and Reminders like other apps can; it would be able to look into your Contacts and location; it would obviously push Google+ as an additional sharing service (alongside the built-in Twitter and Facebook). It would use the Google Maps SDK and offer users to open web links in Google Chrome. Search commands would be based on Voice Search technology, but results wouldn’t appear in a web view under a search box – it would be a native app. The app would be able to create new events with or without showing Apple’s UI; for Mail.app and Messages integration, it would work just like Google Chrome’s Mail sharing: it’d bring up a Mail panel with the transcribed version of your voice command.

Technically, I believe this is possible – not because I am assuming it, but because other apps are doing the exact same thing, only with regular text input. See: Drafts. What I don’t know is whether this would be in Google’s interest, or if Apple would ever approve it (although, if based on publicly-available APIs and considering Voice Search was approved, I don’t see why not).

If such an app ever comes out, how many people would, like Rob, “pretty much stop using Siri”? How many would accept the trade-off of a less integrated solution in return of speed and more reliability?

An earlier version of this post stated that calendar events can’t be created programmatically on iOS. That is possible without having to show Apple’s UI, like apps such as Agenda and Fantastical have shown .

Permalink

Sun: iPhone Weather Web App→

Sun: iPhone Weather Web App

Sun is an impressive weather web app for the iPhone created by Jakob Henner. I don’t normally cover web apps on MacStories, but Sun almost feels like a native app and sports a clean and elegant interface reminiscent of the latest trends in UI design. I discovered it thanks to a tweet by Beautiful Pixels’ Preshit.

Sun has a 3D interface that lets you swipe between locations that you can add in a sidebar on the right. There are sound effects for when you open the sidebar or succesfully add a new location. You can even switch between Fahrenheit/Celsius and 9 different color schemes. Like a native app, Sun will request access to your location to display local weather without having to enter that one manually.

Another nice thing about Sun is how it dynamically changes its webclip icon depending on the latest weather information it fetched. As explained by the developer (and others on Twitter), this is possible by “drawing” the icon every time shortly after the app is launched.

There are some aspects of Sun that reveal its web origins. Animations are slower than what you’d expect from a native app; there are some random refreshes of the entire page; text selection can get funny in the sidebar.

Still, Sun is a great experiment and you should check it out here.

Permalink

iPad mini and Logitech Tablet Keyboard→

iPad mini and Logitech Tablet Keyboard

David Chartier has been taking a look at various external keyboard solutions for his iPad mini in the past weeks. I have enjoyed the series and I was looking forward to reading his thoughts on the Logitech Ultrathin Keyboard mini, Logitech’s latest entry in the market of iPad keyboard/case accessories. As I feared, the Ultrathin Keyboard mini is just too cramped to be an acceptable trade-off:

The keys are cramped, even moreso than the 9.7 inch iPad’s on-screen keys in landscape, which I consider “Normal Netbook” and quite typeable if you give yourself time to warm up to them. Logitech made some questionable tradeoffs when combining and shrinking keys; take a close look at my gallery photo to see what I mean.

My theory is simple: if you want to use an external keyboard with the iPad, you’d better have a good reason to do so. And for me, the good reason is very simple: having a real, full-size keyboard – not one that’s “physical” but just as small as the software one. This is the reason why I wasn’t a fan of the Ultrathin Keyboard Cover for the bigger iPad either.

Like David, I have been getting better at touch-typing, but I still think the best solution for the iPad mini is the one I chose for the iPad last year: the Logitech Tablet Keyboard. It’s the same size of Apple’s Bluetooth keyboard, and it’s got iOS-specific keys such as a Home button and a Spotlight shortcut, which I use all the time. Here’s my review from last year, still 100% true for me.

If you use a Logitech keyboard, here’s a handy list of shortcuts (list may vary depending on the keyboard layout you have). Also, iOS supports more “advanced” keyboard shortcuts, but very few people know about them – because they require VoiceOver to be activated. Here’s how you can get more shortcuts to work; I don’t use this method, but I hope Apple will allow third-party developers to have configurable keyboard shortcuts in a future version of iOS.

Permalink

A Better Testing Process for App Store Developers→

A Better Testing Process for App Store Developers

The Iconfactory’s Sean Heber, in a radar filed on Open Radar:

Allow developers to add “in development” apps to the App Store. Rather than having them go through review, they simply upload builds like normal but the builds are set as “in development” which then only go to registered testers associated with the app.

In his proposal, Sean goes through the steps a possible “beta portal” for App Store apps may require. While I’m not sure about the idea of putting available development builds in the Purchased section of the App Store (if only for the poor technical performances of that section), I do believe this is a good idea. The lack of any sort of deeper App Store integration is what helped the rise of services like Hockey and TestFlight, and it seems strange that Apple hasn’t done much in the area of testing development builds of apps. I would also add that it’s absolutely anachronistic how Apple is still forcing developers to associate builds with device IDs rather than Apple IDs of testers (device slots are limited, and many testers have multiple devices).

I’m also intrigued by Sean’s other idea – letting users pay for early access to betas:

Bonus points would be to actually allow the developer to put a price on an app - even for testers. Using a mechanism like this, the developer could gather a group of early adopters who are willing to pay for early development access - perhaps to help support the developer in their quest to build the next big game. The goal with this is to provide a way that the next Minecraft could actually happen on iOS. When Minecraft was first beginning, Notch allowed people to pay for beta “lifetime” access up front. Even when the game was barely a game or barely anything at all. That early access generated a lot of buzz and revenue for him allowing him to continue development.

Again, I’m not sure how it would work in practice, but I think the idea is fascinating and worth discussing. Imagine some sort of Kickstarter-like approach for App Store apps, managed and sanctioned by Apple, and directly controlled by the developer. The App Store needs many, more basic improvements, but this is still something Apple should consider.

Permalink

Apple Releases iOS 6.1.2 With Exchange Fix→

Apple Releases iOS 6.1.2 With Exchange Fix

Following various reports from last week, Apple has today released iOS 6.1.2. The software update, available for all devices running iOS 6.1, introduces a fix for Exchange that could have resulted in “increased network activity and reduced battery life”.

The update is now available through iTunes and iOS’ Software Update panel. It’s not mentioned in the release notes, but – based on some first tests I ran on my iPhone 5 – it appears iOS 6.1.2 also fixes the passcode bug that was discovered last week (by following the steps to reproduce the old bug, the iPhone now simply gives a black screen/keypad instead of jumping to Phone/Contacts).

Update: I haven’t been able to reproduce the bug on my iPhone 5, but Ars Technica’s Andrew Cunningham says the bug is still unfixed in iOS 6.1.2.

Permalink

iOS YouTube Downloader with Pythonista→

iOS YouTube Downloader with Pythonista

Useful script created by “pudquick” on the Pythonista forums:

Browse to http://m.youtube.com in Mobile Safari, view a video that you like (press Stop if it starts playing, you need to be looking at the page - not the video actually playing), then click on “Bookmarks” and select the bookmarklet that you created.

This will launch my script, which will pull the URL of the page you were looking at as an argument, parse it, figure out the direct download URL for the .mp4 video file, then open iDownloads directly to that URL to start downloading it.

As pudquick says, third-party YouTube clients with a “download” functionality are usually removed from the App Store as Google doesn’t allow downloading video files from the service. However, by using Pythonista to crawl the webpage and find the direct .mp4 link of a video, pudquick managed to put together a handy solution to go from your web browser to Pythonista and then directly to iDownloads to start downloading the .mp4 file.

However, I don’t use iDownloads – I prefer Readdle’s Documents and good.iWare’s GoodReader. Replacing iDownloads with your favorite file manager is very easy: in the penultimate line of the script, replace the iDownloads://URL with the one of the app you want to use (the URL of the .mp4 will be appended to it). Unfortunately, Documents doesn’t seem to be able to download .mp4 files in this way, but I had no problems with GoodReader. Simply use ghttp://to forward the .mp4 file to GoodReader and start downloading it automatically.

Make sure to check out pudquick’s explanation of the script and bookmarklet here. For our previous coverage of Pythonista, check out our tag page and my original review.

Permalink

iOS Multitasking Lag→

iOS Multitasking Lag

Benjamin Mayo, elaborating on a tweet by our Graham Spencer about a “delay” that occurs when switching between apps using multitouch gestures on the iPad:

The reason for this delay is linked to how iOS ‘freezes’ background applications; the period of inactivity experienced is relative to the time it takes to unfreeze the desired application. For the Settings app, the time necessary to become active is negligible, so it feels instantaneous, but for more complicated apps (like Mail) the thawing process takes longer and becomes noticeable in use. Until that point, touches do nothing because you are effectively looking at a screenshot of the application when you were last open — the app doesn’t receive any touch events at this stage.

Using the iPad every day, I, too, think this is one of the most annoying aspects of relying on the device for work stuff. While Open In would certainly top the list for many people, personally I am more annoyed by that slight delay that occurs every time I switch back and forth between two apps with the four-finger multitasking gesture. The most common scenario is copying bits of text or URLs from a browser and swiping back to a text editor or Evernote to paste them; after swiping, I can’t bring up the Copy & Paste menu instantly, because, like Benjamin says, the app is “suspended” and therefore unresponsive to taps. It is a very specific and minor annoyance, but one that, over time, becomes a detriment to the overall experience. As Graham noted, this doesn’t happen on a Mac, and it shouldn’t happen on an iPad either.

I have also noticed that the iPad mini tends to “flush” apps from memory far more frequently than my iPad 3 did. This happens with any kind of app, but it’s annoying when Safari or Chrome have to reload every tab even if I only switched between 2 or 3 apps; I suppose it’s related to the inferior nature of the iPad mini’s hardware when compared to the latest iPad 3rd and 4th generation models.

I honestly don’t care about seeing “multiple apps” on the iPad’s screen, but I’d love for Apple to find a way to make iOS multitasking less aggressive without compromising battery life, making the process of moving between apps instantaneous as it is on OS X.

Permalink

Dropbox 2.1 With New PDF Viewer→

Dropbox 2.1 With New PDF Viewer

Dropbox21

Dropbox21

Dropbox has released an update to its iOS app that brings three new features for iPhone and iPad users: a redesigned PDF viewer, notifications for folders shared with you, and a new “sort by modified date” option.

The new PDF viewer is based on PSPDFKit and it now allows you to access the table of contents and page thumbnails for every PDF document in your Dropbox. A button in the top right corner of the title bar lets you switch from single page view to thumbnails, while a search icon in the bottom bar allows you to search for any word inside a document (with match highlighting). On the iPad, these buttons are available as floating controls (pictured above). As with the previous versions of the app, you can open a PDF in other apps and copy its Dropbox link to the clipboard.

Dropbox is now capable of sending push notifications when someone shares a folder with you – a feature that the company has slowly been bringing to its desktop and mobile applications. In my tests, however, I haven’t been able to receive any notification yet. The new “Newest - Oldest” sorting option is available at the top of any folder next to the search. The design is in line with Dropbox 2.0, released in December.

Dropbox 2.1 is available on the App Store.

Permalink