This Week's Sponsor:

Textastic

The Powerful Code Editor for iPad and iPhone — Now Free to Try

Spark Review: Smart Email

I’ve had a complicated relationship with email over the years. Part of the problem has been the Sisyphean effort of third-party apps that tried to modernize email: the more developers attempted to reinvent it, the more antiquated standards, platform limitations, and economic realities kept dragging them down. I’ve seen email clients for iOS rise and fall (and be abandoned); I’ve tried many apps that promised to bring email in the modern age of mobile and cloud services but that ultimately just replaced existing problems with new ones. Sparrow. Dispatch. Mailbox. CloudMagic. Outlook. Each one revolutionary and shortsighted in its own way, always far from the utopia of email reinvention on mobile.

Spark by Readdle, a new email app for iPhone released today, wants to enhance email with intelligence and flexibility. To achieve this, Readdle has built Spark over the past eighteen months on top of three principles: heuristics, integrations, and personalization. By combining smart features with thoughtful design, Readdle is hoping that Spark won’t make you dread your email inbox, knowing that an automated system and customizable integrations will help you process email faster and more enjoyably.

I’ve been using Spark for the past three weeks, and it’s the most versatile email client for iPhone I’ve ever tried. It’s also fundamentally limited and incomplete, with a vision that isn’t fully realized yet but promising potential for the future.

Read more

Todoist Comes to Apple Watch, Updates iOS 8 Extension

I’ve already written at length about my experience with Todoist and leveraging its powerful features for a more flexible todo list.

I’ve been using Todoist for over nine months now, and I continue to appreciate features such as filters and shared projects, which have allowed me to have a superior visualizations of tasks and to collaborate with others on big projects. And then, of course, there’s the work Todoist has done on its iOS app and third-party integrations, bringing natural language support and a handy extension to the iPhone and iPad and extending the service beyond its own apps to embrace solutions like Sunrise (see your tasks alongside calendar events) and IFTTT’s Do Note (type a new task and tap a button to save it).

I depend on Todoist and I genuinely like the service because it’s focused on doing, not fiddling. Today, that focus is becoming even more apparent with a new app for the Apple Watch and an updated extension that makes it even easier to save new tasks from anywhere on iOS.

Read more

Pixelmator for iPhone→

With a universal update, Pixelmator has been released on the iPhone today. I took Pixelmator for a spin last year when it launched on the iPad, and, while I don’t need all the features of this app, I’ve been using it regularly to create simple image compositions and edit screenshots for the site.

On the iPhone, the Pixelmator team went with some interesting choices. The app feels a bit constrained on the smaller screen but you can still access all the tools from the iPad version. I like how you can view layers with a swipe on the left edge of the screen, and I appreciate the effort they put into rearranging menus when you switch to landscape (I tried the app on an iPhone 6 Plus – make sure to check out the Tools menu in landscape). As you can see in the screenshots above, I’m going to use the app until I figure out a way to automate Apple Watch screenshot generation with Pythonista or Workflow.

Pixelmator is one of the most impressive mobile adaptations of a powerful desktop app – and now you can use it on an iPhone too. $4.99 on the App Store.

Permalink

Bugshot Relaunches as Pinpoint

I was a fan of Marco Arment’s Bugshot when it launched in 2013. As someone who takes screenshots for app reviews on a daily basis, any tool that can help me annotate and edit those screenshots quickly is welcome. Evernote hasn’t been paying much attention to Skitch over the past couple of years, and even after they introduced iOS 8 support two months ago, they did so with unstable extensions that I still can’t use reliably.

This is why I’m thrilled to see that Bugshot has been relaunched as Pinpoint by Lickability, makers of longtime MacStories favorite Quotebook.

Read more

Apple’s Jeff Williams on Native Apple Watch Apps→

July Clover, reporting for MacRumors on Apple’s Jeff Williams’ appearance at the Code conference earlier today:

On the topic of Apple Watch apps, Williams says third-party apps will get better when developers are able to release native apps and when access to native sensors is permitted. He gave an example of what a native Apple Watch app might do, suggesting an app like Strava will be more full featured as it would have direct access to sensors.

The native Apple Watch app SDK will be previewed at WWDC, according to Williams, suggesting full featured Apple Watch apps that can access health sensors, the Digital Crown, and more, will be available when iOS 9 is released to the public in the fall.

As assumed by many, the Watch SDK will give developers access to sensors. After trying the Watch for the past two weeks, it’s obvious that the only useful fitness app for me is Apple’s Workout because it’s the only one to use the heart rate sensor.

Eight years from now, I wonder if we’ll remember WatchKit as a very sweet solution, too.

(I love Steve’s comment on the “really complex update process”. It didn’t turn out to be that complex after all.)

Permalink

The Evolution of Apple’s Digital Hub→

For nearly a decade, iLife was the heart and soul of the Mac. The original Apple Stores were laid out into sections revolving around music and photography. Third-party digital cameras and camcorders graced official Apple product photography, and the Mac slowly became the go-to machine for creatives of all talent levels.

Writing at iMore, Stephen Hackett remembers Apple’s Digital Hub strategy. Looking back at all this, it’s amazing to recall how much stuff we used to have that’s been replaced by a phone with a bunch of apps. I’m glad that I got to witness this change.

Permalink

Google Bringing App Indexing to iOS→

From the Google blog:

We’ve been helping users discover relevant content from Android apps in Google search results for a while now. Starting today, we’re bringing App Indexing to iOS apps as well. This means users on both Android and iOS will be able to open mobile app content straight from Google Search.

App Indexing is Google’s effort to bridge the gap between mobile search results (where they make money) and native apps (where they don’t make money – unless the developer uses Google ads) by deep-linking web content to specific sections in apps. The technology has been available on Android for a while, and it’s rolling out with a “limited released” to initial partners on iOS in the coming apps.

While I doubt that Google will ever be able to implement the install-continue experience with Google Play and search results found on Android, App Indexing on iOS is interesting. I wonder if the company will show demos of this at the I/O keynote tomorrow.

Permalink

Apple Updates WWDC App with Apple Watch Version, WWDC 2015 Schedule

With an update released today on the App Store, Apple has refreshed its WWDC app for iOS with the schedule for the upcoming WWDC 2015, improved audio playback, and an Apple Watch version.

The app (now at version 3.0 and sporting a purple icon), includes a preliminary list of scheduled events and sessions such as the opening keynote on Monday, June 8, at 10 AM and the Apple Design Awards, which this year will celebrate the excellence in Apple Watch apps in addition to iOS and Mac software.

On Apple Watch, the WWDC app will let you browse sessions, labs, and favorites, with the ability to view events and access information right from your wrist.

The updated WWDC app is available on the App Store. WWDC 2015 is kicking off on June 8 and runs through June 12; as usual, Apple is expected to unveil the next major versions of iOS and OS X at its annual developers conference.