Jason Snell On The iPad Air As A Work Device→

From Jason Snell’s review of the iPad Air:

But make no mistake, we’re still in the early days, and if you rely on a certain kind of workflow that the iPad just can’t perform, then it can’t be your main system. As a writer, I’m set on the iPad (though I would lean on a Bluetooth keyboard for day-to-day use). As someone who edits a podcast every week, I’m on the fence. There are a few multitrack audio editors out there for the iPad, but how long would it take me to use my fingers to edit a podcast compared to the speed I’ve got using Logic Pro X on my MacBook Air? When my fingers and an iPad can do the job as well as a keyboard, trackpad, and Mac, then I can make the switch.

But if the iPad Air isn’t suitable as a work device, it won’t be because of its lack of computing power. It’ll be because the software just isn’t there yet, or because fundamentally a tablet and touch interface aren’t appropriate for that kind of job. Steve Jobs famously once likened iOS devices to cars and PCs to trucks. Note that he said trucks, not horse-drawn carriages: Some jobs still require trucks. But the iPad Air makes it clear that it’s a car, and a powerful one at that.

My hope is that, following the new foundation of iOS 7, next year’s iOS 8 will include serious improvements for people who use the iPad as a work device (both in terms of user features and developer APIs).

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Pixelmator 3.0 FX [Sponsor]→

Our thanks to Pixelmator for sponsoring MacStories this week.

Pixelmator is a full-featured image editing app for OS X that takes advantage of Apple’s latest technologies to make image editing twice as fast and fully compatible with Mavericks. Version 3.0 brings numerous improvements to Pixelmator, such as Layer Styles (to quickly apply non-destructive changes to individual layers) and Liquify Tools (to shape images in multiple ways).

Built exclusively for the Mac, Pixelmator 3.0 integrates with Mavericks features like App Nap and Compressed Memory to make the app consume less resource and be faster overall. Other existing OS X integrations, such as Retina display and full-screen support, are even more impressive on Mavericks and Apple’s latest line-up of MacBook Pros.

Pixelmator 3.0 FX is a free update for owners of Pixelmator 2.0, and it’s available at $29.99 on the Mac App Store. A free 30-day trial is available here.

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Evernote’s New Web Clipper for Safari

Bake in Clearly, integrate Skitch, toss in the clipper from Evernote’s helper, then add sharing, and you end up with Evernote’s new Web Clipper for Safari. Once a pop-up that simply copied the full page or URL, the new Web Clipper condenses page grabs and annotation tools into a simple sidebar, adding almost all of the base features you’d find in Skitch, a standalone screenshot, image, and PDF markup and sharing application for desktops and mobile devices.

The new Web Clipper is activated by clicking on the toolbar button, which slides out a sidebar that’s reminiscent of the formatting bar found in iWork’s updated apps for OS X Mavericks. All of the actions are organized neatly into various sections for cropping the web page, drawing shapes, and sharing the results. Arrows, squares, and text can be dragged around, rotated, and resized using onscreen handles for annotating webpages. Clip tools give you a wide variety of options, including the ability to format the page into a readable article view as Clearly would before taking the final screen grab. Sharing gives you a URL that you can paste into a chat app or your favorite website, while also presenting options to share via Facebook, Twitter, or publicly via Evernote itself. There’s a couple kinks with the extension, mainly that it doesn’t like to be used with swipe back gestures or the back button while the sidebar is open, but otherwise the tools work just as Skitch lets you on a Mac.

Saving web pages into Evernote is a great way to remember a cool design, highlight an important note, or refer back to a piece of content for later reading, homework, and marketing research in an instantly searchable database. The extension is a complete revamp over the previous one, putting all of the tools that used to require two or three apps into a streamlined list of actions that doesn’t get in the way. Chrome received the new look a while ago, and hopefully the Firefox extension is next.

Learn more and grab the Safari extension here from Evernote.

 

Google Play Music Now Available on the App Store

Joining the wealth of music streaming services such as Rdio and Spotify, Google Play Music is now available to download on the App Store. Formally announced in March, Google Play Music All Access originally let subscribers stream a collection of two million songs from the web and to Android devices for $9.99 a month. Similar to iTunes Match, Google also lets users match up to 20,000 songs from local music libraries for free, but like Spotify lets users listen to local music alongside streaming content.

Google Play Music for iOS brings all of All Access’ features to the iPhone, including unlimited streaming, ad-free custom radio stations with unlimited skips based on songs or artists, recommendations, and curated playlists. For streaming to speakers, the iOS app will stream over AirPlay and Chromecast.

Download Google Play Music from the App Store for free. A $9.99 monthly subscription is required to enjoy the service, but you can stream the first month for free.

[via 9to5Mac, The Verge]

iBooks 3.2 Flattens the Pages With New iOS 7 Design

iBooks was one of the most obvious examples of an app that made sense in Apple’s pre-iOS 7 world, when metaphors for describing real world objects were king. You had a shelf full of books, highlighting that looked like it was drawn by hand, and page curl animations that mimicked the feeling of flipping through a real book. The app was warm and inviting, providing a sense that you were browsing the modern equivalent of an actual book.

Apple has been staggering a lot of updates post-iOS 7, focusing on core product suites like iWork and iLife, coming back to apps like Remote at later time. I figured an app like iBooks would need some preferential treatment, given its importance to Apple’s ecosystem, their focus on education, and the relevance of the iBooks Store in the digital age. It would have been perfect to have on hand during this September’s Keynote, but maybe it would have been too much to announce on stage at once.

iBooks 3.2 features a brand new design that follows in the footsteps of Newsstand, with gradient rows replacing wooden shelves, leaving covers to stand out on their own. While some might have deemed all of the previous textures distracting, it’s almost a shame to see all of the rich design in the app stripped away. It’s still largely the same app as before, but it’s just been reduced to generic iOS 7-isms we’re all familiar with by now: textual buttons, straightened lines, and outline icons.

What’s gone is the charm — the new iBooks is strictly all business. Highlighting no longer has that ink-on-paper look to it, nor does inserting a note resemble a sticky or Post-it note. The app has received an iOS 7 inspired reskin, but what’s Apple doing to really show off this design’s potential? Developers such as Tapbots are taking iOS 7 design much further with apps like Tweetbot 3.

There’s also an update for iTunes U which is similar in design, using the same design language to describe courses and content.

iBooks and iTunes U are free updates from the App Store. Download them directly via the links below:

 

Apple Releases iOS 7.0.4

 

iOS 7.0.4 is currently propagating and should be available for download soon through Software Update. It includes bug fixes, various improvements, and fixes an issue with FaceTime calls.

The new update comes nearly a month after iOS 7.0.3, which was released on October 22nd and included iCloud Keychain, improvements to Spotlight, and changes to the Reduce Motion setting in Accessibility. iOS 7.0.4 is the third public update to iOS 7, which launched for all iOS devices on September 18.

Anatomy of a Product Video→

This is part ten, the final in a series detailing the process of making a product marketing video for my app, Fin. I hope to inspire others to try and make these kinds of videos for their own products, as I think they are pretty essential for selling apps to customers. We may not all have the budget to hire a pro team to make super-awesome videos for us, but we can make something worthwhile if we put in some time and effort, and a little bit of cash.

Joe Cieplinski has published a series on creating a professional-looking promo videos for apps. Today, he concluded the series with Part 10, which includes all links to previous entries.

Joe’s articles contain a lot of useful tips to create a videos using Apple tools like Motion and Final Cut Pro X. You can watch the video he made for his new app, Fin, here.

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David Sparks’ Email Field Guide→

David Sparks has published his fourth Field Guide:

There are over 300 pages and nearly 1.5 hours of video screencasts and 200 screenshots as I walk you through. I’ve also included several audio interviews with friends including Serenity Caldwell, Rob Corddry, Merlin Mann, Fraser Speirs, Jeff Taekman, Aisha Tyler, David Wain, and Gabe Weatherhead, that provide even more perspective on the best ways to tackle email.

The book features a new craftsman-style design and is illustrated by Mike Rohde. In a lot of ways, this book feels like the culmination of everything I’ve learned along the way. I’m really proud of this book and I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed creating it. It is available in the iBooks Store and PDF for $9.99.

I own every Field Guide, and David’s work has been a huge inspiraton for my Editorial book. I’m downloading the (1.1 GB) Email Field Guide as soon as I get my Internet back.

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The Prompt: The Barter System→

Joined by Matthew Alexander, Stephen and Myke wade through a mountain of follow-up, discuss the iPad mini with Retina display, Netflix, fitness trackers and the means of payment used in Tennessee, Hawaii and parts of Europe.

I couldn’t join Myke and Stephen this week due to ongoing issues with my ISP. Get the episode here.

Brought to you by two great sponsors:

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