(RED) Mac Pro→

“Selected and customised” by Jony Ive and Marc Newson (the duo also behind the special edition Leica M camera).

From the description:

The new Mac Pro is the most powerful, yet radical Mac that Apple has ever designed. Architected around an innovative, unified thermal core, the new Mac Pro features dual workstation graphics cards, the latest Xeon processors, ultra-fast flash storage, and incredibly high performance I/O. A precisely machined and polished enclosure houses this advanced technology in an extraordinary design that stands just 9.9 inches tall and 6.6 inches in diameter. This one-of-a-kind model, made with red anodised aluminium, has been crafted exclusively for the (RED) Auction.

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Pixelmator 3→

On Tuesday, the Pixelmator Team released a significant update to their app that continues to make it faster while adding lots of new tools. Instead of rehashing the press releasing, I’ll direct you to their announcement instead.

The Pixelmator Team today announced Pixelmator 3.0 FX, the most advanced version of Pixelmator to date, featuring Layer Styles, Liquify Tools, and support for new features in OS X Mavericks, delivering blazing fast performance with its new, state-of-the-art image editing engine. Pixelmator 3.0 FX is available today as a free upgrade from the Mac App Store.

Between the Mac App Store and the colorful row of icons for iWork sits Pixelmator, which I consistently use for making quick touch ups to screen grabs and photos. I don’t have any real talent as an artist, nor do I understand the intricacies of all the tools, but it’s been indispensable for what I do on the site.

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“A Knowledge Generation Tool”→

Craig Hunter (via Daring Fireball):

I often see debates about whether the iPad is a “content-creation” or “content-consumption” device, but I think that’s a simplistic way to look at it, likely drummed up by folks with limited focus. The iPad, along with apps from thousands of developers and the ingenuity and creativity of customers, has become a knowledge generation tool across the spectrum. It’s being used out in the real world to obtain tangible results with a real impact on the way we live.

It’s funny that, after three years and with all the evidence we have, many of us are still asking why the iPad needs to exist. Normal people who don’t write on tech blogs have the answer.

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Better Camera Roll Integration in iPhoto for iOS 7

iPhoto 2.0

iPhoto 2.0

I’m playing around with the new iPhoto for iOS 7, and I’ve noticed an interesting change from last year: edits that you make in iPhoto are now synced back to the original photo in the iOS Camera Roll. To my knowledge, no other iOS app can overwrite the original file – apps like Instagram, Facebook, and even the original iPhoto (if you still have it installed) can only save edited photos as new files in the Camera Roll.

As I noted today on Twitter, this is a big change from last year’s iPhoto workflow. Here’s what I wrote in March 2012:

After a few minutes, which I spent playing around with the app’s UI and various editing functionalities, I stopped editing and went back to the main page, thinking that all my edits would automatically carry over to the system Camera Roll. My reasoning was: if iPhoto for iOS, unlike the Mac, can pick from a central location (the Camera Roll), then maybe edits will sync automatically as well. Not so fast. It turns out, the Camera Roll isn’t centralized at all, as every modification you’ll make in iPhoto will have to be exported to the Camera Roll as a new file. Even better, if you edit something in iPhoto in the Camera Roll “album”, then edit the same file in the system Camera Roll from Photos.app, iOS will fail at communicating changes between the two, and you’ll end up with two different files in the same Camera Roll like I did.

In the new iPhoto, Apple has changed the communication layer between the system Camera Roll and iPhoto to allow for a more direct integration between the two: once you choose a photo in iPhoto and make some edits to it (such as an effect), the edits are automatically saved to the original photo in the Camera Roll without having to manually export the edited photo or create duplicates like the original iPhoto did. This makes for a more streamlined workflow and experience, but it raises some questions, so I wanted to dig deeper. Read more

Tweetbot 3 Review: Human After All

Tweetbot 3 for iPhone

Tweetbot 3 for iPhone

Tweetbot is, by far, the iPhone app that I use the most on a daily basis. It’s not just that I keep Twitter open essentially all day to check for news, talk to friends, or post GIFs: since I got the first beta of the original Tweetbot three years ago, the app has become so ingrained in my workflow that I wouldn’t be able to switch back to any other client that doesn’t have the same capabilities. What started as a moderately advanced take on Twitter clients by Tapbots has evolved with time into a powerful app that spans three platforms and that comes with dozens of unique features and a solid engine that, for me, has no equal. I don’t say it lightly: because of Tweetbot’s feature set, I have been able to reliably communicate with other people (via DM or Mentions), reference tweets for articles, or build complex workflows that have allowed me to be more efficient, faster, and generally happier with Twitter.

That’s why I take major changes to Tweetbot’s overall structure and design, such as Tweetbot 3 for iOS 7, very seriously. Tweetbot 3, released today as a new app sold at $2.99 on the App Store (launch sale), is many things at once: it’s Tapbots’ first foray into the iOS 7 design aesthetic, which marks a radical departure from the small studio’s former visual style; it’s a profound reimagination of Tweetbot’s looks, animations, and sounds, which had gone largely unchanged since 2011; and it’s a confirmation of Tweetbot’s existing feature set with changes aimed at further enhancing the app’s functionality and making room for future additions. It’s iPhone-only, with a new version for iPad coming next.

I have been using Tweetbot 3 every day on my iPhone 5 for the past couple of months. I think that I have a good understanding of the decisions behind the app’s redesign, feature changes, and complete embrace of iOS 7’s visual and hierarchical approach to building interfaces. With version 3.0, Tweetbot, the robotic toy for your Twitter stream, eschews its mechanical roots and graduates to a modern, fluid, and fun assistant that, in the process, is still Tweetbot. I wouldn’t be able to go back to the old Tweetbot now, but I also think that getting used to the new app will take some time. Read more

Day One for Mac Gets Map View On Mavericks, Location Editor, Other Enhancements

Day One is probably the most powerful app I have on my Mac and iOS devices, and I don’t mean that from a technological or functional standpoint. Day One is based on a powerful idea: it’s a journal app that combines text, locations, photos, and weather data to let you remember what you’ve done in the past. Eschewing the limitations of pen and paper, Day One’s beautiful design and smart feature set make reading and seeing moments or your life a pleasant and potent experience.

I’m a big fan of Day One. Here’s how I described it earlier this year after a very important personal anniversary:

In the app’s Calendar view, I changed the year to “2012″ and, sure enough, the “August 1, 2012″ entry was there, showing photos of my hospital room; my girlfriend sending a selfie from home; and a note that I wrote about the doctors being “nice”. Bits of life. A combination of old thoughts and visual memories that I still have, in some form, in my brain, but that here, in this app — right now — I can hold and directly look at. It is, indeed, far more powerful than memory alone.

It sounds so trivial because we’re used to it. It’s diary app! Of course it lets you browse old entries in a calendar, and of course it’s got search, and of course it accepts photos as attachments, and, okay, the fact that you can see old weather information is neat — but yes, it’s because of the GPS. Common technology terms for yet another app. But does it have a URL scheme? We often lose track of the magic of software.

With Mavericks, Day One for Mac has been updated to version 1.9, which brings some notable new features and improvements to browsing the timeline. The first, Mavericks-only new feature is the Map View with location editor: thanks to the new MapKit offered to developers in Mavericks, Day One for Mac can now show you a zoomable map with blue indicators for every location where you’ve previously created a journal entry from. Read more

Name Mangler 3.3 Supports Mavericks Tags→

I use Name Mangler to rename the screenshots that I use for MacStories. Aside from the more complex image resizing and renaming workflow, Name Mangler is just great at picking up your active Finder selection and launching with a preset ready to rename multiple files at once with one click.

The latest update to Name Mangler adds support for Mavericks tags in the File metadata dropdown menu: if a file has a tag assigned, Name Mangler can use a tag’s name as a token in a renaming preset. I won’t use this for my screenshots, but I have some ideas for Hazel integration.

Name Mangler is $19 from Many Tricks’ website.

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Skitch for Mac Updated with Mavericks Compatibility, Redesigned Toolbar, New Icon

Following a major update for iOS that was released last month with a complete redesign and rewrite for annotations and sharing, Evernote updated Skitch for Mac today with a new icon, new branding, Mavericks fixes and a redesigned toolbar.

In a move that it’s in line with the company’s recent focus on Skitch as a standalone product and not an extension of Evernote apps, Skitch for Mac no longer launches with a login screen for users who don’t want to sync their image annotations to the service. Sync is still available, but all Evernote-related features have been grouped in a single area that doesn’t ask users to log into their accounts every time they launch the app. That alone was one of the biggest annoyances of the old Skitch for people who liked to keep it out of Evernote, and I’m glad it’s been improved.

In terms of using the app, Evernote has redesigned the toolbar to be more similar to the iOS counterpart in how it groups items and only shows more options when necessary. On the left side of the screen, you can click items as you’ve always done with Skitch, but now tools that have sub-menus for additional controls will navigate into a sub-view when clicked instead of showing a popup. This view can be pinned on screen to keep it visible by clicking the pin icon at the top, or you can click anywhere in the sidebar to go back to the main tool selection view. I’ve only been trying the new sidebar this morning, and it does seem to work better than the old UI for how I’m used to annotate images in Skitch (I either drag images onto the dock icon or use the menubar helper for crosshair snapshots).

The bottom section of the app has been redesigned as well. Zoom controls, file name, format, and “drag me” are more tightly integrated in a single toolbar, and I’ve noticed that you can click the filename to rename an image directly in Skitch before saving it to the Finder. Interestingly, file format options include both “PNG” and “Skitch PNG” – the only difference being that, in my tests, “Skitch PNG” set the Alpha Channel to “Yes” in the Finder’s image inspector.

I still miss the old app’s ability to snap webpages (I’ve been using Ember for that, and it’s a very nice app) but it’s good to see Evernote getting rid of cruft and polishing the design for users who don’t care about syncing their annotations to the main Evernote service. I don’t think that Skitch for Mac will ever be as simple as the new iOS version, and today’s update feels like a good one.

Skitch 2.7 is available on the Mac App Store.