Posts in Linked

Connected, Episode 110: Swimsuits and Sunglasses for Dogs→

This week Federico struggles to use the new W1-enabled Beats with his new iPhone 7, Myke shares some thoughts on Snapchat Spectacles, and Stephen is away so the europeans join Snapchat on-air.

On this week’s Connected, I share some initial impressions on the iPhone 7 and explain why I want to understand Snapchat. You can listen here.

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Spotify Introduces Daily Mix

At WWDC in June, Apple announced ‘Discovery Mix,’ a playlist of Apple Music songs based on your musical taste, similar in name and substance to Spotify’s Discover Weekly playlist. When iOS 10 launched, the name of Apple’s music discovery playlist had changed to My New Music Mix and was joined by a second playlist that wasn’t discussed at WWDC – My Favorites Mix. Both Apple Music playlists are updated weekly.

Spotify didn’t have a favorites mix of its own until today when it responded with Daily Mix, a daily playlist featuring tracks that users mark as favorites as well as new music. According to Spotify:

As your music taste evolves, so will your Daily Mix. In fact, the more you listen, the better your Mixes will become – offering an effortless music experience based entirely on your personal listening habits. Don’t like that new discovery? Simply “ban” a tune to remove it from future playlists. If you love it, be sure to “heart” the hit to add it to your collection.

Spotify’s Daily Mix adds some nice touches that differentiate it from Apple Music’s My Favorites Mix. I like the idea of a more frequently updated daily mix, but I wonder whether adding new music to the mix makes sense in this context. One of the benefits of a favorites mix is knowing you will like everything played. Adding new music potentially undermines that.

Daily Mix is currently available on iOS (in the latest update to the iOS app) and Android only. Spotify says other platforms will be added soon.

Plex Cloud: Unlimited Media Storage in Amazon Drive→

Plex yesterday announced a new Plex Cloud service:

Run your always-on Plex Media Server in the cloud without the need for an always-on PC or network-attached storage device (NAS). With Plex Cloud, you’ll be ready to go in 60 seconds or less, easily streaming and accessing your media remotely on all your Plex enabled devices. Too easy!

Plex Cloud is invite-only for now, and priority is being given to Plex Pass subscribers. The cost of Plex Cloud is $60/year in the US, and that gives you unlimited storage in Amazon Drive for your media. This is a great new initiative from Plex, and it seems like a fantastic deal – even if you just use it as a backup of your local copy of your media.

If you’re interested in learning more, the Plex Blog has even more details on Plex Cloud.

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How Apple Music’s Algorithmically Personalized Playlists Work→

Reggie Ugwu, in a BuzzFeed feature story on the second act of Apple Music, got some details on the new ‘My Favorites Mix’ and ‘My New Music Mix’ playlists introduced with iOS 10:

Revealing how the mixes operate for the first time to BuzzFeed News, Apple claimed a potential advantage over similar algorithmically personalized playlists, including Spotify’s Discover Weekly and Pandora’s Thumbprint Radio: deep historical knowledge of individual users’ tastes and habits, based on years of data carried over from iTunes.

If you gave high ratings to a song or album in your old iTunes library, or just played it a lot more than others, you’ll find that behavior reflected in your My Favorites Mix. Meanwhile, the My New Music Mix algorithm serves recently released songs — as well as songs that Apple Music knows you haven’t played before — that the service’s music experts have flagged as similar to others in your taste profile. Apple Music executives suggested even more personalized playlists will follow in the series; but only after prototypes have been vetted, with all possible outcomes — intentional and otherwise — given careful consideration.

This explains why the ‘My Favorites Mix’ playlists have (anecdotally) been spot-on for people I talked to. As I previously noted, back-catalogue songs from artists you’re not familiar with (essentially, Discover Weekly) would be a good addition to Apple Music’s mixes.

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Sonos Speakers Are Coming to the Apple Store→

Sonos PR:

We’re very excited to announce today that we’re making it easier than ever by expanding our collaboration with Apple and bringing Sonos into Apple’s physical and online retail stores. Two of our most popular speakers — the PLAY:1 and PLAY:5 — will be available later today at Apple.com in the USA, at 468 Apple Stores around the world starting October 5, and Apple.com in the coming weeks in most markets outside of the USA.

Better still, those who buy a Sonos system at Apple retail stores or at Apple.com between today and December 31 will receive a free three-month Apple Music Gift Card.

And:

This is a big deal — both for our companies, and for music lovers around the world who can now experience Sonos and Apple Music like never before. We know the best way to discover Sonos is by experiencing it first hand, which shoppers in more than 140 Apple Stores will be able to do with a hands-on Sonos and Apple Music demo featuring a guided Sonos app experience on the iPad Pro.

This makes sense given the popularity of Sonos, the problem it solves (it is, effectively, an ecosystem for audio), and its integration with Apple Music. I’m a Sonos customer, and their products fill a specific niche: good-looking speakers for the home with great audio quality and none of Bluetooth’s annoyances. Does that seem familiar?

On the other hand, a closer partnership also gives Apple a way to study and learn how and why people buy Sonos devices. If I were a company playing around with the idea of releasing a smart speaker, studying Sonos’ line is something I’d consider. I’m curious to try their hands-on demo with the iPad Pro.

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Google Allo Is Available→

Allo, the messaging app that Google announced in May, has been released for iOS and Android. Dieter Bohn at The Verge has this to say about Allo:

I’ve been using it for a few days now, and it’s fine. Totally, completely fine. It does the things you expect from a messaging app…. If for some reason you abhor the dozen or so widely-used chat apps out there today, maybe Allo will appeal to you (assuming you can also get your friends to use it).

But to succeed, Google needs much more than fine. It needs something special. It needs something to make users switch away from those other apps (and to redeem itself after the slow, sad slide of Google Hangouts).

Google’s attempt at ‘something special’ is Google Assistant, a bot that can pull information from your calendar, email, the web and other sources. The feature is handy, but I agree with Bohn that it’s not enough if you are already invested in another messaging service.

What you can do with Google Assistant depends on where you use it. In one-on-one conversations with the bot, you can receive personal information like upcoming flight information or calendar appointments along with things like the weather, driving directions, and sports scores. Google Assistant can also be called upon in conversations with another person to do web searches and retrieve other data, but it will not share personal information in this context. For example, when Federico and I briefly tried Allo this morning, he couldn’t use Google Assistant to share a calendar appointment with me.

There are other limitations that iOS users should keep in mind. Allo does not work with the iPad, except in iPhone compatibility mode. Even then, when I sent a message to Federico on my iPad and then switched to my iPhone, I could no longer use my iPad with Allo and the message I sent from my iPad didn’t show up in the conversation on my iPhone. In addition, the notifications you receive on the iPhone are not the rich iOS 10 notifications many apps have already adopted. Nor is there a desktop native app or web client, which further limits Allo’s utility.

Allo also reflects the difference in approaches to privacy taken by Google and Apple. Whereas iMessages are encrypted end-to-end, Allo’s messages are unencrypted and stored on Google’s servers, unless you delete them or use Incognito Mode to send them. That’s because Google Assistant learns from your past messages to do things like suggest personalized canned responses to messages you receive.

It’s hard to get excited about any messaging service that is iPhone only. If you have friends and family that use Android devices though, Allo may be a good way to communicate with them and enjoy some of kinds of media-rich features offered by other services. Google Assistant is also off to a solid start and something I would like to see it incorporated in other Google products or as a stand-alone app.

For a comprehensive rundown of Allo’s features, check out Dieter Bohn’s review on The Verge.

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Tweetbot Updated with Support for Longer Tweets→

When Twitter rolled out support for longer tweets yesterday, we mentioned that Tweetbot – the popular third-party client – would soon support the new format natively. Tapbots has released updates to the iOS and macOS apps today that let you view and create longer tweets (where media, polls, and quotes don’t count against 140 characters) without having to rely on Twitter’s official app. You can get the iOS update here.

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Sketch Updated with Improved Vector Editing→

Bohemian Coding, the maker of Sketch, the popular vector design program, announced a significant update to the app today. Sketch 40, simplifies and improves the editing of complex vector shapes:

In Sketch 40, you can now simply press the Enter key on [a complex shape with multiple subpaths and points] to reveal all the points and paths contained within it, no matter how many layers are there. With multiple points selected, across different layers, you can adjust them at once without the need to select each layer individually.

Bohemian Coding also improved existing text transformation features, which are contained behind an Options button in the Inspector, by making them non-destructive. Complete release notes describing other enhancements and bug fixes in Sketch 40 are available here.

Sketch, which moved to an annual license model for upgrades in June, is $99 and available on Bohemian Coding’s website.

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Google Photos Introduces Movie Concepts→

In addition to improvements for sharing between users, Google has announced a new feature for Google Photos dubbed ‘movie concepts’. Automatically generated like the service’s previous slideshows and Assistant creations, movie concepts are based on “creative concepts” – themes found in your photos that go beyond recent uploads.

As Google writes:

We’re also upping our game when it comes to automatic creations. Google Photos has always made movies for you using your recently uploaded photos. Now we’re going further, with new movies that are based on creative concepts — the kinds of movies you might make yourself, if you just had the time. And they’re not only limited to your most recent uploads.

And:

Look out for a concept to commemorate the good times from this summer, and another one for formal events like weddings. And you don’t need to do a thing — these movies get made automatically for you.

Here’s an example of a concept created by Google Photos:

Casey Newton, writing for The Verge, has more details:

Tim Novikoff, who joined Google last year when it acquired his video-editing company, Fly Labs, said the feature takes advantage of Google’s advancements in deep learning and computer vision. The idea, he said, was “let’s leverage this to make movies that are emotionally powerful — that make your really smile, or even make you cry and reminisce and show your family.”

More concept movies are planned. “You can imagine where this goes,” Novikoff said. “Christmas, Halloween, Thanksgiving, Little League highlights, dance recitals. All the things that people do, we can make special movies around them.”

The new feature comes less than a week after the launch of iOS 10, which includes Memories – a feature of Apple’s Photos app that creates personalized movies based on location, dates, and people recognized in your photo library. From Google’s description and Novikoff’s comments, it sounds like movie concepts will be more advanced than iOS’ automated creations, but we’ll have to test them in practice and see if the promise holds up. I’m curious to compare Apple’s Memories to Google Photos’ concepts.

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