In addition to iOS 9.1, Apple has also released OS X 10.11.1 and watchOS 2.0.1 today. On both updates, there are a bunch of performance improvements and new emoji characters are supported. On watchOS, there are some welcome fixes: Apple has revolved a problem that prevented software updates from completing successfully, and it has fixed various issues that were impacting battery life.
Both software updates are available now for over-the-air installations.
Speaking of 3D Touch, Victor Baro has put together some examples of how the technology can be used to build custom controls on iOS 9:
Since I discovered 3D Touch, I have been thinking about new ways of interacting with the content. Peek & pop is a great interaction; but what I really want is to create my own controls.
We need to take into account that, because 3D touch is only available in iPhone 6S and 6S Plus, no action should be completed just by using this feature. The user should be able to achieve any action without using 3D touch (just like peek & pop does), and 3D touch should only provide an extra level of interaction.
It’s a technical read, but make sure to check out the demo videos. As 3D Touch trickles down to Apple’s entire lineup over the coming years, it seems obvious that these new types of interactions will become the new default.
Nice demo by Lim Chee Aun, showing how you can use 3D Touch on the web in a simple drawing app:
This is a demo for 3D Touch on Mobile Safari on iPhone 6S and 6S Plus. It’s a simple line drawing app which you can use the force of the finger to control the width of the drawn line.
Mobile Safari on iOS 9 for iPhone 6S and 6S Plus introduces 3D Touch for web developers. The line drawing code is heavily inspired by (or copied from) @kangax’s 2013 article: Exploring canvas drawing techniques.
Make sure to apply different levels of pressure to get thicker lines. You can play around with the demo here.
Good explanation of how new emoji are approved and made available to modern devices by Jonah Bromwich at The New York Times:
In deciding which emojis to add, the Unicode Consortium considers factors including compatibility (if a pictorial symbol in broad use has not been translated into Unicode), and frequency of use (whether people will be interested in using a certain picture often enough to justify its existence).
Another factor is “completeness.” For instance, at one point, the group added a mosque, a synagogue and a generic place of worship to complement the Christian church symbol that was already included.
Side note: The New York Times pluralizes emoji as “emojis”, but I use “emoji” for both singular and plural variations. That seems to be Apple’s preference, too.
Mashable’s Christina Warren sat down with Jony Ive, Vogue’s Anna Wintour, and Costume Institute Curator Andrew Bolton earlier this week to discuss fashion in the age of technology, Apple Watch, and more. From the interview:
Ive made an interesting observation about form and function. “What I’ve noticed is if something works but emotionally you don’t feel a connection — it’s ugly — you’ll use it, but you’ll use it begrudgingly and you’ll change at the first opportunity and you’ll build no relationship with the brand or the people behind it. And so you really have to be successful in both.”
Last week, Apple announced they will sponsor the 2016 ‘Fashion in an Age of Technology’ Met Gala.
This week, Stephen and Federico talk about iWork, Notes and HomeKit before being greeted by Federico’s plumber.
On this week’s Connected, Myke is away so Stephen and I replaced him with Bla Bla Car’s mascot and took our time to discuss HomeKit and our experience with HomeKit accessories so far. I like how it turned out and I think it makes for a good HomeKit primer. You can listen here.
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Craig Grannell has written about a topic that is very dear to me – app preservation in the age of the App Store. Specifically, he wonders what happens to an app when its developer passes away:
Recently, I was asked by a games mag you’ve probably all heard of to write about Apple TV and gaming, largely from a development standpoint. As ever under such circumstances, I went through my list of email and Twitter contacts, seeing this as a good opportunity to offer some exposure to indie developers whose work I’ve enjoyed over the years. One response came back very quickly, albeit from a name I didn’t quite recognise. The message was in fact from a developer’s wife; the person I was trying to get in touch with had died the previous week.
The developer in question was Stewart Hogarth, who’d lost his battle with congenital heart disease; he was just 34. We’d only been in touch a few times, but I’d been captivated a couple of years ago by his truly excellent 8-bit tribute I Am Level for iOS and Android. This was a smart, charming, entertaining title that married eye-searing Spectrum-style graphics, old-school single-screen platforming challenges, and modern mobile tilt-based controls. It was still installed on all of my devices, and it was strange and very sad to think that the person who created it was no longer with us.
I know that this topic is uncomfortable to discuss, but it’s an important one. If we want to treat apps as cultural artifacts more than ephemeral utilities – at least some of them – we need to talk about ways to preserve them.
I genuinely believe that, years from now, apps and games will be studied as interesting data points and references for our society, behaviors, and sociological traits. Today, quite paradoxically, in many cases it’s actually easier to preserve physical media than digital app store (lowercase, as it applies to every company) content and developers’ back catalogues. Servers that eventually disappear, expired contracts, apps that are no longer supported on the latest OS – it doesn’t make much sense to me that the rules and limitations of software make it harder to preserve apps than something which physically decays.
I continue to believe that app preservation is a topic worth discussing, and Craig is touching on an important aspect of it.
Teddy Svoronos on changes to Keynote for iOS 9:
When using Split View, only the “main” app can use features like the microphone, camera, and, most relevant to this post, video out. This means that if you’re using Keynote as your main app while Airplaying or using a dongle to project your iPad onto an external screen, only the Keynote presentation will be visible to your audience. This means you’re free to keep OmniOutliner (pictured), Notes, or any other Split View-enabled app on the side of your screen while presenting. As someone who prefers to have my full outline available to me rather than slide-specific Presenter Notes, this is huge.
That does sound like a welcome improvement indeed. A month in, it’s clear that the biggest advantage of iOS 9 for iPad is the increased cooperation between apps. The updated iWork suite is a good example of this.
This week Federico and Myke discuss the Nintendo NX dev kit rumours, Wii U emulators, some changes to YouTube Gaming, and more.
On this week’s Virtual, we cover the latest Nintendo NX rumors and how a hybrid console could exist in today’s mobile landscape. You can listen here.
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