Posts in Linked

How To Wrangle Outlook 2011 To Work With Gmail - May 2013 Update→

I wrote MacStories’ tutorial on how to integrate Gmail with Outlook for Mac 2011 back in 2010. There’s been quite a few updates since then, and Microsoft has fixed many of the issues I mentioned in the original guide. Too, Gmail itself has been visually updated to reflect Google’s latest design trends. Even the screenshots were dated.

Instead of producing a separate article, I thought it would be best to keep the same URL so that people revisiting the tutorial would immediately see what’s new. Most of it has been completely rewritten and updated with the latest information on how to get the most out of Outlook with your Gmail account. I’ve substantially streamlined the article, cutting out filler such as the introduction and extended outro.

The new how-to is divided into two major sections, one of which is completely optional. You can read the updated guide by clicking the link below.

How To Wrangle Outlook 2011 To Work With Gmail

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How to Know When Apple Finally Gets iCloud Right→

Gus Mueller:

But how are we going to know Apple has finally fixed iCloud syncing for developers and is really serious this time? And I’m not just talking about Core Data syncing, I’m also talking about the APIs developers are given to push document data back and forth. The broken stuff, the things developers laugh at Apple about and have given up on.

Here’s my short and inconclusive list of things that will let us know iCloud might be ready for real world developer use.

Gus has been trying to work with iCloud for VoodooPad since 2011. Some of the features he proposes have been requested by developers for over a year now.

I don’t think that “the Dropbox way” is a panacea for Apple’s syncing woes with third-party apps, but I do believe developers should get new tools, improvements, and fixes for iCloud.

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CriticMarkup in Marked 1.4→

Brett Terpstra:

The initial release of CriticMarkup included a preprocessor for Marked 1.5+, but given the uncertain release date of the next incarnation of Marked, I wanted to make it work with the standard custom processor feature of Marked 1.4. A few adjustments to the existing script and one dependency later it’s good to go.

I use CriticMarkup whenever I need to track changes in a MultiMarkdown document. I launch Marked (from Sublime Text 2) on a daily basis to preview my articles and generate HTML, so it’s good to know the two systems can work together now.

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Pebble Adds Two-Way Communication API for Watchapps to PebbleKit→

For both Android and iOS, Pebble developers can now add two-way communication to their applications for their watchapps through Pebble’s SDK, PebbleKit. The AppMessage API enables Pebble watches to send and receive data from smartphone apps for remotely controlling internet connected devices, receiving scores from your favorite sports teams, and checking in with apps like Foursquare or Facebook. iOS developers utilizing two-way communication, however, will need to have their apps whitelisted through Pebble as a part of the Made For iPhone program. In the future, Pebble plans on making that part of the process easier for iOS devs.

You can find all the details about Pebble’s developer updates, latest firmware, and new watch colors on Kickstarter.

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Pixelmator 2.2 Tops 500,000 Downloads In First Week→

Impressive results from the Pixelmator team:

Pixelmator 2.2 downloads have surpassed the previous record downloads and topped half a million making it the most successful release in our history,” said Saulius Dailide of the Pixelmator Team. “Also, the customer response to Pixelmator 2.2 is absolutely incredible. We’ve been overwhelmed by the 5-star reviews on the Mac App Store and the fantastic support we receive from our customers.

Pixelmator 2.2 came out last Thursday with over 100 new features. 500,000 unique Mac App Store downloads (trials are not included) beat the previous record of 250,000 downloads in two weeks.

Pixelmator isn’t new to Mac App Store records. In January 2011, three weeks after the Mac App Store launched, the Pixelmator team announced their app had grossed $1 million in 20 days.

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Google Play Game Services→

A few days ago, I remembered a story by TouchArcade from last year that explained how adding iCloud support to games was no easy task for most independent developers:

It’s also obvious to us that iCloud and the implementation of it needs to be easier, and the service itself needs to be more reliable. Almost every studio we talked to had some trepidations or a horror story to share. Browse our message board, and you’ll find even more from users receiving the bad end of an iCloud problem.

Today, Google announced Google Play Game Services, a set of APIs to enable cross-platform gaming features like saved game states, leaderboards with Google+ support, achievements, and automatic player matches with real-time multiplayer. There is a native SDK for iOS and Android, REST APIs and various libraries for the web.

WWDC ‘13 is less than a month away, and it’s safe to assume Apple will show new developer tools for iCloud and Game Center. It’ll be interesting to see if “Sign In with Google+” buttons will start showing up in iOS games in the next few months.

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Inside Hangouts→

Ellis Hamburger and Dieter Bohn have published an in-depth feature story on the newly launched Hangouts over at The Verge. Make sure to watch the video.

A detail that struck as a great feature was, surprisingly, related to Google+ and photos:

The service’s Google+ integration is one of the best features in the entire product: every photo that you or a friend posts is automatically saved in a private, shared album on Google+. For example, after a year of using Hangouts, it will be easy not just to trace the text conversations your budding relationship has produced, but to track the photos you’ve shared over time.

I have been using iMessage with the MacStories team since the service first launched; it used to be the only communication tool we relied upon to stay in touch. We have shared thousands of screenshots and photos in a group thread, but Messages makes it nearly impossible to browse old attachments. You can retrieve attachments through the OS X Finder, but the process is cumbersome at best. Having Google automatically archive Hangouts photos and organize them in a private album shared with my coworkers sounds obvious and, for someone who relies on a group chat on a daily basis, incredibly useful. This would be a great addition to iCloud and Photo Stream with iOS 7.

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