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Popular iOS notes app Bear adds sketching (and stickers)
Bear, a fast, lightweight and lovely note-taking app for iOS and the Mac, has been building a following over the past year or so. The app's excellent design, small but essential feature set and steady stream of updates have made it worth its subscription cost ($14.99 per year or $1.49 per month, though you can get most of its features for free). Today, a pretty major update is rolling out to the iOS app: Bear now supports sketching. In keeping with Bear's focus on essentials, the sketching feature includes two different brushes, each with three different widths and a variety of colors.
All of Todoist's Apple apps are getting an update today
To-do and reminder apps are a dime a dozen in the iOS App Store, but only a handful have stood the test of time. Wunderlist, Any.Do, Omnifocus and Todoist are probably the best options out there, and what you end up going with probably depends on your own particular workflow. If you're heavily invested in Apple's ecosystem, today might be the day to re-evaluate Todoist: the company just announced updates for its apps across the Mac, iPhone, iPad and Apple Watch. It's also introducing a new browser plugin for Safari. I've had a chance to use the apps on my iPhone, Mac and Apple Watch over the last week or so, and while they don't change the core Todoist experience in any major way, it's a solid set of refinements to a mature and powerful app.
TweetDeck for Mac finally gets features the web version already has
Over the past few months, Twitter has added a load of useful features to TweetDeck on the web, leaving the desktop app to age. Well, the Mac version of the 140-character social network software is finally getting some of those tools. With an update today, TweetDeck for Mac handles the newfangled shared account option for groups and allows for DMs (and using them to share tweets) with more than one person. You can also add up to four images per tweet and both GIFs and video footage plays in-line from any column. All of these features have been live on the web already, but it's nice to see the folks at Twitter giving some overdue attention to the desktop software. If you haven't already been alerted to the new version, nab it from the Mac App Store right here.
Tumblr's new desktop app is all Tumblr, all the time
Sometimes you just want to craft your Tumblr posts and browse the latest updates without being distracted by the rest of the internet. For those occasions, the blogging outfit released a desktop app for Mac that does two things and two things only. First, as we've already mentioned, it only shows you Tumblr content and nothing else. It'll also let you post from anywhere on your Mac -- so long as that place has the trusty OS X Share button available. If you haven't yet updated to Yosemite, you'll need to do so as the new app only works with Apple's latest version. Of course, you could just visit the website via your browser of choice, unless you're posting eleventy billion times a day.
TweetBot for Mac reaches the Mac App Store, keeps the 3rd-party Twitter client flame alive
When Twitter put out its strict new API guidelines, there was some doubt as to whether or not third-party clients like Tapbots' Tweetbot for Mac would even make the cut -- the user caps and other curbs on unofficial apps potentially made it tough to develop competition around a different (and possibly better) experience. That makes today's official appearance of Tweetbot in the Mac App Store as much symbolic as it is practical. While there won't be many significant shocks for those who've been participating in Tweetbot's alpha and beta stages, the finished version gives everyone running OS X Mountain Lion a major and sometimes more advanced alternative to official choices, such as TweetDeck, as well as existing third-party options like Twitterrific. A $20 price doesn't make Tweetbot the cheapest way to buck convention by any means, but it might be worth the investment if you're already committed to Tapbots' iOS apps or want to make a statement on the value of third parties in an ecosystem.
Apple iBooks 2 textbooks video walkthrough and screenshots (hands-on)
We had a few minutes to browse through iBooks 2 textbooks following Apple's press conference this morning, but now we have a fully-loaded iPad 2 to play with, so we decided to spend some more time getting educated in the comfort of our in-house studio. You already had a chance to get familiar with the new app and associated media earlier today, so this time it's all about the visuals. Browse through the galley below as we explore Life on Earth before taking a front seat in Biology and getting our hands dirty with Frog Dissection. And if you're feeling brave, there's a juicy video walkthrough just past the break.
Apple launches iBooks 2 e-Textbook platform (video)
We're here at Apple's education-flavored event at the Guggenheim museum in New York City. Phil Schiller has just taken to the stage and announced the first half of Apple's platform that's going to "reinvent the textbook:" iBooks 2. Saying that there were 1.5 million iPads currently in use in Education (using 20,000 specific apps), the revamped book-stand now includes education-specific features to help the budding students of the world. You'll be able to paw through content, stopping to flick through detailed 3D animated models of elements within, access video and definitions without leaving the page. VP of Productivity Applications, Roger Rosner said that "Clearly, no printed book can compete with this:" given the constantly-updated data available, that's kinda obvious. Still, you'll be able to read in a text-heavy portrait or picture-biased landscape mode and there's also the option to have random pop-quizzes appear to keep you on your toes. Annotations is an integral part of the system: you can add stickies to individual pages and aggregate them into virtual 3 x 5-inch note-cards for revision during finals. You'll also get the same purchase, download and re-download rights you enjoy in the company's other stores. The company's partnered (initially) with textbook makers Pearson, McGraw Hill and Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, as the trio are responsible for 90 percent of all textbooks sold -- as well as DK and the E.O. Wilson Foundation. Phil was gushing, saying that he couldn't "overemphasize the importance of these partners working with us." Pearson's High School Science, Biology, DK's Dinosaurs and Prehistoric Life, Natural History Insects, Animals and My First ABC as well as the first two chapters of E.O. Wilson's Life on Earth will be available at launch -- the latter is free. You'll be able to download iBooks 2 from the app store free of charge, whilst textbooks themselves will cost $14.99 or less : a far cry from the $80 dead-tree textbooks we shelled out for in college. Update: We've got a hands-on up live from the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York City!
Apple Mac Store breaks the 100 million download barrier
At just under a year old, Apple's Mac App Store is celebrating a fairly significant milestone, hitting the 100 million download mark, a fact the company celebrated with a customarily self-congratulatory press release. The desktop store hit the scene in January of this year, just ahead of CES -- at present, it's home to "thousands" of apps, according to Apple. Granted, these numbers pale in comparison to the some 18 billion app downloads for Apple's other App Store, but still, not bad for a year's work. Press release after the break.
Dev Juice: Help me leverage Lion-only features
Dear Dev Juice, I'm part of a tiny company developing iOS apps. We're about to develop our first Mac OS X app. There are many cool new features in MAC OS X Lion and we'd like to take advantage of these. However, this would mean only people on Lion could use our app... Do you think most people have upgraded to Lion? Or do you think we'd be ignoring a lot of potential users still on Snow Leopard? Gareth Dear Gareth Lots of users have made the jump to Lion but lots more have not. Rather than jumping on the Lion bandwagon completely by providing a Lion-only application, consider conditional coding instead. Conditional coding allows you to offer certain features only to Lion users while ensuring the application remains both 10.6 and 10.7 ready. This solution allows you to build your application for the greatest number of users. Make sure you clarify in your marketing text that certain features are Lion-only so you don't tick off either Apple or your user base. Here are a few conditional coding hints. Check for properties using key/value coding. If valueForKey: returns nil, the property is not available in Snow Leopard. Check for classes using NSClassFromString(). Code around non-existent classes in Snow Leopard by disabling features or removing inappropriate options. Check for selector compliance using respondsToSelector:. When newer APIS are supported, objects will report that they respond to those selectors, letting you call them without crashing the program. You may generate compile-time warnings about unimplemented selectors unless you use work-arounds like performSelector:withObject:. If you really want to go hard core, you can build NSInvocation instances directly. Happy Developing!
Daily Mac App: BreakTime
Many of us spend hours seated before our computers, and that's not a good thing. A study conducted by the American Cancer Society linked extended periods of sitting with an increased risk of death. That's a nasty side-effect, my friends. BreakTime (regularly US$4.99, currently on sale for $2.99) by excited pixel prompts you to get up and move at regular intervals. Plus, it's unobtrusive and easy to use. Here's my look at BreakTime. This simple utility lives in your Dock or Finder menu bar (you choose) and ticks away your designated work period. When the session ends, it begins counting down your custom break period and then immediately begins the next work session. Here's how to set it up. Set it up The preference pane is quite simple (above). First, use the sliders to determine the length of work and break sessions. Work sessions can range from 60 seconds to 2 hours while breaks can run from 5 seconds to ten minutes. You can tweak these settings a bit. For example, enter "93" seconds into the work field or "18" minutes for a break. Just don't go nuts (my request for a 360 minute break was accepted). The Enforce Break feature is nice. It prevents you from switching out of BreakTime while a break session is active. No quick peeks at Twitter or Facebook. This is a break time, so back away from the Mac and go look out a window. Remember outside? There are four advanced features: show Dock icon, show menu item, play sounds and magic reschedule. Most of those are self-explanatory, but let me explain magic reschedule. If a work session expires and BreakTime does not detect any activity, it re-schedules the break time. In other words, it assumes you're already away from your desk doing something else. Pretty nice, though not flawless: you could be zoning out with your iPhone, iPad or who knows what. Use I've disabled the Dock icon (a restart is required) so that only the teeny, tiny menu bar icon remains. As soon as it launches, the work session countdown begins. You can click the menu bar icon at any time to see how much time is remaining, turn the timer on or off and access the app's preferences (see below). Once your work session is down to 10 seconds remaining, the countdown window appears. As it ends, your display's brightness dims and BreakTime's break window appears, counting down the break time (see below). If you've elected to enforce breaks, the "Done" button on the right will be disabled. If not, it's ready to receive your break-denying click. If you happen to be right in the middle of something that absolutely, positively cannot be abandoned (like the the last golden egg in Angry Birds), click the In A Minute button to delay the break period by one, five or 15 minutes. Note that the In A Minute button remains available even if you've elected to enforce breaks. BreakTime and Pomodoro Some of you know that I'm a huge fan of the Pomodoro Technique. In a nutshell, it teaches you to alternate work/break periods all day long. For example, you'll work for 25 minutes and then break for five. Repeat the process, taking a longer break (15 minutes) every five "pomodoros" (which is Italian for tomato). Pomodoro practitioners can easily use BreakTime as a Mac-based timer. Years ago, computers were primarily work machines. Today they're increasingly used for leisure activities, commandeering even more of our time. If I monitor my own behavior, I notice that I sit at my desk from 7:00 AM to about 3:00 PM daily, then take a four- or five-hour break and return around 8:00 PM for several more hours of sitting. This sedentary lifestyle isn't doing me any favors. Not only does work require me to park it, force of habit influences my behavior, too. "I"ll just check email," I think, or "Let's take a quick look at Twitter." I fully expect to live a slothful existence aboard the Axiom within a few years. Fortunately, BreakTime is here to intervene. It's a steal at 4.99 and a "no-brainer" as the kids say at three bucks. Do yourself a favor and let BreakTime nag you into motion.
HazeOver dims background windows to help you focus
Have you ever wished that you could fade out non-active windows in the background, leaving you to focus on the task at hand? HazeOver does just that in a simple and Mac-like fashion. A small utility that runs in the background, HazeOver dims any non-active windows automatically in a smooth ramp down to darkness. The amount of dimming is adjustable, from 10 to 80 percent, with an option to have a menu bar icon for quick access to settings. When you switch to a new window it is instantly thrust into the light, but when you switch away from it, HazeOver will fade it out smoothly into the background darkness. It's a really nice little utility that creates a very Mac-like effect and helps you focus on one window at a time. For US$0.99, HazeOver is worth a buck to add a little spice to your desktop and help you focus in on the task at hand. Hit the break to see HazeOver in action.
Chopper 2 for Mac controlled by iPhone
You've probably seen Chopper 2 here on TUAW before -- we originally covered the app's iPad-out-to-TV feature and then chatted with creator David Frampton back at WWDC last year. With the news of the Mac App Store coming soon, Frampton has decided to port the game over to the Mac, and since he already included a way to control the universal iPad app with an iPhone, he's decided to do the same thing for the Mac. On the next page, you can see a video demo of the app on the Mac being controlled by the iPhone version over Wi-Fi. It's very slick, and I don't think this will be the last connection we'll see between iOS apps and the Mac App Store. When developers are able to "control" versions of all three of their apps (iPhone, iPad and, eventually, the Mac), there are probably many more ways they can connect them up, from straight controls like this to regular syncing of information and other connections. I wouldn't be surprised if we even see Apple getting in on the action, both enabling this type of cross-platform compatibility in its own apps (controlling Keynote on the Mac from an iPhone, for example) and including helpful calls in the API to let developers do so themselves. But kudos to Frampton for his work on this one -- he tells TUAW that he wants to have the Mac app ready to go on launch day, so if you're a Chopper 2 fan, you'll be able to load it up and play right away.
