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Writing On The iPad is a textbook for iOS automation
Writing On The iPad: Text Automation with Editorial by Federico Viticci is fantastic. If you have any interest in automation on iOS, this book is the key that will show you how to unlock the power of Editorial. Federico revealed that he has been using Editorial and his iPad to publish MacStories for the past eight months. He added that he now prefers writing in Editorial on his iPad rather than writing on his Mac. When I read that claim near the beginning of the book, I thought he might be guilty of a little casual hyperbole, but by the end of the book it seemed not only true, but also obvious and self-evident. Now, let's be clear: Editorial won't change everyone's world. Try mentioning "scripting" and "automation" to most people who want to write on their iPads and you will probably receive mostly blank stares. However, for those people who want to do scripting and automation, this your textbook. It is filled with examples outlining not only what you can do, but also giving useful suggestions on "best practices" and what to avoid when getting started. Peppered throughout the book are downloadable examples which can be imported into Editorial, as well as videos showing how these workflows are used in real-world scenarios. If all you did was flip through the book, read the examples and watch the videos, you would still come away amazed by what can be done on the iPad, especially considering how notoriously high Apple has built the walls around each iOS application. There are, of course, limitations, which the book addresses as well, but there is still plenty of room to roam inside those walls. Considering the Siracusian length of Federico's initial review of Editorial, you might think this book is merely a repackaging of the same material. It isn't. He has added "20 new workflows and 10,000 extra words" -- and those words are "how-to" instructions, moving quickly from one example to the next. In fact, I think my only complaint about the book is that Federico is so efficient in the demonstration videos that I had to watch them repeatedly to catch exactly what he was doing. The text which accompanies the videos explains what he is doing, but the lack of audio narration means that the reader has to split their attention between reading the words and watching the actions. That being said, it's a minor complaint and the videos are embedded in the book itself so it's easy enough to re-watch them. I highly recommend taking them full-screen to get all of the detail. The book weighs in at 161 pages and 227 MB, so make sure you are on WiFi before you try to download it. It is currently available for US$3 (listed as "50 percent off for a limited time"). Don't let the low price fool you; this is a quality reference book which could be favorably compared to the excellent Take Control and MacSparky Field Guides. Since it was made with iBooks Author, it is currently only available on the iPad. Then again, Editorial is also iPad-only, so that limitation won't really restrict its potential audience. The ability to read iBooks Author books on our iPhones is not here yet, but hopefully will be soon. If you're still not convinced, you can send yourself a free sample of the book right from within iTunes or the iBooks Store on your iPad.
Updates to 'Apple and Education' web pages spotlight OS X, iOS in schools
Apple's getting into the "Back to School" vibe with a new look and feel -- and content -- for the Apple and Education website pages. A "Real Stories" page provides video interviews with a number of educators from various grade levels on how they're using Macs and iPads to reinvent learning. There are also new pages that show how the many built-in accessibility features of both iOS and OS X are being used in special education. The Mac in Education pages also pay homage to the fact that the Mac has been used in classrooms since those first heady days back in 1984. [via MacStories]
Gmail for iOS updated with sign-out option, better iOS app integration
Gmail for iOS was updated today to version 2.2.7182, and folks who use the app to grab their Gmail-flavored email are going to be happy. First, there's now a way to sign out of individual accounts. In the past, signing out of one account was impossible -- you had to sign out of all of them at once. Now it's possible to tap and hold an account avatar in the app sidebar, which brings up a Sign Out button for that account. The second big feature in this update is that you can now specify whether a link to Google Maps, YouTube and other web links should open in Google's native apps (if they're installed) or a mobile web view. The options are enabled for the entire Gmail app, not just for individual accounts. If you prefer Chrome on iOS over Safari, you'll enjoy this feature (which can be turned off). Finally, the Gmail app now provides search suggestions as you type. The suggestions should provide results based on addresses or subject lines for any of your Gmail accounts. [via MacStories]
Developers chime in on six months of using iCloud in apps
It's been six months since Apple released iOS 5 and launched iCloud. During this time, iCloud has grown to over 85 million users and developers are integrating the cloud service into a variety of apps. To find out what developers think about Apple's push into the cloud, you should read this recent article from MacStories's Federico Viticci, who talked to several developers about their experiences programming for iCloud. Viticci says iCloud is "promising in the long-term benefits it aims to achieve," but the "adoption of iCloud sync and storage features has turned out to be a bit trickier, and possibly less intuitive than Apple's own implementation due to the early nature of the platform." Hopefully, these early wrinkles will be smoothed out and iCloud will continue to deliver on its promise to make data syncing between devices automatic, effortless, and seamless.
A visual representation of iPhone launches
Remember just about two weeks ago, when some naysayers were sure that the iPhone 4S wasn't going to sell because it wasn't a totally new design and wasn't that different from the iPhone 4? As you learned on TUAW this morning, Apple sold four million of the new phones over the weekend. Federico Vittici over at MacStories.net created a nice visual representation of just how successful the launch of the iPhone 4S really was. How good a weekend was it? The iPhone 4S sold more units during its launch -- four million -- than the previous device launches put together. Those kind of figures make me wonder if part of the "delay" in the launch of the iPhone 4S was due to Apple simply trying to manufacture enough of the devices to be able to meet demand for the first couple of months. If the number of Siri-related tweets over the weekend is any indication, Apple has a real winner on its hands with the iPhone 4S.
