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TUAW and MacTech interview: Fiberlink
Fiberlink makes a range of business management tools for devices (company iPhones and Macs and the like) and documents. In this video, Neil Ticktin (Editor-in-Chief, MacTech Magazine) interviews Jatin Malik of Fiberlink at WWDC 2012. Jatin was kind enough to share his thoughts on the announcements on WWDC, and how it will affect Fiberlink's plans moving forward.
Perkins Smart Brailler helps the blind learn to type, closes the digital divide
Most digital Braille devices are built on the assumption that the legally blind already know how to write in the format -- if they don't, they're often forced back to the analog world to learn. PDT and Perkins hope to address that longstanding technology gap with the Perkins Smart Brailler. Going digital lets Perkins build in lessons for newcomers as well as provide immediate audio feedback (visual for writers with borderline vision) and text-to-speech conversion to give even an old hand a boost. Logically, the leap into the modern world also allows transferring documents over USB along with traditional Braille printouts. Smart Braillers will cost a weighty $1,995 each when they first ship in September, but it's hard to put a price tag on mastering communication and fully joining the digital generation.
Apple shows off iCloud integration in Mountain Lion
Tim Cook is currently demoing iCloud's integration in Mountain Lion onstage at the WWDC Keynote in San Francisco. iCloud, Apple's cloud sync service, has been a big hit on iOS already, with 125 million iCloud users registered and using the service currently. On Mountain Lion, iCloud will come in the form of Document syncing, which Cook showed took only a few seconds to sync a document from his iPad to a MacBook Pro. Reminders, Messages, and Notes are all being synced across iCloud as well, and presumably will work just as smoothly as they work currently. Safari browsing history and bookmarks will also get synced, and even tab views can be synced between devices, so you can view tabs on your MacBook Pro, and then take those exact browser tabs over to your iPad or iPhone. It all looks great. We should hear an official date for Mountain Lion soon, perhaps even later on today.
Google Docs adds 450 fonts and 60 templates, sadly includes Comic Sans
Google Docs has lagged behind offline apps in the number of fonts and pre-made layouts to choose from, but that's just changed with a much larger catalog for both. More than 60 new templates and 450 fonts are now on tap to use in your presentations and reports. This comes on top of a handful of other recent improvements, such as Google Drive support, searching the Life Photo archive and boosts to accessibility and spreadsheet layouts. Apps Script gets both a Google Drive tie-in and new publishing control, too. Be forewarned: Comic Sans is one of the new font options, and it's clearly not an April Fools' gag.
Box releases new API, more OneCloud apps
Cloud filesharing service Box has released a brand new version of its API, allowing iOS and Mac developers to make even easier use of Box in their apps. There several new features in the update, including Instant Mode, which lets developers instantly create and use Box accounts on behalf of their users, smoothing the process for everyone. You can learn more about the API in the video below, and devs interested in using it can find more info on the official blog. Box has also announced fifteen new iPhone and iPad apps for its OneCloud program. OneCloud highlights apps that can pull files from Box's cloud, edit them, and then send them back, where they can be accessed from anywhere else. Among those apps are a device-to-printer solution called Breezy and a sales catalog app called Handshake. All of the apps added to OneCloud can be found in the full updated list inside the official Box iOS app.
Amazon introduces Send to Kindle for Mac
Amazon has released its Send to Kindle for the Mac, which allows users to drag-and-drop personal documents to an app that automatically sends them to their Kindle. It also adds the ability to use the print menu from any Mac application that has one to send a document to the Kindle. Users can also right-click on documents in Finder and select the "Send to Kindle" option from there. Selecting the option from either the print menu or Finder will launch the Send to Kindle app. Send to Kindle requires a Mac running OS X 10.6 or higher.
Apple shuttering iWork.com document sharing, hopes you'll embrace the iCloud
Cupertino would like to formally thank you for your interest in iWork.com, but before the summer's through, it's hoping you'll be stuck with your head firmly in the iCloud. Apple sent an email notice out this week, letting iWork.com users know that, as of July 31st, it'll no longer let users publish or share documents through the service. Moving ahead, the company's focused on making iCloud the document sharing iService of choice. For more information on how to tie up those iWork.com loose ends as the deadline draws near, click on the source link below.
Use iConvert to scan documents directly to your iPad
I saw quite a few document scanners for iOS devices at CES last week, but this is about as elegant as they come. Brookstone is offering a scanner called iConvert, which uses your iPad as the receptable for anything you scan with it. Not only does it scan your documents with a 300 dpi scanner, but it even does a very nifty graphical representation of the document showing up on the screen. The iConvert is US$50 cheaper than the popular Doxie Go at $149, but of course this scanner is specifically built for the iPad or iPad 2 and offers fewer features than other scanners. There are also a few apps out there (including Scanner Pro) that will let you use the iPad's camera to pull in documents without extra hardware. Those don't work nearly as well, though. If often bring drawings or forms into a digital format, you'll want something more reliable. The iConvert seems like a solid option, and the fact that it's completely based on the iPad means it should be simple to port around. Brookstone is offering it for purchase next month. [via Dvice]
Mac 101: Getting iWork files on your Mac onto iCloud
Here's another Mac 101 tip for novice Mac users. When I first heard about iCloud syncing iWork documents between Apple devices I became quite excited. Like many, I create iWork documents on my Mac and then access them on my iPad or iPhone on the move. Up until now, I've been using Dropbox to sync my files between my Mac and my iDevices. And though this works really well, the whole seamless, behind-the-scenes ease of iCloud really appeals to me. Since iCloud debuted alongside iOS 5, I've been really pleased with how well this works. That is, between my iPad, iPhone and accessing my docs through a web browser. However, where I've struggled to see the seamless beauty of iCloud is when syncing my iWork docs created on my Mac to the cloud. I thought I hadn't flipped a preference switch in Pages or in my iCloud settings, but after having a complete read through of Apple's description of what iCloud does when syncing iWork docs between your devices, I realized there is no automatic syncing of iWork docs between a Mac and iCloud -- iWork docs need to be saved to iCloud manually. To do this is not all that complicated. And while there are a few different ways, the simplest is as follows. Have your iCloud account open in a web browser. Click on iWork and then Pages (if you want to upload a Pages document, for example). With all your Pages docs visible, simply drag the Pages document from your Mac onto your web browser, where all your documents are. You will be asked if you'd like to upload the document to iCloud. That's it. While this is convenient, it's not as convenient as saving a document on your iPad and seeing it automatically appear on your iPhone. It's likely this kind of implementation will come to the Mac in the future, but for now I'm sticking with Dropbox.
Four websites that need iPad apps
The iPad is an amazing device for surfing the web. Its large screen and multitouch gestures make it feel like you're actually holding a web page in your hands. Web browsing on the iPad is going to get even better with the release of iOS 5. That's when Safari on iPad gains Reading List and Reader functionality and the all-important tabbed browsing. However, as good as the iPad is at handling web browsing, some websites would clearly benefit from a dedicated iPad app. When viewed on an iPad, these sites lack key features that they show off to full effect when used with desktop browsers. Other websites have a high amount of interactivity that may work on an iPad, but that interactivity doesn't translate well to a touch interface. I realize that any website could be made into an iPad app. Most websites, however, don't need them. Here at TUAW, for example, there's not much interactivity that goes on when you visit beyond clicking on articles and posting comments. Both of those things are handled easily on an iPad. The same goes for other mainly news-driven sites where the main feature is reading -- dedicated apps really aren't needed. For more complex interactions, an app is a big help. Here's my list of four websites that need an iPad app... and also one service (or group of iPad apps, really) that needs a website. 1. Facebook.com Facebook is the biggest offender among websites missing an iPad app. Why? Well, the site does have 750 million users. By the beginning of next year there will be 50 million iPads on the market -- and most of those iPad owners use Facebook. However, the site's traffic doesn't alone dictate the need for an iPad app. No, Facebook.com needs an iPad app because its web functionality is cumbersome when viewed through Safari on the iPad and some features are missing entirely. The biggest missing feature while viewing Facebook's website on the iPad is Chat. There's just no way to chat with all your Facebook friends through Facebook.com on the iPad. There's also no way to upload photos or video to your wall, as tapping on "Upload" won't access your Camera Roll or Photos libraries on your iPad. Furthermore, Facebook relies on a lot of pop-up windows that you need to scroll through. These windows normally appear when you click on "X number of people like this" links below a wall post. If the list of number of people who "like" that post is long, you have to scroll through it to see everyone on the list. This is doable on the iPad by using two-finger scrolling, but many iPad users don't know about multitouch scrolling of a window within a web page; this contributes to the overall poor user experience for Facebook.com on the iPad. Thankfully we know that Facebook is working on an iPad app, which looks to be both cool and very functional Now all we have to do is hope Facebook actually decides to release its iPad app to the public. Soon. 2. Mint.com I'm a Mint junkie. It's the perfect solution for keeping track of multiple financial accounts. What's more, after Intuit bought the company, fears of Mint getting fouled up turned out to be largely unfounded; the site has actually only gotten better. However, Mint.com needs an iPad app. Why? Primarily because Mint features a huge amount of user interactivity. Not only can you see a complete overview of your financial accounts on the website, you can edit transactions, set budgets, create goals, and view trends -- from a desktop browser, at least. None of those features work well (most, not at all) on Mint.com on the iPad. Mint fans have been waiting (mostly patiently) for an iPad app for some time. When I interviewed Mint's founder Aaron Patzer, he told me that the company was working on an iPad app. That was over 18 months ago. More recently Mint has asked its users to hold on a little longer as the developer teams are "busy developing an iPad app." The iPad app won't be a simple rework of the iPhone version, but it will be "a brand new experience." Let's hope so. 3. LinkedIn.com If you're looking for the Facebook equivalent for business relationships, it's LinkedIn. The site allows users to keep connected with their colleagues and business contacts; it's a great alternative to Facebook or other more casual 'friend' networks, especially when you don't want to risk your boss seeing those pictures of you in compromising situations. While LinkedIn.com is mostly functional through Safari on the iPad, the site offers a high amount of interactivity via searching for contacts or jobs, updating your profile, creating status updates, etc, that could benefit immensely from a dedicated iPad app. It's worth mentioning that LinkedIn deserves credit for being the company that took what was one of the most horrendously designed UI's of any iPhone app (they originally let users change the color scheme of the app, allowing them to choose from over a dozen colors -- including hot pink) and completely reimagined it, turning it into one of the slickest -- both in design and navigation -- iPhone apps on the market. That gives me a lot of confidence that LinkedIn will be able to pull off a killer iPad app. Thankfully on the day LinkedIn announced its overhauled iPhone app, I learned from a source familiar with their mobile plans that the company is indeed working on a dedicated iPad app. However, like Facebook and Mint, there's no set time frame for a release. 4. Google Docs Google Docs is great. The suite of web apps from the search, email and advertising giant allows you to create and share documents, spreadsheets, presentations and more all through your desktop web browser. While Google does offer limited functionality for Docs on the iPad through a mobile version of the site, the mobile version lacks the rich editing capabilities of the desktop web-based version. That's due in part to some limitations in the iPad's mobile Webkit implementation. You can switch to the desktop view in Docs on your iPad, but don't expect it to behave quite like the original. It's true that there are iPad office application suites that work well with Google Docs. QuickOffice Pro HD and Documents to Go both allow you to download and edit documents from your Google account (see our head-to-head review here). Less-expensive, and correspondingly less functional apps for editing include Office2 HD and GoDocs. None of these truly delivers the simplicity and functionality of Google's cloud offering. When looking at the iPad as a serious productivity device, Apple's leading the with its iWork suite -- but Pages, Numbers and Keynote don't interoperate with Google Docs in any meaningful way, forcing users to go through hoops to get at their files. It's a frustrating hiccup in what should be a really easy and graceful workflow. That's why Google could transform the tablet document-editing space by creating a best-in-class dedicated iPad app for its suite. Go all the way or don't go at all. Apple's showed it can be done and I'm sure there are many users who would prefer an alternative to shelling out $10 an app for the iWork suite for rich text, presentation, and spreadsheet editing. Then again, it's not necessarily clear that Google has a strong motivation to make the iPad even more of a world-beater, so we may be stuck with third-party solutions on this one... or Apple could add the Docs API to iWork and turn everything upside-down. And three apps (or one service) that needs an iPad-compatible website... iCloud.com Yes, like MobileMe's website (www.me.com) before it, navigating to www.icloud.com on an iPad brings you to an iPad-specific web page that informs you that if you want to check your iCloud emails, contacts, or calendars on an iPad you have to do so through the Mail, Contacts, and Calendars apps that ship on the device. That's well and good, and the iPad apps function better than any web apps ever could -- but if it's not your iPad you want to check your email on and you are using an iCloud email account, you're out of luck. There is simply no easy way to check your iCloud (or MobileMe) email on an iOS device unless you enable your account to be used with the built-in apps on the device. (You may be able to get around this by using a third-party browser like iCab that allows you to spoof the user agent, but it's clumsy.) As far as iPhones go, I get the limitation. How often do we use someone else's phone to check our email, right? But on an iPad, which is more of a multi-user device (think sharing with the family or traveling in a group with one iPad, as you might do on a long trip across Europe), there's no way for multiple people to check their iCloud emails without all adding their accounts in the Mail, Contacts, and Calendars settings on the iPad. Doing so will of course enable all email accounts to show up in Mail, potentially causing confusion, privacy concerns, or emails being sent from the wrong account. Apple, if you are listening, I implore you to allow access to iCloud email accounts through Safari on the iPad -- even as a 'pro' option enabled in the account settings. It's an unnecessary barrier. So that's my list of the biggest iPad app-less offenders. I'd love to hear from you which websites you think really need an iPad app. Let me know in the comments!
Adobe releases a PDF creator for iOS
Given the history between Adobe and Apple, this might be kind of surprising, but it happened anyway. Adobe has released an app for iPhone and iPad called CreatePDF that allows you to make and edit your own PDF files, right on iOS. The app can be used to open up any number of document formats, and then uses Adobe's own conversion services to assemble them however you want into a full PDF document. The app can open everything from Word documents and Excel spreadsheets to images and OpenOffice documents, and converted PDFs can be sent off as email attachments, or even sent to other apps on the iOS device. The app is available as a $9.99 universal download. It's good to see this kind of thing available -- it just means there's even more functionality for iOS in terms of not just viewing documents, but also building and creating them while mobile.
How saving changed in Lion - Infographic
You can check out the full-size images in the gallery below, but clearly Lion thinks about saving documents differently. Read more about versions and locking documents in this post. %Gallery-130270% Note: If you're having an issue with the image loading in the gallery, click one of the thumbnails and it should load. There's an issue with our CMS which we're still trying to fix. Our apologies. Another note: Once the thumbnail loads, right-click the image and choose View Image to get to the full-sized image. Final note: Or download or view the full sizes here: Before Lion saving After Lion saving
Wolfram launches open CDF format, adds visual pizzazz to charts and graphs
Amazon's Kindle DX and RIM's BlackBerry PlayBook were supposed to be the business world's answer to an on-the-go office. Turns out, PDFs viewed in e-ink or on a tethered slate don't offer much in the way of interactive app experiences -- they're still just documents, no matter the tablet they're wearing. Well, Wolfram Group's got an open format contender to Adobe's throne and it's hoping you'll adopt it. Introduced today, the Computable Document Format "puts easy-to-author interactivity at its core," breathing animated life into otherwise static infographics. Not a programmer? No need to worry, the company promises the two-way diagrams are "easy enough for teachers, journalists, managers, [and] researchers to... create." We've seen Microsoft's XPS take a similar crack at dethroning the reigning format king, only to find itself in portable document oblivion. We'll just have to wait and see if CDF's a more noble contender. In the meantime, head on over to the source to download the free player and see for yourself the possible future of live textbooks, tables and charts.
OS X Lion: Auto Save and Versions to the rescue
Some of us have Command-S wired into our hands. Whenever we write a few words or enter a couple of cells into a spreadsheet, our hands twitch and we compulsively type a Command-S to save a document, just in case... A new feature of OS X Lion is Auto Save, which is going to stop a lot of Mac users from doing the Command-S twitch. Versions is another related feature that keeps copies of different versions of your documents for posterity. Auto Save takes a snapshot of whatever you happen to have open on the screen in an app at any particular time, and saves it for you. Let's say that you have TextEdit open with three different documents, all scattered about on your 27" display. None of the documents have been saved, and you suddenly realize that you need to leave for a meeting. You quit out of TextEdit, and the familiar "Do you want to save the changes you made in...?" dialog doesn't appear. No problem. The next time you launch TextEdit, all three of those documents open up in the exact same locations on your screen that they were in originally. Another cool feature of Auto Save is the ability to revert to a last saved version of a document. That's helpful when you're working on a document, add a lot of changes, and then suddenly realize that what you've added is ... crap. Just select Revert to Saved or Revert to Opened from either the File menu or a disclosure triangle next to the title of the document, and you're back to your original document. What's fascinating is that Auto Save and Versions keep all of the different versions of your document in one file. There's no folder full of saved versions with time and date stamps -- instead, you just see the file and all of the magic is done internally. What if you don't want a file to be accidentally changed. That's where the Lock feature comes in handy. Two weeks after the last time you edit a document, Lion auto-locks it for you. The next time you try to make a change, Lion asks if you want to unlock the file or duplicate it to create a template. Versions brings the power of Time Machine to individual documents. In many Lion-savvy apps now, there's a "Save A Version" menu item that takes the place of the previous "Save" item. This is where that muscle memory that you built up doing Command-S is going to come in handy. As you write a document, you can continue to use Command-S from time to time to save a version of a document. When you want to go back to a previous version, choose "Browse all versions" from the drop-down menu near the title bar of the document and a very Time Machine-like window appears: The Versions window provides a side-by-side comparison of your current document version with all of the other saved versions. If you find a previous version that you want to copy something from, just do a copy and paste between the two. There's also a Restore button for making a previous version the "live" version of a document. At this time, Auto Save and Versions are only usable in specific Apple apps, including iWork 9.1 (Pages, Keynote, and Numbers) and TextEdit. As more apps are updated to take advantage of the many new features of OS X Lion, we're sure to see the convenience and security of Auto Save and Versions become commonplace.
Fujitsu wants to push out location-based apps, pull them back again
Maybe, just maybe, this wireless technology in development at Fujitsu makes some sense. When you walk within range of an NFC sensor or GPS coordinate, the cloud-based system takes the liberty of pushing location-relevant apps to your phone or tablet. Enter a museum, for example, and you'll automatically receive its tour guide app. Your device could even be made to work as a viral transmitter, spreading the app to other visitors' handsets. Finally, when you leave, all the bloatware just magically disappears. Alternatively, the museum's marketing department conveniently forgets to configure this last step, accidentally signs you up to its newsletter and grabs a donation from your PayPal account while it has the chance. We would obviously find this rather upsetting, unless the museum has dinosaurs.
iWork gets SaaS-y with Documents in the Cloud
Apple detailed its cloud service and released some new features that begin to rival Google Docs and Microsoft 365. Say hello to Apple's new Documents in the Cloud feature that lets you sync documents in the cloud and share them across devices. If you are editing on the iPad, you can save the doc to the cloud and open it on the iPhone. It will even remember the slide or page that you were working on. It's compatible with Pages, Numbers and Keynote and is already available in the versions Apple just released last week. Documents in the Cloud will work across iOS devices and Macs/PCs. Apple will also release a set of APIs for developers so that third-party developers can use this cloud storage system. The only thing missing is a web interface for editing, which Apple did not mention in its WWDC presentation.
Adobe CreatePDF for Android does exactly what its name implies
Google's mobile OS is growing and maturing into a business-savvy adult before our very eyes. With the release of Adobe's CreatePDF in the Android Market, we're delighted to finally see a PDF-creation app on the mobile front. Not only does it let you build a PDF from the ground up, it can convert most popular filetypes -- Word, Excel, Powerpoint, OpenOffice, Photoshop, RTF, and Illustrator, just to name a few -- into PDF format. You can import any of these kinds of docs from your phone to app via the built-in file manager, or transfer an email attachment to it using Android's share function. Available for a one-time payment of $9.99, CreatePDF won't be for the light-walleted or the casual app enthusiast; don't be put off by the price, though, because the online version charges that much per month to do the exact same tasks on your computer. Anyone rocking Eclair or better can partake of the PDF love, so head to the source link to get straight to installing.
Ultra-thin handheld microscope could sniff out skin cancer, forged documents
It may not look like it, but that sleek black thing pictured above is actually a microscope. Designed by engineers at Germany's Fraunhofer Institute for Applied Optics and Precision Engineering IOF, this little guy boasts a 5.3mm optical length, rendering it slim enough to fit in the palm of your hand, yet powerful enough to deliver images at a scanner-like resolution of five micrometers, over a wide surface area. Fraunhofer's researchers achieved this balance by essentially tossing out the manual on traditional microscope design. Whereas most devices slowly scan areas and construct images on a piecemeal basis, this handheld uses several small imaging channels and a collection of tiny lenses to record equal sized fragments of a given surface. Unlike conventional scanner microscopes, all of these 300 x 300 square micrometer imaging channels are captured at the same time. With a single swipe, then, users can record 36 x 24 square mm shots of matchbox-sized objects, without even worrying about blurring the images with their shaky hands. The prototype is still two years away from going into production, but once it does, engineers say it could help doctors scan patients for skin cancer more easily, while also allowing bureaucrats to quickly confirm the authenticity of official documents. We can only imagine what it could do for Pac-Man. Full PR after the break.
Google Docs gets an Android app, we go hands-on with tiny spreadsheets (video)
Staring at spreadsheets crushed down to unreadable sizes on a 4-inch phone screen is far from pleasurable but, clearly there is a demand. In fact, we've been clamoring for a proper Google Docs app for ages, even though sometimes we're not entirely sure why. It was only a matter of time before Google finally got around to appeasing us mobile workaholics and put an official app in the Android Market. Well, our masochistic prayers were answered -- the Mighty Goog unleashed the new, native Google Docs for Android app and we rushed on over to the Market, clicked the install button, and gave it a whirl. %Gallery-122400%
Pioneer registers with the FCC for AppRadio
It seems like just the other day we were chatting with Pioneer about its interfaces for iPhones in the car, and sure enough, it seems the company has plans for even more integration between its in-car units and Apple's smartphone. A filing with the FCC has revealed something Pioneer is calling the AppRadio, which appears to be an in-dash unit that will hook up with apps on the iPhone, essentially turning your smartphone into the backend of your car's radio system. Details on what the device does are slim, but presumably, this will do what Pioneer's other devices have done and hook into iPhone apps, like Pandora and Aha Radio, for content while allowing you to control that content more safely than bumbling around your car with the iPhone while driving. We'll keep an eye out for this one -- once it wins approval, we'll probably see a formal announcement from Pioneer with lots more details.
