MyAppleMenu - Fri, Jun 26, 2015

Fri, Jun 26, 2015The Work-For-Visually-Impaired Edition

"I Have Sound"

The Era Of The Seeing iPhone Is Here With Apps For The Visually Impaired, by Maxine Wally, Fortune

In the past three years especially, technology that helps the blind navigate through their communities without assistance from others has blossomed. The emergence of apps such as Sendero GPS LookAround and BlindSquare are putting tech to work for the visually impaired. These innovations are not only changing the way the blind travel, but also creating a whole new market that still has plenty of room for fine-tuning.

Wonder If Google Can Solve This

That moment when bookstore employees just get fed up with customers. pic.twitter.com/0Pu5cVuFtP

— SFReviews.net/SFF180 (@SFReviewsnet) June 25, 2015

Stuff.

Apple Adds New Features To iTunes U, by Dawn Chmielewski, Re/code

With this latest version of Apple’s educational software, students will be able to turn in homework from their tablets; these documents will carry a timestamp recording when the student submits term papers, book reports and other work. An integrated grade book will alert teachers when a student’s work is complete and ready for review, or if it’s time to send a reminder.

Apple Watch Sales To Expand To The Netherlands, Sweden, Thailand On July 17, by Dave Caolo, Apple World Today

Moleskine’s Timepage For iOS Is The Perfect Minimalist Calendar App, by Amanda Connolly, The Next Web

The simplicity and elegance of the design appeals to me as much as the fluidity of using it. I’ve become somewhat dependent on having the weather alongside my daily events and it has been surprisingly accurate.

Not Sure Where To Start With Your Home Design? Try These Apps., by Winyan Soo Hoo, Washington Post

Microsoft Launches An iPad Sway App, Windows 10 Version Coming Later This Summer, by Napier Lopez, The Next Web

Microsoft launched its newest Office program, Sway, last October as a way to easily publish full webpage stories for whatever is on your mind. Up until now though, it’s only been available on the Web and iOS, so Microsoft today released an iPad version of the app and detailed an upcoming Windows 10 version.

Bounce Is The Latest Whiteboard App, One Of The Best, by Vince Font, Notebook Review

Develop.

The Three-Year Journey To Multitasking And Resolution-Independence In iOS 9, by Andrew Cunningham, Ars Technica

This may feel like a big change for the platform, but in reality, Apple has been laying the groundwork for multitasking apps since at least iOS 6. Developers have had to change their apps a lot in the last two years, between iOS 7’s new aesthetic and the introduction of the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus. If they’ve been making those changes according to Apple’s best practices, then they’re already done most of the work to make their apps multitasking-capable.

We’ll take a quick look at the existing technologies Apple is using to enable multitasking on the iPad, and then we’ll look at what developers need to do to their apps to get them ready. Don’t expect every app in the App Store to support multitasking on the day iOS 9 drops, but it should at least be a pretty easy process for anyone maintaining a universal iPhone and iPad app that plays by most of Apple’s rules.

Apple Bans Games And Apps Featuring The Confederate Flag (Update: Some Games Being Restored), by Sarah Perez, TechCrunch

We’ve spoken to Apple more extensively about the removals now. The company says it’s working with developers to quickly get their games reinstated to the App Store.

Historians Take Issue With Apple's Civil War Games Ban, by Daina Beth Solomon, Los Angeles Times

“It seems to me that pulling Civil War games might be an extreme response to the flag controversy, as if the Civil War didn't exist,” said Bob Brinkmeyer, a professor of Southern studies at the University of South Carolina. “As these games remind us, the South lost.”

Banning Games Isn’t The Answer: Why Apple’s Response To Charleston Is So Stupid, by Elias Isquith, Salon

The company claims it’s only zapping apps that feature the flag “in offensive or mean-spirited ways.” But when you look at some of their targets, including many games about the Civil War itself, that doesn’t hold up. A different, stupider explanation — that the company is treating the flag as if it were no less dangerous than the eyes of Medusa — makes more sense.

Apple Bans Games Featuring Confederate Flag From The App Store, by John Paczkowski, BuzzFeed

“We have removed apps from the App Store that use the Confederate flag in offensive or mean-spirited ways, which is in violation of our guidelines,” an Apple spokesperson told BuzzFeed News. “We are not removing apps that display the Confederate flag for educational or historical uses.”

Four Microblogging Community Tips, by Manton Reece

Ever since writing about my WordPress-based microblog and linking to similar solutions from Seth Clifford and Ben Brooks, I’ve been hearing from more bloggers about their interesting microblog workflows. Everyone has a slightly different spin on the basic idea, but all of them achieve some independence from Twitter by having the primary copy of each post live on their own site.

Core Data And Aggregate Fetches In Swift, by Matt Long

We Just Need A Little Patching

For now, let's just focus on fixing it quickly... 6 months later... pic.twitter.com/06nxj2sMqj

— Rik Schennink (@rikschennink) June 25, 2015

Reboots Are Taking Too Much Time

Real life Xcode for when the computer crashes. Runs natively on your desktop @sorinc03 pic.twitter.com/S0p3iipqNW

— Eric Appel (@ericspaceappel) June 22, 2015

Notes.

Taylor Swift To Stream Top-Selling Album '1989' On Apple Music, by Joe Rossignol, MacRumors

Apple Adds Two New Videos To Its Shot On iPhone World Gallery, by Chance Miller, 9to5Mac

E-Books Get A Makeover, by Jennifer Maloney, Wall Street Journal

For typography fans, electronic books have long been the visual equivalent of fingernails on a chalkboard.

The fonts are uninviting. Jarring swaths of white space stretch between words. Absent are all the typesetting nuances of a fine print book.

Now Amazon and Google are doing something about it.

A Little Weekend Mathematics Puzzling

How To Count Invisible People, by Ruth King, The Guardian

So, how do we answer the question if we cannot easily count all members of a given population?

Parting Words

Did you send me that high res image? pic.twitter.com/SPQ93ksBjO

— Siavash Mahmoudian (@siavash) June 24, 2015

Thanks for reading.