MyAppleMenu - Wed, Dec 16, 2015

Wed, Dec 16, 2015The Smaller-Specialized-Tools Edition

How Adobe Is Reimagining Photoshop For The Mobile Era, by Harry McCraken, Fast Company

"The iPad 1 came out," recalls Lance Lewis, a senior computer scientist who has been with the company for two decades. "In my my mind, it was like, ‘Oh my gosh, this is going to transform the industry.' I wanted to do everything I could to be part of mobile.’"

What wasn't instantly obvious, however, was exactly how to translate Photoshop into an experience that made sense on the iPad and other mobile devices. In 2011, Adobe released three "Photoshop Touch" iPad apps—Eazel, Color Lava, and Nav—which were complements to Photoshop in its full-strength form rather than stand-alone tools. Then in 2012, it introduced an app called Photoshop Touch, which took a smallish subset of desktop Photoshop’s features, stripped out most of their advanced features, and rejiggered the interface so it worked with touch input.

This year, the company started all over again. It discontinued development of Photoshop Touch—which was available for iPhones and Android devices as well as iPads—and announced that Photoshop's future on the iPad and other mobile devices would henceforth involve smaller, specialized tools rather than anything that retained Photoshop's traditional everything-and-the-kitchen-sink flavor.

Why The Great App Unbundling Trend Is Already In Trouble, by Jared Newman, Fast Company

One of the main justifications for app unbundling is that it reduces complexity and brings greater focus. But if the alternative is having twice or three times as many apps on the home screen, that’s not really any simpler.

"The argument of wanting to have discrete entry points that represent every bit of functionality that I would want to access is less about how things are packaged and more about how easy they are to access," says Javier Soltero, Microsoft’s corporate vice president of Outlook. "And proliferation of icons is just not a good thing."

iEnterprise

IBM And Apple Enterprise Partnership Reaches 100 App Goal, by Ron Miller, TechCrunch

The 100 apps cover the gamut of 60 professional roles across 14 industries and include iPhone, iPad, iPad Pro, Apple Watch and even Apple TV apps, Katharyn White, Vice President of IBM and Apple Partnership for IBM Global Business Services told TechCrunch.

Verticals include government, healthcare, telecommunications, transportation, insurance and many more.

Apple, The Enterprise IT Company, by Robin Harris, ZDNet

Windows is never going away -- that isn't the point. But just as cloud providers have allowed CFOs to fact check CIO insistence on traditional enterprise vendors, Apple's enterprise partners have given the company the credibility to penetrate business.

Expect Apple to continue adding enterprise-friendly features to iOS and OS X. But its focus on providing the best user experience will remain, because that is what makes it successful in the enterprise as well.

Smiley Face Login

Don’t Make The Same Mistake As This Guy And Set Your Password As An Emoji 💁, by Owen Williams, The Next Web

Turns out, OS X doesn’t like it if you use an emoji password, as you’re banned from entering an emoji password on the login screen so the poor guy was locked out of his computer.

Stuff

Apple TV 2015 Review: The New Zealand Edition, by Sarah Hendrica Bickerton, The App Factor

This isn’t really Apple’s fault though. This is just the media landscape us smaller countries live in, a combination of legacy international laws not dealing with a 21st century media context, and no incentive for anyone to really do anything about it.

Slack Aims To Become A Control Panel For Your Job, by Farhad Manjoo, New York Times

What if you could run your whole job from a messaging app? Imagine doing your expenses or requesting human resources forms through a simple chat interface, or using an instant message to respond to customer complaints or to start a conference call with your colleagues.

That’s the future envisioned by Slack, the fast-growing group-messaging start-up.

MiMedia Review: Not Quite The Personal Cloud You've Wanted, But It's Close, by J.R. Bookwalter, Macworld

I really like where MiMedia is headed, and how content is organized and shared. The software lacks the ability to edit photos and the current pricing isn’t particularly competitive, but otherwise worth a look for those seeking a user-friendly, media-centric cloud.

Popular E-Book Reading App Shelfie Now Provides Audiobooks, by Jeff Byrnes, AppAdvice

If you have a huge library of physical books and would prefer to have electronic copies of them, Shelfie by BitLit is a terrific app. You just snap a picture of your bookshelf, and Shelfie identifies which of your titles have electronic copies available. Then, you can download those e-books for free or at heavily discounted prices. Making the app even better, Shelfie has recently announced a partnership with Findaway to bring audiobooks to the app.

Microsoft Makes Sharing Content On Skype For iOS Easier, by Aldrin Calimlim, AppAdvice

Beautiful Astronomy App Solar Walk 2 Arrives On The Apple TV With A New Update, by Brent Dirks, AppAdvice

Google Play Books Makes E-Reading Easier On The Eyes With Night Light, by Aldrin Calimlim, AppAdvice

Offline Pages For Mac 1.0 Saves Entire Websites For Offline Browsing, by MacTech

Develop

Deep Swift Integration Coming To iCloud And OS X, Says Apple's Craig Federighi, by Roger Fingas, AppleInsider

Apple is beginning to bake Swift into some of its core software, instead of simply supporting it in third-party apps, senior VP of Software Engineering Craig Federighi said in a podcast interview.

Nuance Wants To Build The Power Of Siri Into Every App, by Jacob Kastrenakes, The Verge

Nuance is the company behind the language detection software that powers Samsung's S Voice and, supposedly, Siri as well. It's now opening up that technology to all developers — big and small — allowing them to bake it into their apps.

Notes

Apple Shuts Down Analytics Company Topsy Two Years After Its Acquisition, by Chance Miller, 9to5Mac

When the acquisition was originally revealed, many speculated that Apple would use Topsy’s data from social media and integrate it into services like iTunes Radio, so it’s more than likely that some of Topsy’s technology is being used behind the scenes for Apple Music and Beats 1.

Think Like A Statistician – Without The Math, by Nathan Yau, Flowing Data

The other day I was trying to think of the last time I did an actual hypothesis test or formal analysis. I couldn't remember. I actually had to dig up old course listings to figure out when it was. It was four years ago during my first year of graduate school. I did well in those courses, and I'm confident I could do that stuff with a quick refresher, but it's a no go off the cuff. It's just not something I do regularly.

Instead, the most important things I've learned are less formal, but have proven extremely useful when working/playing with data. Here they are in no particular order.

Ideas Are Cheap...

... so why am I running out of ideas?

~

Thanks for reading.