Which Apple Watch Glances I’m using

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I’ve had my Apple Watch for a month now and feel like I’ve settled into a routine with it. I deal with the handful of notification types I allow to show up on my wrist. I don’t use many third-party apps, and — unlike some people I know — actually use and like Glances.

In this pre-SDK era, third-party Glances are pretty simple, so I’m only using a couple of them. However, Apple’s can be interactive, and by mixing them with the couple of critical third-party ones, Glances have become a quick way for me to know what’s going on with my devices and jump into the apps I use most.

I haven’t tinkered much with the order or number of Glances in a couple of weeks, so I feel like my usage is stable enough to show off how I have it setup:

In order, they are:

  1. Settings
  2. Now Playing
  3. Overcast
  4. Calendar
  5. Weather
  6. OmniFocus
  7. Activity
  8. Heartbeat
  9. Battery

For reference , I use the Simple watch face most of the time, with these complications:

  1. Weather
  2. Activity
  3. Calendar
  4. Sunrise/Sunset

(I am still working on a review, I promise.)

Google launches ‘Photos’ ⇢

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Anil Sabharwal, Head of Google Photos:

Google Photos gives you a single, private place to keep a lifetime of memories, and access them from any device. They’re automatically backed up and synced, so you can have peace of mind that your photos are safe, available across all your devices.

And when we say a lifetime of memories, we really mean it. With Google Photos, you can now backup and store unlimited, high-quality photos and videos, for free. We maintain the original resolution up to 16MP for photos, and 1080p high-definition for videos, and store compressed versions of the photos and videos in beautiful, print-quality resolution.

There are some caveats to the “unlimited” storage bit, but all-in-all, it looks like this may give iCloud Photo Library a run for its money.[1]

  1. Get it?  ↩

Donate to App Camp for Girls 3.0 ⇢

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App Camp for Girls is one of my favorite things about our corner of the Internet. Their mission, while seemingly simple to understand, is of vast importance:

To empower girls by providing engaging and accessible
educational programs in software development.

Their vision of gender equality in the software development profession is something we should all work together to realize.

The group is currently holding a crowdfunding campaign to take their work to the next level:

App Camp 3.0 is our vision for a sustainable organization that can expand throughout the U.S. and around the world:

  • Recruit and train new volunteer organizers to launch new locations.
  • Build out App Camp Kit, a collection of equipment, curriculum tools, and camp procedures that is essential to successfully launching a new App Camp location.
  • Establish our first paid staff positions for administration, operations, and curriculum development, along with a fundraising plan that will support our ambitious plans for expansion and outreach.

App Camp for Girls has already lined up donors who are matching the first $100,000 donated via Indiegogo, which means every dollar donated can go twice as far.

Additionally, Mac Power Users is matching the first $1000 worth of donations by their listeners. If you enjoy MPU, be sure to check out Katie’s blog post about how to get involved.

I was happy to donate to this amazing cause, and I encourage you to do the same.

The advent and evolution of Apple’s digital hub ⇢

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Yours truly, over on iMore:

Like many people, the iPhone has replaced many consumer electronics in my home.

I no longer own a point-and-shoot camera, camcorder, voice recorder or dedicated music player. My iPhone is all of those items — plus more — in one, sleek, powerful and pocketable device.

In 2001, of course, the iPhone wasn’t a thing yet, and many people had a whole shelf full of various dedicated devices. That year, Steve Jobs introduced the “Digital Hub” strategy, a cohesive plan to take all of those devices and make them more useful through the power of software.

Vox Media acquiring Re/code ⇢

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Sydney Ember at The New York Times, with some big news in the tech journalism world:

ReCode, the news website led by the veteran journalists Walt Mossberg and Kara Swisher, is being acquired by Vox Media, a deal that reflects the turmoil among digital organizations focused on covering the tech industry.

The all-stock deal, financial terms of which were not disclosed, would give ReCode access to a wider audience, something it has struggled to build since Mr. Mossberg and Ms. Swisher split off from The Wall Street Journal about a year and a half ago. Both plan to stay with ReCode after the merger.

Here’s a bit from the announcement post on Re/code:

We plan as well to collaborate where appropriate with Vox Media’s current and very successful tech news site, The Verge. While the two sites occasionally overlap, we have focused on the business of tech, while The Verge has focused on covering tech from a lifestyle perspective.

Makes sense to me.

Latest OS X beta drops discoveryd ⇢

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Benjamin Mayo:

The discoveryd process has been subject to much criticism in recent months as it causes users to regularly drop WiFi access and causes network shares to list many times over, due to bugs. Many developers, such as Craig Hockenberry, have complained about the buggy software and workarounds have been found to include substituting the older system (called mDNSResponder) back into Yosemite.

discoveryd would cause random crashes, duplicate names on the network and many other WiFi-relate bugs. In the latest beta, Apple appears to have applied the same fix as the enthusiasts by axing discoveryd completely.

While I’m sure there was someone at Apple who lost out in this decision, its the right one to make. OS X should be easier to live with now.

Jony Ive promoted to Apple’s ‘Chief Design Officer’ ⇢

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Stephen Fry, in a wonderfully-written essay about Apple’s design boss:

Until now, Ive’s job title has been Senior Vice President of Design. But I can reveal that he has just been promoted and is now Apple’s Chief Design Officer. It is therefore an especially exciting time for him.

Inside the fabled design studio (cloths over the long tables hiding the exciting new prototypes from prying eyes like mine) Jony has two people with him. They too have been promoted as part of Ive’s new role.

One is Richard Howarth, English as Vimto. “Richard is going to be our new head of Industrial Design,” says Jony. “And this is Alan Dye, the new head of User Interface.” Dye is a tall, amiable American.

In the piece, Ive says that Howarth and Dye will help him with administrative and management work. With a larger product portfolio then ever (or at least since Jobs’ return) and Campus 2 being built, there’s no doubt that Ive is a busy man. My guess is that this move was to help alleviate that stress, while also planning for a future without Ive as part of the company.