512 Pixels

When Unread for iPhone launched back in February, it earned a spot on my home screen.

Today, it’s big brother, Unread for iPad is here.

The tablet version brings the same great gesture-based controls and clean design that Unread users are used to, but the reading experience is even better.

Because of its sliding panel design, Unread only ever shows one type of content at a time. For example, tapping on a list or filtered set slides in that content, one screen at at time, creating a clear hierarchy and path of action for the user.

This is present, of course, on the iPhone version as well, but because most iPad apps use pop-overs or columns for this sort of thing instead of sliding panels, Unread for iPad’s structure is very easy to understand.

Like most apps that exist on both the iPhone and iPad, the new tablet version of the app is great to read with. Unread’s lack of Chrome makes the app just about indistinguishable from something like Instapaper or Pocket.

That’s not a bad thing at all. Reading on Unread is stress free and enjoyable.

The rest of Unread is just what you expect. All of the great sharing options are present, as is the support for a bevy of RSS providers, including Feed Wrangler, Feedbin, Feedly, Fever and Newsblur.

Unread for iPad can be purchased for $4.99 on the iOS App Store.

Marco Arment:

The first amazing, forehead-smacking innovations with iOS 8 won’t come from us: they’ll come from people who are coming to iOS development from this point forward, never having known a world without the old restrictions.

Apple’s announcements this week were clearly from a company thinking about the future. I’m excited to see what’s next.

Myke and I were honored to join Jason Snell and Dan Moren earlier today to record this week’s episode of the Clockwise podcast. To hear 30 minutes of rapid-fire WWDC responses, check out that link. It was a ton of fun to be on a show I listen to on a regular basis.

Episode 51 of The Prompt:

Mostly live from San Francisco, Myke, Federico and Stephen discuss the events of the WWDC 2014 keynote.

This is a great overview of Apple’s WWDC news. We’ll be diving into things in more details over the coming weeks, but this is a good place to start.

Excuse me while I go pick my jaw up off the floor. This is crazy stuff.

There’s been a lot of talk here at WWDC about Apple’s confidence out of the gate on Monday.

Craig Hockenberry says it well:

Apple has a newfound confidence in itself. It’s at the top of its game, and it knows it.

This confidence was felt last week when Eddie Cue shared that Apple had the best pipeline he’s seen in 25 years. It was felt when Tim Cook called Android a toxic hellstew.

And then there’s Craig Federighi, who has gone from a hand-shaking mess of a presenter to a true superstar. He’s Apple’s new pitchman, and while his approach is far different than Steve Jobs’ was, I think it’s excellent.

Jonathan Mann even dubbed WWDC “The Craig Federighi Show.”

While it is a lot of fun to laugh along with the rest of the Apple community at Federighi’s amazing performance on Monday, I think Apple’s confidence is more than skin deep.

It’s not a smirk; it’s a swagger.

With OS X Yosemite and iOS 8, Apple’s pushing their world-class operating systems further than ever before, all while building a stronger bridge between them. Apple’s always touted itself as a platform and experience company, and it’s more true than ever before.

With Swift, Apple’s taken its programming language and replaced it with something far more powerful, built with future in mind. If Swift had been the only news Monday, it would have blown developers’ hair back, but announced alongside a pile of new APIs, iOS extensions, a revamped iCloud, and new Photos platform and a redesigned OS X, it’s surprising to me the keynote only took two hours.

This is having great effect on the developer community, many of whom have felt discouraged over the last year. Here’s Jim Dalrymple:

I’ve spent the last couple of days walking the halls of Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference, talking to developers about the announcements yesterday. One common theme emerged from those discussions: Possibilities.

I haven’t seen developers this excited about a WWDC in many years—probably since Apple first allowed native apps on iOS. There is a real sense of Apple turning a corner with all of the new tools they gave developers during the conference.

I couldn’t agree more. Apple feels good about itself, and that trickles down to the community. You can feel it in the air.

The Teech has rounded up a bunch of facts and figures from this morning.

Today’s WWDC was full of news about the future of OS X and iOS, but perhaps the most exciting consumer-facing news is about what takes up the space between the two platforms.

Continuity is a new collection of OS X, iOS and iCloud features that make moving between a Mac and iOS device easier than ever. A Mac can be used to take phone calls, send and receive SMS messages and more.

The Handoff feature is where the real magic is, however:

When your Mac and iOS devices are near each other, they can automatically pass whatever you’re doing from one device to another. Say you start writing a report on your Mac, but you want to continue on your iPad as you head to your meeting. Handoff lets you switch over and pick up instantly where you left off. Or maybe you start writing an email on your iPhone, but you want to finish it on your Mac. You can do that, too. Handoff works with Mail, Safari, Pages, Numbers, Keynote, Maps, Messages, Reminders, Calendar, and Contacts. And app developers can easily build Handoff into their apps.

Apple prides itself on supplying end-to-end solutions: hardware, software and services.

While the company’s hardware continues to be the best in the industry, Apple’s software and services have slipped in recent years. OS X and iOS are still the best two operating systems on the planet, but there are cracks in the hull.

Time will tell if OS X Yosemite and iOS 8 are better than their predecessors, but I think iCloud is finally receiving the type of upgrades it needs to be competitive. The truth is that first-party services that tie Apple devices to the cloud are often brushed aside by those who prefer solutions from Google, Dropbox and others.

By evolving iCloud from a collection of services into the glue that holds devices together, Apple has added a great value to the product.

In a perfect world, Cupertino would have all of its users using an all-Apple solution. Continuity is a big step in that direction. While some may frown at platform lock-in, it has been Apple’s game plan for years now.

In 2010, Joshua Topolosky published an article about what he termed the “Continuous Client,” in which he wrote:

So what is a Continuous Client you ask? Well the premise is simple: when you leave one device, you pick up your session in exactly the same place on the next device you use. Meaning your IM, Twitter, web browsing, applications, even your windows (given the availability of such a thing on the corresponding platform) appear just as they did on the previous device. The situation I describe above would be obviated by this setup, allowing me to move from my laptop to iPad in a seamless manner which would in no way disrupt the activity I was currently engaged in. This solution seems particularly well suited for desktop to laptop transfers, but allowing for a platform which was rich enough for both PC and mobile devices, it could very well be carried out through desktops, laptops, tablets, and even mobile phones. Put simply, you are placeshifting your computing experience from one device to the next with no break in your work, timelines, or conversations.

OS X Yosemite and iOS 8 don’t appear as seamless as Topolosky foresaw, it’s closer than anything we’ve seen to date.

Imagine there were a conference this week, and you’re taking screenshots of the new shiny that might be revealed at this conference. What would you take and save those screenshots with?

The answer is of course Ember, the incredibly powerful and easy to use screenshot and image organiser for Mac and iOS. Ember does more than just screenshots though - it’ll also capture entire webpages straight from Safari and Chrome, offers amazing annotation tools for visual feedback, and syncs via Dropbox to Ember for iOS. Ember is used by brilliant people all over the world for every type of creative project, including at huge household-name tech companies which our lawyers prefer we not mention by name.

There’s never been a better time to start organizing all those images-but-not-photos that you keep around, and 512 Pixels readers receive a special 10% discount on Ember for Mac via the Realmac Software store. So, keep on taking screenshots, support independent developers, and save 10% on Ember for Mac today. via Syndicate Ads

David Sparks tried using the recently-updated service:

While the experiment ultimately worked and he could see what I was typing, it was hardly simultaneous. Basically, we discussed and I wrote and he waited for the changes to show up, which happened about 30 seconds after I typed. If he typed anything on his side (even just a space bar), I got a conflict message on my end and had to pick a version to become gospel.

As nice-looking as this product may be, collaboration should be at the heart of any online document suite. This is just pathetic.

Alex Wilhelm:

A bill introduced late yesterday in the Republican-controlled U.S. House of Representatives would “limit” the Federal Communications Commission’s ability to regulate the Internet under Title II, according to its progenitor, Rep. Bob Latta.

Title II, of course, refers to part of the Communications Act. If the FCC did push for such a regulatory structure, it would have more authority over the Internet and its constituent players.

Is anyone suprised?

Back in the 90s, Apple made digital cameras. The QuickTake 200 was the best — and last — of the three models the company sold. For sale less than a year in 1997, the $600 camera shot 640x480 images at f/2.0 to f/8.

View more photos of the QuickTake 200 here.