Phraseology 2 released

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Two years ago, I reviewed Phraseology, an iPad writing app, and was impressed with it.

Version 1 of the app offered powerful tools, including paragraph re-arranging, URL schemes, TextExapander, Markdown previews and lots of export options.

In my review, I came to this:

This app was built for writers, and it shows.

For a period of time, Phraseology was the writing app for iPad, in my opinion, but today, the landscape is very different. Byword is great, and Editorial brings a level of power that is nearly impossible to match.

That said, there’s still a place for Phraseology, and I still rely on it. It may have more competition than ever before, but it can stand its ground just fine.

Today, Phraseology 2 is here. It brings the same great features found in the first release, but adds some goodies:

  • iCloud support for document storage
  • Dropbox-powered version control
  • Syntax highlighting for parts of speech
  • Deep tie-ins with Drafts for iPad and Editorial via x-callback-URL

Phraseology 2 is on sale now for $1.99, and is a free update for existing users. If you’re looking for a powerful — but easy-to-use — iPad text editor, check it out.

On Sony VAIOs and OS X ⇢

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Nobuyuki Hayashi:

Most of Sony’s executives spends their winter vacation in Hawaii and play golf after celebrating new year. In one of those new year golf competitions back in 2001, ” Steve Jobs and another Apple executive were waiting for us at the end of golf course holding VAIO running Mac OS” recalls Ando; 2001 is the year, Mac OS X shipped and I am speculating this is Intel-version of Mac OS X, they hid for four and half years since then.

When Steve Jobs regained the control of Apple back in 1997, one of the first thing he did was to close all the Mac-compatible deals claiming it is destroying Mac’s eco-system. UMAX CEO almost got a deal with Steve Jobs that they’d become the sole manufacturer of Mac-compatible but Jobs ultimately decided otherwise. Steve Jobs believed that Mac-compatible business would harm not only Apple’s business but also the ‘Mac’ brand.

But that same Steve Jobs was willing to make an exception in 2001. And that exception was Sony’s VAIO.

If it’s true, it’s pretty wild. Jobs was very secretive about projects, but of course, there’s this story about Apple using VIAOs during the run-up to Intel Macs.

Additionally, while OS X on Intel was developed in secret, it’s grandfather NeXTSTEP ran on Intel processors. Jobs even ran OPENSTEP on a ThinkPad after returning to Apple.

Apple and Sony share a long history — the former built the floppy disk drive for the original Macintosh, so maybe it’s not so crazy after all.

Interestingly, when introducing the MacBook Air in 2008, Jobs compared it to the Sony TZ series of notebooks. While I’m sure this didn’t have much to whatever went down years earlier, you can’t help but wonder if it was a subtle jab at Sony’s leadership.

via The Verge

Apple donating $100 million in equipment for Obama’s ConnectED initiative ⇢

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The Associated Press:

Apple is pledging $100 million in iPads, computers and other tools. AT&T and Sprint are contributing free Internet service through their wireless networks. Verizon is pitching in up to $100 million in cash and in-kind contributions. And Microsoft is making Windows available at discounted prices and offering 12 million free copies of Microsoft Office software.

Obama was to announce the commitments Tuesday at a middle school in the Maryland suburbs near Washington. Also in the pipeline: an addition $2 billion that the Federal Communications Commission is setting aside from service fees over two years to connect another 20 million students to high-speed Internet.

The ConnectED Initiative is designed to connect 99 percent of America’s students to high-speed Internet access within 5 years:

“We are living in a digital age, and to help our students get ahead, we must make sure they have access to cutting-edge technology,” said President Obama. “So today, I’m issuing a new challenge for America – one that families, businesses, school districts and the federal government can rally around together – to connect virtually every student in America’s classrooms to high-speed broadband internet within five years, and equip them with the tools to make the most of it.”

When I was in school in the 90s and early 00s,1 the technology used in classrooms was minimal, but even what we had was behind the times. With the US education system slipping further and further behind what other countries are doing, bringing the wealth of information on the Internet to students on devices like the iPad is an important piece of the puzzle.

  1. Somewhere, Dr. Drang just rolled his eyes. ↩

Satya Nadella named Microsoft CEO ⇢

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Tom Warren:

It’s official: Microsoft’s CEO search is over. Following recent reports, the software giant is appointing Satya Nadella as its new CEO to replace Steve Ballmer. 46-year-old Nadella will take over immediately, allowing Ballmer to retire early. Nadella had been part of a number of candidates that Microsoft was believed to have interviewed for the role, with the company originally pushing to name its Ballmer successor before the end of last year. Despite the search extending into 2014, the timing of the CEO announcement is important as it places Nadella in charge ahead of the closure of Microsoft’s Nokia deal and its ongoing reorganization.

Don’t miss Engadget’s profile of Nadella. I didn’t know much about him until recently, and I hope for Microsoft’s sake that he’s the right man for the job.

Review: Unread: An RSS Reader for iPhone

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Since iOS 7 landed last year, several venerable iOS apps have seen their place eroded by newcomers. The new UI and APIs have given countless developers new ways to tackle old ideas.

When I find an app I like, I stick with it. Heck, I rarely change where apps sit on my homescreen. I’ve used the same RSS client on my iPhone for years — Reeder. Reeder is great. In the wake of Google Reader, the developer has supports a ton of account types, and the UI overhaul for iOS 7 is pretty good.

I figured it’d be on my homescreen for years to come, but then Jared Sinclair sent me a copy of his new RSS client, Unread. It’s been on my home screen since the day I downloaded the beta.

Unread supports David Smith’s Feed Wrangler, the enormous Feedly and my RSS backbone of choice, Feedbin.

For users of the second two services, Unread allows the unread count to act as a button to jump straight to the list of items, skipping the view of feeds. I have Reeder setup this way, and am glad to see this option in Unread.

Sadly, Feed Wrangler’s Smart Streams aren’t handled this way. As Streams aren’t really folders, Feed Wrangler users have to tap through the list of feeds they are subscribed to to see their unread items. It’s a subtle difference, but one that does slightly slow down the reading experience. Furthermore, adding, editing and removing feeds isn’t currently supported.

On the sharing side of things, all the usual suspects are here:

  • 1Password
  • App.net
  • Facebook
  • Instapaper
  • Pinboard
  • Pocket
  • Readability
  • Twitter

Unread ships with OvershareKit, a sharing system based on iOS 7’s share sheets, but on drugs. It includes a lovely UI, and lets users tweet (or email, copy, send to App.net, etc…) a headline, link and photo from a story with just a few taps.

But the real magic of Unread isn’t the service support or the sharing of stories and links — it’s what is in between.

Unread is almost completely gesture-based. In fact, the only taps required to use the app are for drilling into folders of items. Swiping from the left goes back to the previous screen, while swiping to right brings up content-aware controls, including account settings, “Mark All As Read” when in a list view, or “View on Web” and “Share” when viewing an individual article:

In all three cases, the menus are easy to read, with great icons and the slightest hint of transparency.

In addition to content-aware controls, the menu holds the in-app browser, making it easy to jump back to it from anywhere in the app. The browser packs a Readability-powered reading mode, its own share sheet and even has a few tricks up its sleeve. Federico explains:

One of Unread’s peculiarities is the browser view, which acts separately from the feed view and that is restored every time the app is launched. Articles can be opened in the browser by tapping on their title, but a “View on Web” option is also available in the action menu; you can go back to the browser at any time by tapping “Back to Browser” in the same menu. The browser retains history navigation (so you can navigate back and forth between articles you’ve decided to view on the web), and it comes with its own sharing menu and optimized reading view.

Sadly, as Shawn Blanc points out, the in-app browser can feel slow, as its behavior is unexpected in a world where most apps throw away loaded pages in their in-app browsers without much thought.

While I find swiping-based UIs tiring in some apps, Unread is tuned in such a way that using gestures never feels like its slowing me down while navigating through items or folders. In fact, the gestures give Unread a playfulness about it I think embodies much of what Apple wants to see in iOS 7-era apps.

Unread comes with several themes. I much prefer the “Day” option, but the other built-in themes are nice, too, and I’ve been told by Jared that there are several additional themes waiting to be unlocked as Easter eggs.

Themes change the overall color scheme of the app, including the top and bottom bars. The latter changes to show where in the hierarchy of lists and items you are. It’s quite helpful.

It’s no secret Jared’s been vocal in his criticism of iOS 7, and I worried initially that Unread wouldn’t look at home on the new OS. While there are UI elements here that don’t fall in line with what Cupertino is doing, I don’t think the app suffers from it. I don’t agree with some of Jared’s comments on these subjects, but that’s what makes the Internet great.

The themes do, however, show one area in which Jared’s apps — including the well-loved ADN client Riposte — break from iOS 7’s conventions. None of the themes use the unified title bar that Apple shows in its first-party apps. As a result, Unread feels a little more boxed in than many other iOS 7 apps. I prefer the look Apple leverages in its apps, but it’s not a deal-breaker for Unread — or Riposte, for that matter.

Unread leverages iOS 7’s background fetching to help keep content up to date. Very rarely do I open the app and have to wait for it to sync with the web. While many apps offer this these days, I have come to really enjoy it in my RSS apps.

All in all, Unread is what an iOS 7 app should be — modern, fast and well-designed. It’s fun to use, and had helped me read more from the feeds I subscribe to than I ever was before while using my iPhone. It’s a winner in my book, and looks great on my homescreen.

Unread is on sale now at an introductory price of $2.99 on the iOS App Store.

30 years and one day in the making ⇢

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Apple:

On January 24, 1984, Apple introduced the Macintosh. And with it a promise that the power of technology, put in the hands of everyone, could change the world. On January 24, 2014, we sent 15 camera crews all over the world to show how that promise has become a reality.

From sunrise in Melbourne to nightfall in Los Angeles, they documented people doing amazing things with Apple products. They shot over 70 hours of footage — all with the iPhone 5s. Then it was edited and scored with an original soundtrack. Thanks to the power of the Mac and the innovations it has inspired, an effort that normally takes months was accomplished in a matter of days.

The video falls fairly in line with what we’ve seen from Apple recently, but this behind-the-scenes look is pretty neat. The company may push things like iMovie and GarageBand for the iPad, but the Mac is still a vital part of Apple’s collection of tools for creatives.

Update: Don’t miss this behind-the-scenes video.

On QuarkXPress

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A couple of weeks ago, Dave Girard wrote up a piece over on Ars Technica about QuarkXPress, the page layout software. He opens the article with this:

As the big dog of desktop publishing in the ’80s and ’90s, QuarkXPress was synonymous with professional publishing. In fact, it was publishing. But its hurried and steady decline is one of the greatest business failures in modern tech.

Quark’s demise is truly the stuff of legend. In fact, the story reads like the fall of any empire: failed battles, growing discontent among the overtaxed masses, hungry and energized foes, hubris, greed, and… uh, CMYK PDFs. What did QuarkXPress do—or fail to do—that saw its complete dominance of desktop publishing wither in less than a decade? In short, it didn’t listen.

While desktop publishing started before I was born, I’m not a stranger to the fact that designers in this area quickly migrated to the Mac, and ended up being one of the platform’s few strongholds during the 1990s.

I was introduced to the Mac in 2002:

My first job was within the advertising department, working as the ad designer. Before I knew it, I was working with Photoshop 6, QuarkXPress 4 and Mac OS 9 running on a PowerMac G3 All-in-One.

For three years in high school, I designed tabloid-size pages for our student newspaper in Quark. I quickly learned the application’s extensive collection of keyboard commands, and could all sorts of tasks without having to touch the mouse.

One day, our editor was working on a page and suddenly exclaimed that a robot came on the screen and deleted the text box she was adjusting. I didn’t believe her, but years later, I would learn that she was right.

I applied to my college newspaper and was hired as an in-coming freshman to layout the sports section each night. I quickly took over all of the layout, designing roughly 2,500 pages over the course of nearly four years. Each of these pages was done in Quark, on a Quicksilver G4.

Even before I graduated high school in 2004, it was clear to me Quark was behind the times. While we ran Quark 4.1 on beige Macs my sophomore year, even when we graduated to iMac G3s (and eventually one iMac G4!) and Quark 5, we had to run it in Classic Mode.

The college paper was no different. While we would eventually update to the OS X-ready QuarkXPress 6, Adobe’s InDesign was already being taught in the design classes at my university.

Shortly after I left the newspaper, they migrated production to InDesign, leaving Quark behind forever.

As many developers do when faced with the fact that their app is dying, Quark, Inc has thrown lots of features at QuarkXPress, trying to win people back. According to Wikipedia, QuarkXPress 9 — released in 2011 — added these features to the desktop publishing application:

  • QuarkXPress 9.0.1 (2011) — Bug fix release
  • QuarkXPress 9.1 (2011) — Addition of “App Studio”, which allows to export multimedia apps for iPad out of QuarkXPress. First version to officially support Mac OS X Lion
  • QuarkXPress 9.2 (2012) — Export to ePUB 3.0, plus ability to create ePUB files from scratch. Improvements to App Studio, including iOS5 support.
  • QuarkXPress 9.2.1 (2012) (Mac OS X only) — Fix “missing icons” bug caused by Lion 10.7.3
  • QuarkXPress 9.2.1.1 (2012) — Added support for exporting to the Retina iPad
  • QuarkXPress 9.3 (2012) — Export eBooks directly to Amazon Kindle format, plus other minor fixes including EPS and PDF color management.
  • QuarkXPress 9.3.1 (2012) — Compatibility with the OS X Mountain Lion (10.8) Gatekeeper feature.
  • QuarkXPress 9.3.1.1 (2012) — Fixes a spellchecker crash.
  • QuarkXPress 9.5 (2012) — Allows the creation of 100% HTML5-based content on native apps and platforms such as Android.
  • QuarkXPress 9.5.1 (2013) — Adds page stacks, bugfixes
  • QuarkXPress 9.5.1.1 (2013) — Bugfixes
  • QuarkXPress 9.5.2 (2013) — Download manager, bugfixes
  • QuarkXPress 9.5.3 (2013) — Fixes known issues with PDF export
  • QuarkXPress 9.5.4 (2013) — Support for OS X Mavericks

As you might imagine, it hasn’t worked. The application that once enjoyed upwards of 90% marketshare is now relegated to the sidelines. Looking back, the app’s demise was long and slow, giving the company lots of time to change course. That said, with Adobe controlling InDesign, Illustrator and Photoshop is a simple and powerful strength that was clearly too much to overcome combined with QuarkXPress’ stagnancy.

When the day finally comes, I will miss QuarkXPress. I spent time with it almost every day for seven years, and while I haven’t opened it in ages, I like to know that I still can.