MyAppleMenu - Wed, Apr 15, 2015

Wed, Apr 15, 2015The Selfie-Stick-Free Edition

The Difference Between Being Smart And Being Clever

The Watch, by Horace Dediu, Asymco

A maxim of the computing of the 21st century is that the closer the machine is to us the more we value it. It does not get rewarded for being fast but for being a companion. It does not get valued for features but for beauty. It does not get hired for power but for control. It does not get worn because it’s smart but because it’s clever.

Invisible Watch

And… I’ve started feeling phantom taps on my left wrist.

— John Gruber (@gruber) April 15, 2015

VoiceOver Getting Better

Small Changes, by Matt Gemmell

Previously, if you’d set VoiceOver to read the attributes when encountering a change, it would read all of the attributes - which was intrusive and annoying. [...] Now, though, VoiceOver sensibly only reads out relevant changes to the text attributes.

Conference Season

The Future Of WWDC Will Be Streamed Live, by Rene Ritchie, iMore

Over the least two years Apple and its events and worldwide developer relations teams have done everything they can to get those session videos posted just as fast as they can. This year, some of them will be streamed live.

Apple Increases Scholarships to Worldwide Developers Conference As It Seeks To Promote Diversity, by Dawn Chmielewski, Re/code

The National Society of Black Engineers, App Camp for Girls and La TechLa are among 20 organizations whose members would be eligible for a scholarship.

Apple Begins Revamping Music App Ahead Of Streaming Service Launch, Rumored For Just-Announced WWDC, by Billboard

WWDC 2015: Is It Finally Time For A New Apple TV?, by Grant Brunner, ExtremeTech

WWDC 2015 Will Not Be The Epicenter Of Selfie Sticks, by Zac Hall, 9to5Mac.

No selfie-sticks allowed in Moscone West. And no Google Glasses either.

AltConf 2015 Taking Place June 8-12, by Joseph Keller, iMore

Speakers include Brianna Wu, Laura Savino, and Brent Simmons.

The New MacBook

The 2015 MacBook Review, by Ryan Smith, Anandtech

As an 11” Ultrabook user I already have a fondness for the weight and size of the form factor, and as a journalist frequently carrying around a laptop to trade shows and meetings I particularly appreciate the reduction in weight. The regression in performance is unfortunate, but the combination of weight, battery life, the Retina display, and the keyboard in my mind more than make up for the performance the MacBook can’t offer.

MacBook Teardown Finds That Portability Comes At The Cost Of Repairability, by Harish Jonnalagadda, iMore

Redmond + Cupertino

Microsoft + iPhone, by Paul Thurrott

Long story short, iPhone is a great platform for apps, as we all know. But it’s also a great platform for Microsoft apps—it’s arguably the best mobile platform for Microsoft apps—as well. And that makes it a lot more interesting. And a lot more useful.

Microsoft Delivers iOS, Android Versions Of Delve, by Mary Jo Foley, ZDNet

Delve presents in card-like form information from Exchange, OneDrive for Business, SharePoint Online and Yammer enterprise-social networking components.

Stuff.

iPhone 6 Plus Review, by Federico Viticci, MacStories

I was wrong about the iPhone 6 Plus. [...] I've used the iPhone 6 Plus intensively, and I'll have to return it to Apple. But I really wish I didn't have to go back to my iPhone 6.

How To Import, Merge, And Consolidate Your Libraries In Photos For OS X, by Glenn Fleishman, Macworld

Redshift (for iPad), by Tony Hoffman, PC Magazine

As the iOS version of a longstanding desktop astronomy software program, Redshift (for iPad) is one of the better apps of its kind that we've come across. It combines a planetarium view, which shows the stars and constellations as they really appear in the direction your iPad is pointing, with the ability to send you on three-dimensional virtual voyages across the solar system and beyond.

BusyContacts Review: Keep Your Contacts Close, And Their Social Media Feeds Even Closer, by Jeffery Battersby, Macworld

MindNode: The Best Mind Mapping App, by Mike Schmitz, The Sweet Setup

HoudahGeo Adds Support For The New Mac OS X Photos App, by Mactech

Paper By FiftyThree Updated With Cloud Backup And Activity Center, by Aldrin Calimlim, AppAdvice

Develop.

Apple’s Open Source ResearchKit Framework For Medical Researchers Is Now Available, by Zac Hall, 9to5Mac

Apple announced today that its new ResearchKit platform is now available to medical researchers as an open source framework. [...] The framework enables the medical community to use the iPhone to distribute actual medical and health research through ResearchKit-enabled apps.

Unmanaged, by Nate Cook, NSHipster

A reading of Swift's standard library shows a clear demarcation between the safety and reliability that Swift advertises on one side and the tools necessary for Objective-C interoperability on the other. Types with names like Int, String, and Array let you expect straightforward usage and unsurprising behavior, while it's impossible to create an UnsafeMutablePointer or Unmanaged instance without thinking "here be dragons." Here we take a look at Unmanaged, a wrapper for unclearly-memory-managed objects and the hot-potatoesque way of properly handling them.

SourceKit

Here, I fixed the WWDC15 logo. SourceKit FTW. #swiftlang pic.twitter.com/hDqpudkYyx

— Radek Pietruszewski (@radexp) April 14, 2015

Note.

Would Steve Jobs Have Liked The New Biography? I Don’t Think So, by Andy Hertzfeld, Medium

A reckless upstart can be a visionary leader — in fact, they’re usually the best kind. Of course Steve matured and gained wisdom and insight as he grew older — most people do. “Visionary leader,” the thing he purportedly became, is an apt description of his role on the Mac team in 1981.

Apple Buys Israeli Camera-Technology Company LinX, by Orr Hirschauge and Daisuke Wakabayashi, Wall Street Journal

Parting Words

me at a job interview pic.twitter.com/19Qy3rBuoI

— priscilla page (@BBW_BFF) April 14, 2015

Thanks for reading.