¶ Apple's New Podcasts App

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Me, last week, on the rumor of a standalone Podcasts app for iOS 6:

When Apple touted iOS 5 as being PC-free, one thing they forgot to include is being able to subscribe to podcasts on the iPhone and be able to check for and download new episodes.

Well, it turns out that iOS 5.1 is the release that makes iOS PC-free in this regard. Apple just released their standalone Podcasts app.

Here are the details from Apple:

Podcasts app is the easiest way to discover, subscribe to and play your favorite podcasts on your iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch. Explore hundreds of thousands of free audio and video podcasts from the Podcasts Catalog, and play the most popular podcasts, organized for you by topic, with the all-new Top Stations feature.

Features:

  • Enjoy all of your audio and video podcasts in a single app
  • Explore hundreds of thousands of podcasts including shows in over 40 languages
  • Try the innovative new Top Stations feature to find new podcast series in a variety of topics, including arts, business, comedy, music, news, sports, and more.
  • Browse by Audio or Video podcasts, or see what’s most popular in Top Charts
  • Tap subscribe for your favorites and automatically receive new episodes for free as they become available
  • Stream episodes or download to listen while offline
  • Skip forward and back using simple playback controls
  • Turn on Sleep Timer to automatically stop playing a podcast while listening in bed
  • Share your favorite episodes with friends using Twitter, Messages and Mail
  • Optionally sync your favorite episodes from iTunes on your Mac or PC
  • Sync your episode playback for seamless transition between devices

This is all very good. The interface is very nice. When you are listening to an episode, tap or swipe up on its artwork to reveal an old reel-to-reel player and the sleep and sound speed settings. If you tap pause, you can see the mechanics of the reel-to-reel player stop.

Another nice touch with the reel-to-reel player is that as the episode progresses, the spool of tape on the left reel diminishes as the spool on the right increases. This also happens quickly as you scribble the timeline.

As for setting up Podcasts, it should pull in any episodes currently found in the podcasts section of Music.app. Also, it should continue to sync with iTunes, just as before. The added benefit of Podcasts, though, is that you can set you device to watch for new episodes and to download the latest. Annoyingly, though, you have to tap into each podcast and toggle each and every one of them to subscribe on the device.

And this is where I see some shortcomings from what I was hoping for. In that post from last week, I stated:

Hopefully Apple will make it easy to use iCloud to keep your subscription list, and allow a new Podcasts app to download new episodes in the background when plugged in to power and on Wi-Fi, in the same manner that it does iCloud backups and Newsstand updates.

Well, this just isn’t part of the app. At least, not yet. iCloud doesn’t keep your subscription list, and while the app will download new episodes, it won’t do so in the background. The app must be open to check for and download new episodes.

What iCloud does offer is syncing the playback position of episodes between devices — say, an iPhone and iPad. Unfortunately, it does this via whatever Apple ID is used for the iTunes Store, and not via the Apple ID set for iCloud.

This identity conundrum won’t affect everyone, as I am sure the vast majority of users have the iCloud ID and iTunes Store ID as one and the same. But for a family? Well, my wife and I each have separate iCloud IDs, yet we both use the same iTunes Store ID. If we were to both be subscribed to the same podcasts (thankfully, neither of us are) we would have a nightmare of playback syncing issues (there isn’t an option to not sync playback).

That aside, this is a very nice 1.0 app. I look forward to how it will improve. Hopefully iCloud will be emphasized more in a future release.

The important thing is Podcasts no longer solely rely on iTunes.

Podcasts is a universal app for iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad, and requires iOS 5.1 or later. It’s free in the App Store.

While podcasts will exist in both Podcasts and Music apps in iOS 5, it looks certain that the podcasts function within Music will disappear in iOS 6. Use the next few months to transition to the new app.

Apple also has a little support section for Podcasts on its site.

UPDATE: I forgot to mention that the only way to add a podcast in the interface is via the Podcast Catalog. However, some podcasts aren’t on iTunes. If you want to subscribe to a podcast that isn’t in iTunes, just enter the feed:// URL in Safari, and it will redirect to the Podcasts app and add it to your feed.

The New Nike+ Running App

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To go hand-in-hand with the new Nike+ website launched earlier this month, Nike has released Nike+ Running 4.0 (née Nike+ GPS). The refreshed app is now free and has a new interface that lines up with the website’s new features. NikeFuel is now shown cumulatively and on each run. It will also automatically tag the weather for your route, so all you need to report is how you felt and what kind of terrain you ran on.

Another nice new feature (also on the website) is the ability to tag which shoes you were wearing, as Nike+ will then keep track of how many miles you have put on them. When it is time for new shoes, you can retire your old ones from the settings.

Another little gem is the ability to delay the start of your run by 3, 6, or 9 seconds. This would be useful in a race, so you could tap the start button on your iPhone a few seconds before crossing the start line, so your arm isn’t blocking the tracker in your bib. iPhones will vibrate when the app has started tracking you, as well (iPods just get an audio notification).

This is a great update to my favorite fitness app.

¶ WWDC 2012 | Next Generations

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While it could be said of just about any product announcement, Apple seemed to have a clear message earlier this week at WWDC 2012: the coming year is about the next generations of hardware and software.

By generations, I don't simply mean just a slight reiteration from last year. I mean the next year will set the foundations for the next decade of products.

Apple touched on three major areas of their ecosystem — Mac hardware, OS X, and iOS.

Mac

We all love new Macs, right? Well, Apple refreshed their entire notebook lineup. The MacBook Air and MacBook Pro models received some very nice revisions.

MacBook Air

The MacBook Air received the latest Intel processors and integrated graphics, faster RAM, a faster solid-state drive, USB 3, and an upgraded FaceTime camera which now captures HD at 720p. It also received a new iteration of MagSafe, Apple's magnetic power port. MagSafe 2 is thinner.

Another nice upgrade is what exactly you can upgrade. You can order an Air with up to 8GB of RAM and a 512GB SSD. Basically the computer I'd really like to have if I had to replace mine.

MacBook Pro

The MacBook Pro as we know it received better processors and graphics, as well as USB 3. And that's about it.

The Next Generation MacBook Pro

Ever since the MacBook Air's big revamp in 2010 — the one where the Air really started to sell like hotcakes — many of us have wondered when we'd either see a 15-inch version of the Air or if the MacBook Pro would begin to take after the Air.

Hint: it's the latter.

Apple imagined what a powerhouse of a notebook computer would look like without all the legacy technology. Hard drive? Gone, replaced by an SSD. Optical drive? Gone. FireWire 800? Usurped by Thunderbolt and USB 3. Ethernet port? Too big, gone. And it sports the new MagSafe 2 port.

What we have ended up with is a 15-inch notebook that is lightning fast and weighs as much as the old-style 13-inch MacBook Pro.

Oh, and it has a retina display.

Talk about a dream computer.

It's also very expensive — starting at $2200. But it would serve us well to remember the first MacBook Air in 2008 — that was very expensive, too. And its second take was much more affordable.

This new MacBook Pro is the clear vision of what Apple plans to do with all their portables. Thin & light. Super fast. Retina displays.

I envision within a couple years time Apple's notebook lineup will pretty much be the 15-inch MacBook Pro and the 11- and 13-inch MacBook Air equipped with retina displays.

This new MacBook Pro is the forerunner for the future of the Mac as we know it.

OS X Mountain Lion

One of the best kept secrets in recent Mac history has been OS X Mountain Lion. I remember waking up and reading tweets about Mountain Lion's existence back in February and being completely surprised.

Mountain Lion is the cat that eluded the rumor mill.

Well, now we know when we'll get our hands on it and how much it will cost. We'll see it in July on the Mac App Store for $20. For comparison, Snow Leopard and Lion each cost $30.

And, if you are one of those who is still on Snow Leopard, you can go directly to Mountain Lion for the same $20.

I can't wait for Mountain Lion. It will bring tighter iCloud integration, separating Notes from Mail and Reminders from iCloud and into their own respective apps. Not to mention finally bringing Documents in the Cloud to the Mac.

iMessage, the fantastic way to not use text messages on iOS devices, is coming in the form of the new Messages app, which replaces iChat.

In iOS 5, Apple revamped Notifications to have fairly unobtrusive banner alerts that roll in for a few seconds, then roll away. And with a simple gesture, you can bring in the Notification Center which stores all of your notifications.

Apple is bring that same concept to the Mac, giving a universal notification interface, and a gesture-activated Notification Center.

Mountain Lion also integrates Twitter and Facebook, which should be quite handy.

Two things that were revealed at WWDC that we didn't know about Mountain Lion before are Power Nap and Dictation.

Power Nap is for Macs that come standard with an solid-state drive. These Macs will be able to update Mail, Contacts, Calendar, Reminders, Notes, Photo Stream, Find My Mac, and Documents in the Cloud — all while the Mac is closed and/or sleeping. And, if plugged into power, it can check for and download software updates, and back up to Time Machine.

Dictation is something we first saw in the iPhone 4S, accompanying Siri, and in the retina display iPad. I have been using dictation like crazy with my iPad the past couple months, so I am thrilled that it is coming to the Mac. Simply place your cursor where you want text, tap the fn key twice, and speak away.

There is a lot more coming to Mountain Lion, which you can check out here. And of course I'll go over it in detail once Mountain Lion is released.

iOS 6

Lastly, Apple showed off iOS 6 for the first time, available this fall. It has a significant smattering of refinements, but Apple detailed ten up close.

Siri is getting smarter and coming to the Retina iPad. You'll be able to find out scores and stats for sports, find reviews and showtimes for movies (and even ask for a trailer to be played), make reservations at restaurants, and — my favorite — launch an app by name. Siri can also tweet and post to Facebook.

Speaking of Facebook, that is coming baked into iOS in the same way Twitter did last year. In addition to using Siri to speak updates into the two big social networks, there will be tweet and post buttons in Notification Center. All of this will be great for me, as I often just want to quickly publish a quip without having to spend time loading up an app.

Photo Stream is getting a sharing component, which will hopefully make it easier for me to get pictures of my son to the grandparents in a more timely manner (I have severely neglected Flickr).

We'll also get to use FaceTime over cellular, though I imagine many of us, at least in the USA, will force ourselves to use it on Wi-Fi, since many of us now have limited data plans.

The phone app is getting a nice little feature to decline a phone call and either follow up with a canned message or set a reminder to call the person back. I can definitely think of a handful of situations where this will be very useful.

The iPhone is also getting a new app called Passbook, which will store things such as boarding passes, movie tickets, coupons, and gift cards. A nice touch with Passbook is that can alert you if your flight's gate changes or a coupon is about to expire. It can also put a notification on your lock screen when you go into the coffee shop that your gift card is from or when you arrive at the airport.

Speaking of Notifications, iOS 6 is bringing a feature called Do Not Disturb, something I have desired for some time. And it works exactly how I imagined. Flip the Do Not Disturb switch and notifications will no longer make sounds nor light up the screen. You can even schedule the hours in which you sleep.

In typical Apple fashion, they have paid attention to the details with Do Not Disturb. You can set exemptions for phone calls, such as your Favorites list or another group. Also, if someone calls you twice within three minutes, the call will go through, as it may be an emergency. I am literally ecstatic about this feature.

By far the biggest announcement for iOS 6 is that Apple is ditching Google Maps as the provider for the Maps app. Apple has rolled its own mapping solution, bringing vector-based maps (the tiles won't have to reload as you change the zoom level), turn-by-turn navigation, and a new view called Flyover, which gives a 3D, bird's-eye view of cities. The feature set is impressive and Apple's cartography is stunningly beautiful.

There are a few other things about iOS 6 that I haven't taken the time to cover, so I suggest you go check out the preview page.

Apple has definitely set the bar high for the future of Mac hardware. OS X is becoming more in tune with its sibling iOS, and iOS is taking a few cues from OS X. The new, more annual development schedule of OS X is helping to keep it and iOS in parity.

And iOS 6 is really showing one big theme: Apple is hurting Google where it counts — eyeballs, or rather the lack of them — on Google's ads. Google has sponsored locations in Apple's Maps app. That's going away. Siri is bypassing what many people would use Google Search for and giving results directly from great sources. And Passbook has the potential to put the hurt on Google Wallet. The message is clear — Google was unwise to make an enemy of Apple.

Maps were essential for Apple to bring in-house. Siri and Passbook are chipping away at what is left.

All in all, Apple is leading the way forward to the next generation, where Apple defines the entire experience.

Instapaper Gets an Awesome Feature for iOS and an Android Version

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Instapaper is one of my most used apps on my iPhone and iPad, and it continually gets better and better.

A couple days ago, it was updated with a really great new feature, background update locations. The feature only works on iPhones and 3G/4G equipped iPads (because of those devices enhanced geolocation abilities). What it does is allow you to set up several geofences — say, home and work — and Instapaper will download any new articles when arriving and leaving those areas.

It’s useful for just about anyone, as your article list is pretty much always ready. I imagine train or bus commuters will really love this feature.

Already it makes me wish I had gone with the 3G/4G enabled iPad this last time (something I likely would have gotten had the carriers been seriously talking about shared data plans at the time).

But this isn’t the only news for Instapaper.

Instapaper for Android

Last night, The Verge published their exclusive on Instapaper for Android. Instapaper for Android is blessed by Marco Arment, creator of Instapaper, but is developed by Mobelux. The two had a working relationship when Marco was at Tumblr, and with Marco focusing most of his time on iOS, I think it makes sense to contract out Instapaper for Android.

It looks like a solid 1.0 release, with a few shortcomings from the iOS version. I’d expect a lot of those will be resolved with time.

The Verge also has a little interview with Marco about the Android version. What I liked from that is that even though Instapaper’s roots are on the iPhone, Marco says his main focus is first on tablets, then smartphones. It’s also worth noting that Instapaper for Android does have separate UI’s for smartphones and tablets.

Instapaper for Android is $2.99 and is available on Google Play, and will be available soon on the Amazon Android Appstore and the NOOK market.

Verizon Wireless to launch shared data plans this summer

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BGR:

Now, during the company’s first-quarter earnings call on Thursday, McAdam clarified that shared data plans will become available to Verizon Wireless subscribers by the middle of the summer.

Both times I have bought an iPhone, AT&T was the only option. A family data plan would be great for my wife and I. Not only that, but it would ensure I would always buy the cellular wireless model of iPad in the future.

I’d be surprised if my wife and I stay with AT&T when the next iPhone comes out.

Here's Some Ads with Your Apps

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Twitter:

With our most recent app updates, Promoted Accounts are now in Twitter for iPhone and Twitter for Android. And in the coming weeks, we’ll begin introducing Promoted Tweets in the timeline on these mobile apps. Initially, a small number of users may see Promoted Tweets near the top of their timelines from brands they already follow.

This isn’t really a surprise. It was only a matter of time since promoted tweets started happening on the website.

My question is how long until third-party apps have to include promoted tweets?

iPad Event Set for March 7

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iPad Event Invitation

Looks like we’ll be seeing a new iPad next week. An event has been scheduled for March 7 at 10:00 am Pacific in San Francisco.

I’d be shocked if the new iPad didn’t have a retina display.

¶ Lion, Refined

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I awoke this morning, reached for my iPhone, and began my ritual of reading some recent tweets to get oriented with the day’s early news. I saw a tweet by Jason Snell that announced he had a hands-on first look of OS X Mountain Lion, coming this summer.

I honestly thought it was a joke, at first. I tapped the link, expecting a Rick Astley video on YouTube, but was met with a very thorough and official looking article at Macworld complete with official looking screenshots. So I got up and went across the hall to my Mac, opened it, and fired up Apple’s site.

Yep, it’s official. OS X Mountain Lion is real. And it’s coming this summer.

iOS-ification, Refined

Apple is a company of habits. And one that is plain to see is their habit of big change, then iterate. Think of the iPhone 3G, then the iteration of the 3GS; the iPhone 4, then the iteration of the iPhone 4S. On the Mac, we can look back at OS X Leopard, which brought big changes, then Snow Leopard, which refined those new technologies; and then Lion, which was, again, a big change, and now Mountain Lion, which is a refinement of those changes.

When we got a sneak peek of Lion in October of 2010, Apple said they were bringing the best of iOS “back to the Mac”. And what we saw was the beginning of the iOS-ification of OS X. We saw things like the Mac App Store, Launchpad, Full-screen Apps, FaceTime, and a slew of new gestures come to the Mac, and they had an iOS scent to them.

Where Snow Leopard gave polish to Leopard’s underlying foundational technologies and some tweaks to newer UI, Mountain Lion is refining and polish the “back to the Mac” features introduced in Lion.

Where Lion brought us some of the way to having many of iOS’s concepts on the Mac, Mountain Lion is bringing us a lot closer.

iCloud

iCloud didn’t make its appearance on Lion until the 10.7.2 update. At that time it usurped MobileMe and took over the syncing functions of email, calendars, contacts, bookmarks, notes, and reminders. But its implementation has felt a little lacking. Documents in the Cloud are present in the backend, but there isn’t a user interface for it. Some apps are rolling their own for now.

Mountain Lion fixes that. Documents in the Cloud are now a new section of the Open/Save Dialog. Click the On This Mac button, and you get the traditional Finder-based file system. Click the iCloud button, and the dialog changes to the same linen and iOS-folder look that you can find in Apple’s iOS iWork apps.

iCloud is also featured prominently when set up a new Mac, or create a new user account. Sign in right at the beginning to pull down Store credentials, contacts, calendars, reminders, notes, email, etc.

Messages

One of my favorite features of iOS 5 is iMessage, which is integrated into Messages, which used to just handle SMS/MMS. iMessage allows iOS users to communicate with other iOS users via text, pictures, or videos, free of charge.

By far, the best part of iMessage is being able to start a conversation on my iPad while at home, and pick right up with it on my iPhone if I need to head out the door, with all the context of the entire conversation present on both devices.

(The worst part is hearing notifications go off on multiple devices throughout the entire conversation).

In Mountain Lion, iChat has been rebranded as Messages and gains iMessage support. It’s awesome. How do I know? Because Apple has released Messages as a public beta for Lion users.

It really is nice to have it on the Mac, other than now I have three devices dinging at me for message notifications.

Notifications

Speaking of notifications, Apple is bringing Notification Center to the Mac in Mountain Lion. Swipe on the trackpad or click a new button in the menu bar to reveal the Notification Center. The desktop slides off toward the left a little to reveal it as a linen layer underneath the desktop. It looks just like it does in iOS 5.

The banner notifications appear over the desktop descending from the upper right, just like Growl does. And let’s be honest, Growl just got Sherlocked.

Notes, Reminders, Contacts, & Calendars

From an article I wrote last month:

I do, however, have one little annoyance about Notes and Reminders — the way they are integrated into the Mac. On iOS, Notes and Reminders get their own apps. On the Mac, they are relegated to being apps within an app. Notes and Reminders are shoehorned into Mail and iCal, respectively.

I would much rather Notes and Reminders have their own apps on the Mac, with similar interfaces to their iOS counterparts. Notes, on its own, could effectively replace the Stickies app on the Mac.

My problem with Notes and Reminders being integrated into other apps is consistency. A great example of consistency between the Mac, iPhone, and iPad is Twitterrific. The app offers the same experience across all three devices. The user never has to question how to do anything on each device. Learn once, apply everywhere.

This is another instance where Mountain Lion refines the iOS-ification that Lion heralded. Notes and Reminders will no longer be shoehorned into Mail and iCal, respectively. They’re getting their own apps that look a lot like their iOS counterparts, with a Mac flair.

Furthering the pursuit of consistency, Address Book and iCal are being renamed to Contacts and Calendars, respectively (and getting a couple usability tweaks in their skeuomorphic UIs).

Sharing

The share button that is prevalent in iOS is going to be more widely used in Mountain Lion. This button will collect appropriate services for sharing content, based on which app you’re using.

For instance, in Safari, you can share a link to Twitter. Twitter, by the way, is also now integrated in OS X like it is in iOS 5. So, when you share something to Twitter, you’ll see the Tweet Sheet.

Another way to share things is via AirPlay. Since my wife & I got an Apple TV last year, there have been a number of occasions where we wished we could mirror our Macs to the Apple TV.

Game Center

Also, Game Center is coming to the Mac, and will allow you to play, on your Mac, against users on other Macs and even iOS devices. I’m not a heavy gamer, so this doesn’t interest me much, but I know a few folks who will love it.

Gatekeeper

Gatekeeper is a new level of security to help protect against malware. It works by only allowing apps that fall within a certain security level to run. It has three levels of security that the user can choose from:

  • Mac App Store: Only apps from the Mac App Store can run. These are the safest apps because the developers are known to Apple and the apps are reviewed by Apple prior to being published to the store.

  • Mac App Store and identified developers: In addition to the Mac App Store, developers who do not want to distribute their apps on the store can obtain a free developer ID from Apple to cryptographically sign their apps.

    Apple’s Gatekeeper site states:

    A developer’s digital signature allows Gatekeeper to verify that their app is not known malware and that it hasn’t been tampered with.

    If an app is discovered to be malware, Apple can revoke that developer’s signature certificate and stop the spread of the malware.

  • Anywhere: This allows apps from anywhere — Mac App Store, signed, or unsigned — to run on a Mac. This is the current behavior in OS X Lion.

This seems to be causing quite a stir among some folks that don’t particularly like Apple. I’ve been seeing a lot of sentiments of “They’re locking down OS X!” and “I’m going to get my data ready to jump ship, just in case”.

I can understand the fear, but I don’t think these people really understand Apple. There are a lot of smart, technologically minded folks who seem to think Apple is going to slowly tighten their grasp on developers until only the walled city of the App Store is left. I’ve also heard the sentiment that once that happens, the Mac is doomed, because developers won’t stand to have 30% of the price of their app gobbled up by Apple.

I couldn’t disagree more with all of that.

The fact that Apple went to the effort to make Gatekeeper at all shows their commitment to indie software development. Albeit, they are committing to secure indie software development. Apple always thinks of its users first, then developers.

One of the most popular OS X software developers in the world, Wil Shipley, seems to think Gatekeeper is the way to go:

(Seriously, go read that article Wil wrote and linked to above).

Simply put, Apple always supports their way, and the standard way. On iOS, they support native, cocoa touch apps via the App Store, and they also fully support (and do the best job at it) web apps. In iBooks, they support their own iBooks format and fully support ePub and PDF. On the Mac, there is the Mac App Store and developer ID and — at the user’s discretion — the old way of unsigned apps.

I firmly believe that Apple’s effort to secure indie app development outside of the App Store indeed secures its existence. If Apple wanted to go Mac App Store only, I don’t think they’d take the “boil a frog” approach. I think they’d just do it, and if you don’t like it, well, so long and thanks for all the fish.

Does Apple prefer that developers go with the Mac App Store? You bet. I’m sure that 30% cut plays a part in the motivation. But I think running a super secure system plays a bigger part. And that in itself will drive the bottom line as more people buy Apple’s technology.

Is there a carrot enticing developers over to the Mac App Store? You bet. Only apps on the Mac App Store can access iCloud and Notification Center.

Is Apple going to shut down indie development outside of the App Store? I seriously doubt it. However, I could see Apple shutting down unsecured indie development on the Mac. Maybe the successor to Mountain Lion will take away that Anywhere option within Gatekeeper, which isn’t a bad thing.

And hey, maybe I’m reading too much into this, but that Gatekeeper icon has one gate closed, and one open. How appropriate.

I have to say, it was an extremely pleasant surprise to be truly surprised by Mountain Lion’s announcement. There wasn’t an inkling of it that I saw in the rumor mill. While the rumor mill can be quite fun, it gets tiring finding out about stuff beforehand and sullies the excitement of when Apple makes an announcement. It was great to see how Apple handled this announcement, which was very different from the past. Be sure to read John Gruber’s account of finding out about Mountain Lion.

I am honestly blown away with how fantastic Mountain Lion looks, and I am going to be one very impatient person until it launches this summer.

Apple to Require User Permission for Contact Data

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No doubt in response to last week’s controversy about Path uploading user’s entire address book, Apple has issued the following statement to AllThingsD:

“Apps that collect or transmit a user’s contact data without their prior permission are in violation of our guidelines,” Apple spokesman Tom Neumayr told AllThingsD. “We’re working to make this even better for our customers, and as we have done with location services, any app wishing to access contact data will require explicit user approval in a future software release.”

So, now we wait to see if it comes with iOS 5.1 in a month or so, or if Apple rolls out iOS 5.0.2 to patch this up a little faster. It’s a good response from Apple, since Path isn’t the only app out there that had been doing this.