iOS 8

Now the great, the great and the not so great of iOS 8

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All day I’ve been turning to my iPhone or iPad to do something and finding it subtly different because I’ve taken the free upgrade to iOS 8. And finding it subtly, slightly, gradually and superbly better:

• It’s easier and quicker and clearer to tell Apple Maps you’re walking instead of driving

• Voice iMessages. I had this on WhatsApp when I was reviewing that and thought it a nice idea but, meh, I’ll never remember to use it. Today, the first day it’s on iOS 8, I sent half a dozen voice iMessages, barely having to think

• “Hey Siri, take me home”. Just saying that aloud in the car and finding Siri firing up the map us unnatural

• Recent and favourite contacts. Double tap the home key to switch to another app and along the way there are icons for the people you speak and email and text with most often. Tap on one then text, phone or email them

• Today View. Being able to see my current OmniFocus To Do tasks and tick them off. Being able to launch quickly into Evernote right from there.

• Swipe that Email Down. Push your reply down out of the way while you peek to see what’s just come in to your inbox

• Sharing. Sending a webpage to Pocket, to Evernote, to OmniFocus and being able to add details before it goes

• Using 1Password from within Safari.

• Quick deleting emails with swipes

• Spotlight searching looks through your phone, your email, your browser history and the web and Wikipedia

That’s ten things right there. The killer thing for me is that I know there is more yet they’ve already become so familiar I can’t remember to question whether we’ve always had them. I used an iOS 7 iPad earlier this evening and it just felt old.

So, you know, reading between the lines here, I’d say I think iOS 8 is a hit.

One key reason to love iOS 8: TextExpander

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Previously… TextExpander is this great, great Mac app that is bleugh on iOS. Yes, you could still tap a couple of keys and have them expand out to pages of text, but you had to leave whatever app you were in. Leave Mail, go to the TextExpander Touch app, tap the couple of keys, select all the expanded text, copy, go back to Mail, paste.

Short alternative: you never bothered.

It was worth having TextExpander Touch for those apps that did allow it to work, but there weren’t a huge number of them and none of Apple’s did. So no joy in Mail, Safari or Pages. None of that.

Now, as of today and the moment that iOS 8 drops, it’s all change. The new iOS 8 allows alternative keyboards and TextExpander provides one. Whatever you’re using on your iPhone or iPad, you can be using the TextExpander keyboard and that means all apps, everything, everywhere, includes TextExpander features.

I’m about 80% ecstatic. I was 100% but it turns out that I prefer the ‘normal’ Apple iOS 8 keyboard. TextExpander’s one looks a little weedy to me and, potentially more seriously, if you use this then you lose the new auto-complete suggestions feature of Apple’s keyboard. That’s where it tries to calculate what word you’re likely to type next and offers a selection to you as you go. I don’t know yet whether I like that. But I should probably avoid getting used to it because it ain’t there on the TextExpander keyboard.

David Sparks has been on the iOS 8 and TextExpander betas and he’s produced this video. About half of its two-minute running time is devoted to how you set this stuff up but then he’s got examples of it in action. That’s the bit to watch for.

Enough already: Omni Group also updates OmniOutliner

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omnioutliner
It’s a small update compared to the OmniFocus and OmniGraffle ones announced today but also I use OmniOutliner so I’m going to be getting this when it drops too.

Wait. Makes a mental note:

1) Get iOS 8
2) Get OmniFocus 2 for iPad
3) Update OmniOutliner for iPad
4) Update TextExpander for iPhone and iPad
5) Install TextExpander keyboard for iPhone and iPad
6) Update 1Password

I’d best get on with some work before iOS 8 drops then, hadn’t I?

For once there are no more real details about the OmniOutliner for iPad update: I found out via a tweet that just said it “will fix compatibility issues with iOS 8 and restore ‘Dark Mode'”. (Ken Case, @kcase, 17 September 2014). But you can read much more about OmniOutliner on my review covering the iPad and Mac versions or you could horse’s mouth it on the official site. With videos.

Launching today: OmniFocus 2 for iPad

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I lied to you. I said that the instant, the instant that OmniFocus 2 for iPad is out, I’m buying it. My heart was telling the truth: OmniFocus 1 for iPad has been that useful and the version 2 releases for the Mac and iPhone are great, I will be buying.

But OmniFocus 2 for iPad requires iOS 8 and until you have that, you can’t even see it in the App Store. I don’t know if it’s there yet: I can’t see it because I don’t have iOS 8.

The new iOS 8 is coming today and is likely to drop around 6pm UK time. By when I’ll be off working for the evening.

So let me amend all this to say that the instant, the instant I’m back from the work I’m doing, if iOS 8 is out then I’m getting that free upgrade immediately and if OmniFocus 2 for iPad is therefore revealed in App Store, I’m buying that instantly, instantly.

Not as pithy as my original line, is it?

While we wait, there are more details on The Omni Group blog which says in part:

Beyond its new design, OmniFocus 2 for iPad offers two great new iOS 8 extensions, interactive notifications so you can immediately complete or snooze a reminder, improved searching, and background syncing. And, of course, all of the great features pioneered in the original iPad app, such as the built-in Forecast and Review perspectives.

OmniFocus 2 will be available for just $29.99, and its Pro upgrade will be available as an optional in-app purchase for $19.99.

For those of you who purchased the first version of OmniFocus for iPad, we have a very special deal: we appreciate the support you’ve given us through the years, and we’re showing our appreciation in a very concrete way by giving you the $19.99 Pro upgrade for free.

Introducing OmniFocus 2 for iPad – Ken Case, The Omni Group (17 September 2014)

I do like how well this company treats its customers: the upgrade pricing is unnecessary, given that I would still just buy it, but obviously very welcome.

Small but gorgeously formed: OmniFocus gets Extensions

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If you have an iPhone or an iPad, just look at this:

New_OmniFocus_extensions_-_iPhone

One of the good things about OmniFocus is that you don’t tend to spend all day in it. You don’t go in, look at your next task, do it and then pop back for the next. It’s like you stock up your head with the things you need to do today and then you toddle off. But it’s handy to be able to check quickly and that’s what is going on there.

That’s the notification screen you get from swiping down on an iPhone. You can swipe down without unlocking the phone so it’s pick up phone, one swipe, read your OmniFocus tasks, done.

This Today view, as Apple calls it, has been around since at least iOS 7 but I can’t be certain when it started because I use it so rarely that I’ve forgotten. This is going to change now.

More details on The Omni Group blog.

Very nice: Microsoft OneNote adds superb iOS 8 feature

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The new iOS 8 for iPhone and iPad – which will be available for free from tomorrow – includes a new feature called Extensions. And one Extension is a Sharing one that Microsoft has leapt on for its OneNote app.

If you use iPhone or iPad at the moment, you know that there is usually a Share button somewhere on the screen: it looks like a rectangle with an up arrow coming out of it. When you tap that, you get the option to share whatever is on your screen with anybody you like via email, for instance. Or AirDrop. If you’re looking at a photo you can Share it to your own photo library.

Now you will be able to share it right into OneNote. See something, write something, watch anything, tap and pop it straight into OneNote. It is a great feature from iOS 8 and it is really well adopted by Microsoft.

I’d say that I can only hope Evernote does the same thing but there is more to it than hope: you can be pretty sure that Evernote will. My Share button is going to get crammed with this stuff.

Not including OneNote. I don’t use OneNote. But it’s good touches like this that would make me think about it. Have a look at all this in action in Microsoft’s video.

Staring at my iPhone and iPad screens waiting for tomorrow to start

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Tomorrow sees the public release of iOS 8. I’m actually blanking on why I’m so keen; it’s ages since I saw what it would bring – wait, there’s one definite thing, there’s a great change to Siri that I want.

Specifically this: when I’m driving and the iPhone is plugged in, I will be able to talk to Siri without pressing a button first. I talk to Siri a lot. I mean, a lot. It’s like I have no friends.

Or at least no friends in the car with me who will also remember everything I tell it to. I add reminders to OmniFocus via Siri about once a minute when I’m driving. I think that driving just frees up part of my brain and let’s these things out.

Now I’m thinking that I’m not very safe on the roads.

But I’m also thinking of OmniFocus. It’s been confirmed that the new version for the iPad has been approved by Apple and will be released on the App Store tomorrow.

So just as it was with iOS 7 and OmniFocus 2 for iPhone, I will be updating to iOS 8 and instantly going to the App Store to buy OmniFocus 2 for iPad.

I’m just telling you this because I’m enthused and I’ll alone, not even Siri to talk to. Sob..

Wow – TextExpander to radically improve in iOS 8

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Quick version: TextExpander will include a new system-wide keyboard that lets you trigger snippets and thereby expand text.

You’re looking at me like you want the slow version.

First, TextExpander is a utility that is fantastic on Macs and okay on iPhones and iPad. I’ve been working on the new book, Filling the Blank Screen – which is out as an ebook on Friday by the way, paperback next month – and so naturally I have typed that title a lot. I mean, a lot. But when I’m at my Mac, then whether I’m writing the back cover blurb, whether I’m completing a contract, whether I’m discussing the publication in emails, I can just type the letters xftb. Type that and the words “Filling the Blank Screen” are entered for me.

You can work out what the ftb means in xftb. The letters are up to you and the x is just a good habit to get into: few real words begin with x.

Now, I love typing and I love it so much that I ignored TextExpander for years. But it isn’t just for the odd short sentence: I have a bio snippet that after I type four letters, I get 300 words of biography text. A few times a month I’ll be asked for a bio so I type that snippet and then I edit the result to fit whatever is needed or whoever has asked me.

TextExpander also makes sure you are consistent: I don’t do this myself but there are many people who use it to automatically correct regular typing mistakes. So for instance, I keep mistyping “the” as “hte” (I wonder if that’s a cry of hate coming from my soul, as you do) which means I could set TextExpander to replace ‘hte’ with ‘the’ every time I type.

It’s also great for complex yet repetitive pieces of text: once a week I send a certain email to a certain person and I start it with a TextExpander keystroke. That does fill out the email with lots of detail but it also pauses to ask me for the new bits. I fill out a little form that appears and then TextExpander pops all the new bits into the pre-written email and I just hit send.

This is in all ways great.

When you’re on your Mac.

On the Mac, it works everywhere. On iOS it doesn’t. Apple doesn’t allow anything like this to run everywhere so the makers of TextExpander have to persuade app developers to play nice. Many, many do, but not all and not including Apple. So there’s no TextExpander support in Mail on my iPhone, for instance.

Now, Apple announced that iOS 8 will allow app makers to create keyboards. I did not give a damn. Not a monkey’s, not half a monkey’s, I heard Apple say it and it was out my other ear before they finished the sentence. I am fine with the regular keyboard on my iPhone and iPad, fine.

But now Smile Software, the makers of TextExpander, have announced that they will be one of the app companies providing a new keyboard.

And that keyboard will let you expand TextExpander snippets. Everywhere.

Everywhere.

This is huge and transforming because now you will always be able to use TextExpander. In anything. Anything.

I’m sold. Can’t wait for iOS 8 now. Go take a look at Smile Software’s announcement which includes a video demo.

Did I say this already? Buy 1Password right now

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I definitely urged this in the latest edition of The Blank Screen email newsletter – do sign up for your free copy – and if I’ve met you on the street in the last few days I’ve undoubtedly pressed you on the issue. But I don’t think I’ve said it here and I must.

Buy 1Password for iOS now.

As in now. Please rush.

Well, you can take a little bit of time because it’s on sale and will be for at least a short while: it’s not one of those instant on, instant off sales. And as ever with things I recommend on sale, it is more than worth its full price so if you miss the discount, shrug it off.

So you know, the sale price goes thisaway: 1Password for iPhone is briefly £6.99 UK or $9.99 US (instead of £9.99 UK or $17.99 US). Check the maker’s website, though, because there are many options if you’re using more than one device: 1Password official site.

It’s a password manager – creates great passwords for you and then, this is the key part, both remembers them all and pops them into websites for you – and it’s also especially good at holding all your credit card details and, again, popping them into websites when you say Go. It’s also very cross-platform: I use it daily on Mac, iPhone and iPad but there is also a PC, Windows and Android version. They all play nicely, too, so if you’re a PC user with an iPhone or a Mac user with an Android phone, you’re fine. Possibly schizophrenic, but fine.

If you are on a PC or Android, my reason to urge you to buy 1Password is solely that it is so very good. Indispensable. I went from wondering why anyone would want such a thing to having it on my iPhone’s front screen and using it literally every day. Literally literally: there’s a thing I have to do every single day and I do it through 1Password because it’s so much quicker.

But.

If you’re on an iOS device, there is an extra delightful urgency to all this. Buy 1Password for iPhone or iPad on sale today and you will get the next version for free. The next version will be a significant upgrade but it won’t cost existing users anything and you will be an existing user.

I am an existing user, I am a now very long-standing existing user, and I’m excited by this – I don’t use the word lightly, I actually am excited – because of what’s coming in the next version.

The next 1Password will be the first or at most among the very first apps to use Apple’s new Extensions feature that lets one app use another. I told you that I do this thing every day: it’s using a website that I have to log in to and on my iPhone, I have to remember to go to it via 1Password in order to have the password app pop my details in. If I’ve just gone there via Safari, I either nip back and forth to 1Password, copying out my secure details and pasting them in to Safari – or I quit it all and start the job again in 1Password.

From the next version and Apple’s iOS 8, I will be able to just call up 1Password right from within Safari and have it do my doings for me. If I have the new 1Password, iOS 8 and a newer iPhone than I currently have, I’ll be able to tap my thumb in order to get it to enter secure details for me.

I’d say that if I were you, I’d buy 1Password now. But if I really were you, you’d already have it.

Best news all day – an end to ads bumping you to the App Store

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Previously… we’ve had a recent spate of websites whose ads run some code that registers you’re on a mobile device like, specifically, an iPhone or iPad, and then jumps you to the App Store.

If you haven’t seen this, you’re not following me. You’re on your iOS device, you got a website in Safari and before you’ve begun to read whatever it is you wanted to read, wallop, you’re out of Safari and into the App Store. You are at the same point you would be if you’d found an app and opened its page to have a look. So you’re looking at an app that longs for you to buy it and it is usually a game and it invariably has no chance whatsoever of getting my cash, so help me god.

Back in April, I reported on what was then the only way to stop these. It was what you might call a brute-force solution. There isn’t a switch, isn’t an option, isn’t a UNIX Terminal command you can set, but you can always bitch about it all to whoever runs the website that has these ads.

I bitched.

One website owner explained to me that they loathe these too, that they were being slipped in without the site owner’s knowledge. That’s not just possible, it’s not even just probable, it has an extremely good chance of being true because of the way that ads are served to sites. Some of them are sold as network ads to companies which specialise in filling them. The site owner just knows this block will be filled by a client of that network ad company, they don’t know which until it’s live.

But then when it is live, you can see it and the site owner is bumped to these stupid games in the App Store just like the rest of us. So another site owner came to me to say they’d had it too and they had stopped it by banning those ads.

Sorry that this is a long Previously: you can tell it narked me.

Which is why I am delighted today. Because today we learn that Apple’s iOS 8 has a feature built-in to help us. I don’t know the fancy Cocoa or Objective-C feature name, but it’s effectively BollocksToThoseAdvertisers.exe because iOS 8 itself just stops them.

You can’t do much better than having the very operating system of the phone stick its fingers up at you.

Apple is expected to release iOS 8 this autumn and it will for certain be free, it will for certain run on any iPhone of the last many years and it will surely be taken up by the extremely vast majority of iPhone users immediately. (Because iOS 7, and 6, and 5… all were.) That means the number of people left who can be bumped out from a website to the App Store in this aggravating way won’t be zero, but it’ll be small enough that advertisers will give up on it.

I have nothing against advertising or advertisers, but I call this one a win.