Interesting Links

Here are some interesting links I found this week. Got a few sweet app posts coming in the next few weeks as well as my first impressions of the iPhone 6s. Check the links below.

• According to MacRumors the Apple Watch 2 may arrive mid to late 2016. The report comes via Cowen and Company analyst Timothy Arcuri.
• A developer managed to create a MAME Emulator for tvOS for the new Apple TV. 9to5Mac notes that the developer is using a third party gaming controller to play the gaming titles. 
• This week Pitchfork shared an announcement about a new collaborative project from Flying Lotus, Shabazz Palaces, and Thundercat called WOKE. They released their first single, "The Lavishment of Light Looking" featuring George Clinton.
• The New York Times ran a good feature on mobile content blockers. Brian Chen put some of the more popular ones to a test.
• Via Patently Apple we learn that yes, indeed, Apple has developed an iRing that hopefully will never see the light of day.

Throwback Thursday - DJ Shadow, Cut Chemist, DJ Nu-Mark (Pushin' Buttons)

Full disclosure. I'm a huge DJ Shadow fan that has never seen him live. I've discussed the reasons before. It's why I love finding gems like this so I can live vicariously through all the lucky people who have witnessed a live DJ Shadow performance. This one happens to be bonkers.

Back in 2002 Shadow released his third LP, The Private Press, which featured a limited edition version that included an additional single track CD. That song is what you see in the video above, Pushin' Buttons Live, which featured guests Cut Chemist from Jurassic 5 and DJ Nu-Mark. 

This performance was also included on the live DVD "In Tune and On Time" which was also released in 2002. Click the video and enjoy those three banging on the Akai MPC samplers.

GiF for Mac

I'm always looking for more ways to find GIF's and share them quickly. Enter GiF for Mac by Riffsy. GiF for Mac is a GIF search engine that sits in your menu bar and allows you to search for any GIFS. You can then share them directly from the app and even drag and drop them into apps such as iMessage. More impressive is the GIF saving feature which allows you to save your own GIFS directly into the app for future use.

GiF for Mac can be downloaded for free from the Riffsy site.

Site News - New Twitter Account

I decided to setup a standalone Twitter account for this here little website. I did this mainly to separate my personal account with my "professional" account. This will allow me to keep better metrics on who and how my posts are reaching my audience and who has actually found me via Twitter. 

Follow @JDigitalBlog

Thanks for following!  

Report - iPhone 7 to Feature Waterproof and Dustproof Design

As soon as a new iPhone hits the streets rumor season begins. I typically ignore rumors this early but considering the source you want to pay attention to this. 9to5Mac is known for knocking it out of the park when it comes to breaking news. The details...

The first Weibo posting claims that the iPhone 7 will feature a waterproof and dustproof design. Several flagship Android devices already carry this added layer of protection, so it would make sense for Apple to add it to its own flagship phones. The iPhone 6s and 6s Plus don’t technically feature a waterproof design, but early tests have shown that the phones are significantly better at handling water than previous generation iPhones.

There are a few more tidbits located in that article. Head over to 9to5Mac to read the rest.

watchOS 2 Tips and Tricks

After a small delay due to a last minute bug, watchOS 2.0 was unleashed to the world on September 21st. The new update brings a bevy of new features which makes the wearable feel like a more complete device and in my opinion unofficially brings it out of beta. I spent a few days with the new OS looking for tricks and tips I could share with you. Here are my findings. 

Native Third Party Apps

New to watchOS 2.0 is the ability for developers to have their apps install directly on the watch hardware. This allows for apps to run much quicker than before. Previously apps would launch via a paired iPhone's Bluetooth/Wi-Fi connection which offered quite a bit of lag and delay. While the experience isn't perfect with 2.0 it's much better than it was when the watch launched.

Native third party apps are slowly being updated and rolling out into the App Store. One of my current favorites is Dark Sky which also brought along third party complications. More on that later. 

Nightstand Mode

Now when you plug your watch in to charge at night you can lay it on its side to activate Nightstand Mode. This allows the watch to act like an alarm clock. The display illuminates when you touch the screen and the digital crown acts as a snooze button for the alarm. 

One of the cooler, undocumented features is the way the screen lights up when your alarm is close to going off. 

Time Travel

This one is my favorite. By rotating the Digital Crown in either direction you can quickly scroll through your day in Time Travel mode. Rotating the crown will change the time, calendar and even the weather. By pressing the Digital Crown once you will return to the current time.  

Change Screen Timeout Length

A small but useful addition to the settings is the ability to change the wake timeframe for the watch screen. Simply go to the watch app on your iPhone and navigate to Settings>General>Wake Screen.

You now have the option to increase the timeout to 70 seconds which is much more preferable. 

Music App Enhancements

A bunch of new features and tweaks were added to the Music app in watchOS 2.0. As you would expect Apple added some additional Apple Music features, mainly a shortcut to listen to Beats 1 directly from the watch. You can now "love" your favorite songs from the Now Playing screen. When you're browsing the Music app menu you can now swipe down from the top of the list to reveal a music source selection menu. 

Activation Lock

watchOS 2.0 includes Activation Lock, a new security feature. Activating your watch requires your iCloud Apple ID and password, so in the event that your Apple Watch is lost or stolen, your information remains safe. This feature behaves in a similar way as the iPhone Activation Lock.

Reply to Email

You can now reply to email in various ways. When you receive a new email simply tap on the reply button at the bottom of the message. You are presented with a menu that allows you to dictate a response, send an emoji or use one of the provided, relevant quick replies.

Third Party Complications

Once developers start rolling them out third party complications are going to be the killer feature of watchOS 2.0. You can now use third party complications to launch quickly into the respective apps. My favorite so far is Dark Sky. The smaller complication changes to a SOON! umbrella when rain will begin shortly and shows the temperature when no rain is imminent. Pressing on the complication launches you directly into the app.

I'm really looking forward to the Fantastical complication to replace the default calendar which should be available in the next few weeks. 

New Watch Faces

watchOS 2.0 brought some new watch faces. All of them involve using photos as your face. My personal favorite is the Photo Album option. You can setup the album you want to sync to the watch by opening the Watch app on your phone and navigating to My Watch>Photos>Synced Album.

Here are the new watch face options:

• Time-Lapse - Choose from a selection of slick time-lapse videos shot over 24 hours in iconic locations around the world.
• Photo - Pick an image from the Photos app on your watch and set it as your watch face.
• Photo Album - Every time you raise your wrist, a different image from your Favorites, or any album you select, will appear on your watch face.

Tip:  As an added bonus you can now use multiple colors when customizing the Modular face including a multi-color activity ring complication and colored battery complication.

Use Siri to Launch Glances

This one is pretty useful. You can now use Siri to pull up glances. Even better you can ask Siri to launch glances that are not currently enabled in your settings. Simply invoke Siri and ask to her to "open the <insert glance here>" and it will pop up.

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Those are some of the best features from watchOS 2.0. There are plenty of great resources and reviews of watchOS 2.0 around the web. Some of my favorite articles I have read so far come from Macstories and iMore.   

If you know of any additional tips and tricks that I may have missed drop them in the comments.

Enjoy watchOS 2.0! 

Weekend Vibes #7

Jonwayne - Luda Goes To Church and I DL Lex Luger's Drum Kit

That is not a typo. So here's the deal on this one. Jonwayne shared this mashup of Ludacris' "How Low" on his Soundcloud which includes a pretty sick hip-hop beat, the majority of which is comprised of church organ samples. 

Jonwayne really doesn't give a crap and will make whatever he feels like making. He has turned out mixtape after mixtape of some of the sickest instrumentals I have heard since Clams Casino.

Vibe out to Luda Goes to Church. Have a great weekend.

Purify for iOS 9

Update: This is currently on sale today for $0.99. GO GRAB IT NOW!

The mobile web is a disaster. I've been flapping my gums quite a bit on Twitter about ads and web tracking lately and with iOS 9 being released to the public, content blockers are all the rage. The concept of a content blocker is pretty simple. Install the one you choose from the app store, enable it in Safari settings and browse ad free. There are plenty to choose from and with Peace being pulled from the App Store my blocker of choice is Purify.

Purify presents you with a few options when you load the app. You can choose to block resources that include Images, Scripts and Fonts. You can also enable/disable Ads and Tracking altogether. If you have some favorite websites that you would prefer to browse without Purify enabled you can add those sites to the apps whitelist using the included share sheet extension. When you are browsing the website simply invoke the share sheet and select Purify - Whitelist to add it to your safe list.

Purify not only cleans up your browsing experience but it greatly improves page load times. Check out this handy chart comparing some of the more popular content blockers.

Purify is a universal app that supports iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch. It's $3.99 in the App Store and worth every penny.

Download here. 

iOS 9 Tips and Tricks Part Deux

After spending a few days with iOS 9 I managed to discover some additional useful features and tricks and was able to finally dive into the iPad version of the OS. Here are some additional things I found to get you around iOS 9.

Access Apple Pay from Lockscreen

Apple made it very easy to access Apple Pay on your Apple Watch. You simply double press the button on the right side of the watch and your cards are immediately activated. It was so much easier than using the phone I can't remember the last time I actually used the phone for Apple Pay. With iOS 9 you can now pull up Apple Pay in a similar fashion by double pressing the home button when you are on the lock screen. 

Thanks to @rm20192 for the heads up on this one.

Photos App Improvements

A handful of features and shortcuts have been added to the Photos app that aren't obvious at first glance. Let's take a look at some of the better ones.

• Swipe to Select Photos - While you can still select multiple photos to perform actions on by tapping the Select button and individually pressing on each photo you want to select, you can now swipe over the photos you want to select just by scrubbing your finger across the photo grid. 
• Photo Scrubber - While in single photo view you can now scrub through your photos by flicking left to right/right to left on the scrubber located at the bottom of the individual photo. This makes for quick browsing/scrolling.
• Swipe Down to Go Back - When viewing a single photo you can now swipe down on it to go back to your camera roll. This is much more convenient that using the small back arrow button on the top of the photo view.

Load Web Page Without Content Blocker

If you're using a content blocker in iOS 9 (I suggest Purity) their may be instances where you want to browse a webpage without the blocker loaded in the background. You can force this within safari by holding down on the refresh page button in the address bar to pull up the option menu. You can reload the page without content blockers and even request a desktop version of the website.

Search for Location Specific Photos with Siri

Among the cool Siri features that came with iOS 9 is the ability to have her search for photos by location. Simply invoke Siri and ask her to find photos from a specific city or state and you will be presented with results that have geotagged locations from that search.

Enable Picture-in-Picture on iPad

For the first time in a long time an iOS update brought iPad specific features, breathing some life back into the iPad which was becoming quite stale in regards to OS advancements. One of the best features is video picture-in-picture. Now when viewing a video (if the developer enabled PIP) you can press on the PIP button included in the video to shrink the video screen and exit the app (as seen in the screenshot above). You can then drag the video window around the home screen and place it in a location that is easy for you to view. This is a great feature especially when using FaceTime. 

This feature is only available for iPad Mini 2, 3, and 4. iPad Air 1 and 2, and iPad Pro.

Enable Slide Over on iPad

Slide Over is a new feature that allows you to "pull an app" from the right side of the screen which overlays on top of what you are currently viewing. This is a great feature to quickly access notes or view Twitter while you are in another app. You may be reading a website and need to quickly jot down some notes. Simply swipe from the right side of the screen towards the center to activate Slide Over. You can then pull down from the top of the slide over screen to pull up the app picker. 

This feature is only available for iPad Mini 2, 3, and 4. iPad Air 1 and 2, and iPad Pro

Home Sharing is Back in iOS 9

Home Sharing, the ability to access your iTunes library on your home network from other iOS and OS X devices was suspiciously removed back in iOS 8. Eddie Cue promised it would return in iOS 9 and he stuck to his word. To enable Home Sharing in iOS 9 open your Settings app and navigate to Music and at the very bottom of the page login to your Home Sharing account. Make sure you are also logged into Home Sharing in iTunes on your Mac. 

Once you're in the Music app you can access your iTunes library through the Music tab, selecting the "Sort By Artist/Album/etc" menu and choosing Home Sharing.

Bring Back Upper Case Keyboard

iOS 9 fixed the annoying shift key problem introduced in iOS 8 where you could never tell whether it was activated or not. While that was fixed a jarring change was brought to the default layout of the keyboard. You are now presented with a lowercase keyboard. This is not the normal keyboard configuration you are used to as desktop and laptop keyboards have always had uppercase. To bring back your uppercase keyboard open the Settings app and navigate to General>Accessibility>Keyboard and toggle Show Lowercase Keys. After a few days of using the lowercase layout I've gotten used to it and it just makes more sense. Give it a try and stick with it for a few days.

Roomy Notification Center on iPad

Apple reorganized the notification center in iOS 9 for the iPad. When you're in landscape mode you can now setup a second column for widgets which also contains a tab for your notifications. This can be configured in the same section where you setup your widgets by scrolling to the bottom and hitting the edit button.

Reconfigured iCloud Storage Plans

Apple made adjustments to it's iCloud storage size and prices with iOS 9. These are now active and you can adjust your iCloud storage settings by opening the Settings app and navigating to iCloud>Storage>Change Storage Plan. See the chart below for the changes in tiers and pricing.

If you've found any other tips and tricks please feel free to leave them in the comments or use my contact form. If I find more tricks I'll dump them into a third post.
 

Weekend Vibes #6

ZRO FOX - Might Not feat. Sasha Go Hard

I first heard of ZRO FOX from ProbCause who is responsible for the bangers LSD featuring Chance the Rapper and Three Course Meal featuring Chance and Action Bronson. I stumbled upon Might Not via ProbCause's Soundcloud. Might Not was supposed to get a retail release back in January 2015 but I haven't seen much  news since.

ZRO FOX is comprised of ProbCause and Hologram Kizzie. The track is produced by Wes P.

Have a great weekend.