Linked List: April 23, 2015

Thursday, 23 April 2015

Twitterrific for Apple Watch 

Ged Maheux, The Iconfactory:

The Twitterrific watch app displays a list of your most recent 25 replies, mentions, direct messages, favs, RT’s and new followers right on your wrist. This helps you focus on the part of Twitter that’s most important to you and frees you from information overload common when viewing your entire timeline. Simply tap any item in the list to view its details and respond in a number of ways. Favorite a reply or mention, give a new friend a follow back and even reply to mentions and direct messages using Apple Watch’s dictation feature. It’s just that simple.

Twitterrific for Apple Watch is a lot more interesting to me than the official Twitter client. Twitter’s watch app only shows two things: your regular timeline and a list of top-trending global hashtags. Neither of those things is useful or appropriate in the context of a watch. Twitterrific, on the other hand, focuses on the sort of things you’d actually want to be notified about: your mentions and DMs.

Apple Watch and Durability: How Tough Are Apple’s Finishes? 

Greg Koenig — author of that terrific “How Apple Makes the Watch” piece a few weeks ago — writing today for iMore:

The best way to answer such questions is to wait and see how the first wave of watches do in the hands of real people. Yet it’s not unreasonable for potential early adopters to want at least some idea before they buy. Lucky for us, Apple is using materials and techniques that have been standard for wristwatches going back a few decades, so we can make some educated, experience-driven assumptions about how the watch variants will fare on our wrists soon.

App Store for Apple Watch Is Live 

Jim Dalrymple:

You can now see what apps are available for the Apple Watch, even if you don’t have one of the devices. Just open the Apple Watch app on your iPhone, which comes with the latest iOS update, and you can browse the available apps.

Certainly interesting that there are already a few thousands of these. But it’s worth noting that none of these are actually apps that run on the watch itself. They’re extensions that run on your iPhone and display on your watch over Bluetooth.

Shawn King Needs Some Help 

My friend Shawn King — longtime Mac/Apple writer/broadcaster and host of Your Mac Life for 21 years — has hit a run of bad luck. He’s developed “advanced periodontal disease”, and needs extensive oral surgery. That’s bad enough, but even worse: he can’t afford it.

So he’s started a GoFundMe fundraiser to help with the expenses. I know just how stressful it is to deal with serious health issues, even when you have insurance to cover the costs. It’s hard to imagine how much worse it must feel when you don’t. I know Shawn well enough to know just how hard it must have been for him to ask for help like this. But I’m glad he did, and I’m happy to help him.

Shawn is a good guy in a bad spot. Do me a favor. Read his story, think about what it would be like to be in his place, and if you can, pitch in a few bucks to help. It would mean a lot to me for the Daring Fireball community to add a nice bump to his campaign.

Galaxy S6 Unboxing 

Clever video from Samsung. (Via Abdel Ibrahim.)

Apple Watch User Guide 

Boy, I really could have used this a month ago. Apple Watch is remarkably deep for a 1.0 product. One example that I couldn’t figure out on my own — how to discern “turn left” from “turn right” based on the haptic feedback when getting walking or driving directions:

After you tap Start and head off on your first leg, Apple Watch uses taps to let you know when to turn. A steady series of 12 taps means turn right at the intersection you’re approaching; three pairs of two taps means turn left. Not sure what your destination looks like? You’ll feel a vibration when you’re on the last leg, and again when you arrive.

Right is a steady series; left is a set of three series. I can’t say I feel stupid for not figuring that out on my own.

Great design on this guide, too.

Randy Ubillos Retires From Apple 

Announced on Twitter:

After an amazing 20 years working on Apple products, today is my last day. I look forward to retirement and the adventures ahead. :-)

Old-school emoticon instead of an emoji.

Among Ubillos’s numerous accomplishments at Apple, he led the teams behind iMovie and Final Cut.