If you’ve looked closely at your Apple Watch, you’ve noticed a bunch of status icons. We’ve talked about them before, but some new ones have recently appeared. Jeff Butts digs into the user guide and tells you what those funny little icons mean.
Who's More Intelligent, Apple's Siri or Amazon's Alexa?
In the battle of virtual personal assistants, Apple and Amazon have strong contenders. Which one is “smarter,” though, Siri or Alexa? Perhaps it’s too early to really call the race, since both personal assistants keep growing and evolving. Be that as it may, Jeff Butts has put both through their paces, and shares his thoughts.
Right to Repair Laws, Apple Design Critics - TMO Daily Observations 2017-02-15
Apple doesn’t make it easy for people to get parts for do-it-yourself repairs, and some states want to change that. Kelly Guimont and John Martellaro join Jeff Gamet to debate whether or not companies should be required to make device parts available outside of authorized repair centers, plus they look at a claim Apple is actually pretty crappy ad designing products.
Facebook Says Auto-playing Audio is Just What You Want
Facebook wants to make video more engaging, so it’s going to make their audio auto-play in their mobile apps. Currently, audio is off by default and from Facebook’s perspective, that’s boring, limiting, and just plain blah.
macOS: Printing Specific Calendar Events
This Quick Tip is about printing from the Calendar program on your Mac. If you want, you can print out just a few events, so if you need to send someone an itinerary without doing anything fancy like calendar sharing, you can. Come check it out!
Hype 3.5 for Mac: $24.99
We have a deal for you today on Hype 3.5 for Mac, software that allows you to add animations to web pages, infographics, presentations, digital mags, ads, e-books, GIFs, videos, and more to webpages. It outputs HTML5, too. You can get this software for $24.99 through us.
Iconfactory Plans to Rebuild Twitterrific for Mac with Kickstarter Campaign
The Iconfactory has launched a Kickstarter for Twitterrific for Mac. The company wants to rebuild the Mac version of this venerable Twitter client for the Mac, and the company is looking to raise US$75,000 to do it.
Eddy Cue Says Video is a Big Part of Apple Music's Future
The future of streaming music is streaming media, according to Apple’s Eddy Cue, which is why the company is behind shows like Carpool Karaoke and Planet of the Apps. The “Apple Music is more than just music” message is one he’s already expressed, and it’s a sign Apple’s competition in the streaming music market is growing beyond Spotify and Tidal to more inclusive services like Amazon Prime.
Photon Strike is a Fun Arcade Scroller for iOS
You may known of my penchant for tower defense games, but I also have a not-so-secret love for arcade scrollers. The good news for your time-sucking pleasure is that I found a new one called Photon Strike. It’s a solid vertical scroller for iPhone an iPad (I played on iPad) with good graphics and fast action. In fact, it’s very fast. It’s similar to others in the genre. You have to steer your ship (with your fingers), firing as long as your finger is on the screen. Waves of enemies fly around the screen, and you have to shoot/avoid them. Powerups are available throughout each level, and you get credits for each enemy you destroy for buying upgrades. It’s free to download, but for real-world cash, you can get yourself a whole heap of credits. You can also watch videos for free credits. Every five waves there’s a boss at the end. It’s ad-supported, but the ads go away with any purchase (the ads are not obnoxious). That said, this is the kind of game where I’m happy to pay to unlock ads to directly support the developer.
iOS: Easily Print To PDF Emails In Apple Mail
On iOS there is a hidden feature that lets you print to PDF any email you want. It doesn’t require a third-party app or another email client. You can do it inside Apple Mail with a 3D Touch. Andrew Orr shows you how.