🔗 Sonos gets AirPlay 2 Support and Affinity Designer Comes to iPad

It’s an exciting day for users of Apple products today. Two announcements that caught my attention are highlighted below...

Affinity Designer Debuts on iPad as a Full-Featured Graphic Design Tool – MacStories:

Nearly one year ago, Serif released Affinity Photo for the iPad as a full-featured photo editing powerhouse. Unlike what companies such as Adobe do, where a Mac app like Photoshop is broken down into less powerful versions on iOS, Affinity Photo was brought to the iPad with no compromises whatsoever. Today, that same philosophy is bringing us Serif's second major iPad app: Affinity Designer.

Where Affinity Photo focuses on photo editing, Affinity Designer is a vector-based illustration tool. And with full support for the Apple Pencil, iOS 11's drag and drop, and system technologies like Metal, the app looks like the ultimate portable design studio.

For a limited time, Affinity Designer is available at a launch price of $13.99, 30% off the regular price of $19.99.

I have long been looking for something like Adobe Illustrator on the iPad. I have been very happy with OmniGraffle for designing seating charts, posters, flyers, and other graphics on iOS, especially because it syncs flawlessly to its Mac counterpart. For $13.99 I am going to be very tempted to give Affinity Designer a spin. Download it here.

Next up, Sonos!

Sonos Adds AirPlay 2 Support to Certain Speaker Models – MacStories

Sonos announced today that it has added AirPlay 2 support to compatible speaker systems. The update allows users to stream audio to the company’s Sonos One, Beam, Playbase, and the second generation Play:5 speakers from iOS apps that support AirPlay 2 of and from iTunes on a Mac.

I recently purchased a HomePod and have been looking forward to pairing its audio with my existing Sonos Playbar in the living room and Sonos Play:1 in the bedroom. Jason Snell wrote a great post for Macworld that gets into the all the details about how all of these different smart speakers play together.

Sonos update adds AirPlay 2 support | Macworld:

Perhaps most impressively, all AirPlay 2 speakers can play music in perfect synchronization. If you’ve got a HomePod or two and a compatible Sonos device, you can now select all those devices and play music through them, entirely in sync. Even better, if you’ve got incompatible Sonos devices and place them in the same group as an AirPlay 2-compatible Sonos device via the Sonos app, those speakers will also play synchronously. I was able to get music to play in sync throughout my house this morning, via a paired set of HomePods, a Play:5, and the (incompatible) Play:1 in my bathroom.

My two Sonos speakers are incompatible. So I can’t get too excited unless I buy a new Sonos One or Play:5. I do need one of these for the basement but it is a steep price to pay. Furthermore, it is a bummer that the old speakers cannot be controlled individually through the Apple home app, only as a group with a compatible Sonos.

I can bypass this problem in the living room, where my TV (with Apple TV attached) is running its audio through a Sonos Playbar. AirPlay allows a phone to send audio to an Apple TV on the same network, so if I want to control the Playbar individually, I just send audio to the living room Apple TV its attached to. The bedroom will be a different story, through I cannot imagine that many scenarios where I will need separate music or volume control in the bedroom and basement.

🔗 On Coffee Makers: Don’t Put a Machine Between You and the Most Important Drink of the Day - Allan Georgia

From now on, when someone asks me to explain why I am passionate about coffee, or anything relating to gear and brewing techniques, I am pointing them towards this concise post from friend, Allan Georgia (also guest on Robby Burns + Friends, episode 5). Read it!

On Coffee Makers: Don’t Put a Machine Between You & the Most Important Drink of the Day:

But there's an even bigger reason to dump the electric machine altogether. Coffee is, in its rich and complex heart, a ritual that defines our morning. Consider how many other drinks define a time of day. For many of us, coffee even becomes part of how we experience the passage of time itself––one cup leading to another, morning after morning, a companion as constant as the Sun. To craft your coffee by hand is to participate in the ritual and embrace the chance to make something with your own hands. Its a opportunity that is squandered if you outsource the labor to a machine and pass by a hands-on craft for the sake of convenience.

But there's more. The call to craft your cup has never been more relevant than now when a true coffee renaissance has filled the world with beans that are the product of passionate producers in the coffee-growing regions of the world.

...

once you have your hands on beans that have been lovingly farmed and expertly roasted, it is an outright calamity to put them at the mercy of a lukewarm drip machine and a scorching hot-plate. Crafting your cup does require some specialized equipment, but nothing too crazy.

🔗 Mac Pro to be released in 2019

Apple’s 2019 Mac Pro will be shaped by workflows:

“We want to be transparent and communicate openly with our pro community so we want them to know that the Mac Pro is a 2019 product. It’s not something for this year.” In addition to transparency for pro customers on an individual basis, there’s also a larger fiscal reasoning behind it.

“We know that there’s a lot of customers today that are making purchase decisions on the iMac Pro and whether or not they should wait for the Mac Pro,” says Boger.

This is why Apple wants to be as explicit as possible now that if institutional buyers or other large customers are waiting to spend budget on, say iMac Pros or other machines, they should pull the trigger without worry that a Mac Pro might appear late in the purchasing year.

Woohoo! I am going to see how long my 2016 MacBook Pro can do heavy lifting before I consider owning a machine like this again. That being said, I got good use out of my 2008 Mac Pro for eight years and it is still functional now. Modular machines are incredibly flexible. Maybe I will consider another one.

🔗 Microsoft Office for iPad now supports opening files from the Files app more directly

Microsoft Office and the Files App Finally Play Nice Together:

Today Microsoft updated its Office suite for iOS, with Word, Excel, and PowerPoint all reaching version 2.12. Office updates rarely receive detailed release notes, and today was no exception, but user Teddy Svoronos discovered that the updates brought 'Open In' capabilities to the share sheet, which previously only enabled making a copy of an Office document. The 'Copy to' option has now been removed, replaced by the more convenient 'Open in.'

After seeing Teddy's tweet, I did a little playing around in the Files app and discovered that, while Excel and PowerPoint documents accessed in Files will load Quick Look previews and require tapping 'Open in' from the share sheet, the experience is even better with .docx files. Those Word-associated documents open directly in the Word app with just a single tap from the Files interface – no need to open the share sheet first.

It is really nice to see proper use of the Files app user interface being adopted into apps by third party developers. The more time passes, hopefully we will see this adoption so wide that opening documents using the native file browser will feel no different on an iPad than it does on a Mac. It always feels jarring on Mac when the “Open” option doesn’t show the Finder. On iPad, custom “open” UIs have been standard since its beginning. Hopefully the Files app introduced this past fall with iOS 11 will continue to change that. 

What I really thought was interesting about this article was something I have been wondering about the Files app since the summer. 

Update: One of the developers working on Office has confirmed my suspicions: the reason Word files open for me with a single tap while Excel and PowerPoint files do not is that I haven't opened those files enough for iOS to know that I would prefer to bypass the share sheet.

I had noticed that tapping on files in the Files app could open them within third party apps but I never understood how iOS knew which apps to use. (For example, standard text files were opening in Byword on my iPhone and 1Writed on my iPad for a time.) It seems that the user can to some extent control these apps by using the “Open In…” option from the Files app and choosing the desired app frequently. Still though, I would love the option to set default apps on iOS. I can tell my Mac which app I want to open PDFs. Why not on my iPad Pro?

🔗 App Santa | Check out these top class and cheap apps!

App Santa | Amazing Discounts on Award Winning Apps:

App Santa is back! Enjoy savings of up to 80% on award-winning apps from independent developers through December 26th

Lots of great apps on here.

Twitterrific is an amazing Twitter client (although not the one that I use). Screens is a Mac app that allows you to tap into your Mac from your iPhone or iPad and control it as if you were sitting right next to it. Linea is a beautiful and simple sketch pad app. Alto’s Adventure and Mini Metro are two of the best iOS games I have ever played. Waterminder helps me track my water intake daily. I use Deliveries to track packages. I could go on and on. The list is just great.

🔗 iLok Cloud - Maybe people will not feel absolutely miserable authenticating Pro Tools?

PACE Launch iLok Cloud - Cloud Based Alternative To Hardware iLoks — Pro Tools Expert:

PACE Anti-Piracy, Inc. introduces an entirely new approach to software license protection—iLok Cloud. With iLok Cloud, software publishers can offer their users quick and easy access to their licenses from any computer with an Internet connection. iLok Cloud has the same level of robust security as the current iLok USB smart key, which will remain as an option along with machine-based licenses.

Today, PACE Anti-Piracy announces the imminent launch of iLok Cloud. With iLok Cloud, software publishers that use PACE’s licensing system will have a third option to offer their users, in addition to the previously available iLok USB smart key and machine-based licenses.

Upon launching iLok Cloud protected software, the users will be prompted to provide their username and password. That’s it—the iLok protected software is now ready for use, without any dongles or having to use a specific authorized computer. It’s easy, iLok Cloud protected software can be used anywhere, and iLok Cloud takes the risk of lost or damaged iLok USB smart keys and computers out of the equation.

The iLok is one of the primary reasons I stopped using Pro Tools years ago. Hopefully this is a step towards iLok getting out the way of people using professional music software.

🔗 Looking for a cheap, powerful alternative (or replacement) for Photoshop on Mac. Pixelmator Pro might be for you.

Pixelmator Pro:

Pixelmator Pro is an image editor packed full of innovations. From a reimagined editing workflow and simplified editing tools to machine learning powering all-new, intelligent image editing features. So the tools at your fingertips are smarter and more powerful, yet more intuitive and easier to use than ever before.

I have not updated to macOS High Sierra yet so I cannot download this, though I will say that I have had tremendously positive success with the standard Pixelmator on Mac and iOS.

This all leads to the inevitable moment that I cancel my Photoshop subscription.

Download here.

🔗 Marco Arment releases public beta of his podcasting tool, Forecast

From Jason Snell’s Six Colors blog...

Forecast: A must-have tool for Mac podcasters—>

Marco Arment’s Forecast is a newly released (into a public beta) Mac MP3 encoding and tagging tool for podcasters. It’s a tool that Marco built a couple of years ago to serve his own needs, and for the last 18 months or so I’ve been using it (in a private beta) to encode most of the podcasts that I create. Here’s an overview of how Forecast works and what it does.

I have been waiting for this for a long time.

Marco is behind Tumblr, Instapaper, and now the great podcast app, Overcast. He is an avid podcaster and really knows his stuff. I can’t wait to take this for a spin while editing my next show. The feature I am perhaps looking the most forward to is the ability to import Logic markers as chapters.

🔗 Black Friday 2017 deals for music notation software and related tech

Black Friday 2017 deals for music notation software and related tech - Scoring Notes:

Planning on traveling, eating, napping, and shopping this holiday weekend? We can’t help with the first three, but if you’re looking for a few deals, we’ve sorted through some of the Black Friday and Cyber Monday offers in our corner of the world of music notation software and related technology. This list is hardly exhaustive, and if anything else comes to our attention after publishing this post, it will be updated.

This is a really solid list. Nearly every player in the music notation space is offering a discount today. 

🔗 Black Friday App Deals

Every Black Friday, tons of apps go cheap or free on the App Store. I always use this opportunity to score a bunch of apps I have been waiting on, particular higher priced apps. 

The best resource I have found for keeping track of every deal is MacStories. Check out their blog post on The Best Deals for iPhone and iPad Apps, Games, and Accessories. They have already started collecting apps on sale and will be updating it all throughout tomorrow and in the coming days. It catalogues apps ranging from iOS apps to Mac apps to tech deals on Amazon. 

Happy app purchasing!!!