First weeks with iPhone X

Well I’m a few weeks in with the iPhone X and so far I’m loving it.

Some quick thoughts in praise of the phone...

Touch gestures make the home button feel like something that never needed to exist (though the swipe down for control center is garbage).

It is arguably one of the best looking iPhones of all time (I got the silver model).

The entire phone is lightning fast (though some of the transition animations have frame rate issues, likely due to the buggy behavior of iOS 11).

Did I mention touch gestures? Swiping the bottom of the screen left and right to multitask is a dream.

Animoji are fun.

Have not spent a ton of time with the camera yet, unfortunately. But the new portrait mode lighting is really special.

Some quick concerns...

Reviews spoke highly of Face ID. I think it’s great. But it’s very much where Touch ID was upon first release. Kind of slow and unnatural. Face ID is not as flexible about how my face is positioned to it as I would like it to be. And it is not very fast.

I thought I would hate the Notch on the top of the screen. I do. But it is not even one percent as intrusive as I thought it would be. I rarely notice it. It is worse in landscape mode, but I just don’t ever find myself my phone that way.

The new Apple Watch Siri watch face is a dream for teachers

Last week, Apple released watchOS 4 for the Apple Watch. With the update comes a new available watch face called the Siri watch face. The face pulls relevant data from all of your Apple apps and presents them to you as cards in chronological order based on relevance. Using the Digital Crown, you can scroll through them and see a timeline of your day. 

These cards pull data from calendar, weather, reminders, timers, alarms, sunrise, sunset, workouts, and more. My teaching schedule is complex. I teach in five different rooms, and co-teach almost 300 band students. Our programs calendar is shared with one another, our staff, and community via a complex series of Google Calendars. I have these calendars calibrated to show me only the events that display the classes that only I teach, and thus, where I need be and when. The Apple Watch displays this information simply. Until now, I have been using the modular watch face because I like how many custom complications I can fit on it. 

With the Siri face, I don’t need all these complications because most of the data I need from them shows up at the topmost card, and only when I really need to see it. The face does allow for two complications. One of the default complications is a button that launches straight into Siri. Even though one of the cards Siri watch face can display has weather, I like this to be constantly visible, so I have opted to put the Carrot Weather complication in its place. 

Do you use alarms, timers, and calendars throughout your class day? This Watch face is worth checking out. 

The Siri face shows upcoming calendar events.

Combine calendar with alarms, timers, and other app data and this is a powerful watch face.

You can scroll through your day with the Digital Crown.

The modular face is still useful for viewing a lot of complications at once.

iOS 11 and watchOS 4 come out today!

Today, iOS 11 for iPhone and iPad will release alongside watchOS 4.

iOS 11 brings a lot of new features that you are going to love. Specifically, the iPad gets a ton of new productivity features including drag and drop, better multitasking, a Files app, and new notes features. I have been running the beta of this software on my iPhone and iPad since July. While they are not the most stable of recent iOS updates, I think they are solid enough to download on day one if you want to take advantage of the new features.

Stay tuned here as I will be doing some writing on how to take advantage of the new iPad features of iOS 11 in the coming weeks.

Reflections on the iPhone X Apple Event

On Tuesday, Apple announced the Apple Watch Series 3, Apple TV 4K, iPhone 8, and iPhone X. 

Here are some quick takeaways from the event…

Apple Watch

In my opinion, this was the best part of the presentation. Definitely selling my Nike Series 2 to buy this. Can’t wait to have full access to my notifications and Apple Music while on the run. Combine this with AirPods in my ears and I can walk out of my house with nothing in my pockets, remain fully connected if I wish, work out, run errands, and even make purchases with Apple Pay.

Apple TV 4K

Disappointing. Well, sort of. I was hoping for some more software updates, but it is cool that they are upgrading everyone’s existing iTunes TV and Movies to 4K for free.

The highlight of this part of the presentation was definitely the demo of the game Sky. These are the developers behind two of my favorite games of all time: Flower, and Journey. There games are simple, elegant, profound, and insanely accessible to the non-gaming public. I can’t wait to see what they do with such a straightforward platform as the Apple TV. 

iPhone 8

Nicely done story here. Apple needed to make the iPhone 8 seem like a compelling update to the 7 so that people would buy it in volume, making their shipment of the iPhone X more manageable. iPhone X is rumored to be highly supply constrained. I think Apple did the best job they could at telling this story. But unfortunately, I don’t think it was good enough to keep most people from waiting for the X. If there was no X, I totally would buy this phone though. The new glass back looks slick! 

iPhone X

Because 7 ate 9? Not crazy about the name. iPhone Pro would have been better. Who cares. I am buying this phone.

AirPower

This looks really cool. Seems like something that could have existed before now. But what do I know?

Getting pumped up for Apple’s iPhone Event tomorrow

Apple is having their iPhone event tomorrow. You can tune in here tomorrow at 10 am PDT to watch the keynote live.

Apple is expected to announce three new iPhones tomorrow, including one premium priced model at the top end that will be seriously supply constrained for months after release. An LTE Apple Watch and 4K Apple TV are also expected. This will be exciting for me as I might be interested in all of these devices. 

I almost always get more excited about software than I do hardware when it comes to Apple. I am hoping that we will see some neat software that has not been demonstrated at previous events, perhaps relating to new hardware. For example, if the rumored new high end iPhone with the all-screen front is announced, I would love to see how Apple is going to redesign the OS to deal with the extra space on the bottom of the screen where the home button will have previously existed.  I would also love to see Apple address TV content deals with tvOS and the Apple TV. Wildcard dream wish: maybe if an LTE Apple Watch is shown off, Apple will announce a podcast app for the new model. I can dream, right?

🔗 Noteflight Learn Now Integrates with Google Classroom:

Noteflight Learn Integrates with Google Classroom:

Noteflight Learn offers direct Google Classroom integration! All student and teacher logins, classes, and assignments are seamlessly integrated, offering several advantages:

• Google login is automatically synced; simply login to Noteflight Learn using Google.

• Individual classes, schools, or entire districts can integrate with a single Noteflight Learn site.

• Google Classroom classes are mirrored as Noteflight Learn Groups, so sharing scores and assignments with classes is easy.

• Noteflight can create assignments in Google Classroom and students can turn in or mark as done from their Noteflight score.

This new integration looks fantastic! The list of reasons to subscribe to Noteflight just keeps getting longer and longer.

The 6 Best Automation Apps for iOS

UPDATE: I address my favorite automations and advanced workflows in a recent episode of my podcast. Listen and subscribe below…

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Interested in learning some apps this summer that will make your school year easier in the fall? Here are my favorite automation apps for iOS and a very brief explanation of each. Don't worry, I am planning on blogging about a few of these at length later this year. 

Note: All of these apps take a little bit of an investment to learn but the payoff is HUGE. You will find yourself doing things on your iPhone and iPad you never thought were possible. If customizing your own automations seems daunting, every one of these apps has a user-submitted gallery where you can download actions that other people have already made.

1. Workflow 

Download here

Workflow is an automation tool that allows you to string together various different actions so that they can be initiated with a single tap. The list of actions you can choose from is dense and many of them are easy to understand without any coding experience. You could do something as simple as open the camera, take three pictures, and generate a .gif file all in one tap (see below). This idea is novel of course. The real power is in figuring out how to take tedious actions that require multiple taps and apps and string them all up into one tap using Workflow’s rich list of integrated apps. One of my favorite Workflows looks into my Dropbox folder for a PDF of a seating chart, generates a copy, and opens it in Notability on my iPad, where I can scribble information about my student’s progress with an Apple Pencil. (See this workflow depicted below). 

Apple just purchased Workflow earlier this year. My hope is that this will allow users to better automate Apple’s own apps and even system level actions down the road. 

2. Drafts

Download here

Drafts is a clean and minimalist text editor that allows you to send text to other apps. Think of it as the starting point for all text on you iPhone or iPad. It functions like a simple, text based, note taking app, until you swipe left and reveal a series of actions you can perform on the text. You can perform actions as simple as posting your text as a Facebook status, Tweet, text message, or email. You can also create actions so complex that they can include JavaScript. One of my more basic Drafts actions takes a list of items I have typed in a rush and imports them all into my Grocery list, which is a list I keep in the Apple Reminders app. 

3. IFTTT 

Download here

IFTTT (If This Then That) is a web service that allows you to create If-Then statements that trigger actions to happen in apps. First, the user logs into all of their connected services (Facebook, Twitter, Wordpress, Philips Hue Lights, Gmail, etc…). Then the user creates “Applets” where something that is done in one service can trigger something to happen in another service. For example, I could say “IF I am tagged in a Facebook post, THEN save that photo to my Dropbox. Or “IF I favorite that YouTube video, THEN save it to my Evernote notebook and tag it videos.” Of course, you can get really crazy with home automation apps and do things like “IF someone mentions me on Twitter, THEN flicker my Philips Hue light bulbs red.” 

4. Editorial 

Download here

Editorial is a text editor meant primarily for longer form writing. If you have a blog and an iPad, this app really shines. The app supports plain text, Markdown, and TaskPaper. Markdown is a syntax that allows users to create formatting like headings, bullet lists, tables, and expressions for the web without actually using HTML. For example, when I wrote this blog post, I did not click around in the toolbar to make each of the sections of this post into headings. Instead I just typed '##' in front of each of them, and my blogging service of choice, Squarespace (which interprets Markdown), automatically did the formatting for me. See below for an example.

TaskPaper is an amazing app for Mac that allows you to create checkable todo lists using only plain text. The syntax that the app uses also goes by the same name - TaskPaper. It is a really friendly way to work with checklists without taking your finger off the keyboard to format things. See the example below to get an idea what TaskPaper does. TaskPaper doesn’t have an iOS app, so the fact that Editorial works with TaskPaper files is great!

Much like Drafts, Editorial also has powerful user customizable workflows that you can perform on your text. You could have it post to your Wordpress blog in one tap, for example. My favorite Editorial Workflow takes a list I wrote in the TaskPaper format and uses it as a template for reoccurring projects in my task app of choice, OmniFocus. Certain projects that I perform over and over again contain similar tasks. For example, I always do the same fifteen to twenty things every time I put on a band concert at my school. I keep a checklists of these tasks stored in Editorial so that every time I have a concert, take a sub day, or go on a field trip, I tap one button in Editorial and it imports the list into OmniFocus, complete with due dates, flags, and tags. 

5. Launch Center Pro

Download here

Launch Center Pro is kind of like a springboard (the screen of apps you see when you unlock your iPhone) only it launches actions instead of apps. Actions can do almost anything. In fact, all of the apps in this post can be launched from within Launch Center. For example, I can publish my Workflows as buttons in Launch Center. I can create buttons in Launch Center that trigger IFTTT Applets. Launch Center actions can also launch apps, turn lights on and off in my house, take me into specific lists within my todo app, and more! 

Launch Center Pro took me a little more time to get my head around because it assumes that the user knows a little bit about something called x-callback-url. This is a protocol that most of the apps in this post take advantage of but don’t quite expose to the user. With Launch Center Pro, I felt like I really had to learn this system before digging in. Fortunately, MacStories has a great tutorial that you can read here.

6. Launcher

Download here

Launcher is a much simpler and friendlier version of Launch Center Pro. Setting up actions is very straightforward and a number of them are available as pre-built templates. Launcher lives entirely inside of a Today Widget, which is a special widget that you can invoke on iOS by dragging down from the top of the screen or by swiping to the right of your first screen of apps. Launch Center Pro also has a widget available that does much the same thing, but you might find that you prefer Launcher if the learning curve for LCP is steep.

Tile Community Find Feature is Pretty Cool

For those who don’t know about it, Tile is a brand of small connected devices that can keep track of your belongings. They are thinner than cardboard and can attach to your key chain or fit in your wallet. Through a mobile app, your phone can stay connected to them over Bluetooth and help you track where they are on a map wherever they were last connected to the internet. I keep one of these in my backpack and one of them in my wallet.

I was in a coffee shop in Denver last week when I got a notification from the app telling me that my Tile had just helped someone else track their Tile. I was curious, so I Googled the notification and found out more about the feature...

Tile Community Find:

If you placed a Tile in your bag before you misplaced it, every phone in the community can help you search. Just select “Notify When Found,” and we will! As soon as someone running the Tile app comes within range of your bag, we’ll send you its location. Use your phone to guide you to the exact spot your bag ended up.

I’ve got to say, this is pretty neat. I love the idea, and its one of those things that just works. My favorite features of apps are the ones that solve a problem for me that I didn’t even know I had in the first place. It is not unlike when Google and Apple maps started telling me how far I was from my next location in my calendar, and how long it would take for me to drive there. 

Tiles are really useful, and they make great stocking stuffers around the holiday season (that is how I received my first Tile).

Music Theory Interview: Jacob Collier

Feast your eyes and ears on this awesome music theory interview with Jacob Collier (the 12 minutes go by very fast). Collier talks about microtonal voice leading, negative harmony, and how he uses the circle of fifths to lighten and darken his chord progressions. He demonstrates perfect pitch numerous times by outlining complex extended chords and scales effortlessly. And someone has actually taken the time to notate what he is describing for the viewer to see in real time, along with a piano playing everything that he describes but doesn't sing. It's just incredible. 

Don't know who Jacob Collier is? Jacob Collier is one of those freak of nature musicians who, in his late teens/early twenties, was performing multiple instruments at an insane level, and producing YouTube covers with dense modern jazz vocal harmonies, grooving percussion, .....you know what, I am not going to explain it. Just watch these videos of his:

And you can check him out with Snarky Puppy here. 

Oh, and he can perform this stuff live too... 

Quick thoughts on the new 10.5 inch iPad

I walked into an Apple Store over the weekend and had a moment to play with the new 10.5 inch iPad Pros. 

OH MY GOODNESS. The hype is real. These devices are light, gorgeous, and powerful. The 120Hz refresh speed ruined me for all other screens in just the two or three minutes I played around with it. I think Apple has hit the sweet spot in size. I can actually see myself downsizing to this model when I purchase my next iPad. I use the 12.9 for sheet music right now and it is great. I usually end up flipping my iPad in landscape mode and running a score on one half of the screen and a note taking app on the other half during rehearsal. I tried this workflow on the 10.5 and it was actually legible from far away. Maybe I have good eyes. I really miss the hold-ability of the smaller sized iPads for things like reading. I will have some tough decisions to make in a few years when I assume I will have to upgrade my 12.9. Or maybe I should embrace the multi-pad lifestyle and use the larger one for scores and the smaller one for reading. If only forScore would sync a score library over iCloud...