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.

The Siri face shows upcoming calendar events.

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

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.

You can scroll through your day with the Digital Crown.

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

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

πŸ”— Why every orchestra is going to scrap sheet music and go digital

 Why every orchestra is going to scrap sheet music and go digital | David Taylor Music:

This summer, my orchestra took a risk. Yorkshire Young Sinfonia became the first youth orchestra in the world to become 100% digital, using iPads and an app called Newzik instead of sheet music.

Cool story. Interesting that they are using Newzik and not something like forScore. Newzik is a really cool alternative but I personally do not have a huge need for reading XML files on my iPad. Most of the scores I work with are scanned copies of original paper. There are a lot of cool things you can do with XML though, like resizing the music and having the entire layout of the score adjust itself to the size you prefer. Neat stuff.

πŸ”— Rogue Amoeba’s 15th Anniversary Sale

EVERYONE! Seriously check out the deal below. Rogue Amoeba makes some very creative and productive Mac apps for audio. I use Audio Hijack daily to record apps and produce my podcast. All of their apps are on sale until the end of the month.

Rogue Amoeba’s 15th Anniversary Sale:

We’re always eager to help even more people with their audio needs, so to celebrate our 15th anniversary, we’re offering a rare and very limited-time sale. Through the end of September, we’re offering discounts on every product we make.

So just how big is this sale? We started by lowering the price of all of our products by 15%, to match the 15 years we’ve been in business. We didn’t stop there, however. We’re also offering the chance to boost those savings by 1.33x, 1.67x, 2x, 3x, or even 4x. A few lucky users will save as much as 60% off our everyday low prices.

Providing a great deal on our apps is one small way we can thank our existing customers for all their support, and to help new users with our tools as well. We don’t discount our software often, but right now, everyone can save on every purchase from Rogue Amoeba.

 

πŸŽ™ New podcast episode - Updating to iOS 11 (featuring the hosts of the Music Education Technology Podcast)

The latest episode of my podcast is up and its all about iOS 11. The episode features two very special guests (who have each been on the show before). Chris Russell and Paul Shimmons, (co-hosts of the Music Education Technology Podcast) join me to discuss all of the new features and how we are using them.

Click here to listen to the episode.

πŸ”— macOS High Sierra is out! Make sure you know which notation software is compatible!

The Scoring Notes blog is keeping track of High Sierra compatibility updates for all the major notation editors…

Music notation software and macOS High Sierra:

Today Apple is releasing macOS High Sierra (10.13), the newest iteration of its Mac operating system. High Sierra’s most significant change is its use of a new file system, Apple File System (APFS), for computers with all-flash storage. High Sierra brings a number of other new features, too, but on this blog we’ll focus on its compatibility with desktop music notation software: Sibelius, Finale, Dorico, and MuseScore.

 

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?

πŸŽ™ The Season Finale Of My Podcast On Digital Organization for Music Teachers Is Out

The epic conclusion of season two of Robby Burns + Friends has come! Thank to all who listened to and participated in this season all about my book, Digital Organization Tips for Music Teachers. The book was released one year ago this month. I have had an absolute blast interviewing music educators all year long on topics relating to organization and technology in the music classroom. Be sure to check out all of the other episodes in this series. 

This week Craig McClellan, of The Class Nerd, joins the show to talk abut automation and advanced workflows. We will save you 1,000s of clicks! You can listen to the episode here.

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?