DuckDuckGo Growth and Its Future With Apple


9to5 Mac reports DuckDuckGo has grown 600 percent. It doesn’t surprise me that DuckDuckGo is growing. The word is getting out and its search gets continually better. I’ve been using it as my primary web search engine and I haven’t missed Google enough to want to go back. I’m not saying DuckDuckGo is as good as Google, but it’s close enough and the way in which DuckDuckGo respects my privacy more than makes up the difference.

John Gruber writes pondering what would happen if Apple made DuckDuckGo the default search engine on iOS. I can’t tell if he knows something and is being coy or just speculating. (I suspect it’s the latter.) Regardless, DuckDuckGo is a lot more in line with Apple’s stance on privacy and the idea that Apple would switch the default engine to DuckDuckGo makes some sense.

Apple Aces Its EFF Report Card


The Electronic Frontier Foundation rates tech companies annually on how they handle their customer’s data. The 2015 report is out and, not surprisingly, Apple did well. The EFF explained:

data-animation-override>
“This is Apple’s fifth year in the report, and it has adopted every best practice we’ve identified as part of this report. We commend Apple for its strong stance regarding user rights, transparency, and privacy.”
— The Electronic Frontier Foundation

This emerging theme from Apple about protecting user data is only going to get bigger. Apple doesn’t make its money serving ads and it has no economic interest in collecting user data. Moreover, I spoke with several Apple engineers last week at WWDC and, universally, they were all personally offended by the idea of government and other third parties getting access to user data. This is more than a marketing thing. Apple, as a whole, appears disgusted with the way our personal data privacy rights are getting trampled. I think we are going to see Apple turning up the dial on this issue in hopes of getting the word out to consumers. To me this is a big deal. The question in my mind, however, is whether I’m an oddball or this will resonate with the public at large.

Sponsor: inShort with New Features

This week MacSparky.com is sponsored by inShort, an iPhone/iPad/Mac application that lets you plan projects and processes graphically across all of your Apple devices. InShort for Mac just got a significant updated adding several new features including: 


• Data synchronization using iCloud (The iOS version also now synchronizes data via iCloud)
• The ability to queue tasks and organize the work with active tasks in accordance with the elements of the GTD methodology
• Control lists for diagrams — giving you the ability to monitor the sequence of actions with the diagram step by step.

You can now order tasks in relation to specific projects and priorities. Once you complete a task, it disappears from the list. There are different ways to display the tasks including organization by active tasks, tasks under way, deferred tasks, and tasks waiting for other tasks to begin or finish or waiting for resources. 


This task integration is a significant upgrade to inShort and worth checking out. You can learn more and purchase that application through the website and learn more with the the application’s PDF documentation or user forum. Thanks inShort for sponsoring MacSparky.com.

∞

One of Us

Last week at WWDC, I went to John Gruber’s live taping of The Talk Show. I expected to see some entertaining talk from folks like Merlin Mann and Adam Lisagor. What I didn’t expect was Apple’s Senior Vice President of Marketing Phil Schiller to take the stage.

Nevertheless, John delivered and Phil showed up for one of the most candid interviews I’ve heard of an Apple executive since Steve came back. Topics ranged from design principles to why the entry level iPhone still just has 16GB of memory (at 51:45). The entire interview is fascinating and John Gruber did an amazing job of asking probing questions yet still keeping the interview light and enjoyable. It was one of the highlights of WWDC for me.

One part of the interview that stood out for me started at 57:22. I was pretty close to the stage at this point and Phil explained, “I’m in my job for one reason. Because I’m a customer like you.” Reading these words, I’m sure you are thinking that this is just a marketing guy being the “marketing guy”. However, you would be wrong. Go listen to the recording. I was watching him as he stated these words and they were completely genuine. 

Perhaps because he’s always been the “marketing guy”, I never saw Phil Schiller as one of us. I was wrong. All of Apple’s senior management team are already millionaires. Any one of them could retire tomorrow and spend the rest of their days living like royalty anywhere in the world. I’m sure they all have their own reasons for staying but in Phil’s case, looking in his eyes and hearing him say those words, it occurred to me he is a nerd just like the rest of us and he’s staying because he wants to be part of what Apple makes. Phil, I get you.

A Few Thoughts on iOS 9

After spending a few days roaming the streets nearby WWDC and drinking interesting beverages with developer friends, I’ve got a few thoughts on iOS 9. I’m not going to summarize the new features since Apple does a dandy job of explaining it right here. I’ve not loaded iOS 9 yet, and probably wont for at least a few weeks but lack of experience never stopped me in the past.

About a More Proactive iOS

  • Apple is clearly moving toward iOS predicting and giving you data and information in a more contextual way. Based on existing data and history, your iPhone can now remind you to call your mom and when you need to leave for your next appointment.
  • This has traditionally been Google’s strong suit (and still is). Nevertheless, I’m happy to see Apple moving that direction too.
  • Apple clearly has a narrative about the difference between Google and them in this space: Apple performs the services locally and preserves your security. Google does this work on its servers and relies on the data to feed their ad business.
  • I think Google will continue to be better at this. Having outside servers scrub through this data sucks for personal privacy but is more efficient than having the user’s devices do the work.
  • I’m not sure how much Apple’s message concerning privacy will resonate. In my experience a lot of people don’t care about privacy in this context enough to make it a deciding factor.
  • Search my email to attach a name to an unknown phone number: brilliant.
  • Ultimately, I think as the hardware gets better and faster, both Apple and Google will only make these predictive assistance services better.
  • Part of me is fascinated with this new feature. Part of me wonders if this is something only the nerds care about. I’m really curious to see what my less technically-savvy friends think of this.

About Siri and Search Improvements …

  • Bring them on. If you are not using Siri, you really should be.
  • I’m not sure what I think about the new (old) paradigm of swiping to the far left for search and other improved Spotlight-ish features. This is one I’ll have to try out first.
  • I think suggested Apps is a great idea. Here is something that I’d love to see get smart, like showing me OmniFocus in the morning and Netflix in the evening based on my past usage.

About Apple Wallet …

  • Renaming Passbook seems obvious, and planned, in hindsight.
  • Adding loyalty cards looks like a great idea though it is not clear whether vendors need to specifically opt in or not. Hopefully not.

About Those New iPad Features …

  • One of the reason people don’t buy new iPads is because the older ones are still working just fine. Split View requires an iPad Air 2 or whatever other new and shiny thing Apple releases later this year. This is the first time I’m aware of since Siri that you’ll need to update an iPad to get a feature. Moreover, split view is a really handy feature. I expect this will result in many existing iPad users updating hardware.
  • Slide-Over feels overdue but I really like the implementation. The way you can switch between slide-over apps moving up and down strikes me as one of those interactions that appears obvious but was probably a ton of work to sort out while in development.
  • There was a lot of time spent talking about the keyboard/trackpad feature, which is great. Placing a cursor in iOS with your finger is so much slower than a trackpad. So long as this works, it’s a huge win.
  • The Keynote didn’t particularly emphasize it but I think the additional support for a hardware keyboard is a big deal too. The application switcher just seems like a natural. Do note that using a hardware keyboard you’ll still need to lift your fingers to place the cursor. In this way, the built-in keyboard will actually be faster.
  • I have a hard time thinking about using picture-in-picture with a 7 or even 10 inch iPad. However, with an even larger iPad it seems quite useful. File that one away for a few months.

About the New Apple Notes …

  • I thought the Notes App was relegated to the same amount of priority that the Stocks and Weather Apps have. I was wrong there. It’s pretty nice seeing Apple try to improve on this app, which I’d given up on long ago.
  • I’d really like to know if Notes is still syncing via IMAP (which is slow and clunky). I’ve asked around to Apple and Developer friends and still not got a straight answer.
  • It’s hard for me to believe in an application that started out with Marker Felt as the default font but Notes has come a long way.
  • The application user interface elements seem spooky-similar to Vesper. Maybe I’m reading too much into this but I’m looking forward to comparing them when I get the beta loaded.
  • The interface for sketching notes would be even slicker if the Apple iOS hardware had force touch features (especially iPad). File this one away until the updated hardware announcements in the fall and I suspect the other penny will drop.
  • The notes space is so full on iOS. I think that is partly because Apple never really took a leadership role on Notes apps from the beginning on iOS. Nevertheless, this seems interesting and a potential competitor to other players. It could be really compelling if the integration with the rest of iOS is as slick as Apple claims. Color me interested.

About That News App…

  • I have more questions than answers about this.
  • There is still very little details about advertising. Big media companies are not going to turn their content over without a monetization strategy.
  • I love that they featured Daring Fireball, a blog, in the same vein as other traditional publishers in the Keynote.
  • This effort feels like a fresh start after the initial failed experiment with Newsstand. This is one I think we’ll all need to see roll out before we know if News is any more successful than its predecessor.

About Performance Improvements …

  • I’m not the first person to note this but the idea that software tweaks can add an hour of battery life is golden.
  • They’ve added the Metal graphics acceleration so the entire user interface moves faster with animation, scrolling, and the works. Nice.
  • There isn’t a lot of information about performance upgrades but I suspect there is a lot more than they care to talk about. With all of the big new features, I’m certain they are tightening down a lot of pieces this year and using a lot of bug spray.

Overall

  • I don’t think the new round of iOS changes is particularly surprising. It’s not as drastic as iOS 8 and with good reason.
  • I was suprprised at the lengths they’ve gone to make the iPad more productivity-friendly. In hindsight, I probably shouldn’t. It’s time these changes showed up on the iPad and they have the additional benefit of selling more iPads.
  • My other big surprise was Notes. I never saw that coming. However, the fact that I’m writing about the Notes app at all gives you an idea of the more limited scope of changes in iOS 9.

Automatically Add Recipient’s Name to Email with TextExpander

I occasionally have need of a TextExpander snippet to automatically add the first name of an email recipient to the body of an email. Over the years, I’ve made lots of snippets that have a fill-in field asking me to type in the recipient’s name but wouldn’t it be great if the tiny robot inside my Mac did it for me? To a certain extent, this quest has been my white whale and I’ve been plunking away at it when the mood struck me for the past year. I initially went down the road of AppleScript, which never worked consistently. Ultimately, I found success using System Events. Below is the AppleScript code for System Events that pulls the first name from your recipient and types it in the subject line or body of the message.

tell application "System Events"
    tell process "Mail"
        tell text field "To:" of window 1
            if UI element 1 exists then
                set theToRecipient to (value of UI element 1)
                if (count words of theToRecipient) is greater than 0 then return word 1 of theToRecipient
            end if
        end tell
    end tell
end tell

I owe many thanks to Ben Waldie (@AppleScriptGuru) for his assistance in getting this to work. I also had a lot of help on this from Greg Scown at Smile (@macgreg). I put this script into a TextExpander snippet designated AppleScript. It looks like this.


Typing “xnm” in an email will insert the recipient’s first name. You can combine them with additional snippets in TextExpander. For example, this snippet …


… is activated in the subject line. It types “Purchase Confirmation”, then hits the Tab Key, jumping to the message body, and then addresses the email to the customer first name and some additional text. Note the phrase “%snippet:xnm%” runs the prior snippet to drop the name in the text. This allows you to run an AppleScript inside a text snippet, which I thought was particularly clever.

Click HERE to download these snippets.

Initial Impressions of Mac OS 10.11 El Capitan

Today was the first time I’ve ever watched an Apple WWDC keynote in a room full of developers. I did not get a press pass to the actual event itself but instead attended a remote viewing down the street. There’s definitely a different dynamic when watching with developers than back at home.

Updates to the Mac and iOS operating systems look good. They are not as dramatic as they were last year but that was expected. Last year Apple turned the Mac and iOS operating systems upside down and shook them vigorously. It was a big, painful (but necessary change). This year’s updates feel more like course corrections after a big maneuver. That’s not to say there aren’t some interesting things to see.

Performance is a Feature

The discussion about improved performance felt like a direct response to the challenges faced with the big changes brought by Yosemite. Except for Metal (discussed below), there wasn’t a lot of detail but if they truly can add an hour of battery life to my Mac with these performance adjustments, count me in.

Smarter Spotlight

One of the running themes throughout the Mac, iOS, and Watch talks today was this idea that our devices can get smarter using the data they already have on board. While I’ve never been particularly eager to turn all my data over to Google, I’ve always liked the way they try to have your devices do some thinking for you. Multiple times today Apple presenters explained that they are aiming for the same target but instead of relying on cloud data, they are relying on the data you keep on your device. This approach is less creepy, but harder. I don’t think the machine-thinking will be as advanced in iOS 9 and OS X 10.11 as Google is pulling off but Apple is moving that direction and that, in my opinion, is a good thing.

The fact that this appears to be a directive across all platforms is great. I’m looking forward to trying it out.

Split View and Mission Control

Split view is a new window management system that automates a lot of the same tricks I’ve been doing with Moom for years. To me, the most interesting part of Split View on the Mac was the possibility of Split View on the iPad. More on that later.

Mission Control also got further tweaks. I need to get hands on to fully understand exactly what changes. It feels to me that Mission Control has been in a constant state of evolution since it first appeared. Since I’m using a 12″ laptop, it would make sense for me to sort that out.

Full Screen Mail

Composing messages in full screen Mail on your Mac has been pretty rough for a few years now. The compose window is modal, which means once you start composing a message, you can’t go back to look at other mail. That’s fixed now. They even showed tabbed compose windows, which seems kind of nuts but I may just love it.

Metal

The announcement that Mac is getting Metal support makes perfect sense and shouldn’t come as a surprise. To me, the shocker was that it came on the Mac second since, presumably, it was more difficult to put the graphics improvements on iOS. Either way, this is going to benefit both gamers and professional graphics apps users.

New Notes

I was pretty surprised that the Notes app got as much attention as it did. There are a lot of third party Notes apps out there and I still can’t look at Apple’s Notes app icon without thinking of how it used to use the marker felt font. Nonetheless, the improvements are substantial, particularly with the use of importing different data types. I’m looking forward to trying this one out but after going through multiple trials of other apps over the past several months, I’m pretty happy with nvALT on my Mac. Notes would have to really impress me to change my mind. (It looks like there is no tagging support in the new Notes.)

Safari User Interface

The upcoming changes to Safari feel very incremental but at least look like improvements. 

Photos Improvements

They didn’t go into this at great length in this morning’s presentation but Photos for Mac appears to be full steam ahead. References on the Apple website indicate Photos for Mac will get third party editing application support and location support, which were my two biggest gripes with version 1.0. 

Overall, I think we got what we expected today–and what Mac OS needed–a solid update with some new shiny things and a lot of spit and polish. You can learn more on Apple’s website here. I’ll wait a month before trying the beta but I’m genuinely looking forward to trying it out. I’ll also  write more about iOS, watchOS 2, and Apple Music later this week after I get to talk to some developers about the changes.

 

WWDC Bound

One of the advantages of being self-employed is having more control over my schedule. This week I’ll be in San Francisco partaking in the World Wide Developer Conference. While there I’ll be meeting with some of my developer and IT focussed legal clients (I represent a surprising number of them) and talking to developers and other friends in the Apple community about WWDC and what it means for the future. I’ll also be posting some thoughts, pictures, and insight here. Stay tuned gang.

Tweetbot for Mac 2.0


Yesterday saw the release of Tweetbot for Mac 2.0. (App Store)(Website) Hallelujah. This new version features a Yosem-ified interface that was sorely needed. Like its iPad sibling, Tweetbot on the Mac was looking very old. Things are now bit flatter, a bit cleaner, and fit in better on the OS X 10.10. 

The icons in this new version are cleaner and, in my opinion, better. There aren’t a lot of new features. The new tweet window now floats and doesn’t require you to tear it off the application.

I’m not entirely sold on the new icon but, overall, the new design is very much welcome. I hope the iPad isn’t far behind.

I have been poking fun at Tweetbot for a while with its antiquated versions on the Mac and iPad. I jest because I love. Tweetbot has been my twitter application of choice for years. Multiple times I’ve gone on a quest to find a replacement and every time I end up back in Tweetbot. It has always been a very stable application for me and has just the right combination of features and whimsy I’m looking for in a Twitter application.

Tweetbot for Mac version 2.0 is a free update for owners of version 1. Also, the price has been permanently lowered from $20 to $13.