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Cirrus creates Lightning-headphone dev kit
Apple supplier Cirrus Logic has introduced a MFi-compliant new development kit for companies interested in using Cirrus' chips to create Lightning-based headphones, which -- regardless of whether rumors about Apple dropping the analog headphone jack in its iPhone this fall -- can offer advantages to music-loving iOS device users. The kit mentions some of the advantages of an all-digital headset or headphone connector, including higher-bitrate support, a more customizable experience, and support for power and data transfer into headphone hardware. Several companies already make Lightning headphones, and Apple has supported the concept since June 2014. http://bit.ly/29giiZj

Apple Store app offers Procreate Pocket

The Apple Store app for iPhone, which periodically rewards users with free app gifts, is now offering the iPhone "Pocket" version of drawing app Procreate for those who have the free Apple Store app until July 28. Users who have redeemed the offer by navigating to the "Stores" tab of the app and swiping past the "iPhone Upgrade Program" banner to the "Procreate" banner have noted that only the limited Pocket (iPhone) version of the app is available free, even if the Apple Store app is installed and the offer redeemed on an iPad. The Pocket version currently sells for $3 on the iOS App Store. [32.4MB]
Porsche adds CarPlay to 2017 Panamera
Porsche has added a fifth model of vehicle to its CarPlay-supported lineup, announcing that the 2017 Panamera -- which will arrive in the US in January -- will include Apple's infotainment technology, and be seen on a giant 12.3-inch touchscreen as part of an all-new Porsche Communication Management system. The luxury sedan starts at $99,900 for the 4S model, and scales up to the Panamera Turbo, which sells for $146,900. Other vehicles that currently support CarPlay include the 2016 911 and the 2017 models of Macan, 718 Boxster, and 718 Cayman. The company did not mention support for Google's corresponding Android Auto in its announcement. http://bit.ly/295ZQ94

Apple employees testing wheelchair features
New features included in the forthcoming watchOS 3 are being tested by Apple retail store employees, including a new activity-tracking feature that has been designed with wheelchair users in mind. The move is slightly unusual in that, while retail employees have previously been used to test pre-release versions of OS X and iOS, this marks the first time they've been included in the otherwise developer-only watchOS betas. The company is said to have gone to great lengths to modify the activity tracker for wheelchair users, including changing the "time to stand" notification to "time to roll" and including two wheelchair-centric workout apps. http://bit.ly/2955JDa

SanDisk reveals two 256GB microSDXC cards
SanDisk has introduced two 256GB microSDXC cards. Arriving in August for $150, the Ultra microSDXC UHS-I Premium Edition card offers transfer speeds of up to 95MB/s for reading data. The Extreme microSDXC UHS-I card can read at a fast 100MB/s and write at up to 90MB/s, and will be shipping sometime in the fourth quarter for $200. http://bit.ly/294Q1If

Apple's third-quarter results due July 26
Apple has advised it will be issuing its third-quarter results on July 26, with a conference call to answer investor and analyst queries about the earnings set to take place later that day. The stream of the call will go live at 2pm PT (5pm ET) via Apple's investor site, with the results themselves expected to be released roughly 30 minutes before the call commences. Apple's guidance for the quarter put revenue at between $41 billion and $43 billion. http://apple.co/1oi1Pbm

Twitter stickers slowly roll out to users
Twitter has introduced "stickers," allowing users to add extra graphical elements to their photos before uploading them to the micro-blogging service. A library of hundreds of accessories, props, and emoji will be available to use as stickers, which can be resized, rotated, and placed anywhere on the photograph. Images with stickers will also become searchable with viewers able to select a sticker to see how others use the same graphic in their own posts. Twitter advises stickers will be rolling out to users over the next few weeks, and will work on both the mobile apps and through the browser. http://bit.ly/29bbwUE

bobolicious Mac Enthusiast Joined: Aug 15, 2002
Do we all really want our work sitting on and dependent upon Apple's servers and web access ?
Appleworks & iWeb are recent examples of proprietary (if excellent) options where dependence faces real limits moving forward...
Gazoobee Forum Regular Joined: Feb 27, 2009
The thing I'm interested in is not mentioned here which is ... does Pages for iCloud have the full feature set of Pages for desktop?
One of the most frustrating aspects of using Pages for iOS for me is the fact that after all this time is still doesn't have feature parity with the original desktop version. For instance Pages for iOS does not allow ligatures to be used, and does not allow for hyphenation either. These are two things that most every writer uses for almost every document, but they still aren't there.
So is this, like Pages for iOS, just another incomplete "page-holder" app that will be finished sometime in the future? Or is it a real useable app?
More importantly, even if both this and the iOS app *gain* feature compatibility, when (the f*ck) is Apple going to actually give us an update to the original that adds in some functionality? For example, Pages is a template based app that gives you virtually no control over templates. It uses style's extensively, but denies you the ability to control your styles in any significant way. It also has some terrible choices in terms of UI that have never been re-thought, and cannot be changed, like the mysterious blue sidebar that appears on the left of all documents that use smaller than A4 type paper, that cannot be removed or moved out of one's way.
If Pages is really supposed to be Apple's alternative to Word, when are they actually going to get serious about making it a decent word processor? Currently they are the only word processor you can get for iOS, but if iOS is successful, that won't always be the case, will it? Do we really have to wait for a competitor just to get a decent basic product?
pairof9s Senior User Joined: Jan 03, 2008
Originally Posted by Gazoobee
...If Pages is really supposed to be Apple's alternative to Word, when are they actually going to get serious about making it a decent word processor? Currently they are the only word processor you can get for iOS, but if iOS is successful, that won't always be the case, will it? Do we really have to wait for a competitor just to get a decent basic product?
Not sure what you're implying here but if you truly mean there are no word processors for iOS other than Pages, you'd be wrong. Try QuickOffice, Documents To Go, iA Writer, and dozens of other doc writers of various degrees, many which sync across devices and save in Word format.
SierraDragon Mac Elite Joined: Mar 22, 2004
Exactly how "web-based" will the app be? Will the app continue to function locally on a device even when internet connection is broken?
cartoonspin Fresh-Faced Recruit Joined: Sep 23, 2003
No, that is why it is a web app. It needs connection to the internet.
It is so funny to hear all the complaints as the industry has already passed folks in making free apps available. Next we will hear how folks like their $600 desktop apps instead of free web apps. If you don't like the web apps, pay for the full blown apps. If you don't like a particular app, use another one.
Charles Martin Mac Elite Joined: Aug 04, 2001
My feeling on this -- it's just a guess -- is that when this comes out of testing, the software-based iWork suite will be updated to match the changes/features/improvements. So good news for everyone who likes iWork, I think (Apple will *not* be making the mistake MS and Adobe are making, I believe).
To address Gazoobee's points:
1. Putting aside for the moment that ligatures are not needed in *word processing* and only become important in *layout/DTP* mode, yes you're correct. I think the root problem here is that you are perhaps misunderstanding Apple's initial view of Pages for iOS -- I think it was intended as a companion to Pages, not a replacement (at this point). As with Numbers and Keynote, they don't have the full feature set (which is in part a simple limitation of the platform they are on) and I believe are intended to allow you to work on documents while on the go that are then finished or more powerfully tweaked on the Mac version. That's always been my interpretation of it. With the web app and subsequent updates perhaps we'll get more, but I suspect that Pages for iOS will always be the "little brother" of Pages (etc).
2. Control over templates: this has not been my experience, but I haven't tried modifying templates in the iOS version. On the desktop version I can modify templates, styles and so forth quite extensively, at least to what I require. Pages for iOS doesn't yet support custom templates (but perhaps it will soon).
3. I have *no idea* what you are talking about with a "blue sidebar." I just created an odd-sized document in Pages (on Mac, saved to iCloud), opened it in Pages for iOS, no blue sidebar. I think that's something on your end. There is a blue border around documents you are trying to resize the printable area of, but that doesn't seem like what you mean.
benj Fresh-Faced Recruit Joined: Mar 22, 1999
I would just like to open my textedit docs. Why is iCloud so funky? photostream hardly instills confidence, Match likes to burp on artists, everything is proprietary rather than accessible anywhere. This is counter-cloud behavior.
Gazoobee Forum Regular Joined: Feb 27, 2009
It seems everyone misunderstood me and for some reason the ability to reply to posts is not enabled (possibly it's tied to some tracking cookie I'm blocking). So to clarify:
- Ligatures are not just for layout, they are part of 'word processing." For instance whether ligatures are used strongly affects the auto-capitalisation in a very bad way. I'm a writer. I use ellipsis's all the time.
- re: "pages for iOS is a companion app" ... this is my exact point. It's not treated as a stand alone app for the new platform, it's treated as a *less* than full-featured companion app. Meanwhile, Apple claims the opposite.
- not mentioned, but also ... hyphenation is a very basic feature of all word processing apps, so far unavailable in Pages for iOS. I had hyphenation when I was using Word for DOS in the 1980's, it was a part of basic word processing then, and still is today.
- by control over templates, I meant the ability to make and alter templates. This cannot be done without huge effort in any version of pages, but pages for iOS doesn't allow any alteration of templates or including of new ones AFAIK.
- by control over styles I meant being able to make a document that contains the styles that I want to use and yet doesn't contain a long long list of styles that I never want to use. Currently impossible in any version of Pages.
- the "blue sidebar" only occurs in Pages for OS X. If yo curette a document that is less than A4 width, the program inserts a blue space to the left of the document to "fill in" to the A4 size. This is not negotiable, unremovable, and will show up (in grey instead of blue) even in full screen mode. I have no idea why it does this, it gets in my way, and it ruins my focus.
Because I use the iPad mini, I habitually use A6 paper size because it's the exact same size as the iPad mini screen and generally contains the same amount of words as the average paperback page so it's easy to see how many pages the final document will be without reformatting. It seems to be some random decision by the designers for some unknown purpose, but it's really irritating to me (more so because it seems to have no purpose).
In short ... like any other word processor I want to be able to choose my paper size, I want to be able to create my own templates (currently only "blank" is of any interest or use to me), create my own styles, and I want to be able to get rid of all the other styles and other templates that I will never, ever, use.
Finally, to the fellow that doesn't think Pages is the only word processor on iOS, you are wrong. There are some limited document editors that link to the cloud (QuickOffice, Documents toGO), but they use MS Word format so they are both no help with Pages as well as being limited editors and not stand alone word processors. There are also a plethora of "Notes" type applications for dumping text, most of which are pretty bad (I've tried them all), with iAWriter possibly being the best of that lot. iAWriter is not a true word processor however in that has limited formatting capabilities (by limited I mean less than Word for DOS which I'm going to use as a baseline), and suffers from the fact that the author of the app is some kind of old fashioned dude who purposely eschews touch controls and touch based editing for arrow keys. You can't place the cursor easily or properly in iAWriter for example like you can in Pages. You can't use italics or bold and you certainly can't use colours. iAWriter is a notepad type of thing more than it is a "Word processor."
Pages doesn't even use the same format for documents on iOS as it does on the desktop and it doesn't do it for a reason. They are different apps and one is just a subset of the other. Anyone who uses Pages on a regular basis knows that it seriously needs attention. It hasn't been updated in any significant way since before the iPhone and iPad even existed.