Tony Heupel committed and moved away from the Apple ecosystem, embracing a platform agnostic lifestyle wherever possible. Long story short, Tony and his family are back (mostly).

This is a very interesting read. Lots of detail on where the non-Apple universe fell short, and where Apple’s approach really does make a difference.

OS X Daily:

With Power Reserve Mode enabled, Apple Watch will cease all functions except a limited onscreen clock display. While you can enter Power Reserve at any time, this is not something you’d probably use for fun since it disables basically all features of Apple Watch like fitness tracking and heart rate monitoring, messaging, notifications, etc. With that said, it’s an incredibly effective way to continue to use the Apple Watch as a time-telling device in situations when it would otherwise run out of battery.

Good to know how to do this.

iOS developer Genady Okrain writes about his experience making money (or not) developing an iMessage app. Cutting to the chase:

As you can see the iMessage App Store was very promising at the beginning but nowadays it is somehow abandoned. This led me to release the app as an iOS app with an iMessage extension, and it is much more successful than just the iMessage app.

Interesting read. Not easy to make a living as an indie app developer.

My 2 cents: Articles like this are good input for folks just getting started, trying to sort out the best direction to take.

Yesterday, we posted a few links to articles on taking screenshots on your Mac and, more specifically, how to eliminate the drop shadow when you take a screen grab of a window.

This morning, Kirk McElhearn wrote a complementary piece showing how to change where your screenshots are saved. Me, I like saving them on my desktop, the easier to drag them into my Twitter client.

Not exactly sure where I’d ever use these, but I love design exploration and definitely enjoyed playing with this. I could see this as an exhibit at the Museum of Modern Art.

I do think the explore tab is a step in the right direction, though what’s missing is the ability to customize it or, tipping the cap to AI, for Twitter to learn the areas that interest you.

As is, there’s a top 20 “Trending Now” list and a seemingly structureless “Today’s Moments” list. To me, these could easily be blended together into a single interface, perhaps with the ability to favorite things you like, and reorder the list by hottest trending topics, chronologically, or by preference.

I love Twitter, both for communicating with the folks I follow and who follow me, and for keeping up to date on the larger Twitterverse. So much potential. And such a valuable resource, if we can get it right.

Hackernoon:

If you haven’t been immersed in iOS interface design, you might look at Apple’s icons and think that they’re just a rounded square or a ‘roundrect’. If you’ve been designing icons, you know that they’re something different and may have heard the word squircle used (mathematical intermediate of a square and a circle). And if you’re an Industrial Designer, you recognize this as a core signature of their hardware products.

Ever since iOS 7, app icons went from being rounded squares to something more complex and refined. While everyone gets that Apple pays attention to the most minute details, not everyone sees the obvious logic behind this seemingly small change.

This is a really interesting article. It would be even more interesting if I was smart enough to understand half of it.

Wired:

Unless you spend your days in Photoshop or Premiere, or you absolutely need some kind of esoteric accounting software, you don’t need all the computer you have. You’d be happier with something simpler, friendlier, and more attune to how you work.

Ditching your laptop for a tablet brings big benefits.

I could never make the iPad my only computer but this article has some good advice for those of you who can.

Factoring in time for parking can make or break a night out, let alone making it to that big meeting on time. So in 25 metro areas throughout the U.S., we’ve introduced a new parking difficulty icon in Google Maps for Android that’ll give you a heads up on what kind of parking crunch to prepare for when you’re on the go.

That’s helpful.

Upwork, the world’s largest freelancing website, today released its latest quarterly index of the hottest skills in the U.S. freelance job market. The Upwork Skills Index ranks the marketplace’s 20 fastest-growing skills being hired for among freelancers — now 35 percent of the U.S. workforce.

The 20 fastest-growing freelance skills in Q4 2016 all experienced more than 100 percent year-over-year growth with the top 10 experiencing more than 200 percent year-over-year growth.

Got into a nice Twitter discussion this morning about screen shot technique. Make your way through the responses for some solid tips.

The linked Tidbits article (from 2015 but still fresh) covers two important points: How to disable drop shadows for all screen shots as well as a really nice technique to add a border to a screenshot. Good stuff, worth a look.

UPDATE: This Useful Mac post is a great article that offers a bit more detail on screen shooting. Includes this super helpful hint when using ⌘⇧4 to take your screenshot. Press the spacebar to take a screenshot of a specific window, then hold option before clicking a window to eliminate the drop-shadow. [H/T Mark Boszko]

Nice set of tips from The App Factor.

OS X Daily:

Did you know you can download a Windows 10 disc image free from Microsoft? This is seemingly little known, but yes you can download a complete legitimate Windows 10 ISO without registering or even having a product key, and you can install and run the entirety of Windows 10 using the image too.

I have not done this, but good to know, especially if you want to do a Boot Camp install to run a single application or test. Bookmark and pass along.

NASA:

Social media users are invited to apply for credentials to attend the launch of the Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) Falcon 9 rocket carrying the Dragon cargo spacecraft with to the International Space Station. The launch from Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida is currently targeted for no earlier than February 2017. The exact launch date and time still are under review. This will be the first cargo mission launched from Kennedy’s historic Launch Complex 39A, where numerous Apollo and space shuttle missions lifted off.

If your passion is to communicate and engage the world via social media, then this is the event for you! Seize the opportunity to be on the front line to blog, tweet or Instagram everything about SpaceX’s tenth commercial resupply mission to the space station. The rocket will deliver several tons of supplies, including new science experiments and technology research.

A maximum of 50 social media users will be selected to attend this two-day event.

Yes, please!

Dan Aykroyd, writing about his romantic relationship with Carrie Fisher:

While in Chicago we obtained blood tests for compatibility from an East Indian female doctor. Contemplating marriage, I gave Carrie a sapphire ring and subsequently in the romance she gave me a Donald Roller Wilson oil painting of a monkey in a blue dress next to a tiny floating pencil, which I kept for years until it began to frighten my children.

The writeup is a bit bizarre, but really captures something of Carrie’s spirit.

From the partnership page:

In support of the mission to benefit people and society, the Partnership on AI intends to conduct research, organize discussions, share insights, provide thought leadership, consult with relevant third parties, respond to questions from the public and media, and create educational material that advance the understanding of AI technologies including machine perception, learning, and automated reasoning.

As much as we’ve learned about artificial intelligence, we’re still on the steepest part of the learning curve. We’re still working out the mechanics, just barely touching on the important philosophical issues.

Glad to hear news that Apple looks to be joining this group. Keep an eye on the partner page. You’ll know this is a done deal when Apple’s name joins the list.

A new app for the iPad just launched that allows anyone to easily create and share interactive presentations, portfolios, real estate listings, product catalogs and more, without needing a designer or developer. It was built by digital publishing pioneer Scrollmotion to help anyone create a stronger connection with customers by using content that really stands out.

Simply drag and drop photos and videos into Ingage’s interactive page templates to bring your content to life. It’s really that easy to create a touchable video called a “scrollmotion,” or use two pictures to create an awesome before-and-after effect with a slider.

When you want to share your presentation with the world, you can do so via text message, email or social media. Ingage automatically creates a responsive HTML webpage of your interactive presentation that can be viewed by anyone, on any device. And when you need to update your presentation, it automatically pushes everywhere it’s being shared. Your content is always up-to-date.

Download the app for free to try it out.

Introducing Ingage from ScrollMotion on Vimeo.

An Apple spokesperson confirmed that Duffy has been hired by Apple, but didn’t share details on his role at the company.

As I said before: people come, people go.

NV Energy and Apple announced today they have reached an agreement to build 200 megawatts of additional solar energy in Nevada by early 2019. The projects will support Apple’s renewable energy needs for its Reno data center.

We always talk about Apple products, but the company’s commitment to renewable resources is commendable.

It’s an age old question for guitarists. My answer is that it depends on what sound you’re looking for, and what feels good in your hands.

The Charvel Custom Shop unveiled some magnificent beauties during the 2017 NAMM Show in Anaheim, Calif. Here’s a look at 7 by Master Builder “Red” Dave Nichols.

Charvel to me is one of the most classic metal guitars ever made. I would love to have the first one on the list.

Apple Inc filed a lawsuit against Qualcomm Inc in Beijing, alleging the chip supplier abused its clout in the chip industry and seeking 1 billion yuan ($145.32 million) in damages, Beijing’s Intellectual Property Court said in a statement on Wednesday.

Apple also filed a second lawsuit against Qualcomm which accused it of failing to live up to promises made to license “standard essential patents” broadly and inexpensively.

Apple isn’t messing around with Qualcomm.

Robservatory:

macOS ships with ⌘O (Open) and ⌘P (Print) as pre-assigned keyboard shortcuts in Finder. Select a bunch of files to open, reach for the O and miss by just a touch, and you’ve started a dozen print jobs. Whoops!

Years ago on macosxhints.com, there was one of those “duh!” tips with an easy solution to this (and other similar) issues: Reassign the stock keyboard shortcuts.

I was constantly hitting Command-Q instead of Command-W in Safari until I reassigned the shortcut.

iMore:

MacPaw’s new app subscription service, Setapp, is finally out of beta and anyone can join. The company is calling it the “Unstore” alternative to the Mac App Store. I’m calling it the Netflix of Mac apps. It is bursting at the seams with more than 60 apps of all different categories. I’ve been beta testing it for a few months and I love it.

I’ve also been a beta tester of Setapp. I’ll reserve my opinion for my podcast but it’s an interesting idea. It kind of brings back memories of the “good old days” of Mac Shareware back in the day.

John Gruber’s take on the care of something easily losable. Some great anecdotes.

I absolutely agree with this take. I am much more careful about my iPhone, much more aware that I take it with me, treat it more gingerly and safely, than I do just about anything else I carry.