Showing posts with label osx. Show all posts
Showing posts with label osx. Show all posts

Monday, June 2, 2014

#WWDC14 Family Sharing coming to iOS 8

The Apple World Wide Developer Conference keynote is classic Apple showmanship with the promise of many new features coming to OSX Yosemite and iOS 8.

There are some mind blowing features coming to the Mac that may be very helpful in the classroom like the annotation of photos without using Preview, easier search in Safari, and more ways to move content from iOS devices to Macs.

The feature most intriguing to me though is what Apple calls "Family Sharing" on iOS devices.  Up to six family members whose Apple IDs use the same credit card can now have shared access to each other's calendars, reminder lists, media like music and movies, as well as the "find my device" apps.

[caption id="attachment_640" align="alignleft" width="811"]Kids even have to ask permission before they may download apps with the family sharing feature. Kids even have to ask permission before they may download apps with the family sharing feature.[/caption]

As families become increasingly more mobile and each member spends more time on his or her own device, the sharing of this information can help everyone know where the other one is, what is on the family agenda, and who needs to get what stuff at the store.  I know it will help mine.

Monday, May 19, 2014

The Untapped Power of Apple's Preview

Preview_iconHands down my favorite feature of Keynote is the Instant Alpha tool. It takes out background color and really makes a huge difference when creating presentations with icons and logos. I also do a ton of creative layout and design work in Keynote. With Instant Alpha it functions just like Photoshop.

My only complaint was that although I could export slides as images, I couldn't export images with transparent backgrounds.

I shared this with my buddy Jon Corippo the other night and he mentioned using Preview to do it. I had really only ever used Preview to view .pdf files on my Mac. Jon explained that he builds in Keynote, saves as an image, and then opens it in Preview. The same Instant Alpha in Keynote exists on the "Edit Toolbar" in Preview (VIEW - Show Edit Toolbar). Once you alpha out your background you can export (under FILE) as a .png.

I had no idea.

The Edit Toolbar also allows you to add text and shapes, as well as crop and adjust your image...all for free.

Screenshot 2014-05-19 10.29.23