Popular drawing app Procreate has today released version 3 of their iPad app ($5.99) with a whole host of new features. This includes new brushes (including quick brush previewing before committing to canvas drawing), motion blur and perspective blur, simplified tap gestures and much more.

Perhaps the most significant change is the addition of iPad Pro and Apple Pencil integration. Procreate now create images with up to 16,0000 x 4000 resolution on Apple’s latest hardware, due to be released later in the month. Existing Apple hardware can also benefit, with the iPad Air 2 now capable of creating 8000×4000 resolution images.

Apple has been using Procreate as a demo app for the Apple Pencil and its clear why: the company has integrated all the Pencil features into their drawing app with full support for the tilt, azimuth and pressure-sensitivity of the stylus. They’ve included a set of Artistic brushes to show off the Apple Pencil’s capabilities.

Procreate has also used the latest iOS 9 technology to get super-fast touch response and input latency, which should minimise drawing lag and make the iPad and Apple Pencil feel as close to a physical pad and paper as possible.

Get Procreate 3 on the App Store for $5.99.

Filed under: Apps, iOS, iOS Devices Tagged: drawing app, iPad Pro, Procreate

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The new Apple TV has been available for three days now, with response to the product generally strong with seemingly good sales, based off some talks with Apple Store employees. A big part of the appeal of Apple TV is the tvOS App Store. What you see above is Apple’s press image for the store: in reality the Top Charts and Categories are currently unaccessible. Developer Steve Troughton-Smith has worked around this by accessing the web chart data directly, by spoofing the Apple TV headers when making the request. He has posted the Apple TV US Top Paid, Top Free and Top Grossing charts as of yesterday. There’s some interesting trends in the data ….

Perhaps unsurprisingly, games dominate both Top Paid and Top Grossing charts with Beat Sports, Galaxy on Fire, Lumino City and Alto’s Adventure achieving high rankings. An outlier is the presence of SimpleX, a third party Plex client, in the #2 position for Top Paid and #5 for Top Grossing. Apple TV owners are clearly itching for a way to use Plex on their devices. Although Plex is releasing an official client, it has not yet been approved so SimpleX is your best option.

Other ‘utility’ apps start to appear in the 10-20 positions, with AirVideo and Carrot Weather featuring as standout successes. On Top Free, there’s a bit more of a contest between the $0 games (like Crossy Road and Rayman) and video apps (like HBO Now, Nat GEO TV, Fox and Netflix) vying for placement.

A big trend is that the pricing on the non-free apps is significantly higher than the iOS equivalents. Pricing in the range of $5-$10 for AAA titles is the norm with very few apps priced at the iPhone App Store trademark 99 cent price point. I’ve listed the top ten paid apps to highlight the current tvOS pricing equilibrium. Only 1 of the Top 10 paid apps (remember, this data is as of sometime yesterday) is priced at $0.99.

Apple TV US Top Paid

1. Beat Sports ($9.99)
2. SimpleX ($2.99)
3. Galaxy On Fire ($5.99)
4. Lumina City ($4.99)
5. Alto’s Adventure ($2.99)
6. Does not Commute ($2.99)
7. Battle Supremacy ($4.99)
8. Geometry Wars 3 ($9.99)
9. Shoot The Zombies  ($0.99)
10. Oceanhorn $(8.99)

That’s how the Apple TV App Store stands right now (remember Troughton-Smith’s data is a snapshot and will not live update).  It will be interesting to see if developers can sustain the higher pricing tiers. The current situation harken back to the 2008 launch of the App Store, when most titles cost $9.99. Obviously, on iPhone, that did not last and apps took the race to the bottom to $0.99 or freemium. Sales characteristics are likely to change significantly once tvOS app discovery is improved.

Without Top Charts or Categories, customers are hard-pressed to find apps and games other than those featured by Apple on the front page. The PR image for the App Store does depict the existence of these pages, so it’s assumed to be coming soon. It may also simply be a case of waiting for more Apple TV apps to enter the market; estimates suggest 1000 tvOS apps are currently on sale.  Having the App Store show more content overall will help even up the balance of power between all apps on the store, which will likely influence pricing as competition increases.

Filed under: Apple TV Tagged: App Store, App Store sales, Apple TV, categories, top charts, Top Paid, tvOS

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In this week’s episode of The Logic Pros, we are looking at Space Designer, Logic’s flagship reverb plug-in. Much like the Delay Designer we detailed last week, Space Designer is highly customizable with various shaping tools and the ability to create your own impulse responses.

Reverb plug-ins are basically the emulation of the way instruments sound in a particular room or space. This effect is used commonly in music production to add life to various instruments in a mix, simulate the sound of each instrument having been recorded in the same room and for a number of other creative purposes. Logic Pro X provides several options in the reverb department, but today we will be focusing on the flagship convolution reverb: Space Designer.

Convolution reverb uses data of recordings of actual sounds reflecting in certain spaces to provide realistic reverb to producers in the studio. Space Designer can do both convolution and synthesized reverb sounds, which is a great place to start when it comes to going over the UI and designing our own reverb sound:

Firstly, Space Designer has two main modes of operation: IR Sample and Synthesized IR. The two options can be found/selected on the top and bottom of the Impulse Response Parameters circle (IRP circle in our case). As explained above, both options offer different tonal qualities when it comes to shaping our reverb sounds. We can load up various samples of different spaces (or Impulse Responses) from the small pull down menu along the top of the IRP circle, or start with one of the many excellent presets Apple provides.

Also in the IRP circle, we can set the length of the reverb tail and choose the sample rate. The length of the reverb (in seconds) determines how long of a tail or reflection your sound will have. Keep in mind, in IR Sample mode you can only choose a length as long as the sample you have chosen or lower. In most cases you will want to keep the sample rate slider at its highest, but as always, experimenting with the warmer low rates can result in some desirable effects.

Much like Delay Designer, most of the action takes place in the LCD looking display in the middle of the UI known as the Main Display, with most controls (along with a few extras) doubled up in the light blue Parameter bar below. We have the Volume Env(elope), Filter Env(elope), Density Env(elope), EQ, and Reverse features. All off which are represented in the colored Button Bar along the top of the display.

The Volume Env(elope) or overall shape of the reverb sound has basic attack and decay time/level settings. You’ll likely be spending most of your time in here shaping the actual tail of your reverb sound, but there are also some very interesting possibilities when experimenting with slow, sweeping attack times and more.

Note: The Reset button in the Button bar will reset the currently selected control’s parameters back to default or that of the currently selected preset. The All button right next to it will do the same thing for the all the parameters in the Button Bar.

Filter Env(elope) allows us to chose how much the filter effects various portions of the reverb sound and by how much. You’ll notice the actual multi-mode filter can be controlled in the bottom left corner of the UI. There is 6 and 12db low pass filters, a band pass and a high pass option, along with a resonance control for each. Simply tapping the Filter Env(elope) in the Button Bar will enable the filter, but you can bypass it again from the on/off button in the bottom left corner as well.

The EQ panel is just what it sounds like: a handy little built-in 4-band (low shelf, 2-bands and a high shelf) equalizer to shape the tone of our reverb sound.

The Reverse tab is also exactly what you would think. Get creative here, as it can offer some pretty amazing results on everything from drum sounds to pulsing synth leads and lush pad sounds. Keep in mind, that when reversing an IR Sample, you are essentially using the tail end of the sample and may need to adjust the IR Start time (more on this below).

We have left the Density Env(elope) feature for last, as it is only available to you when in Synthesized IR mode. The Density Env(elope) essentially allows you to shape and build your own impulse response from scratch, in a way making up for some of the built-in data that comes with Impulse Response samples. It might be considered a 2-phase envelope with level and timing controls to shape the overall sound of the synthesized reflections.

Outside of the the usual wet and dry output controls on the right hand side of the UI, just below that we have the Pre-delay, IR Sample start time, and Spread controls. The Pre-delay determines the amount of time it takes for your reverb sound to begin after Space Designer has detected the incoming signal. IR Start determines at which phase of the IR Sample recording the reverb sound starts at.

The Spread controls are only available in the Synthesized IR mode. The Spread knob is basically a typical stereo-width spreader effect determined by the crossover frequency set on the Xover knob directly below it. All frequencies below the set value are spread across both the left and right channel, with the rest staying more towards the center (which is typically what happens in actual acoustic spaces).

And those are the main controls for the entire UI and more than enough to get you going on getting some great reverb sounds specifically tailored to your songs and creations. Like we mentioned above the categorized presets Apple has provided offer some amazing options for realistic room tones and even some wacky spacial effects. And here is one last tip:

Create your very own Impulse Responses and spacey synth sounds. Creating a custom made Impulse Response is as easy as dragging an audio file from the Finder directly on to the Main Display or loading one from the pull down menu on the IRP circle. In most cases, for realistic reverb tones the professionally recorded provided options will be much better, but you can get some crazy rings and even some downright impressive synth sounds this way.

The Logic Pros is a regular series exploring all of the most interesting gadgets and software for making music on your Mac/iOS devices. If there is any gear you would like us to take a closer hands-on look at, let us know in the comments section below or shoot us an email.

More The Logic Pros:

• Creating precise multi-tap delay/echo patterns with Delay Designer
• Getting the most out of Logic’s built-in MIDI Arpeggiator
• Creating custom-made, tempo flexible Apple Loops
• Routing 101 – creating multi-track FX Sends and Submix groups
• Kontrol S-series keyboards give you Komplete control of NI’s world-class instrument library
• A look at Logic’s new heavy weight sample manipulation synth Alchemy
• Moog Sub 37 is one of the best hardware synths for the money
• iPad/Mac synths still can’t quite capture the experience of this $1,000 Moog
• How-to connect MIDI controllers wirelessly over Bluetooth to iOS or Mac w/ puc+
• Time compression and pitch correction with Logic’s built-in Flex tools
• Automate tedious MIDI edits into a single-click with Logic’s Transform feature
• How to use MIDI hardware synthesizers in Logic w/ External Instrument plug-in
• How to create custom sampler instruments using any audio file with EXS24
• How to create Retro Synth patches with custom wavetables and multi-voice stacking
• How to customize Logic’s Drummer, beat-by-beat
• 6 powerful new features you may have missed in Logic 10.1
• How to control anything in Logic using your hardware MIDI controller
• How to create multi-layered synth patches & drum sounds with Track Stacks
• Turning iPad into a virtual pedalboard using Logic Remote
• TE’s new pocket-sized synths & how to sync them up with your Mac

Filed under:
How-To, Tips and Tricks Tagged: EQ, filter, High Pass, how to, How to Space Designer, Logic Pro X, Low Pass, LPX, reverb, reverse, Space Designer, the logic pros

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How-To, and how to continue reading at 9to5Mac.

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With the post-launch dust now settled for the iPhone 6s, iPhone 6s Plus, and iPad mini 4, two accessory makers have released four batteries designed to fuel Apple’s latest devices. While they carry significant price premiums over top-rated batteries we’ve covered, both vendors have received Apple’s seal of approval for device compatibility.

Mophie has officially released Juice Pack Reserve for iPhone 6s and iPhone 6 ($60), officially guaranteeing compatibility with both versions of the 4.7″ iPhone. Juice Pack Reserve is a form-fitting battery case promising over 60% extra battery life with an 1,840mAh integrated cell. It features built-in button protectors and a very small “chin” for audio and charging. Power Reserve 1x ($35) is a device-agnostic, 2,600mAh battery shaped like a large pack of gum, reliant on a self-supplied Lightning cable to charge your iOS device. Each Reserve battery is available in 5 soft touch rubber colors, and comes with a micro-USB to USB cable for recharging.

U.K.-based TechLink has launched Recharge 5000 ($90) and Recharge 12000 ($120), Lightning cable-equipped batteries for the iPhone 6s Plus/6 Plus and iPad mini/iPad Air, respectively. While each battery works with other Apple devices, the partially aluminum Recharge 5000 is specifically pitched at iPhone 6/6s Plus users, as it’s bundled with a leatherette carrying case that holds both the slim 5000mAh battery and either 5.5″ iPhone, promising a 1.2X recharge. Made entirely from plastic, the dual-port Recharge 12000 has iPad-ready 2.4-Amp power and a really nice built-in stand that holds an iPad on a recline while it’s charging. Capable of delivering at least one full recharge to any recent iPad, the 12,000 mAh battery also includes a zippered carrying case. Each has a micro USB cable for recharging.

Filed under: General, iOS Devices Tagged: battery, iPhone 6, iphone 6 plus, iPhone 6s, iphone 6s plus, Lightning, Mophie, TechLink

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It’s certainly not the only connected-security camera, but following Google’s acquisition of popular security cam maker Dropcam last year, the company has just launched a second-generation product with new features. The new product was re-envisioned by Google’s Nest team— the people building smart home accessories like the Nest thermostat and fire alarm— and in the process dropped the Dropcam branding and gained a few notable enhancements.

But is the new Nest Cam worth an upgrade from your current Dropcam setup? And how does the product compare to the other connected home security-cam and all-in-one security devices on the market? We’ve been testing out Nest Cam since its release a few weeks back to find out.

Installation/Setup:

Setup is painless with the usual Wi-Fi accessory configuration process for iPhone users. Download the app, connect to your Wi-Fi network, and a few minutes later your cam is connected and ready to live stream and record. But that also means you can expect a few hiccups or necessary restarts if your network happens to not be playing nice at the moment. You have to plug in the camera, so you’ll want to have an outlet relatively close by (it comes with a 3 meter USB cable and wall adapter for power), but the design gives you a few options for positioning and mounting.

The base is magnetic and comes with a screw-on wall mount or can optionally sit upright on a desk or other flat service. It also unscrews from the base for moving on to a standard tripod mount of your own if desired. The arm of the camera is mounted on a swivel so you can position it upright or laying flat for the various mounting options, and the camera itself can be repositioned 360 degrees for example on the base, so it’s possible to adjust what the camera is capturing without having to remount the entire unit.

How does that compare to the competition? Some use batteries, which makes them portable, but for a home setup and the benefit of always on recording (more on that below), dealing with the power cable on Nest Cam is worth the trade-off. And when it comes to build quality, Nest Cam is as solid as it gets. It’s a tank, and that’s certainly a feature I appreciate in a security camera.

Using Nest Cam:

The features are quite basic when compared to some of the more all-in-one home/security products on the market, but you get everything you need for a solid security camera setup: a 1080p HD camera with a 130º wide­-angle view and zoom, a built-in mic for yelling at robbers or your pets or listening in, and access to video history with the ability to create clips, edit footage, and share videos with others. You can also setup rules for having the camera turn on and off based on your schedule. 

The camera includes night vision LEDs that give you a great view in the dark compared to not such a great experience with cameras that instead just add a spotlight or don’t include night vision features at all. Some of the competitors on the market have opted to include other sensors for things like measuring air quality, for example, but the Nest Cam keeps quite bare-bones with just what you need for security camera purposes.

I quite enjoyed the software experience when testing out the Nest Cam, although there were a few annoyances and what I’d consider missing features…

On mobile you can’t record or share a clip and navigating the timeline for recorded footage is clunky at best, making it difficult to pinpoint a specific moment when browsing over a long period of recorded video. 

It’s better with the web app on desktop where you can quickly and easily make clips for sharing purposes, but I still found the UI for navigating the timeline a bit cumbersome. Clips can be an hour in length, and you can store up to 3 hours of clips, otherwise they’ll get turned into time-lapse videos. I didn’t have any break-ins during my review unfortunately, so I shot some time-lapse videos instead:

And for those that are already using the Nest apps for managing other Nest devices, like the thermostat or fire alarm, having the convenience of accessing the Nest Cam from the same place is an added bonus, and you can set up rules to have Nest Cam kick on and off related to activity from other Nest devices.

I found the motion detection feature of the camera effective, but it has the same issues as other security cameras. It doesn’t do as great of a job at filtering out background noise as Nest’s marketing claims. Mix in the fact that I personally have a house full of pets, and live in a noisy development, the motion detection feature would wake up the camera too often for it to be useful in detecting threats, at least in my personal environment. The motion detection caught all the movement in the videos above, for example.

But in some cases you can benefit from the ability to set up activity zones to limit the motion detection to certain areas (only from the web app):

Streaming quality issues can depend a lot on your network, but I had no complaints in that regard. Nest makes recommendations for streaming requirements and bandwidth usage on its website.

Pricing/limitations:

You get a free 30-day free trial, but after that you’ll need a 10-day video history plan for $10/month or $100/year, or a 30-day video history plan for $30/month or $300/year. You’ll be able to view a live stream for free, but access to video history after your free trial requires a paid plan, and it’s required for other features as well like creating and sharing clips from your past video history. The pricing is quite competitive, although many competitors offer 24 hours for free or at least some amount of free access to video history. I’d imagine this would be a much easier buy for many people if they could somehow tap into their existing Google storage, or if Google bundled it into a paid Google storage plan.

What it needs:

HomeKit support is the big omission from this Apple user’s experience. While we’d expect the majority of other products to add support (Apple just added support for security systems with iOS 9), Google could be the one major, notable holdout if it decides to push its own home automation platform instead and keep it totally separate from Apple’s HomeKit framework. Nest would likely go along for the ride, although technically it’s now its own company under Alphabet and not necessarily tied to everything Google does.

It’s not that there is something key to the experience that HomeKit would add to Nest Cam on its own, but the decision to leave it out will definitely be a major consideration for consumers that are heavy Apple device users, and for those that plan on using HomeKit as the central location for controlling home automation products. Having one or more Nest products that exist completely outside of HomeKit doesn’t seem to make much sense in that scenario.

And beyond HomeKit, there is also a big opportunity to make Nest Cam more than just a security camera. Live streaming features is one example, something that has been a trend with apps like Periscope. I think the company that makes a home security camera with social features, making it fun to use outside of its security features, will have an easier time convincing people they need these products.

Some users have also pointed out lack of IFTTT support and some missing features compared to the old Dropcam app, like a geofence feature that triggered the camera on and off as you come and go.

And lastly, it would be nice if Google added a bit of onboard storage to cover us for the to-be-expected Google server outages and downtime.

Should you buy it?

I never really considered a security system for my apartment (we don’t lock our doors in Canada), but new Wi-Fi connected products like Nest Cam make the experience of owning and setting up cameras at home much more accessible than ever before. While there are a lot of alternatives to consider, any of Nest’s shortcomings wouldn’t make me pick a competitor for at least my own, admittedly modest purposes. For those that have already bought into the Nest and Google ecosystem and enjoy the experience, the choice will be easy. But for those hoping to build a HomeKit-connected household, lack of a promise from Nest to support the platform might be enough to hold off for now or opt for a competitor.

Nest Cam is available to buy now as low as $189. 

Filed under: Reviews Tagged: Nest

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As it does regularly with older products, Apple is about to move a bunch of Macs, iPods, and accessories to obsolete status, meaning the products will no longer be eligible for service or repair support through Apple retail stores or authorized service providers. So if you happen to have one of these products and need a hardware repair of some kind, you’ll have until early December to do so at an Apple Store or authorized third-party service provider. 

The Macs getting the axe this time around include:

• iMac (21.5-inch, Late 2009)
• iMac (27-inch, Late 2009)
• MacBook Air (Mid 2009)
• Mac Pro (Early 2009)
• MacBook (13-inch, early 2008)
• MacBook Pro (15-inch, early 2009)

These Macs will move to Obsolete status in all regions and vintage status where applicable. Apple typically begins the process for models 5-7 years after manufacturing has been discontinued and maintains a list on its website here. Vintage status only applies to California and Turkey where the company is required to continue offering support in some cases, but otherwise everything gets obsolete status and will no longer be eligible for hardware repairs.

Other products moving to vintage obsolete status this time around include the iPod touch (1st generation), the Apple Cinema Display (23-inch, DVI early 2007), Time Capsule 802.11n (1st) generation, and for the first time, and long list of Beats products that Apple inherited with its acquisition of Beats Electronics, including:

• iBeats
• Beatbox
• Beatbox Portable (1st generation)
• Wireless (1st generation)
• Diddybeats
• Heartbeats (1st generation)

All of the above obsoleting will go into action on December 8, 2015, as highlighted in the internal memo above. 

Filed under: iOS, Mac Tagged: 1st generation, Apple Store, beatbox, Beats, ibeats, iMac, iPod, ipod touch first gen, MacBook, Macs, Obsolete, repairs, vintage

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Apple seems to be trialling small discounts on Apple Watches purchased with iPhones in certain stores. Through a store-only deal running today through November 15th, Apple is knocking $50 off the price of Apple Watches and Apple Watch Sports when bought with new iPhones, MacRumors notes. Not only is the promo not available online but it’s also being offered in select stores in just two states: California and Massachusetts.

Shoppers in other markets may not be missing out on much, however, as 9to5Toys has seen better deals from resellers previously including $80 off without the required iPhone purchase. If you do happen to be in the market for both a new iPhone and an Apple Watch and you’re looking to save some money, 9to5Toys has highlighted a promotion expected to start at Target on Sunday (via a leaked ad) where you could save almost $70. Target is expected to discount Apple Watch prices by 10% with the purchase of a new iPhone 6s or 6s Plus, offering a greater savings on more expensive models. REDcard save another 5%. Target started selling the Apple Watch online and in stores earlier this month.

Filed under: Apple Watch, iOS Devices Tagged: Apple watch, iPhone

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At some point in the future, creating pixel-sharp screenshots, UI videos, and game recordings from your Apple TV may be as easy as hitting a button or two on the Siri Remote, but right now, the only obvious technique is a workaround. Thankfully, the workaround doesn’t require the use of Apple’s Xcode or another developer tool — all you’ll need is OS X’s built-in app QuickTime Player and a USB-C cable of your choice…

The process is the same for screenshots and videos. Load QuickTime Player on your Mac using Spotlight or the Applications folder. Connect your Apple TV — still plugged into the wall and your HDTV — to your Mac using the USB-C to USB cable you’ve purchased.

Go to the File menu and choose New Movie Recording. Next to the gray and red record button, click on the “v” shaped arrow to see a list of choices. Pick Apple TV for both Camera and Microphone. At that point, you’ll see the Apple TV’s current video feed on your screen. Hit the gray and red record button to start recording video. To make a screenshot, hit Command-Shift-4, then hit the space bar. Your cursor will turn into a camera icon. Hover over the window until the title bar and recording interface disappear, then click your trackpad or mouse on the window to make a screenshot.

Unless the video content you’re playing back through the Apple TV is protected against recording, this technique will let you create videos and screenshots effortlessly. A more complex and expensive solution with live streaming software and more video options is Elgato’s Game Capture HD60, reviewed here, but the USB-C cable will do the trick for most people at a lower price.

More From This Author

Check out more of my editorials, How-To guides, and reviews for 9to5Mac here! I’ve covered a lot of different topics of interest to Mac, iPad, iPhone, iPod, Apple TV, and Apple Watch users. I’ve recently discussed how to safely prepare and wipe your iPhone for resale or trade-in, and how to get the best iPhone trade-in price to help buy an iPhone 6s, amongst many other topics.

Filed under:
How-To, Apple TV Tagged: Apple TV, screenshots, videos, Xcode

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How-To, and Apple TV at 9to5Mac.

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Google has just quietly released a new app on the App Store called “Who’s Down”. As you might be able to tell from its name, the app will apparently — once there are people who are actually using it — let you see which of your friends are free to hang out. Currently, the app is invite-only, so the only things we know about its functionality are from the app’s App Store screenshots…

As you can see in the images below, the app’s main functionality seems to be a quick-to-access toggle switch, letting your friends know if you’re free. Sliding the switch makes you available for three hours, and lets you pick from a list of popular activities to say you’re down to do (although it seems likely that one particular thing that people are commonly “down to” do will not be found on this list). The app lets you quickly see which of your friends are down to hangout, and you can start a chat from within the app.

Here’s a quick look:

You can install the app for free right now on the App Store, but as I mentioned, it’s invite only for the time being. We’re trying to work our way in, and when we do, we’ll be back with more information. Of course, the app is also available for Android.

Filed under: Apps Tagged: Android, app, fall 2015, Google, iOS, release, update, whos down

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Apple plans to start selling the 12.9-inch iPad Pro on Wednesday, November 11th via both its physical retail and online stores, according to multiple sources. Apple previously only said that the large tablet would become available during the month in November, a couple of months after its introduction in early September. The iPad Pro’s marquee accessories, the Apple Pencil and Smart Keyboard, will also become available for purchase on November 11th. The iPad Pro starts at $799 and comes in both 32GB and 128GB configurations with WiFi only. An LTE-compatible version comes exclusively in the 128GB configuration and costs upwards of $1000. We reported earlier this week that Apple’s support staff is scheduled to complete iPad Pro training by November 6th, less than a week prior to the launch.

Filed under: AAPL Company Tagged: Apple Inc, iOS, iPad, IPad accessories, ipad air, iPad mini, iPad Pro, iPhone, IPod Touch, LTE (telecommunication), Wi-Fi

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