Apple releases iTunes 11.0.2 with new Composers view, improved big playlist syncing and bug fixes
Apple has just updated iTunes to version 11.0.2, adding in a new Composers view for music, in addition to various bug fixes and performance improvements. The composer view can be found under View Options> Composer.
Apple details that iTunes 11.0.2 now features improved “responsiveness when syncing playlists with a large number of songs.” This update also apparently resolves a problem in which some users’ purchases aren’t showing up in their iTunes libraries.
The release builds upon Apple’s redesign of iTunes with the launch of iTunes 11. The major update featured an improved interface and expanded iCloud integration.
Back in December, Apple updated iTunes 11 to v11.0.1, which included fixes for iCloud items not being displayed in your library, a disappearing AirPlay button and returns the ability to display all of your duplicate library items.
As always, Mac users can download this update via the Mac App Store or via Apple’s site. Are you going to use the new Composers view?
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Circa updates its iOS app with a refreshed design, share by email functionality and more
News consumption service Circa has released an update to its iOS application that features a design refresh, share by email functionality, featured story marquee, and more.
Started by Matt Galligan and Ben Huh, Circa takes the top stories happening around the world and displays it as bite-size chunks of useful and relevant content. The company has a staff of editorial writers working behind-the-scenes to review the news and publish what it feels is most important. In October 2012, it launched its iPhone application in an attempt to help make it easier for people to consume the news.
Today, the company has released what it calls Circa News 1.1 — its first post-launch release.
One of the major updates is the design refresh — it says that the team went over “every pixel with a fine toothed comb” and cleaned up the design to make it look great. While a subtle change, attentive users will notice that Circa abandoned its Livory typeface. It says that while it’s a beautiful font, it’s not particularly easy to read when it’s at a smaller size. However, it still remains the standard typeface for the Circa logo.
In its place, the company is using Meta Serif OT, which it says is “far more readable, but it’s also compressed, so overall readability and speed improve with this change.” Additionally, Helvetica Neue no longer is in the app. The default Apple font in iOS has been replaced with Adobe’s Source Sans Pro.
Circa says that it has also done some cleaning in its category menu design, which it says will make room for future plans for that space.
With its featured articles, the company has also made some tweaks to the design. In its original design, only one featured story could be promoted at a time. Now, it has replaced that design with a “carousel-like marquee” — something that it believes will help the service in a time when there are multiple big stories throughout the day.
Other updates that come with Circa News 1.1 include:
- Share by email: Stories can now be shared not only across social networks, but through email privately to those readers who might find it interesting.
- Pull to refresh and loading indicator: Circa says that in the original version, knowing when the app was refreshing was nearly impossible to determine. It says that it moved away from a refresh button and changed it to a “pull to refresh” style and included an indicator to let readers know when the app was refreshing.
- Swipe to go back: The app now includes a simple gesture that allows users to swipe right on the screen to go back to the story list.
- Marking followed stories as read and swipe-to-unfollow: Circa allows users to follow specific stories that they like and this update includes a new way to manage them. It now includes the ability to mass-mark unread stories and “easily swipe in the ‘My Followed Story’ list to unfollow them.”
Circa’s update helps to make the way it presents the news a much cleaner and functional experience. With a rather experienced editorial team on staff, the company’s efforts to spruce up what the reader sees and improves the way information is delivered is going to be a win for the app.
The company says that the update will be available in the App Store “within a few hours.”
Update: Circa tells us that the update is now available in the App Store.
Photo credit: INDRANIL MUKHERJEE/AFP/Getty Images
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Fledging storytelling app Backspaces passes 50k users and 90k stories, refines Web presence
After launching back in August, Backspaces, an iPhone app for telling stories using just photos and text, has passed 50,000 users and 90,000 stories. The service received a considerable boost during Instagram’s terms of service debacle, and has since taken on an interesting, reflective role in the mobile sharing space.
In short, Backspaces is more about thought than impulse.
We were the first to highlight the service upon its debut, and have watched closely as it continues to grow. Of course, 50k users is hardly a figure that will make investors and pundits swoon, but considering how involved users are in each story, it wouldn’t be wise to ignore the app, either.
We spoke with cofounder Adrian Sanders on Backspaces’ push for storytelling, and in response he pointed to Jack Cheng’s essay on ”The Slow Web.” Sanders details that “a lot of social interaction on web has become like junk food – quick, easy, and just tasty enough to keep coming back without ever feeling satisfied.”
Conversely, Sanders says a Backspaces post is “more than a photo or an update. It’s just a little more articulate and expressive. Not just a photo of your car, [but] a story about your car — an explanation about why it’s important to you, or why it’s funny.”
Sanders believes that narrative — which he calls “the arbitrary but meaningful context that people put onto data and events — is what makes all of our media human. Narrative isn’t something that works well automated (I’m looking at you Facebook timeline!), it needs people. So we built Backspaces for people to tell their stories.”
Now featured for the second time in the App Store, Backspaces has left a particularly strong impression on creatives (from photographers to tattoo artists), and communities are beginning to form as a result (like #wearejuxt and #tinycollective).
Up until this point, Backspaces seems to have operated as a test to see if creators Sanders, Dmitri Cherniak and Wylie Conlon were onto something. Now Backspaces is out to prove that everyone has a story to tell.
If your interest is piqued, check out the app via the link below and try following a few of Backspaces’ users, like 1bite2xshy, ashleiketchum and befrank. You can also find me on Backspaces, here.
Image credit: Thinkstock
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Carats & Cake Launches Wedding Planning Service To Connect Brides With Local Vendors
The wedding startup space continues to heat up, and today another new entry called Carats & Cake is launching to connect newlyweds and the newly engaged for wedding planning purposes. The platform allows newlyweds (generally, recent brides) to share photos from their wedding which others can view in order to discover the local vendors who made one aspect of a couple’s dream wedding possible.
Based in New York, the concept for Carats & Cake ironically emerged from the minds of two unmarried co-founders, Jessica Levin (CEO), whose previous experience with startups was from the VC side of the table, as she previously worked as an associate at J. Christopher Capital, and Shane Parrish, who now serves as the startup’s creative director.
Levin explains that the idea for Carats & Cake came not from her own experience as a bride, but from watching her friends go through the wedding planning process. “I had a couple of friends getting married, and it was really interesting to me because they would look at things and get a lot of inspiration, but they had difficulty when it came to taking the images and the inspiration that they saw and turning that into reality,” Levin says. After the weddings took place, meanwhile, other newly engaged friends would ask her things, like, for example, did she know who did the bride’s hair or makeup?
Carats & Cake, founded around a year ago, was created to more directly connect those planning their weddings with those who have completed their own. It competes in a busy space filled with wedding-focused startups like RegistryLove, Appy Couple, Wedit, Lover.ly, WedPics, Wedding Party, WeddingLovely, Weduary, and, most recently, HoneyBook, which may be the closest competitor to what Carats & Cake is now doing. Like the beautifully-designed HoneyBook site, Carats & Cake also encourages users to upload their wedding pictures and tag them with the names of their vendors. The idea being that a future business model for these startups would involve creating a large directory of wedding-specific vendors.
The difference between HoneyBook and Carats & Cake is that the former is about creating and sharing online wedding albums with family and friends, while Carats & Cake goes more directly after its goal of simply asking new brides (or grooms, as the case may be) to share their photos for the sole purpose of recommending vendors to others planning their own weddings. The service restricts brides to tagging one vendor per photo, and brides can’t upload unlimited photos – only those that are showcasing the vendor in question. These are not “social” photo albums, they’re more like bragging boards, I guess you could say. (Look at my cake, my dress, my shoes, etc.)
Others can share or like the items, or reach out to the couple who posted the photos through a private, direct message for more information. Users are also able to search Carats & Cake by location – currently New York and L.A. are the only locations featured, as the initial 50 weddings featured on the site came from those areas. However, because the site’s content is fed through user-generated submissions, anyone can use the service as of today.
But will brides (or grooms) want to do so? After all, this isn’t a complete wedding album like HoneyBook offers. Levin thinks they will. “Anything you’ve spent an incredible amount of time on, and then you spend all these moments planning it, talking to your friends about it, and actually living it, then all of a sudden it’s over – beyond just sharing your photos and being able to look at them – you really start to have this letdown afterwards,” she says. “We’ve talked to a lot of newlyweds who feel that they don’t really have an outlet where they can not only share, but talk about it.”
Carats & Cake, open to the public as of today, currently has friends and family funding, but is now raising a seed round.
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