Gmail is getting a gorgeous redesign on the web, which will include a bunch of awesome new features. One of those is a “Confidential Mode” for sensitive messages, which prevents them from being forwarded, downloaded, printed, and more.
Streamline how you type, build websites, and more [Week’s Best Deals]
Another week, another raft of great new deals at the Cult of Mac Store. This go around, we’ve got a typing assistant that can save you serious time at the keyboard. There’s also a code-free tool for building websites, a sleek set of Bluetooth headphones, and a desktop USB hub. Additionally, everything is discounted by 30 percent or more. Read on for more details:
Don’t ditch Safari if you want the fastest browsing experience
If you want the fastest possible web browsing experience on Mac, don’t sway from Safari.
Apple promises that Safari 11, which will debut in macOS High Sierra this fall, is “the world’s fastest desktop browser.” And tests show that it does not disappoint.
Twitter gives you more control over pesky notifications
Twitter’s latest update gives users more control over the notifications they receive. It’s now easier than ever to block pesky alerts while still receiving those you want to see.
Free web tool CleverPDF gives you all the PDF editing tools you need
This post is brought to you by CleverPDF.
PDFs are pretty much a daily part of life for anyone who works at a computer. They’re the 8.5-by-11-inch sheet of digital documents. But like a sheet of paper, there’s not a whole lot you can do with a PDF besides signing it — unless you’ve got a special app.
Apple’s Live Photos can now be embedded on the web
Apple has paved the way for its Live Photos to takeover the web with a new JavaScript API that makes it easy for developers to embed the moving images onto websites.
Inbox by Gmail gets new Smart Reply feature on the web
Google Inbox’s awesome Smart Reply feature, which was launched on mobile back in November, is now available on the web.
The feature is already being used for 10 percent of all replies on Android and iOS — and it’s just as good in your browser.
What the modern web looks like on an original iPhone
When Steve Jobs unveiled the iPhone nine years ago this month, he made a big point about iOS Safari, the first desktop-class mobile browser. He said — and proceeded to prove — that Mobile Safari could render the web with no compromises.
But that was a decade ago. The web’s moved on. So how does today’s web look on an original iPhone?
Google wants to help you surf the mobile web at lightning speeds
Google wants to make your mobile browsing experience better than ever with its new Accelerated Pages Project. The company hopes to dramatically improve the performance of the mobile web so that pages, videos, animations, and graphics load “instantaneously.”
Getting the new MacBook? Avoid Google Chrome for better battery life
There’s no question that Google Chrome is one of the best web browsers you can get, but it’s long been a resource hog under OS X. By simply avoiding it on the new MacBook, your battery could last more than three hours longer in between charges.
XKPasswd Generates Secure Pass-Phrases
Apart from “correct horse battery staple,” the most secure passwords aren’t words, they’re phrases. You don’t even need crazy symbols or hard-to-determine numerals (is that an l or a 1, a 0 or an O?) – just a good, longish phrase made out of words.
And now you don’t even have to make one up. Using the XKPasswd generator, based on but not associated with Randall Munroe’s amazing comic strip XKCD, you can generate secure pass phrases easily.
Interviewly Makes Reddit AMAs Look Beautiful On Your iPad
If you ever tried to look at one of Reddit’s excellent AMAs (Ask Me Anything) on the iPad, or even the desktop, you will have experienced the a sense of futility, the feeling that there are many gems buried in the threads that you’ll never read because it’s too damn ugly and messy.
Interviewly takes these threads – where various celebs and interesting people answer questions from Reddit users – and cleans them up into something that looks more like a feature fro a Sunday magazine that a forum
thread.
Mural.ly, A Flexible Corkboard App With Evernote Integration
Mural.ly is a mood-board app, or white-board app, or cork-board app, or whatever you want to call it, and it works in the browser and as an iOS app. I’ve been testing it out (briefly) and so far it’s pretty great. It even lets you access your Evernote notes and drop them into a “mural.”
Pics.io Launches In-Browser Photo Editor, But Why?
Between your iPhone, your iPad and your Mac, it’s hard to imagine a time when you’d be online and need to edit a photo, but somehow not have access to an app like Snapseed (which has its own browser version BTW).
But should you find yourself trapped at a PC, while nestled deep in bowels of a government building that has confiscated your iPhone and iPad at the gate (to be root-kitted and infected with spyware no doubt), and with a desperate need to add some pop to that cute cat photo you found, then head for Pics.io.
Feedshare Lets You Share Your List Of RSS Feeds
Feedshare is a great new service for sharing your RSS feeds. That is, you can upload the OPML file containing all your subscribed feeds and it will be available to anyone who cares. And you don’t just have to share your entire RSS setup either. You could use this to share a set of feeds on a particular subject for instance.
Instapaper Daily Shows The Day’s Most Popular News Story
One of the best things about Instapaper now being owned by Betaworks is that the developers spend their time adding new features and services instead of complaining about things on their personal blogs.
And today that ethic has paid off, bringing us Instapaper Daily, a new site which shows the most popular story in Instapaper today. And of course, because Instapaper is all about reading later, you can browse back to any day in the past and see the headline story form that day, too.
Facebook To Turn Super Troll This Week With Auto-Playing Video Ads For Us All [Update]
UPDATE: Facebook has now confirmed auto-playing ads will rollout this week. See the update at the bottom of this post.
Facebook’s auto-playing video ads, which first appeared on iOS last week, will be seen by all users on all platforms later this week, The Wall Street Journal reports. You’ll see them on your desktop as well as your mobile devices, and they will play automatically as you scroll through your timeline.
New Evernote Safari Extension: Mark Up And Annotate The Web
Wow, the Evernote folks are on a real roll these days. Not only does the iOS app now not suck enough to use it every day, but the new Safari web clipper is good enough to make me use my Mac for browsing the web again. It’s like a combination of Skitch, Instapaper and, well, Evernote.
Editorially Adds Dropbox Export And Direct-To-WordPress Publishing
Editorially is a web-based text editor that I wish I used. It has a gorgeous interface, lots of great collaborative features, and now it even exports to Dropbox and WordPress, which would let me write pretty much anything I ever need to write in it.
Sadly, I have no need for collaboration, and I swore of writing anything but an email address in the browser years ago after losing work to crashes.
Change New iWork Documents Back Into Old iWork ’09 Documents With Cloud Convert
CloudConvert, you will remember, is a web service that lets you convert any document from you Dropbox into pretty much any other file type that makes sense. Now, it has added support for iWork documents, letting you convert Pages documents to Word DOC and DOCX for example.
The killer for some, though, is that you can roll back your newly screwed-up iWork files to work with iWork ’09.
Use Safari, Chrome, Command, And Number Keys To Navigate The Web Faster [OS X Tips]
Let’s talk about getting around the web quickly. Most likely, you’re using Safari or Chrome on the Mac to surf the information superhighway, and these modern browsers use tabs to open more than one window onto the world wide web at the same time, right?
You probably also have a series of oft-accessed bookmarks that you keep in the toolbar just above the web page and just below the address or URL bar.
Popping back and forth between tabs, or opening up new bookmarks is fairly easy with the mouse, for sure, but here’s a faster way that lets you keep your hands on the keyboard.
Crypstagram Hides Secret Messages Inside Glitched Photos
Crypstagram is a neat service for encrypting messages inside your photos. And as an added bonus it also ruins those photos along the way by adding glitches to them. You probably won’t want to actually use it for good (or evil) though, as the images you use are posted right there on the site in a gorgeous glitchy gallery.
Everpix Revamps UI, Adds New “Nearby Photos” Section
Everpix – in case my constant droning on and on about it wasn’t clear enough – is my favorite cloud photo service by far (I’m currently auditioning Picturelife as a possible alternative, but so far it’s not close). Now the web app has been updated to make it even easier to use. So easy and fast, in fact, that you could use it to replace iPhoto on your Mac.
Bring The Conversation To Your To-Do List With Comments For Wunderlist Pro
Wunderlist, the hugely popular cross-platform productivity app that now boasts over 5.3 million users worldwide, got a new feature called Comments this week, which brings the conversation to your to-do list. If you use Wunderlist in a professional environment, you can now discuss tasks and projects with your team within individual to-dos.
What’s more, you can now try Comments — as well as Files and Assigning — for free for a limited time, without signing up to Wunderlist Pro.
Microsoft Brings Xbox Music To Android & iOS, Offers Free Streaming On The Web
Microsoft has today launched Xbox Music on Android and iOS almost a year after the music streaming service made its debut alongside Windows 8. The apps allow subscribers to stream tens of millions of songs straight to their mobile devices, and create playlists that sync across your smartphone, tablet, PC, and Xbox 360.
Microsoft has also updated its Xbox Music web app to offer free, ad-supported streaming for all.