A lot of times we perform bulk actions in the Mail app with the intention of saving time, but sometimes we make mistakes, like marking all the emails in our inbox as unread by accident.
A new free jailbreak tweak dubbed Mark as Unread Alert by iOS developer i4M1k0SU helps mitigate the changes of this accident from happening by forcing you to confirm your action before it takes effect.
Readdle, Ukrainian makers of fine productivity software for iPhone, iPad and Mac, today announced that, for the first time ever, they're making it possible to drag and drop items in the split screen mode on iPad between its most popular productivity apps: Documents, PDF Expert, Scanner Pro and Spark.
In addition to cross-app drag and drop in Split View multitasking mode, Readdle's excellent Documents app has received a major update that turns it into a Finder on iOS of sorts.
Cross-app drag and dropDrag and drop between Readdle apps works like a charm, really.
For instance, you can drag a file from Documents and drop it on Spark to instantly create a new email message with an attachment. Or, you can drag and drop scans from Scanner Pro to PDF Expert for further editing.
How about moving that attached contract from Spark to PDF Expert to sign it before sending the signed document back to Spark as a reply? You can do all that—and much, much more—across the aforesaid Readdle apps on your iPad.
The promo video below showcases drag-and-dropping files between Readdle apps.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=epzh9-rd-AI
True, some third-party iOS apps do support direct manipulation of content within the app.
That being said, however, the ability to drag and drop files and other content between multiple apps has not been utilized on iOS at all. While Apple could enhance iOS's Split View multitasking mode in the future with useful interactions like drag and drop, Readdle has already found a way to make cross-app drag and drop work.
Denys Zhadanov, Readdle's Vice President of Marketing, said via email:
We see it as a major improvement of iOS and this is how all iPad apps should work between each other. It’s so freaking awesome—glues all our apps into a phenomenal productivity ecosystem.
“The Readdle Team hopes that Apple will introduce their own implementation of inter app drag and drop one day,” developers noted. “That will support other apps and make iPad a much better productivity device than it is now.”
New features in Documents 6As mentioned earlier, Readdle's capable (and free) file manager, called Documents, is getting a major update today turning it into the iOS Finder you’ve always wanted. The update brings out various enhancements, including an overhauled design with Spark-like quick actions, an easier way to import files, improved file management, an all-new media player, on-the-fly editing of cloud files, music and video streaming and more.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i-314ezmBgE
According to Readdle:
iOS has always been a 'no-file-manager' system. Everything is taken care of by the apps. That’s a blessing and a curse at the same time.However, some of us are very comfortable with controlling things on our devices, especially when it comes to getting real work done.
This is why we created Documents, an extremely powerful, versatile hub for all of your files on iPhone or iPad. It’s your Swiss knife that removes iOS file management woes.
Documents has always been a powerful iOS file manager and now it's gotten even better.
The completely rethought user interface is very functional.
As the screenshots attest, you can now easily edit, zip, tag, move or sync your files with fewer taps than before. Bigger file preview thumbnails give you a better idea of the content of that Excel spreadsheet or PPT presentation before you even open it.
A prominently featured “+” button lets you quickly import files, including documents from your computer, Dropbox, Google Drive, Box, WebDAV or any other cloud-based storage source. Files are now organized into folders exactly the way you are comfortable with.
Just select one or a few of them and easily drag them to the right location. And with cross-app drag and drop support, you can move a single or multiple files between Documents and Spark, Scanner Pro or PDF Expert.
“The best part is that you can access any of the locally stored files in any app with the ‘Open in’ option,” notes Readdle. “This is a unique experience on iOS, and it’s what finally gives you that Finder feel on your iPhone or iPad.” Now you can work directly with your cloud files in Documents and even stream photos, videos and music from any cloud storage without needing to download the files to your device.
The new media player helps you organize your music into playlists, with the ability to shuffle and loop your favorite tracks. And if you have PDF Expert installed on your device, Documents will let you annotate and edit PDFs, fill out forms, sign applications and more.
If you haven't played with Documents before, you should really give it a try.
Acting a central hub for all of your files, it lets you view almost any file format natively, store your files directly on the device or connect to the popular cloud storage service to keep everything together in perfect sync.
AvailabilitySpark and Documents are available at no charge from App Store.
PDF Expert is $9.99 on App Store.
Scanner Pro is $3.99 on App Store.
You should really download the latest version of Spark, Documents, Scanner Pro and PDF Expert and see for yourself what kind of a productivity device your iPad can be with proper drag and drop support.
Google on Wednesday launched an updated version of the mobile Gmail app for iOS and Android, bringing out a handy new Smart Reply feature based on the company's machine learning technology. Like with canned responses in Apple's own Messages app, Gmail analyzes the contents of your emails to provide up to three canned responses based on what it thinks the sender is asking in their original message.
Smart Replies may include simple “Yes” and “No” responses. If the sender is asking whether to meet on Wednesday or Friday, Gmail may provide a bit more complex replies such as “Let's do Wednesday”, “Friday works for me” or “Either day works for me”.
Once you’ve selected one, you can send it immediately or edit your response starting with the Smart Reply text. By utilizing machine learning, the Smart Reply feature produces better responses the more you use it. “If you're more of a 'thanks!' than a 'thanks.' person, we'll suggest the response that's, well, more you,” says Google.
To learn about the smarts behind Smart Reply, check out the Google Research Blog.
Smart Reply will roll out globally in English first, with Spanish following in the coming weeks. Additional languages for Smart Replies will be added soon, Google has promised.
According to the search monster, the machine learning-assisted Smart Reply feature already drives twelve percent of replies in its Inbox email app.
Aside from Smart Replies in the Gmail app, today's keynote address at Google's annual I/O conference for developers saw the release of the official Google Assistant app for iOS.
Gmail for iOS is available at no charge from App Store.
Italian developer Bloop today updated its excellent Mac email client Airmail with a bunch of new features, third-party integrations and other enhancements. Airmail 3.2.5 for macOS, a free update for existing users, introduces new integrations with the information management app DEVONThink and Bear, a beautiful writing app for notes and prose. Other new features include HTML user templates, out-of-office auto responders, enhanced privacy and more.
Most iOS users utilize the Mail app on their device by default for any email-related activities because it's the stock app for doing so. Unfortunately, after deleting the Mail app (post-iOS 10), iOS won’t redirect mail:to links to your favorite third-party email app when you tap on them.
MailClientDefault10 is a new jailbreak tweak release by HiDan that fixes this problem by letting you configure a third-party email client as the default app for composing emails, which effectively solves the aforementioned problem.
Prolific Ukrainian developer Readdle today pushed a major update to its award-winning macOS email client, Spark, bringing new features such as labels, improved folder management, smart filters the ability to save emails in Drafts manually and other improvements that will make you love email again.
As I wrote before, Spark is (in my personal opinion) hands down the best email client I've used on my Mac. Spark 1.2 for macOS is available at no charge from Mac App Store.
The app is also available for iPhone, iPad and Apple Watch.
Google today refreshed its mobile Gmail app for iPhone, iPad and iPod touch on App Store, adding very limited 3D Touch support nearly a year and a half after Apple first brought pressure sensing to iPhone's display with the September 2015 release of iPhone 6s.
Owners of the iPhone 6s/7 series can now press Gmail's icon to quickly compose a message, but that's about it. Thank you, Google, but seriously?
In my view, Google doesn't really have a clue how to properly build 3D Touch gestures into Gmail in a manner that would save users time and boost their productivity.
The app still lacks Peek and Pop gestures., but we'll get those next year, right?
Two years ago, Microsoft launched Outlook for iPhone and iPad to critical acclaim. Celebrating the milestone, the Windows maker announced it's bringing third-party integrations to your inbox with add-ins in Outlook for iOS.
Not unlike Airmail or Readdle's Sparrow, Outlook brings some of your favorite apps straight to your inbox so you can turn any email into a Trello card, save conversations in Evernote, translate messages in seconds and more.
The Mail app in macOS is a multi-email handler and supports a wide variety of email platforms. That said, it you wanted to move some of your emails from one of your email account inboxes to another, you could.
This is a handy feature to know if you sent or received an email via the wrong account and wanted to keep your emails organized under the correct email inbox, so we’ll show you how it can be done in this tutorial.
Airmail, the cross-platform email client by developer Bloop, has received a refresh on the App Store sporting a few noteworthy enhancements. Airmail 1.5 for iOS, a $4.99 download from the App Store, features integrations with the Bear Notes app and the popular iOS automation app Workflow. Other changes in Airmail 1.5 include new custom actions and Gmail authentication, the ability to select your default inbox, a new OpenURL action and minor fixes.
Less than a month ago, Ukrainian developer Readdle launched Spark for Mac with Touch Bar support and many advanced features to help you achieve Inbox Zero Nirvana. Last evening, the app received a bunch of new features in the new 1.1 update. You can now assign a different color to each email account so it's easier to distinguish in the account list. Multiple messages can now be marked as spam at once, IMAP folders can be created directly from the sidebar, contacts now sync with your address book and more.
After more than a year of hard work, Spark for Mac is finally available on the Mac App Store. Like its iOS counterpart, the Mac app is available at no charge. Ukrainian developer Readdle has ported all the marquee features you like about Spark for iPhone and iPad over to the Mac edition, allowing you to triage your inbox, quickly see what’s important and easily clean up the rest.
The fast, well designed native app includes Touch Bar shortcuts on the new MacBook Pro, swipes on the trackpad, snoozing, quick replies, natural language search, unified inbox, full macOS Sierra compatibility, seamless settings sync across devices and other productivity-focused perks.
“It is created for people who live by their inbox and who want to have an amazing experience with email,” Readdle told me via email.