Together 1.5 for iPad and iPhone is available today. This version improves the document picker, working with items, and background updates for iCloud libraries, along with various other improvements.

Working with Items

Notes and any editable text stationery (rich text, plain text, etc) are now created in place instead of in a sheet, so you can access all the features you expect, and empty new notes are automatically removed when you navigate away, just like the Mac app.

You can now also create folders, groups and labels when working with those items too, so if you are in the Info popover and need a new label, you can create it there. The same applies when moving items to folders or adding items to groups.

There are a number of other improvements for working with items too. Swiping items in the list will show more options, depending on the group or list being shown, so you can remove items from a group, folder, label or favorites.

You can now also paste unformatted text into notes and rich text documents. When opening item links, Spotlight search results or using handoff, if the item isn’t in the current library, but the library is on your device, Together will offer to switch to that library and then open the item.

Document Picker

In Together 1.5, the document picker has been improved so that you can now see your tags and search for items, as in the app itself.

Together’s document picker extension was introduced in version 1.4 to access Together libraries from within other apps on your iPhone or iPad in the same way you access files on iCloud Drive. Using the document picker you can, for example, open a Pages document stored in Together’s library from within Pages. When Pages saves your changes, they’ll be sent to iCloud and updated in Together on all your Macs and iOS devices, even when Together isn’t running.

iCloud

Together 1.5 will now continue sending updates to iCloud when the app isn’t active. Previously if you switched apps before Together had a chance to complete saving an item to iCloud, the changes couldn’t be saved until you opened the app again. Together can now also process incoming iCloud changes when the app isn’t active, so in most cases they’ll already be in your library by the time you switch back.

The transition to CloudKit in Together 1.4 for iOS and Together 3.5 for Mac back in January has been a huge success. Together users stored over 1 million items on iCloud in the first 60 days alone, including many large libraries (e.g. 20GB, 30GB) working smoothly across Macs and iOS devices. Now the app has control over the process, the iCloud-related issues that plagued earlier versions, such as crashes and corruption have been eliminated. Finally, iCloud is the powerful, robust and secure cloud storage platform it always promised to be.

It’s not possible to mass beta test Mac apps that use iCloud, and testing the iOS app alone wouldn’t be effective, so thanks to everyone for their patience while I’ve ironed out wrinkles and addressed oversights during the first few months.

Availability

Together 1.5 requires iOS 9 or later, costs $9.99 from the App Store and is a free update for all existing users. See the release notes for a full list of changes.

Together 3.5 for Mac is available from the Mac App Store and requires OS X El Capitan. A 15-day trial of Together for Mac is also available from this site, but does not include iCloud, because Apple restricts that to apps sold through the Mac App Store.

Allison Sheridan (of NosillaCast Mac Podcast) has created a combined tutorial for Together 3 for Mac and Together for iPhone and iPad for ScreenCastsOnline.

In the tutorial, Allison covers all the essential getting started steps for using Together, including:

• Together Layout
• Import Files & Folders
• Organize with Folders and Groups
• More Import Options
• Import Using the Shelf
• Creating New Documents
• Create Stationery
• Linking Documents
• Organizing With Metadata
• View Options
• Preferences
• Together for iOS
• Encrypting Items
• Share Sheets

This clear and comprehensive tutorial (along with many others like it) is available to all existing ScreenCastsOnline members, as well as to non-members for purchase in the new ScreenCastsOnline Showcase App for iPad and iPhone.

Links:

• Preview of Together tutorial
• ScreenCastsOnline Showcase App (iPad and iPhone) or search for SCO Showcase App on Apple TV.
• 14 day free trial on the ScreenCastsOnline Website (iOS or Mac)
• ScreenCastsOnline Monthly Magazine (Together will be in the April Issue when published)

Together 3.5 for Mac and Together 1.4 for iPad and iPhone are now available, with completely rewritten iCloud integration. Together 3.5 for Mac also includes swipe-to-delete for items, a new medium size for the portrait list and improvements for auto import, label creation and search, along with various other improvements. Together 1.4 also includes a document picker for accessing Together libraries in other apps.

iCloud

iCloud integration has been completely rewritten to make it more flexible, responsive and reliable.

iCloud libraries are now stored in regular folders rather than on iCloud Drive, and have the same features as local libraries, such as linked files and auto import. You can now see progress for iCloud activity and Together can let you know when there is a problem.

When you open an existing iCloud Drive library you will be offered to upgrade. Upgrading moves the files from iCloud Drive to a folder on your Mac, then uploads them to Together’s new cloud database. The upgrade can be postponed until a convenient time.

Since the release of Together 3 for Mac in 2013, Together used systems based on iCloud Core Data and iCloud Drive to share libraries, where everything was handled by iCloud. Unfortunately, that had no way of showing overall progress or reporting errors in the app, and it was not possible for me to fix iCloud-related bugs and crashes.

Together now communicates with iCloud directly using CloudKit, the same system Apple use in their own apps such as Photos and Notes on iOS 9 and El Capitan. All new iCloud libraries created on Mac and iOS will use the new system.

Together 1.4 for iPad and iPhone

Together for iPad and iPhone 1.4 is required to use the new iCloud libraries on iOS, includes a new document picker extension for accessing Together libraries in other apps, along with some other improvements.

Currently the iCloud library upgrade cannot be initiated on iOS devices. To perform the upgrade, all files need to be downloaded then uploaded again while Together is running, so this is best done on Mac — iCloud Drive on OS X downloads all files automatically, so your Mac will already have them.

The library upgrade will be offered to iOS app users who do not use the Mac version in a later release. In the meantime, if you do not have Together for Mac, you can effectively upgrade an iCloud Drive library on iOS by making the library local then moving it back to iCloud by tapping Libraries above the list and editing the current library.

Auto Import

Together for Mac can now exclude certain files from getting automatically imported with flexible rules that can be specified in its new Auto Import preferences.

Together presents the structure of your Together library in the Finder, and saving a file to one of these folders will import it into the corresponding place in the app. While Together ignores known temporary and hidden files, some more esoteric apps can create temporary and support files that Together wouldn’t recognise as such.

This kind of problem can now be avoided. The rules can exclude files with names that match exactly, start, contain or end with certain terms, along with blocking specific file extensions.

More Improvements

Together 3.5 also includes swipe to delete for items in the portrait and landscape lists, a new medium size for the portrait list, the ability to create labels directly from the toolbar, an option to exclude the Trash when searching, and other minor fixes and improvements.

Getting Help

If you encounter any problems, please check the Together for Mac or the Together for iOS support pages to check for known issues or get in touch for assistance.

Availability

Together 3.5 for Mac requires El Capitan and is a free upgrade for all existing Together 3.x customers. A 15-day trial of Together for Mac is available from this site, but iCloud is only available in the Mac App Store version.

Together 1.4 for iPad and iPhone requires iOS 9 or later, is a free upgrade for existing customers or $9.99 from the App Store.

Feeder 3.1 is out today with swipe to delete for El Capitan, a Share extension for sending links to Feeder from other apps, improvements to social sharing and Sparkle appcasting. Feeder 3.1 also returns to the Mac App Store for new customers.

This release follows soon after Feeder 3.0, which launched in July and featured a brand new look, Markdown editing, autosave, updates for iTunes podcasting and the ability to share its library and feeds with cloud services such as iCloud Drive and Dropbox amongst other things.

Share Extension

People use Feeder for more than just podcasting; quite a few create feeds to share links they’ve gathered from around the web, for example. Until now, this could be done by dragging the links to Feeder, which will fill out the title and link (at least from Safari).

Sending those links to Feeder is now easier with a Share extension that can be used from within Safari and other apps. In the extension you can choose the feed, edit the title, link and any selected text, which will be used in the description.

Sadly not all browsers support Share extensions and so Feeder also provides bookmarklets to do the same thing, these can be installed through its Advanced preferences. The bookmarklet always targets the current feed and doesn’t allow anything to be edited before it’s added to the feed, but on the latter you can tell Feeder to open an editing window when importing links in its General preferences.

El Capitan

El Capitan doesn’t mean huge changes for Feeder on the surface, but one of its more compelling features is swipe-to-delete. Swiping across the trackpad shows iOS-like delete button, and swiping all the way deletes that item immediately (by default Feeder checks you want to do that, and has undo). Also when running El Capitan, Feeder’s preview will use the new San Francisco system font.

A lot of the work in Feeder 3.0 was unseen: bringing the app up to date with the latest standards and technologies for OS X. Version 3.1 continues that for El Capitan while remaining compatible with Yosemite.

Mac App Store

Feeder 3.0 wasn’t available on the Mac App Store for a number of reasons, but primarily because the Mac App Store doesn’t have a way of offering discounted upgrades for existing users. While that is something I can do through my site, that can’t be mentioned on the Mac App Store and confusion can abound about needing to pay full price for an upgrade to an app people already own, etc. That situation won’t change until Apple makes provision for paid upgrades in the Mac App Store.

However, the Mac App Store is clearly the best way for finding out about Mac apps, so with version 3.1, Feeder is back on the Mac App Store. Half-price upgrades from version 2 are still available from this site.

And Lots More…

Editing windows now show the standard window buttons inline with the toolbar buttons, there is support for the new “Critical Update” tag for Sparkle appcasts, Twitter announcements can now include images and Facebook support has been updated to keep working in the future too, along with various other minor tweaks and improvements. See the release notes for a full list of changes.

Availability

Feeder 3.1 is a free upgrade for all existing Feeder 3.0 users and otherwise costs $49.99. Feeder 2 users can upgrade for half price through this site only, with free upgrades for anyone who purchased Feeder 2 from October 16, 2014 until Feeder 3’s release. The version from this site works as a free 15-day trial until registered.

Together for iPad and iPhone 1.3 is released today with support for new features in iOS 9, improved Share extension and previews along with other fixes and improvements.

Multitasking on iPad with iOS 9

Together 1.3 will work with Split View and Slide Over on supported iPad models running iOS 9 that allows you to see two apps at once. How Together looks depends on its size, so when it’s narrow, such as in Slide Over, it will work like the iPhone app and when wider it’ll look like the iPad app in portrait mode with a sidebar that appears when you tap the button in the navigation bar. The same changes make it possible to show the sidebar in landscape mode on iPhone 6 Plus.

Improved Share Extension

The Share extension has been improved to handle more than just web links, with new support for photos and videos and text that gets saved as notes, making it more convenient to add these things to the current Together library from within other apps.

Improved Rich Text Documents

When using stationery, you no longer need to choose between Rich Text (RTF) and Rich Text & Attachments (RTFD). Instead, you create a Rich Text file and it’s converted to an RTFD file if you add an attachment, such as an image. Together for Mac 3.4.7 includes the same functionality and both versions have now dropped the separate Rich Text & Attachments stationery.

And more…

Items you view will now be indexed by iOS 9’s systemwide Spotlight for searching. Previewing bookmarks on iOS 9 uses a new Safari view, which features many of the features of Safari, such as reader mode, autofill and content blockers. There are also improvements for working with encrypted files, a consolidation of the way some features work across both iPad and iPhone, plus various other minor fixes and improvements. See the release notes for a full list of changes.

Together for iPad and iPhone requires iOS 8.4 or later, is a free upgrade for all existing users and is priced at $9.99 from the App Store.