Yesterday, Apple made the Public Beta of OS X Yosemite available.

The current status of Reinvented Software apps is that they will run on Yosemite, but may not look very nice, there may be issues I don’t know about yet and it is unlikely much work will be finished on the apps before the Yosemite’s release later in the year, not least because iOS 8 is rumoured to launch a month beforehand, and so that takes priority (BTW, it’s great basing your work schedule entirely on guesswork).

One particular issue with Yosemite and iOS 8 that will affect Together users is iCloud. iCloud is undergoing significant changes on both Yosemite and iOS 8, and Together needs significant changes to keep working. There are even reports that just enabling iCloud Drive will stop syncing across all devices running prior versions of OS X and iOS, for example.

In short, if you run Yosemite, don’t expect anything to work, and don’t expect support or quick fixes for your problems. I simply do not have the time or resources to offer them. Thank you.

Together for iPad and iPhone is now available, bringing the features of Together for Mac to mobile devices so you can take your library with you wherever you go.

For anyone familiar with the Mac version, Together for iPad and iPhone will both look welcomingly familiar and work naturally on iPhone and iPad, with everything just a few taps away. See groups, folders and favorites in the Groups view, along with tags, labels and ratings in the Tags view. Tap any of these to see the item list, which shares its appearance with the Mac.

Together for iPad and iPhone can create notes, bookmarks, new documents from stationery for plain and rich text files, take photos and videos or import them from the camera roll. Together makes it easy to create new items from the clipboard, and can open files from other apps to add them to its library.

The app can also preview many other kinds of files, such as images and movies, PDF files, iWork documents, mail messages and more. When editing notes and rich text files, you can format text, attach photos and videos, insert links and highlight text. Together for iPhone and iPad can also encrypt and decrypt items, just as on the Mac.

Pricing & Availability

Together for iPad and iPhone 1.0 requires iOS 7.1 and later and can be purchased on the App Store at the introductory price of $9.99. It’s a universal app, so the same version will work on both iPhone and iPad.

Together for Mac

Together 3.2 from the Mac App Store is required to share libraries with Together for iPad and iPhone, as only Mac App Store apps can use iCloud. Existing Together users who’ve purchased Together 3.0 or later from the Mac App Store will automatically get Together 3.2 as a free upgrade.

Unfortunately, it’s not possible to transfer licenses to the Mac App Store version, but if you have purchased Together 3 for Mac directly from Reinvented Software in the last 120 days and would like to transfer to the Mac App Store version, please get in touch.

For everyone else, Together 3.2 on the Mac App Store will be half-price at $19.99 for one month following its release.

More Info

Get more information about this release on the Together for iPad and iPhone product page, and answers to frequently asked questions on the Support page (will be updated with the latest info as needed).

Feeder 2.5 is now available. This version does not include any significant new features, rather its purpose is to modernise Feeder’s underpinnings to ensure compatibility with future versions of OS X, and more urgently to comply with Mac App Store rules. While no substantial functionality has changed, two notable changes are explained below.

Media File Tagging for iTunes Podcasts

How Feeder tags QuickTime movies, M4A, M4V and MP4 files with metadata such as artist name and artwork has been overhauled in this version. While there should be no noticeable difference for the first three of those file formats, MP4s lose the ability to set artwork. As Apple has moved from using artwork embedded in the files to artwork specified by links in the feed itself, this should make no noticeable difference.

Requires OS X 10.9 or Later

Because of its popularity in education establishments, etc, I have always done my best to keep Feeder working on older versions of OS X, but Apple’s pace of change in this area is making this a constant challenge. Feeder 2.4 became 10.7.3 and later to work with app sandboxing in the Mac App Store version, but 10.7.x had some bugs in this area that have made it unworkable for some people and having 10.8 as the lowest version is pretty pointless when 10.9 is a free upgrade. Therefore for Feeder to properly support sandboxing and the modernisation changes mentioned above, version 2.5 now requires OS X 10.9 or later. Versions of Feeder for older versions of OS X are always available at the bottom of the Feeder downloads page.

Pricing and Availability

Feeder 2.5 is a free upgrade for all existing 2.x users. A new license costs $39.99 direct from Reinvented Software or the Mac App Store. Upgrade and education discounts are available from the Reinvented Software store.

Together 3.1 is out today. This version integrates with Finder tags on OS X Mavericks, improves iCloud libraries, adds Quick Open, improves the Mini Info view, supports editing info for multiple items far more elegantly and includes a load of other improvements.

OS X Mavericks

In Mavericks, it’s now possible to tag files in the Finder and all standard Save panels. Together can fully integrate with these Finder tags so you see the same tags in the Finder as in Together and vice versa.

This integration comes in the form of two options you can enable per-library in Together’s Tags preferences: one to import Finder tags and another to update them. The import option will enable one-way interaction, where Together imports the tags for all existing and subsequent items. Meanwhile, the update option will ensure that any changes made to tags in Together are reflected in the Finder and vice versa.

iCloud Libraries (Mac App Store only)

Apple made a lot of changes to iCloud in OS X Mavericks, and so Together 3.1 is essential if you want to use iCloud libraries with the latest OS. Additionally, these improvements mean Together can now safely move whole libraries to iCloud rather than import them, and creating iCloud libraries is much faster too.

Finally, whether on Mavericks or Mountain Lion, Together now asks for a new location when moving an iCloud library out of iCloud.

Quick Open

Quick Open is a new feature that can be used to quickly open (I know!) items, groups and tags by typing. Use the keystroke Command-Shift-O to show the Quick Open panel and start typing. Items are searched by name only, so the results are very quick. Use the Up and Down arrow keys to navigate between the results without leaving the search field and hit Enter to open the selection.

Multiple Info Editor

Editing Info for multiple items in Together has had its limitations in the past, but now that the Info view appears in a pop-over, it can be more flexible. When multiple items are selected, you will now see a different view that allows you to change specific values and add or replace tags.

Mini Info

The mini info view is shown above the preview and has been improved in a few ways. The Name, Comments and Tags fields now resize with their contents, links in the Comments field are now clickable and there’s a new optional Path line for showing where an original item’s file is located.

Also, the Preview menu now always has a submenu with options to show / hide the mini Info fields or the whole view. Previously, these were only available in the View Options panel.

And more…

Text editors can now use hyphenation and vertical layout, OpenMeta tags can now be synced the same way as Mavericks’ Finder tags, the Library Manager panel has made redundant by improvements to the File > Library menu and removed completely, labels now show their color in the tag browser and there are various other improvements too. See the release notes for a full list.

Together 3.1 costs $39.99 but is a free upgrade for all Together 3.0 users. Together 2.x users can upgrade for $19.99 from this site (upgrade discounts are not available for the Mac App Store). A 15-day trial version is also available from this site.

Feeder 2.4 is now available on the web and in the Mac App Store, and includes improvements to editing, publishing and Sparkle appcasting.

However, most of the work in this release isn’t visible, which is to get Feeder working with OS X’s App Sandbox, which is a requirement for apps sold through the Mac App Store.

The App Sandbox is a security technology built into OS X that limits the way apps can access files, interact with other processes and the network.

I originally started this work back in 2011, when Apple first announced this would be a requirement for all apps distributed through the Mac App Store following the release of OS X 10.7 Lion. Unfortunately, that original implementation of sandboxing was too restrictive, and prevented many existing apps from functioning properly, so Apple postponed the requirement until improving sandboxing with OS X 10.7.3 in early 2012, and allowed existing apps to delay making the transition until a release that adds new features, so that bug fixes could be released and enhancements to OS X accommodated.

Consequently, Feeder 2.4 now requires OS X 10.7 and later, and 10.7.3 for the Mac App Store version.

Now that early problems with sandboxing have largely been ironed out, the transition should not be noticeable at all for new Feeder users, and there are no restrictions on what the app can do over the direct version beyond those imposed by the Mac App Store guidelines.

For existing users, Feeder may need to ask for permission to access files such as images, enclosure files and any linked feeds, amongst other things. This will happen automatically when you first run the Mac App Store version of Feeder, and as necessary to cover some other, more obscure cases such as SSH private and public keys for publishing with password-less SFTP.

Hopefully, this will be a seamless transition, but if you do use the Mac App Store version of Feeder and notice any strange behaviour, please get in touch using the email address shown on the Feeder support page.

Feeder is available both direct from Reinvented Software and from the Mac App Store for $39.99. An upgrade from version 1.x is $19.99, and education discounts are also available directly from Reinvented Software. To see a list of all the changes or download a 15-day demo, go to the Feeder downloads page.