Joe Rossignol has reported over at MacRumors, that the new MacBook Pros have already outsold their competitors for the current year.

Slice Intelligence says the new MacBook Pro accumulated more revenue from online orders during its first five days of availability than the Microsoft Surface Book, ASUS Chromebook Flip, Dell Inspiron 2-in-1, and Lenovo Yoga 900, based on e-receipt data from 12,979 online shoppers in the United States.

The new MacBook Pro generated over seven times the revenue that the 12-inch MacBook did over its first five days of availability, according to Slice Intelligence. If accurate, that means it took the new MacBook Pro just five days to accumulate 78% of all the revenue generated by the 12-inch MacBook since its April 2015 launch. – MacRumors

If this is true, I think it’s pretty impressive!

We want to provide you a detailed look at a new feature coming soon to Pokémon GO – Daily bonuses! Trainers will soon be able to receive a bonus for certain daily activities, including catching a Pokémon or visiting a PokéStop once a day. You’ll earn a larger bonus if you do this seven days in a row! – Pokémon GO Blog

This seems like a nice idea for continuing players, but most people have stopped playing now. So is this there idea to try and attract people back to the game?

Read the blog post for the exact details on the bonuses.

Coming from the Úll conference, a few developers worked on a small video, that will definitely make you laugh.

How do iPhone App developers feel about their reviews? For Úll 2016, We asked some of our friends to share their reviews

Find the video on Vimeo, and for more information about Úll, check out their website for 2017.

Since Bear has been officially released for both iOS and macOS (also been selected for Editors choice!), I thought I’d share my thoughts on the app.

I’ve actually been using Bear for a while, ever since it entered beta. And it’s been a remarkable tool for me, whether it’s writing blog posts or even just jotting down small notes.

Bear actually differentiates from other apps quite a lot, but mainly in the way it looks. It has its own version of Markdown that it uses, but you can always change that to support the original Gruber version. Then you have the 9 really cool themes to choose from, and there’s more variety then other apps. I personally use Panic Mode.

As it’s available for both macOS and iOS, there are slight differences in the design, but these are just platform differences, not how the app functions.
It’s split into three different views, the tags view which is on the left, the list of posts in the middle, and then the actual post on the right. On the Mac you can choose which views you want visible, and on iOS it appears differently based on what orientation/device you are on.

Editor

The editor is clean, and it lets you focus on the content. It’s a style used by most of the modern apps, and I really love it. There’s an Information panel you can bring up, by just tapping the (i) button in the top right corner (iOS and macOS). It brings up some some handy information like read time, last editing device, and also gives you the option to export to different file types.

You can do the standard markdown formatting like bold, italics, underline, and strike through text. Of course it supports links, but it displays them slightly different with a link icon and the title. You don’t see the underlying Markdown code or URL, but with a tap/click on the link, you can change the
title or url easily.

Another benefit over other apps is the ability to insert inline images in a post, which isn’t especially useful for me when I’m writing these types of posts that require screenshots.

There’s also support for embedding lines or blocks of code, and you can actually specify a language to get better formatting.

When you’re typing on iOS, a custom shortcut bar makes it even easier, with quick access to different formatting, links, photos, and code blocks.

Organising Notes

The way you organise your notes in Bear is by adding tags, you can add these anywhere in a note. It allows you to see them clearly separated in the Tags view, or even search or them.

It’s a format I quite like, as it allows to be more flexible when writing. I for one lose track of notes when I have to place them in certain folders, so being able to just add a “RadThinker” tag, I can quickly find all the posts I’ve written for my blog.

Something else I don’t really see on other apps, is a trash folder. In Bear you can view any document you’ve deleted, and then restore it if you’ve done it by mistake.

Import/Export

Most people already use a note taking app, so you’ll want to move it all to Bear. Well you can import text files straight in to Bear, and it also features an import feature for Vesper users.

Exporting is even better, with the ability to export a note into .MD, .PDF, .HTML, .DOCX, .JPG, and .RTF. It also supports the standard share sheet, which is very useful.

What makes exporting even better, is when you combine it with an automation app like Workflow. For example you could export to Markdown (MD), and then share that to a workflow which posts it to your blog.

Pro Subscription

Bear is free to use on macOS and iOS, but there is a Pro subscription which will unlock loads of awesome features. Of course I signed up straight away.

With Pro you get access to things like syncing between your devices, access to all the themes, and exporting to every good file type.

You can choose to subscribe monthly, or yearly. With the prices being $1.49 per month, or $14.99 per year.

Final Thoughts

Overall I think Bear is great. It’s my note taking app, and also the app I use to write for this blog. Now I have syncing across macOS and iOS (Wasn’t available in beta), it’s even better.

The few things I think could improve Bear would be the ability to have some form of sub tags? to further organise notes, the option to have a link preview, and maybe even shared notes, but I know that’s a lot harder than it seems.

One big feature that I would love is Ghost integration, as that’s what RadicalThinker is run on. So being able to post directly from a text editor, would save uploading images, entering tags, and more importantly even opening my browser to access a (quite annoying) web interface.

I can see a bright future for Bear, and it’s started out with such a high standard, it can really become everyones default notes app right now. Of course there’s so much more Bear can do than I’ve written here, so the best place to find out more is on their website , or by checking it out yourself.

Download Bear for iOS and macOS , and then make sure you support them by subscribing to Pro!

Matt Gemmell is another person that is switching to an iPad lifestyle, and with that he’s posting a series of iPad related articles as he moves platform.

As he writes a weekly newsletter, there is a few things he does on a Mac that needed to be ported over to a new way of thinking:

I offer a membership option for this site, which comes with some cool benefits including an email newsletter every Monday morning (with an exclusive essay, and behind-the-scenes info on my current writing projects, amongst other things).

Because my beloved members support my writing during the long periods between releasing novels, finding a workflow for preparing the weekly newsletter was my first priority for going iPad-only. – MattGemmell

I find these types of posts quite interesting, as I’m always looking for more things to do on my iPad. Although I don’t plan on fully switching platform, as I’ve just ordered a new Mac!

Read the full article on MattGemmell.com.

Dan Counsell, founder of Realmac Software has written about his wishes for the Mac App Store. He talks about the issues developers currently face, and also some tips on what can be done to fix them.

The Mac App Store may seem like the best option for indie developers, but it’s not. I remember when Apple first announced the Mac App Store (MAS). It sounded like a pretty good idea to give Mac developers the same kind of centralized marketplace to sell their software that made the iOS App Store so popular. Apple said then and still proclaims that MAS is dedicated to helping devs “make great apps” but most developers (myself included) will tell you that it’s never lived up to it’s potential and is now going off the rails.

I released my app Qwiki on the Mac App Store, mainly because I don’t want to manage the admin, sales, and other boring tasks that come with managing it yourself.

But although I don’t have experience selling pro apps, there are a ton of restrictions that stop them from selling directly on the MAS. Some restrictions are good for your security, but they can get out of hand, and it’s led to big name apps being removed from the store.

I’m also hoping for some improvements, especially as Phil Schiller is now in charge of it.

This article comes from my newsletter, which I have stopped after just 3 issues. It was just an idea that didn’t work out for me personally, as it required a more focussed piece every week. And I realised I prefer the shorter and quicker form of writing, that I do here on Radical Thinker.

So here is the last issue, which is about personalising your devices.

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I’m sure you’ll understand that a house is not always a home, as you have to do some level of customisation to make sure it fits with your desires and needs. You add a sense of personality to transform it into a home.

Well I believe that you can apply the same idea into technology, and the devices you use everyday, because they are your “virtual home”.

So why shouldn’t it be comfortable?

The first place everyone starts off with is the wallpaper, it’s a pretty big part of a device, especially when it’s the lock screen and the home screen. But this isn’t true personality, as you’ve still got the same device as everyone else.

The little things that make a difference are cool cases, different coloured covers, putting stickers on your devices, and then there’s even the way you set up and layout your devices.

I’m a big sticker fan myself, and you can see below what it looks like:

It’s not much, but the stickers are things that I like, and it feels mine when I’m holding it. I find it really interesting to see what other people do to their devices as well, I’ve seen some cool creations in the past.

So for the software side of things, using iOS as an example, your app layout and selection of apps can really change the feel of a device as well. I’ve previously been a person who likes to keep things standard, that’s fine I guess, but it’s not fun.

Don’t be afraid to move SnapChat into your Dock, delete Mail from your iPhone, or even set cat noises as your ringtone.

I think if you have a laptop, tablet, and sometimes even a phone, don’t hesitate to personalise it. It is yours after all.

I’d love to hear other peoples thoughts on this, and also see any of your customised devices!

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P.S. Just because I don’t write for the newsletter, it doesn’t mean I’ll stop writing these types of articles. I’ll just post them here instead!

Phil Schiller, the Senior Vice President of Worldwide Marketing for Apple, has sat down with The Independent to talk about the latest MacBook Pro:

We first talked in an Apple-white private room at Infinite Loop, the company’s Californian headquarters, minutes after the new laptops had been unveiled and followed up a few days later…

The questions range from why the SD card slot has been omitted, the evolution of the Touch Bar, why Siri is only just coming to the Mac, and more. It’s a pretty interesting interview, and I always like these things that usually come after big announcements, because you get a small sense of what they are thinking inside Apple, and their motivations.

Here’s one bit that I didn’t expect:

And we are proud to tell you that so far our online store has had more orders for the new MacBook Pro than any other pro notebook before. So there certainly are a lot of people as excited as we are about it. – Phil Schiller

You can read the whole interview over at The Independent.

National Geographic have just released a documentary called "Before the Flood", in which Leonardo DiCaprio explores the world in regards to the effect of climate change, and what we can do to prevent even more harm to our planet.

Before the Flood, directed by Fisher Stevens, captures a three-year personal journey alongside Academy Award-winning actor and U.N. Messenger of Peace Leonardo DiCaprio as he interviews individuals from every facet of society in both developing and developed nations who provide unique, impassioned and pragmatic views on what must be done today and in the future to prevent catastrophic disruption of life on our planet.

It’s an incredible film, and while I was aware of most of climate change, it still opened my eyes up to a lot more harm we are doing. There’s also some people that are actively trying to turn it around, but they alone won’t be able to fix the planet, everyone needs to make themselves aware. Then the process of fixing things, won’t be as difficult.

You can watch the video on YouTube, or below if the embed works on your device. And after that, you can watch more videos on the National Geographic YouTube channel, and everything else they do on their website.

Also, Leo’s speech at the end! Wow.

Jeremy Burge has all the news regarding the new Emoji in iOS 10.2:

iOS 10.2 developer beta adds full Unicode 9 emoji support which includes all of the following 72 emojis approved in June 2016 – Emojipedia

There’s tons of new additions, including new professions, a shrug, face palm, realistic fruit, Harambe (or just a Gorilla), loads!

Apple certainly know how to make iOS updates sound appealing.