TextExpander touch 2 now lets you insert macros and fill-in fields within your snippets, similar to the Mac version.

For those familiar with the TextExpander 4 for Mac utility, it may come as no surprise that Smile Software offers a $5 iOS version of the app called TextExpander touch. While some may have been disappointed by TextExpander Touch Version 1’s limited feature set when compared with the Mac version, Smile has recently released TextExpander 2, a huge upgrade that has added support for more advanced “macros” and “fill-in” fields, putting it nearly on par with the latest Mac version.

In TextExpander’s terms, a macro is a placeholder that inserts variable information (like the current date, the contents of the clipboard, performing a math calculation, or moving the cursor) into an expanded snippet. A fill-in field tells TextExpander to pause while expanding the snippet so that you can fill in variable information yourself. TextExpander’s macros allow you to build some very powerful snippets.

Here’s one small example from my snippet library. I store just about everything on my Mac in plain text files that sync to Dropbox, where I can access them from my iPhone and iPad using any of a variety of Dropbox-powered text editors. I store my business expenses in one of these files, and I use the following snippet to enter an expense:

Date: %Y-%m-%d%|
Project: %filltext:name=project%
Amount: $%filltext:name=amount%
Mileage: %filltext:name=mileage% miles
Purpose: %fillarea:name=purpose%
Billable: %fillpopup:name=billable:default=Yes:No%

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AirPort base stations that appeared in previous versions of AirPort Utility might not appear in AirPort Utility 1.3 for iOS, or AirPort Utility 6.3 in OS X.

Armor Games' Kingdom Rush for iOS was a challenging, charming, and moderately deep real-time strategy experience. Enemies and the soldiers you hired to kill them were adorably caricatured, and you could easily whittle away hours at a time coming up with the best strategy for stopping your foes. Kingdom Rush Frontiers, the sequel (spin off? successor?) to Kingdom Rush landed earlier this month and brought with it a number of improvements that help make it one of the best tower defense games on mobile.

Fans of Kingdom Rush will be very familiar with Frontiers’ gameplay. You can think of Frontiers as the Angry Birds: Seasons of the Kingdom Rush franchise: it’s more remix than innovation. Still, if you liked the frenetic strategy, endearing artwork, and memorable personalities of the first game, you’ll enjoy Kingdom Rush Frontiers as well.

Kingdom Rush Frontiers has a wide variety of locals and enemies.

As in the original title, you’re commanding an army of cartoon soldiers as they seek to defend their lands. You’ll get mission briefs and updates on the story—something about evil tribesman invading—then you’ll deploy towers to kill them all. The tribesman/cannibal enemies are perhaps not as well-worn as the high fantasy enemies the first game utilized, but the "evil tribesman" plotline feels a bit tone-deaf and borderline offensive.

The campaign appears a bit scattered at points too, introducing gimmicky enemies that are hard to kill (teleporting, laser-gun toting) and break from both the overall medieval theme and the rock-paper-scissors combat mechanic Armor Games perfected in the original game. The jokes and easter-eggs are equally anachronistic, but they’re still a highlight—look for an Indiana Jones reference in one of the temple stages and an exceptionally fun pirate-themed stage (with requisite Pirates of the Caribbean jokes).

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Responding to recent allegations that the NSA can spy on users of online services, Apple has clarified what private user data governments can access. Apple’s statements, plus the released material, provide a clearer picture of how and where you data could be exposed. The short version? Ignore the hyperbole.

 

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A new video of the new desktop management features in OS X Mavericks outlines some of advances and drawbacks.

If you can read English and write in either Dutch or Japanese, we need your help in translating TidBITS!

 

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Notable software releases this week include LaunchBar 5.5.1, Keyboard Maestro 6.0.1, Mellel 3.2, and AirPort Utility 6.3 for Mac.

 

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It’s time for ExtraBITS: WWDC Edition! With all of Apple’s announcements, many new features didn’t get much play. Macworld’s Serenity Caldwell lists 27 you might have missed. You probably did see iOS 7’s awesome-looking Weather app, but Apple might not have been first to the idea. One of the subtle new features in iOS 7 is a male voice for Siri in the United States, but why now? Apple also handed out the latest round of Apple Design Awards, which include some incredible apps you’ll love. However, some folks don’t think iOS 7 is worthy of a design award, citing disjointed icons as one of the reasons, but it turns out that there’s an explanation. In all the hype about iOS 7, you might have missed a feature in iOS 6 that can protect your device from prying eyes — Rene Ritchie of iMore explains how to make the most of it. And finally, Microsoft has quietly released Office for the iPhone, but should you care?

 

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The Star Trek universe is appealing in many ways: there’s a frontier of outer space with thousands of planets, a virtually limitless number of aliens, a galactic federation dedicated to peace. (Also: big space ships and funny costumes.) But its concepts of freedom, commanding a ship and crew, and going on adventures appeal to almost everyone. Those ideas make up the main premise of $3 Star Command, an adorable, challenging, and addictive sci-fi strategy game loosely based on Star Trek itself.

You're not tasked with boldly going where no one has gone before. Instead, you have the more cliché task of helping Earth's fleet defend its borders and ultimately save humanity. You're given a ship and a crew, and you’ll learn to utilize both to fight off enemies over several missions.

Make no mistake: from retro pixelated crewmembers to the dialogue choices, this game is a love letter to Star Trek. The most obvious example is how you organize your crew, who can be assigned to one of three classes, distinguished by the color of their uniforms. The red shirts operate the ship's guns, armory, and bridge. They're also your first line of defense against any enemy invaders beaming onto your ship (yes: they die a lot). Yellow shirts, meanwhile, are engineers who operate your “dodge” drive (a sci-fi tool that allows you to dodge enemy attacks), sentry robots, and engines. They're useless in combat, but can repair any damage your ship takes once they don their adorable little welding masks. Finally, there are blue shirts, which are your science officers. They maintain your ships’ shields and medical bay, but essentially they're a healer class.

Command the different facets of your crew to fight off invaders.

Combat in Star Command has a steep learning curve and a huge list of things to pay attention to, but once you get the hang of it, you only wish there was more to do and things to fight, which is, in short, the mark of a great game. Through combat, you earn tokens, which serve as Star Command’s in-game currency. At first, this combat is overwhelming, and not entirely well explained; just when I had gotten used to ordering my crew around, I was thrown into battle and had to manage about a dozen different things at the same time. You have to dodge, use shields, brandish weapons, and take care of your crew simultaneously.

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Like its tech industry peers, Apple has released a statement regarding PRISM, the alleged NSA data-collection program. Apple gives some examples of what has been requested by law enforcement agencies, including 4,000–5,000 requests for data between 1 December 2012 and 31 May 2013. However, Apple also claims that it cannot decrypt iMessage or FaceTime conversations, and also states that the company does not store data related to location, map searches, or Siri requests in “any identifiable form.”

 

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Readers ask about printer access resulting in crashes, and more.

When installing Microsoft Windows 8 on a MacBook Pro (13-inch, Late 2012) using Boot Camp, or when installing Windows 7 on a MacBook Air (Mid 2013), a black or distorted screen may appear during the Windows installation process. This happens because the Windows  installer does not include the necessary drivers for this Mac.

While not the expected behavior, this bug is technically not a breach in security.

Prompted by Joe Kissell’s new “Take Control of Backing Up Your Mac, Second Edition,” Adam Engst ponders what has changed such that backups don’t seem to have the same urgency as in the past. Could it be Time Machine’s ubiquity? The rise of cloud services? Or just different problems to worry about?

 

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Adds rich text formatting to the new snippets feature. ($35 new, free update, 5.3 MB)

 

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With all the noise about iOS 7, you might have forgotten about one of iOS 6’s least-known features: Guided Access, which lets you lock down apps and interface elements to protect your iPad or iPhone from prying eyes or rambunctious kids. Rene Ritchie of iMore gives an overview of how to use this feature, including how to simulate a “Guest Mode.”

 

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Microsoft Office is finally available for iOS, but prepare for disappointment. It's only for the iPhone, and the app requires an Office 365 subscription, which starts at $60 a year. In addition to those limitations, the apps are bare bones, lacking many seemingly basic features: you can't undo actions or change fonts in Word, nor can you add slides or create new documents in PowerPoint.

 

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Most of the products Apple announced at WWDC won’t ship until later this year, but the new MacBook Air models are here. The MacBook Air didn’t undergo a dramatic, Mac Pro-like redesign—all of the changes to the MacBook Air are hidden under the hood. Even compared to last year’s MacBook Air—which brought Thunderbolt and USB 3.0—this new Air is more evolutionary than revolutionary.

Mike Homnick Haswell inside

The biggest change in this iteration of Apple’s most portable of portables is the inclusion of Intel’s latest generation of Core processors, code named Haswell. These fourth-generation Core processors replace the Ivy Bridge processors in last year’s MacBook Air. The Haswell processors require less power than Ivy Bridge, which improves battery life in portable computers like the MacBook Air.

Haswell also includes new integrated graphics in the form of the Intel HD Graphics 5000, which Apple says provides 40 percent higher performance than the HD Graphics 4000 used in Ivy Bridge processors.

The new MacBook Airs all support the new 802.11ac wireless networking standard, and the flash storage has also been improved, with higher capacities on the 11-inch models and faster performance across the line.

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Preparing for a trip to Spain, Chris Armstrong has equipped himself with the Duolingo Web and iPhone apps to brush up on his Spanish. But is it effective?

 

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