One of the slightly more hidden features of CloudKit, Apple’s cloud-based back-end service for applications, is that you can use it to synchronise content as well as simply query it. I use this approach to sync favourite search terms between devices in my app Yummy.

However, I found the process wasn’t as well documented as it might be. It’s all there, but it’s written as many man pages are: it makes total sense if you already know what you’re looking for. This post is my attempt to make the process clearer.

This weeks PhotoFriday challenge is “Color” (grr, spelling!). My entry also fits in with it being nearly Halloween, as it’s a bright orange pumpkin taken in California a couple of years ago.

I wrote a few words about iOS 9 when it came out, so I thought that I should also say something now that the new version of OS X is on the verge of release. As before, there are people who have written many words about it as a formal review, so I’ll stick to my highlights. I have no intention of being the most complete or thorough here!

Having said that, I am qualified to say a few words. I’ve been playing with El Cap since the first beta and have had it installed on my main Mac since the GM was first made available.

Apple are announcing their new iPhones tomorrow. Along with the new phone will be a new version of iOS, version 9. You can read all about what Apple thinks are the best new features. I’ve been using it myself for a couple of months now so I thought it might be worth a few words.

Here are my highlights:

• Battery improvements. Actually, they say you get an extra hour but I’ve not noticed. What works great is Low Power Mode. When it gets below 20%, the battery icon turns yellow and lots of stuff gets turned off or the frequency of background tasks is decreased. It’s not magic — if you use your phone it will drop to zero pretty quickly — but if it’s just sat in your pocket you’ll get a lot more life out of it.
• Spotlight search inside apps. This clearly isn’t going to be big until apps support it, but even with my own apps this is really big. I miss it on my iPad 3, which doesn’t support it.
• Looking in your email to guess the names of callers who are not in your address book. It’s kind of freaky the first time it happens. How does it know that this phone call might be from Bob?! But it works and it’s very useful. Oh, and if it can’t make a match it now tells you where the call came from (just as it has done in the US since the very first iPhone).
• Feels as fast, if not faster, than iOS 8 on both my iPhone 5 and iPad 3. After all the press claiming that Apple make big, clunky updates to force you to upgrade that’s nice.

Showing potential:

This weeks PhotoFriday theme is “Downtown.” Here is my entry. This image was taken in Tokyo. Where else would you take a futuristic cityscape?

Share price movements are kind-of-sort-of-rational but not always intuitive. For example, when Apple has a big keynote and announces some significant product, everyone expresses surprise that the share price goes down straight afterwards. Even many smart people get this wrong (“It isn’t based on logic and reason” – The Talk Show episode 53). I hope to explain why the price dropping actually does make sense in this post.

In doing so I’ll likely make some errors. Some of those will be deliberate simplifications. In other cases I’ll probably just be wrong. But either way, I think the gist, if not the details, should give you a good idea of what’s going on.

This weeks PhotoFriday theme is “Patterns.” My entry was taken last year in the London Transport Museum.

Please also vote for my entry in last weeks challenge, “Red.” I’m entry number 43.

This weeks PhotoFriday theme is “Red.” My entry is a Ferrari because what other colour are you going to one in? (Actually, I didn’t drive this one. The one I did drive was a front-engined GT and it was… white.)

Incidentally, this isn’t the first time “Red” has been the PhotoFriday challenge. Last time I used a picture from Cuba.

This weeks PhotoFriday challenge is “Flowers.” This entry was taken in Cannizzaro Park in Wimbledon.

I never know whether to put blogs about Apple stuff here or on my company website. This time I wrote a few thoughts about the best bits announced at last weeks WWDC keynote (mostly stuff arriving in the Autumn) and put them over on the Wandle Software blog.