The phone app I use to send tasks to my Mac can now carry photos. That sounds small, but it changes how the whole thing feels.
What it is
It's a simple app for handing work to my computer from wherever I am. I type a task, it lands on the Mac, and the Mac works on it and writes back. Until now that was text only.
What changed
There are two ways to attach an image now:
- Share a screenshot or photo from any other app, and it goes straight to the app.
- Pick one or more photos right in the chat box. Thumbnails show up above the text field, and you can remove one with a tap if you grabbed the wrong thing.
Replies can carry images too, not just the first message. So if a task comes back and I want to say "no, this part, look at this", I can just show it instead of describing it.
Why I wanted this
A lot of what I want to hand off starts as something I'm looking at. A weird layout on a page, an error on a screen, a chart that looks off. Typing out a description of that is slow and I always get it a little wrong. A screenshot says it in one second.
It also makes the app feel a lot more like texting a person. You send a picture, they send one back. That's the experience I was after from the start.
Rough edges
The sharing path had a bug on its first try, and I fixed it today. I've tested it in the simulator, but I'm still waiting to see it work from my own phone in normal daily use, which is the only test that really counts.
Next
I'll use it for a few days and see what's annoying. My guess is I'll want to mark up a screenshot before sending it, but I'd rather find that out by using it than by guessing.