Posts From January 2011
You know that free over-the-air syncing server that Omni Group offers its users? It’s running on a Mac Mini and is doing just fine.
Ian Hines, the man with the original idea for OmniFocus Aid, talks briefly about the business model of the whole idea:
The obvious concern from OmniGroup’s perspective is that offering a “lite” version would hurt overall OmniFocus for Mac sales.
I think Ian’s conclusion is spot on. In that, having a low-cost utility like this would ultimately increase adoption of the OmniFocus suite more than it would decrease sales of the desktop app.
On another note, a lot of people are suggesting it be called OmniFocus Lite. But I think that’s a bad term and allows for too much scope creep of the project. Calling it OmniFocus Lite would imply that it more or less should offer you all the same access to your tasks and projects that OmniFocus does, but with less features.
The whole foundation of this simple utility is that it needs to be act as an assistant. It would be meant for those who use OmniFocus on their iPad as the main version, as well as those who work a lot from a non-Mac computer.
Regarding the usefulness of “OmniFocus Aid” for windows users, Michael Doan shares his workflow for how he gets by without OmniFocus at his work computer.
HiTask is a friendly and easy-to-use task management tool that anyone can start using right away. HiTask combines simplicity with powerful enterprise features such as task sharing, assignment, reporting, and time tracking. You can organize tasks by project, then share them with or assign them to co-workers, family and friends. Get reminders sent to your phone, and even synchronize your tasks and projects between your desktop browser and iPhone/iPad app. Shared tasks and projects seamlessly synchronize between team members.
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Rising Early
Nicholas Alpi, a Ruby developer, shares his story of transitioning from night owl to early bird. He made the decision a year ago and has stuck with it. Now he’s so glad he did.
Also, Leo Babauta gets up at 4:30 each morning and has written about the benefits of rising early.
I love being up early, but I hate getting up early. I am not a morning person.
Some folks are natural morning people — their heads pop off the pillow with little help from an alarm. I am not one of those people. I am a night owl and have been for 30 years.
But just because I’m naturally prone to stay up late doesn’t mean nights are my most productive time of the day. It’s the opposite actually. Mornings are my most productive time. They are also my favorite time of the day.
In the morning my mind is more clear; there is not yet the accumulation of “mental clutter” from the activities and worries of the day; the whole day seems like a blank canvas. And because of the endless possibilities the morning brings with it, I feel liberated and comfortable to do some of my best work of the day. Also it’s the time of day when coffee tastes best.
There is something magical about the early morning. It’s a time when the world belongs to only those few who are awake. And we walk around like kings while others remain unseen in their beds.
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Idea: OmniFocus Aid: A Capture Utility for the Mac
Ian Hines posted an idea to Twitter earlier this week:
Thought: it would be nice to be able to input content on the desktop, without having the full desktop client (OmniFocus). Just Inbox.
The premise of Ian’s idea is two fold. Assuming you already own the iPad and/or iPhone version:
- Perhaps you can’t afford OmniFocus for the Mac.
- Perhaps you don’t need OmniFocus for the Mac.
In either of these scenarios, it would be great to have a capture-only utility for the Mac that could sync action items to your iPad / iPhone versions.
OmniFocus Aid would be lightweight, easy to use, and built for the sole purpose of throwing tasks into your OmniFocus database when at your Mac. Or, put another way, it would be a utility that consisted of just the top-notch ways that OmniFocus for Mac currently lets you capture action items:
- Quick Entry Pane (not unlike the one that already ships with OmniFocus)
- It knows your projects and contexts
- Supports clippings, Mail rules, and bookmarklets
It should install in the Menu Bar to be accessible for those who don’t swear by the keyboard, and it should sync in the background. It could sell for a few bucks to anyone who purchases the iPad or iPhone versions.
OmniFocus Aid would would make a fantastic counterpart to the iOS suite of OmniFocus apps. It’s a fantastic idea, and I would love to see it get some attention from the Omni Group.
Update: I’ve received some feedback on Twitter and in email that also having a Windows- or web-based version of OmniFocus Aid would be great for those who are not on their own Mac all day. I use my MacBook Pro for work and personal; in the office and at home. I forget that not everyone rolls that way.
This week’s RSS feed was brought to you by Due, a fantastic timer and reminder app for the iPhone. You can set reminders for yourself for things which need to be done at a certain time, and you can save common timers. For instance, I use Due just about every day as the timer for my French Press. Also, for power naps.
The latest version of Due added over-the-air sync via Dropbox. If you’ve got the app installed on multiple devices it will sync your timers and reminders.
For further praise of Due, check out Dave Caolo’s three reasons why you should use it.
Pulizer Prize winning novelist Michael Chabon reflects about blogging after week of doing it for the Atlantic:
Blogging, I think, is largely about seizing opportunities, about pouncing, about grabbing hold of hours, events, days and nights as they are happening, sizing them up and putting them into play with language, like a juggler catching and working into his flow whatever the audience has in its pockets.
So blogging means you have to be thoughtful, quick, articulate, correct, and relevant, all in real time.
Since I don’t write shawnblanc.net full time I simply don’t have the time to pull all of those elements together simultaneously. I’ve chosen to focus on being thoughtful, articulate, and correct — hoping that what I what is thoughtful enough to make itself relevant. I usually let other sites worry about the real-time pouncing.
(Via DF.)
So at first this sounds like, well duh more people are watching Netflix on their Apple TV than on their iPad. I mean, it’s obvious that people will prefer to watch a movie on their big screen than on their iPad.
Just a few weeks ago I bought my first TV. Before that, whenever Anna and I would stream a Netflix movie it would be in the living room watching on the 15-inch MacBook Pro, or in the office on the 23-inch Cinema Display. Never did we stream a Netflix movie using the iPad. Now, streaming to via our Apple TV is superb.
But what’s so intriguing about these iPad and Apple TV comparison numbers is that the iPad is almost a year old and has sold 15 million units. While the new Apple TV is 4 months old and has sold just over 1 million units. There are one-fifteenth the amount of Apple TVs, they’ve been available for one-third the time, and they’ve already surpassed the iPad.
Jason Snell says it’s (at least in part) because Netflix on the iPad is less than great.
I’m curious how many Apple TVs have led to new Netflix subscriptions. The Netflix Shareholder Report (PDF) states 3.08 million new subscribers in the fourth quarter of 2010. If every single Apple TV purchase also led to a new Netflix subscription there would still be an additional 2 million Netflix subscriptions coming from other channels. You can gather from the report that Netflix attributes a lot of their growth to the new streaming-only plan — one-third of all new accounts are the streaming only.
Screenshots of people’s app preferences setup (hence the name “CMD Comma”) with an accompanying description of why the prefs are set like that. I’ve submitted a few of preference screenshots of my own and have already learned something new.
Introducing Read & Trust: a small band of top-notch writers who endorse one another’s work. Plus one scruffy looking nerf herder.
A clever addition by Chris Bowler.
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My Sister is Getting Married
It’s not too often that I share personal tidbits here, but this one is worthy.
My one and only sister, my younger sister, is getting married this coming Sunday. My future brother-in-law, Mark, is a stand up guy; I couldn’t be happier.
The wedding is here in Kansas City, and family has already begun to arrive. Which means posting on shawnblanc.net will be slim this week because family always, always comes first.
So if and when you check this site and you don’t see anything new, say a quick prayer for Elise and Mark and their new life together.
And speaking of the State of the Union speech, President Obama will giving his Address tomorrow night at 9:00 pm EST. If you don’t have a TV, you can watch the live stream on the White House website or iPhone app.
The delivery of the State of the Union Address has come a long way. Did you know it used to be called the Annual Message and was simply delivered as a written letter on paper? It wasn’t until 1913 that the Address was first given as a speech. And then, a decade later, technology entered the scene. The first radio broadcast of the Address was in 1923; the first televised Address was in 1947; Internet webstream in 2002; HD TV in 2004; iPhone and iPod touch in 2010; and (since the White House app runs on iPad, albeit in double-pixel mode…) iPad in 2011.
If you think design by committee is hard, imagine writing by committee. And then imagine that the committee is the government.
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More Ideas Than Time, but More Time Than Focus
Often I find myself wrestling with the tension that I have more ideas than time. There are many great things I want to do and build and ship and start, but I just don’t have the time to do them. However, I’m finding that the real problem is not my lack of time — it’s my lack of focus.
Ideas > Time > Focus
More ideas than time, but more time than focus.
This is not exactly a revelation. But the above equation has helped to put it in perspective for me. What I want it to be is this:
(Ideas > Time) + (Focus > Time)
More ideas than time, and more focus than time.
If we have more time than focus it means we’re wasting time. Time is the only thing in that equation that we have no control over. And so it should be seized for all it is worth. I do not want a wasted surplus of time due to a lack of focus.
Jot down a task and set up a reminder alert really, really fast? A companion to your GTD manager where all your mundane but important reminders can go? Now you have it.
Many thanks to Useful Fruit software for sponsoring the RSS feed this week to promote Pear Note. Pear Note is a note-taking utility app with a bucket full of useful and well-thought-out features. It’ll recored audio and/or video while you type in your notes. It tracks the timing of what you type with the position of the audio/video track which is great for going back to hear what was said and when, based on the notes that you typed. Pear Note could be especially useful for those who take minutes at meetings. If you take notes or have an assistant who does you may want to get a license.
Download a free trial online, or pick it up in the Mac App Store.
The whole PR pitch scene is a disaster. You either don’t know what the PR is even talking about, or you can tell they don’t really care if you’re interested or not; they’re just spamming you because you have a blog.
I don’t get 50 PR pitches a day like Pogue does — I get about 5 or 10 a week. Usually the email is just text that has obviously been copied-and-pasted from a generic write up, or else it’s just a giant image or PDF attached to an email. And so I just delete 90% of them.
Do they even know they’re sending it to me or are they just using a giant list of “tech blogs” or something? Do they even care if I am interested? I doubt it. They’re just throwing their news out there and hoping for the best… Deleted.
Maybe they’re putting such little effort into their PR pitches because they don’t think it’s worth their time to address me directly. It’s not like shawnblanc.net is a mega site. But by sending annoying PR pitches all they’re actually doing is wasting my time and theirs.
I do, however, get an occasional pitch that I can tell was actually written with intent. And I almost always reply back to say thanks for the heads up. Alas, from there it’s not uncommon to get a generic reply or even no reply. And then, a week or two later, I get a follow-up pitch: “Hey, we just wanted to know if you had a chance to review and post about our app?” Seriously? Deleted.
People should take note of David’s favorite PR Pitches. It’s amazing how far a little bit of thought and some personal connection will go.
It is a rare day when I actually get in contact with someone who cares about the product or service they are pitching. And I wish I could promote and review all of those people’s products and services. But since this weblog is still a part-time gig for me, I simply don’t have the time. Maybe one day that won’t be the case.
This is the way beta testing for iOS devices should be. At any given time I am helping beta test a handful of apps. A few of the developers have been using TestFlight while it was still in private beta. And keeping up to date with their latest builds became so much easier I became a more useful tester.
If you’re an iOS developer, you should be using TestFlight. If your a beta tester, tell your developer friends to sign up.
Enough is the brand new Minimal Mac podcast, with Patrick Rhone and his co-host Myke Hurley. Congratulations to both of them for kicking this off. I’m subscribed; I have no doubt that it will be fantastic.
Considering all the bookmarking going on yesterday, it seems like a ripe time to point out this AppleScript I wrote in 2009 based on some others by Jim DeVona and John Gruber.
Here’s what it does:
When invoked, the script takes the frontmost tab in Safari and creates a new bookmark item in Yojimbo. You’ll be given the opportunity to enter any tags before the bookmark is created, and if you’ve selected any text from the Web page you’re bookmarking it will get pasted into the Comments box of your new Yojimbo bookmark. Finally, once the script has successfully run, a Growl notification will let you know.
Follow the link to read all about it, or just download it now.
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That Was Fun
From where I’m sitting, Blast from the Past Link Day turned out to be a wild success.
Many people posted links to their website and/or Twitter throughout the day. Some of you wrote a single article with a list of favorite reads. Some people highlighted favorites written by others, and some highlighted favorites that they had written.
Thank you everyone for joining the fun and for sharing some great articles.
We should do this again sometime. But not for a while… I have a lot of reading to do.
Anthony Morelli wrote a python scrip that is grabbing all the links from the #pastblast Twitter hashtags and tossing them into a shared folder on Instapaper. This way you can easily pull in all these articles to your own Instapaper account. And since Instapaper de-dupes automatically you shouldn’t have to worry about seeing the same article over and over again.
Pure genius! Here’s how to get it:
- Log into Instapaper
- On the right-hand side bar click “Add Folder”
- Choose to add “Another user’s Starred items”
- In the text box for Username to subscribe to, type: pastblasting@gmail.com
- Click “Create starred-item subscription folder”
- Enjoy
Thanks, Anthony!
Paul Graham:
I realized recently that what one thinks about in the shower in the morning is more important than I’d thought. I knew it was a good time to have ideas. Now I’d go further: now I’d say it’s hard to do a really good job on anything you don’t think about in the shower.
Another one from Jeffery Zeldman, this time on writing or really just doing any sort of work:
In writing four books and an unknown quantity of articles and blog posts, I’ve discovered the simple secret to maintaining quality. I share it with you here in mnemonic nursery rhyme fashion:
Write when inspired; rest when tired.
John Gruber’s review of the 15-inch PowerBook, and perhaps my favorite DF article of all time.
Stories about flying the SR-71 Blackbird, one of the fastest spy planes in the world between the 1960s to the 1990s.
Michael Lopp:
A nerd needs a project because a nerd builds stuff. All the time. Those lulls in the conversation over dinner? That’s the nerd working on his project in his head.
“Does your job happen to you?”
Hilarious, hilarious story by comedian Dave Barry about getting a colonoscopy.
I yield to nobody in the field of being a pathetic weenie medical coward. I become faint and nauseous during even very minor medical procedures, such as making an appointment by phone.
Though the point of today’s link-share is to promote and dig up great, older articles, this post from Jeffery Zeldman, which I think about often, has a different take on “blasts from the past”.
If your old work doesn’t shame you, you’re not growing.
It’s nice to look back and feel that you’ve made progress. When you look at old work, it should suck glaringly and you should cringe painfully. But there should also be some germ within it that you’re not ashamed of—some spark of talent or inspiration that connects to what you do now.
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Blast from the Past Link Day
Maybe we’ll do this every January. Maybe not. That’s not the point.
Today, I had a fantastic time combing through my “faves”, “tips”, and “inspiration” tags within Yojimbo to dig up a few of good articles I have bookmarked over years. I also perused through my starred items in Instapaper for some golden oldies.
Alas, one of the ways of the Web is that if it isn’t fresh it isn’t worth talking about. But you and I both know that’s not true.
So tomorrow, January 20, 2011, is a day to dig up and share some of the older articles we’ve read over the years that have inspired us, encouraged us, and delighted us.
There are two rules to participating:
- It wasn’t written today.
- You think it’s worth reading.
Here is how to participate:
- Post links to some of your favorite, older articles (even ones written by you) to your website.
- Let us know about your links on Twitter using the hashtag: #pastblast
- If you don’t want to post links on your site, just post them on Twitter. Still use the hashtag of course.
You can follow along with what I’m posting here by checking the homepage at the top of every hour starting at 7:00 am CST tomorrow morning — I’ve got 8 links queued up (so far). I’ll also be tweeting the links.
Mike Vardy was kind enough to have me as a guest on the WorkAwesome Podcast. We talk about how I balance work and home life, using digital GTD tools like OmniFocus, and, of course, coffee.
What we didn’t talk about, because I didn’t tell Mike, was that fact that this is the first podcast show I’ve ever appeared on. Fun!
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What’s Better Than Productivity in the Office?
I always hire for unity first.
Because there is something much more vital than productivity to the success of a work environment: unity. Will this person fit in, get along, and bring the unity of the team up a notch? It’s not until that question is answered that I then look for teachability and, lastly, talent. (But that’s a different blog post.)
Our culture is borderline obsessed with the focus on productivity and getting things done. And while I am certainly an advocate for those, at my office, and on my team, unity is far more valuable than productivity. Where there’s unity there’s people who love their job. And a lover will always out-work a worker.
Unity encourages discovery, too. Unity means I’ve got your back and you’ve got mine. When you feel safe around your team then you’ll go ahead and try out that crazy, out-of-the-box idea of yours. If you were afraid of your peers criticizing you, then you’d probably stick to what is safe and boring. Unity and trust amongst your team means you’re safe to fail. Which means there’s a far greater chance of something truly amazing happening.
The first iPad app from Lunar/Theory that’s just hitting the App store today.
What really intrigues me about this iPad app is its philosophy. It’s basically a well-built front end for delivering content from almost 100 pre-selected sources. Or, put another way, it’s a fun RSS reader with the feeds pre-subscribed for you.
The whole point of the app is to get design inspiration. And so they’ve gone out and found what they think are the best visual and literary places of inspiration on the web today and are piping their content into their app.
From their website, the features list is:
- Real-time visual inspiration from 50+ sites
- Text feeds from 30+ sites
- In-app web browser
- Share links via email, Facebook and Twitter
I think this is a fantastic idea, it’s curated content for a specific purpose and has been custom built for use on the iPad.
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Trusted Advisors
I have a few short lists of people whom I turn to when I need feedback, advice, and encouragement for different areas of my personal and professional life. The areas I most often seek feedback for are:
- My writing
- My design
- New business models and strategies
- Big, hairy, audacious ideas
- Major life decisions
For each area I have a handful of people whom I trust and whom I know I can ask for their help. I know they have an educated and valuable position on the subject, and they meet two very important requirements:
They shoot me straight 100% of the time. I prefer blunt honesty and genuine feedback. Don’t dance around my feelings. Tell me what you really think and why.
They want me to succeed. Usually, by the time I’m ready for feedback from someone, I’ve gone about as far I you can go on my own. And that’s when I need someone to cheer me on to cross the finish line.
Some people are on a few of these lists, and one person is on all of them (my wife).
It’s not always easy to seek out input from others (especially when they found a giant hole in your otherwise perfect idea). But if you’re trying to push the boundaries of what you can come up with, build, and ship, then feedback and encouragement will be an invaluable tool along that path.
Mark Pilgrim shares about how his latest book, Dive into HTML5, has sold. (a) Congratulations to Mark on a successful launch; and (b) this is fascinating info for anyone else working on a non-fiction book targeted to the designer/developer community.
And speaking of Amazon, I enjoyed reading Roger Ebert’s response to reporter Christopher Heine’s awkward questions about his Amazon affiliate tweets:
Have I made a fortune from Amazon? No. Have I made some? Yes. Am I happy to have it? You bet. Have I been amused? Yes. It’s kind of like fishing.
Ebert’s just a guy trying to make a buck like the rest of us.
Jason Kincaid on TechChrunch:
The biggest departure from the mobile app stores we’ve grown accustomed to involves pricing. Unlike Apple’s App Store and Android Market, where developers can set their price to whatever they’d like, Amazon retains full control over how it wants to price your application. The setup is a bit confusing: upon submitting your application, you can set a ‘List Price’, which is the price you’d normally sell it at. Amazon will use a variety of market factors to determine what price it wants to use, and you get a 70% cut of the proceeds of each sale (which is the industry standard). In the event that Amazon steeply discounts your application, or offers it for free, you’re guaranteed to get 20% of the List Price.
Sounds like centralized, corporate management to me. Obviously Amazon wants their Android App Store to be hugely successful and so they’re acting as if they know what’s best for each developer’s app. And maybe they do.
But perhaps not. As Dan Frommer writes on Business Insider:
In theory, Amazon will be able to use whatever sales algorithms it has to generate the most possible revenue.
So perhaps the price of an app in Amazon’s Android App Store will be dynamic, with app prices fluctuating up or down on a case-by-case basis based on popularity, who it is browsing the store, etc.
And surely Amazon has set some sort of guideline to prohibit a developer from suggesting an outrageous ‘List Price’. I mean, if the developer is guaranteed at least 20% of the price they suggest upon submission of their app, then why not suggest $1,000,000?
Horace Dediu’s fascinating reports on the total number of apps downloaded from the iOS App Store compared to the total number of songs downloaded from iTunes.
In short? Apps are taking off like crazy. It took the App Store half the time it took iTunes to reach 10 billion downloads. Also:
The amazing story of this chart is not that apps are running at above 30 million download per day, but that the figure is growing. Growth like this is hard to get one’s mind around. Not only are downloads increasing, but the rate of increase is increasing.
Update: Ahmad Alhashemi asked me on Twitter if it matters how many of those 10 billion apps are free and how many are paid. It matters in the fact that total apps downloaded to date would surely be less than 10 billion if there were no free apps (which is the point I’m highlighting here). But, if you read Horace’s report, he’s making a point that iOS users have an increasing investment in their device due to the amount of apps they’ve downloaded and use.
Pear Note helps you create more complete, understandable notes on your Mac. Typed notes are blended with recorded audio, video, and slides to create notes that make more sense when you need them most. Think of it as augmented note-taking, with your typed notes being improved by other inputs such as audio or video. For instance, if a piece of your typed notes is incomplete, just click on that text to jump straight to that point in the audio recording.
Pear Note is available in or out of the Mac App Store.
Many thanks to Paste for once again sponsoring this week’s RSS Feed to promote their suite of productivity and project management web apps.
Paste is a company with a lot of personality and a huge commitment to excellence. If you build websites, work with a team, or are on the hunt for a better project management software, then check out their suite of apps.
As I mentioned last time, their app Jumpchart is especially worth a look. It’s a web app to help you build, organize, swap, edit, and agree upon the content, design, and information architecture of a new site. Then it’ll export your outline and pages of content to HTML (or even to WordPress). As someone who works with a team building websites, I know just how difficult the building and organizing (and then agreeing upon) of content can be. Jumpchart seeks to solve precisely that issue.
Justin Blanton is awesome:
As of late I’ve had a terrible time concentrating, on anything. So, I did what any self-respecting computer geek can’t help but do, and rationalized further procrastination by telling myself I was going to create a new, usable workflow. The end result of this little productivity tangent is a combination of FlexTime, LaunchBar, Spaces and AppleScript…
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How to Pronounce “Blanc”
Growing up we always knew when a telemarketer was calling because they’d pronounce our last name wrong. But it never really occurred to me until recently that many of you may also be pronouncing my last name wrong by mistake as well.
Though my last name is spelled the same as the legendary Mel Blanc’s (no relation) it is not pronounced the same. Mel’s last name was pronounced “blank“. As in a blank canvas.
My last name is pronounced “blonk“. As in Mont Blanc. This is an americanized version of the way the French say it (my great grandfather grew up in a small town along the France/Italian border). Though a proper French pronunciation with a proper French accent would leave off the “c” altogether. I do not have a french accent.
Phonetically, it is spelled: “blah ng k”.
And so now you know.
And, speaking of Net neutrality, if you’re a visual learner then this single-serving site created by Michael Ciarlo is another great high-level overview of what it is and why it’s important. (Via Sean Sperte.)
Last week Randy Murray began a great series of posts regarding Net Neutrality. If you’re still not exactly sure what this whole Net Neutrality topic is all about I suggest reading Randy’s first post, “A Turning Point For Freedom And The Future” which is the link, followed by his post yesterday, “The Dangers And Risks Of A ‘Managed’ Internet“. They are short, concise, and clear.
Thoughtful (as always) article from Marco Arment on the “iPhone versus Android fight”. In short, Marco’s muse is that it hasn’t been iPhone versus Android, but actually iPhone versus Verizon.
I know that in my circles all my friends — save one — with an Android phone have it because it was free or because they didn’t want to leave Verizon: “It’s not an iPhone,” they say, “but it’s still pretty cool. I mean, it’s got a touch screen and all.”
One hundred great, great one-liners of advice and food for thought from Nicholas Bate. Numbers 15, 52, 59, 65, 67, 89, 91, 95, 96, and 99 all really struck a chord with me.
But especially numbers 13,
Stop wishing. Start selling. Stop imagining. Pick up the phones. Stop playing with pipeline percentages. Ring every account and ask for business.
34,
A High Performance Business Team is not about having gone white water rafting together. Nor a list of ‘core values’. Nor a fancy mission statement on the wall. Although any of these might help. It is about absolute and total loyalty to each other. Never talk negatively about a team colleague who is not present; talk to him or her.
and 97:
You may well eventually be able to spend three days out of five on the golf course, but don’t make that your goal. Most entrepreneurs work hard, think, develop relationships, sell, chase money, innovate, have fun, pitch, drink coffee. And sometimes play golf.
It’s a top-level setting, and includes the Bluetooth and USB sharing options just like tethering works currently on AT&T, et al. The mobile hotspot won’t be Verizon exclusive for very long.
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Verizon’s iPhone
It is, for all intents and purposes, the same iPhone that people on AT&T are using except it works on Verizon. There is no Verizon branding nor any special new features to the iPhone. Except one: the mobile hotspot.
The only software that will come “pre-installed” on the Verizon iPhone is what Verizon is calling their Mobile Hotspot app. Though, fortunately, it’s found in the Settings and not as its own app which launches from the springboard.
You can use the mobile hotspot to give internet to up to five computers (or iPads). And while the mobile hotspot is a great feature, on Verizon’s CDMA network you can’t use data and voice simultaneously. If you’re broadcasting an internet connection with your Verizon iPhone and someone gives you a call, then the connection goes dead. Like when you were online using dialup and someone called your house.
Pricing for data plans hasn’t been announced yet, but Verizon says they’ll be based on current data plans. Verizon’s current smartphone data plans are $15/month for 150 MB of data or $30 for unlimited. AT&T charges $15/month for 200 MB or $25 for 2 GB; and if you want tethering enabled it’s an additional $20 per month. My guess is that Verizon’s Mobile Hotspot will be free to use with the data plans but the data plan pricing will be a bit higher for the iPhone 4 than they currently are for smartphones.
Lastly, it appears Verizon didn’t do their homework when building their website. The Verizon iPhone info page shows an option for the white iPhone. But it also shows images of the GSM iPhone (you can tell the difference by the antenna line break just above the mute switch — CDMA has one, GSM doesn’t), and it lists the iPhone as being GSM. Whoops. Clearly these are specs and images taken straight from Apple.com. I would be surprised to see a white iPhone available on Verizon on the February 10.
And for those curious, I will not be switching to Verizon. AT&T service in Kansas City is just fine.
Seth Godin:
Some say that the problem of our age is that continuous partial attention, this never ending non-stop distraction, addles the brain and prevents us from being productive. Not quite.
The danger is not distraction, the danger is the ability to hide.
Nerd nostalgia.
(Via Khoi.)
Great piece from Iain Broome on the simplicity of the Mac App Store, the bloat of the iTunes store, and the potential of iBookstore.
I think we’re all agreed that iTunes is getting more bloated by the minute. But that’s because iTunes houses and plays all our media, is the best way to buy and download new media, and is the only place to sync that media to our iDevices. That is a lot for what started out as an MP3 player, but I would rather have a bit of bloat than a lot of de-centralization.
Ian Mackay on discovering applications in the Mac App Store:
I believe people have one of three things in mind when they are looking for an application to use.
Suitability for a given task. For example: “I want to write a novel.” “I want to create a birthday card.”
Similarity to an existing application. Some applications set a paradigm to which all others are compared (e.g. Microsoft Word, Adobe Photoshop).
Inclusion of a specific feature or design pattern. Usually one that the person uses a lot, so it’s a big time-saver.
In the 1800′s the QWERTY keyboard was developed to make mechanical typewriters more reliable. By moving letters that commonly followed each other further apart, there was less chance of the swing-arm typebars colliding and jamming. In effect it slowed down typists.
In 1936 August Dvorak patented the “Simplified Keyboard” which did away with historical clunky skeuomorphism. Rather than comfort, Dvorak was interested in productivity.
Despite QWERTY’s dominance today, people like W.P.M. Guinness record holder Barbara Blackburn see a dramatic improvement in speed and accuracy after switching to DVORAK.
We’re Paste, and we like this story a whole lot.
Tweaky is a GUI utility app for adjusting the super secret defaults preferences that are there in Twiter for Mac (Tweetie 2) but are only visible to those who bought that MacHeist bundle a while back.
The only “super secret” adjustment I care about is the ability to escape out of the Tweet compose window. And that can be done via the Terminal:
defaults write com.twitter.twitter-mac ESCClosesComposeWindow -bool trueBen Brooks has a fantastic addition to my Mac App Store piece, stating the store was launched not primarily for the users but for the current pool of iOS developers:
My guess is that if they truly did this as a simplification of the OS they would have waited until 10.7 — giving everyone a clean breaking point for making the transition.
Apple reached a fork in the road: they could have gambled on iOS developers being willing to develop for the Mac when they release 10.7; instead they chose a safer path of launching now, at the very moment interest in such a distribution channel was at its peak.
And note that most of the new apps in the Mac App Store were ported iOS games.
Many thanks to Cyberspace for sponsoring the RSS feed this week. Cyberspace is a Web browser for your iPad and iPhone/iPod touch that is jam packed with useful and thought-out features not found in Safari. It’s got Twitter, OmniFocus, and Instapaper support baked in. As well as in-flight text mobilizer using Instapaper’s engine.
Cyberspace is a universal app, and is just $2 on the App Store.
And so now my dad can get an iPhone.
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The Mac App Store and the Increasing Simplification of OS X
Apple is simplifying and refining OS X with primarily one user group in mind: the decidedly non-nerdy.
The Mac App Store is the current epitome of where Apple wants to take OS X and the Mac user experience. This is the first of some significant steps towards the next evolution of Apple’s desktop software.
It used to be that buying and installing an app was a chore. But now, with the Mac App Store, it’s as simple as finding an app you want and clicking a button. Just like buying a song or renting a movie in iTunes. The whole experience is familiar, easy, and even a little bit fun.
And so it will go with Apple’s desktop software. OS X will not be advancing towards touch-screen desktops, 3D monitors, and power-packed Finder features. Instead it will be getting more and more simple — with heavy emphasis on a simple way to find your files and applications, the ability to focus in on one app at a time, and other features built for the non-nerdy.
Apple has worked very hard to keep the user experience of iOS as simple and straightforward as possible. And it is the simplicity of iOS that will influence OS X 10.7 more than anything else. In an article on Macworld, Andy Ihnatko says:
I recently read something about Walt Disney that seemed very familiar. A man who worked with him said (I’m paraphrasing) Walt wanted to make sure that if you came to Disney World, you would have a fantastic time. And he succeeded. But he also wanted to make sure that you wouldn’t even have the option of having a bad time.
That’s everything you need to know about Apple. Its roller coaster is smooth, clean, and well-maintained.
Of course simplification and a better user experience is not the only goal of the Mac App Store. It’s also there for economic purposes. (Duh!)
- Apple wants to encourage Mac users to discover and use new software.
- Apple also wants to promote growth and income for the Macintosh ecosystem.
Encouraging Discovery
The average consumer spends very little money or time buying and tinkering with new software for their computer. In fact, many people are simply using Web apps for their basic computing needs: Facebook, Twitter, Gmail, Amazon, wordpress.com, etc. — all in the browser. The average person does not go out looking for new software. They buy and use what their friends tell them to get or what their job requires that they get.
One of Apple’s primary selling points of the iPhone and iPad is all the things you can do on it. When people find and use apps through the iOS App Store they become more “hooked” to their iPhone and/or iPad. Put another way: the apps a person uses on their device are precisely what make the device valuable to the user.
And the same is true for the Mac. However, up until yesterday, finding and installing apps for your Mac was not nearly as easy as finding and installing apps on your iPhone or iPad.
The problem had nothing to do with availability or quality of 3rd-party Mac software. To the contrary, OS X has an outstanding community of 3rd-party developers. You and I have no problem finding and using new tools to make our day-to-day computing experience better, but the average consumer does.
And so Apple wants to introduce the non-nerdy to all the fantastic software that is available for OS X. Which is precisely the goal of Mac App Store.
And it appears to be working. The Mac App Store launched with 1,000 apps in it. In its first 24 hours over 1,000,000 apps were downloaded from the Mac App Store. And of the 1,000 unique apps only a few were brand new.
Alfred — an app which I suspect most of you reading this are familiar with — saw over 30,000 downloads on the first day in the Mac App Store. Evernote — another app I assume you’ve heard of — saw an 1,800% increase in their new-user sign-up rate.
My point here is that these well-known and established apps still did great in the Mac App Store on the first day. It’s not just the new apps that are being downloaded for the sake of their newness. There is still a large and un-tapped section of the market for 3rd-parting Macintosh software.
Promoting Growth
At the end of the day Apple is still just a company doing business and trying to make a buck.
Apple’s integrated and easy-to-use storefronts have proven to be successful on every level. The iOS App Store has seen over one billion apps downloaded. iTunes is the number one music store in the world. These store fronts are providing significant income for Apple, developers, and artists. Not to mention a very easy-to-use store for users.
Why not take that same business model and apply it to the already thriving ecosystem of Macintosh desktop software? It will no doubt be a huge success for Apple, 3rd-party developers, and users.
Apple wins because they now get a 30% cut of all sales on the Mac App Store.
Developers win because they’ve got a significantly larger market to sell their products to with highly increased discoverability. And though they only get 70% of the sale it is better to sell 5 applications at 70% your normal profit than 2 applications at 100%.
Moreover, for software sold through the Mac App Store developers do not have to deal with managing their own serial number and payment processing systems, file hosting, and even (at least to a degree) tier-1 support.
It will be interesting to see how many developers stop selling their software on their own site and begin to sell exclusively on the Mac App Store. Pixelmator, TapeDeck and CoverSutra have already made the switch to being sold exclusively on the Mac App Store. How long until this becomes the norm?
Users win because they now have a one-stop shop to find and install new software, thus increasing the personal value of their Mac experience. (Savvy readers will know I have a soft spot for fine software.)
In many ways the Mac App Store is today what the iTunes music store was in 2003 — a new storefront to help promote and grow an already-established industry that could use a bit of a boost.
A great list of FAQs from Macworld.
They’re not cheap, but they are 22% faster and up to 3 times the capacity of the stock SSDs that ship with the Airs. I have an OWC Mercury Extreme SSD in my MacBook Pro and I love it.
(Via TUAW.)
I have only ever heard fabulous things about Postbox from all its users. I just haven’t been able to get into it myself yet.
Sounds like a hit. Evernote, for example, saw an 1,800% increase in their new-user sign-up rate.
But I wonder what the category and pricing breakdown is for those 1,000,000 downloads? How many were free apps that people downloaded for fun to see how things work? How many downloads were popular iOS games that have been ported and are less than $5? How many were $20 and over apps that were new to the person downloading?
Great article by Kyle Neath on the importance of human-friendly URL design. He’s primarily talking about usability and longevity of the URL structure as it relates to web apps, his underlying point is relevant for all types of web sites.
Two years ago I modified all the permalinks. For the first 18 months, each permalink had a simple “…/year/article-name/” structure. Such as:
http://shawnblanc.net/2010/great-french-press-coffee/
I remember purposefully setting them up that way in order to keep the URLs as short and sweet as possible. However, when I read other weblogs I often glance at the URL to reference when the post was published. And I felt that having my posts linked by their year of publication alone left a bit to be desired.
Because, comparing two articles — one written on December 31, 2008 and the other on January 1, 2009 — it may seem as if they were written an entire year apart, instead of one day. And similarly, two posts — one written January 1, 2008 and the other on December 31, 2008 — may seem chronologically near, but are actually not.
Which is why, in 2009, I changed the permalinks to look like this:
http://shawnblanc.net/2010/12/great-french-press-coffee/
By adding the month of publication to the URL it is still short, and there is now an added reference to aid the savvy reader. Additionally, the new permalink structure is a three-in-one tool for reading. You can peel back the layers of the URL to dig deeper into this site.
If you delete the article name from the URL you will find yourself at the archive listing for the year and month of that article’s publication date. If you then delete the month from the URL you get the archive listing for the whole year.
Ian Hines has really put some thought into the URL structure of his weblog and has done something quite clever. Using a vanity URL and adjusting the slug of each category his URLs literally read like a sentence containing subject, verb, and object in that order:
Kyle Baxter’s clear and well-written analysis on Google and Android:
Android isn’t an attempt to build the best mobile platform and sell it on its merits; it’s a play to control the vast majority of the mobile market, secure eyeballs for Google advertising and eliminate any threat to Google.
The Mac App Store gave me the same error this morning. But instead of logging out and logging back in I simply went out for a cup of coffee.
Marco Arment and Dan Benjamin discussing the Mac App Store. Lots of insight and some really good questions raised.
TUAW’s category and price breakdown of the 959 unique apps in the Mac App Store.
From the desk of Cabel Sasser, regarding Transmit, Coda, and Unison in the Mac App Store:
The Mac App Store may show software bought from us previously as “Installed”, even though they’re two different licenses. You will not get Mac App Store auto-updates unless you purchase from the Mac App Store. To re-enable the “Purchase” button in the Mac App Store, just drag the app to the trash. Your preferences/sites will not be affected.
So the App Store recognizes that you already own the app, but it doesn’t treat it as if you bought it from the App Store. Meaning, on the App’s page within the App Store you’ll see “Installed” instead of the purchase price. However, you won’t see it in your list of apps underneath the “Purchases” tab and you won’t get updates for that app via the Mac App Store.
The Mac App Store won’t let you buy apps that are already “Installed”. According to Cabel, if you want to purchase an app through the Mac App Store that you already own, you have to drag your current app into the trash.
Update: According the Daniel Jalkut (MardEdit maestro), apps you already own will only show up as “Installed” in the Mac App Store if the developer used the exact same Bundle ID in the App Store as with the self-sold app you bought.
John Gruber, 16 months ago, musing on the Mac app installation problems facing the common user:
The iPhone shows just how much simpler the concept of app installation — and just as importantly, un-installation — can be.
Some worthwhile reading while you wait for the Mac App Store to launch in a few hours.
Today is a big day for the Mac community. For one, 3rd-party developers are getting a huge open door to new markets they’ve never been able to reach before. Users will be getting a whole new window to discover software they never before knew about. Also, users are getting a simplified way to install and manage their applications.
10.6.6 is now available as a software update and with it comes the Mac App Store. It’s always a good idea to backup you Mac before installing major software updates, so you may want to do that now while you’ve got time (if you didn’t already backup last night).
I’ll be online all day today posting links and articles here, as well as thoughts on Twitter.
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The Best New Mac and iOS Software of 2010
A lot of great software shipped in the past 12 months. There were many new apps for the iPhone and iPad, and many great updates to some already stellar Mac apps.
Here is my list of the best software that shipped in 2010. These are apps I use regularly and which were brand new or received an X.0 update at some point in 2010.
OmniFocus for iPad
OmniFocus for iPad was released in July. It is, without a doubt, the best of the three-app suite of OmniFocus software.
It seems to be a common practice that for apps with a strong presence on the desktop, their iPhone and iPad counterparts are portals, or lighter versions, of their desktop apps. Not so with OmniFocus on the iPad; it is the current king of the OmniFocus hill. Moreover, it is one of the most robust, feature-rich, easy-to-use apps on my iPad.
The two most-addicting features of OmniFocus on the iPad are the review and the forecast views. This app is one of the few which have justified my iPad purchase.
Reeder
Reeder for iPhone 2.0 and Reeder for iPad are my two preferred apps for reading feeds. When Reeder 2.0 shipped in March it answered all of my quibbles about what I wanted from an iPhone Feed Reader.
Reeder for iPad, shipped in June, and it is superb. I enjoy the UI and the top-notch readability it presents. By far, my favorite feed reading app for the iPad.
Canned
Canned is an iPhone app that came out in August. I had the privilege of helping Sky Balloon beta test it, and it’s been on the front of my iPhone Home screen ever since.
Canned lets you pre-write the content of those text messages you send often, and even pre-assign those to the individuals and groups whom you often send that same text to.
I used to have a folder in Pastebot for these types of texts, but Canned is much better suited for the task. The app is simple and blazing fast. Buy it in the App Store for the price of a soda.
Instapaper Pro for iPad
If there ever was a piece of software that was like a good cup of coffee it would be Instapaper. Unlike other software and services where describing the ins and outs and use-cases gives others a very good understanding of the product, Instapaper is much too simple for that.
So in short, Instapaper is the best way to read the Internet. And the iPad app (which launched in April) is the best way to read your Instapaper articles.
And, if you want to get my starred articles in your Instapaper queue, my username is “shawnblanc”.
MarsEdit 3.0
MarsEdit is one of the most-used, most-important, and most-beloved applications I own. I can’t imagine writing shawnblanc.net without it. Version 3.0, which was released in May, added quite a few features to an already rock-solid application.
A highlight feature of the 3.0 release for many was the WYSIWYG editor. However, the most notable for me was the added support for WordPress custom fields, which — when combined with this Linked List plugin — makes posting links on my site a breeze.
Simplenote 3.0
Simplenote is an iPhone and iPad app that offers a minimalistic writing and note-taking interface and over-the-air syncing. Version 3 shipped in August, and is the sort of app adored by those who pride themselves in their use of beautiful and uncomplicated software.
Simplenote is also an app for people with ideas. It’s for those who need some way to jot an idea down, build on it, and refine it until they’re sick and tired of it, regardless of where they are or if they brought their laptop.
And as a writer, Simplenote could very well be your principal writing app. It has a straightforward design that makes it effortless to use. In Simplenote there is no text formatting, it’s just plain. There is no document titling — when you create a new note, the first line is the title. There is no saving a note — you just write and your note is backed up in real time, and even synced with any other other devices you use: iPad, iPhone, and Mac.
Dropbox 1.0
The most common misconception about Dropbox is that it’s solely for file syncing between multiple computers. Well, I only own one computer and I use Dropbox all day long.
Because Dropbox syncs your files to the Web, I use it to keep all folders for my current projects. This means things I am working on at the present moment are always backed up to the Web.
Also, by using Symlinks, I have the Application Support Folder for my most-used apps (MarsEdit, Yojimbo, 1Password, OmniFocus) sitting in Dropbox as well. Which means if I didn’t back up my laptop for a week or two, chances are good I would hardly lose anything important. And if I drop my laptop out the car window on the way home from work, I for sure wouldn’t lose anything from the day.
Dropbox finally hit version 1.0 in December, adding some stability issues and, most notably, options for selective syncing of folders.
Instagram launched in October and by the end of 2010 had over 1,000,000 users. It’s part iPhone app, part social network, all fun.
It’s an iPhone-only app that works somewhat like Twitter but with photos. You take a quick snapshot, apply a filter, and share it with your followers. You can also send those photos to your Flickr, Tumblr, and/or Posterus accounts, as well as sharing them on Twitter and Facebook.
Instagram is low friction, and high-fun. And now that Twitter displays Instagram Media inline, it’s not unlike using TwitPic to post photos to your Twitter account. You can find me on Instagram as “shawnblanc”.
They’re lowering their prices to allow for faster moving of their apps, and so current users can “upgrade” to the App Store versions. RapidWeaver will be 50% less than it is now. Courier will be exclusive to the Mac App Store and priced 75% less than it is now.
Realmac’s thoughts on the Mac App Store and its apps in general were posted yesterday.
Brett Kelly:
When I pay for services, I’m paying for less friction than the free alternative. Which, far as I’m concerned, means more time doing actual work than stumping around with subpar tools. [...] Time spent using tools that could work better or for which there are better alternatives is time wasted.
Who knew? All your missing Lego pieces were stolen by a guy with a mustache.
Hilarious sketch from Ronnie Corbett’s BBC show. (Via Sperte.)
Today Randy delegated a to-do item to me: promote his article on delegation. But in all seriousness, this is a great article.
My guess is that most of you are the sort of worker who knows that if you do the job yourself it will be done right the first time. And so you always default to just doing it yourself. But delegation is crucial to managing your time and living your life with focus. And that’s especially true if you’re a boss or a manager.
Some tasks you just shouldn’t be doing yourself, even if you could do it better and faster yourself. By avoiding delegation you are piling up work for yourself that may not be the best use of your time. As a boss you’re the only person who can do Task A. Yet you’re spending your time on Tasks B, C, and D because you’ve decided you can do them quicker than someone else. And so Task A (the one that only you can do) never gets done. You should delegate Tasks B, C, and D so you can be free to do Task A.
Also, did you know that by avoiding delegation you are robbing others of their chance to learn new skills?
A neat look at how Sergio Ruiz, a newcomer to Levenger, has gotten hooked on the Circa notebook.
I am a huge fan of Levenger — office supplies for the geekiest of geeks and pickiest of nitpickers.
Very astute essay by Marco Arment on the market which the iPad basically carved out for itself.
Cyberspace is a web browser for the iPhone and iPad, optimized for discovering, reading and sharing. Enjoy a clutter-free experience with ad-blocker, one tap access to the Readability bookmarklet, and a dedicated Text mode. Add any links to the reading queue and visit them after you’re done reading the current page. Have quick access to both your local bookmarks and those saved on online services like Pinboard and Delicious.
Cyberspace supports sharing content via Instapaper, Read It Later, Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, Delicious, Pinboard, and Google Reader. Cyberspace also features integration with Pastebot, OmniFocus, TextExpander and DuckDuckGo search engine.
If you’ve got plans ship something this year, what better way to promote it than by sponsoring the RSS feed. Booking a sponsorship will put your product or service directly in front of a mighty fine audience of more than 7,000 readers.
For more details check out the sponsorship page. To schedule your sponsorship, or if you have any questions, please get in touch.
Kev Rodgers went through the Sweet Mac Setups and tallied up all those who use laptops and an external display to see where the laptop is located and if it’s open or closed. I keep my MacBook Pro closed, on the right-hand side, propped up in a Twelve South BookArc Stand.
I’ve wanted to do something like this for a while (especially with the software lists because, to me, those are the real meat of the Sweet Mac Setups). It would be cool to see the stats on what the most popular text editor is, the most popular browser, the most obscure piece of software, any common themes for the ideal setups, etc…
