• Canalys:

  Apple, after reporting stellar results, became the leading worldwide client PC vendor in Q4 2011. Apple shipped over 15 million iPads and five million Macs, representing 17% of the total 120 million client PCs shipped globally in Q4.

• Wikipedia (from the definition of “Personal Computer”):

  A personal computer (PC) is any general-purpose computer whose size, capabilities, and original sales price make it useful for individuals, and which is intended to be operated directly by an end-user with no intervening computer operator.

• Webster (from the definition of “Personal Computer”):

  a microcomputer designed for individual use, as by a person in an office or at home or school, for such applications as word processing, data management, financial analysis, or computer games.

• Ken Fisher:

  I consider the iPad a PC because, in my view, a PC (Personal Computer) is just that: a personal computing device.

  In my Big Sky view, the PC is best understood as a bundled trajectory of technologies, of which the iPad is a significant plot point in the development of mobile computing. That is to say, I view iPads in the same vein as laptops, believing that for 98 percent of the world, the iPad is equivalent to a laptop, in terms of intended uses. When we fast forward 15 years, I expect that today’s laptop will seem most antiquated to us, having been replaced by tablet-based experiences. I do not think the home PC will feel quite so antiquated.

• Don Reisinger

  Although the tablet doesn’t look like a PC or act like a PC in the simplest sense, it is a PC. From its functionality to its design, there is simply no reason people should look at the iPad and think it can’t hold up against desktops, notebooks and netbooks.

• Harry McCracken:

  I think it’s possible to use an iPad as one’s primary device for professional-level content creation. Actually, scratch that. I’m positive it’s possible—because I’ve been doing it for the past three months, and I’ve been having a really good time.

• Chuck Skoda:

  The iPad was the first computer built to meet you on your terms. It brings the last 35 years of digital technology into the physical world in a way so natural, not only do grandmas and toddlers get it, but so do kittens and lizards.

• Terry Lucy:

  When Apple released the iPad, I would argue that it actually released the first, truly personal, computer.

• Graham Spencer:

  So if you are excluding the iPad from the personal computer category, does that mean there is some checklist of requirements for a device to be a PC? Does it need a keyboard, or perhaps a trackpad or a mouse, or does it just have to be able to install any application you want (without the approval of a gatekeeper such as Apple)? All of these ‘requirements’ are completely arbitrary — with no practical reason as to why they are required to be on a PC.

• Matthew Panzarino:

  Look, tablets are PCs, get over it.

• Andy Faust:

  It’s replacing people’s needs for traditional computing environments in the home and office, and people are buying it in record numbers.

• MG Siegler:

  All you need to know about the “is the iPad a PC?” argument: are people buying them instead of traditional PCs? Sure looks like it.

Nay

• Patrick Moorhead:

  The way technology is headed in the future, calling the iPad a PC will set precedence that will only lead to even more confusion and misinformation. [...] Let’s stop classifying the iPad as a PC, it only serves to confuse people.

• Adrian Kingsley-Hughes:

  I agree with Moorhead, it’s time to stop the madness. If tablets are classed as PCs then why not smartphones? Or smartfridges? Or digital watches?

• Eric Grevstad:

  People are using tablets for e-reading, Web surfing, and movie viewing. And—at least for now, at least if you focus on real-world usage patterns—I say Canalys is wrong to count tablets as PCs.

But are We Asking the Wrong Question?

I can’t help but think that asking if the iPad is a PC or not is to ask the wrong question.

Shouldn’t the question be: are consumers buying iPads and other tablets instead of traditional personal computers?

I suppose that the answer to that question would also answer if the iPad is a PC or not, but focusing on the latter seems to be missing the point.

To re-quote MG Siegler:

All you need to know about the “is the iPad a PC?” argument: are people buying them instead of traditional PCs? Sure looks like it.

That is exactly the point. There will come a time when the majority of consumers who are in the market for a new personal computer will consider (and buy) an iPad or other tablet rather than a laptop or desktop computer. And when that time comes, the debate about the iPad being a PC or not will be over.

The market will decide that the iPad is a PC by buying them instead of laptops and desktops.

It seems that those arguing against the iPad being called a PC are really trying to make their own point that, for them, an iPad could not replace their PC. When they say the iPad is not a PC what they mean is that either: (a) there’s no way I would or could give up my PC and use an iPad instead; or (b) the iPad is not yet a PC, but it probably will be soon.

The reason this discussion about “if the iPad is a PC or not” is interesting is because the iPad is already proving to be disruptive to the PC market.

Horace Dediu writes:

The impact of the iPad is not specific to any single vendor (Apple included). It competes for time and purchase decisions across all computing alternatives and though many times it’s additive, it is also substitutive and will become increasingly so.

Backing away from the minutia of what the true definition is of a PC, we see that millions of people are buying iPads and using them for all sorts of purposes. And why shouldn’t they? The iPad is relatively inexpensive, it is fun, it has incredible battery life, it is extremely lightweight and portable, you don’t have to get it out of your bag for airport security, and it does most all the same basic tasks your laptop or desktop can do.

The fact that: (a) such a young device could be such a smashing success; and that (b) it could disrupt the decades-old PC market, are both interesting topics for discussion. And that discussion is manifesting itself as: “is the iPad a PC or not?”

It’s fascinating that such a small and inexpensive tablet device actually has a shot at replacing someone’s large and expensive desktop computer. But what else is fascinating is that the device and the market are less than 2 years old and people are already starting to make that transition.

For millions of people, an iPad is a perfectly good replacement for their laptop or desktop. They just don’t know it yet.

The event has undergone a lot of change just since 2009. After Apple’s last attendance that year, Macworld moved the traditional January date back to February in 2010. Then in 2011 they moved the event over to Moscone West. And for this year, 2012, they changed the name to “Macworld | iWorld”.

Nobody I spoke with liked the new name, “Macworld | iWorld”. It’s a bit awkward to say and to type. Pretty much everyone just called it “Macworld”. But the new name, awkward or not, is fitting. It goes hand-in-hand with what was happening on the show floor and with what has happened to the Apple ecosystem in general.

At the expo, the vast majority of the 250 booths were somehow related to iDevices. Many booths were selling iPhone and iPad cases, an entire section of the show floor was dedicated just to iOS apps, and I’ve never seen so many people using iPhones in my life. I even overheard a conversation about one lady who had just bought her first iPhone and was at Macworld in order to discover some new apps.

In years past, the entire event was dedicated to the Mac and to desktop software. Then the iPod-related booths began coming in, and now, just five years after the iPhone was announced, the OS X section of the show floor (though it was one of my favorite sections, filled with booths by many of my favorite 3rd-party devs) finds itself back in the corner of the Exhibit Hall. OS X and desktop software will always have a soft spot in my heart, and so in a way it was saddening to see such a relatively small amount of space relegated for what was once Apple’s flagship operating system.

In short, Macworld | iWorld mirrored what the charts have been saying for quite some time: iOS is the future of Apple.

The Macworld brand holds too much history and clout to be dropped altogether (I assume). But if it did not, then I could see the next change for this event being to change the name altogether to just “iWorld”. Surely the day will come when the majority of attendees at the Expo will own an iPhone and/or iPad, but not a Mac.

In addition to being my first Macworld event, this was also the first time I’ve spent any significant amount of time in Moscone West.

Moscone West is a beautiful building. It is large and open, full of natural light, clean, and easy to find your way around in. When I walked into the Exhibit Hall on Thursday morning, the whole room smelled like a newly-unpacked Nintendo Entertainment System — you know? that fresh gadget smell?

The show floor was lined with wall-to-wall blue carpet. The vendor booths were arranged side-by-side and back-to-back in order to create the 9 aisles that attendees walked up and down. It was jam packed with people every time I was in there.

I had an iFan pass that got me access to the show floor and to the panels and sessions being held upstairs, but only a few piqued my interest enough to pull me away from meeting with people downstairs in the Exhibit Hall — like most attendees, the majority of my time at Macworld Expo was spent walking the show room floor. Moreover, many of my favorite panels were held on the Macworld Live stage, which was located in the back of the Exhibit Hall.

The three sessions I did catch were: - 40 Tips in 40 Minutes with David Sparks, Merlin Mann, and Brett Terpstra; - The State of Apple live panel with Jason Snell, Andy Ihnatko, and John Gruber; and - Less Than Perfect Apps live panel with Lex Friedman, John Gruber, Dave Wiskus, Guy English, Glenn Fleishman, and Paul Kafasis.

Each of these sessions were packed with standing room only. We arrived about 30 minutes early to each session in order to get front row seats. After each presentation ended, it was always an honor to shake hands with some of these guys for the first time.

Additionally, many of my favorite 3rd-party developers were there as exhibitors: Smile software, Studio Neat, Realmac, Flexibits, BusyMac, Omni, Rogue Amoeba, and others. It was great to meet these guys as well.

According to the event guide, there were roughly 250 booths. The first booth I noticed when entering the Exhibit Hall was the Omni Group booth. They were right in front by the main entrance and basically had a small OmniLivingRoom set up with tables, iPads, iMacs, and a giant Samsung TV. Their booth was filled with Omni employees that I had the privilege of talking to, and they regularly had guests give software demos via the television. They were passing out Omni-branded M&Ms, utility notebooks, and large manilla envelopes the size of an iPad 2.

For each booth I visited, one of the default questions I would ask was how the show is going. Every exhibitor replied that it was going great. Many of the booths were selling physical goods — such as Doxie, Studio Neat, and the ōlloclip guys — and a few exhibitors let me know that they had more than paid for their booth space through retail sales. A lot of booths even sold out of their inventory.

To me, the best booths were those staffed by the actual owners or developers. I got a demo from the guys at Rage Software and left impressed by one of their SEO apps. Nik Fletcher gave us a demo of Clear. Dan and Tom were manning the Studio Neat booth and selling Cosmonauts faster than I could write this sentence. And I got to meet Greg and Jean at the Smile booth; it’s nice to shake hands with someone who’s awesome software has literally helped you shave hours of your work week.

The Polk Audio booth became my default conversation starter. They had a giant section in the middle of the showroom floor in order to sell their new sports in-ear headphones and had a skier, a snowboarder, and a gymnast all doing tricks and flips on a big trampoline. It was a blast to watch.

What’s New?

Macworld Expo placed a strong emphasis on apps and products that were launching that weekend during the event.

Among other great products, the most notable Macworld announcements in recent years have been the iPhone and the MacBook Air. However, now that Apple is no longer in attendance at Macworld there is not nearly the same large draw for people around the world to look to Macworld for announcements about what is new.

In the Event Guide, on the page listing all of the exhibitors on the show floor, a special “First Looks” icon was placed next to each exhibitor’s name if they were launching a product at Macworld | iWorld. From the brochure:

The Macworld | iWorld First Looks Program is all about highlighting new-to-market products that will debut at the show, and helping attendees and the media learn more about them. During Macworld | iWorld, First Looks product walls will be on display throughout the Moscone Center to help attendees identify and locate the products being introduced. Be the first to see and test all the new products launching at Macworld | iWorld.

I didn’t see the product walls during the event, but it did seem clear to me that Macworld was making a concerted effort to reward companies who launched something new during the Expo.

In addition to the First Looks stuff, I learned during the event that for an app or a product to be eligible for a Macworld Best of Show award it had to launch during the event. Exhibitors with booths at Macworld who had launched a new app last fall were, unfortunately, ineligible for the award.

It’s important for Macworld | iWorld to be more than just a consumer-facing exposition event, and encouraging vendors to launch new products at the event is a great way to keep cultivating Macworld as a seedbed for breaking news.

From a professional standpoint, attending Macworld was a no-brainer. As a writer, meeting peers in my field and developers whose products I write about was invaluable. Relatedly, I didn’t crack my MacBook Air open one time during the whole event. All the notes I took, all the links I posted, all the writing I did, I did from my iPhone. How fitting, eh?

From a personal standpoint, the conference felt more like a vacation than a business trip. All my time in San Francisco was spent with friends and peers. Either hanging out and walking the exhibit hall, sitting in on panels, visiting the Apple campus, or sharing a meal or a coffee.

I had many conversations with exhibitors, attendees, and press folk, and nobody I met or spoke with was disappointed that they were there. In short, Macworld 2012 was a fantastic show filled with fantastic folks. I’ll see you again in 2013.

That’s why I’m in San Francisco this week for Macworld. Though I will surely write about the event and what transpires this week, that’s not my primary purpose for attending. I’m not here as a journalist with the goal of covering this Apple-centric event so much as I am here to meet the Mac nerds I am privileged to work alongside all year long.

A handshake and a “nice to meet you” is worth so much more than an @reply. A conversation over a cup of coffee is better than two dozen emails.

I’m not here for the event, but for the folks who’ll be filling the sidewalks and the Expo Floor. Putting faces to bylines and building real-world relationships with those who I read and write about make my job back home far more enjoyable.

1. Writing and Editing: The first and most important component to publishing a book is the actual writing of it followed by the editing of that writing.

2. Distribution: How will you sell it and distribute it?

3. Medium: Will it be a PDF, an eBook, a physical book, or any combination? And now there is a new medium: an iBooks book. This is more akin to book-app combos such as Our Choice by Al Gore and Push Pop Press.

   Our Choice is a deeply interactive book that shipped as a standalone iPad app. However, version 2 of iBooks now supports books like this natively. If you want to make a powerful, interactive, unique-looking book you can do so via Apple’s new tools, and then you can ship and sell them as books, not apps.

4. Design / Layout: Until today, if you wanted a book that worked like Our Choice then you needed to hire an iOS developer to build your book in Xcode. If you were designing a PDF or eBook you could do it in Microsoft Word or Pages, or for more control of the design you could use Adobe InDesign. The cost of these tools ranges from $19 (for Pages), to hundreds of dollars (for InDesign), to thousands of dollars (to hire iOS devs).

   But now, if you want to make an attractive and interactive eBook you don’t have to hire an iOS developer to build you a dedicated app. If you are even remotely familiar with Pages then you’ll be able to take what you’ve written and turn it into a good looking and interactive book for the iPad and then distribute it on the iBookstore to an audience of millions of iPad owners who can buy it and download it with one tap.

In short, the iBooks Author app is a huge breakthrough for the independent writer and publisher. In this author’s humble opinion, this new and free app from Apple was the primary announcement of Apple’s education event today.

iBooks Author is the iPad SDK for writers and publishers. And it’s been simplified so it’s as easy to use as a word processor.

Between the inception of an idea and its advent there is a great deal of hard work and many opportunities to quit. It takes skill and character to push through and ship something when you’re afraid of failing, or of being embarrassed, or even afraid of succeeding (What if this actually works!?).

However, courage isn’t the only character trait needed when it comes to turning our ideas into something tangible…

I suspect many of you can relate to the dilemma of having more ideas than time. Which means that, in addition to endurance, we also need discernment to know what ideas are worth pursuing and what ideas we should let go of.

Discernment is anything but an exact science, but I do have a bit of a routine that I find myself acting out every time one of my ideas seems to have an extra amount of energy behind it.

• The first rule of ideas is that they have no rules. They can strike at any moment, but they prefer awkward locations when we cannot write anything down. Such as: when mowing the lawn, taking a shower, driving to the airport, or working out at the gym.

  The reason ideas love to pop up at these times is because when our mind is at rest doing a mindless task or routine (such as showering), things are free to float to the surface. Not only do new ideas come to us at these times, but also solutions to current problems. As Paul Graham says, what one thinks about in the shower in the morning is quite important.

• My first reaction to a new idea is to write it down as soon as I can. Since the idea is still organic and fresh at first, it’s important to jot it down in its purest form. Also, by writing the idea down it clears my mind to continue thinking about the idea some more and even exploring its grander scope. Or sometimes, after I’ve written the idea down I have nothing more to think about and my mind is clear once again.

  This is why I keep a waterproof notepad in the shower, I have a Keyboard Maestro shortcut key that brings up a new TextEdit window in a split second, and I keep DropVox close by on my iPhone’s 2nd Home screen.

• Once I’ve written down the idea, I let it simmer. Sometimes I keep thinking on it over the next days, weeks, or months, and sometimes I forget about it altogether.

  If I find that it keeps coming back to me, I’ll bring it up in conversation during dinner with Anna to see what she thinks about. And, if I’ve already thought of a cool name for this new project or venture then I’ll buy the URL as well. (More ideas than time, but also, more URLs than ideas shipped.)

• If Anna likes it even a little bit, then I’ll start crunching the practical details and asking myself a lot of questions:

  • If this idea were to turn into something tangible then what does that look like?
  • How will the website work?
  • How will I market it?
  • Will I be proud of it?
  • How much of my time will it take to build and ship it, and then how much time will go into maintaining it?
  • Will it be worth my time? What is the expected return on my investment of time and money? (And that return doesn’t necessarily have to be a directly financial one — sometimes new projects have indirect financial returns through other means.)

• If all of the above seem viable, then I begin pitching it to some trusted friends in order to get their feedback. I ask them to shoot holes in the idea and tell me why the name (and thus the URL) is dumb. I ask them to tell me what they do and don’t like about it and if they think it could work.

• And so, if everything seems to add up and the idea just won’t go away, that is usually when I decide to go for it.

Going for it doesn’t guarantee success. But to me, that’s not entirely the point. I want to take risks, try new things, and continue to build and create. If I was guaranteed to succeed then it wouldn’t be called a risk. And if I waited for the can’t-fail moment, then I would never try anything new. The key is discerning what’s worth going for and what’s worth shelving.

They say good is the enemy of great, and I agree. Some ideas, as good as they are, should be left alone so that when a great idea comes along there is a place for it. Discerning the difference between a good idea and a great one takes practice and the support of trusted friends and advisors.

People stopped buying computers based on specifications and features years ago. All computers sold now are practically identical in functionality. Today, people are increasingly buying computers the same way they buy cars: to define themselves.

That’s an interesting and very touchy thought, and I mostly agree with Dustin. I realize this is a very deep and personal topic and I am not going to give it the justice it deserves in this one post, but it is a topic worthy of consideration. It is the topic of people trying to be defined by their stuff. It is the consumerist culture. It is something that Chris and I talked about on his latest episode of Creatiplicity, and it is something that came out strongly in Mat Honan’s vulnerable CES article.

You can tell a lot about a man by looking at the sort of car he drives, the grill in his back yard, the phone in his pocket, or the computer in his office. But there is no right or wrong answer here — bigger and more expensive stuff is not at all synonymous with good character and high moral values. In fact, sadly, often the opposite is true.

Instead, look at how he (or she) treats his family. What is his character like? Look at his relationships and his beliefs and how he spends his time. These things — the metaphysical, the intangible — they are the true extension of the soul.

I may drive a Jeep because I’m a Colorado boy at heart, and I may own a charcoal grill because I like things “pure”, and I may own Apple gadgets because I have an affinity for fine software. So yes, you can tell a lot about me by the things I own. But they are just that — things. They can be stolen, broken, taken, and lost. They should never become distractions to the things that matter most, nor should I ever allow them to define my character, my relationships, and my beliefs.

• I’ve been with my bank for a decade. I run my business finances through them, my personal checking account, a savings account, and my home mortgage. About twice a week I get a letter in the mail from them trying to sell me a new credit card or insurance package. Last week I got an application for a debit card rewards program that I am already enrolled in. Alas, as a customer, I’ve been told I cannot opt out of this junk mail.

• I’ve been getting my internet service from Time Warner Cable for 9 years. They provide the fastest internet in my neighborhood and I have always subscribed to their top-of-the-line service plan. About once a month I get a letter in the mail that says “Urgent Customer Information” on the envelope. Yet I open the letter only to find that it is junk mail, trying to up-sell me to a phone and TV package as well.

• My wife and I have been AT&T customers since 2007. We have a family plan with unlimited texting, and the expensive data plan for our iPhones. For years they sent me junk mail trying to get me to sign up for their U-Verse services. One day I finally called to look into it only to find out that it wasn’t even available in my neighborhood.

Getting junk mail and advertisements from companies I don’t do business with is annoying enough. But getting it from the companies which I have been a long-time and deeply invested customer is quite annoying.

I understand the need to make known new services and new promotions to your customer base. If TWC gets a newer and faster internet service I want to know about it so I can consider upgrading.

You would think that at the bare minimum a company would let me opt out of their junk mail, would not cry wolf by pretending their junk mail is urgent when it’s really just and ad, and would not waste our time by trying to sell me something that I can’t even buy.

Alas, these companies are not targeting me with a relevant promotion. I am simply a name on a database that they know is up-to-date because I paid my bill last month.

Blanket marketing is easy because all it takes is money — you design a flyer and send it to as many addresses as you can find. It’s like throwing spaghetti at your customers to see what sticks on who.

Relevant marketing, however, is hard because it requires thought and planning.

Now, software on mobile phones is like baby software. It’s not so powerful. And today, we’re going to show you a software breakthrough. Software that’s at least 5 years ahead of what’s on any other phone.

This is a tough thing to answer because you can’t just set iOS down next to Windows Phone and webOS and Android and make a clear cut judgment that yes they have finally caught up to iOS or that no they haven’t.

Dan Frommer takes a swing and writes some good thoughts:

So, was the iPhone really 5 years ahead of everyone? Have any of Apple’s competitors caught up to the original iPhone, let alone today’s?

Yes and no.

It’s true. If you were to compare feature to feature only, then Android and iOS come out pretty much even. They are both touch-screen operating systems. They both have scrolling list views, Web browsers, and email clients. And they both have an app store.

But in many ways, iOS and Android are on two different planets.

The user experience is certainly different between the two. And while Android is much more responsive in version 4.0, there are still no killer 3rd-party apps, and Android still feels a bit awkward.

And that is what I think Steve Jobs was talking about when he said that the iPhone was at least 5 years ahead.

For Steve and for Apple, software is not just about the feature set. It’s about the entire user experience. The fact that the original iPhone didn’t have copy and paste is a testament to how Apple sees the user experience as more important than the feature set. In that regard, 5 years later, iOS is still ahead.

You can use Apple’s ideas and you can copy their products, but you cannot copy the time and energy they put into those products, and you cannot copy their attention to detail. Those you have to do on your own. Five years later, some companies still haven’t figured that out.

I am Brian Stucki. I live in Las Vegas with my wife and 2.6 kids. (We’re due in April with our first girl.) I’m a fan of history, travel and golf. Though, I’m so bad that my golf game probably deserves to be history. Most of my stuff is located at BrianStucki.com and I’m @BrianStucki.

I enjoy starting new projects, building them out, and then selling them for funds to invest in something else. My first time was my golf club cleaning business when I was 11. I had 6 customers that would golf then leave their clubs with me to clean up and have ready for them. More recently it’s been blogs about software, TV show fansites, and even a successful iPad app. The projects have all been great reasons to learn new technology and improve business acumen.

I own Macminicolo, which is my main work focus. We’re turning 7 years old soon. When we first introduced the company, there was quite a bit of doubt (Hi, slashdot friends) but now thousands of minis later, the little machines roll on more powerful than ever.

What is your current setup?

I work from my home office nearly all of the time. I have other locations to be “more business official” but the truth is that seeing my wife and kids often is really important to me. In my home, my office is at the end of a long hall where I can close the door and have quiet. (There is usually James Taylor playing to keep me focused.) However, I’ll regularly step away from the desk to play some catch or color the super-hero of the day. I think this balance is critical.

When I’m in my office, I’m working on a black-brown Galant Desk from Ikea. By design, there is a lot of desk space, and it’s nearly always clean. I really, really struggle to think when surrounded by clutter.

For office hardware, I use a Mid-2011 27″ iMac with 16GB of RAM and a 2TB SATA Drive+256GB SSD combo. Sitting beside the iMac is a 27″ Cinema Display, an iPad 2 16GB+3G, (AT&T because coverage is quite good in Las Vegas). I use an iPhone 4S (AT&T). I use an Apple Wireless Keyboard, An Apple Magic Mouse, and have a Magic Trackpad stuffed in my drawer that I used for twenty minutes and haven’t touched since. I use an Airport Extreme to spray wireless throughout the house. I back up to a media Mac mini that’s hard wired to the router, making up one-third of my tri-approach to backups.

For the Macminicolo data center, it’s minis, minis and more minis. Within the next month, there will be one thousand operating Mac minis in the data center. We have some minis that have been here since day one serving for seven continuous years. (1.25 G4 with 256MB of RAM and a 40GB hard drive). And of course, the new i5/i7 machines have been very popular. (1.5TB disk space, 16GB of RAM.)

While in the data center, I use a Mid-2011 MacBook Air. It’s the base version with 1.6 GHz Intel Core i5 processor and 2GB of RAM.

Two non-Apple hardware items that I use all the time for work and couldn’t function without are a ScanSnap S1500M and a base Kindle. I document all of my travel in the Field Notes County Fair Box Set of all 50 States and keep a good supply of my favorite pen.

Why this rig?

iMac

I love the HDD/SSD combo. Nearly all of my everyday stuff is on the SSD (Mail, Apps, iPhoto, etc.) and then I symlink to the HDD for the large data items (iTunes music, iMovie footage, software disk images.) But the best use of the HDD is a nightly place to clone the SSD boot drive without having to have a hard drive plugged into the back of the iMac. It keeps things clean, and keeps me with a bootable backup.

I purchased the 27″ iMac and 27″ Cinema Display because I think any cost in desktop space is proportional to increase in productivity. The iMac screen is showing whatever I’m working on right now. On the Cinema Display, I keep my staple apps open and viewable (i.e. Mail, Twitter for Mac, iChat Buddy list, etc.). Easy to view, quick to reply with customers, etc.

iPad 2

If I am sitting at my desk, the iPad is usually streaming that day’s Red Sox game. When I have a full desktop at my fingertips, I prefer to use it. But if I’m in a meeting the iPad is my main tool. It lets me control Mac minis in the data center, and keep up with all news and messages. I intended to tether my iPad to my iPhone when on the road but that hasn’t happened. It turns out that I still have not disabled the 3G on the iPad itself. It is too convenient to have it always on.

iPhone 4S

If I am on the move or traveling, my iPhone is nearly always the only technology I have on me. I use to bring around a laptop, and then the iPad, but I later realized that the iPhone can hold me over for an extended period of time. I had an iPhone moment the other day. As I pulled into a parking spot at the store, I was: (1) streaming music to my car via bluetooth; (2) controlling a Mac mini in the data center with Screen Sharing; (3) seeing Twitter notifications drop down; and, (4) beaming my location to my wife (via find my friends) as we were meeting at the nearby restaurant. From a phone. Seriously.

MacBook Air

I purchased this laptop for use in the data center. I wondered if the 11-inch screen might be too small but that has proven inaccurate. With Mission Control, full-screen apps, screen sharing, and an incredible battery life, it has been a perfect tool.

Mac mini

I do not think it is possible to list all the activities that the Mac minis are being used for in the data center. We have popular iOS developers hosting here (Bjango.com), numerous Apple employees (who shall remain without name unless they so choose), quite a few Filemaker resellers and small businesses/tinkerers in 47 different countries around the world.

When I say the Mac mini is a great server, I practice what I preach. Our main site, our support site, and our stats/monitoring all run on Mac minis here. I also have some other services running on minis that you may have used in the past Fireballed.org (a mirror for DaringFireball.net), DayliteHosting.com, and our lesser known iPadcolo.net.

What software do you use and for what do you use it?

I suppose it’s easiest to break this up by product line.

Personal Mac

• Lion: All my machines are using the latest Lion operating system. I still hear of hesitation to upgrade, but I think it’s been quite stable.

• Day One: I have kept a journal for 12 years. I am nearing 5000 personal entries spread across paper, books, and applications. It is an absolute treasure to look back on so many important moments of my life. Recently I have moved to Day One and I have found it incredibly well done. I would recommend it to anyone wanting to start a journal.

• Money: Of all the money apps on Mac and iOS I think this one is best designed across the board. It is clean, and works well. It falls short when it comes to syncing a high number of entries, but they are introducing iCloud for Mac/iOS soon and that will be great.

• 1Password: Such a time saver when one tries every new online service and network and has to keep the credentials straight. A little part of me cringes every time a Mac user hand types a password into a site. I also love that it will auto-populate as you log into sites for the first time.

• Twitter for Mac: I think Twitter does well with their official Mac client. My only wish is that you could have a separate window for each Twitter account.

• Smultron: My favorite text editor. It was free for a long time, but even at its new price , I think it is worth it.

• SuperDuper!: I mentioned earlier that I backup my SSD to my internal HDD. Once a week, I clone the 2TB hard drive to an external drive with this app, then take that down to the data center for safe storage. All these years and SuperDuper has never failed me on a bootable backup.

• Caffeine for Mac I’m not a coffee drinker (surprisingly Shawn still calls me a friend) so this app is nearly all of the caffeine in my life. It’s a Menu bar item that prevents your Mac from going to sleep or screen saver. If I’m doing other work at my desk and just keeping an eye on the Mac, this prevents the constant mouse jiggle.

iOS Devices

• Reeder: Sometimes RSS feeds can be a time drain, but I get a lot of new ideas from reading the intelligent posts of others. Reeder makes it easy. The ability to send to Instapaper and other services is second to none.

• Tweetbot: The great thing about this app is the design of every little detail. Swipe left to see replies. Tap and hold the icon for options. So intelligent.

• Capture: I believe it was Shawn that pointed me to Capture. Start the app and you are recording video right away. Great for dads.

• Golfshot: Do not waste your time buying and testing other golf apps. Even at the higher price, this one is the best. GPS is accurate. Scoring is thorough. I consider this an essential work app. Everyone needs a place they can clear their mind to think, and the golf course is my place. (I had a roommate in college who thought best in the shower. iPhones are not much use in there.) If I’m struggling with an issue or brainstorming a new business idea,I am usually hitting golf balls somewhere.

• Find my Friends: So often, people assume the worst when you and your spouse use this app to keep track of each other. That is too bad. I have complete trust in my wife, and she in me. Whether she is driving home from vacation, or I am waiting for them to meet me at Grandma’s, this app helps us “communicate” without having to distract while driving.

  I do wish that you could set a recurring “friend” in the app. In other words, all the MMC staff would share location during business hours on weekdays, but not other times. That’d be very convenient.

Macminicolo

• Trackthepack: There are a lot of Mac minis flowing in and out of Las Vegas. This iOS and web app has proven perfect to watch them. I like that you can forward shipment emails to the site and it will automatically add it to your account. (And people wonder how we receive a Mac mini and then have it installed within an hour or two. This app is our secret.)

• iTeleport: I try all the VNC/Screen Sharing apps in the app store. There are many good ones, and some are better designed, but this one has proven most reliable for me.

• Lithium: We use lithium to monitor all bandwidth and traffic on the Macminicolo network. The Lithium Core runs on a Mac mini in the data center and there are Mac/iOS apps to keep an eye on things from afar.

• Boxcar: If there is an issue in the data center, we know about it right away thanks to this app. Sends all sorts of notifications. In a more common (and more fun) occurrence, each time a new customer signs up we get a “Cha-ching” notification. It is like my personal Pavlov experiment.

• Backpack: We coordinate all Macminicolo happenings with Backpack. I will try every new todo application to run the company, but always seem to come back to this great product. It is a shame that no great iOS clients are available for it.

• GoSquared: They have a great dashboard (and a nice free plan) to keep an eye on where your traffic is coming from and going.

• Pastebot: Even after all these years, I still prefer the sales emails to come straight to me. I enjoy that interaction. I like to be there when they start getting ideas for their new mini servers. However, there are definitely some questions that I have received over and over. Pastebot is invaluable to give good thorough answers quickly.

How would your ideal setup look and function?

There is no doubt some overlap in my Apple products. I have reasons for picking each (which I’ve tried to list) but it’s clear I could do without one or two of them. The truth is, I don’t want to. I’m not wealthy, but technology is the one place I’m comfortable to splurge a little with money. My shoes are usually a couple years old, I’ve worn the same brand/style of clothes for 20 years, I’m fine with grilled cheese and a pickle for dinner. Like a lot of you, it doesn’t take many possessions to keep me going. But, I do like cutting edge technology, and I like learning what it can do.

So ideal? I suppose it’s whatever is coming next. And I’ll use it while wearing my old clothes and eating my sandwich dinner.

More Sweet Setups

Brian’s setup is just one in a series of sweet Mac Setups.

The long and the short of it is, I expect 2012 will be a great year for new tech.

The third iPad

Though I doubt it will be called the iPad 3 (probably the iPad HD), I am confident it will have a Retina Display, a better camera, and Siri.

And, I hope, it will be easier to hold in one hand. The biggest culprit to using the iPad with one hand is its weight and the slippery aluminum back. This is a problem I don’t know how to solve without either shrinking the iPad’s size or going to a more “grippy” plastic back. But even the HP TouchPad, which had a plastic back, was not easy to hold with one hand. And we all know that the iPad won’t be getting any smaller.

Perhaps the iPad will simply not be easy to hold one handed for quite some time.

I think the smart cover is here to stay. It’s a winner, in that it’s elegant, clever, and useful.

Also I think Apple is going to sell more of the 3G models. Just a hunch, but as people start to realize that their iPad can serve as a primary computer then an extra $129 to get 3G becomes a valuable upgrade.

The iPad’s wild card is that we still don’t really know what the common upgrade cycle is. For phones they are every 2 years. For iPods they are every 5 years. For computers they are every 3 – 4 years. But what is the iPad’s upgrade cycle?

My hunch is that for most people, the iPad’s upgrade cycle will span out to be once every 2 years. It borders on being as useful as a computer, but it is much more affordable.

A casual poll of my Twitter followers revealed that the vast majority of those who currently are using the original iPad also plan to upgrade to the iPad 3. Especially if it has a Retina Display.

I think the iPad will have a new case because it will accommodate the new internals that make the retina display possible, and also because I think the iPad is still flawed at being easily hold able with one hand.

The Sixth iPhone

It seems to be commonly referred to as the “iPhone 5″, but the 4S is the fifth iPhone. The next iPhone will be the sixth iPhone. But I don’t expect that the next iPhone will be called “iPhone 6″. No doubt they’ll return to just iPhone one year. Maybe this year?

Will the next iPhone have a new case design? Possibly. But only if it’s an improvement. Change for change’s sake is pointless. I don’t think the next iPhone needs a new hardware design, and honestly I would not be surprised if it stayed relatively similar to the current design.

You’ve basically got two theories or trains of thought going one way or the other regarding the next iPhone’s hardware design:

• Theory Number 1: This camp says that the iPhone is on a two-year development cycle that started with the 3G. There was the 3G and then the 3GS. Then there was the 4 followed by the 4S. Next will be the iPhone [whatever] followed by the [whatever]S.

  This theory is proven by the past four years and two development cycles of the iPhone. It’s an easily identifiable pattern, and it makes a strong case for why the next iPhone will have a new hardware design.

  What else make sense about this development cycle is that it does well to help keep current iPhone users happy. Those who upgrade once every 2 years (from 3G → 4 or from 3GS → 4S) don’t feel like they’re getting left out too much in between their upgrade cycles, and those who are hard core enough to upgrade every year still feel that there is something worthwhile to upgrade to.

• Theory Number 2: This camp says that the iPhone 4 is the iPhone that Steve Jobs wanted from the beginning, but it took 4 years of iteration for Apple to get there. I don’t know that I would say the hardware design of the iPhone 4S is perfect, but it is darn close. It’s robust, attractive, feels great, looks great, has a killer display, a great camera, long battery life, and strong cellular reception.

  Moreover, Apple is still having trouble keeping up with consumer demand for the iPhone. Keeping the same hardware design will not only allow them to further improve upon their production times, it will also allow them to focus more energy on the internals of the phone. Hopefully bringing us faster mobile data speeds, faster processors, longer battery life, and who knows what else.

But the wild card is that in 2007, when Steve Jobs first introduced iPhone, he said that it was 5 years ahead of any other smartphone. It has now been 5 years. I could see the next iPhone being continued iteration because that’s how Apple rolls. But I could also see the next iPhone being something huge, something for the next 5 years.

iOS 6

I’ve only got 2 guesses as to what we’ll see in iOS 6.

• Updated Maps app with voice navigation. When I was using the Galaxy Nexus, this was by far one of the coolest features of Android. Comparatively, iOS maps and navigation are sorely lacking.

• Significant improvements to and the expansion of Siri. As I’ve written below, I expect Siri will already be available on the iPhone 4 and iPad 2 before iOS 6 ships. But I don’t think the current functionality of what Siri does will be expanded until the next major release of iOS. Then I think we’ll see more options (such as the ability to launch and control apps with Siri), and allowing 3rd-party apps to utilize Siri via the iOS 6 SDK.

I also think iOS 6 will be one step closer towards the semi-amalgamation of iOS and OS X. With Lion, Apple tipped their hand that this is where their operating systems are going. I have a hard time picturing the two operating systems being literally identical, but in terms of the front-end user experience I think there will be only more and more similarities.

Put another way, Apple wants OS X to be as easy and safe to use as iOS is.

Speaking of Siri

I have no doubt that in 2012 Siri will branch out to many more Apple products this year, including the iPad 2, iPhone 4, and the latest iPod touch.

And I think we all know it’s only a matter of time until Siri comes to the Desktop. When that time will be, I have no clue.

Thunderbolt Peripherals

Hopefully we’ll begin to see 3rd parties coming out with external hard drives, microphones, USB/Firewire hubs, and other Thunderbolt peripherals this year. One thing I do know for certain is that I’m not buying any of the aforementioned peripherals until I can buy one with Thunderbolt.

15-inch MacBook Air

Before I bought my 13-inch Air I was in want of a 15-inch Air. I loved the screen real estate on my 15-inch MacBook Pro and didn’t want to give that up. What I did want to ditch was the Super Drive and the extra weight. Of course, as you know, I bought a 13-inch Air last summer and I’m glad I did.

Television?

Not yet. I think we’ll see moderate improvements to the current Apple TV’s software (such as the addition of access to our purchased movies), but I don’t think we’ll see the Big Whopper until 2013. There’s not hard proof that Apple is even planning on making a television, but where there’s smoke there’s usually fire. And there is a lot of smoke around this topic.

My reasoning for why an Apple Television (iTV?) won’t be introduced until 2013 is totally random. In short, I’m guessing that 2012 will be a very big year for Macs, iDevices, and iCloud. I see these things laying a stronger foundation for what an Apple television will offer and how it will integrate with all the Apple stuff folks already have, and so this next big thing will ship after this year.

• Best personal news: That Anna and I are going to be parents

• Best new gadget: The 13-inch MacBook Air

• Best article I wrote: “Great Expectations”

• Best review I wrote: Of Android 4.0 and the new Galaxy Nexus

• Best new website: SplatF

• Best new way to make coffee: AeroPress

• Best new Mac app: Hmm. This is a toss-up between Fantastical, Byword, and Reeder

• Best new iPad app: Instapaper 4

• Best new iPhone app: Another toss-up: Tweetbot, Instacast, and Path

• Best new vocation: Writing this website full-time

• The best readers: You guys, of course

Looking at this list I realize that many of the best and most-important things of my life — both personal and professional — have been written about in some form or another on this site. Thank you guys for reading and for letting me write about my life and dreams and passions.

Have a very happy new year, and God bless.

— Shawn

The Galaxy Nexus is the Android world’s version of the iPhone 4S. The software on it is the latest and greatest version of Android, and the hardware is Google’s newest flagship phone made in conjunction with Samsung. As far as Google is concerned, right now, the device and software I have are the best yet. This is the best possible first impression Google could hope for me, an Apple nerd, to have of their products.

I say first impression because this is the first time I have spent longer than 5 minutes with an Android device. I’ve been using the new Nexus as my primary phone to do just about anything and everything I normally would use my iPhone for. Such as: make calls, send texts, check and post to Twitter and Path, listen to Rdio and Pandora, get directions, browse the Web, and read my RSS feeds.

There were things I could not do on the Nexus that I can do on my iPhone, but they were mostly limited to the 3rd-party iOS apps which are not not available on Android Market. Otherwise the Galaxy Nexus worked fine as my full-time phone. Now, if I was impressed and delighted by the hardware and software is another question.

Read on for my review of the Galaxy Nexus and my first impressions of Android.

I. The Galaxy Nexus (Hardware)

The Galaxy Nexus is one of just a few devices that currently run Android 4.0 (a.k.a. “Ice Cream Sandwich”; a.k.a. “ICS”). For me the bigger experience was Android, which I’ll get to later in the review. A device is only as great as the software that runs on it. Moreover, what is good or bad about the Galaxy Nexus as a hardware unit, is not necessarily indicative of what is good and bad about Android. If you don’t like the Nexus you can simply wait for another hardware device that you do like. But if you don’t like Android, then you need to look somewhere else altogether.

Speaking strictly of the hardware, my overall impression of the Galaxy Nexus is that it’s fine from afar, but it is far from fine.

Ironically, the biggest shortcomings of the Galaxy Nexus are also its most-hallmarked features: the screen size and its 4G LTE connectivity.

The 4.65-inch Screen

The screen of Galaxy Nexus is noticeably larger than the iPhone. In fact, it’s larger than any other phone I’ve held or even seen since the ’90s. Every single person I showed the phone to, their first comment was, this thing is huge.

The Nexus is just ever-so-slightly thicker than the iPhone 4S, and it is just ever-so-slightly heavier as well (144g and 141g respectively). But, despite it weighing more than the iPhone 4S, it actually feels lighter when holding the Nexus in one hand and the iPhone in the other.

The huge screen size of the Galaxy Nexus actually made me appreciate the smaller size of my iPhone even more. A smartphone is a mobile device. It is meant to go with you everywhere. It should fit in any pocket on your outfit, it should be tough, it should be easy to use for a few seconds or for several hours, it should have a battery that lasts for a long time, and it should be your favorite gadget because it’s the one that’s with you 24 hours a day.

I never got comfortable with the Galaxy Nexus. I cannot comfortably use the Nexus with one hand because it is just too big. It is too tall and too wide for a comfortable grip, and so the phone never feels balanced and safe in my hand. Professional basketball players may prefer the Galaxy Nexus and its 4.65-inch screen, but I prefer the size of the iPhone.

Not only is the screen of the Galaxy Nexus bigger than the iPhone, the screen technology in the Galaxy Nexus is also different. Both the iPhone and the Galaxy Nexus have gorgeous screens, and I never felt like the Galaxy Nexus had an inferior display — it was extremely crisp — but despite its high density, the Super AMOLED PenTile screen is not a true Retina display like the iPhone 4 and 4S is.

There are two types of Super AMOLED PenTile screens. One type is Super AMOLED plus, and one type is sans-plus. The Galaxy Nexus has a Super AMOLED display (no plus). Which means that it shares sub-pixels, thus even though text looks crisp and colors are bright, if I hold it up close to my eye it is easier to make out the pixels than on the iPhone 4/4S display. This display is nice, but it’s not Retina display nice.

Also, the screen does not do well with large spots of dark color. Dark-colored websites (such as this one) seemed to have textured backgrounds. So did dark apps.

The screen has an ever-so-slight curve to it that I don’t even notice when holding. The curve helps to make the phone more comfortable when held up to my ear when on a call, or when placed in my pocket. And I think it adds a nice aesthetic to the device.

Something else of note about the screen is that it does not have a home button on the bottom. After more than 4 years with an iPhone, I kept going for the Nexus’s Home button, but there is nothing there. To turn on the display you have to tap the “lock/unlock” button which is on the right-hand side of the device toward the top. To unlock the Lock Screen you then slide to unlock the phone, similar to iOS. (You can also use a slide-pattern or even facial recognition to unlock.)

Believe it or not (I bet you believe it), the Lock button and the slide-to-unlock tap target are too far apart from one another. This drove me nuts!

The phone is literally too big to easily and comfortably unlock with one hand. It’s so big, that to hold it in one hand where I can comfortably press the lock/unlock button I am holding the phone in the middle. But in that grip I cannot comfortably reach the slide to unlock slide. And so I would have to shimmy my hand down the phone to be able to reach the slide-to-unlock tap target. Or, I have to use the phone with two hands. It would be better if the “slide to unlock” icon were sitting right underneath the time/date on the Lock screen.

I unlock my iPhone dozens if not hundreds of times per day. It’s a muscle memory at this point and it is a piece of cake. Due to the size of the Galaxy Nexus and the placement of its Lock button, I don’t feel that I have a good solid grip on the phone when holding it in such a way that I can press the hardware lock button and also reach the slide-to-unlock tap target.

This gives the Galaxy Nexus an aura that makes me wonder if it’s supposed to be a tablet that makes phone calls or a phone that you need two hands to use. I realize that’s a goofy and exaggerated statement, but I exaggerate it to make a point I am serious about: the phone is simply too big.

If this were my full-time phone, I’d be sad. It never once was fun or comfortable to hold. I would not recommend this device simply on its size alone.

4G LTE (and therefore, Battery Life as well)

Download and upload speeds on 4G LTE can be crazy fast. When I ran the Speed Test app, the 4G gave me some relatively impressive numbers, with download speeds as fast as 10Mbps and uploads of 5.5Mbps. At times, some of the tests on the 4G network were actually faster than the test run when Wi-Fi was connected — though my 4G numbers were nothing compared to the 44Mbps down and 16Mbps up that Dwight Silverman saw. On average, however, the 4G speeds on Verizon’s LTE network turned out to be comparable to the 3G speeds of AT&T’s network (at least here at my house in Kansas City).

Here are the results from speed tests conducted at my home in Kansas City. These results are the average of 5 consecutive tests I ran using the SpeedTest.net app (which has both an Android and iOS version).

The default of the Galaxy Nexus is to run on LTE and fallback on CDMA. But you can turn off the LTE connection altogether if you want. Which is your only hope if you like battery life.

I would assume that most Android users would like to have the option of being able to turn on or off the 4G connection at their discretion. Because it seems like that is what Android is all about: include lots of options and let the user decide what they want. You get good and bad with this because it means if you don’t like something about the OS you can probably find a hack or a 3rd-party solution to change it. But, on the other side of that coin, you get lots of design and functionality tradeoffs (both in hardware and in software).

Today, 4G LTE may be the quintessential functionality tradeoff. Fortunately you don’t have to leave the LTE connection enabled. Personally, I would like the option of 4G, but in normal day-to-day use of the Galaxy Nexus I would have the 4G connection disabled. I am usually around a hotspot and though the Verizon’s LTE network in Kansas City is pretty good it’s actually not mind-blowing.

With 4G simply being enabled, even if I am at home where I have Wi-Fi, and if I use the Nexus very little, the battery will be dead by the end of my day (about 10 hours). With 4G disabled the phone would last for more than 20 hours with light usage.

Here’s the crazy part: when I am actually using the 4G network for tasks — such as turn-by-turn navigation or video streaming — it will drain 1-percent or more of battery life per minute.

Now, the Galaxy Nexus takes about 90 minutes to charge from 0 to 100-percent when plugged into the wall. Thus, when using 4G data while plugged into the wall charger your battery is basically treading water. If the phone is plugged into a less-powerful power source (such as a USB hub or a car charger) then using 4G will actually drain your battery faster than the power source can charge it — though it will not drain at the same one-percent-per-minute speed.

Earlier this week I spent some time driving around Kansas City in order to field test the turn-by-turn navigation, the LTE network, and the battery life. At 11:30 AM I started out and the battery of the Nexus was at 43-percent. After 25 minutes the battery had drained down to 33-percent even though it was plugged into a car charger.

Think about that. If you’re on a road trip and want to use the 4G LTE network to provide you with driving directions, your drive had better be shorter than 4 hours because even when plugged into a car charger, the battery will not last.

To disable 4G LTE on the Nexus go to: Settings → More → Mobile Networks → Network mode → CDMA.

The Camera

It stinks. It reminds me of the camera on my 3GS.

Here are two pictures of our christmas tree, Doug VI. The one on the left was taken with the Nexus, the one on the right with my iPhone 4S. Both images are straight out of the phones with the default settings.

The lens on the Galaxy Nexus aside, the camera software on Android has some cool features. Including exposure control, silly video effects, and a clever panorama ability.

Hardware Miscellany

• The Galaxy Nexus is glass and plastic. The Galaxy Nexus does not feel cheap, but it does feel lighter and less elegant than the iPhone. Of course, the plastic also helps contribute to the weight. I think if the Nexus were metal and glass like the iPhone it would be much too heavy.

• As I mentioned earlier, there is no Home button on the front. This means, if the phone is on your desk and you want to turn on the display you have to grip it on both sides and press the unlock button. On the iPhone you can simply tap on the Home button. Also, this means if you pull the phone out of your pocket to quickly check the time or see a notification you have to hold the whole phone and balance it properly in order to hit the Lock button and turn on the display.

• The Nexus has “vibrate on touch” on by default. This struck me as annoying at first, but after a few days I got quite used to it. Though I don’t miss it on my iPhone, it is a nice feature that helps with improved typing on the software keyboard.

• The top of the phone got noticeably warm after being on a 15 minute phone call using the 4G LTE network.

• To take a screenshot you press and hold the Lock button and the volume down button. I had to do a quick Google search to figure this out. But apparently screenshots have not always been so easy on Android in the past. I got a lot of comments on Twitter asking how I figured out how to take a screenshot.

  What I also like about the way Android 4.0 handles screenshots is that they go into the Notification Center. If you take a screenshot that you want to use immediately you can swipe down the Notification Center, tap on the screenshot and then act on it.

• There is no branding on the front of the device. The Typography and layout of the lock screen is pretty cool.

• The small, LED notification indicator that pulses on the bottom of the screen is a nice touch. It flashes different colors for different apps that are causing the notification. The colors I’ve seen are white, blue, and yellow. So far as I can tell:

  • White = new email, an update is available for an app, and/or a new message
  • Blue = Official Twitter app
  • Yellow = TweetDeck

• The speaker is pitiful. For such a large screen you would think that the device is primed for media. But it’s not. Even in my quiet living room I could barely make out dialog in a movie. Music streaming was at best light background music. If you plan on using the Nexus to watch movies, keep your earbuds nearby.

Who’s Fighting For the Users?

In short, the Galaxy Nexus seems more like a phone that its makers can brag about making rather than a device that its users would brag about owning. It has all sorts of features that seem great on posters and billboards and board meeting reports, but none of those features enhance the actual user experience.

II. Android 4.0 (Software)

As I mentioned, this is my first long-term exposure to Android. There are several great things about Android that I like, and there are several things about it which drove me bonkers. Some are related to the user experience and some are related to the design and aesthetics of Ice Cream Sandwich.

Android is jam packed with options and customizability. In some cases, these extra options are great. For example, the alarms app and its ability to set multiple repeating alarms, or the battery detail page within the Settings app. But in some cases the extra options seemed annoying .

What can I do on Android that I cannot do on iOS?

Since I’ve been using an iPhone since 2007, it’s easy to list off the slew of functions, features, and 3rd-party apps I’ve grown to rely on over the past four and a half years. But other than the apps, what about Android is different? I asked this question on Twitter, and along with some of my own observations, put together this short list of some of the highest-level things that set Android apart from iOS (not including the two different app store ecosystems).

• Side load apps. This means you don’t have to get your apps via the Android Market. There are pros and cons to this of course. It means you can load any app you want. How many average users do this though?

• Widgets on the home screen. This is one of my favorite features of Android. I have a clock widget, a weather widget, and a quick settings widget that lets me toggle on/off the Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, GPS, and screen rotation lock, and brightness levels. I like how the Android Home screen feels open and functional — it is more than just a springboard.

• Apps are not silos. They can share information with one another and offer services. If you’re in the photos app and you choose to “share” this photo, any app on your phone that can do something with that image is available on the share list. You can mail it, tweet it, paste it into a note, send it as a text message, post it to Path, upload to Picasa, etc. The limit is only the amount of apps you have installed.

• You can replace system apps and services with 3rd party apps, such as the Keyboard (example: Swype).

• Tight integration with Google, and the Google apps are pretty swell — Google Voice, Gmail, navigation, maps — these are all some of the best apps on Android. I use Gmail pretty much like IMAP, so having a native Gmail client on my phone doesn’t have any extra appeal to me.

Android Market and 3rd-Party Apps

Speaking of 3rd-party apps, this is where you can really get locked in to one mobile operating system or another. If you’ve been using one platform for a while you begin to rely on many of the 3rd-party apps that are found on that platform. It’s one thing to learn a new operating system, it is another thing altogether to change your daily workflow and habits because the apps you’ve grown accustomed to no longer exist on your new device.

The Android Market is certainly full of apps, and it gets a lot of traffic. Twitter for Android, for example, has been downloaded more than 10,000,000 times.

To use the market you have to have a Google account. When you search for an app a list of common search terms begins to populate. When you get to an app’s page in the Market you see how many downloads it has had and how many ratings it has. When you download an app you are shown what the app’s permissions are (i.e. what it can access and modify on your phone). For free apps, there is no need to authenticate every time you download an app.

I did not find a single 3rd-party Android app that I felt had the same spit and polish to it as my favorite iOS apps. The Google maps and turn-by-turn voice navigation app were both very impressive, but these are not 3rd-party.

My favorite 3rd-party Android apps were Path and Rdio (which also happen to be iOS apps).

The Difference of iOS Apps That Have Android Versions

• Twitter: The first thing I noticed about the Twitter app was the poor scrolling, and the jankiness when I pulled down to refresh. However, I think this speaks more of Twitter and perhaps less of the entire Android OS because most of the native Android apps scroll very smoothly.

  The official Twitter app does not have an in-app web browser. Thus, links to websites open in the Android browser app. To get back to the main Twitter timeline from a link in an individual tweet means I have to press the Android OS Back button about 4 or 5 times (due to the t.co redirects). Sometimes though I would’t be able to get back at all because the Back button wouldn’t switch me back out of the browser app and back into the Twitter app.

• Path: Path is another app that has an iOS counterpart. There are many things about Path and Twitter that are different on their Android versions than on their iOS versions. For instance, if you’ve used Path then you know how your cover image moves a bit if you pull down on your timeline. On Android the timeline and cover image are static once you reach the “top”. Also the text is much smaller in the Android version than it is on iOS.

• Rdio: I was pleasantly surprised to find Rdio in the Android Market. It is a fine app on Android and works great.

• Square: Another iOS app that also exists on Android. There are more than just these 4 I’m sure.

The Back, Home, and App Switching Buttons

My motto for using the Galaxy Nexus became: “When in doubt, hit the back button.”

When launching an app, nearly every one would place me on the screen that I left it. I would get to an app (such as the settings or email or Twitter) and not be at the “first” screen in that app. If it had been a day or so since last coming into the app I may not have known exactly why I wasn’t looking at the starting screen for that app and so I would simply hit the Back button and see where that got me. Sometimes it would kick me back to the Home screen. Sometimes into another app. And sometimes to the previous page in the app. I’m still not sure I know what the Back button does exactly.

The Home button works as advertised. Tapping it would take you home. Personally, never did get used to this being a software button. I am so used to the hardware Home button on the iPhone, and I often find it through tactile feedback. The Galaxy Nexus’s software home button has to be seen to be touched.

I have read many past reviews about the maddening placement of the home button and how dangerously close to the space bar it is. People would be typing and accidentally hit the home button and be kicked out of their work. I never once had this problem.

The App Switching Button also works as advertised. And is actually one of my favorite little features and UI designs on Android OS. Let’s talk more about it…

App Switching

The fast-app switcher in Android 4.0 is awesome. I love the way it pops up over the screen and shows the screenshots of the apps. I also like how you can swipe an app off the screen to end its background process.

On the other hand, when switching between apps from within apps there is no tip-off within Android to let you know that you’ve switched apps. In iOS this is done by an animations that shows one app’s window moving over and off the screen as another app’s window comes in from behind. You know that you’ve switched to a new app. But in Android there is no such animation.

For example: in TweetDeck and in the Google RSS reader, links to websites would open in the browser app, not the app I was in. There was no animation for it and so I didn’t know I was in the browser app. And so hitting the “Back” button would then take me back to the Web page I had last been on in the browser app, not the screen I was last at in the previous app.

Regarding Options

Android strikes me as an operating system that greatly values having a plethora of options and choice. In fact, if I had to sum up all I’ve learned about Android over the past week it would be about the high value placed on being able to customize your phone.

Compared to Android I can see why iOS seems so “closed” to some people. iOS values simplicity and refinement over tweakability.

Android has options for just about everything. But, in spite of all its options and ability to customize, I didn’t find Android to be more powerful than iOS. Of all the options and choices that I was given by Android, there was nothing in Android that I could not also accomplish on iOS. In fact, the options and choices usually got in my way.

Moreover, of the millions of users on Android, how many exercise this freedom of choice that is a part of the Android OS?

UI Miscellany

I do like the overall “transparent look” of the Android operating system windows. Such as the way the notification panel is semi-transparent over what’s in the background, and the way the fast-app switcher is also semi-transparent.

And I especially love the Android Home screen. Something I have always liked about Android are the way the wallpapers work on the Home screens. Not only the live wallpapers (which I quite enjoy), but also the way that even a static wallpaper will slide slightly in the background as you navigate left and right to different home screens.

I like that you can install widgets on the Home screen that allow you to do certain tasks and access certain settings. I like how many of the Home screen icons are smaller and are not all the exact same square shape with rounded edges. In fact, after using Android my iPhone Home screen felt a bit crowded.

Moreover, on Android your main home screen isn’t the left-most screen. I do not use Spotlight in iOS that often and wouldn’t mind it being two screens to the left.

The Keyboard

One benefit of the larger screen on the Nexus is that it makes for plenty of room to accommodate the keyboard. The Keyboard is one of the nicest things about Android. It felt responsive and easy to tap-type on. It autocorrected nearly perfectly every time. And, most of all, the auto-correct and quick-access bar (or whatever it is called) that sits above the QWERTY keys quickly became an invaluable tool that helped with typing.

Notifications

The way Android handles notifications is excellent. On Android 4.0 the notification only takes over the very top status bar. It is much less graphically driven and is a simple text update. On iOS 5, if you are using it when a notification pops up, it hijacks two rows worth of space on the top of the screen. I like the Android way of doing notifications better.

Scrolling

Scrolling on the Nexus is, for the most part, very fast. Websites that have loaded, list views in native apps and some 3rd-party apps — they all have smooth and fast scrolling. The official Twitter app for Android however is a turd when it comes to scrolling. This is unfortunate because there are no great Twitter clients for Android. In fact, the Twitter mobile website scrolls better on Android than the native Twitter app.

Though Android is responsive, the overall UI still doesn’t feel fast to me. Because it’s not an issue of responsiveness but rather of consistency in design. I can fly through iOS because it’s both responsive and consistent. Android 4.0 on the Galaxy Nexus is responsive, but there are things about it that are inconsistent or confusing. Often times the same actions (such as sharing) in different apps use different buttons stashed away in different places.

Also, the size of the screen really does make a difference. As I’ve said before, I simply cannot easily use the Galaxy Nexus with one hand. That’s not a fault of Android, rather it’s an issue with the Galaxy Nexus hardware. But it does mean the device is slower to use because I cannot get a comfortable grip on it where I can access the whole screen with one hand.

Scrolling a website, like in webOS, is handled better on iOS than on Android. Take a look at this chart I drew comparing scroll behavior in webOS against iOS. Substitute “Android” for “webOS” and the chart is still relevant.

You cannot tap on the top status bar to scroll to the top of the screen. So far as I know, the only way to scroll to the top is to swipe, swipe, swipe. This is a feature of iOS I use all the time.

When you reach the top or bottom of a scroll view a glowing light appears. The scroll view does not rubber band like on iOS. The same goes for left-to-right scrolling. But not so in the Apps and Widgets adder. When I reached the end of the list of pages, the final page acted as if it wanted to turn but could not.

Final Verdict

Android should be reserved for those who know what they are getting into. If someone I know needs a recommendation for what smart phone to get, I would not recommend Android to them.

To those who want to use Android, I say go for it. I don’t think that choice is wrong — there are many fine things about the Android OS and many things it does differently and better than iOS. I can understand how tech-savvy power-users who know what they are getting into would like Android. For them, the trade-offs in certain areas are a welcome sacrifice in exchange for the customizability, the different look, and the plethora of hardware devices to choose from. At the OS level, Android is certainly much more customizable than iOS (you can install a 3rd party keyboard if you don’t like the system’s default one), you can put widgets on the Home screens, and the turn-by-turn voice navigation is killer.

But my overall impression after using Android for a week was that of being underwhelmed. Though the operating system is functional and advanced in certain areas, it still has an overarching feel of still being immature. Moreover, there was nothing on Android that made me feel more empowered compared to using my iPhone.

Sure, there are bits of the Android OS that I like and appreciate, but never once was I wowed or delighted. Which is unfortunate, because those are important elements when you are using a device day in and day out every day of the year.

Affogato

Affogato is designed by Visioa, an iOS development studio based in England. The app is, more or less, an encyclopedia of coffee terms, types, and brews with the relevant descriptions and overviews. There are not many specific details directly related to how to brew a specific type of coffee. Rather, Affogato is primarily an informational app. Though some of the explanations of different drinks include an overview of what that drink’s generic recipe is.

Decaf Sucks

Decaf Sucks is a social network-type of app, where users can (a) post suggestions and reviews of local coffee shops; and (b) find local coffee shops based on other peoples’ reviews.

The idea is great. In reality, however, I have not found any real-life benefit from the app. In part because I am already aware of all the local coffee shops that Decaf Sucks recommends to me here in Kansas City. Also, when I have gone out of town the app has not had enough reviews for where I’m at to be able to recommend a local coffee shop to me. I’ve found that a question to my Twitter followers will yield more suggestions about where to go.

CaféTimer

CaféTimer is nothing more than a 4-minute timer with a picture of a French Press. I love the simplicity of it: launch it and the timer starts. But I would love to see a few options to add different timers. I, for one, do not brew a pot of French Press coffee every day. Usually I brew my AeroPress, and sometimes I brew my siphon pot. Neither of these brew for 4 minutes.

And so, if I just want a quick coffee timer, my stove’s timer is usually the quickest. Though I do also use Siri.

The Other Four Coffee Apps

There next 4 coffee apps are very similar to one another, and their primary function is providing brew recipes, timers, and detailed information on how to brew various types of coffee.

When I think of a coffee app, these are the types of apps I think of.

These are coffee apps that tell me the proper ratio of coffee grounds to water for the various types of brewing methods. Ratios are important because with them you can brew 8 ounces of coffee just as successfully as 32 ounces. And if you’re brewing with a new type of method, detailed recipe-based apps like this give you a good starting point.

Intelligentsia

This app is done in conjunction with the well-known Intelligentsia coffee roasters and brewers. The app features a list of types of coffee beans, detailed instructions for brewing various types of coffee, and a timer.

The list of coffee beans is basically a catalog of their coffee offerings. With information on the bean, the roast, its origin, and more. I’ve never used this part of the app.

The timer is just that. It has pre-determined times based on the type of brew method you are using. You can select your brew method and then start your timer. The brewing methods section is great if you are learning a new way to brew some coffee. The provide detailed and illustrated instructions for Cafe Solo, Pourover, Chemex, Cupping, Siphon, and french press.

If you’re just learning about these various brewing methods and need beginner-level instructions for how to prepare the coffee and the tools, then the Intelligentsia app is a great resource. However, after that initial instruction the app becomes less helpful in providing information for branching out how you brew your coffee.

Coffee Timer

The app “Coffee Timer!” is a reference app for setting the appropriate ratios of coffee grinds to water and for timing your brew. It comes default with settings for french press, siphon, chemex, popover, AeroPress, and the clever dripper.

Though I like the clever drawings on the front of the app’s home screen I find the actual coffee-brewing page of the app difficult to adjust, especially on the fly as a task that you may be adjusting a little bit every day. But I do like that you can save your own recipes for various types of brewing methods, such as your single-serving french press and your family-sized french press or your extra-strong AeroPress and your regular-strength AeroPress.

Bloom

Similar to the app “Coffee”, Bloom also offers a list of coffee-to-water ratios and timers for various brew methods. It has the same six methods as “Coffee” does, but with Beehouse instead of AeroPress.

You can add your own recipes to the list, duplicate current ones unto creating your own, and even share those recipies via email, Twitter, or MMS. I created a recipe for AeroPess and Bloom was smart enough to assign an AeroPress-looking icon next to my new recipe. I made up a randomly-named recipe called “Shawn’s Fave” and Bloom gave it a more generic coffee bean icon. I made a recipe for “Drip” and Bloom gave it the same generic bean icon.

I like the simplicity of Bloom’s interface for a specific coffee brewing recipe in that it displays the coffee and water weights, the bloom and brew times, and has a timer ready to go all on the same screen.

However, what I do not like is that all information for custom recipes has to be entered in manually. There is no way to assign a ratio. Rather, you must manually adjust the coffee-to-water recipe. And therefore: (a) you need a different app to figure out the proper ratio: and (b) you can’t adjust your coffee recipe on the fly.

Brew Control

My favorite of the whole lot of coffee apps is Brew Control. As someone who is already familiar with all my coffee tools, I have found Brew Control to be the most easy to use for my daily coffee brewing.

It is extremely simple to set the proper measurements for a brew method. It supports both weight (in grams) and volume (in ounces) for the coffee and the water. My mind thinks in ounces of water, but my scale thinks in weight.

I use Brew Control by first deciding how much coffee I want to brew and setting the water dial in ounces. Then I translate that to grams, and I have my coffee and water ratios. Adjusting the ratio is easy as well.

I don’t know about you, but I brew my coffee a little bit different every day it seems like. And so I highly value the ability to tweak my recipe on the fly.

Brew Control has pre-defined recipes/ratios and timers for AeroPress, Auto drip, Chemex, espresso maker, pour over, french press, and siphon. You cannot add new brew methods to the list, but you can customize each current one as you see fit.

My only nit with Brew Control is the UI design. It could use a bit of polish, but only around the edges because the way the app’s design and functionality are built in is actually quite clever. Or, in other words, I love the dials.

Of all the coffee apps I have, Brew Control is the only one I use regularly. And for coffee nerds with iPhones, this is the only one I’d recommend spending a few bucks on.

• The 4.65-inch screen is enormous. This phone is too big for me to operate comfortably or easily with just one hand.
• The 4G LTE is crazy fast.
• Notification Center on Android 4 is better than on iOS 5.
• There are no great Twitter clients on Android.
• The keyboard’s “autocorrect bar” is very handy.
• This is what my current Home screen looks like.

• Stamped: Has its own mini-social network where you “stamp” things you like and see what others are stamping.

• Instagram: Has its own mini-social network, and it connects to Twitter, Facebook, and Flickr, where you take pictures of things and apply cheesy filters to them.

• Tweetbot: A fantastic app for Twitter.

• Flipboard: Connects with Twitter and Facebook to show you incoming articles and to allow you to share articles you find.

• Twitter for iPhone: I use Tweetbot as my Twitter app, but I do like the Connect tab in Twitter that shows all interactions and not just mentions.

• Path: Has its own mini-social network where you can share all sorts of things.

• Words with Friends: The name says it all.

• Gowalla (R.I.P.): Had It’s own mini-social network and connected to Twitter and Facebook; it allowed you to “check in” at locations and see where other people were checking in.

• Ego: Tells me my Twitter stats, etc.

• Rdio: Has its own mini-social network where you can share what music you are listening to and have collaborative playlists.

• UP: The Jawbone UP app has its own mini-social network of “teammates”.

• Decaf Sucks: Ties in with Twitter and allows you to post reviews of local coffee shops and find local coffee shops near you.

• Goodfoot: Connects with Gowalla (R.I.P.) to suggest places to eat that are nearby.

• Birdhouse: A notepad for Twitter.

• Reeder: Connects with Twitter so I can tweet about an article I read that I liked.

• Instapaper: Has it’s own mini-social network so I can see what articles my Instapaper friends have liked, and it also connects with Twitter so I can tweet about articles I read.

The iPhone has some native apps with have a social, sharing component:

• The iPhone Camera app: Using the Twitter integration of iOS 5, you can post your photos to Twitter.

• Email: Allows me to send notes and letters and pictures and movies to my friends and family members who also have an email address.

• Messages: Allows me to send a text or multi-media message to my friends and family members who have a cell phone.

Apps like Rdio, Reeder, Instapaper, Flipboard, and Instagram are not social networking apps at their core. They primarily serve another purpose, such as listening to music, reading, or taking pictures. But in many ways these apps are enhanced by their social elements because people like me enjoy sharing ideas and moments of our lives with our friends and network of peers. And we enjoy seeing what others are sharing.

I was (and still am) an enormous fan of Tweetie 2.0. But I switched to Tweetbot in April and have scarcely touched the official iPhone Twitter app since.

Naturally, I download the new Twitter iPhone app yesterday and have been using it — mostly to get a feel for the new design and where Twitter is taking their service. This article by John Gruber about the new Twitter design expresses my thoughts exactly.

Tweetie was an amazing iPhone app. And part of what made it such a great Twitter app was the fact it was designed by a Twitter user. However, as others have been saying, the new Twitter iPhone app seems to be a 1:1 extension of the Twitter business model. If Tweetie was designed by a user, the new Twitter app was designed by Twitter’s senior management.

Twitter’s monthly new-user signups have increased 25% since the service became integrated in iOS 5. No doubt they are looking to: (a) define Twitter in a new way for their new users; and (b) integrate a sustainable revenue stream into that new definition.

Twitter is a mainstream service and it needs to appeal to mainstream users and it needs to sustain itself as a business. The new mobile and web designs are a clear banner of what the new Twitter is all about.

It seems to me that the Interactions tab under the “Connect” tab and the “Discover” tab both are the clearest example of this new Twitter.

• For the “Connect” tab, I am a bit surprised that they didn’t just call it “Interactions” and only show the Interactions view as the default. I could not find the current stats, but based on some older reports I’ve read the average Twitter user has less than 100 followers. With 100 followers you likely do not get a lot of mentions all the time. And mentions are a big part of what draw you into the app.

  Nobody launches Twitter without also checking their mentions. And so, including more interactions — such as when your tweets have been favorited and/or retweeted, and when new people are following you — is all about increasing the amount of user-centered activity that bubbles up in order to give an extra hook to draw you into the app.

• The “Discover” tab is, presumably, where Twitter will be forming their primary revenue stream: promoted items.

  On the New Twitter promo video, #Discover is touted as one of the great new features of the whole service. This (just like with the Interactions tab) is where Twitter becomes more “immersive”. Once you’ve read all the updates from those you follow, you can find more stories and links and ways to spend your time in the Discover tab.

  Moreover, this is where Twitter will be able to post promoted stories, promoted trends, and promoted users. When I tap on a story to “view tweets about this story”, the first tweet about that story is usually a promoted tweet.

  For me, personally, as a user, I don’t find the content in the Discover tab useful at all. The top stories are things I’m already aware of thanks to the other places I get my news. The top trends are completely worthless to me. And I’ve never really taken Twitter’s advice on who I should follow.

• Thirdly, the absence of a top-level tab for DMs is just as much about the new Twitter business model as the presence of the Discovery tab is.

  Moving DMs inside the “Me” tab was surely a design decision made by the senior management. I think it is fair to assume that Twitter has analytics telling them that most users probably don’t use DMs often or at all. But, also, (as Dan Frommer pointed out) I think Twitter wants your messages to be public.

  There could easily be five tabs on the bottom row of the Twitter app. They could have had a “More” tab instead of a “Me” tab, and allowed you to customize the tabs (the way it’s done on the iPod app). But no. They have buried DMs as a sub-menu item and given it the near-equivalent hierarchy as drafts, lists, and saved searches.

I think Ben Brooks is right in what he thinks Twitter for iPhone 4.0 and Twitter’s new-new design tells current users:

“We care more about new users and you finding more people to follow rather than about how everyone has been using Twitter in the past.”

When Twitter began it was about updating your status to whomever was following you. Now it’s about an entire platform where you connect with all sorts of people and brands, and where you find your news and stories and topics of discussion from the greater Twitter community. Twitter has a new model and it’s not nearly as centered around 140 characters as it used to be.

Disclosure: The folks at Doxie sent me this Go as a gift. No review was promised to them in exchange for me receiving it. The words below are, as always, my honest and sincere opinion.

The Review

The biggest draw of the Doxie Go is that it’s cordless, or rather, that it’s battery powered. Cordless does not mean wireless. You do need a micro-USB cable to charge it, and the USB cable is the default way of getting your scans off the Go and onto your computer.

The Doxie Go can scan about 100 pages before the battery needs recharging. And the internal storage will hold at least 6 times that amount.

The idea behind the Go is exactly what the name hints at. The Go is a portable scanner that you can take with you. And while I don’t have a need for a portable scanner — my other scanner is an iPhone — I do like the idea of an attractive, small-yet-powerful, cordless scanner as part of my office setup.

The Go is small and attractive enough to warrant being kept on a desk top, but it is small enough to be kept in a drawer or on a shelf. And since it needs no wires to be able to function, you really can keep it anywhere you like.

Compared to the original Doxie, the Go weighs 4 ounces more but is an inch narrower. The Go is also cordless and has a much more attractive design (no pink, no hearts (no offense, Doxie)).

The Go scans color as well as black and white. The default resolution is 300 dpi, but you can also choose to scan a document at 600 dpi by a tap of the power button. (Hold the button down and you’ll turn the Go off.)

You copy files from the Go onto your computer in batch. You plug in the USB cable (or you can connect a USB thumb drive or photo card to the Go) and then import the files via Doxie’s own Mac app.

The Doxie software is akin to a simplified iPhoto. I don’t know why, but I half expected the Doxie Mac app to be found wanting. To my delight, I found it was quite the opposite. The app is easy to use, minimal, and it makes importing a cinch.

I’m more than pleased with the quality of the 300-dpi scanned documents. Once the files are imported you can quickly and easily make adjustments if you need to, but I found the auto adjustments that the Doxie app makes were often perfect the first time. If the app auto-adjusts incorrectly, you can re-adjust manually.

It is also relatively easy to name your files (since the scanner doesn’t know what to name them). A clever idea once OCR is implemented would be to auto name the file based on the first line of the document scanned.

The Go treats every single scanned page as it’s own document. And so, within the app is a vital function: you can select multiple files and then “staple” them together with a click. It could not be easier to join multiple scans into a single PDF document.

You can save the scans to you computer or just leave the files in the Doxie app. Unsaved Doxie scans stay in the Doxie app whereas saved scans can be removed from the app when you quit or kept in there indefinitely. You cannot import documents from your computer into the Doxie app. Thus, once you remove a scan from the Doxie app there is no way to get it back into the app other than printing it out and re-scanning it in.

I prefer to save my scans as PDFs. Mostly because I am scanning in documents that I no longer have to keep in a filing cabinet. The default when you hit Command+S is to save as a JPEG. However, Shift+Command+S is the hotkey for Save as PDF, and Option+Command+S for save as a PNG. I like Saving as a PDF because PDFpen can then OCR the document and then I save in Yojimbo. It’s amazing how once a PDF has been OCRed the contents of that PDF are completely searchable. It makes going paperless seem like a no-brainer.

And in my estimation, the Go’s file sizes are quite reasonable. A PDF of my 8.5×14″ Car Insurance Declarations page scanned at 300 dpi, saved at medium-quality, and then OCRed via PDFpen, weighed in at 1.2 megabytes. That is certainly more than a PDF from the source, but it is not bad for a large page that is high-resolution and has searchable, selectable, text.

Welcome to your new paperless office, Shawn.

I often record voice memos to myself regarding articles I’m working on or other ideas. This is especially true when I’m in the car because things have a tendency to pop into my mind when I’m driving around running errands, and the only way to capture that is to record a voice memo. Also, there are times when I record Shawn Today using my iPhone.

Back in August I began using DropVox instead of the native Voice Memos app. Basically this app creates a folder in your Dropbox account, and then when you launch the app you have one option: record. You record your voice memo and the app uploads it to your Dropbox account in the previously created DropVox folder. It uploads quickly, and in the background if necessary.

The audio quality is not quite as high as what you’ll get with the native Voice Memos app, but that aids in the quick upload times, and I do not find the audio quality to be lacking.

The utility of DropVox is superb. It does one thing and it does so very, very well. If you’re regularly recording voice memos that you don’t want confined to your iPhone, this one-dollar app is a great choice.

A common workflow for me was to open a previously saved document and use it as my template for a new document. I would make changes to it and then save it a as a new document. To Save As meant you took the document you were working on and saved it as a new document in its current state while discarding those changes from the original and leaving that original document as it was. I used Save As all the time.

But in Lion, the ability to Save As is gone. Sadly, Command+Shift+S gets you nothing.

In place of “Save As”, we now have “Duplicate”.1

Duplicating means the document you’re currently using gets, well, duplicated. A new document window pops up and out of the original and now you have two. The new one gets named something like “my document copy” and now you have two documents open.

If you Duplicate your file after you’ve already begun making edits to it then you’ll have the option to: (a) revert the original document back to it’s pre-edited state once you’ve duplicated it; (b) keep the current document as it is and duplicate it as well; (c) cancel.

For the most part, Duplicate and Revert is the new Save As.

In the end you mostly get the same result as what we used to with Save As, but this duplicating and reverting business always feels cumbersome to me. Moreover, it’s a little bit scary — it still catches me off guard and forces me to stop and think for a few seconds about what it is I’m doing. I used to just hit Command+Shift+S and have my new document based on the first in no time.

And to add insult to injury, as a keyboard junkie it’s not just the removing of “Save As” that saddens me. It is also the removal of a very handy keyboard shortcut that I used many times a day: Command+Shift+S

And so, by harnessing the power of Keyboard Maestro, I set up Command+Shift+S as a “Save As Hack”.

• I set the macro to only run in Pages, Numbers, Byword, and TextEdit. These are the apps I use on a daily or near-daily basis.
• With a keyboard shortcut of Command+Shift+S, the macro will select “Duplicate” from the File menu, choose “Duplicate and Revert” for the original document, close the original document, and then open up a Save dialog box for the new document.

In essence, it’s an automated hack to get Save As and its keyboard shortcut back.

You can download the macro here.

Simplenote is a prime example. It’s a note-taking app that syncs across all your devices. And it does this task exceptionally well. Dropbox is another example: it will sync the main Dropbox folder with any other computer you have Dropbox installed on. Another example: Yojimbo. Hands down, the finest Anything Bucket out there.

What is now growing as a new type of “thing” is social networks which are built around a singular idea and which implement that idea very well.

Twitter was one of the first examples of this, and is now certainly the most prominent. It has grown a bit more complex since it first began several years ago, but the premise is unchanged: what are you doing? Answer that question in under 140 characters and you can use Twitter.

Instagram is another prime example of a simple social network. The only function of the app and its integrated social network is to post pictures. You have fun with it by applying semi-cheesy filters and exaggerated tilt-shift blurs, but there is little complexity beyond posting your own pics and then liking and commenting on other people’s pics.

I believe it is their simplicity that makes social networks like Twitter and Instagram sticky. If a service is easy to use, people are more likely to use it. The more complex it is, the less likely people are to use it.

Obviously there are additional and very significant things which make social networks appealing, such as the ability to share and connect with friends and family members. But I like how the forced brevity of Twitter and the forced cheesiness of Instagram help to remove the potential for self censorship. The constraints of these social networks also turn into a game — or challenge — for users who adopt the goal of tweeting deeply meaningful or hilarious things or ‘gramming beautiful images.

Stamped is another simple social network. It is more like Instagram than Twitter in that: (a) it currently exists only on the iPhone; and (b) the social network and the iPhone app are one and the same.

I downloaded Stamped last week when it came out and it quickly worked it’s way onto my iPhone’s Home screen, right next to Instagram. I love the simple concept of Stamped: you pick something you like and you stamp it with your stamp of approval. What Twitter is to status updates, Stamped is to our favorite things in life.

Pros

It’s not the simplicity in and of itself that appeals to me. I like the whole idea of the Stamped app. I enjoy stamping things that I like. Who doesn’t?

Beyond that, there are a few things in particular which stand out to me as great:

• The Design: You cannot launch the app without instantly noticing the design. Every pixel seems as if it were put in place with precise intent. The use of color, type, and layout is extraordinary. The interface of Stamped goes a long way in making the app easier to use and more enjoyable.

• The To-Dos: When you come across something new that your friend has stamped, you can add it as a to-do (maybe its a book you want to read or a restaurant you want to check out next time you’re in San Francisco). This is one of my favorite features of Stamped, and is a clear sign that the people who designed this app actually use it as well.

  The way your To-Do list works is simple: (a) someone you’re following Stamps something you’ve never heard of (could be a movie, a book, a band, a restaurant, or something totally obscure); (b) you decide you want to check it out; and (c) you add it as a To-Do item.

  Right now I have 9 To-Dos in Stamped. A few movies, a few books, a restaurant in San Francisco, a Web app, and a kitchen appliance.

• The Liberation of Simplicity: There are no rules for what you can stamp. On Thanksgiving Day people were stamping things like “after-lunch nap” and “pumpkin pie”. Stamped is set up in such a way as to encourage the stamping of whatever suits your fancy. It can be as serious as your favorite book, or as lighthearted as a 2nd cup of coffee on a Wednesday morning. There are no rules.

Cons

I do have a few quibbles with the app.

• New User Discovery: One thing I don’t like about the app is how difficult it is to discover new people to follow. If I don’t follow you on Twitter or if you are not in my iPhone’s contact list then the chances of me finding you are slim to none.

  I don’t just want to follow my friends, I also want to follow people who have impeccable taste. Who in Kansas City knows the best restaurants? Who has the same taste in movies as me but gets out more often? Who reads a lot of fabulous books? Those too are the people I want to follow on Stamped.

  How can Stamped solve this problem? Perhaps give us the ability to stamp a user. Or, when viewing someone’s profile, show a descending list of who they give the most credits to. Just like there are people on Twitter that I don’t follow on Instagram, and vice versa, how do I find the great users in Stamped whom I don’t yet know are there?

• No Business Model, Yet: Build a big and happy user base now, figure out how to sustain the business later. That seems to be the business model of choice for many new startups. It was Twitter’s business model, it is Instagram’s, and it is Stamped’s as well.

  However, I did notice that Stamped has one source of income: affiliate links. When a book or a DVD is stamped and can be purchased on Amazon, then a Buy Now button will show up on that item’s detail page within the App. Tapping “Buy Now” will launch you over to the Amazon site with Stamped’s affiliate ID in the URL.

  Also I’ve noticed that if it’s a movie which is playing in theaters, then you can get tickets via Fandango. Tapping to buy a movie ticket will kick you through a Commission Junction domain.

  I have absolutely no problem with affiliate links. I think the feature of being able to find and buy a Stamped item right from within the app is a great idea. And so if you’re going to be linking to Amazon anyway, there’s no reason not to do so via an affiliate link. It’s a clever and non-invasive way to make a few extra bucks from the app. However, affiliate links require a lot of traffic to generate even a modest income, and they are not Stamped’s primary plan for income.

  I emailed the guys at Stamped to ask them if there were any planned sources of revenue beyond the affiliate links. CEO and Co-Founder, Robby Stein, wrote me back, saying:

  Right now, we are 100% focused on building a product that our users love. We will continue to look at revenue opportunities that make the product more useful by allowing people to easily go try what’s been stamped, but don’t have any specific plans right now.

  Building a large and happy user base is much easier when your product is free. But monetizing later on can be tricky. There are pros and cons to both strategies, and so I hope Stamped has wild success.

Stamping Stamped

One of the first things I stamped in Stamped was Stamped, Inc.

I very much love the categories that this app slash social network is in. It is a simple social network, and, though it is Web based, it is not a Web app. I much prefer native apps over Web apps (on the desktop and on mobile). I also prefer apps which are simple and do just one thing. Stamped is a blend of both, and I think it has a lot of potential to be very fun.

I was familiar enough with the Kindle to know that it is lightweight and great for reading. I knew that they are famous for how effortlessly you can hold it with one hand and how great the E Ink text is for reading.

For the past year and a half I’ve been reading books on my iPad and never felt a need for a Kindle. However, after now using the Kindle Touch for several hours a day over the past few days, I feel as if all the accolades I ever heard about the Kindle were vast understatements.

Hardware

Hardware-wise, the Kindle Touch has several positive things going for it. Most notably:

• Size: The Kindle is small and lightweight; easy to hold with one hand and read for long periods of time.

• Battery life: Extremely long battery life; rarely do you need to consider charging it.

• Touchscreen interface: The only buttons are a lock/wake button and a Home button; the touch UI (though slow to respond in heavy-input areas such as the Home screen or the Kindle Store due to the nature of E Ink) feels natural and is easy to use.

Let’s dive a bit deeper into a few of these:

Size

After using only an iPad for reading ebooks over the past 18 months, it’s impossible not to noticed how incredibly small and light the Kindle Touch is. Moreover, the Kindle’s smallness and lightness are accentuated by a sturdy build and an attractive, simple design. It’s small and light but not cheap or flimsy.

My Kindle weighs 7.375 ounces. The custom box it shipped in, with the Kindle and all other contents still inside, weighed a mere 14 ounces. My iPad alone weighs 1 pound, 6 ounces.

Upon opening up the top of the box the Kindle is sitting there with a plastic sheet attached to the front of the device. There is an image which demonstrates you should plug your Kindle into a computer. When I peeled off the plastic I found that the image was actually being displayed by the screen. I did a double take because it looked so much like a printed image and not like something electronically displayed using a screen.

I plugged the Kindle into my MacBook Air and let it charge. When charging, a small yellow light is on. Once charged, that light turns green. It took about 90 minutes via the USB plug on my MacBook Air to get the Kindle fully charged.

While charging, I registered my Kindle with ease by simply by typing in my Amazon.com email and password into the device. Then I spent some time browsing the Kindle Store, buying a couple books which I am currently reading in iBooks. It’s unfortunate that I’ll have to finish all the iBookstore books I’m reading. The cost of buying those books again just so I can read them on the Kindle Touch is not something I want to do.

Holding, Reading, and Turning Pages

The iPad just cannot be held with one hand. Its weight, size, and slippery aluminum back all force the use of two hands or one hand and a prop. That is not to say the iPad is awkwardly heavy, but it’s not easily held up with two hands for a long time (such as an hour or more).

The Kindle, however, is extremely easy to hold with one hand thanks to its weight, size, and grippy plastic back.

Naturally, when holding the Kindle one-handed, it’s important to be able to progress to the next page without requiring two hands. The past Kindles, and the new D-Pad Kindle, all do this by placing hardware page-turning buttons on both sides of the Kindle. When holding the device (regardless of which hand) you can easily rock your thumb over the button and turn the page.

The Kindle Touch has no such hardware buttons. I was fearful that the lack of buttons would make it difficult to turn pages when holding the device with just one hand. Fortunately that is not the case.

The screen of the Kindle sits about an eighth of an inch deeper than plastic bezel surrounding it. I have found it very easy to simply roll my thumb over the edge and onto the touch screen, and this is all that’s needed to activate a page turn.

However, if you are holding the Kindle in your left hand, rolling your thumb onto the screen will turn the page back, not forward. That is because the left-hand side of the screen is the touch target for previous pages.

Of course, as you can see in the image above, the touch target for turning to the next page is significantly larger than for the previous page. And so, for the times I am holding the Kindle in my left hand, I can still turn to the next page by using my left pinky to support the bottom of the Kindle and then move my thumb over half an inch to reach the touch target for the next page.

Also worth noting is that swipe gestures will turn the pages as well. Left-to-right for the previous page; right-to-left for the next.

The Screen

I had two fears related to the Kindle Touch’s screen: (a) that without the hardware page-turn buttons it would not be easy to turn pages while holding the Kindle in one hand; and (b) that it would gather all sorts of fingerprints and muddy up the reading experience.

Both of those fears, however, were unwarranted. As I mentioned above, turning pages on the Kindle Touch is no trouble whatsoever.

Regarding fingerprints, the Kindle’s touch screen is not a fingerprint magnet. The screen is very matte — like the matte screens on Apple’s laptops from yesteryear but even more matte than that. The screen on the Kindle touch is the least fingerprint attracting screen in my house. Certainly more than the glass on my iPhone and iPad.

A third issue that I’ve heard people talking about is the new way that pages refresh. Now, instead of the full-on black-to-white blink that the Kindle used to do between every page turn, the page only blinks once every 6 page turns. This supposedly causes an increase in E Ink artifacts which get slightly left over from page to page. But with my naked eye I barely tell the difference at all between the sixth page just before the Kindle blinks, and the seventh page just after a blink.

Regarding the E Ink screen, I am still not used to just how kind E Ink is on the eyes. I have read for many, many hours on my iPad and have never thought anything of it. Perhaps my appreciation will wear off a bit once I become more used to the Kindle or when the iPad ships with a Retina display. But after three days with the Kindle I am still very appreciative of its screen.

The only disadvantage to the Kindle’s screen is that there is no light for it whatsoever. I often read through my Instapaper queue or a few chapters of a book when in bed before I go to sleep. But the lights are usually out and I rely on the self-lit screen of the iPad to read in the dark. The Kindle will not be able to replace my iPad for these times of reading.

You can get clip on lights, but I wonder why Amazon hasn’t incorporated something similar to the Timex Indiglo backlight system? Or, why not put a dozen small LED lights around the inner edges of the screen that could illuminate it.

Software

Not only have I found the hardware of the Kindle Touch to be impressive, but so also the software.

Touch-Based OS

I ordered the Kindle Touch rather than the D-Pad Kindle because I was anticipating that the touch screen and its user interaction would be more natural and convenient than using the physical controller.

Of course, I haven’t actually used the non-touch Kindle and its D-Pad controller, and so I can’t fairly judge one over the other. But I can say that the interacting with the Kindle Touch OS has been just fine.

Though the UI is designed for touch input, I still haven’t fully acclimated to the concept of touching the E Ink device. The screen does not look like the backlit touch screens I have been using for the past 4 and a half years. The Kindle looks like an actual printed page, not a screen. And since the display is not manipulated by touch input the same way an iOS device is, I don’t always feel like I’m supposed to be touching the display.

But, despite its vast differences when compared to any other touchscreen device I have used, the Kindle Touch only has one caveat in my opinion: There is no immediate feedback upon tapping a touch target.

On the iPad, tapping a button or a link will cause the state to change as if you’ve truly pressed that button. On the Kindle there is on immediate feedback, you simply wait for a second, and then the screen refreshes to display whatever it is you activated via your touch. (Note that page turns are quite speedy.)

But there are a set of buttons which do show an immediate change of state when tapped: the keyboard. When typing, the keyboard buttons turn black underneath your finger taps. No other buttons in the Kindle OS do this.

And, speaking of typing, I don’t find it difficult at all on the Kindle’s soft keyboard.

Lastly, in addition to tapping buttons and items, you also use scroll gestures to navigate lists or pages. You can swipe your finger from top to bottom or bottom to top on the list view as if you were scrolling it and the list view will refresh with the items moved in the direction of your swipe.

It is a much different feeling compared to iOS where you feel as if your finger is literally manipulating the pixels you are touching. But it is something that I quickly got used to. And, considering the limits of E Ink, I think the way the touch interface works and responds is completely fine. It’s different, but not worse.

Instapaper

Amazon gives you an email address for your Kindle. You can then send articles and documents to your Kindle via that Kindle email address.

Instapaper uses this as a way to send you the 20 most recent items in your queue every 24 hours. You cannot archive or favorite the articles, you can only read them in their purest form: a personally-curated periodical.

Does Instapaper on the Kindle even come close to comparing to Instapaper on the iPad or iPhone? No way. Is it nice to have it there? You bet. Even though I know Marco won’t do it, I’ll still say it: a native Instapaper app for the Kindle would be awesome.

The Kindle Store

Shopping for books, magazines, and newspapers on the Kindle Store is extremely easy. When you find a book you like it’s just one tap to buy and the download begins in the background immediately. If you didn’t mean to purchase an item you are given the opportunity to cancel your order.

The Kindle Lending Library

When I was on Amazon.com making some adjustments to my Kindle options, I went ahead and set up a free one-month trial of Amazon Prime so I could check out the Kindle lending library.

Basically, if a book is available to borrow for free it will say so on the book’s page in the Kindle store. If you are a member of Amazon Prime then you can go ahead and borrow that book. But, alas, right now it sounds cooler than it is.

The Lending Library works like this:

• You can borrow up to one book per month. This limit is not a big deal for me because I cannot remember the last time I finished more than one book in a month. Also worth noting is that it’s one book per calendar month, not one book per 30 days. If you borrow a book on November 30, you can borrow again on December 1.
• You can only borrow one book at a time. So even if it is a new month, you cannot borrow another book unless you’re ready to give up the one you’re currently borrowing (previously borrowed books are removed once a new one is downloaded).
• The Lending Library is sparsely populated. As of today, there are 5,464 total Kindle Books available in the Lending Library. However, there are 1,078,735 total Kindle Books. Which means that just one-half of one-percent of the total Kindle eBook selection is available to borrow. This is due in a large part to the fact that the Big Six publishers (Random House, Simon & Schuster, Penguin, HarperCollins, Hachette, and Macmillan) have not joined the program.

To get to the Kindle Lending Library you go to the Kindle Store home page, tap “All Categories” (which is just under the Menu button), and then tap “Kindle Owners’ Lending Library”. From there you can browse all the items in the Lending Library.

When you find a book is just like buying it for $0. You get an email receipt from Amazon thanking you for your purchase, yet the cost is $0.00.

Right now I am borrowing Do the Work by Steven Pressfield. It is great to see that the books published under Seth Godin’s Domino Project are available on the Lending Library.

Newspaper Subscriptions

I signed up for a free, 14-day trial subscription of The Denver Post, The New York Times, and The Wall Street Journal. Since then, each morning they all 3 have been updated and then automatically moved to the top of my Home screen’s list of items, sitting there just waiting to be read.

Maybe it’s just the honeymoon period of a new device, but having the day’s newspapers pre-downloaded and waiting for me on my Kindle when I get up is pretty darn cool.

But where did yesterday’s papers go? Well, down the list on the Home screen there is an item called “Periodicals: Back Issues”, and it holds the previous issues. So the old ones are never gone, but are always out of the way when the new ones download.

Magazine Subscriptions

The Kindle store has 133 different magazine titles. The top 10 most popular include Reader’s Digest (at number 1), The Economist, The New Yorker, Time, and others. Up until yesterday I was completely unaware of the availability of magazines on the Kindle. I naively thought that when many of these magazines came to the iPad it was their first venture into the non-printed space beyond the World Wide Web.

I subscribed to a free 14-day trial of The New Yorker. The visual layout of the magazine is completely forgone on the Kindle and you get a Kindle-optimized text-version instead. And it would seem that the price reflects the text-only versions. In the Kindle store, a single issue of The New Yorker costs $3.99, and a monthly subscription is $2.99/month; on the iPad, The New Yorker costs is $4.99 and $5.99 respectively.

Special Offers & Sponsored Screensavers

I bought the $99 Kindle Touch with special offers, and so the bottom-half-inch of my Home screen displays an ad. At first I didn’t think this would be a big deal because I expected: (a) that I wouldn’t be spending a lot of time on the Home screen; and (b) even when I would be on the Home screen the ads are minimal and unobtrusive.

However, after a few days with the device the home screen ads feel more intrusive than I thought they would. I think, in part, because not all the content which is on my Kindle is displayed on the first page of the Home screen. And, knowing that there is additional books and periodicals further down the page, it seems that the (albeit minimal) ad is in the way. Or, put another way, it feels more like one of those ads which are right in the middle of two paragraphs of text on a website, rather than an ad on the sidebar.

You can pay Amazon to remove the ads by “Unsubscribing from Special Offers & Sponsored Screensavers” by paying the difference of your subsidized purchase: $30 for the plain Kindle and $40 for the Kindle Touch.

Playing MP3s

The Kindle can play MP3 files, and only MP3s, that you transfer to it.

You transfer the MP3s onto the Kindle when it’s plugged into your computer. To play them go to the Home screen and tap Menu → Experimental → MP3 Player.

A basic player UI will pop up at the bottom of the screen offering you to skip forward and backward to different tracks, play/pause the audio, and adjust the volume. The MP3 player will always appear at the bottom of the screen, even if you’re not playing audio. It will always be there until you turn it off.

When you are playing music you can either plug in headphones, or listen via the stereo speakers on the back of the Kindle which sound about as good and bass-free as you’d expect on such a device.

Coda

Because it is so inexpensive and all of its content is backed up on Amazon.com, the Kindle Touch is a stress-free device you can take to the beach, the pool, the mountains, etc. Compared to the “eReader” I have been using for the past 18 months — an iPad — the Kindle’s primary user experience is significantly different. For the single-purpose device that the Kindle Touch is meant to be — a device that’s easy to hold and to read — the Kindle does this exceptionally well. And, in many settings, better than the iPad. Moreover, the iPad isn’t something you would take to the beach or the pool without at least thinking twice.

Of course, not every context finds the Kindle better for reading. Obviously in low-light or no-light situations the iPad is better because of its backlit screen. But also the iPad is significantly better for reading RSS feeds and my Instapaper queue. This is not only because the iPad has a stellar RSS app and the Kindle has none, but also because when reading feeds on my iPad I like to fly through them. On the Kindle, tasks take a little more time due to the nature of E Ink.

It is also arguable that the iPad is better for reading magazines. While I like the text-friendly version of The New Yorker that is served up on the Kindle, magazines have always been more than just text. And though I do think that the magazine reading experience could be significantly better on the iPad, I do appreciate the full-color graphics and customized layouts (most of the time).

But who says the Kindle has to replace the iPad? It’s not uncommon for people to own both. I know people who use their Kindle and their iPad. Of course, I also know others who abandoned their Kindle back in April 2010.

For me, I can see the Kindle becoming the reading device I keep on the coffee table and take on vacations. But, if I’m going to head out the door and am going to take just one device, you can bet it’ll be the iPad.

On the other end of the spectrum, what say ye about the Kindle versus a good ole book? Well, compared to a physical book the Kindle is at least as easy to hold and just as easy read from. And if you’re outside on a windy day or if you’ve got a big fat hardcover novel, then I would argue that the Kindle is even easier to hold.

The other advantage of the Kindle over a physical book is that you can have an entire library of content on a device the size of an extra-large wallet. And finding something new to read (a newspaper, magazine, new book, etc…) is just a few taps away. That is why the Kindle has appeal beyond just nerds who practically have it in their DNA to love a new gadget.

Overall I am extremely pleased with the Kindle Touch. Even more than I expected to be when I pre-ordered it so many weeks ago. The quality of the hardware and the usefulness of the device betray its exceptionally low price.

It was only noon but Target was already sold out of the Jawbone (plenty of milk though). Apparently the store had put the UPs out on Saturday and only had a few in stock, and they sold quickly. We went to a nearby AT&T store, and when I ask them about the UP they didn’t even know what I was talking about. I tell the lady that they are supposed to be on sale at AT&T stores, and she lets me know that it’s probably only at the corporate stores not the satellite retail stores like her’s.

Next we go to the Leawood Apple retail store. They do not have any in stock, but at least know what we’re talking about.

After Apple I call Best Buy. They do not have any in stock nor do they know if or when any will arrive.

We find and drive to the closest corporate AT&T store, and LUCK! they have some. They make me sign in at a kiosk and wait my turn to be helped. About 10 minutes later an AT&T sales guy calls my name. Holding my left wrist in my right hand, I raise my arms up to eye level and I tell him I’m looking for the new Jawbone UP. He says they only have one left…

It turns out they have two left — a small and a large. Using the plastic size ring that is attached to each case I try on the small but, surprisingly to me, it seems as if it is too small. He has some display samples out and so I try on a real one and sure enough, it’s very snug and I know it would be uncomfortable to wear. And, of course, the large is too large. I needed a medium which was the only size they did not have.

We leave the AT&T store and begin calling some local area Target stores. Nobody has any in stock, and most people didn’t even know what we were talking bout. Some of the Target employees we spoke with suggested we try back on Monday morning because most shipments come in at 8:00 AM on Mondays and are in stock by 9:00.

At 8:40 AM on Monday, November 7 I head over to Target again. I am there by 9:00 am but still no dice, they received no new shipment. I walk back to my car and begin to call every Target and AT&T store in the Kansas City area. Not a single Target store had the Jawbone UP in stock, and only a few AT&T stores had them but only smalls or larges.

I head over the the local Best Buy and wait for it to open at 10:00 am. When it does I walk inside and find an employee working in the Computer Electronics section. I ask him about the UP and he knows exactly what I’m talking but, alas, they do not have any in stock.

By this time the Apple store I was at the day before is open again and so I call them and, LUCK! they have them. I speed over and am able to buy a medium-size UP. They only had black available, which was fine by me because that’s the color I prefer.

The UP only syncs to an iPhone app, and does so by plugging it in using a headphone jack. The iPhone app initially feels clever and was easy to get set up with my height and weight. I also am able to establish what time in the morning I want the Jawbone to wake me, and the longest interval of time I am okay being inactive.

Once I’ve synced the UP with the iPhone app I put it on. It is not uncomfortable to wear, but because the exterior is rubber it is certainly more grippy than a watch.

Now that I have the UP on, it’s time to act as if I’m not wearing it, and just go to work. I sit down at my desk and begin going through my emails. And sure enough, about 45 minutes later the Jawbone vibrates slightly as a reminder that I’ve been inactive for 45 minutes and it’s time to get up and move around. Except I don’t…

You can set the activity alarm for just about any length of time you like, so long as it’s a 15-minute interval. For the first several days I had it set to 45 minutes, and then a few days ago I set it to 30 minutes. Half an hour seems to come around quite often when sitting at my desk working, but I like the increased opportunities to get up and move around. Moreover, if I don’t get up at one of the reminders then it’s only an hour that I’m sitting, rather than 90 minutes.

You can also establish the timeframe for which you want the activity alarm to be enabled. I set mine to be enabled between 8:00 AM and 6:00 PM Monday – Friday since that is my most-common working hours. And this way, the UP does not buzz you to get up during dinner or if you are watching a movie or reading in the evening.

Forty-five minutes later the Jawbone vibrates again. The vibration is not startling or annoying. Since it’s on your wrist it doesn’t take much to get your attention. This time I do get up and walk around the house for a bit.

About 3 hours later I sync it to my iPhone to see what my activity has been so far. It tells me I’ve taken 727 steps so towards my “goal” of 5,000. 5,000 steps per day is defined as lightly active according to Jawbone.

Observations About Daily Usage

Battery

One nice touch of the iPhone app is that when syncing the Jawbone, the iPhone app will inform you what percentage charge the UP has left. When I first got my UP the battery level was at 75%. Four days later the battery life was a 35%. They say the UP lasts 10 days between charges and I believe it.

Syncing

It seems to me that once the UP syncs its data to the iPhone then it resets its statistics. If I had to guess, I would say that the only information the UP keeps is the activity alarm and wake alarm settings, and the steps taken since the last sync.

Comfort

When working on the MacBook Air away from my desk, the bracelet needs to be turned upside-down so that the metal end tips are on the top of my wrist. They get in the way when working on the Air.

And, like I mentioned earlier, the UP is not very convenient to wear. I am constantly noticing it. Moreover, when sleeping, there have been a few nights where I have rolled onto my arm and then slid the bracelet off by accident when pulling my arm out.

Meals

You can use the Jawbone’s iPhone app to track your meals. You take a picture of your plate when you are about to start eating and then a few hours later the app will pop up a notification asking you to define how you are feeling.

I often forget to take a picture of my meal before I begin eating. Many of the meals I have logged in the app are either of an empty plate or else not logged at all.

Moreover, you cannot add a meal other than in real time and by taking a photo. Which means if an hour after lunch I remember that I forgot to log that meal I have to take a picture of something random.

Accuracy and How the UP Tracks Steps

You have to wonder how accurate a device that you wear on your wrist is at tracking your activity. How does the UP know that you’re walking and not brushing your teeth? How does it know you are walking on your elliptical machine if your hands are holding on to the stationary side-rails? Well, it doesn’t.

So far as I can tell it’s the back-and-forth rhythm of your arm swaying as you walk/jog/run that the UP counts as steps. Random movements aren’t counted, but consistent ones are.

This means that brushing your teeth, vacuuming the carpet, ironing a shirt, etc… will all count as “steps”. It also means that if you are working out in a manner that doesn’t involve consistent movement of your arm, then the workout is not tracked.

From what I can tell, my UP tracks my movements fairly well. I walked 100 paces and it counted 99. I ran a little over a mile and it tracked a little over a mile. I ran that same mile again a few days later and it tracked accurately again.

However, since I know the UP is not 100% accurate (for instance, taking a shower and brushing my teeth will often rack up a few hundred steps) I have abandoned the need to wear it all day every day. I only make a point wear it when I am sleeping, working at my computer, or exercising. If there are times I want to remove it then that is okay by me.

The Smart Alarms

The two smart alarms — the one for waking up in the mornings and the one for monitoring inactivity — are clearly the highlight features of the UP.

I have used the UP as my primary alarm for 8 mornings in a row and I am liking it. Only once has the UP woken me when I was not in a light sleep or on the edge of sleep/consciousness. And, I find the light vibration of the bracelet more effective at waking me up than my radio clock. And what I mean by that is that the vibration of the bracelet is not so intrusive as to get me on edge right when I wake up, but it is just enough stimulation that it gives me a slight adrenaline boost to help me wake up.

So, Is the UP Worth It?

This is what I like most about the Jawbone UP:

• It helps me realize how active or not I am each day. It’s not scientifically accurate at tracking my exact steps each day, but it does record enough information for me to realize that I am not as active as I thought I was, and not nearly as much as I ought to be.

• It helps me pay more attention to what I’m eating and how my meals effect my energy and mood.

• It tracks my sleep patterns, and serves as a useful alarm — one that is far less frustrating and snooze able as my bedside clock.

• It reminds me to get up from my work space if I’ve been sitting stationary for too long.

It is clear to me that the UP is not a workout tracker as much as it is a low-level activity monitor. Or, put another way, I’d say the UP is an easy-to-use tool to help you become more aware of your own activity.

The UP is certainly not for hard-core health nuts and exercisers who want something scientifically accurate. The UP is for average folks who want to have a better idea of how active they are — or are not — and who want to use the high-level data the UP provides them as a way to make daily and lifestyle changes regarding their activity.

I’m glad I bought one and I will continue to use it.

Applications with the primary function of holding and managing a library of items — such as “anything buckets“, bookmarking services, RSS readers, to-do managers, and even the computer’s file system itself — can become convoluted and difficult to use as the number of items in their library grows. The grace with which apps such as these scale speaks volumes to their long-term usefulness.

An application that does not scale well requires that as new items are added old items must be removed or rearranged, else the value of all the items is slightly degraded. Applications like this require regular maintenance by the user in order to preserve their usefulness.

An application that does scale well is one in which regardless of the amount of items added to the app, they all carry the same value and ability to be found as when they were first added. An application like this requires little to no regular maintenance by the user in order to preserve the app’s usefulness.

Yojimbo is, in my opinion, a great examples of a maintenance-free application.

I have been using Yojimbo for several years, and it is no less useful today with its thousands of items than it was when I first began using it. Adding a new item to Yojimbo does not require that I take an old item out. When I add a new item to Yojimbo I know that it will not affect all the other items — a year from now I know I will still easily be able to find the item I just added, and that by adding a new item the difficulty of finding other items is not massively affected. The only limit to my Yojimbo library is my hard drive.

Likewise with Notational Velocity and Simplenote. A new note added to Notational Velocity does not devalue the other notes which are already in there. Also, a new note in NV does not make finding past notes significantly more difficult of a task.

Moreover, this is why having just one folder to keep all archived email can be so beneficial when it comes to managing emails. Admittedly, I am very poor at email management, but, one thing that does help me is that I place 99% of all my emails into just one folder. And I use search to find old emails when the need arises.

An example of a system that does not scale well without maintenance from the user? The iPhone Home screen. This thing does not scale well at all. The more apps I add the more I have to fiddle with the placement of the apps which were already there. More apps means more Home screens to flick through and more folders to hide the non-regularly-used apps.

In fact, I now use Spotlight on my iPhone to find apps that are not on my first two Home screens. There are apps on my iPhone which I use but I do not know what folder they are in.

The file-system itself is perhaps the most maintenance-heavy system of all. I think this is why application launchers are so fantastic. They serve as a single point of entry that helps you search for and navigate directly to the file, bookmark, or application you are searching for.

Search is, in fact, a critical component to applications and systems that scale well without maintenance. It’s why Yojimbo and Notational Velocity are still so useful even though they are full of notes and items.

We also see Apple trying to address the issue of the Finder’s maintenance needs by OS X’s tools such as the Dock, and Spotlight, and Launchpad. We see them doing a much better job of addressing the file system on iOS by abstracting it away altogether. From the user’s perspective, iOS has no file system — only apps and the files and media which are in those apps.

The list of apps and systems that scale well are, of course, different for different users. Some people may feel compelled to keep their Instapaper queue empty and thus find it to be an app that does not scale well. Some applications scale well (or not) because of the attitude and approach of the user; others scale well by design thanks to the developer.

Apps which are low maintenance are the apps which end up getting used most frequently. Choosing software and systems that scale well without needing regular maintenance is one way to help ensure that you will actually make use of your tools at hand. Apps that require too much maintenance and tinkering will eventually cease to get used — unless there is an external reason which requires you use that app — and in their place an alternative will arise.

My name is Andrew Pepperrell, and I created Alfred, a productivity and launcher app for OS X. I live and work near Cambridge in the UK.

Previously, I was a Enterprise Java software engineer and believe it or not, Alfred was the first Objective C / Cocoa project I worked on — primarily to learn something new. Luckily, my foundation in enterprise development helped me nail the architecture and performance of Alfred from the word go. Developing for Mac very quickly became a passion of mine and I have been lucky enough to jump to full-time Mac development around 6 months ago.

In my spare time I love models and radio-controlled stuff, spending time fiddling with a few Tamiya cars which are either working really really well or in complete pieces being rebuilt. I also have a radio-controlled helicopter and plane but generally prefer cars as they crash much less catastrophically.

I am on Twitter as @preppeller and look after the Alfred users at @alfredapp.

What is your current setup?

I currently run a 24″ iMac 2.93 Ghz Core 2 Duo running Snow Leopard as my main development machine with 8GB RAM, which seems essential since Xcode 4 and Safari 5 seem to consume most of this during the course of the day. I have a 20″ Apple Cinema Display attached to the iMac, a wireless Mac keyboard and Magic Mouse plus some Creative GigaWorks T3 speakers which sound much larger than they look! I find the stock iMac too tall for comfort, so have it on an Ergotron MX arm which allows me to lower the iMac screen to a very comfortable height.

I also have a MacBook Air 2.13 Ghz Core 2 Duo 256GB SSD with 4GB RAM running Lion. I should have really waited for the i5 but I am still surprised how incredibly snappy the Air is. Battery life and portability are pretty incredible too.

For Alfred’s build server, I have a Mac Mini (Server) with 2 internal 500GB drives in mirrored RAID running Lion. This is protected by some Mr. Potato Heads which I have found significantly more effective than a firewall.

It goes without saying that I also have an iPad 2 and iPhone 4S.

Why this rig?

For a while, I developed primarily on a Black MacBook and while I loved it, the difference when moving to a proper desktop machine with a 24″ screen was amazing. Xcode 4 uses a huge amount of screen real estate, especially with the built-in Interface Builder. I use the external 20″ Cinema Display for everything other than Xcode. I am also really used to the Cinema Display’s colour balance so it helps me know what to expect when deploying anything which isn’t black or white.

The MacBook Air allows me to work on the go and, as everything I do is version controlled, my development environment is comfortably mirrored between the two machines. I have found it to be so light that on one occasion, I left the house thinking that I had it in my bag but realized later I had left it at home — d’oh!

The build server could be seen as unnecessary as I could deploy from my iMac, however I feel I have a responsibility to Alfred’s users to build and deploy something that I can happily know is free from any potential nasties. As such, the Mac Mini server has absolutely nothing installed on it other than what is necessary to build and deploy Alfred, and is only used for this purpose.

What software do you use and for what do you use it?

On Mac:

• Xcode is the main piece of software I use, and use it every single day… Naturally I use this to develop Alfred and a few other secret projects I am currently working on.

• Fireworks CS5 for screen mockups and general design work. I love the vector as bitmap non-destructive workflow which feels very natural to me. I don’t like how sluggish it feels compared to more native Mac apps.

• Pixelmator for photo editing, however I am really looking forward to the vector tools in Pixelmator 2 and part of me hopes this will allow it to replace Fireworks CS5.

• ColorSnapper for quick and easy colour capture and copy colours with a hotkey – perfect for my workflow.

• Coda for web development. Oddly, before I downloaded ColorSnapper I would open Coda just to access the OS X colour picker panel — weird workflow.

• TextMate for quick and dirty text and code editing… sometimes vi too depending on where my fingers lead me.

• Twitter for Mac… no need to explain this one, I spend way too much time watching the Alfred stream.

• Safari for the majority of my surfing. However, I am trying to go “Flash free” so sometimes I have to revert to Chrome if I am watching YouTube.

• Evernote because it’s like my secondary brain.

On iOS:

• Reeder as it’s the nicest way I have found to read my RSS feeds.

• Calcbot for a calculator as the iPad doesn’t have one. Also use this on my iPhone for consistency.

• Evernote because I generally need to carry my secondary brain around with me.

How does this setup help you do your best creative work?

For starters, using a Mac gives me the reliability I couldn’t dream of during my past of using Windows machines… Being a Mac developer means I naturally have to use Mac, so this is definitely a good thing. Having my main iMac display dedicated to Xcode alone allows me focus much more easily.

Having a tidy desk and a distant view outside my window along with BassDrive internet radio playing really helps me remain creative during the day.

How would your ideal setup look and function?

I would quite like a bit more space in my office… I work from home and therefore am confined to the smallest back bedroom for my permanent office. A larger room for my office would allow me to have all of my radio controlled hobby stuff permanently set up for working on. I could also fit my Yamaha CP300 stage piano in too, which would remind me to practice more.

From a technical point of view, I would love a faster main machine, however, I am reluctant to upgrade at the moment as the current iMacs and Mac Pros all feel a bit mid-to-end cycle… Ideally I would love a 27″ iMac 8 core without a chin (looking more like the current Cinema Displays) and a 15″ MacBook Air… Did you hear me Apple?? I would like those… asap! chop chop.

More Sweet Setups

Andrew’s setup is just one in a series of sweet Mac Setups.

So, when iOS 5 shipped I ordered a card and had it sent to my wife. Here is what stuck out to me:

• The iPhone app is pretty tiny to navigate. I don’t understand why it’s not a Universal app. With Photo Stream, the pictures I take on my iPhone are being downloaded to my iPad anyway, and so why not have an iPad version so I can order cards on my iPad instead? The larger screen would serve this app much better.

  The flip side of this argument is that nobody should be making cards using the photos taken with their iPad. Maybe Apple is saving potential card recipients from receiving a card that has a horrible image on the front which was taken with an iPad’s camera. Perhaps the iPad 3 will have a significant camera update, and around that time the Cards App will get an update to be Universal.

• The card arrived with an actual postage stamp. Not bulk mail, or business class.

• The card is printed on thick, quality cardstock. It feels like 110# cover, or so.

• The print quality of the picture on the front is fairly good. It’s not photo quality, but it’s not poor. It looks like a high-quality ink jet printer.

• There was not a lick of Apple advertising anywhere to be found. I thought for sure there would be a little Apple logo on the back of the card, where a Hallmark logo would have been, but nope. Nothing.

• I always try to buy “blank inside” cards because I much prefer to write my own thing than to write “Dear So-and-so,” before the inspirational, pre-written poem. And so being able to write the words I want on the inside is very convenient for me.

• $2.99 is a steal — you can hardly buy a card and a stamp at Walmart for that price. And with the card at Walmart you certainly aren’t going to be able to customize it and send it from your couch.

In short, I’m impressed with everything about the Cards app except for the app itself. But that’s a minor issue. With a kid on the way whose grandparents live in another state, the Cards app will be getting regular use from the Blanc household.

Something that has been in the back of my mind since I first began using Siri is this thought about all the other types of products and devices that Siri could affect. But the device that has most been on my mind is the iPod nano.

Currently the iPod nano plays audio, helps with fitness tracking, and can tell time. When people got the idea of wearing the nano as a watch, then the next leap in functionality seemed obvious: use the nano as a remote to control the Apple TV. And now, with Siri, I think we’re seeing another glimpse into what could be down the road.

Aside about Bluetooth 4.0 and BLE

Apple is using Bluetooth 4.0 technology in the iPhone 4S. A subset of Bluetooth 4.0 is Bluetooth low energy (BLE). What’s great about the BLE is that the chips need very little power. What’s bad about BLE (at least in this context) is that it does not have an audio profile.

The iPod nano would, naturally, want to use the low energy Bluetooth chips. But as they currently stand, BLE would not allow an iPod nano to send or receive audio (i.e. phone calls or Siri commands).

This article’s entire premise of an iPod nano that uses a power-friendly Bluetooth chip to send Siri voice commands isn’t yet possible. It assumes there are some technical hurdles which currently have not been overcome, at least that I know of.

If an iPod nano were to be built using today’s market technology then it would either: (a) not work with Siri and the phone; or, (b) it would need to use a more power-hungry technology of Bluetooth that would allow for audio profiles, but that would require much more frequent charging.

And so, for now, let’s just speculate about what could be.

An iPod nano With Siri

Imagine an iPod nano that could connect to your iPhone. Give that nano a microphone and a speaker, and you’ve got a bluetooth wrist watch that can be used for phone calls, voice commands, and much more.

And so, with an iPod nano that’s connected to our iPhones — and thus has Siri — you could do quite a bit:

• Send text messages and emails
• Check the weather and stocks
• Create, move, view, and edit appointments
• Dictate notes
• Create reminders and to-do items
• Make phone calls

None of those things would be easily done on the nano’s 1.5-inch screen — it is far too small for any sort of substantial text input. About the most you could do is probably tap in the phone number you’d want to dial. Siri, however, could easily enable a nano-sized device to for all those tasks.

I think the idea of a product like this — a touchscreen watch that plays music and also has phone-like capabilities and an ability to connect to and control our other devices — is a no-brainer.

In fact, another company has already announced something along these lines. Recently the i’m Watch website went live. You can now pre-order one of these nano-sized, touch-screen, Android-based, “smart watches”.

The website seems pretty vague when it comes to specifics about what the i’m Watch can do. Also, I have been unable to find any live demoes of the device except for a 2-second clip where the company’s president, Manuel Zanella, is shown swiping left-to-right through a couple photos and then pulling down the notification panel. It’s right around the 03:28 mark of the promo video.

But, from what I can gather, the i’m Watch is meant for two things:

1. By connecting via Bluetooth, it becomes an extension of your smartphone. Thus you can use the i’m Watch as a way to make and answer phone calls, and read text messages and emails.

   The website doesn’t say anything about sending texts or emails, and so, I assume that you cannot. I mean, how in the world could you be expected to type a message on a 1.54-inch screen, without simply scrolling through the alphabet where all the letters and numbers are in a horizontal row? It’d be worse than rotary dialing.

   Moreover, the i’m Watch supposedly has only 30 hours of standby time when Bluetooth is on (48 hours with it off). That is not very long at all. It means if you use your watch with your phone, you’ll have to charge it every single night. This is exactly why low energy Bluetooth technology would be so helpful.

2. The i’m Watch will also be able to run some apps. It will play music, show photos, check the weather, connect to Facebook and Twitter, and other things.

But if you’re going to have a “shortcut” device like this — something that lives on your wrist and makes it easier to quickly answer your phone or view a text message — it needs to truly work like it should. It has to be more than a novelty item. And, I think it should be able to connect to more than just your phone.

Interface design, input, and ease of use are important enough for a device with a 3.5-inch screen. These things become even more important, and more difficult to maintain, as the screen-size shrinks to that of a wrist watch. Put another way: as the size of a smart device shrinks, its interface and input challenges grow.

Siri (or, if you want to be generic about it, voice input) is the way to overcome those input and interface challenges. Siri can (and likely, will) enable the creation of vast usability and functionality on an extremely small device such as the iPod nano.

If the iPod nano does eventually become capable of being an all-connected remote window device that works with our iPhones, Apple TVs, and computers, well, that would be pretty slick.

I thought this was a great question and worth mentioning briefly.

After using my iPhone 4 every single day for nearly a year and a half, the glass on the front and the back was still in near-mint condition. The only physical blemishes to the glass were some minor nicks that were only noticeable when all fingerprints had been wiped off and you were holding the phone at just the proper angle.

For some, accidents do happen, and I was lucky enough to have never accidentally dropped my iPhone off the roof of a tall building and onto a concrete sidewalk. In fact, I have never catastrophically dropped any of my iPhones.

Moreover, I refuse to put any sort of case or even a clear screen protector on my iPhone.

I’ve owned a cell phone of some sort for 13 years. My iPhone 4 probably got used more than any cell phone I’ve owned previously. And, what’s remarkable, is that after the 18 months of daily usage, none of my phones were in as good of a condition as the iPhone 4 was:

• The exterior glass was still in near-mint condition.
• The battery still held a good, full charge and would last me two days of normal usage.
• In fact, even the usefulness of the iPhone 4 actually increased thanks to software updates and the App Store.

Would it be stretching it to say that the iPhone 4 (and now, 4S) is like fine wine?

I’m Duncan Davidson and I am a photographer, writer, and recovering software developer. Possibly my most recognizable affiliation is as the main stage photographer for TED. I’ve been exploring video and learning all I can, including bridging between stills and motion with a lot of time-lapse work, such as my recent Tribute in Light project. Finally, I’m a partner in Luma Labs which makes some awesome camera slings.

What is your current setup?

My desktop is an eight-core, early-2008 Mac Pro with 14GB of RAM, an upgraded ATI 4870 video card, an SSD boot drive in the bottom DVD drive bay, and 24TB of online storage across several arrays, both internal and external.

My primary display is a late-2008 24″ LED Cinema display. Tunes are pumped out through a set of old school USB Harman Kardon SoundSticks. Input is handed using an Apple Bluetooth Keyboard and Magic Trackpad and a Wacom Intous 4 tablet. For voice input, I use an Audio Technica AT2050 microphone hooked up to an Apogee One, and I monitor on a pair of Audio Technica ATH-M40fs headphones.

Document scanning is handed with a Fujitsu SnapScan. Photographs are scanned with an Epson v500 flatbed scanner. Most of my print needs are handled by an Epson 3880 printer, but for bigger jobs I also have a 24″ HP Z3200.

My primary laptop unless I’m in the throes of heavy photo or video work is a mid-2011, 13″ MacBook Air with 4GB of RAM and a 256GB SSD. I went with the i5 instead of the i7 in the hope of getting the maximum battery life possible.

My secondary laptop which I pull out when I need to use FireWire drives on the road or when I know that the GPU will come in handy is a late-2008, 15″ MacBook Pro that I’ve upgraded to 4GB of RAM and a 256GB SSD. This laptop is almost effectively retired, but not quite.

An iPhone 4 keeps me connected most of the time. A first generation iPad is what you’ll find me using on the couch or in seat 6A when I’m traveling.

Why this rig?

A desktop-plus-portable strategy is the only one that can satisfy my need for power, speed, and storage at home while also keeping things as light as possible for when I’m traveling fast. If I could go with a simpler setup, I would in a heartbeat. So far, however, the trend has been that my storage needs are ramping up quickly over time and dealing with over a TB a year of new data is the big challenge.

On the other hand, nothing beats being able to throw my MacBook Air and a Fuji X100 into a small bag and head out the door for a day or a weekend.

What software do you use and for what do you use it?

I manage my photographs using a combination of Aperture, Lightroom and Bridge. Aperture is taking over my primary catalog needs from Lightroom. I use Bridge when I need to scour through the archives of photographs that aren’t in my active catalog.

When I need more in the way of photo editing tools than I get from Aperture, I use Photoshop. When I need less, I use Acorn and sometimes even Preview.

For video, I use Final Cut Pro X and love it. I also use Compressor and After Effects for various tasks, including stitching together still frames into video clips.

When I’m in code mode, I use BBEdit or Xcode depending on the task at hand. For straight ahead writing—including all of my blog entries as well as the writing that currently isn’t seeing the light of day—I’ve become a huge fan of iA Writer.

To get things done, I use OmniFocus. At least I try. Sometimes I do better than others. Keeping all of my non-media data in sync between machines in handled by Dropbox. 1Password is essential for passwords. Mail, iCal, Safari, Numbers, and Pages are all open on my computer right now.

How does this setup help you do your best creative work?

For the most part, it lets me do what I need to do in the kinds of environments I like to be in.

At home, I’ve arranged my desk so that when I’m working on my desktop, I can look up across my living room and out my huge living room windows across downtown Portland. Watching the weather go by is therapeutic to me. The MacBook Air lets me work in cafés near home and as well as anywhere in the world. It’s even useful for the kinds of light photo editing I do on the road.

How would your ideal setup look and function?

I’m pretty close to my ideal right now. If I could change anything, I’d have a view of midtown Manhattan out my window from 25 floors up and I’d have a 15″ MacBook Pro that wasn’t much heavier than my current Air but which did have a GPU. The former is a pipe dream right now. The latter might happen any month now. Hopefully.

I used to use two screens on my desktop, and I might consider do so again. However, I’ve found that using one screen increases my ability to glance up and look outside my window. A second screen cuts that down quite a bit. As well, I’ve discovered that parking my laptop on one side lets me keep various websites or other reference material in easy view while I work on the desktop.

Finally, a closer-to-ideal setup would include a data solution for my media files that was a bit less maintenance intensive. I think the best I’ll be able to do in the near future is consolidate my various hard drive arrays into two Promise Thunderbolt R6 arrays when I upgrade my desktop machine. That jump will probably happen sometime in the next six months.

More Sweet Setups

Duncan’s setup is just one in a series of sweet Mac Setups.

In Anna’s and my near-seven years of marriage, I don’t know how many times one of us has swung by the store without the other knowing it and then, upon returning home with some groceries in hand, the other says: “Oh! I wish I had known you were going to the store. We’re just out of [some item].”

And so, one thing that would be useful for setting a location-based reminder is if it could be shared. I wrote:

An example of that in real life could look like this: I’m at home and realize we need batteries. I create the reminder and it syncs to my iPhone and Anna’s. Then, suppose Anna realizes she needs to swing by the store on her way home from work to get an ingredient for dinner. When she gets there a reminder pops up notifying her that we also need batteries.

Come to find out, as Brad McCarty pointed out at The Next Web, shared lists in Reminders app are doable using iCloud. They can only be shared via the iCloud website.

To share a Reminder list, log in to your account on icloud.com, go to the Calendars app, click the round satellite/wi-fi radio beams-looking button that is next to the name of the Reminders list which you want to share (or create a new one for sharing), and then enter the email address of the person (or persons) you wish to share that list with.

The new list will then show up in your Reminders app, and once the person you’re sharing it with accepts the invitation, it will show up in their Reminders app as well. I created a list called “Shared”, that is synced on my iPhone as well as my wife’s. Any reminder I or she creates or checks off on that list will be synced on both of our iPhones.

Now we can share any type of Reminder that the iPhone supports: regular, time-based, and location based.

For shared location-based reminders, it’s important that both people have the same contact names and addresses for certain locations such as Walmart, work, home, the grocery store, etc. Also worth noting is that if I set a shared reminder to check the mail when one of us gets home, the alert will go off on both of our phones as soon as either one of us triggers the reminder, even if the other is still out and about.

So now I have two reminder lists on my iPhone: Reminders (which is my main list), and Shared (the one that Anna and I have synced). By default, Siri creates new reminders in your iPhone’s default list. You can change what the default list is in Settings → Mail, Contacts, Calendar → Default List.

I am keeping my own Reminders list as my default list because that’s the one I use most often with Siri. However, I still want to use Siri to add shared reminders on the synced list that Anna and I both have.

Unfortunately, getting Siri to add a reminder to a specific list other than the default list can be tricky. I for one have had quite a difficult time with it.

For example, the following Siri commands in which I am trying to create a reminder on my shared list (which is called “Shared”) all create a task on my default “Reminders” list:

• “Create a shared reminder to take out the trash when I get home.”
• “Create a reminder on the shared list to take out the trash.”
• “Remind me to take out the trash when I get home on the shared list.”

If I ask Siri to “Create a shared list reminder to take out the trash”, Siri will tell me that it cannot create lists.

But, I have found one path of syntax that works. And you have to be pretty specific with it too:

Me: Remind me to take out the trash when I get home.

Siri: Here’s your reminder. Shall I create it?

Me: Move it to the Shared list.

Siri: Okay. I can add this to your Shared List in Reminders. Shall I go ahead?

Me: Yes.

Siri: Okay. I’ll remind you.

Moreover, it seems that only the phrase “Move it to the [name of other list] list.” will work. If I say “Put it on the shared list” or “change it to the shared list” Siri will not move it. In fact, Siri will change the content of the reminder to “On the Shared List”. Oy.

So, in short, adding reminders to shared lists with Siri does work, but it could use a bit of polish.