I bought the 16GB Wi-Fi only model, and for the past five months I’ve been mostly answering the same questions:

1. What do you like about your iPad?
2. Does it replace your laptop?
3. What model should I buy?
4. What are some cool apps?

Here are my answers to these questions.

What do I like about my iPad?

The greatest value the iPad has added to my life is that I read much, much more. In all the passing conversations I’ve had answering this questions about how I like it I often reply that I will never buy a physical book again (probably). Having all my reading material on one device is bliss.

I also love the undistracted writing environment that the iPad provides. When you’re writing in full-screen mode in Simplenote, that is literally all you see. To switch to another app I have to click the home button, look for the other app’s icon, and tap it. Not exactly an arduous process, but also not as easy as a quick press of Command+Tab with my thumb and ring finger.

If the iPad were for reading and for writing only it would still be worth it. These hallmark features make it a great companion regardless of the setting: meetings or living rooms, offices or hammocks.

And, of course, the never-ending battery must be mentioned. I charge it once or twice a week, and it has never died while I was using it.

Does it replace my laptop?

No. But that’s because my laptop is my only other computer. For those with a laptop and a desktop, it’s quite possible that an iPad could be their new portable.

More often than not I need my laptop for work. Usually because I’m laying out a report in InDesign, working on a major budget spreadsheet, or, most likely, I want to work in front of my 23-inch Cinema Display.

There are the days, however, when I do just use my iPad. It works great for reading books, answering email, reading news, taking meeting notes, and more. And with the bluetooth keyboard I can type out long notes and articles, or hammer through lots of emails. And it’s not like these tasks are just bearable on the iPad. It’s quite the opposite actually; they’re enjoyable.

For music and video I usually stream them over Pandora and Netflix. When traveling I’d rather be writing or reading that watching a movie. I’ve never needed or wanted to have my entire media library with me at all times. If I did, I could more than do so with the 64GB model. In iTunes on my laptop I have a grand total of 39GB of media: 25GB of music, 12GB of video, and 2GB of podcasts.

My 16GB iPad actually has only 14GB of usable storage yet I still have not hit that ceiling. In fact, I currently have 2GB of free space.

If I were to buy a higher-model iPad, I would rather spend the money on a 3G version instead of one with more storage. Using the Wi-Fi only model has been fine, and only once have I been in a spot where there was poor wireless and I would have made use of 3G data.

So when it comes to working the iPad does make a light-weight, portable, middle man at times, but it cannot fully replace my laptop. Or, as Brett Kelly defines his iPad, it’s a short-term understudy for his MacBook Pro.

What model should you buy?

There’s no point in going big just because you can afford it. But if you have a lot of media you want to access on you iPad you certainly don’t want to play the juggling act either. Here are a few questions to ask yourself as you consider how much storage capacity you may need, and if you want to pay extra for the 3G model:

While Considering Storage Capacity:

• Do you have a lot of iTunes music that you need with you at all times?
• Do you have an iPhone or iPod that can hold your music and podcasts instead?
• Do you have a thousands of photos you need with you?
• Do you download every app you encounter or are you particular?
• Do you watch a lot of movies and/or TV shows that can’t be streamed?
• Do you subscribe to a lot of video podcasts without ever watching them?

While Considering the 3G Model:

• Do you have wireless internet at your home, work, and other places you will be using your iPad?
• Do you travel a lot and need internet reliability?
• Do you have good AT&T coverage in your home city and/or the cities you travel to regularly?
• Do you already own a cellular Wi-Fi hotspot or can your mobile phone create one?
• Are you willing to pay an extra monthly fee when necessary to get 3G internet?

Aside about reselling and upgrading

Year over year I’ve been able to sell my previous iPhone for the same cost as upgrading to the new model. But this is mostly made possible by the subsidized price I get by being a valued AT&T customer. A non-AT&T customer on Craigslist or eBay is willing to pay $300 or more for a used iPhone because it is still hundreds less than a new non-subsidized one.

Not so with the iPad because it is not subsidized. So though it seems like a giant iPhone, it’s not. And so far as resale goes, it should be treated like Apple’s laptops, desktops, or iPods. You either buy one and plan to keep it until you have to upgrade (like I do with my laptops), or else you sell it the day before the new models comes out and hope to get close to what you paid for it.1 (Currently, you can find dozens of used, good-condition 16GB Wi-Fi iPads on ebay selling for for right around the $499 price point — the same price as a brand new one on the Apple store.)

Something worth noting, which may influence your purchase, is that iPad models with larger storage and 3G will retain a higher resale value than lower-end models. Many people care less about how old the hardware is and more about how well it stacks up against what is currently available in the Apple Store. Remember when Apple discontinue the 4GB iPhone? As soon as the smallest iPhone available was the 8GB, used 4GB iPhones became significantly more “out of date” than the used 8GB models.

What are some cool apps?

Here is a shot of my current iPad homescreen. My favorite, and/or most-used apps include: Instapaper, Simplenote, iBooks, Reeder, Twitterrific, and Things (still holding my breath for OTA sync).

I am David Chartier, an Associate Editor at Macworld. I write about all things Apple, its products, and the third-party ecosystem that helps to make its products great. I also write about tech news and culture at onefps.net, and tweet at @chartier.

What is your current setup?

My primary machine is a late 2009 27-inch 2.66 GHz Core i5 iMac that could eat small family pets alive if left unchecked. I have a wireless Apple keyboard and a Magic Trackpad which is probably going to replace my Magic Mouse. My iMac’s partner in crime is a mid-2009 17-inch 2.8 GHz Core 2 Duo MacBook Pro. I have a 64GB iPad WiFi + 3G that I am increasingly using to write pieces (like this one), and an iPhone 4 that is almost never out of my arm’s reach. I also have a 2TB Time Capsule, an 802.11n AirPort Express, a 160GB Apple TV, a Logitech G9 mouse for gaming, and my wife has my old late 2008, first-gen aluminum unibody MacBook (before they went “Pro” and got an SD slot). I know, we’re the shrink-wrapped Apple family. I’ve had to find a way to live with it.

Why this rig?

I love screen real estate. I rarely full-screen apps, so when I’m writing I’ll give my browser, word processor, a chat window or two, any e-mail I need for reference, and other things as much balanced screen space as possible so I don’t need to switch between them to move information back and forth. Some techie friends consider the 17-inch MacBook Pro to be the aircraft carrier of Apple’s portables, but I love having all that space on-the-go when I need to use all those resources for pseudo-multitasking.

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

I have a ton of third-party apps, many of which I use infrequently for tasks like video transcoding or uploading photos to multiple services at once. But if I had to start with the fundamentals for writing at Macworld, I use MacJournal for almost every post, Skitch and Acorn for editing photos, and Safari. For communication I use Mail with MobileMe and Macworld Google Apps accounts, Adium for when I’m not slingshotting back to iChat (until I give in and want to use Facebook or Yahoo chat again), and Propane for the Macworld chat rooms that run on 37signals’ Campfire.

To keep track of story ideas and leads I use a mix of OmniFocus (after my nearly finished exodus from Things), Evernote, and Mail. I also have a few menubar utilities, though I’m trying to be a little more discerning about those lately. I use LaunchBar for lots of productivity stuff like launching apps and creating new e-mails and iCal events, CoverSutra for controlling iTunes, and Divvy for keeping all my windows in their places.

I’m trying to work LittleSnapper into my Macworld process so I can keep original images around for when editors need them for print. I use Time Machine to backup my Macs and my wife’s MacBook to the Time Capsule, ChronoSync to backup key files and media to a secondary external 2TB drive, and CrashPlan as a third layer of remote redundancy.

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

I love to look at the big picture whether I work at home or on-the-go, which is why I keep lots of resources available at a quick glance and why I use MacJournal. It’s the only Mac word processor I can find which lets me draft in rich text, but copy to the clipboard as the perfectly formatted, plain HTML that most CMSes want. Lots of my peers pen in HTML or Markdown, but I don’t like to look at code or URLs when I write. To me, code is code, and prose is prose. I want to draft, re-read, and continue drafting a piece as the reader will see it, watching for things like the visual flow of text and too many concurrent links that can weigh a paragraph down.

With a desktop, a notebook, and now a tablet, I have a good array of choices between power and portability. I can bang out work and pseudo-multitask at home with my iMac and on-the-go with my MacBook Pro. Or I can bring my iPad out for the day and weekend getaways and focus on one task at a time while lying on the couch or in the middle of Millennium Park.

How would your ideal setup look and function?

I hope this doesn’t mean that I fail the Shawn Blanc Geek Test, but excluding my desire for the latest and fastest hardware, I’m not itching to make major changes. However, now that the 15-inch MacBook Pro has a higher resolution display and can switch graphics cards on the fly, I’m going to downsize and save some weight. I had a Mac Pro with dual Samsung displays for a couple years (22-inch and 24-inch), and while that was a sweet setup, I find that I like having one large, high-res workspace better.

As for the iPad, OS 4.0 and multitasking cannot arrive soon enough, but it really needs at least 512MB of RAM, if not more. I’ll probably upgrade immediately when (but only if) Apple revs the RAM (though possibly at a smaller storage capacity; I’m barely pushing 32GB on this one), because I’m not that desperate for a camera.

Speaking as a reformed mobile phone junkie, the iPhone 4 is the first phone I’ve been thoroughly happy with in years. The antenna thing doesn’t really bug me because I don’t hold it that way. The iPhone 5 will have to have some serious unicorn tear polish to get me to upgrade.

The only other changes to my setup would be more gear mostly for pleasure, not business. Mobile is exploding right now, so I’d love to pick up some Androids and Pres so I could learn a lot more about what they’re up to, but mostly for curiosity and work purposes. I’m also a frequent PC gamer, so I hope to build a dedicated PC again in the next few months. Boot Camp is wearing on me, and Steam for Mac seems like it’s going to need some time to pick up… momentum.

More Sweet Setups

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

I have been getting a lot of recommendations to use OmniFocus lately, but I’m just not ready to switch yet. Is the OmniFocus iPad app getting nothing but rave reviews? Yes. Does their cloud sync look like a dream come true? Yes.

But I am in deep with Things. I adore the app, have a lot tricks established for how I use it on my Mac, and the app itself is built in a way that makes sense to me.

Moving to OmniFocus would be expensive, time consuming, and risky. Risky because we all know cloud sync for Things is en route at full speed, and who knows just how amazing it will be? Even if Cultured Code’s syncing solution did but one thing — let me keep all my devices in sync over the air — I would be ecstatic. But if it does even more than that it almost certainly means another time-consuming switch back to Things for me.

It is also an app for people with ideas. It’s for those who need some way to jot an idea down, build on it, and refine it until they’re sick and tired of it; regardless of where they are or if they brought their laptop.

As a writer, Simplenote could very well be your principal writing app. It has a straightforward design that makes it effortless to use. In Simplenote there is no text formatting, it’s just plain. There is no document titling — when you create a new note, the first line is the title. There is no saving a note — you just write and your note is backed up in real time, and even synced with any other other devices you use: iPad, iPhone, and Mac.

This humble application began a few years ago in response to two big needs of iPhone users: (1) the need for a notes app that synced over-the-air; and (2) the need for a notes app that didn’t use Marker Felt.

In some respects the app has barely changed since 2008. In fact, arguably the most obvious changes have been to the icon. The original icon was as a yellow sticky note taped to the front of a locker. That changed into a grey note card resembling a garage door, which then changed to a white notecard with a blue wi-fi bubble, which changed again to what you see today.

To say the app has barely changed since 2008 is, of course, not to say that Simplenote is the same as it was two years ago. It has been refined, polished, and updated with taste. Only a handful of new features and UI improvements have been added over the years, with many of the most notable changes just recently emerging in version 3.

Compare for a moment Simplenote to Apple’s two text and note-taking apps for the iPad, Pages and Notes. Pages was one of the first apps I bought for my iPad. It was touted as having most of the features of Pages for Mac, but on the iPad. For me, after a bit of use, Pages was quickly relegated to nothing but a full-screen typing app. It is a great showcase for what sort of apps the iPad is capable of running, and for those who need to edit Pages documents on their iPad it is a necessity. But it is somewhat difficult to get documents in and out, and the document syncing process is flat out ridiculous.

Notes is Apple’s other in-house note taking app. It ships with iOS and is quite simple (in fact, much of the foundational user experience that Simplenote has is parallel with the built-in Notes app). As it is with Pages, the biggest downfall with Apple’s built-in Notes app is, again, sync. Though the system for syncing in Notes is better than in Pages (your notes sync into your IMAP email account), nobody I know actually uses the IMAP sync.

The Simplenote developers actually beat Apple at their own game. They made an app with a better design (Helvetica!), better functionality (over-the-air sync), and they proved that less (compared to Pages) is, in fact, more.

Version 3

The latest update to Simplenote sports a slew of new toys. But, as Charlie Sorrel said in his review on Wired, “if you don’t want them, you won’t even notice.”

The most notable for me is the full-screen writing environment on the iPad app. When writing on the iPad I prefer to use Simplenote. But at times, I may want to see just the page with no list of notes next to it. Up until now, I would copy my text out of Simplenote and paste it into Pages. But now there is a subtle, full-screen button at the bottom-right corner of your note — tap that and Pages on the iPad all but becomes obsolete.

Perhaps the most clever of the new features is sharing notes with others. When in a note, tap the icon that resembles a phone with an arrow pointing out. From there you can enable note sharing and email the person whom you want to share with. This is a great way to empower team collaboration and keeping others in the loop with information and ideas.

One of the many thing I keep in Simplenote is meeting agendas — especially talking points for 1:1s. Now for my 1:1s I can share those talking points in a note with the other person I’m meeting. This way he or she can see what’s on the docket, and even add items of their own. Furthermore, with the addition of version history, we can drill down within the same note to see what last week’s agenda items were.

Additional cleverness comes in to play here: if my friend doesn’t have Simplenote installed then I’m going to bug him to get it. And I’m going to bug him to use it so that our collaborating is actually useful. Which means not only is sharing notes useful and helpful for users like me, it is indirectly word-of-mouth marketing for the Simplenote crew. Nicely done.

This is just one example of how the more you use Simplenote the more you find new ways you to use it. People are using it for recipes, ideas, lists, blog posts, chapters of books they’re writing, and more. And for all those power users who are finding themselves with a list of notes longer than there arm, a way to organize may be in order. But a folder structure could slightly hurt the simplicity of Simplenote. Tags on the other hand are a great way to add structuring to your notes if you want.

And one way that I see tags as coming in especially handy is in regard to the aforementioned shared notes feature. Since Simplenote does not label who is sharing a note with you, you can tag that note using their name. Which means someone you’re sharing a lot of docs with, you can see them all at once using a tag filter.

What’s in my Simplenote?

So what do I actually have in my Simplenote at this moment? All sorts of things. Some are notes of importance which I want synced on all my devices. Others are completely trivial and are in Simplenote by sheer virtue of it being my note taking app of choice.

• Meeting agendas and talking points: mostly for upcoming 1:1s. These meetings are usually informal and quick. And, in fact, the very point of a 1:1 meeting is so the two of you only have to connect and meet once a week — saving all your conversation topics for that one meeting. Being able to jot down questions, ideas, and the like using Simplenote has long been my workflow.

• Ideas for businesses, software projects, and other things.

• A list of gift ideas for friends and family.

• Blog posts in all stages: I usually write them in Simplenote or Notational Velocity, and finish them in MarsEdit.

• Recipes: well, actually only one recipe: Grilled Artichoke with golden mustard dipping sauce.

• Reminders of things to order next time I’m at a restaurant I don’t regularly visit.

• And other simple notes: such as cool quotes, shopping lists, miscellaneous data, and the like.

For a wider look at what is in other people’s Simplenote, check out Patrick’s community listing on Minimal Mac.

Other Reviews

If you liked this review of Simplenote, there are more like it here.

My name is Jonathan Christopher, and I’m a Web developer/designer from Albany, NY. I currently spend my days filling the role of Development Director, surrounding myself with writing code, discussing design, site evaluations, and a bit of managerial material along the way.

Perhaps you’ve found yourself at some point reading Monday By Noon, my weekly publication focusing on Web design and development? If not, we’ll need to have a talk.

I try to take photos as much as possible and I’ve got an obsessively long wish list full of gear I’ll never be able to afford, but enjoy thinking and talking about.

I’m recently married and loving every minute of it so far. I’m completely thrilled to be stepping into the next phase of life with my wife. I still get a kick out of saying ‘my wife’ — you can understand.

I also watch at least one episode of Seinfeld per day. Almost.

What is your current setup?

I’m currently using a 15″ unibody 2.66 GHz Intel Core i7 MacBook Pro with 4GB RAM. At home I’m externally connected to a Samsung SyncMaster 205BW, but I wouldn’t mind a 27″ Apple Cinema Display.

• I key with a full-sized wired Apple aluminum keyboard
• I mouse with a Logitech MX Revolution
• I back up to a series of 2TB Western Digital My Book Elites (photos and videos) and 640GB Western Digital Elements (Time Machine)
• I shoot with a Canon 7D (50mm f/1.4, 35mm f/2, 17-85mm f/4-5.6)

Why this rig?

My first Mac was a black MacBook sometime around 2006, and I’ve been hooked ever since. I’ve chosen strictly notebooks since then simply because I work in an office and I truly prefer to be in the same environment both at work and at home. I use external peripherals at both desks which I prefer, but having the ability to go mobile has come in handy on more than one occasion.

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

• Mail.app for all things email.
• iTunes all day every day.
• OmniFocus (and on iPhone) for task management and getting things done.
• 1Password for password management.
• TextMate for every bit of text, code, markup, style, and script I write. I’m even writing this very content in it. I’ve tried everything and always come back to TextMate.
• Fireworks CS5 when designing my own stuff, Photoshop when cutting up everyone else’s. Acorn when I don’t want to wait for Photoshop to start up.
• Yummy FTP when moving sites and assets. Seriously great app; fastest FTP available. Promise.
• ExpanDrive for wonderful network mounted TextMate projects.
• Safari
• Versions for SVN (source control)
• XAMPP for my local development environment.
• Skitch for taking and annotating screenshots. There are lots of apps but Skitch fits my workflow the best.
• Aperture for photo management and post processing. FlickrExport for publishing straight to Flickr.

There’s a bit more but I’m honestly shuffling through these applications every day of my life.

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

With the combination of mobile hardware along with a tried and tested arsenal of chosen applications, I’m able to focus on the work itself instead of figuring out how I’m going to do it. Not having to worry about software or hardware problems alone helps me get things done, and that can be attributed to being on a Mac running OS X and the software built for it.

The software environment itself also caters to a creative mind. The attention to detail Apple puts forth (as well as software developers) is truly inspirational and sets the bar quite high out of the box. When you’re staring at that in everything you do, you’re inspired subconsciously all day long.

I also try to keep my work environment inspirational as much as I know how. The referenced photo includes a shot of my home office, which I try to keep organized and a bit private. There’s always music playing and it’s always better when heard over speakers instead of headphones. There are two book cases flanking the desk full of not only Web related books but also other books great for leafing through from time to time. Banksy’s Wall and Piece for example is a great piece to revisit from time to time for me. The posters in the background are prints from Joshua Davis, an artist I’ve followed and looked up to for quite some time.

I hope to spend more time on the home office, specifically with my wife as she also has her workstation on the other side of the room. It’ll be a great project for the both of us as time goes on.

How would your ideal setup look and function?

My ideal setup would definitely be in my current home office space, but include a few more details I haven’t had the time (or finances) to pull off quite yet. My wife and I moved into the house (our first home) about a year ago and the office is the last to get attention. It was recently painted Elephant Skin gray and I really like the color, but if I were to change one thing about it I would have to start with the lighting. Lighting is a big deal in an office environment and I’ll be keeping my eyes peeled for a set of lamps to replace the extras I’m currently using.

On a technical level, my ideal setup would include a 27″ LED Apple Cinema Display, completely wireless connections for everything, and wireless electricity. I don’t like wires. I’m supremely happy with my current MacBook Pro and wouldn’t trade that in, but I’d love to see it house a speedy SSD drive should the option come up.

Last, I’d love to have a new series of applications in which to work. Don’t get me wrong, aside from all the quirks here and there I totally love working in Fireworks and TextMate. If I absolutely had to choose two applications to use while stranded on a desert island, they would be it. The issue though, is that the industry has outpaced their development.

TextMate is an open and shut case. The application is truly fantastic but it’s now the job of another publisher to take the torch and continue on. So far, no one has stepped up to the plate as a major player; I’m anxiously awaiting that.

Design software, though, is a different story altogether. Beyond the heated battles surrounding which existing app is better than another, the truth is that no application in existence has been designed to meet the needs of modern Web design. Without getting too philosophical, I’m hoping over the next number of years we see a change in the thought process behind facilitating Web design from the ground up.

More Sweet Setups

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

In Mint’s prefrences, there’s a list you can add domains to which you don’t want to show up in the Unique Referrers List. So now you can block images.google.com. But if you block imgaes.google.com you’ll still referrals from other sites images.google.fr and others. And so the easiest way to solve the litter would be to block the all of main offender’s various URLs by using a single wildcard: *.google.*

However, due to the fundamental way Mint works you are unable to use wildcards to remove certain domains from your new unique referrers list. Therefore you have to list each domain separately, and you have to know them all.

I did a bit of research and compiled a list of 286 unique Google domains, many of which send traffic via search results, Google Reader, and translating. Additionally, it’s not that helpful to see all the unique visits coming from the Tumblr Dashboard, someone’s Facebook wall, or an Instapaper/Read it Later/Pinboard account.

Altogether the list includes 291 domains.

There are two things worth noting:

1. Adding tumblr.com removes the referrals from the Tumblr dashboard (such as tumblr.com/dashboard/2/982869026), but does not block referrals from sub-domained Tumblr blogs (such as example.tumblr.com).

2. This list only affects your Unique Referrers List (and its RSS feed if you use it, and you should if you don’t). It will not remove any domains from showing up in the Most Recent Referrers list, nor will it affect the SERPs Pepper.

Instructions

• View the list of domains here

• Select all and copy

• Go to your site’s Mint install → Preferences → Default Pepper → paste the list into the text field for Referrers → click Done

• Enjoy

The problem: You’re online with your iPhone or iPad and you come across something which you want to read, but at the moment you don’t have the time.

The solution: You send the article to Instapaper. It is now bookmarked, and when you have time you open up Instapaper (on your iPhone, iPad, or computer) and the article you wanted to read is ready.

II

Another problem: You’re online with your iPhone or iPad and you come across something you want to do, but at the moment don’t have the time to do it (or perhaps because of the device you’re on you don’t have the ability).

The solution: Something that, so far as I can tell, does not yet exist: A cloud-based, task-management bucket where you can throw links, tips, bookmarks, and the like — all of which are actionable. It would be able to receive these tasks via in-app services, email, or a browser bookmarklet. And I vote we call it ttttask.

Similarly to the way Instapaper as a service is for articles you wish to read later, ttttask would be a service for things you wish to do later.

III

It seems as if every day I bump into things while reading feeds, Twitter, the Web, or email — things I want to download, buy, research, and etcetera. But often I’m unable to take action at that moment. How then can I save it for later?

When on my Mac I use AppleScripts and built-in triggers to throw these items directly into Things. But on my iPhone and iPad there is no such solution. And since even the smallest pebble will make expensive Reeboks uncomfortable to run in, this sore spot of how to handle all the tasks I bump into when on my iPhone or iPad has got me thinking…

We need a universal, cloud-based bucket to throw these items into. A bucket that talks to all our current software instead of asking us start using new tools.

So far as I can see it there are two really great, though currently non-existent, solutions:

1. A services menu for iOS. If this were a reality, people with the Things app installed on their iPhone and/or iPad could have a “Send to Things” service available within all their other apps. Thereby allowing them to send tasks into Things on their iPhone directly from Twitter, Reeder, Mail, Mobile Safari, and more.

   Some iPhone apps have worked around this by talking to one-another with the in-app APIs. You can save drafts of tweets into Birdhouse from Twitter’s iPhone app, or service reminders in Gas Cubby can be sent into Appigo’s Todo. But these cross-app functions take you out of your current context and sending you to another app — not exactly the ideal way to quickly save something for later.

2. Another solution would be this universal, cloud-based bucket and its open APIs: ttttask. The caveat is that it would only be as useful as it is available. This is a big slice of why Instapaper is so great: all the various apps which have adopted it as an in-app service so you can hook into your Instapaper account right from within the app.

   Ttttask’s APIs would allow for apps to toss items into the bucket and get them out. It would be able to receive these tasks via in-app services, an email, or even a browser bookmarklet. It would be able to pipe your to-do list into other applications. And if it got really fancy, tttask could even work as a syncing agent for other to-do apps to utilize. Then, regardless of which task-management software you use (and even regardless of what OS), you would be able to sync your software with what is in ttttask.1

These aforementioned solutions are tall orders. And unfortunately neither of them are a reality (yet). In the meantime here are some workarounds I’ve considered to at least alleviate the pebble of in-app task capture on iOS.

• Set up a second Instapaper account. Since Instapaper is basically a long list of items which can be added to from so many other apps, it would seem to be a great interim solution. But there are two problems with using Instapaper as a Do Later list instead of a Read Later list. For one, Instapaper is built for headlines and article links, not tasks. So even though someone could technically use it as a task list, it is certainly not intended or suited for that purpose. Secondly, iPhone and iPad apps only let you access a single Instapaper account at a time. So even if I had two accounts I could only access one of them.

• Use a bookmarking service other than Instapaper. Such as Delicious, Pinboard, or Read It Later. This could work, but again, it suffers from the same problem as above, in that these are services designed for bookmarking articles and links. Also, if you don’t already use one of these bookmarking services then you’ve just create another inbox to be aware of. I try hard to keep the number of inboxes I need to check at a minimum.

• Use one of the many online to-do apps that let you create tasks via email. Such as Remember the Milk. Not to be a Negative Nancy, but this would again mean another inbox to check. Moreover, there are no online task management applications with services supported by other iPhone and iPad apps. And so if I am going to go through the trouble of emailing a task it might as well be sent to an inbox I already check.

• Email the tasks to Simplenote. With the purchase of a premium Simplenote account you get a private email address which can be used to send notes into your Simplnote list. For those who use Simplenote to manage their task lists this just may work well. I, however, use Simplenote (and Notational Velocity) all throughout my day for writing and other note taking. I would prefer not to dilute my list of notes with items I am intentionally trying to deal with later.

And so the solution I’m currently using is perhaps the most obvious of all: email the task to myself.

I set up a new email address. One that is easy to type and is quite unique so I don’t send to someone in my contacts list on accident. (I’m using something along the lines of ttttask-sb@me.com — a couple taps on the “t” button brings this address right up).

Furthermore, I’ve created a server-side email rule that moves all emails to that address into their own folder. Having the rule be server-side ensures that the emails don’t show up in my inbox on my iPhone or iPad. Moving them to their own folder keeps them out of my way until I’ve got time.

I use Things, and with a little bit of AppleScript and a rule in Mail on my Mac incoming task emails can be dumped into my Things inbox. (If you use OmniFocus you can enable Mail Hooks so that OmniFocus grabs the emails for you.)

However, even this solution has a two-fold downside. For one, it is tedious to always have to email yourself things to do, as opposed to using the quick-access, built-in services that apps like Twitteriffic, Tweetie, Reeder, and others have. Secondly, items don’t end up in my actual to-do app, Things, unless my Mac is turned on, connected to the internet, and both Mail and Things are running.

A service like ttttask has a lot of potential. Imagine being able to switch task-management apps like you switch Twitter clients; or sharing a to-do list with others even if you use different software? 2 But as I said, it would only be as useful as it is available. So building it comes with two big challenges: infrastructure and adoption.

My name is John Carey. I am a photographer moonlighting as a live audio engineer or the other way around depending on what day you ask me. I also run the website fiftyfootshadows.net on which I provide many images from my photographic work as wallpaper imagery for my readers. I have done this for somewhere around seven or eight years now and I feel it is just starting to pick up momentum. There is a significant update to the site currently under construction which I hope will help it grow beyond where I have taken it to this point, but more on that when the time comes…

I started out with drive to become a designer, but over time my desires shifted toward photography. I love the honest nature of it, the compromises within it, and the fact that I can bridge a very tangible art form using traditional film cameras with a highly digital one using digital cameras and computers to create images and share the world as I see it with others. I have grown very passionate for the art of photography and the places it takes me, and I am anxious to see where I end up with it next.

My secret double life as a live audio engineer is equally fulfilling and rewards me with the same sort of satisfaction photography does in the way that I am using both analog tools as well as digital ones to get the job done.

I love my work and often wonder if I could live without either of these sides of my professional life because they fulfill my lust for adventure in such unique ways.


What is your current setup?

I have been a Mac user my entire life. Honestly, I have been using them since the Apple II days and every iteration they have come out with along the way. I remember shooting with an old Apple Quicktake digital camera along side an old film Canon when I was just starting to get into photography and design. I followed the digital photography revolution very closely as it crept into the minds of skeptical photographers.

My current set up is simple and built from a combination of necessity, luck, and (like any self-respecting geek) an unhealthy desire for new tech.

That said I currently have an old black MacBook which at home is paired with a Cinema Display, bluetooth keyboard, Magic Mouse, Griffin laptop stand, 8 or more hard drives, and a pair of powered studio monitors because I simply need a nice pair of speakers around for my sanity. I also use a 64GB Wi-Fi iPad, and a 32GB iPhone 4.

If anyone is interested in what I shoot with, I use a Canon 5D paired simply with a 35mm f/1.4L lens, a Hasselblad 501cm with its standard 80mm lens, and a Voigtlander R3M 35mm rangefinder with a 40mm f/1.4 Nokton Lens.


Why this rig?

The core of what I use revolves around the MacBook, the last generation of the black plastic bodied ones. At the time it was the top of the line and it has proven itself to be more than capable through its years of use and certainly the most stable and dependable Mac I have ever owned. I will admit that it’s probably seeing its last good year in use and may need to be replaced sooner or later simply to keep up with newer tech and the demands of the work I do.

But the question is WHY. Yes… well, the true nature of my life is pretty nomadic as I am constantly on the move either traveling for work or traveling for pleasure around the world whenever possible. My office is anywhere and everywhere it needs to be so my portable tools are as important to me as the modest space I have at home for computing. 

My real office is carried in bags with me wherever I go, at times two or three even. I always have my cameras with me, if not all of them at least one, and I usually carry my laptop for work but also simply out of necessity because much of my blogging and internet life I squeeze into down time at work or while traveling and so I often need to have these key things with me wherever I go.

Also I have a small bunch of tools that I always carry for work, as well as a blank notebook or two and a couple nice pens (because nothing beats pen and paper for sketching out ideas, no matter how many apps you have for it) and other sorts of little things depending on what I need on any given day.

My bags of choice are made by an amazing bag company called Spire. I swear by them and their amazing customer service — you really can’t go wrong with those guys. I’m looking forward to seeing what they come up with next, their bags have traveled the world with me. 


When I do set up office away from home I have my iPad to handle more and more of my day-to-day internet shuffle, and I will have to admit at this point the 3G option sure would have been nice at times. It has allowed me to leave the laptop at home more often which is nice. I use a wonderful little stand, the Compass, and it has been more than helpful in giving my iPad a home while out on the job or in a coffee shop working on ideas.

To protect the iPad while out I use a simple fabric sleeve I had a friend make for me to my specifications including a thin piece of wood to protect the screen which was sewn into the fabric and padding. (I actually do this to my laptop bag as well, a worthwhile customization for anyone wanting to really protect their screen.) I also have a Speck candyshell case for it which I use while I am on job sites to keep it safe.

The last piece of the puzzle is my iPhone 4 which I admit I bought into because of the camera and display. Its a wonderful device and the controversy surrounding is just way out of control. It’s a brilliant phone plain and simple, and it holds all the little things in my life together.

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

My favorite applications on the Mac which I use most often are:


• Aperture: I love Adobe’s take on raw photo management as well as Lightroom being faster overall in its performance, but I greatly prefer the workflow of Aperture — both in file management and editing. I find it is easily worth the compromise.


• Photoshop: It’s just unavoidable in my photo and occasional design work really. I have been using it since version 3, just before layers came on board and changed everything. My use of the program is admittedly very minimal as I have long since moved beyond my days of over manipulating images (it just got old after a while).


• Illustrator: I have been using Illustrator for what seems like forever as well. I remember messing about with it when I was very young, making overly complex blends between objects that the poor old computer running it at the time took forever to render. I use it for layout mostly — this and many other design needs. It’s just as relevant to me as Photoshop really.


• CSSEdit: I love working with websites. I have been making them since the late ’90s to share my design and photography, but the problem is I never REALLY learned how to do it. My knowledge of making websites has been pieced together out of necessity. And I learn as I go, so an application like CSSEdit that helps me simplify editing style sheets is a wonderful thing indeed.


• Espresso: Any HTML or PHP editing I have to do I reach for Espresso simply because I love its approach to interface design. Simply brilliant.



• Things: Again with the interface design. I looked for years to find an elegant solution to handle my task list and notes, and this hit the nail on the head. It’s the glue that holds my ideas and projects and jobs together. Now if they would just hurry up and get cloud syncing in there!


• MarsEdit: The newest member of the family. MacJournal was my go-to, local blogging tool for a long time, but it started to get frustrating with its half-way support for uploading. So I made the switch that was a long time coming.


• The rest: Then there are all the other in-betweens. iTunes, CoverSutra, DropBox, DeskShade, Safari, Mail, Transmit, and not to mention the iPad and iPhone apps that have made their way into key parts of my workflow. I also create electronic-fueled music with a good friend of mine and have for years. And for that I use Reason and Ableton Live, whereas he uses countless other applications as he is more the musician that lives and breathes electronic music.

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


 Well, as I mentioned, my life is always on the move and these tools allow me to easily and elegantly glide between tools needed to accomplish the many projects I juggle at any given moment. It can be stressful trying to do so much at once and being able to quickly and confidently jump between tasks allows me to focus less on messing about with my computer and focus more on simply getting things done. For me the tech I use should actually make my life easier to manage, not get in the way of the process. I am not a super geek by any stretch of the imagination, I just learn the tools I need to know to accomplish what I want to.

It’s amazing the amount of mileage I have gotten out of this simple old MacBook over the years. It’s not always necessary to constantly have the latest and greatest unless you really have a need to. I do my best to stay relevant in this unbelievably demanding world we live in, but most of the time less is defiantly more.

How would your ideal setup look and function?

My money-is-no-object, ideal setup would be a large 27” iMac at home for all my heavy lifting and data management, then a MacBook Air for travel. Only I want one that Apple has yet to make — one slightly more capable, and who knows if that will ever see the light of day. This paired with an iPad for presentations and casual use and my iPhone simply because it easily syncs information together with the rest of Apple’s universe.

The last addition would be a hefty RAID Server for hard drive/data management. It’s exhausting having to juggle all of these hard drives!

Also, an oversized desk with plenty of workspace would be nice. One that I could build a light table into. I like the idea of having a lot of extra space… breathing room for my mind.

More Sweet Setups

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

My name is Phil Coffman and I am an Art Director at Springbox, an interactive marketing agency in Austin, TX. In addition to my day job I write about whatever inspires me at my personal site philcoffman.com and take the occasional photo. I’m also currently developing a new site called Method & Craft that will focus on the creative mind and beauty found within each pixel. You can follow @methodandcraft for the latest on its progress and plans for launch. I’m married to my beautiful wife Cynthia and have a 2yr old son, Ethan.

What is your current setup?

At work I use a Mac Pro with 5GB of RAM and dual-monitor setup comprised of a 23″ Cinema Display and 20″ Dell something. The Cinema Display is my main screen where I run Photoshop, Illustrator, and Safari. The Dell is dedicated to email, Adium, Tweetie, and Bowtie, my iTunes controller. A few months back I started using a Wacom Intuos 4 Medium tablet and have never looked back. I forced myself to use it for a week solid and now use the pen for everything from Photoshop to browsing the web.

Listening to music while I work is vital to my productivity. I have a pair of Sony MDR-V300s that, despite their long cord which gets tangled around my chair, provide adequate audio clarity and help block outside noise when I need to focus.

At home I use a 15″ MacBook Pro (pre-unibody model) with 2GB of RAM, which is not nearly enough. Sometimes I bring my Intuos home if I need it’s flexibility on a project, but otherwise I use an old Dell optical mouse.

At the office we work off servers that are backed up daily. At home I use Time Machine to back-up to an external FW hard drive. That entire setup is then mirrored online using Crashplan.

Why this rig?

I use a Mac Pro at work because I’m often dealing with heavy Photoshop files and need the horsepower. The 5GB of RAM helps keep everything running quickly. The dual-monitor setup is a must for me as I prefer to work fullscreen in Photoshop and want as much screen real-estate as possible. While I use the 2nd monitor mostly for secondary applications like IM, email, etc., I often use it to display documents related to what I’m working on such as a copy deck or IA.

The Intuos has dramatically changed how I interact with Photoshop. My design style lays heavy on the fine details, and the fluidity that a pen provides over a mouse is simply unmatched. Being able to add the element of “pressure” has come in handy more times than I can count. On the very rare occasion I’ll use the Wacom mouse to get uniformity with the Photoshop brush tool, but most of the time it just sits there collecting dust.

I’m very picky when it comes to which wallpaper I use on my machines. At home I sometimes don’t have as much of a say , but at work I use a dark wood panelling photo. Having a dark, B&W image alleviates distractions and makes it easy to find things on my desktop, although I try to keep things orderly as much as possible.

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

• Adobe Photoshop: all of my comps and design work including wireframes
• Adobe Illustrator: logo work or the occasional vector asset
• Safari: web browsing
• Tweetie: to stay in the loop
• Adium: to connect with my coworkers and friends with various IM accounts
• iTunes: music
• Bowtie: to control iTunes via the keyboard
• Entourage: email
• Quicksilver: custom keyboard triggers for screen captures and quick launch of apps
• Cyberduck: FTP (although I have Transmit at home and will probably transition at work as well)
• Dropbox: for file sharing between home and work

Do you have any other gadgets?

I use my 16GB iPhone 4 all day. I commute to work via lightrail and use that time to listen to podcasts, read, check my RSS feeds & twitter, and play games like Angry Birds and Words With Friends. The evolution of the iPhone 4 from the 3GS is amazing. I love the retina display, and the 5MP camera is just remarkable. When not taking photos with my iPhone I use a Nikon D80 paired with a 50mm 1.8 and 28mm 2.8.

How would your ideal setup look and function?

I’m happy with my work setup, so my ideal setup pertains to home. I don’t take my MacBook Pro anywhere to get work done, so ideally I’d upgrade to an i5 27″ iMac so I could take advantage of the larger screen, horsepower, RAM, and storage. I’d also pick up an Intuos to go with the iMac since I’ve grown so accustomed to using a pen over a mouse.

More Sweet Setups

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

(Thank you Daniel.)

I mostly use 1Password on my Mac to generate and save passwords and logins for websites. But on my iPhone and iPad it makes for a fantastic way to keep notes and other top-secret info safe and secure. And now that it has free cloud syncing via Dropbox (which works perfectly), 1Password just became that much more useful and vital to me.

With the amount of shared information I keep between my iPad, iPhone, and Mac, apps which sync via the cloud are becoming a necessity while apps that don’t are quickly becoming so cumbersome to maintain they’re almost useless.

I received a little bit of feedback from that post, and for the most part people were asking two things: (1) If I’m using 1Password to keep notes on my iPhone, what about Yojimbo?; and (2) if apps that don’t cloud sync are so cumbersome now, what am I doing about Things?

The short answer is that I still use both of these apps every day. Yojimbo and 1Password have much different uses, and the lack of cloud syncing in Things has not yet become so cumbersome that I’ve abandoned it.

I use Yojimbo to store just about anything and everything, while 1Password keeps only important info. The vast majority of info I curate is done when working on my laptop and therefore lands in Yojimbo.

As I wrote in my review of Yojimbo, one of the premier features is its encouragement of perpetual info capture regardless of the type. Yojimbo is the simplest way I know of to save any bit of spontaneous information, no matter how indispensable or arbitrary that information is.

1Password on the other hand is hardly geared for this type of frictionless data capture. Quite the opposite in fact. When you launch 1Password you’re greeted by a locked steel door requiring a combination before you gain access the app.

I primarily use 1Password for generating and storing passwords and for logging in to websites. The only other info I store is that which is most likely to be useful to me when I’m on the go. Such as Anna’s and my cars’ license plate numbers, my iOS device UDIDs, and a few other things.

It has never bothered me that Yojimbo does not have a mobile app and that I do not have access to my Yojimbo library when on the go. In fact, not only does it not bother me, I’ve never even been in a real-life scenario where I was out with just my iPhone and wanted access to my Yojimbo library. (And the only time I’ve used the Yojimbo Sidekick mobile website library thingamajig was to test it.)

However, I am daily in scenarios where I am out with just my iPhone and wish I had access to the latest version of my to-do list.

I’ve been using Things since it was in beta, and I still love it. It works seamlessly with my daily workflow of getting tasks in and out. And I love how simple it is — the structure of tasks, projects, and other information is not too simple, nor too rich — it’s just right. But I don’t just use Things on my Mac anymore. I am adding and checking off tasks on all three devices throughout my day. My multi-device to-do list is slowly becoming so cumbersome to maintain some days it’s almost useless. Cloud sync for Things is almost a necessity for me.

It’s no secret that the Cultured Code team is working on a Cloud Sync solution. Considering their reputation for development I have no doubt it will be worth the wait. But in the mean I’ve resorted to managing tasks using email, and often I’ll scrub my to-do list in Simplenote.

On the other hand, it has been fascinating to glimpse into how I daily get things done, as I become increasingly more aware of these speed-bumps caused by Things being out of sync. It not only shows how much more work I am doing away from my laptop (by using my iPad). It is also showing just how valuable it is to have my work and tools in constant sync, regardless of the context of the device.

And my next wish? A cloud-based service like Instapaper, but for to-do items. I want it to be available in apps like Tweetie, Reeder, and more, so when I click on “Do Later” it sends the link or item of note into a running to-do list (that syncs with Things, of course).

What first turned me on to Gowalla was its design. The website and mobile apps are beautiful, and Gowalla’s use of cute icons and graphics throughout makes for a great experience.

But it’s not just the design that I like about Gowalla. It’s fun, and it’s meant for people who like to get out, whatever the reason. Errands, dates, local events, road trips, and the like — if you like to get out you might like to Gowalla.

And this focus on travelers (adventurers?) is what makes Gowalla so interesting and fun for me. I don’t have to have a metric ton of “friends” on to make it worth using. And though I suppose it would be more fun to use if more of my friends Gowallad, chances are good that even the 30 friends I do have aren’t paying much attention to where I check in. And that’s okay. Because what is most enjoyable about Gowalla is the cataloging of your own journey.

I just returned from a two-week vacation in Colorado. On the first day of our trip I put the Gowalla iPhone app right on my home screen and decided that while I was traveling around the Colorado Front Range and the Rocky Mountains I would check in at every spot I could.1

Also, in preparation for my Colorado vacation I created a Gowalla trip called “Classic Castle Rock“, which features some of the premier spots around my home town. I built most of the trip on the Gowalla website before I even left Kansas City. There were a couple spots I wanted to be a part of the trip that weren’t created already, so once I got in to town last week I spent one of my mornings driving around and creating the final few spots.

It’s unfortunate that creating new locations and checking in at spots is limited by my connection to the internet. If I’m not connected I can’t check in. And this is particularly unfortunate because some of the most fabulous, visit-worthy locations are in areas with no cell service and no wireless internet.

For instance, my family and I spent a few days in Pine Grove staying at my grandparent’s cabin. It’s an old, red cabin that sits right by Elk Creek. And a half-mile upstream is the Bucksnort Saloon, home of the Buck Burger. We also spent one morning in Bailey to have breakfast at the Cutthroat Cafe and visit Coney Island’s new location. Sadly, my AT&T-connected iPhone couldn’t get a lick of signal at any of these fabulous spots.

It just so happened that on The Big Web Show last week, Jeffery and Dan interviewed Josh Williams, the founder of Gowalla. And they discussed this very issue of mobile connectivity versus spot check-in and creation. Josh is hoping that the Gowalla team will find a way to store GPS location data on your phone even when you don’t have cellular service. Then, once you’re connected to the internet again, you could use that stored GPS location data to check in and/or create the spots you were at.

This would be a great solution considering the situation, but ultimately we just need better cellular coverage. You see, it’s one thing for me to be able to create the Bucksnort Saloon 48 hours after being there, but that won’t necessarily help someone in the area use Gowalla to find the Bucksnort when they’re out in the middle of No Network Land looking for great burger joints.

It has taken me a while to decide how I use Gowalla (though I’m still not sure exactly what that is). At first I had to check in as soon as I arrived at a spot — as if I was punching in on a time clock. If I didn’t check in right away, I wouldn’t check in at all.

Now I check in when I have a few spare minutes. But there are some people who check in to spots they don’t even walk into but that they just walk by and notice. Is that breaking the rules? What are the rules, even?

For me, I prefer to only check in at places I’ve actually walked into and spent at least a little bit of time. But even then there are times I am on the go and don’t have a few spare minutes to check in with Gowalla.

And this is perhaps the most frustrating part of using Gowalla. It usually takes at least a minute or two to fully complete the check-in process on my iPhone. And that’s assuming the spot I’m checking in to has already been created, and I have good 3G coverage. It takes an extra couple of minutes if I also need to create the spot I’m at.

I would love to see a part of Gowalla’s future solution for checking in at places where you don’t have service to also include a way to check in quickly, or even in the background. If my wife and I are out on a fancy date you bet I want to check in at J. Gilbert’s. But giving my wife the attention she deserves is significantly more important. Which is why I want Gowalla to let me check in for my hot date at the best steakhouse in town while also letting me ignore my iPhone and have a great evening out.

Coming back to my question, I don’t think there are any rules. Much of what makes Gowalla so cool is that it’s still being defined and discovered by its developers and users. Every day I seem to discover a new use for Gowalla, and as it grows the more useful and fun it will be.