Year: 2012

Sweet App: QuickShot

QuickShot is like DropVox but for images.

I found this iPhone app by spying on David Barnard’s Home screen. You use QuickShot to take a photo and it will then upload the image to Dropbox for you. It uploads in the background too, so you just snap a pic and close the app.

David explained how he uses the app to take pictures of all his tax-deductible, business expense receipts when on the go. When I read that, I thought to myself, what an extremely clever idea.

I keep my business receipts in Yojimbo, and so I’ve set up a folder action on my QuickShot Dropbox folder to run the below AppleScript. What the AppleScript does is: when I take a photo of a receipt using QuickShot the image will be tossed into Yojimbo with the tags “receipt” and “viaDropbox” and then the original image is deleted from my Dropbox folder.1


on adding folder items to this_folder after receiving these_items
    repeat with x from 1 to the count of these_items
        set theFile to item x of these_items
        set theTags to {"receipt", "viaDropbox"}
        try
            tell application "Yojimbo"
                set newItem to (import theFile)
                add tags theTags to newItem
            end tell
        end try
    end repeat
    tell application "Finder"
        delete these_items
    end tell
end adding folder items to

QuickShot is universal and just $1.99 in the iTunes App Store.

  1. Thanks to my pal, Brett Kelly, for a bit of AppleScript debugging to get the script to work right. Actually, especially thanks to him because it’s a script that works with Yojimbo and we all know he’s an Evernote guy. ↵
Sweet App: QuickShot

Another Kickstarter Record: Double Fine Adventure Game  →

Speaking of Kickstarter records, Double Fine Adventure is on pace to blow every single record out of the water. Sweet mercy. They launched their project just last night, and after 18 hours they are already 200% funded. But here’s the kicker: that 200% funding means they’ve already raised over $800,000 and there’s still another month to go. Crikey.

Another Kickstarter Record: Double Fine Adventure Game

Elevation Dock: The Most-Funded Project on Kickstarter Ever  →

Yesterday the Elevation Dock surpassed the TikTok’s record of $942,578 and became the most-funded Kickstarter project ever. And there’s still two days left to back the Elevation Dock — looks like it’ll break a million.

Update: They did break a million.

Update 2: The Elevation Dock is no longer the most-funded project on Kickstarter ever.

Elevation Dock: The Most-Funded Project on Kickstarter Ever

Tweetbot for iPad Review

Great design is often polarizing. When opinions about your design work seem to be either extremely positive or extremely negative then it’s likely that you’ve hit a home run.

And I can think of no other Twitter client that has received more polarized praise and criticism than Tweetbot. People seem to love it or hate it; very few are just “meh” about it.

I check Twitter on my iPhone an order of magnitude more than on my Mac and especially on my iPad. It’s no secret that I love Tweetbot. I’ve been using the iPhone app as my main Twitter client since late 2010 when the app was still in its early beta days.

Up until recently I have always used the “official” Twitter for iPad app. It always struck me as odd that an app on my iPhone (Tweetbot) could serve as a better twitter client than one on my iPad (Twitter). But now Tweetbot has an iPad version. And it rocks.

The most obvious differentiator between Tweetbot and other Twitter clients is that Tapbots-style of design. It permeates all of their apps and it is a part of their brand. But design for the sake of design is never enough.

No doubt that the vast majority of those who read this site are familiar with form-versus-function commandment: thou shall not let form trump function. The way an app works is far more important than the way an app looks.

Tweetbot is that rare bird of an app that carries an extremely strong and unique mix of both form and function.

Every single pixel is completely customized. The Tapbots color pallet of blue and black and grey with textures and gradients is prevalent throughout. So too, every sound is unique with the playful robotic sounds of clicks and swooshes.

But it doesn’t stop there. The amount of custom design in this app is only surpassed by the amount of functionality and usability tucked underneath those pixels.

Tweetbot, even with its extremely custom design, is still an app with greater function than form. Though the first thing you see is the custom designs done by Mark Jardine, and these are the pixels which are always before you when you use the app, what makes the app great is how functional it is.

Over time I’ve become so very used to Tweetbot’s functionality that it’s an app which has stuck on my iPhone’s Home screen since its beginning. And now it’s stuck on my iPad’s Home screen as well.

If you love Tweetbot on your iPhone, you’re going to love it for iPad. It carries all same power-user-friendly bells and whistles that the iPhone version has.

Here are a few of the iPad app’s features which stand out to me:

  • Tweetbot for iPad still treats lists as first class citizens. This is one of my favorite bits about the iPhone app and I am glad that on the iPad it is still easy to set lists as your main timeline view.

  • Reading articles via the in-app browser is fantastic. You get a full-screen browser along with that same awesome Readability / Instapaper mobilizer toggle that the iPhone app when in the in-app browser. Just flip the switch and you get a text-friendly layout of the site you’re on:

Readability view in Tweetbot for iPad

  • Tapping an Instagram or other linked image in your timeline darkens out the background and expands the image:

Viewing full-size images in Tweetbot for iPad

  • Composing a new tweet is a lot more spacious than the official Twitter client, and has the same quick-access buttons that Tweetbot for iPhone does:

Composing a new tweet in Tweetbot for iPad

Tweetbot for iPad is a power Twitter user’s best friend. It’s an ideal app for those who make good use of lists and who follow folks who post a lot of links to articles. You can still apply filters to mute certain users or hashtags, you can see your favorites, and retweets, and more.

I’ve been using it for the past several weeks and the more I use it the more I like it. Highly recommended.

Here’s the iTunes App Store link.

Tweetbot for iPad Review

Tweetbot 2.0  →

Tweetbot, the best Twitter app for the iPhone got a major update today.

The first thing you’ll notice in Tweetbot 2.0 is that the list scrolling is different and improved. At first scrolling feels slower, but it’s not. It just scrolls differently. I can’t explain it really, but I just know that it took me about 2 minutes to get used to it and it’s much more smooth and improved compared to version 1.x.

Also new in the timeline view are: (a) embedded images — you can see a tiny square thumbnail of a linked-to Instagram or twitter pic, etc; and (b) better tapability when tapping on a link or username.

To me, the best feature in Tweetbot 2.0 is the browser integration with Readability and Instapaper. The tap of that little dial allows you to toggle between a text-friendly mode and the regular view of the webpage you’re on:

Tweetbot and Readability

Finally, is an improved view for direct messages. It’s more like the SMS view now.

In short, Tweetbot 2.0 is a fantastic update. Here’s the iTunes App Store link.

Tweetbot 2.0

Sponsor: kooaba Shortcut  →

My thanks to kooaba for sponsoring the RSS feed this week.

kooaba Shortcut is a shortcut between real life and the Internet. Take a picture of what you are reading in a newspaper or magazine and instantly get connected to the digital version.

Using image-recognition technology, Shortcut recognizes what you’re reading. Once recognized, you can share the digital version of the pages via Facebook, Twitter, SMS, and email, or store them in Evernote. This works with over 1,000 newspapers and magazines worldwide. (See http://www.kooaba.com/products/shortcut for a list of publications.)

Shortcut also works with advertisements in newspapers and magazines, and billboards with the Shortcut icon. After taking a picture of such an ad, you gain access to extras such as coupons, sweepstakes, or store locators.

With Shortcut you no longer need to type links into your phone, google for information, or cut out articles — just take a picture instead!

Shortcut is available for iPhone, Android, and Windows Phone 7.

Sponsor: kooaba Shortcut