Speaking of “cute” this custom-built apartment packs a lot into just 350 square feet.
Related: Ben Brooks thoughts on this video and how poorly we probably make use of the space in our homes and how the products we use may be a contributing factor to that.
The first YouTube Friday was supposed to be just a one-off event. But the feedback has been great, and I too have been having a blast taking Fridays as a day to link to things a little more fun. Kicking off this installment is this short film about a cute little creature who lives in a vending machine in Tokyo.
Oh my nerd.
This week on The B&B Podcast, Ben and I discuss what we would consider to be the short list of apps which most moderately computer savvy people should be using. We focus not on apps that replace Apple’s apps (like replacing Reminders with OmniFocus, Notes with nvALT, or SuperDuper with TimeMachine), but rather on the apps that upgrade the Mac to do something which it doesn’t do out of the box already.
“Alas, there isn’t a pain-free way to achieve your goals. […] I’ve witness countless opportunities squandered by people who could have taken action but didn’t. Not because they couldn’t figure out what to do, but because they weren’t willing to do it.”
— Seth Godin, The Icarus Deception
Was it because they were scared, or because they were lazy? Does it matter?
Myke Hurley was kind enough to have me back as a guest on his show, CMD+SPACE. We spent the whole episode answering and discussing listener-submitted questions about what goes in to taking an online side-business or hobby and going full time with it.
While I wouldn’t personally call it a “masterclass” — we focused almost exclusively on the business model of shawnblanc.net, and there are a lot of other types of businesses with very different business models to be built — it was certainly an excellent episode and I hope it will be a resource for folks who want to build something they’re proud of and make enough money to sustain their efforts.
What I see as two good takeaways from the show that could apply to other people in other contexts are: (a) starting a new business is a risk. Be as calculated, cautious, and wise as you can be, but know that there’s no getting around the risk part; and (b) build a business model that thrives when you’re racing to the top.
Wow. This is huge news. Congratulations to Mike and Fred.
And it looks to be good news for Simplenote users as well. As Mike points out on the Simplenote blog:
You know how sometimes, the services you love just disappear when they’re bought by someone else? Or they wither and die a slow and painful death? Not the case here. We made sure of that.
The founder of Automattic, Matt Mullenweg, has been a long-time Simplenote fan. We first met him in 2010 before we joined Y Combinator, and we’ve kept in touch since. Fred and I will never forget the surprise Matt casually unleashed shortly after we decided to join forces. “Hey, by the way…we also bought simplenote.com from the people who were squatting it.” How’s that for a vote of confidence? We finally own simplenote.com!
Regarding Apple’s philosophy versus market share preservation:
The most important thing to Apple is to make the best products in the world that enrich customers’ lives. That’s our high order bit. That means that we aren’t interested in revenue for revenue’s sake. We can put the Apple brand on a lot of things and sell a lot more stuff, but that’s not what we’re here for. We want to make only the best products.
Lots of huge numbers today. The ones that amaze me the most? 500,000,000 iOS devices sold to date; and last quarter they were selling them at a rate of 10 per second. Krikey.
— Posted from my iPhone
Sound advice from Joshua Blankenship.
Great discussion over on Branch about “unnecessary” but “delightful” elements in UI and UX design.
Most of the examples talked about in the Branch thread are of websites, but I couldn’t help but think about some iOS apps. Such as the oversized blue cursor in iA Writer, the hatching egg and flying Ollie animation on pull-to-refresh in Twitteriffic, the link to 1Password on the login screen of Riposte, and the iPhone’s bouncing Lock screen when you tap the camera icon. These are little things which aren’t necessarily needed for the app to serve its primary function. But I think the role of delight in design is vital because, when done well, it does the opposite of what friction does — delight “greases the skids,” so to say.
If it’s true that we use something more when we enjoy using it, then it’s also fair to say that a little bit of delight can go a long way in increasing usability.
Riposte is a sweet, brand-new iPhone app for App.net. Two things about it which I like right off the bat:
Riposte’s login screen has a link to 1Password. My app.net password is some nonsensical string I don’t know, and I literally had 1Password open and waiting on my iPad as I was waiting for Riposte to download on my iPhone. But, to my surprise, there was the 1P link waiting for those who want to use it (Riposte only shows you the link if you have 1P installed on your iPhone).
Using 1Password 4’s URL schemes, Riposte launched me to 1Password and performed a search in my 1P database for “app.net”, thus getting me to my login info about as fast as possible. From there I copied my password, returned to Riposte, typed in my username, and then pasted my password.
What a clever and thoughtful idea. This is the first time I’ve seen anything like this, and I hope it’s not the last.
Something I left out of my Simplenote / Dropbox / writing workflow article last week is what iPhone app lives in my Dock for the sole purpose of being the go-to for initially capturing ideas, lists, and other miscellaneous tidbits of information.
The iPhone can be pretty awkward when you need to quickly jot down a piece of information. Such as someone’s shipping address, phone number, and/or email address; a list of things to get while you’re out that your wife is rattling off to you as you walk out the door; the coffee order your co-worker wants you to pick up for them while you’re out; etcetera.
The point being, there are many occasions when typing the information into the app it belongs takes too much time and attention than you have at the moment.
For this stuff, and more, I use an app called Scratch by Sweet Mac Alum, Garrett Murray and his team at Karbon.
Scratch is a no-nonsense “scratch pad” app for your iPhone. It launches in a hot second, and greets you with a blank text-entry pane and blue blinking cursor. You are then free to type whatever it is you need to type out right now, and leave the fiddling to later when you have a few minutes.
The reason you want to use an app like Scratch for stuff like this is all in the way Scratch handles your text after you’ve typed it in.
Once you’ve made your note, you can export the text you’ve just typed by sending it to Simplenote, Byword, Notesy, et al. You can also email it; text message it; send it to OmniFocus as a to-do item, or as the note for a to-do item; tweet it from Tweetbot or post it to App.net; send it to Quotebook; send it to Day One; create a new text file in Dropbox, or append your new text to an already existing text file.
And the export options are customizable. When you tap the export button you don’t see the entire list of every supported app, you see only what you’ve enabled in Settings. I’ve enabled Simplenote, Day One, and Email export.
Scratch isn’t just for capturing now and processing when you’ve got a minute. It’s also great for capturing disposable information, like that coffee order or your Honey Do List — why launch an app that syncs when you only need to jot down something that’s relevant for the next hour?
Scratch makes clever use of a custom keyboard row. Instead of there being a top Navigation / Title bar, the text pane goes all the way to the top. And then above the default iOS keyboard is a 5th keyboard row.
This 5th row can be swiped left and right. It sports a set of Markdown-friendly custom keys, action buttons for your current note, and access to the settings pane.
Additional power-features include TextExpander support, and markdown auto completion for links.
Similar in scope to Scratch is another excellent app: Drafts.
A few of Draft’s main differences include:
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I highly recommend either of these apps — Scratch being one of three apps in my Dock. People have asked me why I use Scratch over Drafts. And though Drafts has a few more power features and is available on the iPad, I prefer Scratch because of the design.
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My thanks to AAPLtrader.com for sponsoring the RSS feed this week. Sponsorship by The Syndicate.
