Speaking of interviews, Tim Smith had me on his interview podcast, The East Wing, to talk about the events leading up to and surrounding when I took this site full-time.
Though not by design, the interview sure is timely. This coming Saturday marks the 3-year anniversary of when I announced my plan to leap into the wild and wacky world of full-time blogging. But more on that later.
Over at the Day One blog, Tulio Jarocki has started a new series interviewing folks who use Day One to share about their journaling habits and routines. I think Day One is the best journaling app out there, so it was my pleasure to be interviewed for the series.
On this week’s episode of The Weekly Briefly, I talk about how and why I got into mirrorless cameras in the first place, why I upgraded to the new E-M10 from the E-PL5, my initial review of the E-M10, and more.
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Our latest review is up at The Sweet Setup. Written by Tyler Hayes, who writes the music beat on Fast Company’s Fastco Labs blog, we compared the four music streaming services and picked which one we think is the best. And that pick is Rdio.
A sad announcement:
Today brings some sad news: Editorially is closing its doors. The application will remain available until May 30, at which point the site will go offline. We encourage all users to export their data.
We’re proud of the team and tool that we built together and incredibly thankful that so many of you were willing to give it a try. And we continue to believe that evolving the way we collaborate as writers and editors is important work. But Editorially has failed to attract enough users to be sustainable, and we cannot honestly say we have reason to expect that to change.
Editorially was one of the most impressive and helpful pieces of software I’ve had the privilege of using in a while. It has became an indispensable tool for myself and the team at The Sweet Setup, and we are going to miss it sorely.
Mandy, Jason, and the whole Editorially team should be incredibly proud of the quality product they built. It’s unfortunate the application wasn’t able to build the traction and user base needed to grow into a sustainable business.
Kidpost is photo and video sharing for parents. You connect your social networks where you’re posting photos and videos (Flickr, Facebook, Instagram, etc.) and then once a week Kidpost rounds up the photos of your kids and sends an email out to the friends and family who aren’t necessarily following you on the social networks where you’re posting the photos.
It’s still in hyper-private beta and will be launching this Spring. I am seriously looking forward to it (as are my boys’s grandparents).
Speaking of writing on the iPad mini, my bluetooth keyboard setup of choice continues to be the Origami Workstation from Incase. There are several things to like about it, not the least of which is the fact that by virtue of its design, the Origami is device agnostic — I’ve been my Origami Workstation since my iPad 2.
Both iPads are an awesome compromise.
One of them (the iPad Air) has the bigger screen, and chances are it’s light enough. While the other (the iPad mini) is hyper-portable and light, and chances are its screen is big enough.
It’s easy to acclimate to either iPad. After a few days you’ll wonder why it was ever such a dilemma of a choice in the first place. When I’ve used just the iPad Air, I acclimated to its size and weight even though the iPad mini is nicer. And, conversely, when I used the iPad mini, I acclimated to its smaller screen even though the iPad Air’s bigger screen is nicer for some tasks.
I bought both an iPad Air and an iPad mini when they came out. I planned to use them side by side for about one month to see if I could come to a clear conclusion about “which was really the best”. I assumed it would take just a few weeks to see the obvious choice of which one I was partial to.
Boy was I wrong.
I’ve been using both iPads side-by-side for three months now and, well, I prefer them both. They are both favorites.
When I switch back and forth, after using the iPad mini for a while, the iPad Air feels almost comically large. But then, after using the iPad Air for a while, picking up the iPad mini feels almost tiny.
But, most of the time I find myself preferring the iPad mini. When reaching for an iPad around the house, I grab the mini. The mini goes with me when I’m traveling with my laptop. And I bring the mini when I don’t expect to need an iPad for anything but want to bring one anyway just in case.
There is only one cut and dry scenario in which I prefer the iPad Air: and that is for writing (with or without a bluetooth keyboard). But, yet, writing accounts for maybe 10-percent of my iPad usage. And using the iPad mini for writing is not exactly a horrible experience.
I have no reason to keep them both. (Well, I guess it’d be nice to have a day iPad and a night iPad.) And so I’m going with the iPad mini. And thus my recommendation to anyone on the fence: get the iPad mini, you’ll love it.
This week’s episode of The Weekly Briefly is going to touch on photography and cameras. If you’ve got a minute, I’d love it if you answered these couple questions about what sort of camera / phone you use to take pictures with and what sorts of photos you tend to make.
Ticci:
I started using the iPad as my primary computer out of necessity while I was stuck in a hospital bed for three weeks, but, with time, I realized that I was enjoying the freedom granted by the iPad’s intrinsic portability. And if my iPad needs to be portable, I find the iPad mini to be a compromise that’s just right: smaller but not too small, a big screen that’s not too big, and the same iOS apps of the larger iPad.
Ben Bajarin:
What is fascinating about what is happening with tablets is that consumers may not be choosing them as a PC replacement. In fact, I am certain this is not the case for most consumers, at least not yet. They are choosing them for the very reason that Microsoft wants to mock them for. They are choosing tablets because they primarily want to use them for consumption and entertainment. Tablets are easy to use and they have fun and relax while using them. But what happens when they realize they can also use them for more productivity and creativity tasks? What happens when they realize the tablet is capable of the tasks they used to depend on their PC for? What happens when they become aware, as I did, that a keyboard option (if you need it) can actually start serving their basic computing needs? What happens when they realize the touch interface and the software built for it is actually easier to use? Will they start doing more with this tablet? I believe the answer is yes.
I keep coming back to this thought regarding the power and usefulness of the iPad as a PC: it rests not so much iOS itself so much as it does in the 3rd-party apps. We don’t need a more powerful and feature-rich version of iOS as much as we need a sustainable marketplace for people to make apps like Diet Coda, Editorial, OmniFocus, PDF Expert, et al.
Update: Federico Viticci points out on Twitter that it’s a bit of chicken-or-the-egg scenario:
Sustainable marketplace needed, but more of those apps can’t happen without new features for devs. The hoops that Editorial and PDF Expert have to go through for basic stuff like file exchanging make devs lose time == money.
Agreed. As iOS gets more advanced features, functionalities, and APIs, it will make the development process more efficient. However, even with advancements in iOS, envisioning and building an app like Diet Coda will still take substantial effort and skill. And, I hope the 3rd-party developers will always be pushing the bar upwards of what sort of apps are capable of running on iOS. If Apple brings a solution to the basic stuff like file exchanging, what will be the new hoops that developers chose to go through in order to innovate for their app?
If 3rd-party devs stop innovating, stop pushing the boundaries, and stop going through hoops, then that’s when we know there’s trouble for the future of iOS as a thriving platform for personal computing.
Yesterday was Fickr’s 10th birthday, and Harry McCracken wrote about the site’s rise, fall, and revival over the past decade.
I thought I’d look to see what the first picture I posted to Flickr was. And wouldn’t you believe it, but it’s a picture of my very dorky office and my Mac Setup from the summer of 2007. My usage of Flickr has certainly changed over the years, with the most significant shift happening when I bought my E-PL5. I now use Flickr far less for screenshots and far more for family and artsy photos.
Imagine your wireless speaker, on steroids.
Each AXX 200 is a Bluetooth wireless speaker + Sound Blaster audio processor. This means a portable wireless speaker with power for real-time audio enhancement.
Intelligence. That’s what the AXX 200 brings to the table for you.
It’s for work, it’s for play.
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My thanks to Creative Labs for sponsoring the RSS feed this week.