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Concentrated

It would be great if Apple did a live stream of their special events every time. The broadcast started at noon my time, and I watched the 75-minute presentation via my Apple TV while sitting on the couch eating lunch. It was great.1

It was fun to watch Tim and Phil tag team the event, and I thought Phil Schiller’s time on stage was one of his best. These aren’t just media press events, it’s like a global show and tell. Apple is bringing something they’ve been meticulously building in secret and showing it to the world. They’re not just selling the products, they’re inviting the media into their “living room” per se.

13-Inch MacBook Pro With Retina Display

My daily driver Mac is last year’s 13-inch MacBook Air. Usually running in clamshell mode, I have it hooked up to an inexpensive 27-inch IPS LCD monitor I got off eBay from the Korean grey market.

The 13-inch MacBook Pro with Retina display will most likely be my next Mac. I love the size and portability of my Air, but the Retina Mac’s slight increase in weight is negligible to me when trading for a nice increase in power and that display. But not for a while since the Air is still doing great. Which is why I was secretly hoping for an update to the Thunderbolt displays. I would love to see a thin Thunderbolt Display that mirrors the hardware design of the new iMacs.

There was a time when I used two computers: a Mac Pro and a MacBook Pro. Syncing technology has come a long way since then, but I still have little interest in returning to a 2-computer setup. However, if I were wanting (or needing) to return to a two-computer setup then you could bet a dollar that I’d be holding my breath until December to pick up the new 27-inch iMac.

The New iMac

I’m a laptop man. But the new iMac is superb, and it is the just-announced-today product I am most interested in. I loved nerding out over Phil’s introduction of the iMac’s specs and what went in to building and engineering it.

Something I have never liked about the iMacs (and, in turn, the Thunderbolt displays) was the thick sheet of glass covering the front of it. Primarily because of the distance the pixels sat under that glass and the reflection. In short, I much prefer matte displays. But with the new iMac, the they’ve laminated the display to the glass. The pixels are closer to the screen, and the glass is 75-percent less reflective.

This is no insignificant update to the iMac lineup. And, to make it better, Apple’s shipping them with an optional Fusion Drive. It’s a combination SSD + HDD drive, and Mountain Lion is smart enough to know which apps and documents you use on a regular basis. It then keeps those in the SSD portion, while keeping the files you use less often on the slower HDD portion. You get a considerable boost in speed compared to a spinning platter for a less-considerable boost in price compared to a solid state drive.

It’s funny to me that Apple brags about how thin the edge is, and yet the back is still a giant bubble. When comparing the edges of the new iMac side-by-side with the previous generation iMac it certainly is thinner and more attractive. Now, maybe I’m being nit picky, but every single image (save for one) on the iMac website show the computer at just the right angle to compliment its ultra-thin edge. But it’s not like the whole computer is that thin (yet).

Mac mini

One of the best moments of the event was when Phil Schiller moved on to introduce the new Mac mini. He said: “You knew there’d be something called mini in this presentation.”

It reminded me of when Steve Jobs first introduced the iPhone 4 and made the joke about maybe some of us had seen it before. Moments like that, when the Apple exec steps out into the audience for a moment and joins in the fun, are memorable.

iPad 4

This is the rumored product I was convinced wasn’t going to ship today. I was sure Apple wanted to keep something for the spring, and I was sure Apple wanted to keep the economies of scale on the iPad 3 and to keep their profit margins as high as possible before moving to a new hardware design and new internals. But I was wrong.

Marco Arment’s case for a pre-holiday release cycle makes sense. Sooner or later Apple needed all of their top-selling products to be brand new just in time for the holidays.

It stinks for those of us who bought an iPad 3 just a few months ago — will it be a year until the iPad 5? — but so it goes. The iPad 3 is still just as awesome and I don’t have any plans on upgrading mine.

iPad mini

It’s the 11-inch Air of iPads. Designed to be just as powerful as its larger-screened sibling while being even more portable.

I was somewhat taken back to see Apple bill the iPad mini as a full-fledged iPad. Focusing just as much on using it for work as they did on using it for play. Even the tagline — “Every inch an iPad” — plays to the established usability of the full-sized iPad.

Two things I think people were crossing their fingers for: a Retina display and a price point of $299 (or less). $329 is an odd price; why not $30 less or $20 more? My guess is that this is the price it has to be. It’s as low as it can go. And the non-Retina display proves that.

A Retina display in the iPad mini is just a matter of time. The price, however, will likely stay as is for quite a while.

A Concentration of the Original

Thinner. Lighter. Faster. And not a drop lost on quality.

What Jony Ive says in the iPad mini video stands true for all the announcements today. They didn’t take an iPad and shrink it down, they concentrated it:

There is inherent loss in just reducing a product in size. We took the time to go back to the beginning and design a product that was a concentration of, not a reduction of, the original.

In a way, nearly all of the products announced today (and last month) embody that same idea: thinner, lighter, more dense, more powerful. Concentrated.

  1. In addition to the “Special Events” channel Apple added to the Apple TV, you could watch the event from your computer, iPad, iPhone, or iPod touch. It would be interesting to know how many watched the live stream of the event. Was it as many as 5 or 10 million? That sounds like an insane number, but I read reports that 8 million people watched the live stream of Felix Baumgartner jumping out of space. And I’ve also heard that popular sites will see as many as 30 to 50 million visits during their liveblog updates of an Apple keynote. ↵
Concentrated

The iPhone is Here to Work

Noah was finally asleep. Sitting in the center seat, my wife was holding our 7-month-old son as he slept on her shoulder. The three of us were flying back home from a week in Colorado, and Noah had spent the first half of the flight fussing. Anna and I — as well as our fellow travelers — were relieved that he was finally resting.

Noah likes to be held but hates to cuddle. It’s such a rare occurrence for him to fall asleep in our arms that I had to document the rarity (and cuteness) of the moment.

The seats on a 737 are not exactly spacious. I reached into my pocket to retrieve my iPhone 5, and in the process the back edge of my phone had an encounter with the metal frame that held the seat’s arm rest in place. My iPhone was a couple weeks old, and the slate black body was, until that moment, still unscathed.

As if writing on a chalkboard, I could feel the frame of the phone shudder ever so slightly as it slid across that metal surface. Once out of my pocket I looked down at the back edge. Sure enough, part of the slate coloring had been scratched away revealing the silver-looking aluminum.

In that moment, while appraising my phone’s new scar, I was unexpectedly reminded of why the iPhone is special.

The iPhone is an uncanny amalgamation of beauty and utility — it’s a design and engineering marvel. Our western culture tells us that when you own something this nice, you protect it. Your sports car sits in the garage all winter; that painting belongs behind a sheet of glass; the silver flatware is kept in a box in a drawer; the mobile phone goes in a protective case.

The iPhone, however, prefers not to play by these rules. Though exquisite in design, it was not born as art to be put on display. It belongs in our pockets. It is a tool. A utility. A gadget of gadgets.

The iPhone is here to work.

It’s beautiful enough to be put on display. Simple enough to be used by your grandmother. Powerful enough to be used by CEOs. Popular enough to be made fun of on network television.

And this is why the iPhone is so incredible. Because it is equal parts niceness and usefulness.

This blows my mind. Here I have this gorgeous object of industrial innovation, and yet its proximity to my life is not due to my above average affinity for fine gadgets. No, the iPhone has earned its place by virtue of usefulness. The curiously-thin slab of glass and aluminum that I carry around in my pocket is my camera, my jukebox, my map, my newspaper, my phone, my email, my photo album, my schedule, my to-do list, my notebook, my Internet, and so much more.

“[Design is] not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works.” — Steve Jobs

* * *

After snapping a few photos of our sleeping boy, I turn the phone around so Anna can see the screen and browse the images I’ve just captured. I think to myself how it’s unfortunate my iPhone is no longer mint. And yet I wouldn’t trade that scrape for a case or a cover, and certainly not for a lesser device where scratches seem less intrusive.

The iPhone is Here to Work

Progression of Sentiment Around Apple Product Announcements

  • Pre-event rumors: “That thing sounds neat, but kinda boring and pretty obvious. I would never buy one.”

  • Apple announces New Product: “Sure enough, it’s just what we thought it would be. Boring. Apple is losing it.”

  • Initial reviews: “Trust me, you guys. This thing is fantastic.”

  • Public availability: “Yeah, so I bought one and holy smokes! This is best Apple product ever!”

Progression of Sentiment Around Apple Product Announcements

Sweet App: Recall

I’m becoming fond of specialized, finely-tuned, someday-maybe-list-type apps such as the brand-new app, Recall. (cf. Checkmark.)

For one, I am (as are many of you, I suspect) a fan of apps that do one thing well. Secondly, the more my to-do list is filled with items not critical to my current projects or responsibilities then the more those non-critical items can dilute the importance of the truly critical ones. This is, of course why you should never set a due date for an item that’s not truly due that day. And it’s why you should at least separate your someday/maybe items from mingling in the list that reminds you to pay the mortgage and go buy groceries. But I digress.

Recall is an app for finding various types of media and saving them for later — such as movies, books, music, and apps. When you find a book you’d like to read one day or an album you’d like to listen to, then you simply add it to your running list. Recall shows you cover art, ratings, description, and a direct link to the iBookstore. And you can set reminders for each item. Recall can notify you when a movie comes to the big screen or when it comes to Blu-ray, or when an album becomes available to buy on iTunes.

I like that Recall combines the need for researching and finding something into the same step as saving it for later. The app is ultra fast, it looks gorgeous, and the whole experience of using it is very well polished. And it’s just a buck in the App Store.

Sweet App: Recall

The Hidden Radio

Nearly a year ago I backed the Hidden Radio project on Kickstarter. The device looked great and the reward level seemed very reasonable for backers who wanted to get a device when the project was complete.

I had been considering a Jawbone Jambox, but instead decided to back the Hidden Radio. It seemed like a win-win situation: I would be able to help the project happen, and in return I’d get a clever Bluetooth speaker that looks cooler than a Jambox, gets twice the battery life, and costs less.

Last week, the first round of Hidden Radios began shipping. Mine arrived on Thursday evening. Anna and I have been using the speaker around the house as much as possible all weekend long. Below is my review of the device.

Hidden Radio, Jawbone Jambox, and an iPhone 4S for Context

The Concept

The design and idea of the Hidden Radio is brilliantly clever. I mean, it’s basically just a giant volume knob. As Gilbert Lee wrote, when concepts of the Hidden Radio were first sent out back in the fall of 2008 (the same time the Google Chrome public beta was released): “The entire product is the UI!”

After several years of R&D, it wasn’t until 2011 that John Van Den Nieuwenhuizen and Vitor Santa Maria were ready to mass produce the Hidden Radio. They turned to Kickstarter in November of 2011 and raised just short of a million dollars over the course of their 60-day campaign.

And now, a year later, the Hidden Radio is a reality.

I received a white version and it’s altogether beautiful.1 When closed, the device is about the size and weight of a thick, double old-fashioned glass. Anywhere you put it, the Hidden Radio looks like it belongs there.

As mentioned above, the device is entirely UI. The Hidden Radio is designed to work as simply and beautifully as it looks. Alas, this is only in theory. In reality, the manifestation of the UI is difficult and thus frustrating.

Controlling the Volume

The Kickstarter concept video shows people casually reaching over to their Hidden Radio, placing a few fingers on the top of the device, and turning up the volume with ease (cut to 00:50 of the video to see what I’m referring to).

Unfortunately it just doesn’t work that wonderfully. Turning the volume up requires a fair amount of downward pressure on the unit in order to keep friction between the speaker’s base and the table top. But that same downward pressure also causes friction within the housing itself, thus making it extremely difficult for the shell to twist upwards and reveal the speaker grill.

There are a few surfaces in my house that have enough friction with the Hidden Radio’s base that I don’t need to apply too much downward pressure and thus could successfully turn the volume up using one hand. However, most of the time turning the volume up — and turning the device on — requires two hands.

The device is little more than a giant volume knob with a speaker inside, and yet, ironically, it’s the most difficult-to-use volume knob in my home.

It’s hard to know if the volume adjustment become easier over time. Perhaps after regular use of the Hidden Radio’s cap will eventually loosen its grip, making it easier to adjust with one hand. Or perhaps this is something the Hidden team will resolve in the next iteration of the Radio.

Turning the volume down is easily done with one hand.

Connectivity Issues

Perhaps the most maddening shortcoming of all is the Hidden Radio’s irrational desire to power off.

This can happen when you least expect it, and usually when you least desire it. My Hidden Radio powers itself down after about 60 seconds of inactivity. And so, if I pause the music on my iPad in order to take a phone call or have a conversation, I have to turn the Hidden Radio off and back on before resuming music playback.

What’s worse, on Saturday evening the Hidden Radio refused to play music for longer than 15 minutes at a time. A handful of songs in and the speaker would simply disconnect its Bluetooth connection. I would then toggle the inputs (there’s a switch underneath that toggles between Bluetooth, audio-in, and FM radio) to get the Bluetooth to reconnect.

(For some owners, I’ve heard this mid-music shutoff happens as often as every couple of minutes.)

What’s interesting is that the mid-music shutdown was only happening on Saturday evening. Since then it hasn’t been an issue.

Sound Quality

For a small speaker that majors on portability, wireless connectivity, and battery life, you know there are going to be tradeoffs. Even with that in mind, and even after the 8-hour “break in” period for the speaker, the sound quality does not impress me.

At best it sounds a bit like a cheap boombox. At worst it sounds like a muffled, cheap boombox.

When turning the sound down, not only does the volume output of the internal speaker decrease, but as the grill gets increasingly covered up, the sound becomes more and more muffled.

The sweet spot for the Hidden Radio’s sound is somewhere around 75-percent open. This is quiet enough to keep the bass from distorting and open enough to not sound muffled.

Worth it?

After 4 full days of jamming out to my Hidden Radio I find it to be a trophy of design and a failure of engineering. It is, unfortunately, the most textbook case of gadget form without function I’ve ever seen.

As a backer of the Hidden Radio on Kickstarter, I got my device for $119. They are now currently on pre-order for $150, and will then sell for the regular price of $190. At that price, I do not consider the Hidden Radio to be worth it.

If you’re going to spend $150 or $190 on a Bluetooth speaker, get the Jawbone Jambox.

I ended up ordering the Black Diamond Jambox to have some context to compare the Hidden Radio. The Jambox costs the same price and is so much better of a speaker.

The Jambox sounds fantastic — it is much louder and fuller than the Hidden Radio with richer bass and no distortion. Moreover, it is easier to control (how ironic), and its dimensions seem more portable to me. There is, however, one clear advantage the Hidden Radio has over the Jambox: Battery life. 15 hours versus 10, respectively.

The Jambox is certainly not as clever as the Hidden Radio. Nor is it as complementary to the decor of its surroundings. But the Jambox works and sounds better — and that’s what matters.

  1. I’m pretty sure I got the white one due to a glitch in their fulfillment processing somewhere. The white ones are actually more expensive. ↵
The Hidden Radio

Dost thou love life?

Things like diligence, focus, priorities, saying no, to-do lists, time management, and the like are important to me. But why?

Well, this quote by Benjamin Franklin pretty much sums it up for me:

“Dost thou love life? Then do not squander time; for that’s the stuff life is made of.”

Dost thou love life?

Still Sweating the Details

There is a wonderful tribute video to Steve Jobs on the Apple homepage today (I love that they included his prank Starbucks call from the 2007 iPhone introduction).

As Tim Cook writes in the post-video message: “One of the greatest gifts Steve gave to the world is Apple.” Yes. Just as many others have said and written, Steve Jobs’ greatest product was not a piece of hardware or software, it was a company: Apple itself.

It has now been a year since Jobs passed away. Apple continues to design incredible products, and they continue to make money hand over fist selling those products. By that standard alone it would be fair to say Apple is still at the height of their game and still going strong. But is that the primary way Apple measures its success? I don’t think so.

Apple’s primary measurement of success is something less tangible and quantifiable than numbers. Are they still pushing the bar forward? Are they still finding ways to make their best products even better? Are they still doing work they’re proud of? Are they still sweating the details? Yes. Yes they are.

Still Sweating the Details

The Paperless Puzzle

A few months ago I was given a Doxie Go scanner. I’ve been using it semi-regularly to scan in certain documents and receipts that I want digitized.

At my fingertips were all the tools I needed to set up a clever and usable workflow for a “paperless office,” but it was like having all the pieces to the puzzle without a picture of what the overall end product should look like. I knew that a scanner, an image-to-PDF converter, an OCR app, and some clever folder hierarchy was all necessary, but it all seemed like more trouble than it was worth. Therefore, the majority of the paper documents that came through my home office still get filed away in my physical filing cabinet.

It wasn’t until recently when a comment from David Sparks got me re-motivated to research a better and more consistent way. I had bought David’s ebook, Paperless, back when it first came out in July and I’d read through the first half. But I never made it through to the end which is where he lays out how he actually uses all his tools for his own paperless office. About a month ago I sat down and finished the rest of the book, and upon reading how David actually does things, it all finally clicked for me and I had a clear picture of how to put the puzzle pieces together.

After finishing the book, I spent the better part of my Sunday creating a folder structure on my Mac that mirrored my physical filing cabinet, setting up a few dozen rules in Hazel, and scanning important personal documents as well as all my tax-related documents for this current fiscal year.

Below is an outline of what I’ve set up in hopes that it gives you an idea of how you too can set something like this up. I’m assuming you’re nerdy enough to recognize the tools you may need and you’re clever enough to know how to use them.

  • QuickShot iPhone App: I use this iPhone app for saving all my business-related tax-deductible receipts into a folder on my Mac. Since I use my bank statements to manage and balance my books, the receipts themselves only need to stick around in case I get audited or confused about a particular charge.

QuickShot takes a picture and then uploads it to a Dropbox folder of your choosing. I use it to snap a picture of a receipt which then gets saved into my Receipts folder. I can then toss the physical receipt.

Any and all digital receipts I get via email also get saved as PDFs into this same Receipts folder.

For a Paperless Office the Doxie Go has a few downsides: it can only scan one page at a time, it doesn’t scan duplex, and it’s not super fast. For me, this hasn’t been a deal breaker because I’m only dealing with about a dozen documents a week. It takes me just a few minutes to scan them in.

If I was dealing with a multitude of pages on a regular basis, or if I get motivated enough to convert years worth of past documents, then David Sparks recommends the NeatDesk scanner which can handle 50 pages at once, does duplex scanning, and scans documents much quicker than the Doxie Go. (Of course, on the other hand, the NeatDesk is about twice the price of a Doxie Go.)

  • Doxie Software: The document importing software that comes with the Doxie Go has proven to be fantastic. Once I’ve scan my documents I import them to my Mac using the Doxie application.

Once imported, I can “staple” multiple scans into a single PDF file (for documents that have front and back sides, and/or are multiple pages), and then save all the scans to my Mac. I use the “Export as B&W PDF with OCR” option — this saves my scans as black and white PDFs with optical character recognition.

Saving the scans as black and white is an easy way to greatly reduce the file size, and I’ve found Doxie’s OCR to be great. All in all I’m very happy with the quality, file size, and searchability of a document once it’s traversed the path from its original physical state to its new digital state.

  • Hazel: This was the missing piece for me and this is where the magic happens.

I save all the PDFs from the Doxie into an “Incoming Scans” folder. Against this folder I have about two dozen Hazel rules watching for specific types of documents. These are documents that I commonly deal with, such as:

  • Gas, water, electric, and internet utility bills.
  • Health insurance notices of benefits received.
  • Tax deductible receipts from certain organizations we support regularly.
  • Auto and home insurance statements.
  • Financial statements.
  • Property tax receipts.
  • Etc.

What I realized was that each of the above types of documents could easily be identified by my unique account number with each company. And so I set up rules in Hazel to look at the contents of a document, and depending on which criteria that document matches Hazel renames the PDF accordingly and then files it into the proper folder on my Mac.

For example: if the contents of a document contain the words “Gas” and the numbers “555555” then Hazel renames the document to “Gas Utility Bill – 2012-09” and moves it to my “Utility Bills” folder.

Hazel Rules for Gas Utility Bill

To sum up, once I’ve scanned in all my paper documents, I simply save them to my computer and then Hazel takes care of the rest.
For the few documents that don’t match any pre-defined criteria, or for which the OCR wasn’t properly rendered, they simply are left in the “Incoming Scans” folder and I can manually deal with them. I then shred what I don’t need, or if it’s a physical document that’s important to have a physical copy of, I file it away.

This new process makes it far easier to file away documents than my previous way. It’s now a task which can be done almost mindlessly instead of having to remember where each type of document goes in my physical filing cabinet, looking for that file folder, and then stuffing the sheet of paper in.

I wish I would have taken the time to set this up a long time ago. But better late than never. Needless to say, I highly recommend paperlessness.

The Paperless Puzzle

Circles Conference

This past weekend I was in Dallas for Circles Conference. It was a fantastic event filled with equally fantastic speakers. Of course, the highlight for me was the time spent in-between the sessions spending time with the other attendees. (Isn’t that the highlight of all events like this?)

The biggest personal takeaway for me was something Noah Stokes said. Talking about his design shop, Bold, he said that 20 years from now he wants to be working on his company, not in it.

That rings true for me too. In 20 years I don’t expect that writing shawnblanc.net will still be my full-time gig. But I love the tech and design community, and I love contributing to this space.

In the average 9-5, climbing up the corporate ladder is already laid out. Showing up and doing good work will often lead you to the next step in your job because the company has already laid out what progress and promotions look like.

However, for those of us who run our own businesses (or have aspirations to) there isn’t necessarily a “career path” to follow. Not only is the destination something we have to define for ourselves, so too is the path to get there. Maybe success looks like sustaining the work we are doing today, but maybe it looks like something different.

And so, on my flight back from Dallas I found myself pondering what decisions I need to make and what steps I need take now that will begin leading me to the place I want to be in 20 years.

Circles Conference

iOS 6 and Every-Day Life

Remember in 2010 when Apple held an iPhone 4 Press Conference as an answer to the “Antennagate” hubbub?

After his presentation, Steve Jobs was joined by Tim Cook and Bob Mansfield. They all sat on barstools at the front of the room and had a Q&A with the press in attendance. John Gruber asked if any of them were using cases on their iPhones. All 3 of them held up their iPhones to show no case. Steve even demonstrated how he uses his phone (by holding it using the infamous “death grip”) and that he has no reception issues.

What these guys also showed was that they’re using the same phones we are. Three of the top leaders at Apple sitting in a room full of writers and broadcasters, and everyone’s got the same phone in their pockets.

We like to think that Cook, Mansfield, Ive, Schiller, Forstall, and the rest of the gang are walking around with private versions of the 2014 iPhone and its corresponding (though surely buggy as all get out) version of iOS 8.

Everyone knows Apple is an extremely organized and forward thinking company that puts a lot of thought and energy into the planning and testing of its future products. But Apple is also riding on the cusp of its production and engineering capabilities.

After Apple announces and demoes the latest iOS at a WWDC event, most developers wait for the first few rounds of updates to ship before installing the iOS beta on their main devices. And it’s far more likely that the hardware prototypes for the next iPhones are locked away in some design vault, and the software roadmap for the far-future versions of iOS is still mostly on the white board. Meanwhile the folks at Apple are using the same daily driver iPhone and the same operating system you and I are.

Today, right now, we’re using the same mobile operating system with the same apps as the guys in Cupertino who dream this stuff up and make it happen.

And it seems to me that there are several things in iOS 6 which reveal just that. This version of iOS is not full of any one amazing new jaw-dropping feature that will have our minds spinning. Instead it’s filled with dozens of little things that will get used by real people ever day. And it will make our lives a little bit nicer and a little bit easier.

Things like Do Not Disturb mode, and the slide-up options you can act on when you get an incoming call, and VIP emailers, are all things that were thought up by guys who uses this device day in and day out and says to themselves, man, I’m tired of always declining phone calls when I’m in a meeting, texting the person back, and then forgetting to call them when I’m done with my meeting. (Or, perhaps, man, I am tired of getting text messages from my crazy uncle at 2 in the morning, but what if my mom calls and it’s an emergency?)

With that said, here are a few of things in iOS 6 that I am most glad about:

Open Browser Tab Syncing via iCloud

The browser tabs you have open on all your devices are now shared via iCloud. Had a website open on your Mac but then had to jet out the door, no problem. You can open it right back up from your iPhone or iPad.

If your Mac is running Mountain Lion, click the cloud icon in Safari and you’ll see the list of tabs open on your iPhone and iPad. And from your iPhone or iPad, tap the bookmarks icon in Mobile Safari and the drill down into the iCloud Tabs bookmarks folder.

Do Not Disturb

Another one of those features that is so simple and obvious, and yet has a significant impact on the day-to-day usability of our phones. You can activate Do Not Disturb mode from the Settings app.

You can turn it on and off manually (like Airplane mode), and you can set it to automatically start and stop at pre-defined times. (Not unlike Glassboard or Tweetbot allow you to set sleep options for when you do not want to get a push notification.)

To fine tune your Do Not Disturb schedule, and who you’re willing to allow to get through, drill down through the Settings App → Notifications → Do Not Disturb.

The Slide-Up Options on Incoming Calls

This has become my main “show off” feature.

When a friend asks me what’s cool about the new iPhone software I ask them to call me. Then I demo the slide-up menu for incoming calls and watch as they “get it” instantly. We’ve all been in that situation — whether it be a board meeting, dinner, a movie, or whatever — where we have to decline an incoming call from a friend or colleague. This is a feature that makes perfect sense and makes you scratch your head a bit about why it took so long to get here.

Pull to refresh in Mail

We were all doing it out of habit anyway. Now it actually accomplishes something.

Notifications for VIPs

I have worked in places were emails are sent like text messages. I often would get an email asking for me to come to a spontaneous meeting that was starting in 5 minutes.

Or how many times do you watch for that email from your boss or assistant or whomever? There are whole conferences centered around the idea of how checking your email every 5 minutes is a massive productivity killer (and it’s true). But that doesn’t mean the fact remains: a lot of workflows and company cultures are still very much dependent upon people being near-instantly-reachable by email.

VIP emails — and, more specifically, the way iOS (and OS X) are helping us to set them apart — are a great example of how iOS is becoming increasingly usable in real life.

High-Resolution Spinner on shutdown

I mean, finally, right?

Folders shown in Spotlight

After 4 years worth of App Store, some Home screens (including the one on the iPhone that’s sitting here on my desk) are getting unwieldy. There are apps I know I have, but I don’t know where they are. For those I have no choice but to use Spotlight to get to them, but say I want to move them to a more prominent spot?

Now when you use Spotlight to launch an app, if it’s in a folder Spotlight will tell you the name of that folder.

This is one more (of what feels like a) bandaid fix towards a better way to launch and mange apps.

Launching Apps using Siri

Siri is becoming the way of “ubiquitous capture” on the iPhone. It’s the quick-entry popup of OmniFocus on the Mac. Assuming Siri can connect to the servers, she is the fastest way to get sports scores, directions, set a timer, log a reminder, and now launch an app that’s not on your first Home screen.

* * *

The mobile phone industry has is no shortage of impressive, whizbang features which sound great and make fun ads but which rarely get used by real people in their day-to-day lives.

The niceties shipping as part if iOS 6 are great because they’re the sorts of little things that will play big, unsung roles in our everyday lives.

iOS 6 and Every-Day Life

Review: Tenkeyless Clicky Keyboards

Mechanical keyboards are addictive.

I think I have a problem. But I’m quitting now. Once you’ve acclimated to the tactile feedback and the clickety clack, typing on anything else doesn’t feel (or sound) the same.

Earlier this year I spent a nerdy amount of time testing and comparing the three most popular Mechanical Keyboards for the Mac. I landed on the Das Keyboard as the winner and my preferred keyboard for typing.

My Clicky Keyboard conclusion ended thusly:

If you too want to adorn your desk with an ugly keyboard — one with a loud personality and which increases typing productivity — then I recommend the Das Keyboard. I prefer both the tactile feel and the sound of the blue Cherry MX switches, and though I find the Das to be the ugliest of the bunch, a serious typist knows you shouldn’t be looking at your keyboard while you’re typing.

I’ve been typing away on the Das every day for the past 6 months, but there has always been one thing in particular which bugs: the size.

Every time I’d reach for my Magic Trackpad I was reminded of how big the Das is. Aside from improved aesthetics, the only thing that could make the Das Keyboard any better would be the removal of its number pad — a tenkeyless Das would be a dream.

Last month, at the recommendation of several readers, I bought a tenkeyless Leopold with Blue Cherry MX switches. These are the same switches in use by my Das, and though the Leopold is technically intended for Windows use, a bit of tweaking in OS X’s System Preferences has it working fine with my Mac (see below for more on that).

The Leopold

I used the Leopold for a month, and as a keyboard I liked it pretty well. I especially liked having the Magic Trackpad back in the same zip code as the rest of my rig.

But when compared to the Das Keyboard, however, I find the Leopold to be slightly inferior in certain areas:

  • The Leopold has an ever-so-slight ring from a few keys that you can hear if it’s quiet in the room and you’re really pounding away. I hardly ever notice it, but sometimes my ear catches it.

This was perhaps my biggest gripe with the Matias Tactile Pro. It was a fine keyboard and felt great to type on, but nearly every key press brought with it a slight ring. The Das Keyboard does not ring.

  • The Leopold’s key action is not as “quick” or “snappy” as my Das. Technically this is not an issue of inferiority at all — it’s just a difference. But I’ve grown used to (and apparently fond of) the way the Das clicks.

However, there are things about the Leopold which I find to be superior to the Das, not least of which being the smaller footprint:

  • Obviously the Leopold is smaller because it is tenkeyless, but it’s smaller in other ways as well: (a) the bezel around the whole keyboard is thinner, and (b) the keyboard has a slightly shorter stature (that is to say, the top of the space bar is closer to the top of my desk).

  • The Leopold is cheaper by about $35. But you cannot return it unless you get a DOA unit.

I suppose the best way to compare the two is that when using my Das I was frequently bothered by how far away the Magic Trackpad was. However, when using the Leopold, I rarely ever think about how it types differently.

The Filco Ninja Majestouch-2 Tenkeyless

Not being completely satisfied with the Leopold, I decided to give one more keyboard a try. (After trying and testing 4 mechanical keyboards so far, what’s one more? Right?)

And so I ordered the Filco Ninja Majestouch-2 Tenkeyless.

It’s “Ninja” because the key caps have the lettering on the front side instead of the top, which I think looks awesome. And I made sure to get the one with Cherry MX Blue switches.

Filco has a great reputation for their keyboards. Part of the reason I didn’t go with the Filco over the Leopold in the first place was because a few of the reviews I’d read said the Filco rings a bit. But there is no ring. At least with the model I bought.

The Filco has a high-quality build and the same “quick” typing action like the Das. Moreover, it has the small footprint and thinner bezel like the Leopold (the Das looks like a boat when pulled out next to the Filco). It’s the most expensive of the three (about $20 more than the Das and $50 more than the Leopold), but it’s worth it — the Filco Ninja is superior in every way that’s important to me.

In short: the Filco Ninja is the best keyboard I’ve used yet. This is my new keyboard, and I’m done trying others.

Aside Regarding the Windows Keys

Part of the reason I didn’t originally review any tenkeyless keyboards was because (so far as I know) there are none made specifically for the Mac.

Both the Leopold and the Filco are Windows keyboards. Basically all this means is that the Command and Option keys are flip-flopped — both physically on the keyboard itself and within software.

Swapping the physical keys is easy. The Filco comes with a key cap puller; Elite Keyboards sells one for cheap. This little tool makes it a piece of cake to easily change any key on your keyboard.

Swapping the Filco Keys

And flip-flopping the keys in software is easily done from System Preferences → Keyboard → Keyboard → Modifier Keys.

Adjusting the Modifier Keys in OS X System Prefs

* * *

So, which mechanical keyboard should you get? It ultimately just comes down to the question of the number pad.

  • If you want a number pad — or if you don’t care either way — go for the Das. It’s Mac-specific, high quality, and a bit cheaper than the Filco.

  • If you don’t want a number pad, go for the Filco Ninja. It’s the best-looking of the bunch, it’s of equal quality as the Das, and it’s easy to set up to work on your Mac.

Review: Tenkeyless Clicky Keyboards

Function, Form, and Future

Three things to think about for whether or not a gadget, app, or any other product is worth your continued investment of use and money:

  1. Do you actually use it?
  2. Do you like to use it?
  3. Is the company who makes it trying to make it better for you?

Number 1 is important because a product you never use is basically worthless to you.

Number 2 is important because a product you always use should be the best version it can be. The easier and more enjoyable it is to use, the more you’ll want to use it and thus the more utility you’ll get out of it.

Number 3 is important because if the company behind the product cares about making the next version better for you, then it means you’ll be rewarded for sticking around.

Function, Form, and Future

Thoughts and Observations From Today’s Apple Event

There were some great announcements from Apple today. But at each turn I couldn’t help but think how nearly everything being announced was something we’ve seen already or expected.

This marks the second major hardware revision for the iPhone that Apple didn’t get to introduce to the world. Like we saw with Gizmodo and the lost iPhone 4 in 2010, the iPhone 5 looks just like the leaks and rumors said it would.

But that’s not all: the new dock connector — Lightning — and the new EarPods also look just like we’ve already seen. And though we didn’t have pictures of what they’d look like, we were told what to expect in the new iPod touch and also to expect new nanos today as well (not to mention the “Loop” accessory). Even iTunes 11 was leaked via Apple’s own website earlier this morning.

It was like the whole internet had the run sheet for today’s event.

Earlier this year Tim Cook said Apple was doubling down on secrecy, and yet virtually every single thing announced today was called by the rumor mill.

That is not to say that today’s event was a disappointment. Quite the contrary. The mystery and surprise of today’s announcements may have been diminished, but the quality of the products themselves was not. Knowing about the iPhone 5 before it was announced doesn’t make it any less a device had we not known anything at all.

  • The iPhone 5’s 4-inch screen: If the new iPhone screen is just as easy to use with one hand as all the previous models have been, a lot of iPhone owners are going to be very happy. And a lot of people are going to call us fanboys.

This image from Dustin Curtis is often referenced as a prime example of why the smaller-screen of the iPhone is superior to the ginormous screens of Android phones these days.

The onehandability of the iPhone has always been a great advantage. Especially for a guy like me who is 5’8″ and has somewhat small hands.

My biggest qualm with past Android phones I’ve tested or borrowed is how difficult they are to use one handedly. Jim Dalrymple reported that the iPhone 5 is, in fact, easy to use with one hand. My question, which would solicit a different answer from everyone because it’s unique to hand size is if the iPhone 5 is as easy to use one handed as the past iPhones have been.

On another note, with the extra vertical space there’s room for another row of icons. I’ve always kept my bottom row free from icons so now I can fit a 4th row without cluttering up my Home screen. Which is an interesting idea if you think about it. I can’t imagine how cluttered and random most peoples iPhone home screens are, and one of the solutions is “bigger physical screen”. I’m still standing on my soapbox that the iPhone Home screen needs a radical redesign.

  • LTE: The two things I am most excited about with the new iPhone is LTE and the better camera. My iPad has LTE from Verizon and it’s just wonderful. If I’m out somewhere and I’ve got my iPad nearby, I will often grab the iPad instead of my iPhone to look up directions, do a web search, or whatever it is. LTE is just so much faster than even AT&T’s HSPA+ network.

Having a significantly faster cellular connection means a significantly improved user experience (especially when battery life doesn’t take a hit). Because, at the end of the day, it really just boils down to less time waiting. And we all want that.

I wonder how many people are going to turn off wi-fi on their iPhones because LTE is faster than the internet in their home?

  • The iPhone 5’s camera: If I had to pick just one single hardware feature for Apple to continue improving upon year over year it would be the camera (which would be a very close toss up against cellular network speeds, but those are yoked to wireless carriers).

Data speeds are great but they aren’t something that I’ll look back on 40 years from now with my kids and grandkids to talk about. No, those will be the photos and videos that I shoot.

Not to get all mushy, but Apple’s investment into the quality of the iPhone camera is an investment into our future. The iPhone is the camera we have with us and it is the one we are using to capture our memories and the one we use to feed that habit of amateur photography we’re now all into.

  • iOS 6: Something new to me: iOS 6 will let you launch apps using Siri.

  • iTunes 11: 435 Million iTunes accounts. The new design, looks great. But I use Rdio for music, my Apple TV for movies, my iPad for books, and my iPhone for podcasts, so I spend hardly no time in iTunes. Nevertheless it’s a great update that was a long time coming.

  • iPod nano: Has any Apple device seen as many significant hardware changes as the nano? The nano is Apple’s hardware design playground.

Also, with the change in size of the nano, I think it’s clear that Apple’s is not planning on making it some sort of iPhone-satellite device. The device is designed as a stand-alone product.

As for the new design, I like it a lot. As John Siracusa said on Twitter, the new iPod nano looks like a tiny Lumia phone.

  • iPod touch: And speaking of good-looking iPods, the new touch is the best looking version of its breed yet. It’s just 6.1mm thin and has the exact same great display that’s in the iPhone. It now comes in all sorts of colors, and for the first time I find the design of the iPod touch more compelling than the iPhone.

I plan to pre-order a black 32GB AT&T iPhone on Friday morning. When upgrading from the 3GS to the 4 in 2010, and from the 4 to the 4S in 2011 I received a fully-subsidized pricing with the renewal of my contract. However, as of this writing, I’m not eligible for a subsidized upgrade from AT&T.

And it’s not just me. All of my regularly-upgrading friends and many of my Twitter followers are all reporting the same thing. We’ve been getting subsidized upgrades year-over-year but apparently not this time.

Perhaps that will change before iPhone pre-orders open up, or perhaps AT&T has ceased its good will and will not let us upgrade early. If I do have to pay a non-subsidized price for an iPhone, I may chose instead to cancel my AT&T contract and switch to Verizon since its nation wide LTE coverage is immensely superior to AT&T’s.

Thoughts and Observations From Today’s Apple Event