Articles

Update on the Membership Drive and Giveaway

Additional Prizes

Over the past week a handful of prizes have been added to the giveaway:

The complete list of prizes is here, along with all the info about who’s eligible to win, and how to put your name in the hat for a particular prize if you’d like.

Reminder About The Members Journal

The first edition of The Members Journal went out today and I think it turned out great. It was lighthearted, fun, and had dozens of promo codes to four top-notch iPhone apps.

For members who want to get The Members Journal (you have to sign up because it is an opt-in list) you can do so on the members info page. Your password for that page can be found in the info email you received from me after signing up for your membership.

Reminder About the Executive Membership

Last week I introducing a new subscription level that gets you all the same benefits as the $3 membership but for $12/month. This is for those who have offered to or who are glad to pay more for their membership.

There are current members who have “upgraded” their membership to an Executive subscription. If you want to do the same then you can cancel your current subscription and sign up for the new one.

Reminder About How Awesome You Are

As always, to all the current members: a million thanks for your support. And to the readers who continue to show up day in and day out: thank you for your time.

Update on the Membership Drive and Giveaway

Regarding Benjamin Franklin’s Daily Schedule

You’ve probably seen this a hundred times. I have. And I love it. It’s Benjamin Franklin’s daily schedule:

Ben Franklin Daily Schedule

I regularly come back to my own daily schedule to re-evaluate it and see if it is serving me as well as it should be. Because schedules, like finances, make excellent slaves but horrible masters. I should be the one who sets my schedule and budgets my time just like I should be the one budgeting my finances. A schedule, like a budget, is there for the purpose of serving my goals so that the minutes don’t get away from me and I end up squandering my time.

What I like about Ben Franklin’s daily schedule was how open it was. It was a rigid routine but it was very forgiving for all the nuances and variables that each day’s tasks and priorities seem to bring.

He had only six blocks of time scheduled each day:

  • 3 hours for getting ready for his day (shower and breakfast, personal study, and prepare for work)
  • 4 hours for work
  • 2 hours for review of current projects and to eat lunch
  • 4 more hours for work
  • 4 hours for dinner and rest and wrapping up the day
  • 7 hours for sleeping

This is a similar approach that I’ve been trying to take with my scheduling as well. In that, I set a routine for my day of when I get up, what blocks of time are set aside for what types of tasks, when I should stop working, etc. And then, when it comes time to work I begin to go through my inboxes (Instapaper, email, and/or OmniFocus) or else I work on a current project or article that has arrested my attention.

One big myth about creativity is that it cannot be harnessed. It is silly to think a creative person should live without routine, discipline, or accountability.

Sure, inspiration often comes to us when we least expect it, and so by all means, let us allow exceptions to our schedules. But sitting around being idle while in wait for inspiration is a good way to get nothing done. And worse, it is also a way to let the creative juices get stagnant.

Michael Lopp wrote an inspiring article along the lines of scheduling, entitled “A Precious Hour“. He writes:

My deep-rooted fear of becoming irrelevant is based on decades of watching those in the tech industry around me doing just that – sitting there busily doing things they’ve convinced themselves are relevant, but are just Faux-things-to-do wrapped in a distracting sense of busy. One day, they look up from their keyboard and honestly ask, “Right, so, what’s Dropbox?” […]

Starting at the beginning of February, I made a change. Each day I blocked off a precious hour to build something.

Lopp’s aim brings to mind this convicting quote from Ray Bradbury at the intro of Martian Chronicles:

I did what most writers do at their beginnings: emulated my elders, imitated my peers, thus turning away from any possibility of discovering truths beneath my skin and behind my eyes.

If you don’t make time to shut off the outside world and think and build and create on your own then you’ll only ever emulate and imitate.

Regarding Benjamin Franklin’s Daily Schedule

AT&T, 4G, and the New iPad

From Apple.com, when you go to buy a new iPad and you click the link to AT&T’s coverage viewer, here’s the map you get:

AT&T 4G Data Coverage Map

On this map, AT&T makes no differentiation between their HSPA+ network and their LTE network. Both are simply classified as “4G”. Which means someone looking to buy a new iPad with 4G LTE connectivity, who clicks on the link from the Apple website, is taken to this map where they see that AT&T has 4G coverage all over the place. There is no reason for someone to assume that the 4G connectivity Apple is referring to on their website is different from the 4G coverage that AT&T is displaying on their map.

For example: the two cities that I want 4G LTE coverage in are Kansas City and Denver. I know that there is 4G LTE in Kansas City because I see the AT&T billboards around town and I get the junk mail delivered to my house. And, when looking at this map on AT&T’s website I can see that not only does AT&T have 4G in Kansas City but they also have it in Denver.

AT&T 4G coverage in Denver and in Kansas City

Based on the information in this map, I bought an AT&T iPad on Wednesday.

I chose AT&T because the pricing of their plans is better and for the times that 4G LTE is not available and the iPad falls back to their HSPA+ network, it is a faster data connection than Verizon’s 3G.

On the map’s legend is a link for “4G”, which takes you to a popup page describing terms used in the legend. The definition for 4G is as follows:

4G: The areas shown in darkest blue represent AT&T owned HSPA+ network with enhanced backhaul. AT&T’s HSPA+ network is capable of delivering 4G speeds when combined with enhanced backhaul. Learn more about 4G.

Clicking to learn more takes you to AT&T’s 4G LTE info page. (If this is starting to sound confusing that’s because it is.) On this info page there is another coverage map (click the “coverage” tab at the bottom) which lists the actual cities that have 4G LTE. Ugh.

AT&T Actual 4G LTE Cities

As you can see, a 4G LTE city is denoted by an orange dot. There are far fewer 4G LTE cities than there are “4G” areas. And so, according to this map, Denver does not have AT&T 4G LTE service.

It wasn’t until Thursday that I discovered this (thanks to Ben). I felt tricked and taken for a fool. I cancelled my AT&T iPad and ordered a new one that connects to Verizon. Because Verizon does have LTE service in both Kansas City and in Denver.

We already know that AT&T will not be changing their “4G” moniker for HSPA+. It is bad enough that Apple has given in to AT&T at some measure by now displaying “4G” as the connection type for AT&T iPhones running iOS 5.1.

But at the very least Apple should be linking to AT&T’s coverage map which shows AT&T’s actual 4G LTE cities. The currently-linked-to map is deceptive and misleading given the context. How many people buying a new iPad will purchase an AT&T model based on the assumption that there is AT&T 4G LTE coverage in their city when it’s actually just HSPA+?

AT&T, 4G, and the New iPad

Sweet App: Favs

Between Twitter and my RSS feeds I come across a lot of things I want to bookmark for future reference. Some are articles to read for later but some are actionable items (like check out such and such app). And so I’ve established this habit where I “favorite” or “like” something as my way of bookmarking it. I also “like” most articles in Instapaper if they’re something I want to link to later.

Favs (pronounced fayves, I presume) is a nifty little Mac app that collects all your “favorites” and “likes” and into one place. It’s interface is not unlike an RSS reader, and it pulls your favorites from nearly 20 different services.

The app was in public beta for a while and so I’ve been kicking the tires on it for the past several weeks and like it quite a bit. It hit the Mac App Store just a few days ago — it’s polished and useful and definitely worth 5 bucks.

For a more in-depth review, check out Federico Viticci’s article.

Favs is $5 on the Mac App Store.

Sweet App: Favs

Thoughts and Observations Regarding Yesterday’s iPad Event

Resolutionary

Apple is calling the Retina display the most advanced display you’ve ever seen. It has 3.1 million pixels — a million more than are in my HDTV.

I’ve had a Retina display iPhone since the 4 came out last summer and it is still amazing to me. I have no doubt the new iPad’s display will be absolutely stunning. My question though is if it will it be as stunning as the iPhone’s display? The iPad is a bigger display — 9.7 inches compared to the iPhone’s 3.5 — but also worth noting is that the new iPad’s display has less pixel density than the iPhone does. 264 PPI and compared to 326 PPI respectively.

Will a 66 PPI difference make a difference? I don’t know. And my guess is that it won’t. Ryan Block’s comments on the new iPad’s Retina display make it sound just as stunning as (if not more so) the iPhone 4/4S. Jim Dalrymple seems to agree.

I use my iPad for reading more than anything else. And so I’m greatly looking forward having a tablet device that sports a (nearly) print-resolution screen — as if reading Instapaper and Reeder, surfing the Web, and browsing Tweetbot on the current iPad wasn’t already great enough.

Moreover, for websites, breaking out of the standard Georgia and Verdana fonts means your site will look fabulous on an iPad.

4G LTE

My original iPad and my iPad 2 were both Wi-Fi-only models. In the two years I’ve been using my iPads I’ve never felt the need to have 3G connectivity. However, this time around I still chose to order the 4G version. I did so for two reasons:

  • In part because it’s a new technology for Apple — this is their first 4G LTE device — and I think 4G devices are a really big deal. Android phones with 4G LTE are a big deal but their battery life is abysmal. Apple touts that when using 4G data the battery life is only dinged by one 10-percent.

  • Secondly, I have a hunch that owning a 4G connected iPad will prove to be far more useful than I thought. But this is something I won’t know for sure until I’ve got it. Like Marco discovered when he went from his Wi-Fi-only original iPad to the 3G-enabled iPad 2:

I went Wi-Fi-only on my iPad 1 and regretted it, so I got 3G on my iPad 2. In practice, I found that I brought the iPad 2 more places and used it more because it was always internet-connected. This greatly improved the value of the iPad for me. If you see yourself bringing the iPad outside of your house very often, it’s definitely worth considering the 4G option.

Over the past two years, if and when I’m going somewhere to work and I have to pick between taking my Wi-Fi-only iPad or my MacBook Air then I take the Air. But if the iPad were guaranteed connected (with a speed that rivals broadband) then who knows if I’d take the iPad instead.

There is little left that I can’t do on my iPad that I can do on my Air. From my iPad I can read, browse the Web, answer email, check Twitter, even write and post articles and links to my website. But without an internet connection my iPad feels slightly less useful. It’s a device that is meant to be online.

When I went to San Francisco for Macworld I didn’t crack open my Air one time. I did very little writing on that trip, and nearly all the work I did do (reading, email, posting links to the site) I actually did from my iPhone. But if my iPad had been Internet connected then I would have done a lot more work from it instead. My next trip to San Francisco (for WWDC) it’s likely that I’ll leave the Air at home.

To sum up, though I’ve gone sans-3G on iPads for two years in a row, I bet that a few months from now I’ll be very glad I went with the 4G iPad.

Sans-Siri

Sadly the new iPad doesn’t have Siri. Though it does have voice dictation. This will making typing easier (I wonder how much you can dictate before maxing out the service?) I would love to see Siri come to the iPad.

On my iPhone I use Siri quite a bit (assuming it’s available), and it’s primarily to send text messages, and set reminders. As the iPad grows more and more into a work machine, it will be nice to have the ability to quickly create appointments, send an email, set up a reminder, create a note, search the web, etc. No doubt it is simply a matter of time until Siri does make its way to the iPad — if that will be with iOS 6 or with the 2013 model of the iPad I don’t know. Perhaps the only thing holding Siri back right now is that it’s a service with is still very much in beta, and Apple isn’t ready to expand to further devices.

The $399 iPad 2

This is a huge deal if only for the fact that now the entry-level price for an iPad is $100 less than it used to be. Apple is driving the prices down on a device that they don’t need to drive prices down on. As usual, they are going for mass market share. Could the iPad reach as large of a market-saturation point as the iPod has? Remember how iPod growth curve flatlined because pretty much everyone already owned one?

The Apple TV

In the Blanc house we have one of the current little black Apple TV boxes and we love it. We don’t have cable and so anything we watch is via Netflix or iTunes (or Redbox on occasion if we can get it on Blu-Ray).

But I ordered one of the new Apple TVs because to me it’s worth it get the upgrade to 1080p iTunes and Netflix content. For $99 I think anyone with a Mac and a television should own an Apple TV.

What I Ordered

Black, 16GB, with 4G via AT&T.

  • Black, because obviously.

(Though I do imagine the White iPad looks much better now with the new Retina display. Something I never quite liked about the white iPads was that the screen felt even further from the glass than on the black models.)

  • 16GB because I’ve always purchased the base model devices and have never once maxed out an iPhone or iPad. And I wanted to spend my extra money on 4G rather than getting the 32GB version.

  • 4G because of the reasons stated above. I went with AT&T because they have fantastic 4G and 3G data service in Kansas City and Denver (the two cities where I spend most of my time). Verizon has great 4G coverage here as well, but if and when the iPad doesn’t have 4G connectivity and it needs to fall back to 3G, AT&T’s network is much faster than Verizon’s.

Additional Miscellany

  • Apple is calling the new iPad the same thing everyone else is going to call it: “The new iPad”.

  • The new iPad has Wi-Fi, GSM, UMTS, GPS, CDMA, LTE, and Bluetooth connectivity. During the presentation yesterday Phil Schiller said, “This new iPad has the most wireless bands of any device that’s ever shipped.”

  • Being thicker and heavier is surely a direct result of the battery.

  • What is Condé Nast going to do with their magazine apps? Their current issues (which use images even for text) are going to look horrible on the Retina display and if they start making their files 4x bigger then the downloads will get even more ridiculous — growing into the ballpark of an 800 MB file. At that size, after few back issues of The New Yorker and Wired your iPad’s storage will be maxed out.

  • Since you can’t see the beauty of a Retina display if you’re looking at pictures of it on a non-Retina display, it seems the only real way to try and compare a non-Retina display against a Retina display is to pixelate the “non-Retina model” so it looks a bit blurry by design. This is what Apple is doing on their side-by-side comparison of the screens on the iPad 2 and the new iPad.

  • Phil Schiller said: “As you’ll remember, when the iPhone 4 went to the Retina Display developers didn’t have to do anything to make their applications run on the Retina Display. Everything will still look great, but if developers take a little time, as with the iPhone, they can do stuff that looks amazing and incredible on the new iPad.”

But that’s not true. Text will look sharp and native API elements will look sharp but the rest will look very grainy. Non-Retina optimized apps look worse on a Retina display.

  • In the presentation yesterday Tim cook called iOS, “the world’s most advanced operating system and the easiest to use.”

  • Also from Tim Cook: “Our post PC devices made up 76% of our revenues. We have our feet firmly planted in the post PC future.”

  • Yesterday’s was the first iPad event with no armchair on the stage.

  • It’s a bit hard to be surprised when you already knew something was coming. Yesterday’s announcement contained nearly everything we expected. We pretty much knew there’d be a new Apple TV, iPhoto for iOS, and all the main specs about the new iPad. However, being savvy to a spec sheet and feature list is much different than using a device.

If you’re like me, you too have yet to get used to the iPhone’s Retina display. And so, though it won’t be until next Friday that I am able to start using my new iPad, and it won’t be for another few months before I know how often I do (or don’t) use the 4G, I suspect this new iPad will be amazing for the long haul.

Could the new iPad end up being the finest device Apple has made yet? And it raises the question: what’s in store for the new iPhone?

Thoughts and Observations Regarding Yesterday’s iPad Event

The iPad 3 Liveblogs

These are the three I’ll be tracking with this morning:

  • Macworld: Jason Snell and Dan Moren make a dynamic duo and I prefer to read what they say. But the Macworld liveblogs are usually semi-skimpy on photos.

  • The Verge: Lots of photos, quick updates, etc.

  • Engadget: The custom liveblog website technology (is that a thing?) they’re using is pretty stellar — I liked it a lot at the New York educational event when Apple introduced the new iBooks stuff.

  • GDGT: Ryan Block is doing great, too. More photo updates than even The Verge.

And I’ll probably post a few comments on my personal Twitter account.

The iPad 3 Liveblogs

Membership Drive and Giveaway

Welcome to the 2012, PBS-Style Membership Drive and Giveaway for shawnblanc.net.

Yesterday I kicked off this years Membership Drive by introducing a new members-only perk (The Members Journal) and a new subscription level (the Executive Membership), and recording a new video.

For all the new members who signed up in the past 24 hours: thank you. To all the current members who have kept their membership going or who have upgraded to an Executive Membership: thank you. And to those who are about to join: thank you, too.

Members contribute nearly 50-percent of this site’s income. Needless to say there is no way I could be writing here as my full-time gig without the generous support of the members. It means the world to me that readers are directly supporting the work I do here.

Ideally, you are signing up to become a member because the value and enjoyment you get from shawnblanc.net is worth it to you, and the members-only perks are a nice bonus of course. But my job is to try and sweeten the deal as much as possible. And so, I’ve arranged for some things to be won if you sign up to become a member.

For those of you who have not yet signed up to be a member, there is, as they say, no time like the present.

The 2012 Membership Drive and Giveaway

Anyone who signs up for a membership before midnight CST on March 25 will be entered to win one of the prizes listed below. Current members who have signed up over the past year are also entered to win, so long as their membership is active.

There are a metric ton of top-notch prizes, all donated by friends of the site, with an aggregate value in excess of $4,200.

The List of Prizes

How to Win, Etc.

  • Anyone who signs up for a membership before midnight CST on Sunday, March 25 will automatically be in the runnings to win something.

  • If you are already a member with a current membership, you are eligible to win.

  • You do not have to live in the United States to win — international members are most welcome and most eligible (though some prizes are not available outside the US).

  • The drive ends at midnight CST on March 25, and the drawing will be held sometime around last week in March. It will be random and I will email the winners at their PayPal email address.

  • If there is a certain prize in particular that you’d like to win over another, please fill out this form. I will check it once the winners are drawn to try and get people a prize they prefer. You do not have to fill out the form to win, only to request a particular prize.

Membership Drive and Giveaway

Membership Drive 2012

This time last year I was sitting at my desk with MarsEdit open and my mouse pointer hovering over the “Send to Blog” button. I remember my palms were clammy, like when you lean over a ledge, and I just sat there, hesitating, for what seemed like the entire morning.

The article was my announcement that I was taking shawnblanc.net full time. So long as that article stayed in my Drafts Folder, then things could continue on as they always had. But once I hit publish, I knew that I was committed.

Publishing that article was like announcing that I was jumping off a cliff and hoping to make it to the other side. And my only hope to make it was to humbly ask that you guys — the readers — be willing to support the site directly by becoming members.

I have been shocked and humbled by the incredible response to the membership — thanks to the direct support from the readers, I’ve been able to write this site day in and day out for the past year. It has been fantastic. And I’d very much like to keep writing.

Current Members

For those of you who have signed up for a membership in the past year: thank you. With no exaggeration, I mean it when I say I am honored and humbled by your support. As your membership renews I hope you will continue to stay on as a direct supporter of this site.

Two points of note for current members:

  • Current members who want to subscribe to The Members Journal: it is an opt-in list. If you’d like to sign up you can do so on the members info page. Your password for that page can be found in the information email you received from me after signing up for your membership.

  • Regarding the Executive Membership: I’m introducing a new subscription level that gets you all the same benefits as the $3 membership but for $12/month. This is for those who have offered to or who are glad to pay more for their membership.

If you want to switch to the Executive Membership you’ll have to cancel your current subscription and sign up for the new one.

New Members

Excluding last year’s membership drive, I have done little to promote the membership over the past year. Primarily because, in my opinion, storing up all the attention of the membership for a big annual membership drive is more fun.

And so, for those of you who are new to the site, or who perhaps are long-time readers, but have not signed up for a membership, this is the time of year where I humbly ask that you consider signing up for a membership.

The direct support that comes in from readers makes up for nearly half of this site’s income. I literally could not continue to write here full time without the support of subscribing members.

Membership Perks

The primary membership benefit is that you’re allowing me to spend my full attention working on this site.

There are of course, some additional, members-only perks:

  • Shawn Today: The member’s only broadcast. It’s short, uncut, fun, and often involves coffee. It’s intended to be a daily show, but it averages out to about every-other day (in the past 12 months since starting Shawn Today, I’ve recorded over 175 episodes).

  • The Members Journal: This is a new-in-2012 perk that I’ve just launched. The Members Journal is an email sent out on occasion. It’s not a regular email (as in every week or every month) because I don’t expect to regularly have content for it. But, when it does go out it will contain things such as:

  • Giveaways and promo codes for apps (developers often send me these to give away to the members).
  • Links to apps, articles, videos, and other things which never made it onto the home page of shawnblanc.net for one reason or another. This is affectionately known as The Cut List.

* * *
If the value and enjoyment you get from shawnblanc.net is worth that to you, then I would love to have your support as a subscribing member.

A membership is just $3 a month — like a good cup of coffee — and you can sign up here.

Membership Drive 2012

The Newest Blanc

Noah Michele Blanc was born this past Saturday the 25th of February at 6:21 in the morning. At 8 pounds, 5 ounces and 19.5 inches tall, he is just perfect.

Noah Blanc

Being a new dad is filled with wonder and joy. Right now there’s nothing I’d rather do than hold my little boy and tell him how much I love him and how proud I am of him even though all he knows how to do is eat, sleep, and poop. Oh, and look cute:

Noah Blanc

The Newest Blanc

Why a New iOS Home Screen is a Big Deal

In his iOS 6 wish list, Federico Viticci wishes for a new iOS Home screen. Viticci has written about the problem of the iOS Home screen before, concluding that “Apple needs to tear apart the whole concept and rebuild it from the ground up.”

I agree. I think Apple does intend to rebuild the iOS Home screen from the ground up. I also think their intentions for the new Home screen are exciting, ambitious, and will prove to be a big deal.

Not until recently have we felt much of a need for a revamped home screen. Since 2007 iOS has evolved significantly in both its functionality (i.e. multitasking and Notification Center) and in the amount of available apps (thus folders, and multiple Home screens). After five years the Home screen is feeling cramped and outdated.

If I were a betting man, I would wager that the iOS Home screen as we know it today is not Apple’s long-term plan. My hunch is that the Home screen is still the way it is because the long-term ramifications of what it could be are huge.

A reimagined springboard is a prime opportunity for significant innovation. And significant innovation takes time.

Rebuilding the Home screen isn’t just about increasing usability. It is also about innovating at that “front-door interface” of how and where we get to the stuff on our devices (you can hardly do anything on your iPhone without going through the Home screen). Moreover, the ramifications of a reimagined Home screen go beyond iOS. As we are now learning via Lion and Mountain Lion, innovation on iOS is a setting of the stage for innovation on OS X.

During a recent episode of The Talk Show, John Gruber talked about how OS X is stuck with the “Desktop” whether they like it or not. Twenty years ago the Desktop as a folder for quick access to your files and your file system made sense. But that was when people predominantly interacted with files first before launching an app. Apple is now steering people away from the need to interact with the file system. With iCloud, automatic and in-app document saving, and versioning, we are seeing a shift in personal computing where people interact less with files first and more with apps first.

Khoi Vinh recently said:

Right now the most interesting [design] thing happening on the desktop, by far, is Apple’s iOS-ification of OS X. They’re clearly in the process of upending a decades-old paradigm for thinking about desktop software, and whether it’s successful or not is going to be very interesting.

A new iOS Home screen is Apple’s chance to get the “front-door interface” right. When they change the Home screen it’s going to be a big deal, and it will become a core part of iOS for the next decade.

Another reason why a new Home screen is such a big deal is because what Apple does to reimagine it on iOS will impact OS X and the Desktop and Dock (or perhaps the next evolution of Launchpad).

Put another way: I don’t see Apple just stealing ideas from Android and Windows Phone and implementing “live widgets” onto the iOS Home screen. When they update the Home screen they’ll have skated to where the puck is going to be.

Why a New iOS Home Screen is a Big Deal

Dan Frommer’s Sweet Mac Setup

Who are you, what do you do, etc…?

I’m Dan Frommer, based in Brooklyn NY, but always a Chicagoan at heart.

My main gig since 2005 has been writing about technology news, particularly from a business angle. My most recent project is SplatF.com, a site I started by myself in July, 2011, and hope to be working on forever. Right now it’s a mix of news analysis, reporting, data mining, chart porn, and link aggregation. In the future, who knows what it’s going to turn into. (I’m also, more recently, Editor at Large for a larger tech site called ReadWriteWeb.)

Before that, I helped start a site called Silicon Alley Insider in 2007: A New York-centric tech site that kept growing and morphed into Business Insider, which is now a huge and popular general-purpose news site. I started writing professionally at Forbes, writing about Internet infrastructure and telecom. I’ve also been a part- to full-time web designer since 1995, and I helped work on a few now-defunct Mac sites in the mid-to-late 90s.

What is your current setup?

Dan Frommer's Sweet Mac Setup

I work mostly from a home office in Brooklyn, but I do a fair (and increasing) amount of travel. My main rig is a 2009 quad-core iMac, 27 inches, with an old 24-inch secondary Dell screen (not pictured) that we use to watch videos on from a different angle. I prefer a wired keyboard to wireless (same for mice when I used them) but I’ve gotten used to the Magic Trackpad. My desktop image is an aerial photo of lower Manhattan that I shot out of the window of a plane a few years ago.

I also have a 13-inch MacBook Air for cafes and travel and an old Mac mini hooked up to my TV in the living room. Around the house, I also have a bunch of old Macs collecting dust, including my “Windtunnel” G4 tower (dual-DVD drives!) from 2003 and some old PowerBooks. And an Apple II floppy drive that Steve Wozniak autographed for me.

As far as post-PC living… I have an old iPad 3G, which I’ll be replacing with the new iPad whenever it comes out. And my current smartphone is a factory-unlocked iPhone 4S, which I bought to experiment with overseas SIM cards during my travels this year.

Oh, I also have one of those fake-plastic-grass charging stations, which I mostly use to add some color and life to my desk. Love it.

Why this rig?

I bought the 27-inch iMac soon after they first came out because the screen was just amazing. (It still is.) On most days, it’s still fast enough that I haven’t felt the urge to replace it. Though having the SSD boot drive on my Air has really changed my perception of how quick a Mac should be, so maybe this year I’ll pick up a new iMac with an SSD boot drive, depending on how things go. (I’m in no hurry.)

I started with the 11-inch Air but gave it to my wife after I spent a little time with the 13-inch model. The extra screen size and battery life on the 13-inch is well worth the extra bulk to me, especially considering how light it is relative to my old 13-inch plastic MacBook. The MacBook Air is really the laptop I’ve always wanted but never had: Light enough to take everywhere and not secretly hate it for making my bag heavy. I was so excited about the 12-inch PowerBook G4 when I got it in 2005 but it was always so heavy that I never really took it anywhere. The Air is really magical.

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

I was really into little hacks and automation and shortcut-type stuff in MacOS 8 and 9, but after switching to OS X in 2001, I’ve tried to use as much of a stock install as I can. It’s nice to keep things simple, I think.

Most of my work is in Chrome, using WordPress for SplatF and Movable Type for ReadWriteWeb. I also use TweetDeck almost all day (the old, Adobe AIR version; like it more than the new one so far). I have Photoshop Elements, Fireworks, and Acorn for graphics stuff, but I don’t do much that’s more elaborate than cropping and resizing images, and maybe adding a little text to them. For photos, I mostly use Image Capture and the Finder to organize them. I do a lot of charts for SplatF, and almost all of that is done in Numbers from the Mac App Store. Other than that, I use Adium for IM and Mail for email.

I’m still running Snow Leopard on my main iMac — haven’t felt the need to upgrade — but have Lion on my Air. It’s… okay.

The old Mac software I miss the most was an app called Hotline, which was most popular around 1998-1999. It was a cool mashup of FTP, IRC, and newsgroups, and there was a great community. I spent hundreds of hours on Hotline in high school, and then a lot of time on Carracho, a Hotline successor. But I don’t think any of that stuff still exists.

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

My main job is to find and sift through endless streams and piles of information, so being able to have 2 or 3 windows open at the same time, large enough to see a bunch of data, is why I love the big iMac so much. At Business Insider, I had a second 24-inch screen open to TweetDeck all day, but I don’t really like multi-screen setups. I’m really big on symmetry. During baseball season, sometimes I’ll prop up my iPad next to me to keep the Cubs game on, because the iOS version of MLB’s stream is better than the Flash-based web version.

How would your ideal setup look and function?

My desk is pretty big, but once I move in a few months I might investigate some sort of hybrid sit-stand system. I really like standing, and feel like a jerk sitting around all day. Other than that, I’d just like to always have the biggest screen that makes sense to have. If Apple made a 42-inch iMac, I’d probably buy one.

I like having separate desktop and laptop computers so that I can leave my desktop on all the time (acting as a home server of sorts) and keep a subset of my data on my laptop. Most of my work is on the web so I don’t really care about syncing.

I’m blown away by how efficient, quick, and quiet Macs are these days. When I was home over the holidays, I booted up my old IIci and my old Performa, and the CPUs were both so big, so heavy, and so loud for the little processing power they provided.

More Sweet Setups

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

Dan Frommer’s Sweet Mac Setup

Apple in 2012

Based on Apple’s patterns of the past, along with some current rumors and my gut feelings, it looks as if 2012 is going to be a doozy:

  • The 3rd iPad
  • Mountain Lion
  • iOS 6
  • The 6th iPhone
  • Significant update to the MacBook Pro lineup
  • A television (?)
  • And who knows what else (such as iMac, Mac Pro, and or iPod updates, iCloud enhancements, etc.)

A few years from now, I suspect we will look back at 2011 as having been the year Apple’s foundation was done being laid. From the introduction of the iPhone and iOS in 2007 to the shipping of Lion and then iCloud in 2011 — it was all just one long product rollout.

Apple spent the previous several years getting their mobile devices, desktop hardware, and operating systems all right where they want them. The foundation has been laid, and starting in 2012 they’ll be building on that foundation.

It sounds dramatic and even a bit cliché, but this is the beginning of the future for them. Apple isn’t slowing down any time soon.

Apple in 2012

The Kindle Touch: 90 Days Later

Last November I bought the $99 Kindle Touch with Special Offers.

Though I am not a speedy or avid reader — I read about one novel per year, and a few other books — I very much enjoy reading. After purchasing an iPad in 2010 I swore I’d never buy a physical book again if I could help it. The convenience of having all the books I was reading or planning to read available on one device was just too awesome.

When I bought the Kindle, I didn’t know if it would actually replace my iPad as my go-to reading device or not. I purchased the Kindle primarily so I could review it and so I could have experiential knowledge of E-Ink displays and just how light the Kindle is and how it compares to the iPad as far as a reading device.

However, 90 days later, the Kindle has yet to become a gadget collecting dust in the Blanc household.

The Kindle’s E-Ink screen is so much better for reading than the iPad’s backlit display. However, what I appreciate even more than the screen is the Kindle’s size and weight. The iPad is not comfortably held for long periods of time and is nearly impossible to use with one hand. The Kindle blows the iPad out of the water in this regard.

I got the device with “Special Offers” and though they bug me a bit, they don’t bug me enough to pay to disable them. Most of the ads seem to be for current Amazon ebook specials. Though at one point there was an ad for a Twilight movie that I felt uncomfortable with, so I just kept the Kindle face down when not in use. Actually, I pretty much always keep the Kindle face down when not in use.

When going on vacation, the Kindle makes a great companion if only because it draws less attention than an iPad. It feels more socially acceptable to curl up on the couch with the Kindle for several hours rather than the iPad. But if I don’t take the Kindle for whatever reason, then that’s okay because the iPad’s Kindle app stays in sync with my actual Kindle and makes it easy enough to continue reading on my iPad and vice versa.

In the three months I’ve owned the Kindle Touch I have charged it twice: once when I first got it and then again about three weeks later. After that second charge the battery has been going and going and going. And that is with Wi-Fi enabled, and I leave the Kindle in “sleep mode” when I’m not reading, rather than turning it off. I usually read on the Kindle about twice a week for an hour or two at a time.

A few weeks ago, Amazon released an update to the Kindle Touch software that greatly increased the device’s response time as it relates to navigating menus and turning pages. Ignorance had been bliss before the update, and now, after it, I can heartily recommend the Kindle Touch as a fantastic device.

And so, after 90 days with the Kindle Touch, I am still using it on a regular basis. The device makes a fine companion to the iPad even if you are not an avid reader. I have stopped buying books from the iBookstore and now buy all my books from Amazon instead.

The Kindle Touch: 90 Days Later

A Clear Review

Some people thrive on lists. They have lists for errands, groceries, chores, ideas, dog names, and so on. I am one such fellow. I keep lists to help me remember things, but also to help clear my mind. The moment when the need to make a list hits could be at any time.

For me, a good list app needs to be both fast and available. Clear is both of those while also managing to be unique and quite unconventional.

As any reader of this website knows, I am an avid user of OmniFocus. Any list I may jot down will eventually work its way into OmniFocus. But the biggest caveat with OmniFocus is its speed. It takes more than a few seconds to launch the iPhone app and enter something in. New OmniFocus items beg to be given contexts, projects, start dates, and due dates. While this is OmniFocus’s greatest strength, there are times when this is also OmniFocus’s greatest weakness.

And so there are two things I like about Clear:

  • As a list app it is fast to use and to navigate. It launches up very quickly, you can enter in a slew of items in no time, and you can get to a particular list very quickly as well.

  • As a man who simply has an affinity for fine software, Clear stands apart as a very unique and clever app. I dive into this a bit more in my review below, but even if you are not in the market for a new list app, Clear is worth checking out if only to experience its unique design and user interface.

Clear

Clear is a list app for the iPhone like no other. When you’re in the app you only see your color-based lists. Clear is an app without chrome or buttons or menu bars or metadata. Each item holds just 30 characters of text, and there are no due dates or notes or projects.

It has the underlying simplicity and ease of use that an app with just a white background and an unordered list of items would have. And yet, through the use of color and actions and gestures, clear has a surprising amount of life to it.

Clear is literally just pixels and gestures. But combined in just the right way to make an app that is a unique and clever blend of simplicity and spunk.

Action-Centric

Clear relies heavily on the use of color and gestures to navigate. It is very action-centric. Nearly all the gestures that you normally do on the iPhone — swiping up and down, left and right, pinching open and closed — are the ways that you navigate the app. The way Clear works is quite unconventional compared to other list apps, and yet all the actions feel natural because they are common gestures for anyone that’s used an iPhone for longer than their lunch break.

When you’re in a list, you pull the whole list down to create a new item at the top of the list. Or, if you want the new item inserted somewhere other than at the top you can pinch open the list and insert a new item anywhere you like.

Swiping left-to-right completes a task, swiping the opposite deletes it. Swiping left-to-right again on that task un-completes it. Pulling up on your list clears out all the crossed off items, and pinching the list closed takes you up a level to see the menu of all your currently active lists.

In addition to pulling down or pinching open, you can also add a new item to the list by tapping in the blank space underneath your list. A new list item “drops down” and you can then fill in its contents. If you want to quickly add a series of new items, then pull down from within the item creation pane. This is actually an extremely quick way to add new items to your list as fast as your thumbs can tap them out.

Even though Clear relies heavily on the iOS pinching gestures to navigate within lists and for adding new items, the app was still designed so that it can be used one-handed. For example, when pulling a list to add a new item, if you continue to pull down you will get an option to switch lists:

Pull down further to go to a different level in Clear

You can navigate through the whole app this way.

Despite its extreme reliance on gestures and actions, I found Clear to be surprisingly discoverable. And if that’s not enough, a brief pre-launch tutorial guides you through the first time you launch the app, and you’re even presented with a list of pre-populated to-do items which inform you how to use the app.

Colorful

Like I said, Clear is just pixels and gestures. The lists are color-based with the darker colors at the top to signify greater importance.

You can re-order items by tapping and holding to move them. And as you navigate through the different hierarchies of the app the colors change as well. The default color scheme has “red hot items” as the individual list pane, cool blue items as the pane showing all your lists, and then a cooler slate grey for the menu.

You can change your color scheme in the menu. There are red, green, pink, grey, and black themes. Also there may or may not be some easter eggs to be found in the app related to themes. But that’s all they’ll let me say.

Hierarchy

One of the things that instantly struck me was the spatial stacking that Clear uses to convey hierarchy.

Clear's Hierarchy

A typical iOS app has a hierarchy that goes left to right. Meaning, the left-most pane is the highest level and the right-most pane is the furthest drilled down into the app. For example, in Mail if you hit the back button enough times your left-most pane will be the list of your mailboxes; as you move deeper into Mail it takes you to the panes that exist on the right until you get all the way into an individual message.

For Clear, the hierarchy goes top to bottom as you can see in the image above. Also worth noting is that Clear’s bottom-most pane is an individual list — you can not drill down to an individual item. Further emphasizing the forced simplicity of Clear.

This spatial stacking is different than the way most apps work, but because of Clear’s gesture-based navigation it really works well. When you are pulling down to add a new item, the bar for that item “folds up” as if coming from underneath. Likewise, when you pinch open for a new item in a list, the item folds open. The animations are quite clever and fit in well with the unique hierarchy structure of the app.

Clearclusion

For the connoisseurs of fine iOS app or list apps alike, Clear is definitely worth checking out. And it’s just a buck in the iTunes App Store.

A Clear Review