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Macchiato [Sponsor]  →

My thanks to Kenneth Ballenegger for sponsoring the RSS feed this week to promote his Mac writing application, Macchiato.

Macchiato is a Lion-friendly, Markdown-loving, text editor with a caffeinated name.

I do all my writing in Markdown. It is writer friendly (keeping your prose free from HTML gibberish), and it is human friendly as well. I write my emails in Markdown even if I know the recipient isn’t privy to the syntax simply because it is easy enough to grasp even if you’re unfamiliar with it.

And so, as someone who does a lot of writing throughout my day, having a text editor that supports and stylizes my Markdown syntax is like gold. Macchiato is such an app. It’s not the only one of its kind, but it is one of the best.

There are 4 Markdown elements I use most often in my own writing: italics, links, headings, and bullet points. Assuming you are a plain text junkie like me, and if you write in TextEdit, then you have to manually type your Markdown as you are writing. Bullet points and headings are natural to type, and I have a global Keyboard Maestro Macro for creating Markdown links in any application.

Macchiato supports Plain Text and Markdown files. But it is more than just a plain text editor. For one, it has shortcuts for basic Markdown styling. Which means that hitting CMD+I in Macchiato will give you dual asterisks to wrap your text in. Or, if you’ve already selected some text, hitting CMD+I will add the asterisks to the front and back end of your selected text.

Moreover, Macchiato will stylize your text so that not only is it italicized in Markdown, it looks italic as well. As you can see in the below screenshot of the app:

Macchiato

In addition to italics, Macchiato has built-in stylization for bold, code, headings, and blockquotes. All while preserving the actual Markdown syntax that is in your prose. Which means you can write in Macchiato and then take your text to any other application and the Markdown is preserved as it should be. And this is how I work because I use this Markdown plugin for WordPress, I publish all my articles in Markdown, and they get parsed into HTML on the server side.

Macchiato comes with full OS X Lion support, and therefore has native full-screen mode (something TextEdit doesn’t even have!) and it has version control and auto-saving. Also it has a little word-counter up in the very top, right-hand corner.

I have become very fond of writing in full-screen mode. On my Air, apps that are built for full-screen look great. And even when writing long-form articles in front of my 23-inch cinema display, having a full-screen writing app has become a necessity for me.

There is a significant update to Macchiato in the pipe that will add preferences for typography style and color schemes. And this week only, Macchiato is 25% off in the Mac App Store.

Macchiato [Sponsor]

Latest But Not Greatest  →

Dan Frommer on the report that the iPhone 4 and 3G S were the two best-selling smartphones in the 2nd quarter of 2011. Or, put another way, a phone that came out in the summer of 2009 sold better than every single phone that came out in the spring of 2011.

The proof is in the pudding: to succeed in this market you don’t have to be first to do something, nor do you have to unveil the newest technology, you simply have to be the best.

As I’ve said before, good marketing may get people in the door the first time, but it takes a good product to get them in the door the second time, the third time, and so on.

Latest But Not Greatest

A Simple Explanation for Why HP Abandoned Palm and Is Getting Out of the PC Business  →

John Gruber:

Palm wasn’t Apotheker’s acquisition. It was Hurd’s. And the PC business wasn’t why Apotheker took the job. […]

I suppose Apotheker gave the Palm/WebOS guys a chance, and let them get the TouchPad on the market. But apparently their chance was a one-strike-and-you’re-out opportunity to gain traction in the market immediately.

A Simple Explanation for Why HP Abandoned Palm and Is Getting Out of the PC Business

If Not HP, Then Who?  →

Kyle Baxter:

Who else can compete with Apple on integrated, functional products? RIM had the potential, but has proven inept; Microsoft’s Windows Phone 7, while well done, is plagued with subpar hardware; and the Android OEMs aren’t anywhere close.

Let’s consider what Apple’s done. They have the best hardware, the best software, and their prices are lower than competing, lower-quality products, due to Apple’s supply chain strategy, all while their margins are larger. That’s difficult to compete with, and HP has effectively pulled out their white flag.

If Not HP, Then Who?

Terminology for iPad and iPhone  →

Terminology is a dictionary and thesaurus app on steroids, and I’m thankful to Agile Tortoise for sponsoring the RSS feed this week in order to promote Terminilogy and its Back to School Sale.

It’s an app for iPad or iPhone and is the most feature-rich, thought-through, well-built dictionary and thesaurus app I have used. The iPad app I keep on my Home screen.

I have used other dictionary apps and Terminology is one of the best. Primarily thanks to the information it draws and the way that information is displayed. Once you’ve used Terminology for a little while you’ll instantly realize what a great tool it is — especially for writers.

In fact, this is precisely how Terminology bills itself: “The perfect tool for anyone interested in honing their language. From writers working on the next great novel, to marketers craving the perfect tagline.”

You see, in addition to being shown the definition of the word, you’re also given synonyms, antonyms, and similar suggestions for other words. The raw information found in Terminology is not new, but the way that information is presented is done so in an extremely helpful manner which is a big part of what makes this app so fine.

Moreover, Terminology hooks in with certain apps you may already own, such as Articles, Twitter, and Instapaper. You can add one-tap access to additional online resources such as Google, Wikipedia, and Urban Dictionary. Marco Arment even likes Terminology so much that he added support for it right in to Instapaper. If you have the former installed then the latter will use it when you look up the definition of a word.

Terminology is like a friend who is incredibly well versed in the English language — not just knowing definitions and meanings, but also educated in usage and suggestions as well. Using Terminology is like having that friend’s undivided attention as they help you find just the right word or turn of phrase that you’re looking for.

If you’re going to snag a copy, you should do so soon because Terminology is currently on sale, but only until Sunday.

Terminology for iPad and iPhone

Who Says Elephants Can’t Dance?  →

A generous piece by Marcelo Somers on HP’s announcement yesterday about killing its support for webOS devices:

The tech industry is complex to say the least, maybe that’s why it’s so interesting. To be a winner in the industry you have to overcome twin challenges – fast change and complex system interactions. In a nutshell, you have to be able to adapt quickly while dealing with technology that is very difficult to change.

Who Says Elephants Can’t Dance?

WebOS Runs Better on an iPad  →

According to The Next Web’s sources, HP hacked an iPad to test how webOS ran. Low and behold, it ran much faster:

When webOS was loaded on to Apple’s iPad device and found to run the platform significantly faster than the device for which it was originally developed.

With a focus on web technologies, webOS could be deployed in the iPad’s Mobile Safari browser as a web-app; this produced similar results, with it running many times faster in the browser than it did on the TouchPad.

What else is new? Apple has been building hardware that runs its competitors’ operating systems faster for years.

WebOS Runs Better on an iPad

AT&T’s New Text Messaging Pricing  →

Starting Sunday, all new customers to AT&T will have a new pricing structure for their text-messaging plans: unlimited or pay-per-text.

Starting August 21, we’re streamlining our text messaging plans for new customers and will offer an unlimited plan for individuals for $20 per month and an unlimited plan for families of up to five lines for $30 per month. The vast majority of our messaging customers prefer unlimited plans and with text messaging growth stronger than ever, that number continues to climb among new customers. Existing customers don’t have to change any messaging plan they have today, even when changing handsets.

The cost will still be $20 for the unlimited plan (and $30 for family) just like it is but that’s the only text messaging plan that will be available. If you don’t go with a plan then you’ll pay $0.20/SMS and $0.30/MMS.

This is a smart move by AT&T. If you send more than 3 text messages a day then it’s cheaper to get the unlimited plan. The vast majority of new customers will go with the unlimited plan. Especially any and all new customers who may be switching to AT&T later this fall due to a certain new phone and a certain new OS.

With the previous plan option of $10/1,000 you could send 32 text messages a day before the unlimited plan became cheaper. And with iMessage rolling out this fall it means new (and current customers) on iPhones who likely would have gone with the $10/1,000 plan will instead go for the $20 unlimited plan.

But I think it’s silly to say that this move is solely in response to iMessage. AT&T has nearly 100 million wireless subscribers. And the total install base of American smartphone users are still outnumbered by non-smartphone users 2 to 1. Put another way: there are a lot of AT&T customers who don’t use an iPhone.

On a personal note, Anna and I will be sticking with our unlimited family messaging plan. At $0.20 per text we could only send 150 text messages per month before the $30 plan got cheaper. We each send close to 150 texts in just one week. And, except for one cousin on my mom’s side, not a single person our entire family owns an iPhone. Thus, iMessage won’t be incredibly helpful to us.

AT&T’s New Text Messaging Pricing