Too Nerdy for Words

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

Some OmniFocus Linkage

The Internet has been bubbling up with all sorts of OmniFocus-related nerdery lately. I realized that one reason to favor OmniFocus over other to-do apps is that a lot of my super-smart friends use it, and they’re always finding or building clever tricks to decrease friction.

Here are a few recent things worth sharing. Listed in order of Nerd Score.

Some OmniFocus Linkage

AppleScript for Sending Frontmost Safari Tabs to OmniFocus  →

Sometimes the number of tabs I have open in Safari gets ahead of me, and I find myself with a few dozen sites waiting for my attention but I’m out of time. Or perhaps I’ve got several tabs open for a current project I’m working on but I need a break from working on that project. Or maybe I’ve got so many tabs open that Safari starts taking up more than its fair share of CPU resources.

Well, here’s a clever little AppleScript that grabs all the open tabs in Safari’s frontmost window and creates a new to-do item in your OmniFocus Inbox with the Title and URL of each tab listed out within the task’s note.

This script is far easier and faster than Instapapering or otherwise bookmarking them one by one. (And yes I know that I can reopen the windows from the previous session, but sometimes that’s not practical, desirable, or possible.)

Since I use Command+4 to clip the current URL into its own OmniFocus Quick Entry panel, I set this other script to execute via Keyboard Maestro when I hit Option+4 if Safari is the frontmost application.

Moreover, since I like confirmation when a script has been successfully executed, I added this Growl notification to the end:


tell application "Growl"
    set the allNotificationsList to {"Success Notification", "Failure Notification"}
    set the enabledNotificationsList to {"Success Notification", "Failure Notification"}
    
    register as application ¬
        "Safari Tabs to OmniFocus Script" all notifications allNotificationsList ¬
        default notifications enabledNotificationsList ¬
        icon of application "Safari"
    
    notify with name ¬
        "Success Notification" title ¬
        "Successfully Logged" description ¬
        "All Safari tabs have been sent tot OmniFocus" application name ¬
        "Safari Tabs to OmniFocus Script"
end tell
AppleScript for Sending Frontmost Safari Tabs to OmniFocus

Backup

It’s unfortunate that many people don’t think about backing up their data until it’s too late. I can’t imagine how devastating it would be to lose weeks, months, or years worth of family photos, important documents, project folders, and more.

External hard drives seem to get cheaper by the minute; off-site backup services are more affordable and easy to use than ever; and heck, OS X has been shipping with built-in backup software for years.

With very little effort and cost you can set up an automated and trustworthy backup system. I can only assume most people don’t back up their data because they are either lazy, unsure where to start, don’t see a need, or all of the above.

Assuming Mat Honan’s horror story gives you the motivation for backing up, here are some tips on how to set up a rock-solid backup system.

* * *

A great backup system looks like this:

  • Local: an external hard drive at your desk that has a copy of the same files on your computer.
  • Off-site: Cloud storage of your most important files.
  • Automated: everything backs up on its own without you having to initiate the backup every time.

For Local Backups

Keeping a regular backup on an external hard drive is the smartest way to keep your data backed up. It’s also the easiest way to restore something if your computer has a catastrophic failure.

The easiest way to back up your Mac is to plug in an external drive and turn on Time Machine. If you don’t have an external hard drive, here’s a big and fast one.1

For my local backups, I also use SuperDuper because there’s no reason not to use SuperDuper and Time Machine. What I like about SuperDuper is that it creates a bootable clone of my MacBook Air.

For Off-Site Backups

The point of an off-site backup is so someone breaks into your house and steals all your gear, or if your home is destroyed by a natural disaster, you won’t lose your most important files.

You don’t need to keep an exact clone of your entire computer in the Cloud so much as you should make sure that your most important and valuable files are stored somewhere other than the hard drive in your desk drawer.

For my off-site backup I actually rely on three different services: Backblaze, Arq, and Dropbox. It’s a little nerdy, I know, but I have my reasons.

Backblaze

For off-site backup of all my documents, music, photos, and other media I use BackBlaze.

Backblaze is relatively cheap for what they offer: unlimited file storage for $5/month or $50/year. They’ll even back up external media drives (if you’ve got a drive or two that only keep photos and music).

The Backblaze utility runs natively on your Mac and allows detailed control over the frequency and speeds at which your files are backed up. Your data is encrypted on your Mac before being sent to the Backblaze servers. For those who want more security (like me) you can set your own private encryption key, making your data unreadable by anybody who doesn’t know the key.

There are some system folders that Backblaze will not back up, such as the ~/Library folder. Because of this, if I were to lose all my local data, and had only Backblaze to turn to, there are a few important bits I would not have. Primarily, the data stored within apps such as Yojimbo and MarsEdit (which keep their database in their respective Application Support folders in the Library folder). And that is why I use Arq…

Update: I was mistaken about the ~/Library folder not being backed up. Turns out Backblaze does back it up, which means all of my Application Support folders are backed up. This is great. I will still continue to use Arq for the handful of files that I want redundant backups of.

Arq

Arq is a utility that creates encrypted backups of whatever files or folders you chose, and uploads them securely to a bucket on your Amazon S3 account.

I use Arq to keep certain Application Support folders backed up via Arq. So that way my Yojimbo database and other apps can be restored if necessary.

And with Amazon’s every-decreasing S3 pricing, my budget of $6.75/month gives me more than enough space.

Dropbox

Like most of you do, I assume, I also keep all my current projects in Dropbox. Since Dropbox syncs on save, anything I’m working on right now gets backed up to my Dropbox account. And so, supposing I write a 1,000-word article while at the coffee shop, and then on the way out my MacBook Air gets struck by lightning, I didn’t lose any of my work.

What else is great about Backblaze, Arq, and Dropbox is that they work anywhere I have an internet connection. If I take my laptop with me on a trip to Colorado, I don’t have to give up my daily off-site backups while traveling. (Though it may take a bit longer on my dad’s slow-as-molasses DSL.)

Keep it Simple, Keep it Safe

For $10 month and very little energy I have a system that backs up my data redundantly, securely, and thoroughly. And I don’t have to initiate anything to make it happen.

All this may sound a bit complicated or expensive, but now that it’s set up it all takes care of itself. It is great to know that if my MacBook Air’s SSD ever fails, I won’t lose any files. If my house is destroyed in a fire, I won’t lose any files.2 If somebody steals my laptop, I won’t lose any files.

If all of the above sounds like too much, I’d recommend this basic yet top-notch setup:

With that you’ll have everything you need for a rock-solid backup system: local and off-site backups of all your files and folders that happen without you ever having to think it.

  1. I always buy LaCie enclosures because they’re reliable and good looking. ↵
  2. To be honest, the biggest relief is knowing that if there’s an emergency at my house, my computer files are something I don’t need to worry about. Since all my vital documents and important projects are backed up to another location that I can retrieve later, I am completely free to focus on getting my wife and son out of the house safely. Everything else is replaceable. ↵
Backup

How Microsoft and Apple are Fighting the Prejudice that Tablets Are Not For Creating

Microsoft announced the Surface with most of the attention aimed at their clever keyboard cover and the tablet’s built-in kickstand. However, the heart and soul of the Microsoft Surface will be its software. And I believe the keyboard and the kickstand are byproducts of a software decision.

As Chuck Skoda aptly said: “The keyboard cover does one thing critical to the design of Windows 8, enable classic Windows apps.”

A software decision begat a hardware decision that begat another hardware decision. And this is how Microsoft expects users of the Surface to create on their tablets.

Creating on an iPad

Out of the box the iPad already comes with some great apps. Writing and note-taking, email, Web, video chatting, reminders, and more. In fact, if I was forced into a hypothetical situation where I had no choice but to use a stock iPad to do my job, it could be done. It wouldn’t be easy. But it would be possible.

Of course, not everyone can say that. The only way I would be able to squeak by working only on an iPad would be through extensive use of Safari on the iPad. I’d also have to hire some people to take care of any future web designing I may do on my sites.

However — suppose I were able to negotiate my hypothetical situation to allow the use of 3rd-party apps and a Bluetooth keyboard? Well, as a matter of fact, that’s the portable setup I use right now.

When traveling, I take only my iPad. Loaded with a handful of 3rd-party apps, the iPad makes a great work device that causes me negligible loss in productivity.

When at my home office sitting at my desk, I work much faster and more efficiently on my Das Keyboard, 23-inch Apple Cinema Display, and my MacBook Air. But for the times I am away from home, the iPad works just fine as a competent, capable, work machine. There is virtually nothing I can’t do on the iPad. Moreover, the iPad’s LTE connectivity and indestructible battery life make it a great traveling device with advantages that far outweigh its disadvantages.

So far as I see it, there are two sides to the going-iPad-only coin. One of practicality and one of sentiment:

  • Practically speaking, are you even able to use the iPad as your only computer for a while? Will you be unreasonably handicapped in your needs or responsibilities?

I posted a survey to Twitter, asking people if they could use the iPad as their only work computer if they had to? Out of 1,814 total responses:

4% — Yes, right out of the box using the stock apps.
34% — Yes, thanks to some 3rd-party apps.
21% — Probably, but it wouldn’t be easy or enjoyable.
41% — No way. I need a Mac.

As you can see, only less than half could said they could not use the iPad as their only computer. This is far less than I expected, even considering the nerdy, developer-friendly demographic of my Twitter followers. I received many replies on Twitter from folks saying they need a Mac but only because of a particular program such as Xcode or Adobe Creative Suite.

  • Secondly, if there are no practical hinderances to keep you from using an iPad as your only device, then you must get over your prejudice against the iPad as a primary computer. For the many people that could use an iPad as their only computer, they are either afraid or unwilling to. Perhaps it is the fear of the unknown, or perhaps it is an unwillingness to give up the familiar work environment of a Mac.

Is the iPad slower or more cumbersome than a Mac for certain tasks? Of course. But as I mentioned above, the iPad also has advantages which could outweigh its handicaps for some.

Apple has answered, and is answering, the practical question through iTunes App Store and the plethora of 3rd-party developers. There are hundreds of thousands of apps in the App Store that are empowering people to build things and communicate with people in ways that used to be limited only to traditional computers.

The prejudice of using the iPad as a primary device is one that will only be eroded over time and through word of mouth. As more families adopt iPads as their home’s primary computer then it will lead to even more doing so. Likewise, as more and more professionals find ways to use their iPads as a competent work device, then they will lead the way for even more professionals following suit.

Microsoft’s Proposed Solution

Microsoft is attempting to answer the practical and prejudicial conundrums surrounding their tablet by allowing the Surface to run classic Windows applications and by shipping it with a keyboard and trackpad disguised as a cover.

Microsoft needs a compelling reason for customers to see the Surface as a legitimate computing device. And since they don’t (yet?) have a gangbusters App Store, they built a keyboard cover instead.

But… what if the Surface for Windows 8 Pro’s ability to run classic Windows apps is akin to the iPad’s ability to run pixel-doubled iPhone apps? An inelegant but necessary solution that will not only justify marketing speak such as, “look at all the apps this tablet can run,” but also that can tide some users over until native apps are developed. Which, or course, raises the question: who will develop Windows 8 apps?

How Microsoft and Apple are Fighting the Prejudice that Tablets Are Not For Creating

Review: Reeder 3 for iPhone

As I write this very paragraph, I’m sitting in front of my MacBook Air typing in iA Writer. Twitter and nvALT are peeking out from the left-hand side of my text document, OS X’s Dock waits on the right-hand side of my screen, the Menu Bar watching from its usual top 20 pixels of the monitor, and my Desktop wallpaper rests in the background. Naturally, a fresh-brewed cup of coffee sits on the table next to my keyboard.

If I wanted, I could “remove all distraction” and temporarily transform my MacBook Air into a dedicated iA Writer machine by punching Control Command F and thus entering Full Screen Mode. But I’m not in a full-screen-mode-writing kind of mood.

Full Screen Mode on the Mac showed up last summer when Lion shipped. It is one of the elements brought over to OS X from iOS. It’s a way of removing all chrome from the screen save that used by the app itself. Even the ever-present Menu Bar gives up its 20 pixels.

On iOS, you’re always in full screen mode. When you’re using an app on your iPhone or iPad, the device, in a way, becomes that app.

And I find that because of this, writing about an iPhone or iPad can be difficult. You can’t give an iOS app review justice by reciting just the raw technicalities of the app. iOS apps have a bit of heart mixed in as well. Because you always only ever use the apps in full screen mode, they get your undivided attention in a way a Mac app often doesn’t. Moreover, due to the touch-screen nature of the device, iOS apps have a bit more personal of a user experience than mouse and keyboard driven apps.

OS X has heart too, of course. But most of it is found only in the design of the app. The blue progress indicator in Safari’s address field and the way application windows would shrink into the Dock when minimized were just a couple of the many interface and experience characteristics of OS X that enticed me to become a Mac user in 2004.

iOS is a UI Design Playground

The very first long-form software review I ever wrote was about an RSS reader you may have heard of: NetNewsWire. When I wrote that review, the original iPhone was only a few months old and iPhone software was still in its infancy. The Home screen couldn’t be re-arranged and there was not yet a whisper of an App Store or native 3rd-party apps.

Two years later, in 2009, John Gruber wrote about how Twitter clients are a UI design playground. The plethora of Twitter clients that were, and are, available for multiple platforms showed the vast array of design opportunities the seemingly simple service allowed. In his article, he made a statement about iPhone software that I think is even more apt today:

I read web sites and email and RSS feeds on my iPhone, but Twitter is the one service where reading on my iPhone doesn’t feel constrained compared to reading on my Mac. Put another way, MobileSafari is a good web browser for the iPhone, MobileMail is a good email client for the iPhone, but my favorite few iPhone Twitter clients are just plain good Twitter clients, with no need for a “for the iPhone” qualification. It doesn’t feel limiting to only use Twitter from my iPhone.

If you were to list out phrases that describe Apple’s software you’d come up with things like: intuitive and easy to use; it just works; fun and playful; simple; well-designed; beautiful. And I think it’s fair to say that Apple’s touch-based operating system epitomizes these characteristics even more than OS X does due to the inherent intimacy of iOS. The best 3rd-party developers know this and use it in their own apps.

It’s been 3 years since John wrote the above quote and it is more true of more apps today. And not just Twitter apps. How many tasks or activities do you prefer to do on your iPhone or iPad? It’s no longer limited to something as simple as Twitter. Some people are even replacing their entire computing experience with iOS software — taking their iPads on the road and leaving their MacBooks at home.

A few nerdy examples of iOS apps that are just plain good apps without the need for a “for iOS” qualification? OmniFocus, Diet Coda, Tweetbot, Writing Kit, and, as we’re about to discuss in great detail, Reeder.

Reeder for iPhone

For 5 years my iPhone has never been more than an arm’s length away. It’s my cell phone, my camera, my iPod, alarm clock, grocery list, task manager, note-taker, direction-giver, Twitter client, feed reader, and more. Affectionately referred to as Command Central.

In 2010 I lamented what I considered to be the non-ideal state of RSS feed readers for the iPhone. Reeder (still in version 1 at the time) was the best option at the time, but I felt there were several things about it that were still missing.

Reeder 2.0 launched shortly after my 2010 lamentation, and it answered nearly all of my needs. Today, with version 3.0, Reeder continues its hold as the best RSS client on the iPhone, period.

Version 3.0 of Reeder for iPhone is a major update. Not only are there a slew of new features, but there are an equal number of design improvements. The app has been completely re-written from the ground up and every corner of the UI has been refined. In short, Reeder runs better, looks better, does more, and is easier to use.

Some of Reeder’s hallmark new feature include:

  • Support for two new account types: Fever and Readability.
  • Subscription Management for Google Reader. You can now add and remove feeds, as well as move them around within folders, all from within Reeder.
  • Support for multiple accounts: you can have more than one Google Reader account, as well as
  • A re-written sync engine: and you thought Reeder was fast before.

More on these new features in a bit. First, let’s dive in to what I consider to be the best thing about Reeder 3: its new look.

Reeder’s Grown-Up Look

It starts with the icon. Though new, it is still familiar. You may notice it’s the same star found in the previous icon, but the “book spine” and the “RSS satellite waves” have been removed. It’s also the same star that sits on the front of the Mac application’s icon, and is more or less, the same icon as the 16×16 variant of the Mac app.

Reeder Icons: New and Old

Reeder’s new icon is only the tip of the iceberg. Once you launch the app you’re greeted with a design that’s been revamped from the Status Bar to the Home Button.

Remember how prevalent brushed-metal window chrome and striped backgrounds were in the early versions of Mac OS X? Now, nearly all of its general UI design elements sport a much more subtle design aesthetic. Gone is heavy-handed window chrome — giving way to a more simplified design.

Likewise with Reeder, much of the application’s design has been cleaned up and simplified. And all of it for the better. Articles have a more defined hierarchy and less visual clutter; menus have better contrast. This is not to say that the previous design of Reeder was poor — far from it — but the new design is unquestionably superior, and it makes the previous design instantly feel dated.

UI Comparison: Reeder 3 on the left and Reeder 2 on the right.

List View in Reeder 3 (L) and Reeder 2 (R)
The feed list. In version 3 you can tap the plus button in the top-right corner to add a feed. Also the “scotch tape” header divider has been slightly re-drawn.

Article Views in Reeder 3 (L) and Reeder 2 (R)
An individual article. The layout is far more attractive, tapping the top-right typography button gives you control over font size and line height. Swipe left-to-right and you’ll return to the list view, swipe right-to-left and you’ll go to the article’s permalink.

Popover Menu in Reeder 3 (L) and Reeder 2 (R)
The popover menu. Tap on the action button and you get a slew of options for the current article. Notice how the background dims ever so slightly?

Item Saving in Reeder 3 (L) and Reeder 2 (R)
Saving an article to Instapaper. Instead of a spinning progress meter you get an icon that matches the style of the rest of the menu popovers in Reeder.

Pull for next article: Reeder 3 (L) and Reeder 2 (R)
Pull for next or previous article and the title of that article unfolds. Same functionality as Reeder 2, but a more fitting animation.

Apps like Reeder which immerse you in their custom interface design are often some of my favorites.

This is what the default iOS dialog box looks like:
iOS Default Dialog Box

But in an app like Tweetbot or Reeder, every pixel has been assimilated to fit with the world of that app, and thus it’s an entirely customized experience.

Compared to the above iOS dialog box, here is a dialog box in Tweetbot:
Tweetbot Dialog Box

And here is a dialog box in Reeder:
Reeder 3.0 Dialog Box

Reeder’s New Functionality

Reeder has always sported a nice and customized look, but this app is more than just a pretty face. As I mentioned above, Reeder is jam packed with new features. Some are huge, some are subtle, but all are awesome.

Feed Reeder a Fever

If you’re a nerd with your own server, you want to set this up.

Fever is a self-hosted RSS app written by Shaun Inman. I reviewed Fever when it first came out in 2009 and it’s still just as hot now as it was then. Setting it up is a piece of cake. You upload a folder, do a quick server compatibility test, and then your locked and loaded. Fever literally installs itself.

Once you’ve got Fever set up and you’ve uploaded your OPML file — or you’ve scurried around the web adding your favorite websites using the Fever Feedlet (a bookmarklet that will grab the RSS feed of the website you’re on and subscribe to in within Fever) — then it’s time to add it to Reeder.

At the top-level screen for Reeder, tap the Plus icon in the top-right corner, and then tap Fever. For the “Server” field, enter the URL of your Fever install, then your login credentials using your Fever email and password.

With Fever, you’re basically rolling your own RSS server that is in sync and accessible via your Desktop, iPad, and iPhone. Reeder for Mac and iPad does not yet have Fever account support. But there are other apps, such as Ashes.

One caveat to Fever is that it doesn’t auto-refresh itself if you’re not logged in. There’s a way to get around waiting for a refresh by setting up a cron job to auto-refresh Fever for you.

You can find the cron job code in your Fever install under “Extras”. But basically, it’s going to look like this:

curl -L -s http://YOURSITE.com/fever/?refresh

I have my Fever install running on a side-domain I have on a Media Temple Grid Service, and the (gs) control panel allows me to schedule a cron job. There I have it set to refresh Fever every 10 minutes. Alternatively, you can trigger the cron jobs from your Mac (on a schedule or remotely) by doing what Gabe does and using Keyboard Maestro to execute a shell script.

Reeder will refresh Fever when you launch the app, but you’ll have to wait for Fever to update itself and then for the updates to download to your iPhone. This isn’t the fastest process, and so I highly recommend setting up Fever to refresh via cron. And if you do use the cron job to refresh I’d secondly recommend that you disable the option in Reeder to refresh your Fever server when you open the app. Though your RSS feeds may be as much as 10 minutes out of date, it will save you time waiting first for the server to refresh before updating Reeder with the latest feeds.

Checking your Fever feeds in Reeder is virtually identical to checking your Google feeds. The subscription list and article view looks the same and (mostly) acts the same. You can still send articles and links to Instapaper, Pinboard, Evernote, etc. Tapping on the star adds the article to your Fever “Saved” list.

The big difference between a Fever account and a Google Reader account is that there’s an additional list — a Hot list.

Reeder 3 showing Feever's Hot List

Here is where you see the most-linked-to items within all of your feed subscriptions, as well as the list of who is linking to them. This is the premier feature of Fever, and it is a great addition to Reeder.

Tapping on a Hot item, or on a supporting article, takes you to that article within Reeder. Swiping left or right on a Hot item to mark it as read and remove it from the Hot list. Often a hot item stays hot for a while, and this is a great way to clear away items you’ve already seen.

If you want a multi-device alternative to Google for syncing and reading your RSS feeds, Fever is the only answer I know of. I use Fever and Google Reader (because I’m extra nerdy, I guess). The former because of the Hot list, and the latter because it’s faster.

Readability

Reeder’s integration with Readability’s mobilizer service is not new. But what’s notable is that you can now add your Readability “read later” bookmarks as an account within Reeder. If you use Readability’s read later service, then Reeder 3.0 could become your one-stop mobile reading application. Containing both your RSS Feeds and your read later queue.

Google Reader Feed Management

Reader now lets you add, delete, and move around specific feeds.

When you are in a list of a specific feed’s articles, tapping on the site’s favicon that sits in the top-right corner takes you to an information pane. In previous versions of Reeder this would take you directly to the website.

Reeder now presents you with a slew of helpful options for the specific RSS Feed.

The Feed-Specifi Info Pane in Reeder 3

You can unsubscribe to the feed, add or move it to a folder, or create a new folder altogether. If the feed is already in a specific folder and you unselect that folder then Reeder plops the feed into your top-level subscription bucket.

The Little Things:

  • When you mark all items in a feed as read, a confirmation box appears at the bottom of the screen, rather than sliding up. And in Reeder 3, the box is a custom design rather than the default iOS slide-up buttons.

Previously in Reeder, you had the option of disabling the “mark all as read” confirmation right from within the slide up notification pane. That option still exists in Reeder 3, but it must be manually configured within the app’s settings.

  • Also a nice touch when it comes to the dialog boxes: when one appears, the rest of the app dims out ever so slightly.

  • In Reeder’s built-in browser, there is now a button to enable Readability’s text mobilizer. When you tap on it to enable or disable the mobilizer a small triangular arrow slides up from the bottom menu bar.

  • When in article list view for a specific feed, do a two-finger swipe above or below an individual article and you can mark all the respective items as read.

Back to the iPad

The look, the feel, the new functionality, all of them come together to take Reeder 3.0 over the top. This update is a big step forward for Reeder. Next in line will be the iPad app says Reeder’s developer, Silvio Rizzi.

I have always preferred to read through my RSS list using Reeder on my iPad, but for the past several months that I’ve been using the Reeder beta, its new look and new features have been compelling enough that I now reach for the smaller device when it comes time to check my RSS feeds. I can’t wait for the next version of Reeder for iPad.

Review: Reeder 3 for iPhone

The New Codas

I perform all my own stunts. Some people get sweaty palms when they look down from tall buildings, but for me it’s when it’s time to upgrade WordPress or migrate to a new server.

As nervous as I may get doing database- and server-related tasks, the things that I am comfortable doing — such as stylesheets and basic php functionality to make this site do spiffy things — are a lot of fun for me. I’m not a professional programmer, nor do I play one on the Internet, but I love taking time off from writing on occasion to tackle a web design project. It’s the sort of work I can do with the music turned up.1

If I’m coding, it’s in Coda. I have been using Coda 1 since shortly after it came out more than 5 years ago. The site you’re reading now was built entirely from scratch using Coda and Transmit.

I have never felt constrained by Coda. It is fast, reliable, fun to use, and the way it works with files makes a lot of sense to me.

Coda 2.0

As the saying goes, simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.

There is a challenge with apps like Coda that have much functionality. That challenge is to design the functionality in such a way that it is the user who discovers and then defines how simple or complex they want the application to be.

Coda 1 did this well, but Coda 2 does it better. There are so many options, features and functions within Coda that it seems there is nothing it cannot do. But even for the amateur programmers like myself, Coda never feels overwhelming or overbearing. It expands or contracts to the needs of its user.

In my review of the Coda 1 I wrote:

Panic didn’t set out to make the best text editor, CSS editor, etc… They set out to make one single application that contains all you need to build a website. And Panic has done a great job at keeping each of Coda’s components concise, powerful and focused – giving you the features you need while not requiring you to learn 4 or 5 new applications simultaneously to be able to use Coda efficiently. Sometimes good development decisions are about what you don’t put in.

After its launch on a Monday morning in April of 2007, Cabel Sasser said: “This was by far the most complicated program we’ve ever built.”

Coda went on to win an Apple Design Award at WWDC in 2007 for Best Mac OS X Experience. And rightfully so — Coda was a groundbreaking application. Five years later comes Coda 2 — an application that is better than its predecessor in every way.

Coda 2 has kept all that was great about the original and improved all that was frustrating or confusing.

Using Coda 1 was like sleeping with a pea under the mattress. Or, as Joe Kissel said in his review, “like buying your dream car, only to find out that the seats are kind of uncomfortable and there’s no heater.”

The idea of a one-window web development tool that wasn’t built and priced by Adobe was a dream come true. Yet there was a slight frustration that accompanied the Coda workflow.

Web development usually consists of four (yea five) apps: (1) a text editor, (2) a web browser or three, (3) an FTP client, (4) reference material, and (5) perhaps the terminal.

Coda brought all of these apps together into one so that you wouldn’t need four or five different applications all open and running. It was good, but it was not great.

When I do coding for this site I use Coda as my text editor and FTP client, but that’s it. I still have a browser open in the background because switching between code view and preview always felt a bit clunky to me.

In his review of Coda 1, John Gruber wrote:

The appeal of Coda cannot be expressed solely by any comparison of features. The point is not what it does, but how it feels to use it. The essential aspects of Coda aren’t features in its components, but rather the connections between components.

The premier difference between Coda 1 and Coda 2 is its improvement between components. The workflow. Though each individual component (the text editor, the FTP client, etc.) has been improved upon, the most significant improvement to Coda is its central aim as a one-window web development tool.

Those who have been using Coda 1 as their primary web development app will love the update. Those who use other applications for their Web development may likely find Coda 2 to be a worthy companion.

It is the application I use and recommend for people looking to build websites. Now let’s take a look at some of the highlights in the new version.

The Tabs

The toolbar in Coda 2 is actually a document navigator. Like tabs in a web browser toolbar tabs are for different workspaces and documents. There are two tabs that are always there, always active, and those are the “Sites” tab and the “Files” tab.

The “Sites” tab is the standard start screen we know and love from Coda 1. It’s basically a favorites list containing the remote login information for any and all websites you hack on. Something new here is that sites can now be grouped together. Simply drag one site onto another as you would two apps from your iPhone’s Home screen.

The “Files” tab is basically Transmit integrated right into the app. This is a huge improvement to Coda’s previous FTP functionality. Coda has always used the same FTP turbo-engine from Transmit, but the visual file browser was not nearly as robust. If you’ve ever found yourself using Transmit and Coda at the same time, that habit may change with Coda 2.

After these two tabs, any additional open tabs are yours to set up as you need for your project. You can open multiple documents, a preview tab, a reference tab, and more. This is the meat of what Coda is all about and this is where things have improved the most.

Tabs Improved

The way Coda 1 handled workspaces and open files was awkward at best. And though I became familiar enough with it to feel comfortable, it was never quite natural — for example, a document tab could be both a file and a preview of that file.

In Coda 2, however, the new tabs and the way open files are managed is much more intuitive; this is the area that needed improvement and Panic has improved it greatly.

Tabs Designed

The tabs in Coda 2’s toolbar don’t just function different — they are completely redesigned. Visually, they have three optional states: Small Icon and Text; Large Icon and Text; or Text Only. You can select these from a contextual menu when Control-clicking on the toolbar, or you get them automatically if you resize the toolbar.

Coda 2 Tab Options

I prefer the Text Only tabs if only because I’m short on vertical screen space. However, the tabs with icons are tempting because they give you a live preview of that tab’s document.

For the Sites tab, Coda 2 will grab the Web Clip Icon in your root folder, assuming you’ve got one, and give you a high-resolution thumbnail image for the remote site you are currently working in. This beats the pants off a pixelated favicon.

To correspond with the fluidity of the toolbar and the different tab designs, even the traffic lights in Coda 2 have two different states. For the text only tabs you get the standard left-to-right layout. For the icon-based tabs, you get the top-to-bottom traffic lights akin to our old pal iTunes 10.0.

The Different Styles of Tabs in Coda 2

Additional Tabbiness

  • When you create a new document, it is saved to your local machine by default. If, however, you are in the middle of working on a live site and you want the file to be on your remote server, just grab the tab of your document and drag it into the sidebar file browser to upload it to the folder of your choice.

Alternatively, you can Control-click within the file browser and select the option for New File.

  • In Coda 1 a small blue circles showed up in the sidebar’s file viewer, just to the right of an unsaved document. Now unsaved documents you are working on sport that small blue circle within their tab as a way of letting you know the current working version of this file has not been saved to the server.

The iPad version of Coda (Diet Coda) uses these blue dots on the tabs in the file drawer as well.

Preview

If you’re going to have a one-window web development application, you need good in-app preview of the site you’re working on. This is something that never felt easy or natural to me in Coda 1, and so I still used Safari to view and check my changes.

But, thanks to the improved tabs, previewing your work in Coda 2 is much simpler.

You have four options for previewing:

  1. A dedicated tab with web page loaded in it.

  2. Split screen previewing that is side-by-side with the document you are coding.

Split screen previewing works quite well. You can code in the top window and preview your work in the bottom window. In fact, as you work, the bottom preview pane updates in real time as you code. Hit save and your changes are pushed to the server.

  1. Previewing in another window. Ideal for multi-monitor setups. When your document is in Preview mode (the right-most breadcrumb) click the settings gear icon in the bottom-left corner of the window and choose Preview → New Window. A new Coda window will pop up with a browser preview of the file you’re working on. As you make changes to your document you see them live in the Preview window.

  2. AirPreview: connecting your iPad as an external monitor like a boss.

Coda 2 will pair with Diet Coda on your iPad to turn your iPad into a dedicated window to preview the site you are editing in Coda.

You first pair your iPad with your Mac by pointing the camera at your Mac’s screen while a box flashes bright random colors. Then, anytime you have Diet Coda open on your iPad, you can turn the iPad’s screen into a secondary preview window.

Furthermore, the iPad preview auto-refreshes when you save your changes to the file you are editing in Coda 2. No more hitting save and then navigating to the browser and hitting refresh.

You don’t have to be working on the root file of your preview window either. You can be working on the CSS stylesheet, or a related php document, while viewing your rendered Index page. When you make changes to the file you are working on, then your previews are auto-updated and relevant changes are then shown. This makes many instances of Command-Tabbing and refreshing far less necessary, if not obsolete.

Miscellany

  • Pro-tip for the Sites tab: If you don’t want to use the auto-generated image for your site, you can Control+click on a site and choose to change the artwork.

  • Coda 2 cannot import the .seestyle settings for syntax highlighting from Coda 1.

  • The new way that auto-tag completion works is much more friendly. In Coda 1, when you typed an opening tag, such as <p> or <span> or <div> then you would get the closing tag auto-inserted into your text immediately. If you were just starting out your opening tag then that’s all fine and dandy, but often times (at least the way I code) I would find myself placing opening tags in front of lines of code that I had already written. And then, Coda would auto-insert the closing tag right there at the front as well.

Well, Coda’s new format for auto-tag closing is much more clever. They wait until you begin to close the tag yourself by typing </ and then Coda plops in the rest for you.

  • Coda 2 does not support Lion’s auto-saving and versioning for local files.

  • If you buy the Mac App Store version, you get iCloud syncing of your sites. This, however, does not mean that your iPad version and Mac version stay in sync (yet). But if you have more than one Mac that is using Coda 2, then those sites will sync.

* * *

Coda 1 was ambitious. It takes a lot of guts (or, in some cases, naiveté) to build an all-in-one application for a task as extravagant as web development. It also takes self-control to keep that application from getting too big for its britches. Coda 2, while following in the ambitious footsteps of its predecessor, is also more useful and more elegant.

I have been using Coda for years, and all the updates in Coda 2 meet my needs almost exactly. But there was another need I had, and that was the ability to access and edit files on my websites using my iPad.2

And Panic has done it. They not only improved an already impressive one-window web development tool, they also built an equally-impressive one-app web development tool. It’s called Diet Coda for the iPad.

Diet Coda

Diet Coda is an example of why the iPad is thriving as a personal computer.

Using FTP, Diet Coda is both a terminal and a text editor built for the purpose of making changes to files which are already on your remote server. Moreover, Diet Coda is the best name for an iOS app ever. If there were an ADA for app names, Diet Coda would win it.

Does the advent of Diet Coda mean professional web developers can now put away their iMacs and replace them with iPads? No. And that was never the intention.

Diet Coda isn’t meant to be a full-featured web-development tool for the iPad. Because, seriously, who is going to use an iPad for full-fledged website development? Virtually nobody.

But who wants to use an iPad to remote in to their server to update a file, copy a link, reboot something, or perform some other form of on-the-fly maintenance or editing? A lot of us.

My point isn’t that you can’t use the iPad for web development, but that most people won’t. And so why build an app to prove a point when you can instead build an app that meets genuine need just right? For this reason, Diet Coda is the best on-the-go web-development app you can buy. It’s not too much, it’s not too little; it’s just right and that’s the point.

What I like about Diet Coda is that it follows the same flow of working with files that Coda for Mac does. I have worked with a handful of other FTP / text-editing apps for the iPad and while they offer some features that Coda does not, they also make me shuffle my files around in a way that is not completely intuitive to me.

With Diet Coda I connect to my site, navigate to the file I want, edit that file, and then save my changes to the server. I don’t have to juggle both a remote and local version of the file — I just open it, edit it, and save it. This is how Coda 1 worked, it’s how Coda 2 works, and it’s how Diet Coda works. It makes working in Diet Coda feel comfortable and secure.

iPaditized

When creating an iOS version of a desktop app you can’t just drag and drop the code and click an “iPaditize” button. You have to balance the juxtaposition between the two platforms. Keeping the same core functionality of the Mac version, yet completely reimagined what the user experience and interface will be.

There are two dynamics to successfully building two versions of the same app, one for iOS and one for OS X:

  1. Both apps need to feel native on their respective platform. The iOS version needs to feel like it belongs on the iPhone/iPad, and the desktop version needs to feel like it belongs there. This doesn’t just mean the buttons should be bigger to accommodate for fat fingers, it means the presentation of the core functionality, along with the flow of navigation and the user interaction within the application all have to pull together to form a well-developed iOS app that still has striking familiarity to its desktop counterpart.

  2. Both apps need to feel like they are the same app. Meaning, Panic had to reconcile the two-fold need for Diet Coda to feel like a native iPad app while also feeling like the very same application they made for the desktop.

Because iOS and OS X exist side by side — two separate but similar platforms — we are seeing software innovation attain new heights as the two different platforms lean on and learn from one another. Put another way: iOS software is teaching us new things about Mac software and Mac software is teaching us new things about iOS software. The two are playing off one another.

The Omni Group is a prime example as ones who are helping lead the charge in this way. Their suite of iPad apps stand on the shoulders of their already award-winning desktop software, with OmniFocus being one of my favorite examples this. It started as a powerful and feature-rich Mac application and it was then perfectly ported to the iPad. In fact, I find the iPad version of OmniFocus to be superior to the Mac version in many ways, and I have no doubt that the next Mac version will be using many of the best components found in the iPad version.

We even see Apple doing this. With Lion and Mountain Lion they are taking much of the functionality and applications found in iOS and bringing it over to OS X for the sake of unification.

And, of course, Diet Coda is great example of Mac-app-gone-iOS. In addition to having the heart of its desktop sibling, Diet Coda is also filled with many iOS-esque details and innovations that delight.

  • There is the Super Loupe. The Super Loupe is the real steel deal. It is Panic’s take on the iOS magnification bubble for cursor placement, and it is clever, fun, and extremely useful.

Diet Coda's Super Loupe

  • If you have connected to a remote site and are in the file browser view, a tap on one of the four purple buttons in the Info Panel emits what I can only describe as a purple orb that radiates out from the button.

Diet Coda's Purple Radiating Buttons

But the functionality of these buttons is also quite handy. You’re one tap away from copying a link, a URL, a file path, or the img tag with the source URL embedded (though it does not auto-detect the width and height when copying the image tag code).

Working with Files

Diet Coda makes it extremely easy to navigate around your remote server, working with live files, moving them, editing them, and previewing them. However, as I mentioned above, Diet Coda has no place for you to save files locally on your iPad. If you want to create a new file it must be saved to your remote server, and any work you do on server-side files is pushed back up to that live file when you tap save.

This is by design, and as such, it means there are some clever tricks for making sure you don’t lose your work when switching to another app for a moment, nor make an erroneous error to a live file.

If you have a document open in Diet Coda and then leave the app, the file is saved locally just as you left it, even if Diet Coda has to “force quit”.

In Diet Coda, though you are working with a file as it is on the server, you can preview your document before committing your changes. Diet Coda renders the web page as if the local version were the live version. This doesn’t work for dynamic files of course, only static ones.

Quibbles

Diet Coda is not perfect in every way, though. I do have a few requests:

  • I’d love to see support for Amazon S3, and more robust FTP capabilities such as being able to upload files that are on my iPad.

  • I wish I could duplicate a site’s details to more easily create additional sites that are subdomains that use the same connection credentials. (Or better: I wish Coda 2 and Diet Coda synced Sites.)

  • There is no master password for the app. Thus I either need to remember my FTP passwords and enter them every time I connect to a remote site, or else I allow Diet Coda to be freely accessible to anyone whom I let use my iPad.

(If you wish to have Diet Coda ask you for your FTP password every time you connect, simply leave the password field blank when entering the site info.)

Additionally I’ve found that Diet Coda can get memory constrained when working with large CSS files, or if too many documents are open in the Document Drawer. And though the app has crashed on me a few times, not once have I lost any work.

A Concluding Remark

To say I’m impressed and pleased with Coda 2 and Diet Coda would be an understatement.

My initial impression of Diet Coda is that it is the Tweetie 2 of iPad text-editing apps. As many people have proclaimed, Tweetie 2 was not just one of the best Twitter apps for iPhone, it was also one of the best apps for the iPhone, period. Although Diet Coda is still brand-new, it strikes me being a best-in-class code-editing app as well as a great iPad app, period.

  1. Writing, however, requires silence. ↵
  2. This isn’t so I can turn my iPad into my primary work machine, but rather it’s so I can leave my laptop at home more often without having to sacrifice anything. Though I prefer to work on my MacBook Air, I don’t want to be restrained if I’ve just got the iPad. Put another way: MacBook is now my “desktop” and my iPad is now my “laptop”. ↵
The New Codas

In Praise of Pixels

When it comes to pixels I can’t get enough. Ditto my need for a huge desk. I want a lot of pixels on my screen and I want a lot of space on my desk.

It’s not because I want to use these spaces to store application windows and external hard drives. Quite the opposite: I want to use this space for nothing. I work well when I’m sitting at a large and oversized desk that has little on it beyond a big glowing screen and a clicky keyboard. The same goes for my computer monitors. I like a lot of pixels available so that I can not use them.

Why this is, I’m not sure — it’s a part of my personality, but it’s also how I imagine my mind working. When the mind is clear like an open field on a blue-sky day it has absolute liberty to run and twirl and throw the frisbee as far as it can. There are no walls or hinderances or buildings that stand in the way of clear and imaginative thinking.

When I’m at my desk typing on my computer it means my mind is working. And the more open my physical and digital workspaces are then the more open my mental one can be.

In Praise of the 23-Inch Apple Cinema Display

My first Mac was a 12-inch PowerBook that sat on the wrong side of the excessive screen real-estate scale. It was the smallest and cutest computer Apple made at the time, and it had a screen resolution of 1024×768 pixels. I cut my teeth as a print designer on that tiny screen, learning the ropes of Photoshop and InDesign and giving myself a splitting headache. I constantly worked in a slouched over position, with my neck stretching forward to get my head closer to the screen.

After my first paid print job I used the funds to buy myself an external monitor: a 19-inch Somethingorother from the Tiger Direct catalog. A few years later I had saved enough for a Mac Pro and with it I bought a 23-inch Apple Cinema Display, a device that I consider to be one of Apple’s finest pieces of hardware ever.

I had spent many occasions in the Apple Retail store looking at the displays, and I read all of the famous Mac setups featured on Glenn Wolsey’s old blog. The 20-inch model was too small; the 30-inch was too big even though it entitled bragging rights; and so, by deduction, the 23-inch was just right. (I think Apple realized this as well and they cut the sizes of their Cinema Displays down to just the 27-inch monitor. This is a great size, it’s big enough to be big but not so much that you lose open applications.)

I have now been working on a 23-inch Apple Cinema Display for half a decade. I’m on my second one because my original was sold with the Mac Pro. You can’t find them as easily as you could even just a few years ago, especially if you want one in good condition.

What I like about the aluminum Apple Cinema Display is that it epitomizes what I consider to be the highest breed of products designed by Apple in California.

The front of the display is nothing more than a matte screen surrounded by an aluminum bezel. The bezel is not so fat as to distract for your attention. Nor is it too thin. Its proportions are sound.

At the bottom-center of the bezel is the Apple logo in shiny aluminum — subtle. The bezel wraps over the top and bottom of the display, and covers the whole back of the enclosure in a sheet of aluminum as well. The corners are rounded, the sides are white plastic, and the base is a hearty aluminum foot.

On the right edge are the only three buttons: one to power the display on and off, and two for adjusting the brightness of the backlights up or down. At the bottom right-hand corner of the front bezel is a small hole cut out with a white light that shines through. This light “breathes” as the old PowerBooks did when the computer is sleeping. When you turn the display on or off that small light gets bright all at once and then dims down to darkness again.

The greatest feature of all however, is what this display lacks: there is no glass panel glued to the front. The aluminum cinema display sports the great matte screens of yesteryear. And a CJ7 will always be cooler than a modern Wrangler.

What has kept me from upgrading to this next generation of displays found in today’s Apple stores has been that front glass panel. I have worked on these displays (and their iMac cousins), and I admit that they are nice and crisp and pleasing on the eyes. They pose well in pictures of our desks and they display colors and text vividly. They are also much easier to keep clean — the solid glass panel on the front makes it easy to wipe off any trace of dust and fingerprints without fear of damaging the pixels underneath.

In Praise of Retina Display Macs

My 12-inch PowerBook had a good long run. After it I bought a 15-inch MacBook Pro (the aluminum body kind that closely resembled the Power PC laptops that had come just before it). I bought the 15-inch MBP for a few reason: I wanted a laptop with more screen real-estate for the times I was working not at my desk, and Apple had discontinued the 12-inch lineup and replaced it with the 13-inch plastic MacBook which came in white or black. Those plastic laptops never appealed to me, which meant there was only one option: the 15-inch MacBook Pro.

Fast forward a few more years to the summer of 2011 where the laptop which superseded my MacBook Pro was a 13-inch MacBook Air.

Everything about the Air was appealing to me except for one thing: the screen. By the summer of 2011 I was no longer doing print design work and so I wasn’t in absolute need of the biggest screen I could carry in one arm. But my affection for a large screen remained. I was able to justify this conflict thanks to the fact that the 13-inch MacBook Air has the same number of pixels as my 15-inch MacBook Pro. Therefore it would provide me with all the same screen real-estate, just in a smaller and sharper image. I was okay with that; I have good eyes.

But there was a second drawback to the screen on the MacBook Air and that was the screen itself. Though it’s not adorned with a sheet of glass like you find on the modern MacBook Pros and iMacs, it does have a slight shine to it. It’s not matte, it’s glossy.

I thought long and hard about if I could handle working on a glossy screen. It seems like a trite detail, but if you’re a nerd then you understand. We all have our various trite details which can act as peas under our mattresses, and I feared that the MacBook Air’s glossy display would cause me to lose sleep at night.

In my mind’s eye I placed the glossy screen on one side of the scale and on the other I placed the all the rest of the hardware (the new i7 Core Duo processor, the Solid State Drive, the long-lasting battery, the Thunderbolt connection, the slim and light form factor). It was no contest and the scales tipped heavily in favor of the bells and whistles of the new MacBook Airs. I drove to the local Apple store and bought one.

And after all that the glossy screen has proven to be a non-issue for me. What a boring end to the story, right?

There is something that I left out, however. And it’s that all my time using my 15-inch MacBook Pro, I was wishing for a version of it that copied the Air’s form factor. A lightweight, teardrop-shaped laptop that was minus an optical drive and had a Solid State Drive and 15-inch screen. To me, at the time, that sounded like the ideal laptop.

You can do well to figure out future Apple rumors by simply betting on what seems obvious-but-is-not-yet. And a 15-inch MacBook Air strikes me as just such a device. It’s not “mind-blowing” because we can all imagine what it will look like. And it’s not “exciting” because we can all pretty much see it coming — surely it’s only a matter of time.

Earlier this week 9to5 Mac posted a rumor about the what an upcoming 15-inch MacBook Pro may look like. According to this rumor, however, the new MacBook Pro would look just like the current model but thinner, rather than sporting an Air-like teardrop shape.

The biggest talking point, however, isn’t about the size or shape of the laptop but rather the pixels on the screen. The next MacBook Pro is supposedly going to have a Retina display.

The iPhone 4 was too amazing to not push that display into bigger and bigger devices. Retina display Macs have been a long time coming. Last summer, with Lion, the phrase being whispered on the air was the Back to the Mac tagline which Apple themselves used when first demoing the new operating system. That tagline continues to stay relevant, because not only is the software of iOS continually influencing OS X, but we are seeing iOS hardware make its way “Back to the Mac” as well. The Magic Trackpad is a good example, “natural scrolling” is another, and next will be the Retina display.

The idea of a Retina display on a Macintosh sounds fantastic. The words I’m typing at this moment are onto my iPad with its high resolution screen, and the text looks stellar. Retina displays rock. Sure, there are downsides and ugly bits that a Retina display Mac would bring with it — such as non-retina applications and websites — and Marco Arment does a good job of articulating those.

I have the good fortune of using applications on my Mac that are developed by bleeding edge developers. In addition to the native OS X apps I use (Mail and Safari), the 3rd-party apps like OmniFocus, Yojimbo, Coda, Transmit, MarsEdit, Byword, iA Writer, and others which are all run by developers which I have no doubt will be quick to update their Mac applications to support Apple’s new high resolution displays.

While it’s true that non-Retina apps on a Retina screen are like sandpaper on the eyes, the tradeoff is worth it to me. I will suffer ugly graphics on the Web in exchange for print-like text, sharp high-resolution photos, and all the other elements of the operating system which will have Retina assets.

I heard someone mention that it’s not unlike iOS shipping without support for Flash. There was a short period of time when you didn’t get the “full web” when on your iPhone and iPad, but now, a few years later, I can’t remember the last time I visited a website and my iPad was sent back out to the cold thanks to its lack of Flash.

* * *
I began this article talking about how fond I am of big displays with lots of unused space. Contrasted against this truth is the fact that I also enjoy working from my iPad. My iPad is the smallest screen I work from.

Not including my iPhone (I don’t work on that device) I have three work screens. Listed in order of screen size, from smallest to largest, they are: iPad, MacBook Air, and Cinema Display. But listed in order of pixels, from least to greatest, they are: MacBook Air, Cinema Display, iPad.

The smallest working screen is also the one which sports the most pixels. Surely there is a connection here as to why I prefer to work from either my extra large Cinema Display or my extra dense iPad.

Retina displays are coming to the Macintosh — it’s only a matter of time — and the sooner the better.

In Praise of Pixels

Clicky Keyboards

As do most people, I suspect, I’ve always used the keyboard that came with my computer.

The first computer I ever used on a regular basis belonged to my tech-savvy grandfather. I’d play games on it during the weekends when my family visited, until one summer when he upgraded and my folks inherited the hand-me-down IBM. Many years and a few family computers later, I bought my own computer: a Dell laptop that went off to college with me.

After the Dell was my first Mac, the iconic 12-inch PowerBook G4. A few years later, in the spring of 2007, I bought a Mac Pro. The Mac Pro is a beast of a machine. So beastly, in fact, that it doesn’t come with a single peripheral attachment — you have to pick out your own monitor, keyboard, mouse, and anything else you may need. And so, for the first time, I got to pick my own keyboard. At the time, I didn’t know any better and so I went with an off-the-shelf Bluetooth white plastic Apple Pro Keyboard.

The white and clear Apple Pro Keyboard was perhaps the worst keyboard ever designed in California. It was dull and soft to type on, it was neither quiet nor loud, and it had a see-through casing to display all the food crumbs, wrist hairs, and dead bugs that fell between the keys.

In the fall of 2007, Apple redesigned their keyboards to the new slim aluminum keyboards they still sell today. I eventually bought one of those to go with my Mac Pro. Though the thinness of the keyboard made it seem to me like a less-serious keyboard for folks who type a lot, it looked extremely cool. And we all know how important it is to have a clean and hip-looking desk.

It turns out, however, that Apple’s slim aluminum keyboard is quite nice to type on. I’ve been typing on them in some fashion or another ever since 2007. In addition to the full-sized USB version I bought to replace my clear Apple Pro Keyboard, I also bought one in Bluetooth flavor to pair with my original iPad, and the MacBook Air I bought last summer has the slim chicklet-style keyboard built in.

Recently, when I was interviewed on Daniel Bogan’s site, The Setup, he asked me what my dream computing setup would be. My reply was that thought I pretty much already have a dream setup, the one component that I have never truly considered is that which I interface with nearly the most: the keyboard. I wrote:

I think I might like a better keyboard. I’ve never thought anything bad about the slim Apple bluetooth keyboard I use, but recently I spent some time using my cousin’s mechanical keyboard and there was a completely different feel to it. I’ve never been a keyboard snob, but considering my profession, perhaps the time to get snobby about keyboards has come.

As someone who writes for a living it befuddles me why I never thought to research a proper keyboard.

As a computer-nerd-slash-writer, I am always looking and advocating for the right tools. But for years, I have always equated “writing tools” with “software” — I own more text editors than I have fingers to type with — but it never dawned on me until recently that a good keyboard could be equally as important as a good text editor.

I own a dozen different writing applications, a programming application or two, an email application, and a blog-posting application. And what do they all have in common? They all get typed into via a single, solitary device: my keyboard.

A month ago I ordered a Das Keyboard for my Mac. Not because I was dissatisfied with my beautiful and trusty Apple keyboard; rather, I needed to know if life could be better with a bigger, louder, and uglier keyboard.

When I placed the order, I had no idea what I was getting into. Owning a mechanical keyboard is like owning a Jeep Wrangler — there is an unspoken fraternity amongst owners that others don’t quite “get” and which I honestly don’t think I can explain in a blog post of only a few thousand words.

Mechanical keyboards like the Das are bulky, loud, and fantastic for typing. Compared to the slim Apple keyboards, the Das is different in every way except that the end result is still the same: words get onto the screen.

How I felt when I upgraded my keyboard to a mechanical one, reminds me of the excitement James Fallows felt when changing from a typewriter to a personal computer for the first time:

What was so exciting? Merely the elimination of all drudgery, except for the fundamental drudgery of figuring out what to say, from the business of writing.

I wouldn’t go so far as to say that the Das Keyboard has eliminated all computing drudgery, but I would say that it has greatly enhanced the act of typing. Especially the act of typing for long periods of time, which I happen to do on a daily basis.

The construction of a mechanical keyboard is much more friendly to typing. As I discovered by taking several typing tests (the results of which I share below), a mechanical keyboard actually does help me to type both faster and more accurately. The sound of the keys clacking and the feel of the key switches clicking makes for an aura of productivity and work that fills the senses.

When using a mechanical keyboard you don’t just see your words appear on the screen as you type them, you also feel and hear them. A mechanical keyboard engages all the senses but smell and taste. Which is why you should always type with a hot coffee at your side.

The Keyboards

The sound, size, and durability of a mechanical keyboard make it a device to be reckoned with. It is a wholly different keyboard than the slim Apple ones, but that is not to say I have been turned off to the slim Apple keyboard. When I’m working on my iPad (using the bluetooth keyboard) or my MacBook Air’s built-in keyboard, I still type quickly and comfortably.

This review has been typed out using three of the most popular mechanical keyboards for Mac. They are:

  • Das Keyboard Professional Model S: This is the keyboard that I started with. I pre-ordered one a few months ago for $113, and it arrived about a month ago. The Das Keyboards begin shipping on Friday, April 27 for $133.

  • Apple Extended Keyboard II: Bought on eBay, the keyboard itself is circa 1990, uses Alps switches, was not made in Mexico, and cost me $31.45 shipped. I also had to purchase an ADB cable for $8.35 and a Griffn iMate ADB to USB adapter for $25. Total cost: $64.80.

  • Matias Tactile Pro 3: A well-known 3rd-party keyboard that bills itself as the modern version of the Apple Extended II. It seemed unfair to write a review of Apple mechanical keyboards and not include the Matias Tactile Pro. These sell for $149, but Matias was kind and generous enough to send me a review unit.

Further down I have written more in-depth about the sound, feel, and overall typing experience of each of these three keyboards. But, before we get into that, let’s first check out some side-by-side statistics to give context for the general differences between these three keyboards.

Weight & Size

Keyboard Length (in) Height (in) Weight (lb)
Apple Extended II 18.68 7.50 3.75
Das Keyboard 18.00 5.83 2.53
Tactile Pro 3 18.00 6.50 2.96
Slim Apple, Full, USB 16.80 4.50 1.25
Slim Apple Bluetooth 11.00 5.25 0.69

Typing Scores

They say that using a mechanical keyboard doesn’t necessarily make you a more productive typist. But based on the typing tests I took it would appear that a mechanical keyboard does improve your actual typing productivity.

I took this typing test to measure the speed and accuracy of my typing. As you can see, I typed the slowest and the least accurate on the Apple slim aluminum chicklet-style keyboard that I’ve been using for over 4 years. My fastest and most accurate test was performed on the Das Keyboard.

Keyboard Words Per Minute Accuracy
Das Keyboard 91 100%
Tactile Pro 3 81 95%
Apple Extended II 80 95%
Slim Apple 74 93%

I typed a staggering 15 words-per-minute faster on my Das Keyboard than on my Apple slim keyboard, and at least 10 words-per-minute faster than on the Matias or the Apple Extended keyboards. And the words typed on the Das were more accurate. The difference in speed adds up to at least 900 additional words (with fewer typos) for every hour of typing.

Of course, nobody types at a constant rate, especially when the typing is creative. But nevertheless. Considering I spend nearly 6 hours a day at my computer, mostly typing, that difference in speed and accuracy is not insignificant.

Sound

Not all clicky keyboards are noisy, but I greatly enjoy the sound of the mechanical keyboards. At first I was timid about the noise coming from my home office, but I have since become acclimated and comfortable with it. Even proud of it.

Each keyboard I tried has a different sound. The Apple Extended II is the quietest and has the lowest tone of clack. The Tactile Pro 3 is the loudest and has a hollow ring that accompanies the clicks of the keys (more on this later). And the Das Keyboard has a crisp higher-pitched click.

Of the three I prefer the sound of the Das Keyboard the best. But, if I could mix and match, I would place the letter keys of the Das with the spacebar of the Apple Extended II and the Backspace of the Tactile Pro.

Here is a brief audio overview of the sounds between the Das Keyboard, the Apple Extended Keyboard II, and the Matias Tactile Pro 3:

Mechanical Key Switches

As I began researching mechanical keyboards and the different types of switches they use, I had no idea the rabbit hole I was crawling into. For brevity’s sake, I’m only going to share a little bit about the differences between the switches found in the 3 keyboards I have.

If you want to learn more about mechanical keyboards and the various switches used, then I’d start with this Mechanical Keyboard Guide. The writer of this thread wrote a well-said opening paragraph for why you want a mechanical keyboard:

For most people it’s all about the feel. With the keyboard you’re typing on right now you’ve got to press the key all the way down to the bottom to get it to register. This wastes a lot of energy and causes fatigue, as most of your effort is spent pushing against a solid piece of plastic. Mechanical keyswitches are designed so that they register before you bottom out, so you only need to apply as much force as is necessary to actuate it, not wasting any. And with as many different types of switches as there are you can pick and choose which one you’re the most comfortable with, as each one has a different feel to it. And most people who try one can never go back to using rubber domes, as they realize just how “mushy” they really feel.

As I quickly discovered, not all mechanical key switches sound or feel the same. Not only are there many different designs of switches, but some are better for typing, some are better for gaming, some have a slight snap-resistance that provides a tactile feedback as you press the key, and some give off a noisy click or clack.

Of the three keyboards I tested, they use two (yea three) different switches:

  • Blue Cherry MX switches in the Das Keyboard
  • Complicated white ALPS in the Apple Extended II
  • Simplified white ALPS in the Tactile Pro

For reference, the slim Apple keyboards shipping today all use plastic scissor switches. Most all laptops use scissor switches because it allows for about half the travel of the more common dome switches used in most all commodity keyboards.1

Cherry Switches

The Das Keyboard uses blue Cherry MX switches. The blue Cherry MX switches have a very pronounced 2-stage travel with a very audible click that happens upon activation.

Blue Cherry MX Switches

The total travel of a Cherry Blue MX switch is 4mm; the switch actuates and clicks half-way down at the 2mm mark.

This two-stage click is not nearly as pronounced on the ALPS switches, and it is this pronounced two-stage click that leads many people to consider the blue Cherry MX switches to be the best for typing. They have low resistance and a very noticeable tactical “bump” or “click” that can easily be felt when typing.

You don’t have to bottom out the key to get it to activate. Once you’ve pressed past the “click” at the 2mm mark, that is when the key switch activates and the keystroke is registered by the computer. It’s hard to explain the tactile sensation of typing on the Das Keyboard compared to using the Apple Extended or the Tactile Pro. I would say that because of the pronounced 2-stage switch, the Das has a more defined tactile feel, is less work, and is more enjoyable to type on.

ALPS Switches

ALPS switches are not only a type of switch, but also a brand. Tokyo-based Alps Electric Co., Ltd. makes the switches. You may have also heard of their brand of car audio gear: Alpine.

The Apple Extended Keyboard uses white Alps switches, as does the Tactile Pro. However, the Apple Extended Keyboard uses what is known as “Complicated ALPS” switches, while the Tactile Pro uses “Simplified AlPS.” This is because the complicated switches are no longer in production.

Over time, the complicated ALPS switches can be known to generate resistance because of dust and other elements that can build up within the switch. The Simplified ALPS switches, which the Tactile Pro uses, are less prone to this.

Based on my typing experience with both the Tactile Pro and the Apple Extended II, the Simplified ALPS switches give a bit more resistance than the older Complicated switches. The newer ones seem to have a more pronounced “click” or initial force of resistance. They are also louder. This is not necessarily a bad thing — one of the things that makes mechanical keyboards so great for typing is their click and their clack.

Apple Extended Keyboard II

Apple Extended Keyboard II Mac Setup

Before you’ve even typed a word, the first thing you notice about the Apple Extended Keyboard II is how huge it is. The AEK is the widest keyboard of the bunch. It measures just wider than 18.5 inches. My son, Noah, was 19.5 inches when he was born. He could have taken a nap on the Apple Extended Keyboard. Who knows, he may have written something clever in the process.

With the AEK on my desk, my 23-inch Apple Cinema Display, which measures 21-inches across, now seems tinier than it used to. When I used the thin and sleek Apple Bluetooth keyboard, the cinema display seemed so large in contrast. With the Apple Extended Keyboard in front of the monitor, the screen now has a peer it must reckon with.

Next, you realize that the Home Row markers are on the “D” and the “K” as opposed to the “F” and the “J”. The latter is now the de facto standard and it takes some time to acclimate to the feel of the markers being under my two middle fingers rather than my two pointer fingers.

Lastly, the Apple Extended II uses an ADB cable. The keyboard I bought off eBay didn’t come with the cable, so I had to buy an ADB cable separately ($8) along with a Griffin iMate (an ADB to USB adapter that cost me another $25 on eBay).

I had been typing on my Das Keyboard for nearly two weeks before the Apple Extended II arrived. I expected it to sound and feel nearly the same as the Das Keyboard, but the complicated white ALPS switches are quite different than the blue Cherry MX switches. It is true that they are both clicky mechanical keyboards, but if you did not know that and you were only to type on each of these you would not classify them as being the same type of keyboard.

My Apple Extended II feels softer and sounds quieter than both other mechanical keyboards I have here. If you’re listening to the different audio tracks I’ve recorded, the MP3s may sound a bit deceiving. Sitting here, in my office, the Apple Extended Keyboard II is the quietest of the bunch. It is certainly not quiet — but it does not have the same high-pitched click. The Das is like a snap, the AEK is like a clap. The AEK has more bass to it, and the sound is more muted.

Again, I don’t know if the stark differences are because the ALPS switches in my Apple Extended II are used and 22 years old, or because they are the complicated ALPS switches. Perhaps I will never know because I don’t feel compelled to invest nearly $200 for a “brand new” 22-year-old Apple keyboard. The $32-find I got on eBay is simply the best one that was guaranteed to work and which was not assembled in Mexico.

Matias Tactile Pro 3

Matias Tactile Pro 3 Mac Setup

The Matias Tactile Pro bills itself as the modern version of the Apple Extended Keyboard II. Though the look of the Tactile Pro is patterned after the design of black-keyed Apple Pro Keyboard circa 2000, it uses white ALPS switches, akin to the 1990-era Apple Extended and Extended II keyboards. But the switches are not the exact same because those used in the Apple Extended are no longer made today.

The key switches on the Tactile Pro feel very different than those on my Apple Extended Keyboard II. The click-down on the Matias is much more pronounced than on the AEK II. Though I am not fully certain that this is because of the difference in switches rather than the age of my Apple Extended keyboard, the reviews I read online about the differences between the complicated and the simplified ALPS switches did seem to be concurrent with my experience.

Typing on the Tactile Pro is bittersweet for me. The tactile feedback of the key switches is quite pleasant, and there is a firm resistance within the switches that gives the keyboard a sturdy and hearty feel. I like the slightly higher resistance that the Tactile Pro gives.

Moreover, the sound of the Tactile Pro when typing is much louder than the Apple Extended II. I like the louder volume, but unfortunately it has a hollow sound to it that seems incongruous with the sturdiness of the switches. Additionally, there is a ringing that echoes around in the chassis of the keyboard itself.

Here is an audio recording which tries to catch the ringing that reverberates after a keystroke. You may need to turn your volume up to hear it:

After typing on the Matias for two days, as much as I liked the tactile feel of it, the sound was constantly a distraction. I asked Matias about the ring, and was informed that the noise comes from the springs in the ALPS key switches. Matias tells me they are advancing the key switches to remove the ringing in a future version of the Tactile Pro. Also, the chassis design of the original Tactile Pro is built in such a way that the spring ring is not nearly as audible.

Das Keyboard

Das Keyboard Mac Setup

This new model of the Das, which has the keys mapped out especially for a Mac, seems to be re-kindling the interest in mechanical keyboards. It is the first mechanical keyboard I got, and before that the first (and only) mechanical keyboard I had ever used was my cousin’s Adesso MKB-125B. Both the Das and the Adesso use the blue Cherry MX switches. It was through using the Adesso that I first began considering upgrading my typing tool.

Unfortunately, the Das (like the other 2 keyboards I tested) is big, bulky, and generally an eye sore. In fact, of the few other reviews I’ve read about it, the general consensus is: it’s ugly, but it’s great to type on. The clickety-clack quickly makes up for the aesthetic sacrifice by telling everyone within earshot that you are getting some serious work done.

The aesthetics of mechanical keyboards today baffle me. Just because it has mechanical switches, which were especially common from keyboards of the ‘80s and ‘90s, doesn’t mean it should also look like it’s been rescued from 20 years ago.

In addition to being the ugliest of the three mechanical keyboards currently in my office, the typeface used on the key caps of the Das is horrendous. Perhaps the worst offender is the single-quote / double-quote key, which rests just to the left of Return. At a glance, it looks like a period and a single-quote.

The Quote Key on the Das Keyboard

However, the Das Keyboard has two great things going for it. More than the other two keyboards, I prefer the tactile feel of the blue Cherry MX switches and the audio click of the Das. Since you don’t buy a mechanical keyboard for its aesthetics, for those looking to get a clicky keyboard, this is the one I would recommend.

Mapping the Special Function Keys

Though the Das Keyboard for Mac has custom modifier key commands drawn onto its function keys, those special modifier keys aren’t recognized by OS X. The “F14” and “F15” keys work to dim and brighten the display (rather than the traditional F1 and F2), but in order to control the previous track, next track, play/pause, and volume up/down/mute you have to press the Function Key which is awkwardly placed under the right-side Shift Key.

Since the System doesn’t recognize the Das Keyboard’s special keys, you can’t tell it to treat F1 like it would on an Apple keyboard without pressing that Function key. For the life of me, I don’t know why this is, but it just is.

Fortunately Keyboard Maestro is a keyboard’s best friend. A little bit of fiddling with the Macros and I was successfully able to map F6 all the way through F11 to act as the blue markings say they should act.

Moreover, since I use Rdio as my tunes source, I hacked together a rather clever if/else macro that allows me to control iTunes if I’m in iTunes, but otherwise to default to controlling Rdio from anywhere else in OS X.

With the Keyboard Maestro hacks in place, you may have trouble using your normal modifier keys on your MacBook Air (assuming you use your Das Keyboard with your laptop in clamshell mode). If so, check out this cool little utility called Function Flip.

Outro

After a month of using and testing the three most popular clicky keyboards for Mac, I am extremely glad I jumped into these waters. The sound and the feel of a clicky keyboard only takes a few days to get used to, and what follows is this intense feeling of productivity that now accompanies anything I type.

Something I like about mechanical keyboards is that each key has its own unique sound and feel. You could tell how many words someone types, and how many in-line typos they fix, simply by listening. Space Bar, Backspace, Return, and the letters — each produce a unique sound and have their own tactile feel. There is variety when typing on a mechanical keyboard. All of these keyboards are just so darn loud that there’s no ambiguity as to if I am typing or not — I know it, Anna knows it, and heck, the neighbors probably know it. When I set out to type a sentence, I am committed — it is like the typing equivalent of writing with ink.

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.

Update: See also the review of tenkeless clicky keyboards.

  1. For even more on the difference between membrane, dome, scissor, and mechanical keyboards see this Wikipedia article on keyboard technology. ↵
Clicky Keyboards

Fixing the AirPrint Conundrum

I own two printers and neither of them support AirPrint. Which means even though iOS supports printing, I haven’t been able to print to any of the printers in my house.

However, there are some 3rd-party applications which you can install on your Mac to enable printing from your iPhone or iPad. These apps work by sharing the printers it has access to and tricking iOS into seeing those printers as being AirPrint enabled.

If you don’t own an AirPrint-enabled printer, yet you want to print from your iPhone or iPad, you will need to install a 3rd-party app. But, which one? I found that with certain 3rd-party apps you get additional functionality and benefits beyond just being able to print from your iPhone.

Here is a quick look at some of those 3rd-party apps:

Fingerprint

Fingerprint was the first app I came across that could solve the AirPrint conundrum. And the reason I came across this application is because initially I was helping a friend set up AirPrint with his Windows-equipped office. We were searching for AirPrint enablers that worked on Windows.

Fingerprint has both a Mac and a Windows version, and so if you’re on Windows this may be the ideal solution for you.

It costs $10 and not only does it allow you to print to your printers, but it also lets you set up folders and print to a folder on your computer.

But there was one critical deal breaker for me: Fingerprint runs in the Menu Bar. I am ardent about having as few icons in my Menu Bar as possible, and therefore I kept searching for alternatives.

AirPrint Activator

If all you want to do is print, then AirPrint Activator may be the app for you. It is a free application (donations are encouraged) that does just one thing: take the printers your Mac is connected to and share them as AirPrint enabled printers.

The latest version — 1.1.3 — requires that the application be open and running in the Dock in order to work. Background utility apps like this should not require being run in the Dock. It’s even more of a deal breaker for me than being run in the Menu Bar.

The developer is currently in active development on version 2, and there is a public beta available. I gave the latest beta version a try (2.1b7 as of this writing) and it seems that AirPrint Activator can now run in the background without showing it’s Dock or Menu Bar icon.

However, this latest beta of AirPrint Activator seems finicky for me. I could get it to work a few times, but not every time. If you’re looking for the least expensive and simplest way to enable AirPrint for your iOS devices, then I would keep an eye on AirPrint Activator.

Printopia

Printopia is the app I ended up going with, for several reasons:

  • Lives in System Preferences;
  • runs in the background with no Menu Bar or Dock icon;
  • allows me to print to my home printers;
  • prints to any folder on my Mac;
  • allows me to “print” directly to an application (such as Yojimbo or PDFpen);
  • and it works very well, very quickly, and very consistently.

Printing to a folder is just like the “Save as PDF…” options in your Mac’s print dialog box. Using Printopia to print to a folder means that whatever it is your printing gets saved as a PDF to that folder on your Mac. You can save it to a standard folder, a Dropbox folder, or send the file to an application (such as iPhoto, Yojimbo, Evernote, etc.)

If my Mac is running, I can now send an email or a photo or a SimpleNote note directly to my computer. I’ve set up a few folders with Folder Actions that will allow me to import directly into Yojimbo and assign tags for those imports.

Though I mostly use Printopia for actually printing out documents, it’s helpful to have its additional features. If you want to read more, Dan Frakes wrote a review for Macworld last November.

Fixing the AirPrint Conundrum

Diary of an iPad (3) Owner

Wednesday, March 7, 2012

11:51 am CST: With a thermos full of coffee on my desk, half a dozen Safari tabs open, and Twitter in the corner, I am ready to watch the liveblogs.

12:21 pm: Tim Cook announces the new iPad!

12:23 pm: Phil Schiller is now talking about it. Overview of features: Retina display; better camera; 4G LTE; voice dictation; and 10 hours of battery life. Wow.

12:38 pm: Phil Schiller: “This new iPad has the most wireless bands of any device that’s ever shipped.” Wi-Fi, GSM, UMTS, GPS, CDMA, LTE, and Bluetooth to be exact.

iPad wireless bands

1:13 pm: Phil Schiller: “Don’t let anyone ever tell you that you can’t create on an iPad.”

1:45 pm: Schiller says that the non-Retina-optimized apps will still look great on the new iPad’s screen. I disagree. They will look blurry and poor, especially when contrasted against the apps which are Retina optimized.

1:21 pm: Apple is calling the new iPad the same thing everyone else is going to call it: “The new iPad.”

Later this year? “The new iPhone.”

1:30 pm: “Resolutionary” is a brilliant tagline. Reminds me of “Thinnovation” and “The Funnest iPod Ever”.

1:49 pm: Now attempting to order a 16GB, Black, AT&T new iPad.

2:49 pm: Make that trying to order a 16GB, Black, AT&T new iPad.

3:09 pm: Got through. But it looks like the LTE models are not available for in-store pickup when pre-ordering. I’d prefer to wait in line, but I’m not going to wait inline without a pre-order guarantee to get the right model.

Thursday, March 8

1:14 pm: Well, apparently AT&T’s map of 4G coverage (which is linked to from Apple.com’s website talking about LTE coverage) doesn’t actually mean LTE coverage.

I went with AT&T because I thought they had LTE in both Kansas City and Denver, but turns out they do not in Denver. Now canceling my AT&T order and going with Verizon instead.

2:44 pm: Just received the order confirmation email, and fortunately the new iPad is in fact expected to arrive on Friday the 16th. I’m a bit bummed that I won’t be standing in line this time. Me and two other friends were all planning to pre-order for pickup but the Apple online store didn’t have pickup available at the time and so we had to choose to get it delivered to our house.

And, I see that my time spent refreshing store.apple.com yesterday was pretty much in vain.

Wednesday, March 14

7:12 pm: Watching a few episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation with Anna while we wait for the reviews of the iPad to hit the wire.

7:14 pm: Okay, fine. While I wait for the reviews to hit the wire.

8:31 pm: Looks like the embargo has lifted. Reading the Reviews.

Using my “old” iPad 2 to read reviews about the new iPad seems like some sort of cruel joke.

11:57 pm: I dig the long-form, personal, in-depth stuff. Folks have been griping about bullet point posts for years but I read this type of writing as entertainment. I especially enjoyed Jason Snell’s review.

Friday, March 16

8:00 am: Brewing coffee and getting ready to wait out the day.

8:32 am: Just got a text from my friend who is at the local Apple store and he says there is no line. He just walked right in and snagged a 64GB Black Verizon model.

Well, in that case, why should I sit around and wait for FedEx? Moreover, I’ve been thinking about how 16GB may not be enough any more. Already my iPad 2 is maxed out and I’ve had to delete all my music off of it. I think I’m going to cruise over to the Apple store and pick up a Verizon 32GB model instead. I can simply return my 16GB later.

I guess 32 is the new 16.

9:52 am: After waiting for Noah to go down for his nap, I am now leaving for the Apple store. Anna jokes with me that she’ll sign for my FedEx iPad while I’m out.

10:04 am: I arrive at the Apple store. It’s weird to be here on launch morning but with no huge lines out front. There are the customary police officers, carts of Smart Water, big signs on easels for the pre-order line, and dozens of blue-shirted Apple employees… but only a handful of customers.

I ask the employees manning the front door how the morning has been. They say that yesterday at around 11:00 am the first person arrived and that this morning when the store opened at 8:00 there were about 80 people in line. I hope that guy who waited 21 hours didn’t stick around to see the line totally dissipate after just an hour.

10:11 am: New iPad purchased. This is the 3rd iPad (3) that I’ve bought. (!) First was the AT&T one, then was the 16GB Verizon model, and now this 32 GB Verizon. Oy.

10:43 am: Now back home and beginning setup. The first thing I notice, right away, is the weight. The new iPad is obviously heavier. I think it feels thicker, but if I didn’t know that it was thicker, I’d probably chalk it up to the fact it weighs more.

And since this is a 4G-equipped iPad it’s even a bit heavier than a Wi-Fi-only iPad 3. To get nitty gritty: according to my kitchen coffee scale, my iPad 2 weighs 613 grams and my new iPad weighs 663 grams.

10:44 am: The second thing I notice: the screen. It looks familiar and yet not at the same time. I’m not as shocked to see the iPad’s Retina display because I’ve seen one before (on my iPhone). And yet, I am so thankful that a device which is pretty much just a screen, now has such an incredible screen.

10:53 am: Doing a quick iCloud backup of my iPad 2 so I can restore from that backup to the iPad 3. Since I don’t charge my iPad 2 in on a daily basis, I don’t have a recent iCloud backup of it.

10:58 am: Initiating iCloud restore onto the new iPad.

10:59 am: 21 minutes remaining. Time to brew another cup of coffee? I think yes.

11:40 am: While waiting for all my apps to finish downloading, I set up my Verizon service. I imagine that I could use 1GB without trying too hard, so I’m going with Verizon’s 2GB for $30/month plan. but I guess we’ll see in practice. How often will I take just my iPad when out and about? And how often will I need the cellular data?

It seems Verizon wants me to set up my own account and enter in my credit card info. I was hoping they would charge me through my Apple account and so I could just enable it via my iTunes password, but I had to enter in complete billing info. If I cancel my data plan next month but want to enable it the month after that, will I have to re-enter all this billing information again?

The 4G cellular connection works different than what I thought. For some reason I thought the cellular connection would be off most of the time and if I wanted to turn that on then I would have to manually switch it on each time. But no, it works on the iPad just like it does on my iPhone — it is always connected. If it has a Wi-Fi signal nearby then it grabs that, but if not then it uses the cellular signal. Thus there’s no interruption of connectivity.

I could manually turn off the data connection but I’ve read that leaving it active has a negligible drain on battery life, so I see no point in keeping it disabled when I don’t need it.

11:52 am: The apps download in order of priority. Apps in the Dock download and install first, then left-to-right and top-to-bottom starting on the first Home screen.

Sadly, the apps did not download their latest versions. They downloaded the version I had on my iPad 2. Now go into the App Store and update them all. So more downloads

3:04 pm: FedEx finally arrives with my Apple.com-ordered 16GB iPad 3 and my Apple TV they tried to deliver yesterday. The FedEx guy looks tired.

7:25 pm: The battery was at 94-percent this morning when I first turned it on. I’ve been using surfing, reading, tweeting, and emailing pretty much nonstop since 11:00 am and it is now at 40-percent.

8:30 pm: Hey! The Retina update to Instapaper is now available. It looks fantastic. Loving Proxima Nova.

Saturday, March 17

7:42 am: Rearranging my iPad’s Home screens and apps. What else would I be doing on a Saturday morning?

8:32 am: Setting up the last of the apps that need new passwords entered and to sync their data: Rdio and 1Password.

Apps that are not updated for Retina yet don’t strike me as being as blurry as non-Retina iPhone apps were. Perhaps it’s because I am further away from the iPad screen than the iPhone’s? Or perhaps because the iPhone’s Retina display has a higher pixel density than the iPad’s?

9:10 am: Battery is currently at 22-percent. Letting it charge for a bit while I make my morning cup of coffee.

9:37 am: People on Twitter are talking about difference in color temperature between the screens of the iPad 2 and the 3. I see a color variant but it’s not a temperature difference — rather my iPad 3 is more vibrant and rich.

2:15 pm: The battery is now fully charged, but I’m not sure how long it’s been there. Based on the past few timeline notes, it seems like the iPad charges at about 15-percent per hour.

11:02 pm: Doing my first LTE speed test. It’s averaging 10Mbps down and 3Mbps up. That’s here in the south end of KC, where I live. So it’s not quite as fast as my home broadband connection, nor is it as fast as some of the jealousy-inducing speeds that some folks are tweeting about, but it still pretty impressive and nothing to complain about.

11:14 pm: Streamed an HD video trailer (Unraveled) over LTE with only one minor hiccup at the front end. The HD looks stellar on the new iPad.

Sunday, March 18

9:53 am: Decided to move the Mail app out of the iPad’s Dock. I have every intention of using the iPad more and more as a serious work device. And a serious work device needs its email application in a place where it is least likely to wiggle its way into the center of attention.

Monday, March 19

1:25 pm: After recording Shawn Today and listening to the Apple financial conference call this morning, I’ve been spending the rest of the day working solely from the iPad. Writing, reading, emailing, and linking — all from the iPad while I watch Noah in the living room so Anna can get some down time.

What I like about working with the iPad is that I feel like it’s just me and my work. Even if there are other distractions available (like Twitter) they are not present. They are in the background and in another app, not peeking out from behind the frontmost window.

I remember two years ago, when the first iPad came out, I very much wanted it to be a laptop replacement but it couldn’t be. For me, at least. When the iPad and its 3rd-party apps were still in their infancy I couldn’t properly manage my email workflow, my to-do list, nor could I write to the site or even have synced documents.

Since 2010 so much of that has changed. In part, my own workflow has simplified and can now acclimate mostly to what the iPad is capable of. But also the apps for the iPad have come such a long way, that in some regards (to-do list management, for example) the iPad is a better tool than my laptop.

4:01 pm: While visiting my sister and her husband, I thought I’d bring the iPad so I could do a speed test at Mark’s house and wow, Verizon’s LTE is much faster here than at my place. Seeing speeds around 30Mbps up and 20Mbps down.

9:07 pm: I haven’t touched the older iPad 2 in a few days. But I just now picked it up to do some comparisons of websites rendering on the different displays and it’s amazing how much lighter and thinner this thing feels.

I’ve gotten used to the thickness and the weight of the new iPad and in day-to-day it doesn’t affect its usefulness, but it still is interesting that the difference is so noticeable when picking up the iPad 2. Or, put another way, the difference in weight and thinness is much more noticeable when going from heavy to light than the other way around.

The second thing I noticed with the iPad 2 in hand was how horrid the Internet looks. Everything is fuzzy. Text isn’t clear; Retina display-optimized header graphics look just as blurry as non-optimized graphics on the new iPad. There is no going back.

9:51 pm: It strikes me that the Retina display is the other side of the coin to iOS. Meaning, iOS is the software and the screen is the hardware and that’s it. Those are the two sides to this coin. On a laptop or desktop computer you have three user interface components: the keyboard, the mouse, and the screen where you watch the user interface. On the iPad you have one user interface: the screen. And you touch and manipulate what is on the screen.

I love the way Ryan Block explained why the new iPad’s Retina display is such a big deal:

The core experience of the iPad, and every tablet for that matter, is the screen. It’s so fundamental that it’s almost completely forgettable. Post-PC devices have absolutely nothing to hide behind. Specs, form-factors, all that stuff melts away in favor of something else that’s much more intangible. When the software provides the metaphor for the device, every tablet lives and dies by the display and what’s on that display.

Ever since 2007, one of the hallmark engineering feats of iOS has been its responsiveness to touch input. When you’re using an iOS app it feels as if you are actually moving the pixels underneath your finger. If that responsiveness matters at all, then so does the quality and realism of the screen itself.

Highly-responsive software combined with a dazzling and life-like screen make for the most “realistic” software experience available.

I don’t know how this relates exactly, but it makes me think of how I would flail my hands and the controller of my Nintendo Entertainment System when I was trying to get Mario to jump over a large pit. As if, by moving the controller around I could give Mario that extra boost of speed for his jump. Have we always had that natural tendency to relate our physical actions to the manipulation of pixels on a screen?

10:12 pm: My only disappointment with the new iPad’s display is that it’s not laminated to the glass the way the display of the iPhone 4/4S is. The iPad’s screen is significantly larger than the iPhone’s, and so there is an epic element in that regard, but there is a unique beauty to the iPhone’s Retina display that the iPad does not have.

Tuesday, March 20

1:30 pm: Putting Noah in the car seat to take him to his one-month doctor checkup.

1:38 pm: I need a sleeve for this iPad because, already, taking it out on its own is becoming more common.

This X Pocket iPad case from Hard Graft looks absolutely stellar, but do I really want only a sleeve? If I’m going to be leaving my Air at home it’d be nice to have an iPad bag. My beloved Timbuk2 is already the smallest size they make and though it’s perfect for holding my Air, iPad, keyboard, and other little peripherals, the iPad alone seems to swim in it.

Another option could be this sweet bag from Hard Graft, but it may be just a little bit too small because I’d want to be able to fit my bluetooth keyboard in there as well. My pals Ben Brooks and Brett Kelly both use Tom Bihn’s Ristretto, but I prefer cases that are horizontal rather than vertical.

2:09 pm: Did a quick speed test here in Overland Park before going in to the pediatrician’s office. The LTE service here is faster than by my place, but nowhere near the speeds it was seeing at my sister’s home.

You know, all these speed tests keep me thinking about what I’ll do if and when an LTE iPhone comes out. Will I cancel my AT&T contract and switch to Verizon, will I stick with my 4S for an extra year and move to Verizon when my contract expires, or will I stick with AT&T and get one of their LTE phones?

2:13 pm: Anna’s looking at me like can we go in now?

Wednesday, March 21

12:13 pm: I remember when the iPad was a luxury item and I was embarrassed to use it in church or the local coffee shop. But now? Now it seems everyone has one. I walk into the coffee shop and half of the people here are reading or working on their iPads.

Two years ago, we didn’t know where the iPad fit in. It was a $500 luxury item that went somewhere between a smartphone and a laptop. But now, people are using iPads as their main computers. As a $500 computer replacement the iPad seems sensible, not extravagant.

10:48 pm: Whoa. Turn a page in iBooks.

Thursday, March 22

9:58 am: I have figured out how to properly classify the three generations of iPads:
* Vintage
* Old and Busted
* New Hotness

Friday, March 23

12:45 pm: Ugh. Hit with the stomachs flu; I’m taking it easy today. But while I’m upstairs in bed, trying to relax, I’d like to do some work on my development site. Surely I can do this from the iPad, no?

I search the App Store for “FTP” and come across two apps which allow me to access and edit FTP files: FTP on the Go PRO, and Markup. However, asking for recommendations on Twitter yields a single answer: Textastic.

1:28 pm: Coding on the iPad is a much more delicate process than coding on my Mac. When on my Mac I have at least a few Safari tabs open with the site launched, and Coda going with 3 or 4 or more tabs worth of documents I’m working in. On the iPad it’s a bit more uni-tasky, and you can’t see as many lines of code all at once on the smaller screen.

While I don’t see myself ever doing large-scale coding projects solely on my iPad, it’s nice to know that if I need to jump in and make edits or changes to my site I could do so. Also, it’s nice to be able to make small tweaks to current back-burner projects.

Saturday, March 24

8:37 am: Downloading songs for Anna on the iPad 2, and again I’m reminded of how thin and light this device is compared to the new one.

It is an interesting juxtaposition of the senses to hold the iPad 2 after getting used to the new iPad. The older hardware feels superior according to the physical senses — eyes closed (or screen off) and you would assume you’re holding the latest and greatest iPad. However, one look at the screen and your mind wonders how it was that your hands could have deceived you. How can this lighter and thinner device have such a vastly inferior screen?

John Gruber describes it well:

Apple doesn’t make new devices which get worse battery life than the version they’re replacing, but they also don’t make new devices that are thicker and heavier. LTE networking — and, I strongly suspect, the retina display — consume more power than do the 3G networking and non-retina display of the iPad 2. A three-way tug-of-war: 4G/LTE networking, battery life, thinness/weight. Something had to give. Thinness and weight lost: the iPad 3 gets 4G/LTE, battery life remains unchanged, and to achieve both of these Apple included a physically bigger battery, which in turn results in a new iPad that is slightly thicker (0.6 mm) and heavier (roughly 0.1 pound/50 grams, depending on the model).

The trade off is worth it. After a short while of using the new iPad I quickly acclimate to its size and weight. And who among us would vote for a new iPad that didn’t have 4G LTE, or that didn’t have the Retina screen, or that didn’t have 10 hours of battery life and was instead as thin and light as the iPad 2? Not me. And, well, if you did vote for that, then you can just buy an iPad 2 and even save $100.

11:12 am: Anna’s friends are over for brunch to celebrate her birthday. One of them is currently in nursing school and we all get onto the subject of studying, textbooks, laptops, and iPads.

Her school is excited about the soon-coming transition to when textbook money will be a part of the tuition cost and it will be used to buy the student a new iPad and cover the cost to load up that iPad with the course-necessary electronic textbooks.

But these girls are not excited about that. They don’t want textbooks on iPads because they can’t write in them, can’t highlight them, can’t spread them all out and reference multiple pages simultaneously. And they don’t like the idea of needing a laptop and an internet connection either because it means you have to study at home or at a coffee shop or library, and you can’t go somewhere outside and away from it all.

Sunday, March 25

7:29 am: Checking my iPad to see when the latest iCloud backup was, and yes: the iPad automatically backed up to iCloud last night. This has got to be one of the most underappreciated features of owning an iDevice. Automatic iCloud backups are like Time Machine but better. All my apps, all my settings, all my pictures, backed up to the cloud while I sleep and while my iPad charges.

Remember when we had to plug into iTunes and manually sync? Ew.

Monday, March 26

11:27 am: Finally able to pair my Apple Bluetooth keyboard to the new iPad. In short, this keyboard seems to only want to be paired with a single device at a time. I had to tell my MacBook Air to forget the keyboard (plugging in my Apple USB keyboard instead). Though I like this keyboard more for typing, I had been using the Amazon iPad keyboard with the iPad 2 and, though it is a great and inexpensive Bluetooth keyboard, it isn’t quite on the same par as Apple’s.

Coincidentally, this Apple Bluetooth keyboard is the same one I bought two years ago when I bought an original iPad. I always intended to use it with the iPad but it ended up becoming my desktop keyboard instead.

12:05 pm: Was planning on heading out for the afternoon to field test the iPad some more, and to wrap up this piece, but Noah is having a rough and fussy afternoon. I’ve opted to stay home and give Anna some time off. So hey! I’m “field testing” in the backyard.

I’m in my camping chair out on the back patio, a baby monitor by my side, my lunch shake resting in the cup holder, and the new iPad resting on my lap in its InCase Origami Workstation.

It’s unfortunate that the iPad’s glassy screen doesn’t do well outdoors. If the screen is light and the text is dark, it works pretty well, but only so long as you are away from sunlight. And I notice that there’s virtually no difference of increased visibility between 50- and 100-percent brightness.

12:15 pm: The thing that bothers me the most about promoting the iPad to a more regular work device is that it still doesn’t fit my email workflow. On my Mac I have many rules in Mail that process and file away those “bacon” emails that I want but never want to see. Also, I get a lot of receipts via email, and most of these are for tax-deductible items that I need to keep and process. I can’t do that on the iPad because I use AppleScripts and Yojimbo…

Hmmm. What if there a way to send an email to a Dropbox folder?…

Doing some research reveals there are a few options. Send To Dropbox looks to be the best. It’s a service that connects to your Dropbox account and then gives you a unique email address. It will store any attachments as well as store plain text or HTML version of your emails. Sounds ideal.

12:35 pm: The sun is creeping over to my shaded spot. I may be forced to move inside.

1:02 pm: For the past 30 minutes I have carried on a couple of iChat conversations (thanks to Verbs App app), researched some ways to send an email to Dropbox, worked on this article, and changed a certain baby’s dirty diaper.

However, my backyard is now completely bathed in sun and I have no choice but to move back inside. Noting that the battery level is currently at 68-percent; about an hour ago it was at 82.

1:21 pm: Since I am “field testing,” I’ve been using LTE instead of my home Wi-Fi. This morning I checked my Verizon data plan and it reports 307MB used since the 16th. Today is the 26th, and so that averages out to 31MB per day so far. My plan allows me 2,048MB per month, and that averages out to 66MB per day — twice what I’ve been averaging so far. I think the 2GB plan will prove to be just right.

3:11 pm: Now taking that field trip and driving to the Roasterie.

3:23 pm: The weather is so nice today that everyone else thought they’d head over here as well. I could sit inside, but that’d be a disservice to the weather.

So here I am on a sidewalk bench down by Le Creuest, some kitchen accessories store. This is where the oddity of using an iPad in public comes in to play once again. Sitting on a bench in front of a kitchen store drinking an Italian Soda and tapping away on my new iPad. I’m too timid to bust out the Origami Workstation in this environment.

3:29 pm: Alas, I cannot connect to the coffee shop’s Wi-Fi from way over here on this bench, and Verizon service seems to be poor on this side of town. Ah well, I am mostly only writing and therefore Internet speeds are inconsequential to me at the moment.

You know, it’s funny. I bought a 4G iPad and signed up for a data plan so that I could take the iPad anywhere and still be able to use it with an Internet connection. In some ways the data plan is a safety net — if I find myself in a place with poor or no Wi-Fi, then no problem because I can use my data connection. But in some ways the data plan is a permission slip — if I’d rather go work at the park instead of a coffee shop I can.

In my mind I imagine the permission slip mindset as being the more exciting and freeing option. I mean, that is one of the great advantages to cellular data and it’s certainly the main reason for why I bought the 4G model. Yet, I find myself too timid to take advantage of it in fear that I’ll use up my data plan too fast and then not have it when I need it, or pay unnecessary overage rates.

Tuesday, March 27

11:13 am: Checking the Verizon data usage and today it reports a total of 350MB used. So yesterday, while on the field and using my data connection what seemed like a lot, I only used 43MB. That is still under my daily allotment of 66MB.

3:49 pm: Finished setting up my Send To Dropbox workflow, and I now have a Folder Action and an AppleScript working on my MacBook Air so that any receipts I get via email I can simply forward on from my iPad or iPhone and they’ll safely land in Yojimbo.

And, relatedly, thanks to Printopia I can also now print from my iPad (since I don’t have an Air Print-enabled printer).

All these tricks and workarounds and 3rd-party services that make my iPad work better with my Mac strike me as an odd necessity for a “Post-PC Device”. In some ways it makes the iPad seem more like a thin client rather than its own, stand-alone computing device. Perhaps it’s not a fault of the iPad so much as it is my own desire to fit the iPad into my particular and age-old workflows that I’ve long since gotten used to on my Macs over the years.

Yet, even with my workflows aside, I suppose the iPad is still, in a way, a thin client — a thin client to the World Wide Web. How many of the apps on my iPad have need of an Internet connection? How many of the tasks I do on the iPad require an Internet connection? How often do I front load Instapaper and Reeder before getting on an airplane?

The answer is: a lot.

Because the iPad works best when it is connected to the Web. It is intended to be connected.

Having an iPad with a cellular data connection instantly raises the overall utility of the device. Because it takes it from a device that works best in the comfort of a home or coffee shop Wi-Fi connection and turns it into a device that works virtually anywhere your feet will take you.

This tablet is extremely portable. And its software makes it usable as a work and entertainment device. These are the things that excite me most about the iPad. And I don’t mean this specific new iPad that I am using to write these very very words. I mean the iPad as a product category — as the next generation of devices where things are versatile, robust, and yet simpler.

Diary of an iPad (3) Owner

Using Dropbox, Email, and AppleScript to Get Files and Email Messages Into Yojimbo From the iPad or iPhone

Yojimbo is where I keep all my tax-related information and all my tax-deductible receipts. I have a simple tagging system and use AppleScripts to toss receipts into Yojimbo from my email, scanner, or wherever else they show up.

About a month ago I wrote about the iPhone app QuickShot and how I use it to take pictures of physical receipts. QuickShot uploads the picture I take into Dropbox, and I have a Folder Action script set up on my Mac to automatically toss the pictures of the receipts into Yojimbo for me. This is especially wonderful for when I’m on a business trip, or just out and about.

One thing that has always bugged me about my Yojimbo system is that it breaks down when it comes to email on my iPhone and iPad.

Until yesterday I knew of no way to get receipts out of my email inbox and in to Yojimbo except for when I was at my Mac. Therefore, if I was checking email on my iPhone or iPad, I had to deal with the receipts in my inbox twice. First when I came across them on my iPhone or iPad, and then again when I sat down at my Mac and remembered to go back to those emails and then toss them into Yojimbo.

Moreover, this meant that I couldn’t truly do all my email work from my iPad. I could only do some email management from my iPad and had no choice but to do the rest from my Mac.

Yesterday I came across a web service that will take any file you email to it and save that file into a folder within your Dropbox account. The service is called, appropriately, Send To Dropbox.

Send to Dropbox is like QuickShot and DropVox but for emails.

Send To Dropbox is free, and when you sign up you get a unique email address. When you send an email to that address the service saves the email in a Dropbox folder. The service can save the email message itself as HTML or plain text, and it can also save attachments and even un-zip ZIP files.

I set it up yesterday using the same Folder Action AppleScript I use for QuickShot and it works perfectly. Now if I forward a receipt from my iPad or iPhone it will end up in Yojimbo where it belongs and with all the proper tags.

Using Dropbox, Email, and AppleScript to Get Files and Email Messages Into Yojimbo From the iPad or iPhone

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

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