Shawn Blanc

Ben Brooks:

What I have found is that those one-off reminders that belong to no project and therefore are simple “reminders” fit pretty well in the Reminders app. 2 So instead of looking at Reminders as a competitor to OmniFocus, instead I look at it as a completely different app that complements OmniFocus.

Ben’s workflow is almost identical to how I am using these two apps. I’ve been using the Reminders app via Siri primarily for any time-sensitive or location-sensitive reminders. What I don’t use the Reminders app for is task management; and I am almost certain that I wouldn’t be using the Reminders app at all if it weren’t for Siri.

When non-4S owners ask me about Siri and if it’s really that cool, my answer is always: Yes. What makes Siri so useful (and not just a gimmick) isn’t so much its scope. Rather it’s how Siri makes the few tasks it can do incredibly simple to do. There is no easier way to remind myself to swing by the bank when I leave the house than to use Siri.

Yikes! The only thing here I’d ever get caught owning would be the coffee mug (obviously). (Via The Loop.)

Who says you can’t define the things you’re not going to spend your time on?

Your nerd trivia for the day.

Naomi Zeichner interviewing Kevin Systrom, one of the founders of Instagram:

How did you develop the idea of the Instagram filter? It started off as a mobile check-in app that let you post pictures and videos. People ended up liking the photo posting more than the checking in, so we built in camera functionalities and made the focus photos, not check-ins.

One question Zeichner didn’t ask: how does Instagram plan to start making money?

It has read and write speeds that are, as expected, crazy fast for an external drive. But it’s also a good bit more expensive — especially considering you have to buy the $50 Thunderbolt cable on the side.

Ben and I talk about Cinema Displays, Apple TV, and my AT&T data usage since the iPhone 4S.

“Boredom isn’t a bad thing. But strangling it with Angry Birds probably is.”

About half-a-dozen Lumia walkthrough videos by Nokia showing browsing and searching the Web, driving and maps, music, contacts, etc. Other than the Windows Phone logo that appears at the end of each video, there’s no mention of the Lumia running Windows Phone. The only mention of Microsoft software at all is in the “Office and Mail” video, where they say: “This phone is the only phone with Microsoft Office mobile built in.”

If you didn’t know better, you’d think the Lumia was the only phone that had this operating system.

I like the concept and the story, but how come there’s no action shots of the phone? Also: not a single mention of Windows Phone 7.5?

This video, however, has much more action shots of the phone in use, and plays well off the commercial. Again though, other than the logos you see on the Lumia’s tiles, and some fine print at the end, there is nary a mention of Windows Phone.

Dan Hesse, CEO of Sprint, really loves having the iPhone on Sprint. Elizabeth Woyke, writes for Forbes:

The iPhone is so data-efficient, [Hesse] said, it will help Sprint keep its mobile data plans unlimited.

Good news for Sprint customers. AT&T users are still healing from the gouge wound back when AT&T was all, we can’t handle all the iPhone data, and so they held back features (tethering) and started charging more for others (data plans).