Today Macworld ran my article about the nuances of Mac OS X Lion’s new Auto Save feature and how to use the new Duplicate command to replace your old friend, Save As.
If you are an OmniFocus nerd (and a surprising number of MacSparky readers are), you really owe it to yourself to subscribe to Sven Fechner’s (Twitter) blog, SimplicityIsBliss, where Sven posts amazing tips and advice and getting the best out of OmniFocus and other productivity tips. So Sven, show us your home screen.
What are your most interesting home screen apps?
Most of the apps I have on my home screen I would consider pretty standard apps. Just all you need to be productive, travel, stay healthy and communicate.
The more interesting aspect of my home screen is that every app’s place has a meaning. Generally all my three screens on the iPhone are arrange the same way: With only one app in the last row. Why that is? For asthetic reasons mostly as whitespace of all forms helps me relax.
Next to my heavy used dock apps my key apps are in the four corners of the 3x4 matrix. * Agenda is something I tap very often since I am on manager’s schedule and things keep changing quite a bit * Instagram is basically replacing my camera app (although I also have Camera+ installed, which I use every now and then). In it’s latest update Instagram amazes me with it’s real-time filter previews * PlainText is my text editor of choice - simple and with DropBox integration - when I need to quickly take a note, I rarely enter more than two or three sentences on the iPhone though. Enough to sketch an idea or remeber where I parked the car at the airport. * Finally, of course, OmniFocus for iPhone. The way I use OmniFocus on the iPhone is relatively plain: Look at some key perspectives and quickly enter some actions or keywords addressing things that have my attention. I am not really leveraging all of OmniFocus for iPhone amazing features.
For the other apps the priority decreases towards the center of the screen. Second most important are apps * WebEx (lots of online conference, unfortunately) * Mindjet hasn’t been the best mind mapping software on iOS with it’s first release. But since I bought the Mac version, the iOS version also got some feature bumps in is bending into shape. * Podcasts = Instacast. Enough said. * My Travel folder, which has all apps I need for business travel like airline, railway, public transport, taxi. Highlights include TripDeck, which keeps me in sync with my iternaries on TripIt and TripAdvisor, which provides the most reliable hotel and restraunt reviews on an international basis. ConvertBot for conversations, Tipulator and Night Stand complete my personal travel essentials.
What is your favorite app?
Can’t really decide. I love TweetBot and infact all apps by tapbots for their design and functionality - wish they would eventually do iPad versions. RunKeeper is a great app as well and it reminds me everyday of one of my most important goals: Become a real good Mountain Bike rider.
Which app is your guilty pleasure?
Don’t need to think twice here: It’s foursquare (in my Travel folder). I am doing quite some travel and check in where ever I can just because foursquare is creating something I would like to see in more social apps: Competition. I just can’t stand it if my colleague and friend ousts me as the mayor of my company’s local office. There are useful aspects in foursquare, but it’s definitely a guilty pleasure.
What is the app you are still missing?
As the iOS ecosystem expand I hope to see more niche apps that help Mountain Bike riders to create communities, share trails and tours and so forth. At the moment apps like RunKeeper or Cyclemeter do some elements, but are relative generic.
While it’s maybe not necessarily an app, I miss some “glue” that brings everything together. Due to the nature of apps on iOS they are predomintaely isolated: With the exception of DropBox integration or the ability of open certain files in a different app there is not much of interaction between apps.
I would love to open the support material folder in Dropbox for a project I am looking at in OmniFocus, see the appointments for the project and access contact information or instant message key people associated with the project. I can do some of this on the Mac - with heavy AppleScript support - but none on iOS.
How many times a day do you use your iPhone?
My iPhone gets pulled out very often if I am what I call ultra-mobile. While I have at least my MacBook Air 11.6” with me at most times, my iPhone is in heavy use when on the run and travelling while the MBA sleeps in my Timbuk2 bag. I need to look up flight numbers, see what tasks I can get done on the run, jot some ideas down, review changes to my schedule and of course: Check-into Starbucks on foursquare and make photos of remarkable things with Instagram.
What is your favorite feature of the iPhone?
The ability to put it into slient mode easily.
If you were in charge at Apple, what would you add or change?
Clean up the App Store from that flood of poorly designed apps that have no recognizable value. Or at least provide better navigation and filtering capabilities to find the true gems.
Thanks Sven
My friends at Macworld are killing the iOS 5 coverage with some of the more amazing new features. I, instead, will focus on some of the small (and mostly irrelevant) things that make me smile.
1. Turn off e-mail badge
Hallelujah. No longer will I feel that irresistible impulse to open mail just because the badge tells me there is a new message.
2. Week View on the Side
A small upgrade to the the built-in Calendar app that I use every day.
3. Exchange Calendar Colors
This was always a pain before iOS 5. If you were to sync with an Exchange calendar, you had no control over its color. (There was a goofy way that involved lots of calendar deletion and re-creation but that really wasn’t an option.) Problem solved.
4. Twitter Integration
Twitter feels like the perfect social media to me. I’m really tired of typing in my Twitter credentials in every app where it makes sense. Problem solved.
5. Wireless Sync
Maybe this isn’t such a small and irrelevant upgrade but waking up to find my iPad freshly synced, golden baby.
6. Wireless AirPlay
iPad + AppleTV = Presentation Bliss
MacSparky.com is sponsored by Bee Docs Timeline 3D. Make a timeline presentation with your Mac.
My friend, Dave Caolo, along with Steve Sande and Michael Grothaus, published a book, Taking Your OS X Lion to the Max. Dave is one of my favorite technology writers and this one is worth checking out.
Mac Power Users Episode 59, iPad at Work, is available for download. I promise this isn’t an hour long commercial about the new book. Instead, I talked about the mechanics, software, and workflows I used to write 110,000 words in my free time. Get the episode over at 5by5. Also, studies show that people who subscribe are less likely to lose their hair.
There’ve been several posts lately about monitors. Ben Brooks ditched his extra monitor, but that only worked a few days. Brett Terpstra had a similar experience. Al Gore’s desk has so many monitors that it feels like his office should be on a secret island. Eddie Smith summed it up nicely. I really don’t think there is a right or wrong way about this. Like many things, it depends.
In my case, I’ve worked with multiple monitor setups in the past and it’s never stuck with me. My problem is that multiple monitors just feel noisy with information everywhere. Also, I don’t like the way that looking straight ahead, you don’t seen the center of a screen but instead a seam between two different screens. (I get that there is a way to avoid this but don’t like that option either.) All of my computers, ranging from a 27” iMac down to a 13” MacBook Air are single monitor machines. So how far do I go with this? I do most of my computing at the day job at a standing desk with nothing but 13 inches of computer screen to work with. From there, I am tunneled into a PC with Microsoft’s Remote Desktop Connection and have several other screens (Safari, OmniFocus, PDFpen Pro) running all day in their own spaces. Lion makes this easier than ever before. One of the advantages of working this way is that when I am working with dead tree paper, I can just close the lid on my MacBook and stick it in a drawer. I love doing that.
I think the ability to work with fewer monitors is a function of what I do on a computer: Mainly, research and writing. It seems web designers and programmers have a genuine need for the additional real estate that I don’t find necessary. I also cheat on occaision. For example, when dictating to my Mac I use my iPad to reference research, PDFs, and e-mails so, in that regard, the iPad does occaisionally serve duty as a sort of second screen.
