Home Screens: Shawn Blanc

Shawn Blanc (twitter) is one of the premier Mac bloggers and recently made the ballsy move of turning his blog, ShawnBlanc.net, into his full time gig. I am a fan. I asked Shawn to share his iPad screen today, on iPad 2 launch day, and he was kind enough to help out. So Shawn, let’s see your home screen.

What are your most interesting home screen apps?

iBooks, OmniFocus, and Wired come to mind as being the apps that most capture my curiosity in the iPad.

• Wired because I think it’s a great magazine and I enjoy reading it on my iPad every month. I enjoy how the icon color and loading screen change colors for every updated issue and I even appreciate how it notifies me when there are new issues for download.

  But really I like Wired because: (a) my roots in design are with print and layout; (b) I’ve had a longstanding affinity for software and technology; and (c) I love to read on my iPad. So, in a way, Wired represents the amalgamation of all these things: it’s a print magazine that discusses technology and which is moving to the iPad as a new medium for delivery.

• OmniFocus because here’s an app that has been on the Desktop for years, and yet, somehow, they bust out a version on the iPad that blows the original out of the water. Here’s an app that shows just how exciting a future the iPad has for personal computing and getting work done. Or, put another way, OmniFocus is a great example of how such a complex application with layers and layers of information can work so well on a small touch screen tablet.

• And iBooks because what I do most on the iPad is read. And though the reading environment in iBooks isn’t amazing it is pretty great. I’m not a total bookworm, like some people I know, but I do like to always be reading through a book or two. I’ve purchased several books from the iBookstore, and also have some other eBooks and PDFs that I’ve added into iBooks.

  And the fact that I can highlight, bookmark, and add notes makes it great as well. I’d like to start writing book reviews too, and so these extra bits of functionality make it great to jot down and highlight in preparation to return to the book and write a review of it.

What is your favorite app?

Instapaper. By a long shot. I’ve said before that if there was ever an app that was like a good cup of coffee it would be Instapaper.

By far and away the thing I do most with my iPad is read. And Instapaper is, in my opinion, the best reading app on the iPad. It is such a splendidly simple app and service that it fits into hundreds of different use-cases. I think that’s why explaining what it does is nothing at all like explaining what it is.

Instapaper isn’t just a service. It’s like some sort of placebo. When you find something great you save it and move on, knowing that something of value is now in a place you know you’ll get to it. And so Reading Later has become a favorite habit.

What is the app you are still missing?

It’s not so much an app that I feel is missing as much as a service. A syncing service.

I am hesitant to use apps that do not sync automatically between my laptop, iPhone, and iPad. I would love to see better over-the-air sync for all apps and other data. I think that MobileMe could have huge potential as a syncing server for all the data and apps on our iPads and iPhones.

Something as fast and easy to use as Dropbox — meaning it would sync and share info and files — but it would let other apps use it for syncing. Imagine setting up your iPhone with your Apple ID once, and then any app that has a Mac and/or iPad counterpart would sync.

Including the 3rd-party apps. If MobileMe could be used by 3rd-party developers it would make their jobs significantly easier

How many times a day do you use your iPhone/iPad?

I use my iPhone much more than my iPad — especially when I’m out and about. And I work mostly on my laptop. Though I use my iPad for checking email, writing, checking Twitter, and playing an occasional game, I mostly use it for the things it does better than any of my other gadgets, which means reading and doing reviews of my to-do lists in OmniFocus.

What is your favorite feature of the iPad?

The battery. My iPad’s battery usually lasts for up to 12 hours. I’ve never owned a gadget like that. With my iPhone or laptop — and even my bluetooth headset I keep in the car — it’s common for the battery life to interrupt the workflow and interaction I have with the device.

With the iPad I rarely ever worry or think about the battery at all. It’s just something I’ve begun to take for granted. Even when it goes into the “red zone” it means I still have a couple hours of battery life.

If you were in charge at Apple, what would you add or change?

I would give out free scoops of Rocky Road ice cream to people who stand in line every spring and summer to buy iPhones and iPads.

Anything else you’d like to share?

For those who may want to snag it, the background image I’m currently using can be found here (and I found it via Prettify).

Thanks Shawn!

OmniFocus Screencast Update

I’m getting lots of e-mails on the promised screencasts. The first one is nearly done and should go live next weekend. Two more will follow up in two week increments after that. They will be in the Mac Power Users feed, among other places. I’m having a lot of fun making them and they are looking great. I can’t wait to share these.

Update on Friday, March 25, 2011 at 10:59AM by David Sparks

March 25 Update

Sorry gang. The production schedule got bumped but first episode does release next weekend, around April 5.

D

iPad 2: To 3G or not to 3G

The decision to shell out another $130 for the 3G connection is not so clear as it was a year ago. Now that the iPhone has a tethering and WiFi hotspot plan ($20 a month with AT&T), you may want to skip the 3G antenna and instead use your phone to get the iPad online. Doing so has its plusses and minuses:

• It lets you save $130 on the purchase price;
• It lets you save the extra monthly charge for iPad data (when active);
• It saves you some battery life;
• The GPS antenna is only on the 3G iPad so you’ll be without it on a WiFi-only iPad;
• It requires you to always have your iPhone or other MiFi type device with you, charged, and turned on to get the iPad online. If you are using it a lot, it may challenge your iPhone battery life;
• Going this way assumes you will always have that hotspot data connection for the life of the iPad.

I think at the end of the day it comes down to saved money versus convenience.

If you do go with a 3G iPad 2, give some thought to your carrier. Since you can now elect to get a Verizon or AT&T iPad, I recommend you get the opposite of your phone carrier. That way if you can’t get a signal on the phone, you may have a chance on the iPad.

64 Gigs

There appears a consensus that buying yourself a 64 gigabyte iPad tomorrow is not a very smart move. You can alway slim your library and the additional price for that extra flash memory seems pretty steep. Bucking popular opinion, I can think of two good reasons to go with the big one:

1. Vacation Media

Every time I go out of town for fun, I just bring the iPad. It has to hold all the media to please all of the various factions of my family: everything from applescript screencasts (yes, I am a nerd.) to Pixar films. That gobbles up disk space. Moreover, the iPad also becomes my picture and movie clip depository. Every night, I plug in the SLR and empty the card full of memory hogging RAW photos and all the movies off my iPhone. On vacations, the extra memory gets handy, quick.

2. “You Can Never Have too Much Memory”

This was told to me in 1981 when I got my hands on my first Tandy Color Computer (with 4k RAM!) and it has never stopped being true.

Despite the above, I’m still leaning toward the 32

Update on Thursday, March 10, 2011 at 9:10AM by David Sparks

Whoops! Original posting was sloppy in using terms memory and RAM. Sorry gang. This post was actually supposed to post at 7PM (not 7AM) and went up half cooked. Curse you auto-post.

The Next Book, iPad at Work

I’m thrilled to announce I’m hard at work on a new book.

It’s called “iPad at Work.”

People liked the first book so Wiley asked, “may I have another?” and I said, “Yes.” This book is a natural sequel to Mac at Work and I’ve been talking to Wiley about it since I agreed to do the first one. Because Mac at Work was such a unique book, I had to keep it secret. With this one, I get to blab about it from the beginning.

iPad at Work will have some of the same structure as Mac at Work. I intend for the chapters to be self-contained bits of productivity bliss based upon specific work tasks. The outline is still fluid as I sort through all the ways you can use an iPad to get work done. Overall, I’m looking forward to the second book even more than the first. This time there is no fear, just joy.

To do it right is going to take some time. (I still have a day job, this site, and a podcast after all.) If the stars line up, it looks like this book will get released some time around October.

There are a few things I plan on not doing in relation to iPad at Work:

• I do not intend to slow down MacSparky.com this time. I’m having more fun than ever writing for the site;
• I do not intend to endlessly bore you fine readers with the minutia of the writing process and the toils of the tortured author;
• I do not intend to drop out of the Mac community while I dig in.

Finally, I want to thank everyone who provided so much encouragement and support with Mac at Work. While writing a book can be vexing, hearing from readers all over the world who tell me how the book helped improve their lives makes it all worth it and gives me the motivation to kick ass on iPad at Work. So gang, mark your calendars and hold me accountable.

Notational Velocity’s Relevance

I’m getting lots of e-mail questioning the necessity of Notational Velocity and Simplenote. I still have a big place in my heart for both apps. Here’s why.

The Case for Notational Velocity and Simplenote

Notational Velocity started out as the best way to sync text to iOS. That was the big selling point and the reason a lot of us jumped on it a year or two ago when they hooked up with Simplenote. It was truly one of those “your chocolate in my peanut butter” moments for mobile writers. However, that reason is not as important now as it was. Back then, the Notational Velocity / SimpleNote Tango was the only game in town for syncing text to iOS devices. Not anymore. Now that Dropbox has become the ubiquitous language of syncing to iOS, many text editors sport the ability to easily sync text to Dropbox making it available anywhere from any platform. I get e-mails from readers all the time explaining how they get by just fine without Simplenote. On some levels, this makes sense. While Simplenote is pretty awesome, it doesn’t have the feature list of other iOS based text editors like PlainText, with its gorgeous layout, or Nebulous Notes, nerdgasm inducing macros.

So syncing got easier and Simplenote a bit less essential. For me, however, what continues to make Notational Velocity and Simplenote awesome is the search. All of these text snippets are in one place, easily searchable, and always available.

How I use Notational Velocity

So I use Notational Velocity in three contexts:

1. my go-anywhere text bank;
2. my ghetto database, and;
3. as my hopper of working text.

The Text Bank

I’ve got lots of bits of re-usable text. Maybe it’s the html code for the Mac Power Users logo or maybe it is the perfect jury instruction for fraud. Either way, it is stuff I will use again and want to access from anywhere. Notational Velocity is perfect for this with its quick search.

Ghetto Database

Whether it is a work project or vacation plans, I love having a note dedicated to it with key information like contacts, reservation numbers, communication logs, and essential details. It is always in sync, available on all my devices, and oh-so-malleable with text. Also, when talking to someone and you can immediately get access to these details, it scares the hell out of them.

Working Text

Finally, I use it for bits of text that need love and attention. This includes pieces out of Scrivener projects, half-baked posts, pieces of legal briefs, and just about any other text I’m working on.

So I see a lot of relevance to using Simplenote and Notational Velocity, giving me access to 700 snippets of pure gold and several more full of amusing drivel, like my favorite latin sayings. Later this week I’ll post on how I name these notes to bring order from chaos but for now I’ll leave you with this thought: Lex clavatoris designati rescindenda est. (The designated hitter rule has got to go.)

Mac Roundtable 98

This week I participated in the Mac Roundtable episode 98. We covered the new iPad, iOS 4.3, and several other topics of note. We all had a lot of fun recording this one and you can tell listening. Enjoy.

Steve's Blank Slide

While watching the iPad 2 event, I noticed a few times where Steve advanced to a blank slide and just talked. It allowed the audience to focus on him as he built up to the next image and it was pretty smart. Maybe this is a simple trick but it never occurred to me before. Expect a few blank slides in my next presentation.

MacSparky.com is sponsored by Bee Docs Timeline 3D. Make a timeline presentation with your Mac.

Service Sunday - Prepare Image for Posting

Following up on my last Service Sunday post, this service lets you take any image and resize it to 500 pixels wide, convert the image to a JPG file, and lets you rename the file. The perfect treatment before posting to MacSparky.com. Here are the steps:

So do you like this new series? Do you have your own favorite service you’d like to share? Let me know.

Home Screens - Keith Blount

This week’s home screen post features one of my favorite Mac developers, Keith Blount, who very quietly revolutionized word processing with his outstanding application, Scrivener (also, see Scrivener on twitter). In addition to being a top notch Mac developer, I can report with first hand knowledge that Keith is very patient, especially when dealing with nerdy zealots who pepper him with requests to sync Scrivener text files to the iPad.

So Keith, show us your iPad home screen.

What are your most interesting home screen apps?

Everything there is fairly well-known, but Kineo is one of the apps I had the most fun with when I first got my iPad. It’s a really simple concept but stupidly fun. It’s just a flip-book app - you draw a stick man or whatever with your finger, then create a new page, and your last image is still faintly visible so that you can draw the next one over it, moving it slightly, and so doing gradually build up an animation. It’s full of blood and violence since my kids got at it, but it provides a great wind-down activity while you’re waiting for something.

In terms of my day job, there are several apps there that are interesting. Simplenote, Notebooks and PlainText are all great note-taking tools and Index Card provides a really nice corkboard similar to the one in Scrivener, so they are all there in part because I spent a lot of time implementing sync features in Scrivener 2.0 that works with these programs, enabling users to sync text between Scrivener and any one of these apps. So they are there partly for testing purposes and partly because I use them for note-taking occasionally myself. Likewise iBooks and Kindle - these are there for testing Scrivener’s .epub and .mobi export, but I don’t use them much beyond that, to be honest, as I prefer my actual Kindle (or a real, analogue book of course) for extended reading.

What is your favorite app?

Probably IMDb, simply because I’m addicted to it. I can’t remember the last time I watched a TV program or movie without pausing it to look up an actor. I still tend to reach for my MacBook Air and look up things on there for speed of typing, but IMDb on the iPad is beautifully designed and a perfect coffee-table app.

Which app is your guilty pleasure?

At the moment it’s Angry Birds. I finally cracked and downloaded it for the first time the other day, and since then the house has been full of the sound of grunting, whooping, kamikaze birds. You know you’ve been playing it too much when you start calculating the angle of your hand when you go to throw something to somebody and then wonder why there’s nothing to tap to make it go faster when it’s in midair. Before that I was addicted for a short while to Bed Bugs - I got my mother addicted to that, too; I probably won’t hear from her for months after I introduce her to Angry Birds.

What is the app you are still missing?

I don’t think I’m missing anything - there are a gazillion apps already out there and I don’t use my iPad enough to feel it wanting anything, really. The obvious answer, of course, would be Scrivener, as we do get a good few requests for an iPad version, but I still much prefer writing on my MacBook Air or other Macs so I can’t get as excited about the prospect as I probably should.

How many times a day do you use your iPad?

My current addiction to Angry Birds notwithstanding, in general I have to admit I don’t use my iPad very much at all. By day I do my development work on a Mac Pro and in the evenings I have my MacBook Air at hand, so I haven’t found an obvious place for the iPad in my daily life as many people have. My kids, on the other hand - I can’t keep them off the thing.

What is your favorite feature of the Pad?

It keeps the kids quiet. (Actually that’s not even true; they fight over it.)

If you were in charge at Apple, what would you add or change?

That one’s easy - I’d add a rich text system that developers could utilize, an equivalent of the NSText system on the Mac. At the moment most writing apps on the iPad are plain text only, and this is because there is no easy way to create rich text editing apps (Apple rolled their own text system with Pages that isn’t available to third-party developers). I have seen some apps roll their own basic rich text systems - Docs2Go for instance - but if there was a standard one as there is on the Mac, there would be a lot more powerful writing tools on there - and, from a completely biased point of view, it would make it easier to sync Scrivener with apps on the iPad. It would also make it a little easier for us to design a stripped-down version of Scrivener for the iPad off in one potential future, too, of course. But that’s my day-job speaking again, as I’m probably unlikely to use the iPad for writing much myself; I just know a lot of our customers use it for note-taking and that this would be useful to them.

Anything else you’d like to share?

Just a thank you for inviting me to share my home screen.

Thanks Keith!