iPad Dropbox Released

iPad owning, Dropbox using geeks rejoice. My friend, Don McAllister, wrote up the new version nicely.

Home Screens - Keith Alperin

After a small hiatus, I’m happy to present a new Home Screen post. When in Chicago for the ABA Techshow, I was lucky enough to have tea with an excellent Mac and iPhone developer, Keith Alperin. Keith’s company, Helium Foot Software makes several Mac utilities, my favorite being MercuryMover. In addition to his coding prowess, Keith is a devoted father (he takes his son to the opposite site of Chicago every day for school) and an overall swell guy. Make sure to check out his software. You can follow Keith on Twitter right here. What are your most interesting home screen apps?

I have two that when i use them, they make me feel like i’m living in the future.  First up: Buster [iTunes link].  Here in the big shouldered city of Chicago, my family and i lead a pretty pedestrian lifestyle.  We have a car, but generally you’ll find us on public trans.  Buster will tell you exactly how long you have to wait until the next bus arrives and gets bonus points for knowing what stop you’re at.  Second in order only is Briefcase.  Briefcase [iTunes link] is one of a few apps that lets you keep and view arbitrary files on your device: pictures, pages/word docs, audio clips, almost anything.  What really sets briefcase apart is how it can connect to your home machine from anywhere in the world and download and view just about any file from your hard drive.  Indistinguishable from magic.

One more that i wanted to mention is Constitution [iTunes link], because you never know when a constitutional crisis, or good political argument will break out.

Which app is your guilty pleasure?

I’m tempted to say my twitter clients, but i’ll go with a really fun game that i downloaded recently called Ground Effect [iTunes link].  It’s futuristic rocket plane racing at its best.

What is the app you are still missing?

I’m going to out myself here, but the app that i’m missing the most is a phone!  I’m the last iPhone developer who doesn’t own an iPhone.  I have a fleet of iPod Touches (one of which is always at my hip) but i’m waiting for the baddest iPhone A4 to come out before i finally throw down and sign up with AT&T.

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

I’ve never counted.  Is there an app for that?

What is your favorite feature of the iPhone/iPod touch?

After having the internet in your pocket, you never want to go back.

If you were Steve Jobs, what would you add to the iPhone?

I’m in no position to give advice to Uncle Steve, but if i had my four iPhone wishes fulfilled the would be:

1. More
2. of
3. the
4. same

As a developer, i’m acutely aware of the hardware limitations of the device.  Everything takes power.  There’s so little memory.  The CPU is so much slower than on a Mac.  Giving us more of what we have will make apps like the current crop easier to develop and will enable a new generation of apps that would make today’s iPhones shed unicorn tears. Anything else you’d like to share?

Two things.  The 100 ton bird in the room is Twitter and almost everyone in the MacSparky home screen fraternity has a Twitter app on their home screen.  Currently, mine is Tweetie [iTunes link], but in the same position on my second screen is Twitterlator Pro [iTunes link].  I was fortunate enough to meet Andrew Stone (who wrote Twitterlator) at WWDC last year and he was such a neat guy that i bought it on the spot.  For now i like the almost minimalism of Tweetie but i often switch those two around since Twitterlator has so many more features.

Secondly, i wanted to point out that there is some really incredible iPhone software available from independent developers. The iPhone really lends itself to the type of relatively small, yet highly polished app that indie developers really excel at creating.  Also, love it or loathe it, the App Store has opened that floodgate between regular every day users and tiny one and two person software shops.  I haven’t been able to get any numbers but anecdotally it seems that a high percentage of regular iPhone users are buying indie software; and from where i sit, that is an indisputable Good Thing.

The Lost iPhone Fictional Apology

I need to read McSweeny’s more often. Here is their fictional apology from the guy who lost the iPhone prototype by Rupinder Gill.

via Jeff at iPhoneJD

Steve Jobs Talks Flash

Today Steve Jobs posted his thoughts on Flash. I already posted my two cents on Flash. I think all of Steve’s arguments are valid and their rationality stands in contrast to Adobe’s tantrum-like campaign. Another point is that Apple simply doesn’t want its mobile platform to be beholden to Adobe. It is a calculated business decision that certainly includes some risk. So far, it proves itself to be the right decision as the Internet seems to be slipping away from Flash. I think the killing blow would be a set of HTML 5 development tools that bring it on par, or close enough, to Flash.

We Have Met the Enemy …

and He Is PowerPoint.

While this sort of abuse is equally possible with Keynote, I’d like to think most Keynote users know better.

The Simplenote - Notational Velocity Tango

I write, a lot. I write for the day job (lawyer). I write for the night job (blogger). I’ve now even added a weekend writing gig. Needless to say, I’m always looking for a way to write better and faster.

I’ve been aware of Notational Velocity for some time but wasn’t exactly sure what to do with it. Notational Velocity is an open-source project for text junkies. It just holds text but it does it with Panache.

There is no interface to speak of, just a search bar and a list of text files. To make a new entry, you type a unique name in the search bar and press enter. Nothing more. You then have a text field and nothing but your own willingness to procrastinate to hold you back.

After you collect a few (or a lot) of notes you can find them just as easily as you make them. Type a few keywords in the search bar, tab to the one that matches your search, and press return. For years I’ve kept folders full of small text files. Notational Velocity allows me to keep them all in one place and makes them searchable. It is simple, obvious, and mind bending all at once.

Anyway, a few months ago two people from Notational Velocity and the iPhone Simplenote App talked and had one of those “your chocolate in my peanut butter” moments. Put simply, Notational Velocity syncs flawlessly with Simplenote on your phone. This changed everything.

Now I can not only have this unified list of text files, they are in my pocket and editable at any time. Since the syncing function was turned on, I’ve been moving nearly all of my data over to Notational Velocity for this Simplenote sync. I’ve moved data out of Yojimbo and Bento where possible. As just a small taste, Notational Velocity has:

• My list of notes about judges I appear before;
• All of the essential data for any active cases I’m working on;
• A list of trial dates and commitments out through the next two years;
• Contract form text I may want to re-use;
• Information concerning my childrens’ schools and activities;
• Ideas for future blog posts;
• Half written blog posts;
• A list of seeds for a garden I am planting with my daughter;
• A list of dumb mistakes I have made which I will never again repeat;
• A list of useful Mac terminal commands …

The list goes on.

Last night, this got even better.

Simplenote released its iPad version. So now I can hack at this stuff on my precious iPad and leave the Mac at home a lot more often. I’ve been playing with the iPad version. Indeed I am tapping this post out over my tortilla soup on my iPad.

My biggest gripe with the iPad is file management. Simplenote fixes this problem for text today. All of my text is always in sync over all of my devices. If you work in text, learn the Simplenote - Notational Velocity tango.

Mac Power Users - Hazel Geekery

Mac Power Users Episode 25, about Hazel, is live. You can get it in your browser here or on your iPod/iPhone/iPad here. The Hazel developer was kind enough to offer a 20% discount that runs through May 3.

OmniGraffle Folder Trick

If you drag a folder on the OmniGraffle application icon on your Dock, you get an interesting dialogue.

After clicking OK, OmniGraffle creates a diagram of your folder structure. Really.

Little things like this make me smile. Thanks Landya for the tip

Next iPhone Leaked

Gizmodo has the scoop. I think it is the real deal (or a prototype very close to the real deal). In my mind I have this image of Steve Jobs with a flame thrower wandering the halls of Cupertino looking for someone.

iPad vs. Kindle

I used a Kindle for two years. As of today, I’ve been using my iPad for two weeks. I thought I’d share some initial thoughts and impressions between the two units.

User Interface

The iPad interface is intuitive and gorgeous. The Kindle interface can’t compete. While Amazon has made strides, its lack of user interface experience combined with the lack of touchscreen prevent it from matching the iPad. Once you get in the process of actual reading on the Kindle, the interface is fine. Click a button, turn the page. It is everything else that feels like pulling teeth compared to the iPad

About the Screens

There is a lot talk about how much better the Kindle is in direct sunlight. All of it is true. The idea that everyone is bringing their electronic devices to the beech sort of baffles me. I can’t imagine bringing my iPad or Kindle to a place where sand always gets in everything. Reading on a park bench or in the backyard however is a different story. Outside on a sunny day is right in E-Ink’s wheelhouse.

The Kindle simply doesn’t work in the dark. iPad, however, is very low light friendly. The built in brightness slider in iBooks was a stroke of genius. For daily use, both devices look great, but different. The full color screen of the iPad trumps the text clarity of the Kindle in my opinion but to each his own.

The Weight

The iPad a significantly heavier than the Kindle. This could be an issue for some people. If you are used to reading for long stretches holding your book (or Kindle) in front of you, this will be difficult with an iPad. Having used the iPad for several weeks, the weight has not been an problem for me although I have found myself reading it on my side in bed, as opposed to holding it up in the air while laying on my back. I generally read books laying on a table so your mileage may vary on this point. Since my transitions is from a generation 1 Kindle (which had a sharp corner in the lower left side that always dug into my palm), the easier form factor trumps the weight.

The Battery Life

The Kindle runs for days. Because the battery lasts so long, I often forget to charge it and am shocked when I find my Kindle battery is drained. If you are going somewhere without power for several days, the Kindle can keep you occupied. The backlit iPad will not compete with the Kindle battery. However, it certainly holds its own often lasting more than 10 hours in a day. Because I use the iPad as a picture frame at the office (when not working on it) my charge rarely gets below 70%

Unitasker vs. Multitasker

At the end of the day, a comparison between the Kindle and the iPad is not fair. They are entirely different devices. The Kindle is an outstanding book reader. It doesn’t work so well with periodicals (navigation is a pain), and is not much good for anything else, if you like to read books cover to cover, you’ll be happy with the Kindle.

While the iPad is a very capable book reader, it is much more. We are only a few weeks into the iPad and there are already amazing productivity, news, and gaming apps that could never exist on the Kindle. As an example, I use the Instapaper service, a lot. While there are solutions to get your Instapaper documents on a Kindle, they aren’t pretty and they don’t sync. Instapaper on the iPad is, for lack of a better word, luxurious.

Take Away

I’m giving my Kindle to my daughter. Unless you only want to read books in the sun, save an extra month or two and get the whole enchilada.