The Brooks Review

Month: September 2015

  • On the iPad Pro and the Constraints of iOS

    Justin Williams:

    The iPad Pro is a device that is begging for great third-party software from both large companies like Adobe and Apple, as well as the smaller guys like Gus at Flying Meat. A larger screen, keyboard case, and a Pencil aren’t going to solve those problems. You can’t have a Pro tablet without pro apps to go with it. There are a few great iPad apps out there, but most of them feel like minimum viable products at best.

    Exactly. I don't think iOS is necessarily holding it back, but lack of pro software is definitely holding the iPad back.

  • Hypertext: iPhone 6 vs. iPhone 6 Plus

    I am agreement with everything Justin says here — except that PopSocket, because liking that is just mental.

  • Summer– Disney World

    My wife covers our trip to Disney, it truly was a great time.

  • Initial Thoughts: MacBook v. iPad Pro

    The 12” MacBook brought OS X hardware as close to iOS as it can possibly be. The MacBook is slim, light, silent, and doesn’t get to burn your thigh levels of heat. The iPad Pro? The iPad Pro brings iOS hardware as close to MacBook hardware as one can, with massive performance gains. And iOS 9 brings iOS as close as you want it to be to OS X.

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  • A Look at NetNewsWire 4

    When I first got a Mac, one of the first pieces of software that I fell in love with was NetNewsWire — it was a revolution in how to keep up with news. It was quite something, and so it took a lot for me to move away from it. But years of stagnation meant I had to try other services. For quite sometime that was Fever, a self-hosted RSS reader, but that too started to get long in the tooth. A while back I went through the plethora of great RSS services before deciding on FeedWrangler + Reeder + Unread.

    While FeedWrangler isn’t the prettiest offering, it is the fastest, and it is damn reliable.

    On September 3rd, Black Pixel announced that NetNewsWire 4 was out. I didn’t even bother to try it before buying the iPhone and Mac version and making the switch over to it.

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  • Removing Mental Overhead on Your iPhone

    A while back I mentioned that I had switched to the CGP Grey method of organizing my main home screen on both my iPhone and iPad. This method is simple:

    • One page of apps only
    • At least one row of apps empty
    • Three icons in the dock

    I was highly skeptical that this method would work, but as it turns out this method is supremely good — as long as you are ok with using Spotlight search. I’ve only used this setup on iOS 9, so I can’t speak to how it works on iOS 8, but I can say that there is no going back at this point.

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  • Fuji Fun Vs. Sony Specs

    I loved this post. Great explanation of why I don't care about all the specs of the new Sony cameras.

    As I tweeted the other night:

    Cameras:
    Sony plays the spec sheet.
    Fuji plays for your heart.

    I hadn't read this article yet, but I knew what it would say. Fujifilm reminds me of Apple: they care about the smile the device gives you in the end. But Sony sure seems to impress some people, and I'm happy for them.

  • The EZGO Slim 2.0 Wallet

    I wrote about my new go to wallet for Tools and Toys. It’s pretty nice.