The Brooks Review

Month: March 2019

  • The WSJ on News+

    Comically I read this criticism on News+, and wouldn’t have seen it otherwise. If you skip past the first 1/3 of the article where the writer talks about who would want this, etc etc, there are good points about how the app works. News+ really isn’t there from a software perspective on Apple’s side. There’s no way, for instance, to say “these are the magazines I care about” — and that’s pretty basic shit. Trying to explain to my wife how to use it really revealed the comical level of shortcomings. I didn’t even know tapping in Wall Street Journal’s channel outside News+ would get me more content.

    All that aside, here’s why this matters: quality over quantity. Apple News has always been stellar at filtering out the noise, and News+ is only doubling down on that. Don’t forget about that.

  • Apple’s Screen Time Tool

    Something which I was incredibly excited about with iOS 12 was the launch of the Screen Time utility as a native part of iOS. Being able to see how much time I was using the device, impose limits, and break this all down without having to jump through all the hoops other apps made me jump through to see this — well it seemed like Screen Time would be great. Add to that interesting metrics like ‘pick ups’ and notification counts — I hoped that this would encourage many developers and product owners to change the way they juice ‘engagement’ metrics.

    Alas, this tool has changed nothing for me. And is fundamentally flawed — falling into the same trap so many Silicon Valley ‘solutions’ fall into: lots of noise with little impact.

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  • iOS Productivity Report — 3/25/19

    This week: I find myself asking this one question; I confirm the lack of color in the 1950s, and I talk about living a happier life on iOS. Enjoy!

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  • Bag Guide 2019

    I’ve been writing a lot of emails advising people on bag purchases and pairing. Which I realize now is a completely untapped market with potentially billions of dollars at stake for me. I’ll fill that void. My goal here is to provide an everyday “work” carry option, as well as a travel option, both keeping in mind different styles of dress codes. Unfortunately, this is aimed primarily at men, as I can’t intelligently speak to women’s fashion at all.

    Each category has a few pairing options — pick what calls to you. I’ll note my setup at the end. Godspeed.

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  • Snack Pick of the Week: 3/18/19

    This week I have an expensive pick for you: Sweetwood Smokehouse’s Beef Jerky. I snagged a pack of these in Denver and am very impressed. I followed up by ordering more on Amazon (they have a 4 pack of all the flavors!) and remain impressed.

    It’s not the world’s best jerky, but for store bought, and Amazon available jerky it is darn good. The issue is the price, because the packs are only 1.75oz which is comical at best and evil in reality.

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  • iPad Productivity Report — 3/18/19

    This week: my top screen mirroring trick to avoid embarrassing notifications, separating out work versus personal devices, how I am fairing with a WiFi only iPad Pro, and end it with a couple interesting pouches I recently picked up.

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  • Finding the Right Backpack Material

    I’m not a huge fan of the way Evergoods bags look, but damn if I don’t appreciate this nerd level of caring.

  • My iPad Writing Setup in 2019: Using a Stand, Keyboard, and Ulysses

    Good setup and delightfully simple. But someone get that guy a better keyboard.

  • Snack Pick of the Week: 3/11/19

    ‘Tis the season: Girl Scout cookie season that is. I bought my traditional overstocking of the best cookie they make: Thin Mints. And that is our snack pick of the week.

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  • Ulysses 15, Better than Ever

    Image previews for all! Ulysses has always done this polarizing thing among Markdown purists: they previewed images you put in your document. If you step back, this was and is a great innovation and one that I have always loved, but never been able to use.

    Until now. With Ulysses 15 the app will now preview images from remote web locations, even if that web location is hosted in Australia — truly global.

    Joking aside, this is the one feature they added this time around which has really impacted me in a good way. I love this feature, this app, and it keeps getting better.

    Side note: I complained about how this changed some of the image adding flow. A smart person at Ulysses, let’s call him Max for the purpose of this article, chuckled and wondered why I inserted images the hard way. Turns out if you have an image URL on the pasteboard, you can just paste that URL in any part of the document and Ulysses magically makes this work like you inserted the image. How cool is that? Thanks “Max”, if that’s even your real name.

    Yes, I know you can paste URLs on to text to make a link, I literally never tried it with images I guess.

  • Member Post for 3/11/19

    This week: an update on USB cables, a new feature I am working on and would like feedback from you, and lastly some additional management tips.

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  • Why Daylight Saving Time Is a Good Thing

    The title of this link is likely to be extremely unpopular among those who read this site. The common belief basically amounts to “fuck daylight saving time” and I certainly have held that opinion for a while. Especially this morning.

    However this article is an extremely interesting counter point to the common refrain. Worth your time.

  • Do Not Disturb: How I Ditched My Phone and Unbroke My Brain

    This post is meh, but this quote from Kevin Roose is gold:

    I even use an app to pretend to meditate.

    Perfect.

  • The Axios Harris Poll 100

    Interesting poll:

    The Axios Harris Poll 100 ranks the reputations of the most visible companies in the United States. The survey is conducted among 18,228 Americans in a nationally representative sample. Powered by twenty years of proprietary research from The Harris Poll Reputation Quotient, The Axios Harris Poll 100 is a measurement of what real people think right now about the companies in our cultural conversation.

    Amazon is at #2, while Apple is down at #32. What’s amazing though is Facebook, which dropped from #51 last year to #94 this year.

    Comcast is #91 this year. Spirit Airlines is #90.

    If you’ve had the misfortune to interact with either of those companies you should be amazed Facebook is lower then them, but also proud that people recognize how shit Facebook really is. The US Government is #100, which seems a tad high.

  • MACV-1s, are they any good?

    When I wrote my first impressions of the MACV-1s it was a mix of underwhelmed, and pleasantly surprised. But that was many miles ago, and I still wear these boots almost everyday. So it’s about time to answer the big question: are they any good?

    I think for like monetary reasons, you are supposed to not reveal things until the end of the post, but yes they are quite good and worth the money. There’s some caveats to that, of course, but suffice to say I am thinking/wanting to pick up a pair in Coyote as well. I really like them, so let’s dive into the nitty gritty then.

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  • Member Post for 3/4/19

    This week I have two topics: the first is a theory that we are coming to a point where we will all be forced to wear activity trackers to be able to get basic services; the second is work;life balance.

    Enjoy.

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