The Brooks Review

Category: Articles

  • Dave Caolo’s iPad Life

    Please welcome Dave Caolo, he was one of the first people to accept my invitation to be interviewed for the iPad Life series, also you can follow him on Twitter here.

    Tell me a little about yourself, what do you do, where do you live?

    I live in a small town of about 6,000 people on Cape Cod, MA. By day I’m an editor and writer at The Unofficial Apple Weblog. I also write and curate 52 Tiger. Otherwise, I can be found kayaking, playing with my kids or enduring the heartache that’s unique to all members of Red Sox Nation.

    What was your reaction when the iPad was launched?

    When it was first demonstrated in public, I was thrilled. For years, tablets failed to thrive in a significant way because the best method of user interaction had not been sorted out. At last, Apple solved the puzzle. Multi-touch, the iOS and the App Store convened in one spectacular piece of hardware. While many complained, “Eh, it’s just a big iPod touch,” I was blown away. “My goodness! It’s a big iPod touch!”

    Which model did you order and why?

    I bought a 16GB Wi-Fi model for a few reasons. First, I knew I wouldn’t put any music on it, as my iPhone fills that roll perfectly. Plus, I intended to use it as I do my laptop. I’ve rarely had trouble finding Wi-Fi for my MacBook Pro, and the same has been true of the iPad. I know where to go to find free Wi-Fi. So far, I’ve been happy with my decision. I’ve got a couple of movies, a couple of TV shows and a slew of apps loaded with room to spare.

    How are you using the iPad on a daily basis?

    It depends on the time of day, really. While I’m at my desk, it makes a killer dedicated Twitter station when docked and paired with a Bluetooth keyboard. I also enjoy checking and responding to email with my iPad.

    In the evening, I love reading with it. In fact, I’ve been doing more reading since getting it. It’s undeniably comfortable, and I enjoy sitting in a quiet chair to browse my Instapaper queue, read newspapers (something I haven’t done consistently in years) and books and so on. Even the web is more pleasant with the iPad when reading is your goal.

    Finally, I’ve been making great use of Netflix streaming and many of the cooking apps. Epicurious is a favorite.

    Can you give me a quick run down of the apps that you use the most?

    Sure. In no particular order, I use:
    – Instapaper
    – Flipboard (now my preferred way to interact with Facebook)
    – Twitterrific (the only Twitter app I use on the iOS)
    – USA Today
    – OmniFocus
    – Simplenote
    – iBooks
    – NPR
    – At Bat
    – Mail

    Which app is your favorite?

    It’s impossible to choose! I spend the most time in Twitterrific, Instapaper and Mail. So, I guess those three.

    Do you have any bag/stand/case recommendations for people?

    Yes, I use a DODOcase that I bought soon after the iPad was released, and I love it. It’s extremely well-built and functional. When I’m cooking, watching videos or typing, the DODOcase is in place. In fact, my iPad is in the DODOcase more often than not.

    What features do you want to see in a future iPad?

    First and foremost I’m eager for folders. I’ve got several reading apps, like iBooks, Instapaper, Kindle, Nook and GoodReader that are dying to be grouped. Likewise, Netflix, Hulu Plus and Apple’s Videos app could be grouped. I’m also eager for multi-tasking, as the iPhone has spoiled me.

    It would be great to dock a future model in the landscape orientation, so I can be charging while watching a long movie, and of course a front-facing camera and FaceTime would turn it into a honest-to-goodness Jetsons phone. Who doesn’t want that?

    Thanks again to Dave for taking the time to share his iPad Life with us, also be sure to check out 52tiger.net where Dave has been doing a great job talking about reading experiences on the iPad.

    More iPad Life

    To see more people’s iPad Lives take a look here.

  • The State of Macworld (the Publication)

    Yesterday it was announced that MacJournal had released their long awaited iOS apps. I saw this had happened a then stumbled across the Macworld article about the iPad app. I was pumped to check out what they had to say because I really wanted to find out if MacJournal would let you control the post slug field for WordPress blogs (it doesn’t).

    Instead what I found was a mostly useless article about the release of the app – fine it wasn’t labeled to be a review so I let it go. However as you can see in this screenshot there are three links in the first paragraph:
    Screen shot 2010-10-01 at 7.02.44 AM.png

    I figured I would just head over to Mariner Software’s site so that I could find out just what all the features offered for MacJournal on the iPad are. Naturally I clicked the link “MacJournal for iPad” expecting to be taken somewhere that I can find out more about the app. Instead it takes you to Macworld’s own AppGuide page for the app.

    On the AppGuide page Macworld bribes users with a chance to win a $50 iTunes gift card if you review the app (still has no reviews) and attempts to tell you about the app. I will say in all fairness this page had more information than the actual article did. Screen shot 2010-10-01 at 7.06.16 AM.png

    Not wanting to be taken to the App Store in iTunes I naturally clicked the Developer link that Macworld provides for Mariner Software – this then took me to Mariner’s website, OH wait no it didn’t. Instead the developer link took me to another AppGuide page that lists all the software Mariner provides for iOS.Screen shot 2010-10-01 at 7.08.01 AM.png

    At this point there were no more links to try and continue on to Mariner Software. I didn’t know Mariner Software’s URL off the top of my head so I hit Google and it was the first link available.
    Screen shot 2010-10-01 at 7.08.57 AM.png

    What a joke Macworld has become over the past few years. When I can find Mac Developer websites with Google faster than I can by clicking a link in the article talking about said developer, then I think as a publisher you should be damned ashamed of yourself. Oh and if you are wondering you can find out more about MacJournal on the iPad here.

    Also as Stephen Hackett pointed out to me on Twitter I am not the only one saddened by Macworld.

  • Exclusive First Look: RIM’s Playbook Prototype*

    After criticizing the very existence of the RIM’s iPad competitor, the Playbook, I came home to a little surprise – a RIM Playbook Prototype to, um, play with. I must say this is a cute little device very tiny and I could see how the size might be appealing.

    But I am getting a little ahead of myself – we really should go through this step by step so you know that I really do have a prototype unit (I found it at my desk, not a bar FYI).

    The Size

    This thing is tiny in comparison to the iPad, just take a look at the picture below.

    Playbook

    Playbook

    Playbook

    Playbook

    I am not sure that I am a fan of the size, it just isn’t quite big enough to feel more useful that the iPhone yet far too small to feel like a good laptop substitution.

    The Screen

    The screen is amazing on this device, there is absolutely no glare, it has a very paper like quality to it. It doesn’t matter what kind of light you have it in, no reflections or glare. That though is a major problem because this device needs some light – well a lot of light. In the model that I am testing the backlight either is broken or eludes this testers ability to turn it on.

    The resolution of the screen is also very poor, the pixel count looks high (print[er] quality even) but the graphics look like an iPhone app running at 2x mode on the iPad – just not good enough.

    The Build Quality

    Overall the build is rather interesting – the device almost feels like it has some kind of cloth tape wrapping on it. It feels very rigid, about as rigid as 3 pieces of cardboard perhaps but I am just guessing here. There is still a lot of work to be done though as these three things really bug me right now:

    • The screen is not perfectly centered.
    • The device is not perfectly squared on the corners.
    • The cloth tape like material shows it seems all over the place.

    This though I have to remember is a prototype and one would assume that all these things will be fixed by the time the Playbook hits production.

    Battery Life

    I have had the screen on non-stop (how do you turn it off?) and it has been connected to Wi-Fi the entire time the battery life has not budget from 75% in the past 58 hours of testing. Very impressive.

    The Weight

    This thing weighs nothing, again it weighs about the same amount as three pieces of cardboard with tape on it. Honestly if they can keep it this weight when it hits production then I am sold.

    The OS

    This OS looks really swell, which is about all that I can say about it. I cannot for the life of me get the device to respond or do anything for that matter, it is stuck with the app switching screen being shown. In talking with someone who did not deny to me that they are a RIM executive (perhaps the CEO) said that it only works if you have a Blackberry and not a crappy iPhone. So it appears that RIM has done an impressive job of locking up the OS unless it detects that the owner also has a Blackberry – kudos to RIM on the feat.

    Overall

    Without being able to test the OS it is hard to say just how good this device is. What I can say is the the battery life, anti-reflective coatings on the screen and the weight of this device are highly impressive. If they keep these features in the production model it will kill the iPad.

    *Where by Prototype I mean that I have a replica of what I think that RIM had on stage at the press event, maybe.

    Playbook

  • The Dropbox Syncing Text Editor iPad App Smackdown

    It appears that TUAW.com is running a similar story – great minds I guess.

    It seems like all the rage right now is to make a ‘writing app’ for iPad users (you know the device that is for content consumption only) – the requirement though seems to be that said writing app must sync in some way with Dropbox. This of course is a win for consumers and the Dropbox team, but the problem that I am running into is which app to buy – most cost money in some form (either up front or to remove ads later).

    The three main contenders as I see it are: Writer ($4.99), Plaintext (free, $4.99 to remove ads), and Elements ($4.99). ((note I am omitting Simplenote here as it is a note app, not a writing app and it also does not give the option for Dropbox syncing in the app)) All three are very good apps, so which one to choose – well I couldn’t decide so I bought all three.

    Let’s see what I found.

    Writer.

    To say that Writer had a subdued launch would be an understatement – it was all over Twitter and blogs that I read when it was launched. Writer was designed from the ground up with the idea of creating the best possible writing experience one could have on the iPad and doing it all while minimizing distractions. This gives Writer the most unique look of all the apps – Nitti Light was custom made for the font in Writer and designed with the iPad in mind.

    The result is a very unique full screen experience that forces you to write one way – the apps way. The font choice is exquisite, the sharpest font I have seen to date on the iPad screen.

    Writer’s ‘focus mode’ offers a very unique take on what fullscreen writing should look like – you don’t get just a menu-less environment, you also only get three lines of text in focus, the rest faded out. This is something that has lead some to criticize the app, while others praise it for the ‘feature’. I am in the latter’s camp, I think this is a great way to think about focus, but I am glad the mode is optional.

    The last attribute that sets Writer apart from all other writing apps is the keyboard – iA has added what they are calling an ‘extended keyboard’ where you get an extra row at the top of the keyboard. This adds extra functionality that allows you to move word by word and character by character through your text, additionally brining to the foreground some common writing characters (parentheses, colons, hyphens, quotes) that are usually buried a couple of button presses away.

    The one thing I have found odd about Writer is instead of giving you a word count the app just tells you the expected amount of time it would take to read your text (along with a character count). This is really interesting to me – I have never before thought about text in this way and trying to figure out just how long that is (in word count) seems awkward at best.

    In then end then Writer is a gorgeous app with some odd choices made to its functionality. Writer is perhaps the most ‘Apple like’ of all three apps I will be looking at, in that meticulous attention was paid to the design and features were unapologetically left out of the app.

    PlainText

    From the makers of WriteRoom, Hog Bay Software launched PlainText – the newest of the three apps being reviewed. PlainText offers a very straightforward, plain app for writing. You can sync with any folder in your DropBox and add sub-folders for better organization in the app (two very nice features).

    PlainText presents itself much like Simplenote – you have your files along the left side and the writing screen along the right – hit a button and you can write in ‘fullscreen’ mode. However unlike Simplenote, PlainText ditches Helvetica in favor of what looks to be Georgia for the apps font choice. The font looks much more legible on the iPad screen and makes the overall experience that much better.

    PlainText also excels in my testing for the best speed of syncing, where Writer forces you to manually sync, PlainText offers a plethora of options for when it should automatically sync with DropBox. The coloring appears to be slightly off-white making the writing experience that much more classical feeling – by that I mean that you don’t feel like you are being blasted by white when you look at the screen. ((It is possible that the text is not pure black as well, a known web trick – but I am not able to verify this.))

    My biggest complaint though with PlainText is that the font size does not change when switching form portrait to landscape or vice versa (al á Writer). This means that when you are typing in portrait the font choice looks ideal, however when you switch to landscape the font looks a bit small to me. Much like with Writer, PlainText forces their way or the highway, the options are few ((In fact you can only set syncing options right now)) but the app overall is an excellent choice given the freemium price tag.

    [Updated: 9/30/10 at 7:14 AM] PlainText does include TextExpander support in the option – I just forgot to mention. Sorry about that.

    Elements

    Elements is the oldest of the three apps and before I review please notice that thus far I have not mentioned any of the app icons – allow me to correct that mistake now: all three apps have ugly icons, Elements though wins the prize of ugliest of the uglies. That said if Writer and PlainText are Apple in the way they force you to do things, then Elements is more like ‘choose your own adventure’ in that it offers a plethora of options to customize the look and feel of your writing environment.

    You can set your font (the font list is huge), set your font size (from 8pt to 24pt), set the font color (eight options including purple – wtf?) and set the background color (Nine options here, thankfully no purple, but what the hell there is red – who wants a red background?). You get word, character and line counts and the ability to have an always ready scratchpad at hand for errant thoughts.

    Elements is fighting off the competitors on the feature front, supporting TextExpander and the odd option of being able to turn off spell checking. The one thing that really bugs me in Elements though is the margins used for text display in the portrait orientation – the margins are just too close to the edges, making the text feel very cramped. For the record I think you can really make the text look great on this app by setting the font to Georgia, the font color to Black, the background color to Silver and the size to 22pt (only in landscape though, in portrait you need to take the font size down a bit).

    The last thing that Elements does not offer, that the other two do offer, is a fullscreen mode. This means that you must stare at the title and most importantly the menubar that shows the time, the entire time you type. I don’t know why but I find clocks incredible distracting – so much so that you won’t find one in my menubar.

    The Best a Writer Can Get™

    That leaves the ultimate question then: which app is the best? For my money it will be Writer every time, for one reason: the font looks amazing and properly scaled in each orientation. PlainText is a nice second, and given the ad supported free version it makes for a great option for people just wanting to test if they would use this type of an app. Elements though feels much too complex and un-iPad like for me to really get into.

    Writer I think will be the app to stand the test of time, even if you don’t agree with the ‘focus’ mode that the app has introduced. For me writing is about getting the words down and the more clearly I can see those words the better off I am – Writer gives you the hands down clearest view of the text you write.

  • Stephen Hackett’s iPad Life

    Editors note: This is the first in what I hope to be a longer email interview series looking at how different people across the web are using their iPads on a daily basis.

    Tell me a little about yourself, what do you do, where do you live?

    My name is Stephen Hackett. I’m the IT/Multi-Media Director for the Salvation Army Kroc Center, which is due to open in about a year. The Kroc Center is a large community center focusing on arts, education, recreation and worship. I oversee pretty much anything that involves electricity or pixels. Back in the day, I was the Lead Genius at our local Apple Store and (more recently) served as the Service Manager at a local Apple-Authorized Service Provider.

    Speaking of Apple, I write about the company, journalism and design over at forkbombr.net.

    I live in my hometown of Memphis, TN. Yes, where Elvis is from. While I have never been to Graceland, I love this city and don’t plan on going anywhere. I have two kids, two bikes, a cat and am married to my high school sweetheart.

    I have a dog cow tattoo on my right ankle.

    What was your reaction when the iPad was launched?

    I initially felt underwhelmed and what I perceived to be a large iPod touch. However, the more I thought about, the more scaling up the iPhone OS (and not scaling down Mac OS X) made sense. Now, I’m really glad Apple decided on iOS to power the iPad.

    Honestly, the A4 chip got me more worked up than anything else. I love hardware, and this thing is the pinnacle of Apple’s design philosophy. There is nothing here that doesn’t need to be. Even the bezel is perfect. I was in love with the hardware from the moment Steve unveiled it on stage.

    Which model did you order and why?

    I wasn’t going to buy an iPad. However, about an hour before our Apple Store closed, I drove over to see them in person with another former-Genius buddy of mine. My initial “meh” attitude melted away instantly.

    I bought the the 16GB Wi-Fi model on the spot. I didn’t see the need for 3G, and haven’t come to regret going Wi-Fi only yet. I opted for the 16GB, as I don’t keep a lot of media on my devices. And spending the least amount of money let my wife tolerate the impulse buy a little better.

    How are you using the iPad on a daily basis?

    At work, I am in and out of meetings a lot. Calendar and Mail are wonderful to have handy. I use the Photos app to not only show off photos of my kids, but to share renderings and construction plans for the Kroc Center. I take notes all day long on it.

    At home, I use the iPad to check RSS feeds and email, check the weather and more. I really don’t use our family iMac for “little things” anymore.

    I read a lot on my iPad. Between Instapaper, iBooks and the Kindle app, I’m set. However, I don’t write a lot on my iPad. While blog post ideas may come to me on the go and get captured via the iPad, most of my writing takes place either at my iMac (via an Apple Extended II keyboard) or at my MacBook Pro.

    The battery life continues to impress me. Even my Mid-2009 MacBook Pro can’t keep up. The iPad is basically a tiny computer bolted to two giant batteries, and it shows. It blows my mind how little I have to charge it.

    Can you give me a quick run down of the apps that you use the most?

    Simplenote, Instapaper and Reeder are my most used third-party apps. (NetNewsWire was on that list until I discovered Reeder. Seriously, go download it. Now.)

    As far as built-in apps, I use Mail, Calendar, Photos and Safari the most.

    My current game of choice is Solipskier. It’s a wonderful little game involving a skier going really, really fast and making huge jumps to over-the-top music. My two year old could watch me play all day.

    Homescreen

    Which app is your favorite?

    Simplenote, as common as that answer probably is. I keep everything in there – meeting notes, ideas for blog posts, snippets of HTML and more. It’s fantastic.

    Do you have any bag/stand/case recommendations for people?

    Early on, I bought the InCase Convertible Book Jacket. It looks like a large Moleskine journal, and doubles as a stand. However, it was bulky and the iPad had a tendency to move around in the case a bit, which I found very annoying. I sold it after a few weeks of use.

    I bought the Timbuk2 Freestyle Netbook Messenger to carry the iPad around during the day. Timbuk2 has great products. It has a padded pocket for the iPad and space for papers and a paper notebook. Yes, it’s a man-purse. Don’t judge me.

    My wife recently made me a sleeve for the iPad. It lives in that while in my bag or for a little extra protection.

    I have the official Apple case, but I don’t use it much. I like my devices naked.

    What features do you want to see in a future iPad?

    On the hardware end of things, I know a FaceTime camera is a no-brainer when it comes to future iPads. I don’t really care about it, honestly. The biggest thing the current device lacks is enough RAM. And I’d be happy with a louder speaker.

    Software-wise, I really want to have AirPlay working in reverse. Why can’t I stream iTunes content from my iMac to my iPad across my wireless network? Don’t get me wrong, AirPlay seems like a killer feature for the new AppleTV. I just want it here, too.

    Ed. note: Big thanks again to Stephen for taking the time to answer my questions, be sure to hop over to Forkbombr.net and check his site out.

    More iPad Life

    See more people’s iPad Life interviews here.

  • Seven-Inch Tablets Are Just Plain Wrong

    There have been a lot of rumors and rampant speculation about the possibility of Apple shipping a seven-inch version of the iPad. We ((that is everyone not at Apple in the super secret iPad division)) know nothing, except that Samsung (with the Samsung Galaxy Tab) is going with seven-inches and various other Android based tablets seem destined to be the same size.

    This small size sounds great if you think about it, surely it will be lighter and more portable. Seven inches is a huge difference though, you lose almost 3 inches off the iPad size and for what? Well you get a smaller device that still doesn’t fit in your pocket and doesn’t have the screen real estate to be really great.

    The problem isn’t that tap zones become much smaller, the problem is the onscreen keyboards get much smaller. I can’t type on the iPad keyboard in it’s portrait orientation, it is too small to try and touch type, and far too large to comfortably thumb type. That leaves an awkward and slow hunt and peck method of typing portrait orientation. Everything changes though in landscape orientation, all of a sudden I get a large keyboard that I can touch type with, using about 8 fingers (still too small for pinkies). The iPad keyboard in landscape view is truly the best soft-keyboard I have ever used, and it is quite usable at that.

    A seven-inch tablet though, well that would be a massively smaller keyboard in landscape orientation. So much so that I would guess it would be faster thumb typing in the portrait view than it would be trying to cram 3 fingers on the landscape keyboard. Now this of course is pure speculation on my part as I have yet to use a tablet with a seven-inch screen, but here are some things I do know for sure:

    • From the edge of the furthest keys my MacBook Pro keyboard is about 10.75” long.
    • From the edge of the furthest keys on the iPad (landscape) it is about 7.75” long.
    • The Samsung Galaxy Tab looks to be 7.48” long and assuming 0.5” for a bezel that leaves only 6.48” for the keyboard (Source)
    • The a 6.5” keyboard is only 0.6” wider than the iPad keyboard in Portrait

    At seven-inches then, the scale of the device to the size of a normal adult hand is just wrong. With a seven inch screen it will be far from comfortable to type on. Just take a look at this picture from Endgadget and tell me that you think that keyboard is big enough to type with both hands? In fact I bet you will run into the same problems that you would with the iPads portrait keyboard – you just won’t want to use it.

    Everybody who doesn’t have an iPad squawks that iPads are for content consumption only, not for creation, often implying: you silly goose. Everybody who owns an iPad knows that this line of thinking is a load of crap. Yet it would seem these companies ((Samsung, Dell, possibly RIM)) making seven inch tablets don’t own an iPad because they are making devices sized for content consumption only – when there is a lot of people using iPads for content creation instead. ((Though in fairness content consumption still rules the roost for now.))

    A seven inch tablet is not for content creation any more than an iPhone is – sure it’s possible, but only if you are a masochist. Q: Why would you limit your device from the start by making it too small? A: Because you bought into the hype that the iPad is a Kindle competitor, not a netbook killer.

  • Quote of the Day: Resources

    The cliché is “People are your most valuable resource”. I would argue they are your only resource. Computers, desks, building, data centers… Whatever. All of those other tools only support your one and only resource: your people. –Michael Lopp

  • Review: Writer.

    A while back I saw on Twitter that Oliver Reichenstein over at Information Architects was working on a new writing app for the iPad. That was right around the time e iPad came out, so it has been a while now. Since then we have had Simplenote which has gone from good to great.

    This morning met me with some real joy when I saw that iA had released their long waited writing app caller ‘Writer.’ pretty neat and at $5 I said why not and purchased it. Little did I know it is not compatible with iOS 4.2 beta 1 which I have installed on my iPad.

    In fairness the only thing that doesn’t work is auto scrolling and scrolling at all in the ‘focus’ mode pain. Making the app annoying to use but not impossible.

    The Only Thing You Need to Know

    Doing a full review of Writers features would be a rather boring affair, it is a text editor that is full screen and syncs with your Dropbox. Simple enough. The one thing though that really truly sets Writer apart is the font that it uses.

    The font is not Helvetica, it is not Georgia, the font is called Nitti Light and it is monospaced. Nitti Light is the best looking font I have seen rendered on the iPad to date. It is this font that makes Writer so good to use, in fact it is not just the font but the sizing, margins and line heights that have been chosen for it.

    Using Writer feels like using an app where the developer spent 90% of his time making sure that the text looks just perfect on the screen – and they nailed it. If you love typography, or if you just love readable sharp looking fonts then you are really going to want to give Writer a try.

    The Problems

    Due to Writers incompatibility with iOS 4.2 beta I can’t really tell what is a problem as a whole or what is just a problem due to the beta iOS. One thing that I can say for sure though is that the syncing speed leaves a lot to be desired. Unlike with Simplenote you can’t just ‘close’ the app and know for sure that all the changes were synced back, it seems to me that you have to hit the sync button to get the changes to push back up, or at the very least wait a while.

    This is probably something that can be fixed in future updates, but right now it is an annoyance that I have with an otherwise very good writing app.

    Smoking Apples’ Milind Alvares has a more detailed review here.

  • Why HDR on the iPhone Is a Good Thing and How to Use It

    What is HDR photography? It is a defined as:

    a set of techniques that allow a greater dynamic range of luminance between the lightest and darkest areas of an image than standard digital imaging techniques or photographic methods. This wider dynamic range allows HDR images to more accurately represent the wide range of intensity levels found in real scenes, ranging from direct sunlight to faint starlight. ((Wikipedia))

    In terms that really make sense though you use your camera to take on average 3 pictures each is taken at different exposures. One at a normal exposure, what you would expect to get when you take a normal picture. Then one over and one under exposed. Essential you have one normal picture, one brighter picture and one darker picture. Using digital tools you then overlay these three images taking the best of each to create one composite image as the final.

    HDR however has gotten a pretty bad rap online as many people have been using tools like Photomatix to ‘over process’ their images, resulting in a fantasy land look to them as you can see below:

    HDR 1

    Source

    HDR 2

    Source

    This over processing has lead to many people writing off HDR as nothing but a fad. This over processing is a fad, but HDR is not – HDR is a serious tool that can help make a picture that looks more like what the human eye actually sees. This technique is widely used in Real Estate photography as seen in these examples:

    HDR 3

    Source

    HDR 4

    Source

    Where without the use of HDR you would need to have ample strobe (flash) lighting to be able to get something other than bright white in the windows.

    Now that we can see what HDR really does when used correctly we can get a much better sense as to when we should be using it.

    HDR on Your iPhone

    There are a couple things to note about using HDR on your iPhone so let me just run through those really quickly:

    • The implementation is not perfect.
    • You can’t edit the processing.
    • It takes longer between shots.

    With those three things in mind we can move forward with HDR on the iPhone. The default setup for the iPhone is to ask you after taking your first HDR picture if you would like to save the original image as well as the HDR image. For most I recommend leaving this option on, you get the ‘normal’ exposed image and the HDR version both saved on your phone. The time between shots suffers a significant delay when HDR mode is on, often taking about 6 seconds between the time you take a picture and the time you can take another image. ((With HDR off it takes on average, less than 2 seconds.))

    There are two criterion that you really should be looking to see if you meet before you think about using HDR:

    1. Is the background of the image going to be brighter than the foreground? For instance is it bright and sunny out, and you have someone standing in front of a window? Then typically the window would either show blue sky and the person would be a silhouette or the person will look great with a bright white background (this is called a blown out background).
    2. Nothing important should be moving. Remember you are taking three pictures in rapid succession, so if your subject or things in the background are moving you are going to get ghosting (which looks like this and this.)

    So HDR is best used for things that are not moving (real estate, landscape, a posed portrait).

    Personally I leave HDR on at all times, I know I get the normal image with the added benefit of just maybe getting an even better version from HDR. Here are some examples of images I have got using HDR, with the normal exposure comparison.

    husky.png

    husky_hdr.png

    office.png

    office_hdr.png

    vase.png

    vase_hdr.png

    wedding.png

    wedding_hdr.png

    conf.png

    conf_hdr.png

    As you can see I have not had a chance to take many shots, but what I have taken has on average been better with HDR on.

  • The Most Used

    The weather is starting to turn sour here in Seattle, so it is the time of year when we baton down the hatches, pull out our REI clothing and get ready to spend lots of time inside. I would be lying if I said I didn’t already spend lots of time inside, but such is life in the modern workplace. This whole concept of being inside, got me to thinking about the software tools I use on a regular basis. So for the past week I have been vaguely monitoring what software I used the most on each device – the results of which are pretty interesting.

    Note: I did not include any utilities that are always running like Dropbox or Baseapp.

    MacBook Pro

    I am breaking out a couple of different computers because I use them very differently. On my MacBook Pro the app that I use the most by far is Safari. I really thought that it was going to be something like Marsedit, but Safari really leads the charge here. So much of what I do on my MacBook Pro for both work and hobbies is web based that I really can’t live without Safari.

    A few weeks back I tried to make a permanent switch to Google Chrome, but I just find the UI ugly – I can’t stand it. The browser seems faster that Safari but the fit and finish is just not there and based on how most Google products look I doubt it will ever be there.

    Runners Up (in order): Mail, Transmit, MarsEdit, NetNewsWire.

    iPhone 4

    Twitter for iPhone is by far, hands down the single most used app on my iPhone. Nothing else even comes close, not the phone or text message client. I could probably remove everything from my home screen and dock except Twitter and I would rarely scroll to another page.

    Runners Up (in order): Mail, OmniFocus, Ego, Simplenote, MLB At Bat, Camera.

    iPad

    This was by far the hardest to judge, I use four of the apps almost the same amount. After a lot of thinking I have to crown the winner as Reeder. Not only is it the app that I find myself using the most when I am away from my Mac, but it is also one of the best apps for the iPad. Reeder if you don’t know is hands down the best RSS feed reader that a person can have, on any platform. ((until they come out with a Mac client, perhaps.))

    Runners Up (in order): Instapaper, OmniFocus, Twitter for iPad, Simplenote, Mail.

    Mac mini

    I have what one day may be a collectors item, an original circa 2005 Mac mini G4. Oh yeah PowerPC baby. This is the upgraded 1.4 whatever ghz model. I have only had to replace the HD once in it and it has been in 24/7 use since I purchased it. Today it is attached to our TV in the living room and servers as a media hub as well as a Bit-Torrent monster. By far the most used app is Transmission the best bit-torrent app I have ever come across. (Of course I only do legal things with Bit-torrent).

    Runners Up (in order): VLC, I don’t really use any other apps on it.

    Some Thoughts

    I did this little monitoring activity with the goal of trying to figure out how I use things. The ultimate goal then is trying to determine if I have the right equipment for what I do. I have for quite some time now wanted to get a separate computer at my office so that I no longer have to lug my MacBook Pro to and from work, but I have been unsure whether I should get a iMac or Mac mini for the office (I already have a 24” Cinema display at work). In the end I know that I can’t go wrong with either choice but I think I am leaning towards purchasing an iMac.

    One thing that did not show up is that when I use my MacBook Pro at home I am almost always using it for photo editing. This type of work truly demands a large screen. Based on that I think that buying a smaller iMac for my office and taking the monitor home to use with my MacBook pro there. Of course this all costs money which means things will have to wait a bit.

  • Three Really Annoying Questions

    [Warning: Some will see this as an annoying whining rant, however I mean this as a retrospective of my social interactions. Whatever that means.]

    I spent the weekend at a family members wedding festivities, as such I encountered the three questions that annoy me most in life:

    1. What do you do for a living?
    2. How do you like doing that?
    3. What do you want to do then?

    Screw you all, those are damned annoying questions, but I bet you don’t really see why I think that yet so let’s go question by question.

    What do you do for a living?

    To me this question is something you ask someone when you want to know one of two things; a) what they do for a living or b) about how much money they make. More often than not as humans we are more interested in the answer to ‘b’ then we are to the answer of ‘a’. That means that if you are going to ask the above question you mine as well just ask directly how much money they make, at least then you are being honest.

    Perhaps you just think I am being cranky about this, but next time someone asks you this answer with the most simplistic answer that you can. For instance I run and own a property management company, but I always answer that I am a property manager, not an owner of a company. Break your job title down to something that it really is, so if you are a project manager just say you help a team staying focused. When you say your job this way watch as people change the way they interact with you based on how glorious they think your job is or is not.

    You will be annoyed too.

    How do you like doing that?

    After answering the first question you will often be presented with the third most annoying question in the world, which people look to see if you love or hate your job in hopes they can bond with you over said love or hatred. If you are as unfortunate as I am you will likely say that ‘it pays the bills’ which of course implies that I don’t love your job, but are not yet to the point of hating it.

    Now I say unfortunate above because that leads directly to the next question, which is the second most annoying question.

    What do you want to do then?

    This can be formed many ways but it is essentially the cliched ‘if you never had to work again what would you do’ questions that then leads people to sagely advise that you try to make that ‘hobby’ into a career. How annoying is that?

    Not as annoying as my response to the question (or at least what my response used to be): nothing. That’s right up and until the last few months had you asked me the above question I would have responded openly and honestly with: nothing. That is if I never have to worry about money again I would like to do nothing for the rest of my life.

    Now let me clarify, most people assume that means sitting on my ass all day. Much to the contrary ‘nothing’ means doing many things that interest me on my on terms and timeline. I would hike, photograph, write, building things, race cars, travel – I would do lots of things, just only what I want to do and when I want to do them. I guess a less combative answer would be ‘everything’, but the question is simply too annoying to not answer with ‘nothing’.

    Today I have had to revise my answer as my wife gets supremely annoyed by the fact that I am ‘rude’ when answering these all too common questions. Today I answer: ‘ideally nothing, but if I had to work I would like to write in some form, probably blogging’. A much more courteous and amicable answer for my wife’s sake.

    Why though does this questions bother my so very much? Because it really is none of the other persons business, for just having met someone it is a very personal question. One that I would have a hard time even talking about with family, let alone someone I just met. My wife would argue that these people are just trying to get to know me, and it is a polite question. I would argue that if they want to get to know me they should ask what I have been up to, or what my interests are – and just because a question is common it does not mean the question is polite.

    Bottom Line

    I guess though if you put a gun to my head, the point I am really trying to get across in not so clear words is that we should just talk to one another, we shouldn’t seek to interrogate each other. What do we gain from quizzing one another? What do we gain for knowing a persons job or salary? I would much rather know your opinions and thoughts on any topic you want to converse about, because that truly helps to expand my mind and challenges both of us.

    Life isn’t about knowing the details of a persons life, it is about debate, discussion, conversation, interaction – all things that are missed with the annoying interrogations that so very often frequent modern ‘socializing situations’.

    Then again, this could just be the introvert in me popping up.

  • Are Verizon Execs Dickheads?

    Verizon is the largest U.S. carrier of mobile telecommunications, we all know that – why then don’t they have the iPhone, they aren’t getting the first crack at Windows Mobile 7, they didn’t get Android first, they aren’t getting the Samsung Galaxy Tab first either. So what the hell is going on at Verizon, surely they want some stuff first, right?

    I have no inside info, nor do I still know anyone who currently works for Verizon, but the logical guess is that they must be dicks to try and work with. Think about it, it would be a huge win for Microsoft to sell through Verizon first as it takes the iPhone as a direct competitor (in so far as the iphone is AT&T only) out of the picture, it would also be a great win for Verizon (more choices that aren’t on AT&T). So surely Microsoft went to them first and there was something that kept it from happening, yet they were able to get a deal done with AT&T. Now there is no exclusivity, just the normal delay before everyone gets the phone, but that delay is a lucrative thing.

    So goes the tale for the other devices I mentioned, Verizon appears to be winding up in second place across the board with device makers. I have to say that at this point it must have something to do with the archaic views held by the senior executives at Verizon. What else could it be?

    That is, what else could be stopping all these hardware makers from working with the biggest and arguably the best mobile company in the U.S.? Egos that’s what. Ego is stopping Verizon from making huge profits and if you are a shareholder you damn well better be pissed.

    Egos are putting Verizon in the mindset that they are king pin and they can dictate what others should do – which Apple has proven with the iPhone – is something that consumers don’t want. Verizon is getting beaten by the competition they are beating themselves. If Verizon wants to succeed they need to open their eyes are start being amicable – or maybe the hardware makers are really the stupid ones – actually now that I think about it, probably both are given the recent lack of profits that lead to the LG and Nokia CEOs losing their jobs.

  • Is the iPad Still a Single Taskers Dream With iOS 4.2 & Multitasking? Yep.

    That seems to be the question on many pundits minds over the past few days, now that I have the update (iOS developer program) I can tell you that 4.2 still keeps the iPad user just as focused. Even more it keeps the user more productive.

    I saw quite a few posts where people were concerned that the focused environment the iPad forces upon you will all be lost once it gains multitasking support. Well that is all just a load of crap, yes you can switch apps quickly with multitasking, but that is all that really changes – you still only see one app (fullscreen) at a time.

    I think that is perhaps the key to the single-tasking, focused work environment that the iPad offers – one app on your screen at a time. You are so easily distracted on your computer because you can see all the incoming email notifications, the growl popups, the Twitter replies – you can even have all these things on the same screen at once if you want to pretend you are in hell.

    The iPad though is different, it is zen. You launch Simplenote, pop it into full screen mode and you can’t see anything else. That is focus, that is single tasking, that is then what everyone loves about the iPad. Multitasking (at least in iOS 4.2 beta 1) changes none of this. Sure I have only had the beta running for one night, but I can tell you that without a doubt it does not change the focus you can achieve from using an iPad. Multitasking does not make a device into a computer (at least not the way that Apple has implemented it), all multitasking does is makes the device a little easier to use.

    The real change with iOS 4.2? Being able to use folders to organize apps – now that is useful.

  • QoTD: The cult of busy

    It’s the ability to pause, to reflect, and relax, to let the mind wander, that’s perhaps the true sign of time mastery, for when the mind returns it’s often sharper and more efficient, but most important perhaps, happier than it was before.–Scott Berkun

    [via Shawn Blanc]

  • For Most People the iPad Is Better Than the Kindle

    Earlier today Brett Kelly posted his thoughts on why (for him) the Kindle is a better book reader than the iPad:

    I know that a great many folks think that the iPad is a “Kindle killer” (ugh, always with the killing), but I can say pretty confidently that the Kindle is going to fill a void that the iPad couldn’t effectively fill: a light, small device whose single, express purpose is reading, not everything.

    I agree it will fill a niche market void that the iPad won’t (hipsters will be hipsters), for the mass market and most geeks the iPad will dominate the market. There are two very simple reasons why the iPad will be the choice for many: weight and price.

    The Kindle weighs 8 ounces more than just my iPad. You read that right, the iPad weighs more than the Kindle. The reason is simple, the iPad sucks at everything except reading books (and other magazine/newspaper subscriptions you may have on it) so if you want a full featured device like the iPad for non-reading times, well then you need to carry an iPad and a Kindle (thus making the kit weigh 8 ounces more).

    By the same logic then the Kindle costs you $139-189 more than an iPad. Again you would have to buy the Kindle and the iPad to get the same amount of functionality.

    I have no doubt that a great many of you will disagree with this logic, and some may say you could buy a netbook and a Kindle for the price of an iPad (you could but you would be an idiot – netbooks suck a lot) but the point here is reading right? There have only been two instances when I missed my Kindle, hiking and being in the sunny outdoors (luckily I live in Seattle so sun is a rare occasion). Hiking is obvious, all I want are some books to read, perfect fit for the light weight, longer lived battery in the Kindle. Outdoors is a screen issue, which again is not something I run into more than a few times a year.

    I like the concept of minimalism, and single serving applications and gadgets, but I cannot justify carrying two devices when just one would do. On my recent trip to Vegas I took only my iPad, I used to for everything including reading books. Had I brought a Kindle to read on instead I would have had to add the iPad in a bigger bag (this bag is not fitting an iPad and Kindle), or my Macbook Pro in an even larger bag. As someone who takes stuff to and from work everyday with him the Kindle simply does not make sense.

    Hell the Kindle doesn’t even make sense for my Mom or Dad, they can do 99% of their home computing on an iPad, and read books with it (my Dad actually does, perhaps my Mom will around Christmas time). Why would I buy either of my parents a Kindle and a computer/iPad device? It is just to complicated, it is the difference between having 18 remotes to work your home entertainment system instead of just getting one really good universal remote (I am not talking about those crap ones that never work, I am talking about those $300+ remotes that kick ass).

    I guess what I am trying to say is that there are a few times a year when a Kindle would be more convenient and then there is the other 99% of the time when an iPad would be killer. Your choice.

  • I Remember When: Tribute to Mac OS X’s Tenth Birthday

    Today marks the tenth anniversary of the release of the Mac OS X beta. It wouldn’t be for another three years that I would get my first taste of OS X on an iBook during a communications course at my University. A year later I would come home to find my laptop stolen and a desperate need for a new computer. It was at this time that I purchased a Powerbook G4 12” – the most fabled and perhaps most loved Mac portable to date.

    Since the end of 2004 I have used Mac OS X non-stop, I am an early adopter on all Apple products and a hardcore fanboy. I have been thinking a bit about what Mac’s mean to me, specifically what if anything I should write on this anniversary of the platform.

    Piece of Mind

    Then it came to me, what I really truly love about OS X (putting aside the beautiful hardware) is the piece of mind that it gives me. Here are a few worries that Mac OS X made moot:

    • Anti-Virus Software
    • Windows Registry Issues
    • DLL files
    • Clippy (you know the MS Office paper clip helper guy)
    • Viruses
    • NetSend (if you don’t know what this is Google it)
    • Plastic computers
    • ‘Active Desktop’ Errors
    • Internet Explorer
    • ‘Safe mode’
    • ‘Safe mode w/ networking’
    • ! Important Install Drivers before plugging this peripheral in!
    • WinZip
    • PS/2 Ports
    • Little yellow bubbles in the corner of my screen

    Mac OS X, giving me piece of mind since 12/2004. Thanks Apple.

  • Need Help? Start Listening.

    You may or may not know this, but by day I am a commercial property manager, in a nutshell this means I collect rent, schedule maintenance, and listen to complaints. It is without fail that every working day I get the same type of call, someone has a problem and they need my help. This is not problem at all, in fact tjis is what I get paid to do, the problem is when the person calling won’t stop talking.

    For example, it was noon one day and I received a call from a tenant (let’s call him Steve) telling me that he never received a copy of his lease, as I promised to send him. I knew I had mailed it out, but patiently waited for Steve to finish the explanation of why I had lied to him. When Steve finished I explained that I had mailed it and it must have been lost. I told Steve I would not be able to send another copy until the next business day, but in the mean time I could just email him a PDF copy so that he could look for what he wanted to.

    At some point between when Steve stopped talking and before I started talking, Steve stopped listening. When I was done telling him the above he reiterated that he never got a copy, a copy that he really needed, despite the fact that I told him I would send him a copy. At this point Steve and I are both frustrated. Steve wants his copy 3-months ago and is pissed he doesn’t have it now. I am frustrated that the mail is making me look like a liar and that Steve is not listening to what I am saying. This banter between Steve and I ensues for another 5 minutes.

    I finally lose my cool and forcefully tell Steve his options, get an emailed copy now and a hard copy in a couple of days, or wait for the hard copy to come in a couple of days. Simple right? Then Steve tells me that the PDF is 29 pages and will take up way too much file space, not to mention that he does not want to pay to print out 29 pages. I ignore for the moment that he is basically telling me that he is too cheap to print it out and would rather I do so while paying for the postage, and tell him that he can view a PDF on the screen for free. ((Seriously I had to tell him this.))

    At the end of the conversation I get Steve’s email address and email him the lease and mail him the hard copy. The kicker: Steve has a Gmail address, meaning he really doesn’t have to worry about file storage.

    Time to Listen

    This type of conversation happens to me everyday. I listen to peoples problems and they don’t listen to the solutions that I offer. Had Steve listened to what I said the first time around we could have been off the phone with a satisfactory result in less than 5 minutes. Instead Steve took the approach that many before him had, he beat his chest to let me know who was in charge.

    The thing that Steve and so many other people don’t realize is if you are asking someone else for help, then it is because you need their help not the other way around. In fact Steve never asked for my help, he demanded it and when I started to help he ignored it.

    Take this Advice

    No matter your company size, your position, your age, your sex, your race – if you are asking someone for help you better be prepared to listen to them when they offer it. Once you stop listening, people will stop wanting to help you – when that happens you mine as well be beating your chest in the mirror.

  • Twitter for iPad – Extended Look

    There has been a lot of mixed feelings about the new Twitter for iPad app, and I have really neglected to write anything because I didn’t really know where I stood until now. Listening to the latest episode of The Talk Show with Dan Benjamin and John Gruber I really started to become annoyed with how they were talking about Twitter for the iPad (I completely agree about their thoughts on Tweetie for Mac).

    The UI

    Yes, the UI is nothing short of different bordering on crazy. When I first started using it (in landscape mode) I was really annoyed that the right 2 inches of the screen is nothingness. Then I clicked on a tweet and it all made sense, a sliding columnar view – OK I get it. Much like Instapaper and Kindle or iBooks, Twitter for iPad really shines in Portrait orientation.

    What irks many people is that the sliding interface seems to odd, making the entire app feel wrong. There is also much criticism over the new tweet field, Milind Alvares nails the problem:

    My only problem with the compose window UI, is the freakin thing is so narrow, you can hardly type something without it overflowing from the view. Not just that. The actions are floating inside the window, so if you’ve typed something long, you can’t see the character count unless you scroll to the bottom. There’s no reason that compose window needs to be so narrow, let along have the actions floating at the bottom. I hope this is fixed in the next release.

    I agree and so do many others, but this is version 1, this is expected to have a few annoyances. Overall I think the UI is far better than every other Twitter app that the iPad has seen to date. If you are a multiple account user you will love it too, you don’t have to back out of the tweet stream to switch accounts, it is always sitting on the left side to flip between everything.

    The Best an iPad can get.

    Twitter for iPad is without a doubt the best Twitter client available on the iPad ((Yes I have used Twitterrific, and no it is not that great.)) I have several Twitter accounts but only two of which I regularly check (@benjaminbrooks and @brooksreview) with all the others I have tried this was a pain. Twitter for iPad fits perfectly with how I use Twitter and perhaps that is the real crux of the issue. Twitter for iPad is not as universal as the iPhone version is, meaning it is not for everyone.

    One Major Annoyance

    One thing that I find beyond annoying is the way that Twitter for iPad opens TwitPic (among other photo sharing options) pictures. I don’t need to see the entire damn website, just load the picture like almost all the other Twitter clients do. This is beyond annoying to me.

    Version 1

    In the end it is pertinent to remember this is the first app that Twitter has released for the iPad – which excites me. If this is how much they can do on their first try, then there is no telling just what they will be able to do with more time and feedback.

  • OmniFocus: Why You Don’t Need All 3 Versions

    Earlier this week something odd happened, my Father came to me asking if he should pick Things or OmniFocus for task management. Naturally I recommended OmniFocus, but I quickly warned him to take price into consideration. If you were to buy the Mac client, iPhone app and iPad app of OmniFocus you would spend a grand total of $139.97, before any of your local taxes. That is no small chunk of change.

    That’s when the wild notion hit me; maybe you don’t really need to buy all three versions. I already knew that I could get by with just one version of OmniFocus, I have done it in the past when on vacation, but what I really wanted to know is how I use each version of OmniFocus. To figure that out I decided to pay very close attention to what I do in each version over the past 3 days, what I found out surprised me a bit.

    OmniFocus for Mac

    The Mac version costs a whopping $79.99, so this is the easiest one to save some real money on. What I found is that I use the quick entry panel the most out of all the other features on the Mac version, I use Quick Entry about 3-4 times during the day. The rest of the time I only used to OmniFocus for the Mac to reschedule tasks.

    Honestly over the past three days I have only used the Mac version of OmniFocus to entry a few tasks and reschedule a few tasks, nothing else. This is astounding to me, given that it was just under a year ago that I spent at least an hour a day using the program.

    OmniFocus for iPhone

    The iPhone version comes in at a high price (for an iPhone app) of $19.99 and is the cheapest of all three. Being around now since just shortly after Apple allowed 3rd party apps I have gotten quite used to using OmniFocus for the iPhone.

    Over the past three days my usage has been quite a bit on the iPhone. The two main things I do with the iPhone version are: quick entry of new action items, and viewing of what I need to do. The iPhone in GTD terms is my ubiquitous capture tool, it is where 9/10 times I will input actions items that are on my mind. Due to this my iPhone with OmniFocus has become a very valuable tool in my proverbial tool bag.

    OmniFocus for iPad

    Weighing in at $39.99 for the app, OmniFocus again pushes the upper echelon ((What a fun word to say.)) for iPad app pricing. Over three days of monitoring I have found that I use the iPad version to do the following things: view what needs to be done, check off completed items, filter items added to the inbox (set the context, project and due date), organize the rest of my actions.

    In other words out of all three of the apps I use the iPad app the most. As I have mentioned before I really love the forecast view that the iPad app offers, it is by far the best way to see what you need to do and when they need to be done. More than that the way the new action window / editing actions window is setup is by far the best and easiest way to assign contexts, projects and due dates to your actions items.

    Assigning this data to actions is by far faster on the Mac, but once I get to work I usually won’t process new actions items. I usually will only process actions items when I wake up, and at night before I go to bed, making the iPad app even more of an optimal experience even if it takes a bit longer to accomplish.

    Save Yourself $99

    If like many people out there right now you are trying to figure out if OmniFocus is right for you, save yourself $99.98 and just buy the iPad app to begin with. You can do everything you can on all the other versions and it is by far the best version of OmniFocus. If after a bit you find that you have really taken to OmniFocus (and you will) go get the iPhone app for another $19.99. ((Don’t worry OmniFocus will sync without the Mac client in the mix.))

    At this point I know that I could get by without the Mac app. Not everyone has all three devices, but if you do I don’t see a compelling reason right now to buy the Mac version of OmniFocus. Unless of course you have $79.99 kicking around that you want to part with.

  • Calendar Apps Suck, Here Are My Suggestions

    I would guess that most of us use a calendar tool of some sort, maybe you stick to paper calendars, but if you read this blog I would guess you use a digital calendar of some sort. The problem with digital calendars though is that they all suck, at least all the ones that I have tried.

    The user interface of most calendar apps is set to mimic old day planners, failing to take advantage of the dynamic digital interface that is at their disposal. Further most digital calendars exist in their own bubble, much like PCs before networking was standard, no calendar program talks to the other (unless you have an expensive Exchange or iCal Server setup, which most people don’t and even then you are restricted to those using your server).

    I spent a good three hours today driving around to and from various appointments, this gave me way too much time to ponder about the state of digital calendars. Luckily (for whom I don’t know) I came up with some ideas on how to fix calendar apps.

    Getting Rid of Simulated Paper Views

    First things first, all calendars suck at showing the data that we store in them. Who wants to see 30 boxes arranged in a grid with tiny text? Who wants to see only what they need to do today? Who needs to see the past days of the week when you use a week view? I would guess that for most of you these views are mostly useless, most useless is the seemingly more popular ‘list view’ where you get a list of upcoming events with times. Yeah, that isn’t very helpful in spatially planning your time, now is it?

    Here is what my iCal looks like in the view I always look at it in, week view:

    iCal Week View.png

    Here is the same view on the iPad:

    iPad Week View.PNG

    And lastly the day view on the iPhone (because all the other view options suck):

    iphonecalendar.PNG

    Can anyone honestly tell me that those views work perfectly for them? Because I think they suck, actually I think they really suck.

    Here is how I would like to see it (click for larger view):

    iCal Redesigned (Concept)

    You get ‘today’ a bit larger than the rest, since it is the most pertinent. You see the next three days, as I don’t plan a whole lot much more in advance, nor do I need to worry about it sooner than a fews days away. My reasoning for three days is so that on Friday you would be able to see Monday’s events in the view, thus helping those of us that work M-F. Additionally this doesn’t show you the past days, because really how often do you need to refer to your calendar to see what you did yesterday?

    Additionally I used one column to show a list view of upcoming events. The idea behind adding this list view (even though I hate list views) is to help people see just how busy they are coming up, and as a quick point of reference when you are on the phone planning a meeting. If you are on the phone you wouldn’t have to switch from the current week to see your upcoming schedule instead you get an idea of what is going on and can click a link to add a future event.

    I think this would be pretty sweet, but that may just be me.

    Time to get Calendars Networked

    I despise the refusal that calendar app creators have when it comes to getting all the clients talking to one another. Yes you can ‘invite’ someone to a meeting, but that is it. Unless you have iCal Server or Exchange you can’t see when they are free, or do a search for next available time everyone I want to invite has. It is 2010 and we have yet to figure proper scheduling, instead we waste time sending around 50 emails with 100 people CC’d and hitting reply all to figure out that everyone is free on Tuesday at 10.

    Have you ever used iCal to invite someone to an event? Have you? It sucks. If the other person is using a Mac (which is not guaranteed) they get the option of Accepting or Declining. So if you happened to invite them when they are not free all the can do is decline, leaving you wondering if they don’t want to meet or if you just picked a bad time. If they are a Windows Outlook user forget about it, rarely does it work – often they have to manually reply.

    If I send out an invite to three people all using Macs (let’s not ask for too much here) I should be able to immediately get automated responses letting me know if that person is not free, and if they are busy the computer should suggest 3 other times I can pick from that works for everyone – all without the end user ever having to see the request, yet. Once a time that works for everyone is seen we should then be asked if we want to attend, and given the option to add a custom response in – that way the communication is kept clear.

    Why is it that I can’t attach a meeting agenda to the invite? That seems stupid, and trivial to do. Come on, I mean is anybody really trying to make a decent calendar program because I really get the feeling that I must be the only using a calendar at times.

    Home Scheduling

    Right now my household is just my Wife and I, and I can’t imagine how bad it will be scheduling things later in life when we add kids to the mix. Why is it that we can only subscribe to each others calendars? Why isn’t there just an option to make an event a ‘joint event’ where by one of us creates the event and it is automatically added to both our calendars, no acceptance needed. It would also immediately give an overlay of my calendar on hers when she goes to add a joint event so she can see if I am free (and vice versa).

    Right now if we want to do something like this we have to use shared calendars (to make sure we are both free) and then invite each other to the events. How 1999 is that? Sure there are other web based options, but none that my Wife really wants to be using, if you want my wife to use it then it needs to be made super easy.

    I’m Busy

    I would also like to set times where the calendar app knows that I am busy (e.g. After 5pm before 7am and on weekends and holidays) and if I get an invitation during those times it is automatically declined with my pre-typed reason as to why. This is a tiny thing, but time savers like this really add up and keep you focused.

    Location Aware

    I figured we better hit on the hot topic of late, and I wonder why calendar apps don’t seem to know where things are. By that I don’t mean that they should know when I am at a particular place, but where things are in relation to one another. For instance if I set a meeting at 8a in Seattle, WA and another at 10a in Portland, OR shouldn’t my calendar program be smart enough to know that this is impossible. That is a 3+ hour drive, no way I can make it to both meetings.

    I would like to see calendaring programs that take into account drive times. What if you could set a meeting to start at 10a, but remind you at 9:30a and block out the 15 minutes before the meeting as the needed travel time. How cool would that be? Then when you get an invite using the new invite system I devised above, the computer would be able to tell if that time is available and if you would even have time to get from one place to another. This is in the realm of possibility, so why isn’t any one doing it?

    Money

    As we all know this comes down to money, who wants to pay $50 for a good calendar app? I know I would, and a handful of others probably would, but enough people to make the product profitable? That is the real question, and the only way to find out is to try.