Category: Links

Casey Liss still likes his Apple Watch:

Thinking of the Apple Watch as a standalone device that replaces the functionality of your phone is a fool’s errand. The Apple Watch improves your visibility into what is happening in your phone, like a satellite giving you a bird’s eye view of the earth. Neither will give you great detail about what is happening, but either can give you a lot of general information very quickly.

Liss’ post is great and I completely agree with him. The Apple Watch is an awesome device for me everyday — it’s hard for me to understand why people don’t like the device.

Nice follow on from Manton Reece, where he talks about why patience is a double edged sword.

Barry Ritholtz:

The Chamber’s priorities are aligned with the small number of companies that are its largest contributors. Maybe that’s only natural. In any case, it no longer seems like the organization serves the interests of business at large.

This is a great post from Om Malik.

Michael Tsai on TextExpander 6:

For me, the new service is actually a regression because it’s less private. I trust the folks at Smile, but as a matter of policy I don’t like to give apps network access without good reason. Before, TextExpander could run without network access, it would sync via Dropbox, and I could see all the data in the Dropbox folder. Now, you need to log into an account just to launch the app, and the app itself uploads all of your snippets to a server, which is not encrypted, even if you don’t want to sync with any other devices. Smile says that no keystroke data is uploaded, however. Furthermore, the app isn’t sandboxed (because Apple does not offer the right entitlement), so in addition to having access to everything I type it can also access every file on the Mac.

This is a pretty comprehensive overview of the situation with TextExpander 6. My biggest concern, as a user, is the privacy implications of my stuff sitting on Smile’s servers in what sounds like an unencrypted fashion. I don’t like that one bit.

A nice look at the bundling, folding, and rolling packing methods. They like the rolling method best as that left the most room. Personally, I remain unconvinced and still use a combination of all three methods depending on what I am packing.

I tend to fold pants, roll t-shirts, and bundle button down shirts. I have no clue how good my method is, but it seems to work.

Brian Stucki with the announcement:

In short, I’ve decided to sell ownership of Macminicolo and merge it with another company. I will stay on as President of Macminicolo and also serve as a Vice President of the parent company, MacStadium.

I truly hope this works out, as this is a company I absolutely rely on. I do have a lot of faith in Stucki and give him the benefit of the doubt — he’s been a huge part of keeping this site going.

Kiril Savino on moving to an iPad Pro:

While the iPad as a whole is going through an awkward phase, this feels like the end game. App developers need to realize that this is the platform of the future, and get their apps optimized for the iPad Pro.

Nice thoughts on Apple’s Classroom app from Fraser Speirs. I really think this is going to be a killer tool as it matures.

Johanna Romero talking about her transition to iOS only:

Everything else I needed to do with a computer, I was able to do with my iPad Air 2. Albeit with a smaller screen and only 16GB of storage space (a device limitation I’ve sworn I would never put myself through again).

Colin Devroe does a good job summing up iCloud Photo Library first experiences — including the slow initial sync. It is, as he says, amazing once it is all setup and working because stuff syncs fast. I’ve been relying on it since it came out and have yet to be disappointed.

It is done in a way that no third party service could match the ease of use and convenience of it all.

Tom Bihn’s blog on a new fabric they are using in packing cubes:

Aether is an ultra-light, 100% nylon fabric from Japan. It has a unique and somewhat complex construction, combining 30 denier monofilament with both 100 denier and 200 denier yarns in a micro-ripstop weave that further increases its tear strength. Like most of our fabrics, Aether is coated on the backside with urethane for weather resistance, as well as having a surface treatment of durable water repellant. Though its hand is a bit crisp when new, we greatly prefer Aether’s aesthetic over commonly available silicone-coated nylons. It’s light, but surprisingly tough. As far as we know, we’re the first manufacturer to use Aether.

I’ve had a chance to use these packing cubes with this fabric for sometime now, and it is outstanding. I was concerned about the weight saving move they made with the zippers, but that concern has proven unfounded. This fabric is so thin and somewhat transparent — I just love the look and feel.

Practically speaking, what I love is that these new packing cubes have no weight or space downside when you use them. I’ve just been tossing a couple empty ones in my bag each trip, and you don’t even notice them. Great stuff.

Federico Viticci on the new fast charging setup for iPad Pro 12.9″ users:

The performance gap between the 29W and 12W power adapters is simply too big to ignore: every iPad Pro user would want to spend less time charging their device and end up with more battery, more quickly. The 12W power adapter essentially brings glorified iPhone charging to the iPad Pro – a subpar experience that, at this point, is barely acceptable.

I too picked up the new USB-C to Lightning cable (arrived yesterday) to try out, since I already had one 29W charger — I’ll be heading over to get another 29W charger tonight. The speed of charging is fantastic.

Maciej Ceglowski on why the IFTTT support will stop working. I’ve gone ahead and taken the liberty to delete my account from IFTTT. You might do the same before they accidentally break that functionality or some shit.

Michael Rockwell responding to my post about the new 9.7″ iPad Pro:

For me, the 9.7-inch iPad strikes the perfect balance between power and portability — I can get all of my work done without a hitch and the device’s size would never be considered unwieldy, regardless of the setting.”

I agree, but again few will like it as their primary computer. I got a chuckle out of the fact his primary Mac was an 11″ Air.

Manton Reece commenting on his sticking with the larger iPad Pro:

The keyboard really does transform the iPad. It’s great.

When the iPad Pro first came out, many people were stuck without the Pencil or the keyboard for it and so their enthusiasm was dampened quite a bit. Do yourself a favor and don’t even consider an iPad Pro without the Apple Pencil and Smart Keyboard Cover — you won’t find the device nearly as compelling without them.

This is a laughably bad post. Boag states the iPad Pro is a death by a thousand cuts, yet only offers three/four weak reasons:

1. It’s not a pro device despite it being called a pro device — he claims he will get to why later, but then calls that point 3.
2. It has no file system. Which isn’t true, it’s just designed differently and one would assume a designer like Boag would understand that.
3. This is an extension of his first point, which is essentially that the software isn’t there. What he really means is the software doesn’t feel pro, but his only example is Keynote. He mentions too that Safari serves only the mobile versions which hasn’t been my experience at all. But either way there is a serve full site button built in — perhaps he should take time to learn how to use an iPad.
4. It’s hard to choose which device. This is the classic “Apple has too many options” argument and has no direct bearing on the iPad Pro.

This whole post is an eyeroller and honestly I thought it might be a joke. I mean his images aren’t even of the iPad Pro, they are just of an iPad — and a fucking iPad 2 at that.

But I don’t want this post to be a rant. I want to see if there is something we can learn from the failure of the iPad Pro, as user experience professionals.

Your post failed to do anything at all. ((I don’t even know why I posted this link, but I assume it is because of how funny the images are that I felt compelled to share it.))

Dries Buytaert on the larger problems of the web today:

But algorithmic oversight is not enough. In numbers by the billions, people are using free and convenient services, often without a clear understanding of how and where their data is being used. Many times, this data is shared and exchanged between services, to the point where people don’t know what’s safe anymore. It’s an unfair trade-off.

Lots of really great thoughts in this post. A true must read post.

Om Malik writing about the future of transportation:

Just as iPhone made us rethink what we should expect from a phone and changed our behavior, a company like Uber is slowly changing our relationship with the car. Much like Tinder, which has changed the perception of what is romance, on-demand mobility is essentially training us for a future where ownership is a luxury.

Some really good thoughts in this post. What struck me the most: pre-iPhone, Motorola, Nokia, and BlackBerry were the kings of the mobile phone industry. Post iPhone it is Apple, HTC, and Samsung (among others). Will the same happen for the car industry?

Does GM, Ford, and others go the way of Nokia and Motorola? It sure seems like they don’t have the business mindset, and technological talent, to succeed.

Marcus Fehn on porting Ulysses to the iPhone:

If you look at the finished product, you may very well think it all looks so self-evident. “How could it ever have been different”, you may ask. And that’s great, because then we’ve done our job right. But again — this is work, people. Hard work.

They have truly done a fantastic job and I can’t wait for everyone to see it.