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Leica Sofort 2June 13, 2024
Grand Seiko SBGX261February 23, 2023
Casio Duro MDV-106 Re-ReviewDecember 15, 2022
Recent Articles
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“OmniFocus Barriers to Entry”
J. Eddie Smith, IV on why you should and shouldn’t buy OmniFocus: Like any power tool, OmniFocus’s features are best appreciated if you come to OmniFocus with a real need for those features. It will probably fail in utility if you try to fit your workflow to the features. Don’t buy bandaids so you can…
J. Eddie Smith, IV on why you should and shouldn’t buy OmniFocus:
Like any power tool, OmniFocus’s features are best appreciated if you come to OmniFocus with a real need for those features. It will probably fail in utility if you try to fit your workflow to the features. Don’t buy bandaids so you can cut your arm.
I think he is dead wrong here. One of the greatest assets of OmniFocus is the fact that it is an incredibly flexible piece of software that can — and will — adapt to most user’s workflows. You don’t need to understand action versus project, or even know what a context is, you just need to understand how those parts of the app work together with each other.
I can guarantee you that I don’t use OmniFocus in the same way that someone like Merlin Mann uses it and that he uses it differently than the next guy — that is precisely why I an unequivocally recommend the app to anyone. I know that OmniFocus will transform into what any user needs it to be in order to get work done.
Beyond price, the real barrier to entry for OmniFocus is not a lack of GTD understanding — it is a lack of OmniFocus understanding. You absolutely must take time and use the app, once you do that you will begin to see just how you can slot it right into your workflow.
(I buy bandaids in case of a cut on my arm, because I know that I will need them at some point.)
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Three Reasons I Don’t Use Twitterrific
Dave Caolo lists three reasons that he uses Twitterrific on the Mac, which is funny because I think they are three reasons why you shouldn’t use Twitterrific.
Dave Caolo lists three reasons that he uses Twitterrific on the Mac, which is funny because I think they are three reasons why you shouldn’t use Twitterrific.
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Sprint & T-Mobile’s Fate
A quick visit to both Sprint and T-Mobile’s websites will show you two companies that are hocking cheap Android phones — no exclusive brands that are set to entice anybody born in the last 40 years. The last big “win” for T-Mobile was getting the first “Google” phone, the G1, way back when. The last…
A quick visit to both Sprint and T-Mobile’s websites will show you two companies that are hocking cheap Android phones — no exclusive brands that are set to entice anybody born in the last 40 years. The last big “win” for T-Mobile was getting the first “Google” phone, the G1, way back when. The last win for Sprint was the EVO — and that was only because it was hilariously large, with a power hungry 4G antenna in it.
Fast forward to right now and both companies provoke a contagious
*YAWN*effect on me. Before they could team up with Verizon and berate AT&T for crappy coverage and push Android phones on to unsuspecting consumers, but now they are relegated to being two smaller carriers with no iPhone.Not a comfortable position to be in.
Sprint has a ton of corporate customers that stem back to the days when they had the best mobile coverage in D.C. and when they merged with Nextel (you know the original push to talk guys). T-Mobile has a bunch of fans of Catherine Zeta-Jones and magenta lovers. ((Not really, please don’t email me about this.))
I think T-Mobile will be fine in the long run, they have a small but loyal following and a network that is already compatible with the iPhone. It would be simple for Apple to get the iPhone on T-Mobile and my guess would be that the next version of the iPhone will be available on T-Mobile — it just makes sense at this point. ((Not to mention that once people started unlocking their iPhones they began using them on T-Mobile and, surprisingly, T-Mobile has always embraced this practice.))
Sprint’s story is a different one though. They are making a hard push for 4G devices and they run on a CDMA network. While the Verizon version of the iPhone should be able to work on Sprint, it isn’t as simple of an argument for Sprint to get the iPhone. For one Sprint seems like a stodgy antiquated company ((Their CEO walks around in B&W on the commercials for crying out loud.)) and I am not sure that they see an immediate need to get the iPhone. Perhaps they wait until a 4G one comes out, perhaps not. While I am not saying that there won’t be a Sprint iPhone, I am saying that it doesn’t seem to match the feature set the company has been pushing for quite a while now. Sprint likes to tout 4G speed (they own part of Clear that provides a lot of that speed) and they like to tout rugged construction type phones and lastly at the opposite end they like to show smart business savvy phones. What they don’t ever show is fun — and fun is what the iPhone is all about.
Carrying the iPhone would go against what both companies seem to be marketing right now: faster phones on faster networks. They aren’t marketing reliability or snazzy phones, but they are dinging AT&T and Verizon on network speeds. All of the major U.S. carriers are trying to roll out their version of “4G” networks as fast as they can, but it is T-Mobile that has now really gone on the offensive against AT&T about network speed.
How can T-Mobile go back on this now if they were to offer the iPhone that only does 3G speeds? Their 3G network is, in use, slower than AT&T’s. It seems funny that a industry that used to be everyone versus AT&T and the iPhone has now become one that is the little guys versus AT&T and Verizon.
The way I see it Sprint and T-Mobile have two options:
- Continue this silly fight the way it is right now, where you attack the slower competitors networks, to only fold eventually when Apple grants you access to the iPhone. Then hope that the iPhone keeps your customer base intact for the next five years.
- Accept that customers don’t care about anything you have to offer and figure out what to give them that they actually care about. I would start with pricing and customer service. From there I would call Microsoft and start to get some sweet Windows Phone 7 exclusives on my network. Then I would call HP and get some hot ass WebOS devices too. The iPhone only wins if everyone decides it’s not worth fighting against.
Choose option 2 — please.
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More on iPad Usage in Meetings
David Sparks weighs in on how he uses the iPad in meetings: Instead, I use it to make me look brilliant. I’m okay with that.
David Sparks weighs in on how he uses the iPad in meetings:
Instead, I use it to make me look brilliant. I’m okay with that.
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Matt Drance on the Subscription Mess
Matt Drance: Are Apple staffers seriously going to check every vendor website for sale prices on a regular basis? A great question. The short answer: no way.
Matt Drance:
Are Apple staffers seriously going to check every vendor website for sale prices on a regular basis?
A great question. The short answer: no way.
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Quick Response (QR) Codes on Permits
Mayor (of New York) Mike Bloomberg’s Blog: By scanning the QR code on these documents, New Yorkers will learn more information about who is performing this work, including the addresses and telephone numbers of property owners and job applicants, which is typically a licensed architect or engineer or general contractor on the project. That’s a…
Mayor (of New York) Mike Bloomberg’s Blog:
By scanning the QR code on these documents, New Yorkers will learn more information about who is performing this work, including the addresses and telephone numbers of property owners and job applicants, which is typically a licensed architect or engineer or general contractor on the project.
That’s a clever use.
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Getting Out of a Speeding Ticket With a Smartphone
A clever use of GPS tracking data.
A clever use of GPS tracking data.
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“It’s a Matter Of Power”
Randy Murray recalling a conversation with a traveler on a plane who had a dead laptop battery: “I had a full charge when I sat down in the terminal.” iPad FTW.
Randy Murray recalling a conversation with a traveler on a plane who had a dead laptop battery:
“I had a full charge when I sat down in the terminal.”
iPad FTW.
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Quote of the Day: James Shelley
“Productivity, as an isolated concept, can be the greatest red herring on the horizon.” — James Shelley As a side note you really should be reading James Shelley’s blog, it is full of great prose and high level thinking. I love it.
“Productivity, as an isolated concept, can be the greatest red herring on the horizon.”As a side note you really should be reading James Shelley’s blog, it is full of great prose and high level thinking. I love it.
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Brett Terpstra’s Filing System
If you are a fan of tagging your files then I think Mr. Terpstra has the system of all systems. This is impressively nerdy.
If you are a fan of tagging your files then I think Mr. Terpstra has the system of all systems. This is impressively nerdy.
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Responding to Richard Gaywood of TUAW
Richard Gaywood called me and others out over at TUAW today and asks this of us about Apple’s policy change: To the bloggers above and to the many others passionately defending this change, I simply ask: why am I supposed to be happy about this? Or to put it another way: if all those apps…
Richard Gaywood called me and others out over at TUAW today and asks this of us about Apple’s policy change:
To the bloggers above and to the many others passionately defending this change, I simply ask: why am I supposed to be happy about this? Or to put it another way: if all those apps disappear from my devices, what’s in it for millions of end users like me?
The better question is: how has this negatively impacted you, the user, thus far? Sure Readability was rejected, but apps are rejected every day. You can’t be negatively impacted by that rejection unless you work for Readability — meaning you never had that app to begin with so you don’t know if you would have even liked it.
The entire basis of Gaywood’s frustration (and others) is predicated on the idea of “what might happen” and not on a more clear “what is happening”. The App Store has never been black and white, so to call these new rules “clear” is to show a fundamental lack of comprehension of how the App Store has been run to date. The App Store has been built on a set of gray rules — granted and very dark gray, but gray nonetheless. To assume now that the rules are suddenly black and white is to make a rather bold assumption.
Again, we all need to take two steps back, a deep breath, and wait to see how this plays out in June — when supposedly it is do or die time for current apps violating these rules.
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Microsoft, It Is Time to Pull Your Heads out of Your Asses and Start Marketing Windows Phone 7
Here’s what I think when I see advertising for Windows Phone 7: “lost opportunity”. Microsoft, it is high time that you pull your head out of your ass and start properly marketing Windows Phone 7, lest you become further irrelevant in the only technology space that matters right now — mobile. I for one couldn’t…
Here’s what I think when I see advertising for Windows Phone 7: “lost opportunity”.
Microsoft, it is high time that you pull your head out of your ass and start properly marketing Windows Phone 7, lest you become further irrelevant in the only technology space that matters right now — mobile. I for one couldn’t care less about seeing your commercials that mock me — you know the ones that portray someone who is constantly looking at their phone. Why are you alienating the very market that you need for the long term success of your platform?
Here’s a thought: why not show me one compelling reason to use Windows Phone 7 — and you do have some compelling reasons.
Here, I can help get you started:
- Market the fact that your Metro UI is completely different from anything else on the market. Apple built multi-million dollar campaigns around the idea of ‘different’ and it worked out pretty well for them. Certainly you can fire up the copy machines and give it a whirl — you have nothing left to lose.
- iTunes as a syncing platform is slow and crappy. Surely Windows Phone 7 being made by the same company that makes the worlds most common OS can better integrate their phone’s syncing than their competitor can? Meaning why not talk about how easy and seamless it is to sync Windows Phone 7 with, uh, Windows? I mean Apple and Google aren’t even advertising ease of sync.
- You have a great, well known, partner in Nokia — why not advertise that two fantastic companies are now going to make some fantastic phones. Build some hype here. Or even just show off some of the phones that you have so people know that they don’t look like the old crappy Windows Mobile phones…
There are three ideas from a die-hard iPhone fan that could finally give Windows Phone 7 the recognition it deserves. Ball is in your court Ballmer.
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Marco Arment on Subscriptions and the new In-App Purchase requirement
Marco Arment makes a compelling argument against the new IAP and subscription policy: But one argument that Apple should care about: this policy will prevent many potentially great apps, from many large and small publishers, from being created on iOS at all. The above quoted bit is key. Is this new policy the deterrent that…
Marco Arment makes a compelling argument against the new IAP and subscription policy:
But one argument that Apple should care about: this policy will prevent many potentially great apps, from many large and small publishers, from being created on iOS at all.
The above quoted bit is key. Is this new policy the deterrent that will push developers to other platforms? I don’t think so, but many others think it is.
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Gruber on Readability’s iOS App Rejection
John Gruber taking a very similar stance to mine: What they’re pissed about is that Apple has the stronger hand. Readability needs Apple to publish an app in the App Store. Apple doesn’t need Readability. Actually you should read all of his comments.
John Gruber taking a very similar stance to mine:
What they’re pissed about is that Apple has the stronger hand. Readability needs Apple to publish an app in the App Store. Apple doesn’t need Readability.
Actually you should read all of his comments.
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Quote of the Day: Matt Mullenweg
“You think your business is different, that you’re only going to have one shot at press and everything needs to be perfect for when Techcrunch brings the world to your door. But if you only have one shot at getting an audience, you’re doing it wrong.” — Matt Mullenweg
“You think your business is different, that you’re only going to have one shot at press and everything needs to be perfect for when Techcrunch brings the world to your door. But if you only have one shot at getting an audience, you’re doing it wrong.” -
iPhone Notes App Comparison
A great run down of the feature differences between four fairly popular iOS note apps. Nicely done.
A great run down of the feature differences between four fairly popular iOS note apps. Nicely done.
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Readability’s App Rejection
Today we saw the first rejection of a SaaS app and that has lead to a flood of email to me — because I have defended Apple in the past. Even Readability agrees with me according to their open letter: To be clear, we believe you have every right to push forward such a policy.…
Today we saw the first rejection of a SaaS app and that has lead to a flood of email to me — because I have defended Apple in the past.
Even Readability agrees with me according to their open letter:
To be clear, we believe you have every right to push forward such a policy. In our view, it’s your hardware and your channel and you can put forth any policy you like. But to impose this course on any web service or web application that delivers any value outside of iOS will only discourage smaller ventures like ours to invest in iOS apps for our services. As far as Readability is concerned, our response is fairly straight-forward: go the other way… towards the web.
They are doing exactly what I argued for — either agreeing to Apple’s terms or moving on. They are choosing to move on, given Apple’s policies — who knows what that means for their business, but they made a choice. Everything I have seen posted about this so far is whiny — again — this is no different from a change in the law and as a company you need to figure out how to move past it, not complain about it. Readability is moving past it and kudos to them for that.
MG Siegler writes:
At 30 percent, most of these simply could not afford to stay in business. It’s ridiculous. And Apple needs to either wave the fee or cut it down to some low single digit percentage in circumstances beyond traditional media publishers.
(in Siegler’s defense he does agree that Apple has every right to charge this fee.)
This is the view that most people are taking and rightfully so, but don’t think for one second that I agree with it. Apple needs to do nothing for you. If you want Apple to start listening to users there is only one way to do it: speak with your wallet. If you want Apple to change its App Store policies tell it so by ceasing to buy anything from the App Store.
But Apple isn’t the greediest are they — developers want 100% of this and 90% of that — yet they didn’t create the iPhone, the iPad, or iOS. They aren’t bringing 100 million credit cards to the table. That may seem mean and certainly not all developers feel this way — but if you are going to do business in the U.S. you need to pay Uncle Sam his cut — it sucks but that’s the way it is. If you want to do business in the App Store then you need to pay Apple its cut.
Or:
If you want to jump on Tommy’s trampoline then you are going to have to be friends with Tommy and that means going to his stupid birthday parties and playing by his rules — but its a freaking trampoline so its worth it.
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Breakup Notifier
Because the only reason you are using Facebook is to track who is sleeping with whom.
Because the only reason you are using Facebook is to track who is sleeping with whom.