I wrote a little while back about finance software. I’m still using Koku, which I was writing about, but I’ve changed the way I capture my transactions on the go. I was using a specific list in Listary that synced to Simplenote which I was copying my transactions from into Koku. I gave that up in favor of Omnifocus for iPhone. Omnifocus continues to be my fall back for almost everything lately. It doesn’t work any differently than my list in Listary did, except that I’m guaranteed to check Omnifocus. I wasn’t always checking Simplenote/nvALT. I know, if I put something into Omnifocus, I will process it. Because of this, I put information into Omnifocus whenever possible. That way, I know, for sure, it’ll get done. They say that the best camera is the one you have. Maybe the best finance software is whatever you’ll use.
Tag: ios
I tried out Drafts this past week. I was skeptical of it because its developer also did Terminology, which I had heard was great, but didn’t really like. Agile Tortoise doesn’t make pretty apps. Drafts is also a bit of an eyesore. The original theme for Drafts was a mess of browns that looked like the inside of a toilet bowl after a large bowl of spicy curry. There’s a gray theme that isn’t much better looking, but at least it isn’t brown.
Drafts is a weird mixture of tweet composer, note composer and email composer. Drafts is definitely not a place to keep text. It’s a place to start a thought and then move it off somewhere else. You can send text to Omnifocus, Simplenote or any other app that utilizes the “Open in…” function in iOS. There’s a “Send to Dropbox…” function, but since you can only send text files to /Apps/Drafts, its use is limited for me. I want to be able to save to any folder I wish, and I know it’s possible, but the developer claims that Dropbox prefers you to use “/Apps/[app name]“. So for the sake of making Dropbox happy, you’re stuck with no options. Elements and Taskpaper let you use any folder, but Drafts will not. It’s pretty lame.
I’ve found it useful to use Drafts when I want to quickly get something out of my head though. Drafts automatically opens up a new note when you launch it. From there, it’s one tap to send it to Omnifocus’ inbox or create a note in Simplenote. I also like that it auto-tags new Simplenote notes with the “Drafts” tag. I’d like it even more if I could choose my own custom tag to be assigned, but I won’t hold my breath. I know I can accomplish these same things (minus the auto-tag) with Launchpad. Launchpad still requires you to open the app and then choose your macro you’ve created. It feels faster launching into a text window straight from the home screen.
Drafts could also be very useful for creating templates. You can keep a draft of something, and use actions like send to Simplenote, Tweetbot or email whenever. Unlike Launchpad which doesn’t allow you to have line breaks when you create “Create new note with [insert text]” macros, Drafts would allow you to create relatively complex templates. Of course, if TextExpander Touch allowed for fill-ins on iOS, you could do everything with TextExpander like you would on OS X. (Sad face.)
Drafts is an interesting application and it certainly has its uses. It’s not going to replace any app you already have, but it’s possible that you could find a way to use Drafts that augments your currently used applications.
I continue to be super happy with Pocket. I saw Marco Arment say that Pocket is as much a competitor to him as Evernote is, but I think he’s dead wrong. I was starting to lose faith in Readability. The iOS app is a dog; it’s slow and unresponsive. I was thinking of going back to Instapaper. Pocket came out at the right time. I like tags better than folders, you can do bulk editing, it handles images and videos in posts way better than Instapaper or even Readability do and the article view is super clean and easy to read. I think this is where Marco is getting it wrong. The reading experience with Pocket is fantastic. Marco has too many fonts (it’s possible to have too many), the automatic night mode is clunky and Instapaper just isn’t as fast as Pocket. Pocket is insanely fast.
I think Idea Shower should’ve kept Read It Later Pro’s model and stayed a premium-priced application. As much as I love the performance of Pocket, its lack of a business model worries me. It’s ad-free and they’re not taking any money for it anymore. If they want to charge an annual subscription for something extra (a la Simplenote), I might be up for paying for it. I’ve done more reading in Pocket in the last three days than I had done with Instapaper in two weeks. Maybe it’s because it’s shiny and new, but Pocket is also really fast and a great platform for saving content for later.ch a competitor to him as Evernote is, but I think he’s dead wrong. I was starting to lose faith in Readability. The iOS app is a dog; it’s slow and unresponsive. I was thinking of going back to Instapaper. Pocket came out at the right time. I like tags better than folders, you can do bulk editing, it handles images and videos in posts way better than Instapaper or even Readability do and the article view is super clean and easy to read. I think this is where Marco is getting it wrong. The reading experience with Pocket is fantastic. Marco has too many fonts (it’s possible to have too many), the automatic night mode is clunky and Instapaper just isn’t as fast as Pocket. Pocket is insanely fast.
I think Idea Shower should’ve kept Read It Later Pro’s model and stayed a premium-priced application. As much as I love the performance of Pocket, its lack of a business model worries me. It’s ad-free and they’re not taking any money for it anymore. If they want to charge an annual subscription for something extra (a la Simplenote), I might be up for paying for it. I’ve done more reading in Pocket in the last three days than I had done with Instapaper in two weeks. Maybe it’s because it’s shiny and new, but Pocket is also really fast and a great platform for saving content for later.
I used Instapaper for a long time. Then recently, I made a big deal about switching to Readability. I wound up disliking Readability, because no matter how much I like the way it looks, I can’t stand the way it runs, which is like a dog. Readability is slow in every respect. Saving in Safari with its bookmarklet is slow and you can switch tabs until the process is done. The iOS app is often unresponsive, it doesn’t auto-update on launch (it does a “media check” which doesn’t add new unread articles) and the download process is slow. Instapaper is faster, but it’s ugly, and fails on multipage articles that Readability smokes with no trouble. I’ve yet to make a point of testing Pocket with multipage articles (1UP’s are the worst and most difficult). Pocket’s reading view is clean and easy to read. It handles video and images beautifully too. It doesn’t have a bunch of fonts (only two) but two seem to be plenty to me.
My only gripe is the “How to Save” button that sits in the Home screen if you don’t have anything saved to read later. It’s not a big deal, but if you are letting your thumb wander around the screen, you might accidentally tap the “How to Save” button. That’s seriously the biggest complaint I have. Pocket is great, and it’s free. I don’t know where this business model is going, but for the time being, it’s the best option out there.
I’ve liked Byword for Mac for a long time, and to my surprise, an iOS version popped up yesterday. It’s got fewer options than Elements, but more than iA Writer. It syncs with either iCloud or Dropbox and unlike iA Writer, it actually syncs! (iA Writer just gives you Dropbox file access. It doesn’t auto-update docs for you.) Byword has a nice extended keyboard and an understated UI. I just wish the UI was a little higher contrast. The font color doesn’t pop from the background quite enough. Now, I’m waiting to see what Multimarkdown Composer for iOS will look like.
Move Over Instapaper
Instapaper’s met its match. It did a while ago as a service, but now that the Readability iOS app is out, I can safely say that I’ll never use Instapaper again. I used Instapaper for a long time. I was a paid Pro user back when it was still $10. Instapaper lost me a while ago. After the major update that added that stupid browse bar, friends and changed the stars to hearts, I just hated looking at the iOS app. I tried out Readability since it was new and pretty and immediately loved it. It didn’t have social features tacked on, it had beautiful themes, and it had better Kindle integration than Instapaper ever had.
Looks
Readability is gorgeous. Unlike Instapaper, it actually has a nice icon! It’s a very non-standard iOS UI. It’s got five great themes with modern fonts and both daytime and nighttime reading modes. There’s a “Reading List” button at the top that accesses your unread items, favorites and archived items. Just the basics and that’s all I need. There’s also “・・・” button that gives you a few more things to do. You can search your articles, move and delete them in batches, add articles from URLs or start a Google search and lastly access the settings. There’s not a whole lot to do in the settings. You can choose a look and log into your Twitter and Facebook accounts for sharing purposes. I also love that there’s no “back” button while you’re reading an article. You just swipe to the right and you’re back at the “Reading List”. If you tap once on the screen, you get a menu at the bottom that lets you star, archive, delete, adjust style or share the article. And I’m so glad Readability uses ☆’s. I despise the ♡’s in Instapaper.
Mechanics
Readability is where Instapaper was, functionally, a few years ago. Readability is all about you. There aren’t any social features, you don’t have “friends” but you also don’t have folders or feeds you can subscribe to. I’m cool with this. Folders in Instapaper led me to hold onto articles I should’ve just archived, the “friends” I had in Instapaper either had the same things I had saved or had articles that I had no interest in reading. It’s my reading list, not yours. I’ve never enjoyed reading the articles that people link to. I usually enjoy the stuff that I randomly come across through web searches more.
Karma
I feel good about using Readability. Sure, it’s a free app and a free service, but if you choose to become a contributor, 70% of your contribution goes to the sites that you’re reading (provided they integrate Readability into their site) and 30% goes to Readability to cover maintenance and employee salaries, I suppose. I paid $10 dollars for Instapaper and I’m sure no one beside Marco Arment (or Apple) ever saw a cent of that money. Sure I’ve given about $20 to Readability in four months, but the sites that are getting money from me are happy to get it, I’m sure. If you want to be a good Netizen, try using Readability. You’ll feel better about yourself for giving some money to the writer of that article you ripped the ads out of instead of helping Marco pay for his self-important coffee.
I’ve been a Tweetbot user for a long time. (I’m an OG beta tester, yo.) I’ve seen Tweetbot when it lacked most of the features it has now, and I’ve seen it grow into the best Twitter client out there. Not just for iOS, but for all platforms. Tweetbot gets called “heavy” sometimes, and while the description isn’t all that descriptive, I get what people mean when they use that term. All Tapbots’ apps have non-standard UIs. That’s their thing. Most of the time, I hate non-standard iPhone UIs. Tapbots is one of the few developers that does non-standard right.
Tweetbot for iPhone 2.0
Tweetbot 2.0 for iPhone isn’t an earth-shaking update. It just refines what was already the best Twitter app. The colors in the app have been softened a bit, which makes it a little more readable, and Tweetbot got Readability added to its mobilizer options (and Readability’s display is way better than Instapaper’s.) There is also a new DM view that looks more like the Messages app and it’s much easier to read and reply to people. Tweetbot 2.0 also got image thumbnails in the timeline. (It does a good job parsing things like Instagram images even!)
Tweetbot for iPad
Then there’s the new app: Tweetbot for iPad. In design conscious circles, people have been clamoring for a version of Tweetbot to use on their iPads. I knew in the back of my mind that it was an inevitability, but I was still surprised when the beta download link landed in my inbox. And Tweetbot for iPad looks like the iPhone app, not blown up, but expanded. The UI concept is roughly the same. The account selector and panels (tweets, replies, etc.) have moved over to the left side of the screen. It’s got all of the little features that the iPhone app has like mobilizers and image and link services.
I read this article about how Path supposedly doesn’t meet any unmet needs of its users. It reminded me a lot of the reaction to Tweetbot earlier this year. “It’s pretty, but it doesn’t do anything new.” That’s fine. What’s wrong with doing something differently and quite possibly better? Nothing, I tell you. Path had been around for a while, but it was only for photos, it was limited to 50 people, and I thought it was kind of pretty but dumb. A year later, what I want out of a social network is very different. Or maybe it’s just that I want a social network that’s a little more personal. Facebook used to be that way, but then Facebook got overrun with Farmville and Mafia Wars, and I had to unfriend or at least hide everyone. Facebook is pretty useless to me know. I only use it as a place to send messages to people whom I don’t know their email or phone number.
I previously ranted about the problem with Infinity Blade II and save files. Others have complained of crashing on non-A5 devices. Now, there was another IB II update this week and that made me think that I should fire it up again. But then I started to think, “What if this update didn’t fix anything? What if this save file just has to be thrown away?” And it dawned on me, I don’t trust Infinity Blade II anymore. For that matter, I don’t know if I trust Chair, Infinity Blade II’s developer anymore (which would be a shame because I loved Shadow Complex for 360). And they don’t care that I don’t trust them. They got my money and they’re not accountable to me at this point. There are no refunds on iOS games and the only way I could make my voice heard is by not buying Infinity Blade III (I’m sure there will be one).
Trust and loyalty are hard to come by. If you burn someone, it’s hard to regain their confidence in you. It’s why you can’t cheat on your girlfriend and then expect her not to ask you where you’re going with your “buddies” after work. I was enjoying Infinity Blade II. I hoped that the first crash and reset was a fluke, but after two more and 6 or 7 hours of time put into the game were lost, I’m not willing to go back and waste more time on it. (Yes, I know all games are essentially a waste of time.)
We’re always looking for great new things, whether it be girlfriends or video games. We need new stimulation. We also suffer from social network overload. I’m happy to say that I’ve found a new social network that I think finally gets right the idea of suggesting media (and non-media things like restaurants as well). Stamped is an iPhone app that lets you “stamp” things you like; things you’ve put your stamp of approval on. Instead of ratings or thumbs-up/thumbs-down, the only things that will come up in your Stamped feed are things you think are worth other peoples’ attention. There are no degrees of awesomeness, just things that are worthy of your time. I liken this to the GTD style of task management. In GTD, there are no priorities. Everything is important. And if you put something on Stamped, it’s because it’s important (to you, at least.)