Sponsor: Rocket Matter and Free Evernote Book →

This week MacSparky.com is sponsored by Rocket Matter, the premier cloud-based law practice management solution. The folks at Rocket Matter get how to run your business in the Internet age and Rocket Matter is the place to go when you've finally had it with the expense and pain of trying to do it yourself. This week Rocket Matter is giving away a free ebook, Cloud Planet: A Lawyer's Guide to Evernote. This book is full of tips and advice to get the most out of Evernote, no matter what you do for a living. Go download the book. You won't regret it.

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Home Screens: Greg Pierce

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While there are a lot of app developers, there aren’t many that created an entire genre of applications. Greg Pierce (Twitter) from Agile Tortoise, who dreamed up and created Drafts, the App that holds the right-most position in my dock. Katie and I spent a lot of time talking about Drafts in our iOS Automation show. Okay Greg, show us your homescreen.

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What are some of your favorite apps?

Obviously, I’m a heavy user of my own apps – I capture all sorts of things in Drafts (iPhone) (iPad), and use Terminology as the starting point for all my searching, not just for words, but for general information as well.

The day-to-day apps that I use most on my phone are the ones that are entry points to communication: Mail, Messages, Tweetbot (iPhone) (iPad), Riposte andFacebook. Not all of these are necessarily my “favorite” apps, they are the ones that provide me the most utility and all of them are very good.

I love Fantastical. I almost never bothered to enter calendar events using my phone prior to Fantastical, but it made it so easy that I use it all the time now. The natural language text processing is top notch.

Probably my most useful app (across devices) is 1Password, however. It’s my password tool, but also my mobile wallet where I keep all sorts of other important personal information that I need to reference from time to time but don’t want to carry around on paper. Bank accounts, insurance policy info, server configurations, etc. It allows me to be absent minded without worry, and that’s worth so much.

I have two more categories of apps I use a lot: Media and Reading.

I have an A/V folder on my home screen with a few apps that get a ton of use around the house. Rdio, the AppleTV Remote, the remote app for my AirPlay Pioneer receiver, Downcast for Podcasts. All things I use almost daily to control and consume media.

And while I don’t read a ton on the iPhone – it’s always handy to have Instapaper, Reeder and the Kindle app around to kill some time in a waiting room. These are primary use apps on the iPad, however.

Which app is your guilty pleasure?

Not sure I have one. I have a whole page of casual games on both my iPhone and my iPad which provide me a great deal of pleasure, but I can’t say I feel guilty about any of them. I’ve got a significant hours logged Candy Crush, Kingdom Rush, Ridiculous Fishing – but it’s good to relax and not worry about being productive.

I like to get in Minecraft with the kids and build things as well.

What is the app you are still missing?

If I knew that, I would probably be working on building it. Drafts was that missing app for me before I built it. I’m glad it’s filled similar needs for others.

It’s hard, however, to see those gaps. The great apps come along and not only fill gaps, but fill gaps you didn’t realize were there.

How many times a day do you use your iPhone/iPad?

If I never stop using them, does that count as just once? Sadly, that’s only sort of a joke.

What is your favorite feature of the iPhone/iPad?

The magic. I’ve had an iPhone since shortly after the first one came out, and I still am in awe of the amount of power and utility that I carry around in my pocket…still doesn’t seem real.

Handy flashlight, too.

If you were in charge at Apple, what would you add or change?

As a consumer, I think Apple does a spectacular job across the board with hardware and software.

As a developer, I have some issues with the App Store marketplace and the development process that I would like to see change – but the beefs are relatively minor ones that are not worth airing here and largely come down to improving communication channels with those of us outside of Apple who participate in the App Store economy.

Thanks Greg. And thanks for Drafts. A lot.

 

1Password Version 4

Today marks the release of 1Password, version 4. Agilebits has been hard at work on this update for some time. I jumped on board in the middle of the beta and have been using it on a daily every since. If you’re already a 1Password user, you are really going like this update. If you’re not a 1Password user, shame on you and go get it now.

This update includes over 90 new features aimed at reducing the distance between security and convenience with password management on your Mac. You can get a full description of the updated features at the Agilebits website. There are couple, however, that I already find indispensable.

1Password mini

Before I could only access my 1Password data through the Safari plug-in or the full on application. Now they have a nice little menubar application that lets me get this data. You can trigger it with a keyboard shortcut and if you’re like me, you’ll be using it quite often.

iCloud Sync

This only works with the Mac App Store version but if that’s how you roll, you’re going to really like this new feature. Now I can attach my 1Password data to the device without my Dropbox password. I’ve been using iCloud sync now for two weeks without any issues.

Shared Items

I can now share entries (or entire 1Password vaults) with my wife. No longer do I have to struggle through what to do when she asks me to email her the password for banking website.

There are a lot more features than this. If you bought version 3 from the Mac App Store, this upgrade is free. That’s how I would recommend buying this application if you’re jumping on with version 4. It has allowed me to share the application with everyone in my household and enables iCloud sync to my iOS devices. If you want to get it directly from the developer, you can do it here. Either way, this is a really nice upgrade to an already fantastic application. Make sure to check it out.

 

More From Apple This Fall →

Macworld's Dan Frakes and Dan Moren give a nice rundown of what Apple may still have up its sleeve this fall. If we are to get new iPads in October (which seems likely), it is pretty impressive that nobody really knows whether the new iPad mini will be retina or not.

One item the article left out is a retina-like cinema display. With Apple about to sell Mac Pros that can drive multiple high-density monitors, I wouldn't be surprised if they started selling those too. Such a product would also be a nice add-on for the new retina MacBook Pros.

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1Password Weighs in on Touch ID →

There is a good post in the Agile forum about the potential of using Touch ID with 1Password on iOS. Until Apple opens this up to third parties it is all academic but it looks like they are at least considering the possibilities.  

I've read a few of the articles about spoofing Touch ID and they all seem pretty difficult and at this point it seems to me far superior to a 4 digit unlock code.  These are, granted, early days with this technology so it will be interesting to see where this goes over the next year. 

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Evernote Essential, 4th Edition

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Brett Kelly, the Czar of all things Evernote just released the fourth edition his Evernote Essentials book. The update includes some great new content. Brett also now has an iBooks version.

Even though I’ve spent a lot of time explaining how I don’t use Evernote much, the service is increasingly finding its way into many of my workflows. For example, anytime I get an email from a listener that I may want to include with feedback, I send it to my secret Evernote email address with a subject lines that automatically files it in the appropriate notebook. I then share that Evernote notebook with Katie so we both have access to it. This is much faster than my older workflow.

Anyway, if you want to get going at Evernote, go check out Brett’s book.

 

iPhone 5s Initial Impressions

At this point my entire family of four has iPhones. The downside is I’ve got a monthly bill that reflects four iPhones. (The family share plan actually make sense for me.) The upside is there is always an upgrade available and dad always get the upgrade. So yesterday I received a nice package from China and last night the entire family and I went to the AT&T store for the annual Sparks iPhone shuffle. Having used the new iPhone 5S for less than a day, here are my initial impressions.

The Model

I went with the white 64 GB model. My iPhone 5 was black and it shows a lot of wear and tear around the edges. With white and silver I was hoping to avoid that (although it sounds like they’ve made alterations to the black model to solve this problem). Nevertheless, it’s fun having a phone with a different color for a change. One downside about the white iPhone is that when the phone is off, you see the screen whereas on the black phone it melts into the front black panel. There’s also a bit of a black line around the edges when you have it on with a light colored screen. None of these are deal breakers for me and I've got no regrets with the white phone.

Touch ID

Just like all of the big reviews say, this works as advertised. I very quickly adapted to unlocking by pressing my finger on the home button and holding it there just a moment longer. It reliably unlocks and takes me to the home screen with no troubles. I’ve trained three fingers on it and it’s working great on all of them. We’ve been passing the phone around the house and no one else can unlock it.

An added benefit of this extremely easy security is that you can bump up your passcode to something better than just a four digit unlock code. Since I’ll be using it so infrequently, I turned off Simple Passcode and instead am using an eight digit number. In case you didn’t know, if you create a complex passcode with just digits, the iPhone will still give you the number screen to type in your passcode.I understand this is not as complex of a passcode as one with letters and numbers but with eight digits I think I’ll be okay.

Another unexpected benefit of the touch ID system is that I don’t need to swipe the phone to unlock. If I do swipe out of habit, the phone will still take my thumb to unlock at the passcode screen.

Touch ID also works great with purchases in iTunes. I can’t wait for Apple to expand this a little bit further. For instance I’d love it if 1Password could send a call to the system to verify my identification through my thumb to unlock its database. This wouldn’t require them to have access to my thumbprint or any of the underlying security but instead just be a simple question, “Is that David or not?”. The system could prompt me to press my thumb and report back to 1Password, “Yep. That’s him.” This could make banking and other applications with secure data much more convenient on the iPhone. In short, I’m already spoiled by touch ID.

The New Camera

The camera does take better lowlight pictures. For me this is the ultimate test of these pocket cameras. Can I go to a family event and take a picture indoors and not have it look like trash? Granted it’s nowhere near the indoor pictures I could take with a big boy camera with a fast lens, it is a noticeable improvement over the iPhone 5, which I already thought took pretty good pictures indoors. I played with the flash and adjusting the color of the flash does help pictures. However, the picture still look like they were taken with a flash and have the same creepy shadows.

Burst mode is awesome. I’m going to be using it all the time. It looks like it’s only keeping the best picture in my photostream. I want to go deeper to find out where the other pictures go. Hopefully, they just go to the trash unless I actively seek them out. I haven’t done anything exciting enough to test the slow motion camera.

64 Bits

Everything on this phone is noticeably faster. Even the time it takes to optimize my OmniFocus database is faster.

Overall I’m really digging the new iPhone. I’m looking forward to using it for the next year, at which point Apple will release something new and shiny again and our family will go back to the AT&T store for the annual iPhone shuffle.

 

TextExpander Snippets: Media Review

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I've started writing up little mini-reviews for myself when I finish watching a movie or reading a book (or comic). I am currently saving these to a text file in nvALT but I also like the idea of saving them to Day One. I originally got the idea from Tulio Jarocki but when I finally got around to it, his site appears down under re-construction. 

Anyway, the snippets all call up some fill-in fields and option fields letting me describe, rate, and review each media. Since I read quite a bit, I find these little notes helpful when recommending books to friends and to confirm whether or not I've read a book already, which, sadly, sometimes takes me 100 pages to realize. 

On the subject of TextExpander, they just released version 4.1 with 100% more EMOJI.

Click Here to Download Media Review Snippets

New From Smile: PDFpen Scan+ →

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It's always fun unloading nerdy secrets and this one has been weighing on me. I've made no secret of the fact that I like to use optical character recognition in my PDFs and I've never been entirely happy with the options for pulling this off with my iPhone or iPad. Not anymore. 

Today Smile released PDFpen Scan+, an app designed to capture documents and images and turn them into OCR'd PDF images. I've been using it in the day job for a month and it works great.

The workflow is pretty simple:

1. Shoot a picture of a document, or look at an existing picture. 

2. Set borders and save to PDF. 

3. Apply OCR and watch the magic happen.  The application supports 16 languages.

The app will send the completed PDF with OCR to PDFpen or any other PDF-friendly app. You can also send it away via email or up to your cloud storage. PDFpen Scan+ is another outstanding app by an outstanding group of people. There is an introductory price of $4.99 but it is going to go up so get it now.

Also, here's a small video I made. 

 

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