Sponsor: HoudahGeo with Discount Code

This week MacSparky is sponsored by HoudahGeo. HoudahGeo is a Mac app that makes attaching locations to your photos ridiculously simple. The case for adding geo-location data to your photos is easy. Looking at your photos on a map gives you all sorts of options for sorting, viewing, and sharing your pictures. Want to see all the pictures from that beach trip? With HoudahGeo it's a snap. Because of the way our human brains work, years in the future we may not remember when we took a certain trip but we will remember where we went and with HoudahGeo on your side that's all you need.

The trouble is that a lot of cameras have no ability to geocode your photos for you. That's where HoudahGeo comes in. HoudahGeo actually geocodes photos. It writes industry standard EXIF/XMP tags to the original image files, which makes the geocode information permanent. (Not all geocode apps do that.)

HoudahGeo also works with multiple geocode workflows. You can automatically geocode photos form a GPS track log. You can also manually geocode photos using the map in HoudahGeo. It's easier than you think. You can even drag-and-drop geocoding data. HoudahGeo also allows for viewing (and showing) photos in Google Earth.

If your camera doesn't save geo-location data to your photos, you can solve that problem today with HoudahGeo. For a limited time, get 20% off with discount code “MACSPARKY”.

MPU 335: Workflows with John Voorhees

This week app developer, writer, and attorney John Voorhees joins us to share some of his geekiest workflows. 

This episode of Mac Power Users is sponsored by:

• PDFpen from Smile With powerful PDF editing tools, available for Mac, iPad, and iPhone, PDFpen from Smile makes you a Mac Power User.
• 1Password Have you ever forgotten a password? Now you don't have to worry about that anymore.
• Fujitsu ScanSnap ScanSnap Helps You Live a More Productive, Efficient, Paperless Life. 
• Squarespace: Enter offer code MPU at checkout to get 10% off your first purchase.

Chip-on-Card vs. Apple Pay

I enjoyed reading Joanna Stern’s Wall Street Journal piece comparing chip-on-card versus mobile payment technologies (like Apple Pay). She timed over 50 transactions and figured out that on average, an Apple pay transaction takes six seconds and a chip on card transaction takes 13. If you do two transactions a day, that adds up to 85 extra minutes a year at the register. I already hate chip-on-card transactions. They take too long and when the transaction completes, the terminal rings an alarm klaxon that always makes me feel like I’ve just been caught shoplifting. Moreover, Apple Pay transactions require a separate PIN and are more secure.

It seems to me we’re moving in the right direction but not fast enough. I, for one, cannot wait for the day that I can get rid of all these bits of plastic I am carrying around.

Microsoft Illustrates Why a Golden Software Keys is a Bad Idea

Ben Lovejoy at 9to5 Mac explains how Microsoft accidentally released its golden key "and it appears impossible for Microsoft to fully patch it."

While talk of a government-mandated magic back-door into the iPhone has subsided, I'm sure we'll hear about it more after the elections. Tim Cook was right. Such a tool is dangerous by its mere existence and, as Microsoft discovered, such a thing will inevitably land in the hands of hackers, criminals, foreign governments, and other bad actors.

While an iPhone back-door would help law enforcement with criminals not smart-enough to use alternative encryption, the massive privacy intrusion combined with its inevitable release make it a terrible idea.

The Trouble with Twitter

There has been a lot of rumbling lately about Twitter. While there’s a lot to like about the service (it remains my favorite and nearly exclusive social media outlet), Twitter has also become a playground for some pretty abusive and vile people. Charlie Warzel at BuzzFeed did a an impressive bit of reporting tracking the history of abuse of Twitter users and the company’s general failure to address the problem since the beginning. While I had known about some of the recent problems, I didn’t realize that this stems back to 2008. I recommend reading the entire article. It’s quite informative but also a bit disheartening.

Twitter responded that portions of the story are untrue but they don’t explain what those portion are or provide any further clarification. Having watched friends (primarily female) go through the Twitter meat grinder, I think the BuzzFeed story gets things generally right.

My one bit of feedback is that I don’t buy Twitter’s claim that they’re worried about lawsuits. Most people on the Internet have the ability to kick somebody off their website or service if they feel like they are behaving badly. If you don’t believe me, read the terms of service of every website on the Internet.

I think the reason why Twitter has been ignoring this problem is because they want everyone to use Twitter, even the jackasses. Maybe it’s time they grew up and started cracking down on this. If not, the rest of us will start voting with our feet.

App Dud: The Dr. Who Colouring Book

I wanted a little escape tonight so I went in the App store and purchased the Dr. Who colouring book. It took about 30 seconds to realize that purchase was a mistake. It isn't a coloring book at all. Instead, you get a picture and a series of colors. You then tap in a white space and it fills in with the selected color … perfectly … every time. Without the actual act of drawing, I don't get the expected therapy.

If you're looking for a coloring book app (and if you have an iPad Pro and an Apple Pencil I recommend you at least try), give Pigment a try. It gets iPad coloring right.

Trouble with the iOS 10 Beta "Save to iCloud" Box

Because I can't help myself, I was early to the game with the iOS 10 betas this year. As a nerd, I find it generally fun to be at the bleeding edge technology. When something goes wrong, I don't blame Apple because it is, after all, a beta. Most things that break in beta get fixed before the final product ships. 

As such, I usually don't worry too much about problems in beta. I am, however, concerned about the "Save to iCloud" dialog box in iOS 10. Here is a screenshot.

In iOS 9, the Save to iCloud dialog box was a little buggy but generally worked. It had a search bar and a way to navigate through your folders. Starting with iOS 10 beta 1 we got the above Save to iCloud dialog box. They've removed the search function and instead made it a very long scrolling list of folders. There's no way to collapse the folders and no way to jump to a specific destination. Instead, every time you want to save something to iCloud, you need to scroll through a seemingly endless list until you find the folder you want. In that process, you need to be very careful. If you scroll too fast and the iPad mistakes your swipe for a touch, iOS 10 saves the file to whatever folder you happen to touch. As I discovered, it's not always easy to figure out exactly where things end up. With every new iOS 10 beta I go back to this thinking it will have improved. So far it hasn't.

This new Save to iCloud dialog box is unusable for someone that has more than a few iCloud-based folders. When this arrived, I was in the midst of a two-month experiment running most of my cloud-based files off of iCloud. There were good parts and bad parts but it was workable. This dialog box put the brakes on the whole experiment. At first, I thought it was simply a placeholder until they made something better. But now they are up to the fifth beta and there still has been no change with this dialog box. I'm starting to get worried that this is what they intend to ship.

Does anyone at Apple use more than 100 folders on their iCloud drive? If they do, this has to be a pain point for them. I know we still have a month or so before iOS 10 ships and I really hope that I end up looking like Chicken Little with this post but if Apple does not improve the Save to iCloud dialog box before iOS 10 ships, it's going to be difficult to use iCloud with any significant number of folders.

Sponsor: OmniGraffle 7 Now in Public Beta

This week the Omni Group released a public preview of OmniGraffle version 7. There are several nice improvements with this new version including:

Infinite Canvas

You no longer have to choose an arbitrary canvas size when setting up a new OmniGraffle document. Instead, just click the infinite canvas and it will shrink and expand to fit whatever you're creating.

Unified Sidebar

The Omni Group has been moving toward these unified sidebars in many of its applications. I think they make a lot of sense if they’re done right. OmniGraffle 7’s unified sidebar places relevant tools next to each other and it all made immediate logical sense to me.

Conversion Tools

There are several new conversion tools. You can now convert a line to a shape. Just add a few points to the middle of your line and start pulling it apart. You can also add points to shapes and, for the truly adventurous, you can convert text to a shape. Turning text, like an ampersand, into a Bézier-handled object is going to be useful.

There’s More

There is a lot more in the new version that I'm still experimenting with. They added SVG import and export and a new export panel that looks interesting. There's also  a new feature called Artboards for managing specific elements in your OmniGraffle document.

I’ve been trying the beta and you can too. If you’ve been wondering about OmniGraffle, this is a great chance to kick the tires for an extended period of time. No matter how you pay for your shoes, the ability to make professional looking quick drawings and graphics comes in handy and nothing does that better than OmniGraffle.

Google Docs and the iPad

Today I received a pleasant surprise when Google issued an update to Google Docs and Google Sheets finally enabling split screen.

In this case the "finally" term is merited. Apple first announced split screen in June 2015. It took Google 14 months to update these apps for split screen. I'd love to hear the story behind why it took so long but suspect we never will. During those 14 months, Microsoft Office for iOS got a lot better and I began to seriously question Google's commitment to iOS.

While it's nice that these apps support split screen on the iPad Pro, I'm not holding my breath that they'll be getting lots of attention going forward.

As a writing tool, there isn't a lot to love about Google Docs. However it does have one advantage … and it's a big one. Google Documents has is the rock-solid ability for multiple people to access and edit a document simultaneously. While they've tried, neither Apple's Pages nor Microsoft Word come close to matching Google Docs on this feature. Quip was interesting, but they've been acquired and Dropbox Paper looks promising, but it is still early days.

If anything, the examples set by Quip and Dropbox Paper is that it is possible for other companies to compete in this collaboration space but Google remains king of this hill. I'm hoping that doesn't remain the case forever because Google's been pretty lukewarm about the iPad for the past 14 months or so.

Free Agents #2

My new podcast with Jason Snell just released its second episode on the subject of working independently and routines. Good stuff.

MPU 334 - She Can’t Take It Anymore, Captain!

On this month’s live episode of Mac Power Users, Victor Cajiao joins us to discuss all the steps of producing a modern music album. We also help troubleshoot an accidentally reformatted hard drive, discuss password schemes, using a ScanSnap for photos, share listener feedback on our Special Event and Keynote shows, and discuss options for Evernote.

Sponsors include:

• 1Password Have you ever forgotten a password? Now you don't have to worry about that anymore. 
• Gazelle Sell your iPhone for cash at Gazelle! 
• Marketcircle They'll help small business grow with great Mac, iPhone and iPad apps including Daylight and Billings Pro.
• Sanebox Stop drowning in email!

A Few Rumors and Speculation Concerning Apple's Fall Lineup

Apple’s Fall Lineup I expect we’ll see a lot from Apple in the next few months. If history is any indicator, we’ll get new iPhones next month but that’s not all. The MacBook Pro is long overdue and rumored to be coming out by the end of the year and yesterday AppleInsider broke a story about the Apple Watch 2 by the end of the year with GPS, a barometer, and better water-proofing.

If there will be one missing product from the “new and improved” category, I’d guess it is the iPad. The iPad Pros are still pretty new and I’d not be surprised to see any new iPads pushed to Spring 2017. Also, did you notice how the iPod has completely dropped out of the narrative when talking about new Apple products?

Either way, if you’re looking to upgrade some of your Apple hardware, the next few months could get expensive.

Samsung Caught Using Apple Watch Figures in Patent Filing

Shameless.

Mac Power Users on Keynote Uses and Amazon

We've published a few Mac Power Users episodes since I last checked in:

MPU 332: Other Uses for Keynote

Keynote is a great app for giving presentations but it can do so much more. This episode explores many uses for Keynote beyond presentation day.

MPU 333: The Amazon Lifestyle

There are so many different services and features available from Amazon. Who can make sense of them all? We do in this episode.

1Password Subscription Plans

In recent months 1Password has added subscription plans for families and teams. It’s only natural that now they’ve added one for individuals. Dave Teare from 1Password made a post at the 1Password blog that gives all the details. For $2.99 a month, users get access to all the 1Password apps plus their cloud services.

As 1Password explains in their blog post, subscribers get all the 1Password features plus:

• Built-in automatic sync across all devices
• Data loss protection
• Web access to your data on 1Password.com
• Item History for restoring deleted or changed items
• Secure Document storage
• Brand new multi-factor security model

I get in hot water every time I write this, but I’m okay with productivity app makers adopting subscription plans. Upgrade pricing isn’t realistic anymore and Apple doesn’t even provide for it the the iOS and Mac App Stores. If you want good productivity software, productivity software makers have to stay in business.

With 1Password’s plan, you’re getting all of its apps plus the above features for $36/year. Purchasing 1Password licenses (which is still possible) has always been (and remains to be) quite a bit more expensive than that. Moreover, if you get in on the launch special, you get six months for free.

I’d recommend subscribing to 1Password. It’s a great service and will keep you more secure in an increasingly insecure world. Learn more at 1Password's blog.

Disclosure: 1Password has been a sponsor of Mac Power Users for years. I’ve been a 1Password customer even longer and happily currently pay $5/month for my 1Password family plan.

Last Day For MacSparky Shirts

Are you a Badass Wielder of Technology? Then what are you waiting for? The sale ends in 8 hours.

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New MindNode Screencast Series

I’ve made no secret of the fact that I like to use mind mapping to plan out projects. For several years now, my weapon of choice for mind mapping has been MindNode. MindNode, for me, is the right balance of features and ease-of-use. MindNode’s easy to pick up, syncs over iCloud, and I use it all the time. I’ve done a set of five screencasts using MindNode explaining the why and how of mind mapping from my perspective and you can watch them all over at the MindNode website. Below is the first video. Enjoy.

In this introduction video, David talks about why you should mind map and whom mind mapping is for. He shows how mind maps are non-linear and visual, just like our thinking. And how intuitive and easy it is to create order from chaos by unleashing your brain with MindNode.

OmniFocus Video Field Guide Updated

The new version of the OmniFocus Video Field Guide (v1.1) is now available for download.

The new version includes several updates for new features that have been added to OmniFocus since version 1.0 shipped. There's also an additional 40 minutes of content on OmniFocus Automation.

If you purchased the OmniFocus Field Guide already, you should have received an email last night with a fresh download link. 

Below is a little sample of some of the new automation materials. Check it out.

Here's a sample of the automation updates with the release of the OmniFocus Video Field Guide version 1.1. Learn more at MacSparky.com/OmniFocus

Sponsor: Track Your Time Automatically with Timing →

My thanks to Timing for sponsoring MacSparky this week.

Have you ever spent all day in front of your Mac, just to wonder where the heck all that time went?

Or tried to bill a client, but couldn’t reconstruct how many hours you spent working for them?

You could use a time tracker.

But to be honest, manual time tracking sucks.

You have to start and stop timers, enter what you did, and so on.

And if you forget that, you are back to square one.

This is where Timing comes in. Instead of making you do all the work, Timing automatically tracks how you spend your time. It logs which apps you use, which websites you visit, and which documents you edit. You can easily categorize activities into projects.

Also, your data is not uploaded to anyone’s server. It stays safe on your Mac at all times.

Still not convinced? Download the free trial now and on Friday review all the gory details of what you did this week. But don’t blame the Timing team when you see all those hours wasted on Facebook and elsewhere…

I bought this app a few months ago and I've been running it. I actually find the data quite useful not only for tracking how much time I spent in Microsoft Word on a contract but also how much time I burned in Twitter. It's good feedback and because Timing is a local app, it's for your eyes only.

You can purchase a copy via the Mac App Store or from their website at timingapp.com. The app is $29, but if you buy direct with coupon code MACSPARKY, you can save 20% this week - that already pays for itself by recovering just half an hour of unproductive or unbilled time! (And the Timing team promise you will save much more time than that!)

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OmniFocus Video Field Guide Update Coming Sunday

I’ve been working the last few months on an update to the OmniFocus Video Field Guide. I’ve updated it for several new features and gone deep on the iOS Automation and URL linking. I'm making final edits and additions over the next few days and intend to publish it sometime Sunday (probably late). The update will be free for people that have already purchased the field guide. However, please note that for new buyers the price is going up to $19.99. So if you want to get in on the current $9.99 price, do so between now and Sunday afternoon when it goes up.