I’ll be honest, I hate most mind-mapping apps. A good mapping app does more than just put text on lines. It should make it easy to capture, organize, and then use ideas. MindNode is one of a handful of apps that I can recommend. The new MindNode is just as beautiful as the old MindNode but many of the most innovative features have been refined and made more accessible. The new tool palettes make the app easy to use on iPad and iPhone but also highlight a unique perspective on task and list management.

I recently mentioned my concerns for using Sleep Cycle with my iPhone X because it leaves the screen on through the night and OLED has a limited lifetime. Several of the terrific Nerds on Draft listeners pointed out that Sleep Cycle works even when the phone is put to sleep. While this is true it was a worse experience because turning off the alarm required unlocking the phone first. This week’s update solves that issue.

The iMac Pro is not for me. While I love the new dark look, I simply don’t need that kind of power or the accompanying price point. It’s a very reasonable price for what the iMac Pro delivers so I’m not moaning about the price points. It seems very fair but here’s the price rundown for an entry level iMac Pro and and a comparable iMac 5K1: iMac Pro iMac 5K 3.

John Batelle writes about data and compute concentration in the tech sector: If anything should be defined as a public good — “a commodity or service provided without profit to all members of a society” — it should be the ability to study and understand society toward a goal of improving everyone’s lives. But over the past decade, the most valuable data, processing power, and people have become concentrated in a handful of private companies that have demonstrated an almost genetic unwillingness to share their platform as a public good.

I always enjoy the annual FastMail advent calendar blog posts. This week the published an article detailing some of the ways that sieve extensions are exposed to FastMail users. Follow along for the rest of the holiday season. You might find out about features you’re missing out on.

A series of articles on CNet last week really caught my attention.1 The flagship article sets the stage. You can’t miss the rise of hate, racism and the neo-Nazi movement on the internet. But somehow, The New York Times did. A Saturday profile of a Nazi sympathizer drew widespread criticism for giving Tony Hovater, 29, an unchallenged platform for sharing his views. Here’s the Brutal Reality of Online Hate

It happens. Whenever I have a vacation, there’s inevitably in-between time where I fidget and fiddle. Usually it’s at the start of the vacation and the end. Or maybe it’s when I’m traveling or standing around in a store line. Come to think of it, it also happens after the third replay of A Christmas Story and toward the end of the Twilight Zone marathon.1 Ok, maybe it’s most of the time.

I was shaking my head at Ben Thompson’s article praising Ajit Pai’s push to end net neutrality restrictions through Title II. I wished at the time that I had the energy or knowledge to refute it. Then I read Nick’s article last week. I have nothing to say now: There is clearly plenty of evidence that ISPs will not treat data the same if offered the opportunity to do otherwise.

Here’s a little Safari trick that is just gold. Hit Shift-⌘-\ to enter the Safari “Show all tabs” mode. From there it’s just a simple ⌘-F to search the open tabs. Notice that the search also covers tabs open on other devices too?

While I miss TextTool for iOS, I’m relieved to see that Clean Text continues to get updates. The most recent updates added a new dark mode and a couple of new text filters (like removing empty lines and characters). The biggest addition in version 2.6 is the a new option to open files from the Files app and export text file objects. On the iPad the interface is pretty intuitive.