This week was a really fun episode of MPU with Rose Orchard. There’s a ton of interesting ideas for automation on this show. I especially liked the bit at the end about Launch Center Pro, which has long languished on my iPhone.
It’s funny, I think Mac Power Users is the longest running podcast that I still listen to. David Sparks goes way back in my memory to the “old days” of podcasting.
There’s an update out today for DEVONthink To Go that dramatically improves document syncing. DTTG will now sync in the background after a new document is created. Sync will continue as long as the device does not lock. If the device does lock, it provides a nice notification on the lock screen to reopen the app to continue syncing.
It’s nice to see this gap closed. DEVONthink is a tremendous out-board brain for me but capture can be a bit tedious on iOS.
I’m a huge fan of Overcast as a podcast player. I’ve tried a bunch of other apps and nothing seems to fit how I listen. One thing I’ve always struggled with though is listening to a single episode of a podcast without subscribing. Somewhere along the many updates to Overcast I missed the new feature.
Here’s how it works.
I use my 10.5" iPad Pro every day for taking notes. I greatly prefer to hand-write my notes using the Apple Pencil. This allows me to capture ideas and questions in the margins as well as detailed drawings and diagrams in the main body. It’s fantastic. But, unlike plain text, this is one area where the app makes all the difference.
Many iPad note apps support the Apple Pencil and implement some sort of inking system with line coloring and thickness adjustments.
Ever find an old iPhone screenshot in your camera roll and think about the days when you had only a few apps? Sometimes those apps aren’t even installed on my devices anymore. This year I decided to go back and evaluate some old favorites to see if they could bring back a tiny sliver of the pre-2017 joy.
Paprika I used Paprika like crazy for about a year. It’s ability to extract a recipe from a webpage is remarkable.
iThoughts 5 just released on all available platforms (iOS, Mac, Windows) with encrypted maps. It’s a nice feature if you want to store sensitive information in idea maps that may be shared by email even Dropbox or iCloud.
This post by Dr. Drang reminded me of a powerful feature in Workflow for iOS. No, it’s not URL de-duplication. I think the good Dr.’s solution is just fine. I want to talk about Workflow’s content graph.
The content graph is core to how Workflow passes data between actions but rarely needs to cast anything between types. There’s an action in Workflow that gives us a peek inside all of this mess to see what’s going on.
Sometimes I want a blank page. Other times I just need a little mental nudge to keep me on track. That’s one of the nice features of GoodNotes for iOS and Mac: It’s easy to create new paper templates.
My use case is pretty simple. I’ve long used the Cornell style of taking notes. As my daily life is mired in meetings rather than learning, I still try to put structure to the information I collect.
Continuing the theme of arbitrary listicles for the end of the year, here’s a list of five iOS apps that have really pulled me away from my laptop in 2017. These aren’t just good “mobile” apps, they are top-notch apps for any platform.
Apple Notes Apple Notes is the surprise of 2017. The flawless syncing and integration with iOS makes it the easiest way to capture pretty much anything on iOS.
As I think about all the good and bad of 2017, one thing stands out: I never really worry about how my data gets moved between my computers. In previous years I built fragile, and often complicated, machinery on top of Dropbox. While the Dropbox service has certainly gotten better, including a new API, but so did everyone else. Most surprising to me is how much better Apple got in 2017.
