Caffeinated Opinions

Dangling that Carrot in front of you...

Thu, 02 May 2013 21:52:02 -0400

As someone who for years had trouble remembering even the simplest of things, using my iPhone as a productivity tool became a life changer for me. Over the years I have seldom been faithful with my todo lists, bouncing from micromanaging my life in OmniFocus to blissful simplicity with Clear, spending most of my time with what I thought was a happy middle ground in Things. So when I first heard about a todo list with personality called Carrot, I shrugged it off. Having finally found a happy place with my todo list appdiction, I was no longer in the mood to continue buying apps that I would use once and discard. But one night I was bored and I bought Carrot, and I discovered I could not have been more wrong.

So what makes Carrot so special? Well, it has personality. It is a todo list that interacts with you through the character of a robot called Carrot. But first lets talk about the actual todo list features, because the core foundation of the app is what is most important. While the initial release of Carrot was barebones for a todo list, subsequent releases (with 4.0 just released!) have really rounded out the feature list. Carrot now has the ability to set reminders, repeating tasks, edit and delete tasks, bother you to open your todo list and more. But what makes this app special is that none of those features are available at the start. When you open Carrot for the first time, you are greeted with a clean, minimalist white background, broken up by a robot’s eye in the top right corner (tap it ten times and see what happens). To create a new task, you simply pull the screen down and start typing. Its incredibly simple, and if you want something feature rich from the beginning, Carrot may not be for you. But there are features. You just have to earn them…by doing tasks. Every task you complete rewards you with experience points, and when you level up you unlock mini games, story lines and most importantly, more todo list features. For Carrot to start feeling like a robust todo list app, you really need to level up into the 20s. I have been using Carrot for about two weeks now and am level 13, completing maybe three or so tasks a day just to give an idea of how quick the leveling up process is. You can of course cheat and make up a ton of fake tasks at once, although Carrot will eventually call you on this, doubting that you could possibly have completed a task that fast. Or if you want to be legitimate but speed up the process, the recent 4.0 update added an experience doubler.

The big selling point of Carrot from a marketing perspective is that it has “personality”. While regular todo lists are completely one sided in your interaction with them, Carrot will instead interact with you on a regular basis and in a variety of ways. Upon completion of a task, Carrot could tell you that you did a good job or maybe she will tell you that you did not spend enough time on it. Much of this interaction depends on how fussy Carrot is being, and yes, Carrot gets fussy. If you do not open the app for many hours, when you return Carrot will be angry and turn from white to black, becoming more belligerent towards you until you complete more tasks (or maybe spread the word on Twitter about the app to make peace). Make a note about going to the gym and Carrot will remind you to have a cookie for good behavior. Other tasks illicit similarly hilarious responses. At level 12, you unlock the ability for Carrot to remind you to check the app, and it will use that ability to taunt and belittle you through out the day. When I woke up this morning it told me I looked pretty. The previous day it told me I was an awful person. The random quips make the app actually seem like a real robot which makes the experience a little more genuine.

Outside of the personality and todo list features, Carrot also features a lot of gamification. There are multiple story lines arcs that start as you level up. Some prompt you to make choices that can result in Carrot becoming mad or rewarding you with XP. Sure, the stories are simple, but they are a nice touch. There are challenges ,such as complete 5 tasks in one day, that nudge you towards coming back to the app in order to complete just one more task. Later levels unlock tons of little mini games that really break up the monotony of completing tasks all day. The recent 4.0 update even added a tamogotchi-like cat you can take care of, and Carrot will remind you to feed it daily if you so choose. What really makes the app feel special is all the unique ways it keeps you coming back to it. With Things and other todo list apps, I only opened them to check what I had to do. With Carrot, I open the app a lot for other reasons, like to check my current level, play with Carrot through the command line, or just to pet the kitty. Its a really unique take on task management and seems poised to nudge Things out of my rotation soon. Oh, and an iPad version is coming eventually.

Carrot can be found in the App Store here.

Yet another read it later service

Mon, 15 Apr 2013 20:31:12 -0400

I find myself to have become a big fan of read it later services over the years. Nothing beats storing an article you do not currently have time to read for when you have free time at work or later in the day. While I am currently a big Instapaper user, I recently have found myself a little bit enamored with DotDotDot.

For those who have not yet heard of DotDotDot, it is a recently launched read it later service that focuses more on longer reads and the social aspect compared to other apps. Whenever you import an article to the service, which currently can only be done with a Chrome extension, it shows up on your timeline for people who follow you to view. I know what most people are probably thinking. Do we really need another social network? Well I typically believe the answer is no, I really love how it is done in DotDotDot. Browsing the feeds of your friends or also looking at the global feed is a fantastic way to find new articles to read. Other apps have tried to find a way to show you other hot articles, but this is the first time I believe someone has really done it well.

No read it later service would be complete without a fantastic mobilizer view and DotDotDot has it down pat. Articles that you save to read later are laid out in a book format with you pressing left and right on the keyboard, or swiping on your iOS device, to navigate pages. The site also keep track of how many pages you read which I found to be a very fun thing to look at. I found this book you to be perfect for reading online in a browser and I rarely saw a letter of text out of place. While this app is currently in beta, I am very happy with it so far.

What I think will excite a lot of people about this read it later service compared to others is the ability to highlight text and make annotations. This is something a lot of people have asked for in other read it later services and I believe this one is the first to deliver. The only problem I really had so far that I must point out is the Chrome extension takes a very long time to save pages. The website and app are also a little slow when it comes to refreshing your feeds but keeping in mind that this is currently a beta app, I feel very excited about the future. To me the big thing will be if DotDotDot actually gets other apps to integrate with it in the future

You can download DotDotDot here for free.

Pebble Smartwatch First Impressions

Sun, 14 Apr 2013 14:10:25 -0400

The Pebble Smartwatch has already seen a lot of press, with some calling it the most successful Kickstarter project to date. After following the forums, reviews and general discussion, I had eagerly been awaiting finally getting mine. With the Pebble recently seeing delays for color watches, I finally just decided to order a black watch off of eBay. After using it for a few days, I decided to share some of my impressions. This is by no means a review, but just something to let people waiting for their watches or people considering a purchase in on some details.

After opening my Pebble, the first thing I noticed was how nice the glass watch head is. The display is incredibly smooth and the e-ink is fairly detailed, allowing for some gorgeous watch heads. With a flick of the wrist you can activate a back light to see your watch more easily in the dark. The left side of the watch head has a back button and charger connector, and the right side has an up, down and select button. While the watch head is nice, one thing that I found incredibly disappointing was the included wrist band, which feels incredibly cheap. This is definitely something that I will be replacing soon.

On the software side, while Pebble has finally released an SDK, so far it only allows for development of new watch faces. We will still be waiting a little longer for an SDK to develop apps. So out of the box, with firmware 1.10 (the most current), all you can really do is change watch faces, use the music app, and get notifications.

Now a little on how all those work. So far the music app works quite well, offering the user the ability to skip, pause, play or go backwards. It works with any iOS app that can be controlled with the system’s music controls, including Spotify, Pandora, Audible, and Downcast. Changing watch heads is done by opening the iPhone app, selecting a watch head, and having it download to the watch. This is also how firmware updates are applied. This is a smooth process and I like how it is handled.

Now the disappointing part: notifications. For Android, they all seem to work perfectly. But on iOS, this is a different story. Notifications either come through inconsistently, or not at all. This a Pebble OS problem, and it is promised to be fixed down the road, but it must be pointed out. Now some good news. If your phone is jailbroken, you can download an app from Cydia called BTNotificationEnabler which, after reconnecting your watch to your device, will then send all notifications to it. Using this app, I have had no problems at all with notifications, but before the app I barely got any. So unless you are patient or plan on jailbreaking your iPhone, I would hold out on a Pebble watch for now.

So how do notifications work? Pretty well actually. The Pebble will vibrate and light up alerting you that you have a notification. It will then display so much of the notification, letting you scroll up and down with the buttons on the side of the watch to see more. While longer notifications will be cut off, I found this to be a great tool for deciding if something needed action taken immediately, or can be ignored for later. When a phone call comes in, the Pebble will even vibrate non-stop to alert you, allowing you to answer or ignore the call from your watch.

Would I recommend you buy a Pebble now? No. It still feels too much like a beta project. While I can see it being something special in 6 months, right now I would only advise you purchase one of these if you want a taste of the future. I really like mine so far, but this is definitely more of an early adopter thing to see where wearable technology will be in a few years.

A Siracusian look at the Chromebook

Mon, 08 Apr 2013 18:52:57 -0400

When the Chromebook was first announced, I was not impressed and chose to ignore it for the longest time. During a recent trip to Best Buy, I saw one in person for the first time and ending up playing with it for a little bit. I left impressed and decided I wanted one. When I got my first paycheck from my new job, I rushed to the store and threw paper on the Samsung Chromebook. One thing I immediately noticed when talking about it was that a lot of people appear curious about the Chromebook. Many even seem interested in buying one, but are not completely sure of its benefits or limits. I know when I was considering one, I did not end up finding much information on the internet. Even reviews generally did not seem to go in depth much on the experience, instead focusing on the hardware, so I decided to write my own review and hopefully help some curious folk decide either way

The look of the hardware seems like a good place to start since its the first thing you see, and you know what they say about first impressions. Visually, the Chromebook is nice. It is designed somewhat like a poor man’s Macbook Air, which is not meant as an insult. It is a silver color and made from sturdy plastic. Its nice looking, and may even be confused for a Macbook at a distance. Most important, it feels like it costs more than what it does. It does not feel like a budget device.

When I initially began using the Chromebook, I must admit I was a little bit disappointed with the screen. It found it dark and kind of hard to see. After using it for a few days, I hit myself on the head when I realized I never changed the brightness settings, which for some reason are very low by default. With the brightness set relatively high, the screen looks pretty good. The resolution is nothing to write home about, but again I found it pretty solid overall. The viewing angle is quite poor, though. It is pretty difficult to see anything when standing at an angle, but this is more a problem for people you would be showing something on the screen too than an actual problem for the user, so if you are just sitting down and using the Chromebook this should be acceptable. I know many people prefer larger laptop screens, but I found the 11” screen to be more than adequate. Because you are primarily using a web browser, you pretty much will only have window open at a time, so having a smaller screen does not detract from the viewing experience the same way it does on a regular laptop.

One area where the Chromebook certainly feels like a premium product is the keyboard. The keyboard is comparable to the offerings of a Macbook, with the island type keys, which makes typing a great experience. Like most netbooks, the keyboard is a reduced size one with no number keys on the side. One other observation is that this keyboard has no F keys, instead replacing them with useful functions like a window minimizing key, window maximizing key, refresh button and the usual suspects like brightness and sound controls. Oh, and there is no delete key either (you can use ALT + backspace instead), as it has been replaced with a very handy search key (more on that later).

Like OSX, Chrome OS has an extensive amount of keyboard shortcuts in part due to its use of shift, control and alt as modifier keys. One thing I found really useful is that Chrome OS has a built in keyboard map to show you all the system wide shortcuts. By pressing control + alt + ?, an onscreen keyboard will pop up. You can then hold any of the modifier keys (shift, control, alt) and the onscreen keyboard will light up with all the possible combinations of shortcuts. This can be done at any time and is a ridiculously handy way of learning the OS.

The trackpad also borrows heavily from a Macbook in feel with comfortable two finger swiping to go up and down (and the direction of swiping can be inverted if you wish). You can also use two fingers to right click as well as drag with the trackpad. One disappointing omission is the lack of swiping left or right on the trackpad to go back or forward to a previous web page. This seemed like an odd omission and is something I am hopeful will be in a future OS update.

With our media being an increasingly important part of our digital lives now, I found the the sound on the Chromebook to be very average, but pretty much in line with what you would expect from a budget priced laptop. Videos on YouTube sounded fine but I found the listening experience of the Spotify web app to be a little lacking, with sound starting to become a little distorted the higher the volume was. I would not go as far to say the sound quality is lacking, but it could definitely be better and will certainly be noticeable to people who are used to the better speakers on more higher end devices. Video chatting in Google+ sounded great (no surprise), but do not plan on blasting any high quality tunes anytime soon.

While the hardware is pretty solid, the charger that comes with the Chromebook feels pretty cheap. I suppose they had to cut costs somewhere, and it shows with the charger. The port it plugs into on the back is a slight bit challenging to get the charger into and I always feel like I am forcing it and potentially going to break it. I read some reports online of the charger breaking which is something I could see happening quite easily. Next to the charger, there is an HDMI port, USB 2 and 3 ports, and on the left side an SD card slot. Not a bad offering for a budget device. The inclusion of USB 3 is pretty nice.

As I mentioned at the beginning, the overall build of the device is solid. It certainly feels more expensive than it costs and is also very lightweight, making it something that you will want to bring with you wherever you go. It also runs completely silent, which is something that you do not appreciate until you experience. And no hot lap either! The Chromebook is completely cool at all times, even during extended bouts of video. The boot up times are very short, typically less than 10 seconds, often times less. This is for two reasons. First, this Chromebook has an SSD drive and second, Chrome OS is very lightweight on system resources. When you combine these two factors, you get a pleasantly fast startup every time. I particularly like the quick startup compared to my Macbook, which is one of the main reasons I got a Chromebook. There are plenty of times I elected to do something that required typing on my iPad (like a long email or filling out a form) simply because I did not feel like waiting for my Macbook to boot up. Now, in these cases, I simply fire up the Chromebook. One thing that must be pointed out is that if you do not turn your Chromebook off and just close the lid, when you open it up the OS will resume instantly. The only thing you are waiting on is for wifi to reconnect. I found this instant on to be a fantastic feature and something that led me to end up using my Chromebook over my iPad a couple of times.

While specs and hardware are nice, most people would agree that the most important thing is how the device “feels” when using it. For the most part, the Chromebook it is snappy and responsive. When you start to have a lot of tabs open, around ten, the OS begins to slow down a little. When watching videos on Hulu, I noticed some occasional choppiness as well, but nothing that detracted from the experience. On YouTube, videos played fine but if you tried to comment on a video or share a video while it was playing, there was a little bit of lag. Again, nothing terrible, but worth noting to be comprehensive. Overall, browsing is fast. Text and graphics based web sites load fast. Only video occasionally slows the Chromebook down, and even that is not much to complain about.

What separates the Chromebook from other computers is that it runs Chrome OS, Google’s stab at a browser based operating system. The first thing you will notice when booting your Chromebook up is actually what you will not see. The desktop is refreshingly clean. There are no files or apps clogging up your desktop. Any apps that you end up using end up getting pinned to the bottom bar, akin to what you would expect on Windows. There is no start menu. Instead, there is an applications tray that can be reached either through clicking on it in the bottom bar or hitting the search key on the keyboard. The search key is a wonderful feature. Upon hitting it, a little tray pops up and you can either click an app you want to you or start typing. You can either type the name of the name of the app you want and hit enter to launch it, or launch a google search very quickly. Any settings can be accessed from the profile icon on the bottom right of the screen, and are very similar to the settings in the actual Chrome browser. And when it comes to updating, Chrome OS will update itself silently (similar to how Chrome the browser does), so the user never has to deal with updating it.

While the Chromebook comes with two free years of 100GB of Google Drive, emphasizing the online aspect of the device, there is an offline file manager that can manipulate the files on the Chromebook as well as those in Google Drive. This is a great recent addition to the Chrome OS, allowing a user to download files directly to the SDD and then move them to the cloud later if they so choose. Keep in mind though, the Chromebook only has 16GB of storage so most of your downloads will be directly to the cloud. Chrome OS does allow you to download a file directly to Drive. Two nice aspects of the File Manager are its media player and photo editor. The media player allows for offline playback of any downloaded videos or music (as well as playing an files in Drive) and the photo editor allows for some lightweight photo editing (like cropping). The core experience of Chrome OS is basically the Chrome web browser we all know and love. Other than the File Manager, essentially every other app runs through the Chrome web browser. Basically, if it is a website, you can do it in Chrome. The apps people refer to are kind of an exaggeration. In reality, they are really icons that when clicked send you to the appropriate web site. Some have special features, like offline mode, but they are essentially web pages. If you spend most of your time online when normally using your laptop, you will find that this change is not actually as jarring as it sounds.

One thing that is disappointing in regards to the apps is that there are not many. As mentioned earlier, most of the apps are not really apps in the traditional sense. They are basically icons that function as links to web sites. Some apps, like Feedly, are actually more apps in the traditional sense, but those are few and far between. While the Chromebook has not been out a long time, it has been out long enough that you would think there would be more support for it than there currently is. This is sadly a trend I do not see changing. On the bright side, all the apps I have seen so far appear to be free which is nice.

For those who hope to use the Chromebook offline, there are a decent amount of offline apps. Granted, an internet connection is needed to download the initial content, but the app can then be used offline. For instance, you can hop into the New York Times app and download the morning stories, and then read them offline later in the day. The same thing can be done with your ebooks in the Kindle app. In terms of productivity, Google Docs and Gmail both work offline. For Docs, you can write an offline document or edit a document if it is downloaded to your computer, and then when you hop online it will upload the changes. In my experience, it has worked quite well.

As alluded to earlier, the app manager is a pretty small but cool feature. When hit, the search button on the keyboard opens the app menu. You can then use the trackpad to navigate to your desired app, or just start typing the name of the app you want and then hit enter to select. If you instead want to do a quick Google search, you can do that as well.

Chrome OS also allows for guest accounts as well as multiple account support, so if you want to share your Chromebook with others you can do so. One thing that is nice is all your account info is stored in the cloud, so if you ever lose your Chromebook or get a new one, transfer of data is easy. This works hand in hand with the built in tampering proof mode, where if the OS detects it has been compromised it will self-restore. And since your data is in the cloud and easily available to restore, this is a great security feature.

As I mentioned earlier, with all the emphasis on the cloud and Drive, Google was generous enough to throw in a free 100GB plan for Drive that lasts two years. This is around a $120 value so it is very welcome. But I did frequently find myself wishing Drive had an Evernote web clipper-like extension. They do have a Save to Drive extension, but it just does not feel as smooth or feature rich as Evernote does. It works fine for saving pictures, but saving entire websites or just specific parts of the page is a bit questionable.

With all this in mind, the question most people keep asking me is if the Chromebook can replace a traditional desktop. The answer is… it depends. For starters, the Chromebook is definitely a great second computer for people who either already have a desktop computer and want something more portable or have a tablet and want something that boots up incredibly fast plus has a keyboard. But what about people who want to use the Chromebook as their primary computer? Will it work? I feel like it would for most people. I know on my Macbook I spend most of my time in Chrome already. Sure I use some apps, but most of them have comparable web apps. I also heavily rely on Dropbox on my Mac, but using Drive on Chrome OS feels just as reliable and a great substitute. From my college experience, I can say that I would not have been able to replace my laptop with a Chromebook. I had many classes that required me to use Microsoft Access and advanced statistical packages in Excel. So for me, I would not be able to switch completely to a Chromebook. But if you are a student or someone who does not need Microsoft Office’s more advanced functions (remember, Office has web apps now so you can use its basic functions in the browser), this will make a perfect computer. It boots up fast, seldom feels sluggish, and just feels like a joy to use. This has been the best computer I have used yet in my life, and the cheap price coupled with the great design makes it a solid purchase for anyone.

A web app markdown editor, you don't say...

Sat, 30 Mar 2013 21:16:17 -0400

Check out Draft for a very solid web based markdown editor. It allows saving and opening of documents from Dropbox, Google Drive, Evernote and Box. As a recent Chromebook convert, I found it pretty handy to have a web app that does all of this.

Dark Sky Forecasts something big...

Tue, 26 Mar 2013 21:31:00 -0400

I have long been a fan of Dark Sky for iOS for providing me with pretty darn accurate weather notifications. Nothing beats getting an alert that it may rain soon right before you leave the office, ensuring you bring with you that umbrella you normally would leave behind.

Today the minds behind Dark Sky announced that they are now taking the API behind Dark Sky and making it availiable for use in other ways. They launched a website called Forecast that is a gorgeous website and proof of concept of their data. It seems likely we will start to see other apps integrate this backend to provide us with more accurate weather prediction. But right now, we have a cool weather web app that I know I will be using a lot.

So Flipboard just became a social network...

Tue, 26 Mar 2013 21:27:39 -0400

With its 2.0 update today, Flipboard essentially just became a social network. The app now allows users to save stories to their own magazines, which can be shared with friends and on social networks. A user can have multiple magazines, with the ability to name them, choose their category, and even select a cover photo. Flipboard even added push notifications for when a friend likes, follows or comments on your magazine.

I feel like this is a big move on Flipboard’s part. With a massive user base, Flipboard has now made a push towards becoming the go to social network for sharing news. I am sure many users will forgoing sharing to other services like Twitter and Facebook and instead share simply to their magazines. This also seems to hint at how Flipboard will monetize. With users now spending more time in the app sharing magazines, Flipboard will be able to throw in some ads (which likely won’t be a bad thing if they are as non-intrusive as their current ads) and start serving up a profit. Either way, I am quite excited about where this is heading.

The cost of Real Racing 3

Sat, 02 Mar 2013 18:12:00 -0500

Unlike most people, when I heard Real Racing 3 was going to be a freemium game I was actually excited. As someone who had played the first two titles in the series and never gotten past the halfway point, I was excited that I would now be able to play the game for free and still not finish it. While most people are already lining up to criticize EA, I decided to give them the benefit of the doubt. In the past I had played plenty of other freemium games that I ended up really enjoying so I figured I would hold out until the game was released.

After playing the game since its release, I can say the initial crowd that reacted angrily to this announcement was right. What makes this painful is that the gameplay is fantastic. This title is just as good, if not better, than the previous two entries in the series. The graphics are amazing. The car selection is fantastic. But at the heart of it you always feel that something is wrong.

What is exactly wrong? I will first begin by explaining how exactly the freemium model has been implemented for those who are not familiar. I will then go into detail why this ruins the overall experience.

In the past entries in the series, you would earn cash by completing races. You would then use this cash to purchase newer, better cars so you could enter other contest. This remains true in the third entry as well, however, a new feature has been added. Not only do you have to pay cash for the car, you can have to wait for the car to be delivered to you! That’s right. All that hard work that went into earning cash to buy the car and you are rewarded with a 15 minute or longer wait. However, there is good news! You can use the game’s other currency, gold, to speed up the wait process and have the car instantly! Did I mention that gold is incredibly rare? You basically only get it by leveling up from winning races and even then you get very few pieces. But of course you can buy gold, and you can also buy cash. Neither of which is very cheap. To compound matters, your car accrues damage during races, causing your car ‘s performance to degrade. So when you inevitably have to prepare your car, it requires the in game cash. To make it even better, after you pay the cash you again have to wait for the repairs to be done. You even have to wait for upgrades to be installed! But of course, your old friend gold is standing by waiting to speed everything up.

If none of this has turned you off of the game yet, I will now explain to you how this model completely breaks the game. First of all, the beginning of the game is basically designed to make you commit to some type of in app purchase. Whether it will be buying the starter pack for $2 or buying additional currency, you will likely find yourself spending money or waiting a long time. The reason for this is you will find is that your car gets damaged quite quickly and therefore you will have to repair it and since you only start with one car, you are out of luck while your car is getting repaired. Some people have suggested buying multiple cars to mitigate this, but it does not change the fact that you constantly have to spend money to repair your car. This itself would not be a problem if the game actually rewarded you handsomely for winning races. But it does not. This leads to another problem.

Winning races typically pays very little. The problem is, especially in the beginning, you will not find yourself winning many races. Many of the competing cars are much faster than your car and you often times find yourself coming in second or third if you are lucky and most likely finishing out of the top three. When you get better cars the situation improves, but it takes a long time to get better cars. Keep in mind while you are winning your pittance of an award, you have to pay to repair your car. The better car you have the more it costs to repair. So coming in second or third in a race may just barely cover your car repairs. This leads to you very slowly accruing currency. So if you want a good car or another car without having to commit a ton of time to the game, you will likely find yourself leaning towards an in app purchase.

And that is why the game feels broken. The beginning of the game feels like they are trying to immediately get you to make an in app purchase. The fact that the starter pack is $2 and the rest of the packs are $5 or more leads me to believe that they at least wanted to get you to buy one or two packs. Once you get further in the game and unlock a lot of cars and different classes some of these problems tend to alleviate themselves, but you very rarely will ever have a large surplus of money. Because of this it always feels like the game is trying to reach into your wallet and grab more money. What makes this especially painful is even if you have a ton of cars, you cannot escape the way when buying new cars or making repairs. At best, you can mask a lot of the games deficiencies by having multiple cars, but you can never quite fix them. That is what makes this game a tragic letdown. Unlike a lot of other premium games it is incredibly fun but ultimately suffers due to this change. Personally, I’m going to give the game another week and will likely end up deleting it only spending the two dollars.

SurfacePad for iPhone

Sat, 16 Feb 2013 20:47:00 -0500

As someone who changes the case on their iPhone seemingly ever few months, the recently released SurfacePad by twelvesouth caught my eye. It is a beautifully stylish case that could be best be described as a leather smart cover for your iPhone. After seeing it, I ordered one immediately (red, in case you were wondering).

The case came in a package reminiscent of Apple (it even came with stickers). I tore it open and immediately set out to ditch my bulky Otterbox Defender. It ended up taking me three tries to perfectly attach the adhesive back of the case to my iPhone, more due to my OCD and lack of hand eye coordination than anything else. I am told that the adhesive can be used multiple times and that seems to be true. I noticed when removing my iPhone and reattaching it that the adhesive seemed to be just as strong each time.

At first the case takes a little getting used to when tweeting or making a phone call since you have to wrap the front cover behind the phone when using it or else you have a flap that gets in your way. After a day I no longer found this problematic. What makes the case great so far is its lightweight protection. I forgot how light my iPhone 5 was after months of using an Otterbox, and thanks to the SurfacePad my iPhone is sexy again. Even better, the aluminum back is protected and the iPhone screen is protected when in my pocket. Now as a warning, the entire edges of the iPhone are not covered with this case. So if you are someone who is drop prone, I would avoid this case like the plague. This case is more a fashion accessory than a protective device, and seems very unlikely to protect your iPhone in the case of a drop. Scratches will not be a problem, but drops remain a hazard. As someone who seldom drops his iPhone (and yes, I know I probably will now that I got this case), it seemed like worthwhile gamble to me.

Something else of note is that the case actually doubles as a horizontal stand for your iPhone as well. I am not sure how useful this is, but so far I have enjoyed having it. It is not something that really is a driving factor for buying a SurfacePad, but one of those nice, small details worth pointing out. In the few days I have used this case, I can say without doubt that I absolutely love it. This is by far the best case I owned for an iPhone yet, due both to its style and the fact that I get light protection for my phone without hiding how beautiful it looks.

The SurfacePad is $35 and available in black, white and red. Shipping is free.

You've Got Mailbox

Sat, 16 Feb 2013 20:24:00 -0500

Like most people, I have been eagerly anticipating the release of Mailbox since it was first announced in December. I was not so much anticipating the app’s unique way of handling email as I was more just anticipating a new email app for iOS. For whatever reasons, and there are many, email apps are quite scarce on iOS and since the demise of Sparrow I have been antsy to try the next big thing.

The first thing that must be mentioned about Mailbox is that it allows new users in based on a reservation system. This is done in order to prevent the Mailbox servers from overload. Many people have complained about the seemingly glacier pace of the system (I know I did), but when the app’s servers crashed a few days ago it seemed to legitimize the decision. While the wait can be annoying, it seems to be the best the Mailbox team can do at this point to provide a solid product. Keep in mind, if you are a privacy anal person, that Mailbox does pass your mail through their servers. I personally do not mind this, as the Mailbox push notifications actually seem faster than the Gmail or Mail.app notifications which is great, but I know there are always privacy conscious folk out there.

Upon opening the app you are treated to a handy tutorial on how the gestures work. To sum it up, swiping right archives mail and a longer swipe right deletes it. Swiping left delays your email for a set period of time that you choose, and swiping further left allows you to add your email to a list such as “To Buy” or “To Read”. The whole goal is routed in the GTD philosophy in that you should complete an email now if it is something that can be handled immediately, or else defer it until a more proper time to take action on it later. Once you reach inbox zero, you are treated to a nice image and can tweet about your greatness.

So what makes Mailbox great? It is both stylish and lightning fast. The UI is clean and simple, looking like a more modern take on the ancient Mail.app. The app pushes your email to you almost instantly, and loads just as fast. While other email apps like Gmail or Yahoo! mail are pokey opening up, Mailbox feels just as fast at the default mail app when opening which makes a huge difference in terms of its usability. If you enjoy reaching inbox zero as well, Mailbox will be huge for you. One small feature I like is that the icon badge displays how many emails are in your inbox, not how many unread emails you have. This is good design which forces you to either take action on your emails or defer them until later (provided the badge annoys you as much as it does me). Thanks to Mailbox I almost never leave email sitting in my inbox anymore for days on end.

With the good there is usually some bad, but not much with Mailbox. One thing that must be mentioned (but is not necessarily bad) is that Mailbox does not support Gmail’s labels. For heavy label users such as myself, this is a little disappointing. I would like if Mailbox would eventually let you use your own existing labels in their list function. I have resorted to keeping the official Gmail app on my phone for the occasional emails I have to label and put in folders. Mailbox is, if you have not guessed it yet, Gmail only, so if you are not a Gmail user you are out of luck for now. The Mailbox team has promised more email providers will be supported down the road as well as more devices. As it stands, the app is great. Even if you do not want to subscribe to handling email the way Mailbox wants, it is still a great client due to its speed and design. I hope to see it expand soon to the iPad.

I explain every social network

Sun, 10 Feb 2013 00:29:00 -0500

Facebook: I like cake
Twitter: I am eating cake
Instagram: here is picture of my cake
Vine: watch my cake disappear as I eat it
Foursquare: this is where I ate cake
YouTube: here is the full video of me eating my cake
LinkedIn: I work at a bakery making cake
Pinterest: here is a recipe for cake
Google+: if Apple made cake it would be terrible
App.net: your flavor of cake is worse than mine
Tumblr: a story of the time I ate cake
Reddit: a cake meme

Thoughts on the future of cloud storage, Bitcasa

Thu, 07 Feb 2013 21:33:00 -0500

Bitcasa just launched a few days ago. For those who do not know what that is, I will make it brief. Picture your hard drive, but in the cloud. Oh, and its unlimited. Yes, unlimited. And it only costs $10 a month. That is what Bitcasa is. And I believe that this is going to be the future. For my more tech savvy readers, imagine if Dropbox and Crashplan had a baby. That baby would be named Bitcasa

Let us get the negatives out of the way first. Bitcasa is a bit ugly. The web interface looks like a glorified iPad app, which does not translate well to the web. The iOS apps are pretty ugly, looking almost like a metro style gone bad motif. The iOS apps are also pretty buggy, with them crashing often or failing to load new files without a quick pull to refresh. They even lack the ability to use “Open in…” to send files to them! Oh, and most of the good features are coming soon. Shared folders? Not yet. Hell, making folders? Not at all. All of this sounds rather bad, and to an extent it is, but Bitcasa is more an exercise in potential than something that stands on its current merits. Right now it still feels more like a beta than a 1.0, but after perusing the forums and seeing how many changes were made before getting to this point, I feel confident the team can deliver and craft a more “whole” product.

So why do I love Bitcasa? Because there is a lot to love. The biggest feature is obviously the unlimited space. Called the Infinite Drive, Bitcasa allows a user to mirror their computer to its online drive after downloading an app to your computer. Think Crashplan, with your Infinite Drive always being available to you whether on your mobile device or desktop, and always backing up your files. Bitcasa also works on PC, Mac and Linux, making it possible to back up any combination of computers your household has. I really like that I can backup both my MacBook and Windows PC without having to worry about space constraints. And, just like Dropbox, Bitcasa also allows you to upload files to the cloud as well. And since it is unlimited, you could store hundreds of gigabytes of pictures, all your HD movies, or whatever else crosses your mind.

Bitcasa tries to go all iCloud on you by automatically organizing things into categories including music, videos, photos, documents and folders. Folders baffles me because it seems to include everything you upload, not just folders, but the rest are self explanatory. It is really nice that Bitcasa does this, but I would prefer the ability to make my own folders. It is great that when I click on photos I know every single photo can be found there, but with over 2000 photos now, I would love to categorize them in folders. I am not sure if this is an intentional omission or not. It is possible to indirectly make folders by opening the Finder (or Windows Explorer) and creating them there while sorting stuff in the Finder, but this seems like a ridiculous workaround. I hope a simple solution comes soon.

Bitcasa also has a third party API which they will be opening up soon. Because mainly the techy types would be the kind of people that would want unlimited storage, and they also are the ones that make apps, I am hoping that we see this integrated into some apps soon. I feel that many of the problems Bitcasa suffers now are due to it being young. Its ugly UI and lack of sharing features will evolve over time. Right now, they hit the right spots with the unlimited storage and pricing. Awhile back I wrote a piece on whether I would go with Google Drive or Dropbox for additional storage. I now decided to go with Bitcasa, and I am going to cancel my CrashPlan account as well. I feel that Bitcasa is going to be the future. I definitely prefer living with all my information in the cloud instead of in various harddrives. I prefer when I get a new computer to have to do a little as possible to transition over, and this makes it much simpler than ever. Now I can backup everything I want, to my hearts content, without having to ever worry about running out of space.

Office 365 from a Mac user's point of view

Tue, 29 Jan 2013 13:04:46 -0500

Today Microsoft officially launched the long-awaited Office 365 subscriptions. This is Microsoft’s first attempt at getting consumers to move away from paying a one time fee for Office, and instead pay either a monthly fee or a per year fee. Doing so has many benefits for Microsoft, as well as some for consumers. An online subscription not only allows the program to be downloaded for offline use, it also includes additional Sky Drive storage, Skype minutes, as well as access to the Microsoft Office web apps. My discussion of the subscription service is going to be based off of my personal consumer needs, as well as my experience on a Mac.

The first thing that bothered me with Office 365 is how confusing the subscription plans are. It took quite a while to figure out if I had to pay one lump sum upfront, pay monthly, or if I could purchase the suite for offline use. It appears that all three of those are valid options. The next thing that was confusing to me was what I would be getting as a Mac user. As was the case in the past, Microsoft appears to be focusing their early efforts with Office exclusively on Windows. If you purchase a monthly subscription, you can download Microsoft Office to your Mac, but it is the older version, not a newer version like you can download if you’re on Windows 7 or Windows 8. While this is to be expected, I found the frequently asked questions to be somewhat deceiving. It claims you can download the newest version of Office for Mac, which technically is true, but it makes it sound like it is the same new version that you could download for Windows. It is not. It is Office 2011. The cool thing is with a monthly subscription you can actually install Microsoft Office on up to five different computers. This is great for people who have multiple computers in their home.

I signed up for the free one-month trial (which requires a credit card) and dove right in. For the most part, I was impressed. Sky drive integrates quite well with the Office web apps. While the Office web apps are not full of features like their offline desktop equivalents, they have enough that you could do most things in a pinch. What bothered me was the fact that I could not open an Office document from Chrome into Word. Apparently Chrome is “not supported” which seems odd. I found the overall metro style to be quite stylish. In some ways it feels a little out of place, as it does not feel like a productivity theme which is what I want when working with documents, but it is very easy on the eyes. Microsoft also makes it quite easy, like Google does, too hop between their other services with a tool bar at the top.

The overall problem I have with the service is that I see no reason to pay for it. Perhaps if there were a newer version of Office for the Mac, I would gladly pony up the cash. But as it stands right now, since I already have Office 2011, the extra online features do nothing for me. I could simply sign up for a Sky Drive account and save all my files directly to it. Sure, a few extra clicks are required, but I saved $10 for my efforts. I also have no interest in monthly Skype credits either. To me the biggest problem is not the service itself, but the competitors. Google Drive is free and offers similar document editing. Sure it is not as good as Microsoft’s Office web apps, but it is free, and it is a trade-off a lot of people would be willing to make. It also has much better sharing features. I feel that if you do not currently have Microsoft Office, this is definitely the best route to go. If you are on Windows, I reiterate that this is the best route to go. But as a current Mac user with the most up-to-date version of Windows available, I see nothing to intrigue me. Once Microsoft starts including the 2013 version of Office with the Mac, I will revisit this topic.

Dropbox...Google Drive...FIGHT!

Tue, 29 Jan 2013 11:54:39 -0500

For the first time in my life, I am nearing the point where the free allotted amount of something given to me online is almost completely used up. Specifically, I am referring to the online storage I have come to grow so dependent on provided to me by Dropbox. Through promotions and inviting friends, I have managed to get up 6.4GB, but that is almost completely full. So I needed more. Not immediately, but pretty soon. I decided to explore my options before I made my purchase, and narrowed it down to two choices: Dropbox and Google Drive. Below is my explanation of how I got here, focusing on my main needs: price, usability, mobile apps and compatibility. At the end, I will reveal what I ultimately went with.

Price: Since I only needed a small amount of storage, I planed on getting the cheapest plan I could. Dropbox only had one choice for me. For $10 a month or $100 a year I could get 100GB. This seemed fairly priced at first, until I looked at Google Drive’s pricing and discovered not only a smaller, better fit plan for me (25GB), but the fact that Drive’s 100GB plan was only $5 a month! With how cheap it is getting to provide storage these days, it certainly feels like Dropbox is price gouging a bit, but I understand. Google has other sources of revenue. Dropbox does not. Google also only has a monthly plan in case that matters to some people. So for price, Drive is clearly the winner. As a side note, any size Drive plan will also boost your Gmail account to 25GB which is a nice freebie.

Usability: Dropbox and Drive both have apps that you can download that insert themselves into the Finder and the menu bar (for Mac. Similar apps are available for Windows as well. If you use Linux, please find a friend.). They also both have websites where you can drag and drop files that will begin uploading instantly. Both allow the ability to share files as well as organize them via folders. Drive even lets you color the folders which I enjoy (its the small things). Drive has some nice Google specific features, such as easy integration with Gmail, allowing the sending of up to 10GB attachments, as well as the ability to edit documents in Drive. I found editing documents to be a great collaborative tool. My podcast keeps our topics lists in Drive so everyone has access leading up to the show and can add or remove topics as they see fit. If you have people you are working with, Drive is clearly the winner. Organizing files in Drive feels burdensome though. Moving things around feels like a pain, whereas it feels much better in Dropbox. Its hard to explain, but Dropbox just “feels” more smooth. However, its hard to knock all the tools Drive has, especially when it comes to document editing. Overall, this felt like a tie to me.

Mobile Apps: Dropbox and Drive both have universal apps for iOS. Google Drive’s app allows editing documents and spreadsheets created in Drive, as well as sharing the documents with additional collaborators. It is not as pretty as Dropbox, but quite functional. One thing that disappointed me was the lack of support for as many files types as Dropbox had. I certainly felt that Dropbox opens many more file types. The Dropbox app is also much prettier to look at. One of the benefits of Dropbox is there are many third party clients that allow access to Dropbox. One such app, ClouDrop for DB has a lot of features missing from the official app like document renaming. Again, this area felt like more of a tie to me, but Drive’s ability to edit documents gives it the slight edge in my mind.

Compatibility: I define this criteria as how many apps work with said storage service. In this case, Dropbox wins by a landslide. Despite being relatively new, a decent amount of apps support Drive compared to other cloud competitors, but not nearly as many as Dropbox. I also noticed Drive support tended to be more focused in document editing apps, such as Notability or Goodreader, and was virtually nonexistent in other types of apps. Dropbox support not only included these apps, but also utilities, text editors, journaling apps and more. Perhaps there is an API reason for this, or perhaps support for Dropbox is just greater. Either way, I spend a lot of time in text editors and the lack of Drive support in any I could find was a major blow. I also prefer consolidating stuff into only one place, so with many apps using Dropbox sync only, it feels best to go with Dropbox.

What did I go with? Hilariously, I actually am on the 25GB Drive plan right now! Its cheaper and let me dump a lot of excess stuff in there. But I plan on switching to Dropbox as soon as it is 100% full, which should be fairly soon. Dropbox just seems like a service with much wider support despite the higher price tag.

Why a cheaper iPhone is inevitable

Mon, 28 Jan 2013 15:59:30 -0500

For the last couple of years we have heard rumors that Apple will release a cheaper iPhone. And year after year this rumor has never come to fruition. I believe that not only will this rumor come true, this is the year that it will do so. While the iPhone was once the champion of carriers, over time it has gradually fallen to Android handsets. Carriers love Android because not only can they install loads of bloatware on it, it costs much less in subsidies than selling an Android phone. The one thing the average consumer does not understand is why Apple would make a cheaper phone. They usually reply, “Apple already sells phones that cost $100 and even have a free model!”. This is true. But these iPhone models only arrive at this price because of carrier subsidies. Consumers love the iPhone. Carriers love a profit. If there was an iPhone model that satisfied both, a model with little to no carrier subsidy that maintained the Apple feel of quality, it would incentivize carriers to push the iPhone again over the markedly inferior Android phones. And consumers would love it.

So why now? Technology has improved a lot over the past few years. It is no longer a stretch to make a phone with the insides of the iPhone 4 (or maybe 4S) and package it cheaply in a plastic body, as many claim would be the case, without sacrificing the Apple quality. Apple would still be able to provide a technologically adequate phone, while saving money both by using older parts and by using plastic for the body. The iPad mini follows half of this decision making, using mostly older iPad parts from the iPad 2. Why not carry this to fruition and use plastic to save the most money? Using their design skills, Apple could mold the plastic in such a way that it would not look cheap.

An additional problem is the overseas market which Apple is being slaughtered by Android for the most part. A low cost iPhone would be great for countries that lack subsidies on their cell phones, allowing more people to buy into the Apple ecosystem for the first time. This is why I believe it is inevitable that Apple will diversify the iPhone brand with a second, cheaper model.

The post where I offend everyone on App.net

Mon, 28 Jan 2013 12:39:00 -0500

I have been a loyal app.net user since a week after the service launched the Alpha website. As soon as I saw that, I eagerly threw my $50 at Dalton for a chance to be part of something special, or so I hoped. While I never ditched Twitter, I barely post there anymore and when I do it is usually cross posting. I have been a part of app.net from the days where we all begged for a client, any client, to now, where there are so many clients it is hard to choose a favorite. I was there when all we did was talk about Twitter, and I am here now when all we do is talk about the lack of new users. And I am here a lot. As in 30,000 posts a lot. In a little under 6 months, I almost am at the same number of tweets from my 3 year old Twitter account.

With all the time I spend on app.net (ADN from here out), much pains me about the community and the site in general. I feel that it makes sense to discuss growth first, since that builds towards my next points. Since launching an alpha site in August of last year, ADN has swelled to a whopping 30,000 users. I know right! Oh wait, that is pretty bad. Some people attribute this to the fact that the social network is paid. And that is the largest barrier in my mind. It is incredibly difficult to convince people that something they have been using for years for free, social networking, justifies being paid. Sure there are no ads on ADN, and sure, they promise not to exploit our data, but for many users, this is a non-issue or something they do not entirely grasp, and so they would prefer a free service that all their friends are on over a paid service.

So why is this small community bad? In many ways, it is not. I have met some of the greatest people online at this place. I started a podcast called the Social Converse with some of them, something that would not have been possible individually, but worked perfectly with our diverse skill sets. Heck, someone even helped design this blog for me! I follow many of them on other social networks like Flickr and Vine. The bonds that have grown among many of us are something that would not be possible on another, larger, social network. I feel that I am in a unique position to make this commentary because I am here so much. I am not one of those people who hopped onto ADN for a day, cried wolf that they could find no one to talk to, and then bailed with flair shortly after to write a blog post.

With such a small community, obvious problems begin to arise. ADN is incredibly lacking in diversity. It is an overall nerdy, techy demographic, with a touch of worshipping the good Lord Steve Jobs mixed in. While at first I enjoyed being able to talk about tech 24/7, it gradually began to grow old after many months. I have seen people flamed before for discussing other topics like sports or photography. Sure, it is gradually easing up, but I still see it from time to time. I would like to point out, the vast majority of discussions are not like this, but the ones that are quickly draw attention. Diverse topics are what draw people in. I have tried to get people to join ADN, and so far I have brought 7 people in. Only one actively posts. The others dropped out, not due to lack of users, but due to lack of diverse topics. Not everyone wants to talk tech most of the day. Perhaps if more users were here, topics would gradually diversify.

This leads to my next point: how easily offended and offensive this place can be. Without going in detail, I have witnessed many discussions that involved abortion, Hitler, politics and so on go incredibly downhill fast. 256 characters allows multiple people to piggyback into discussions which leads to things getting bad quickly. Some people begin to escalate the conflicts fast, crying offended, while others (I myself admit to doing this) like to pour salt on the wound. I have since stopped, but it continues anyhow. Does this happen everywhere? Absolutely. Why does it feel worse here? There is a small community and less noise to crowd it out. When new users see this, it will tarnish their view of our community. If they tell their friends about their experience, there goes another potential ADN user.

ADN is also fairly welcoming to new users, to an extent. This is the only social network I have seen where large groups of people will welcome new users. However, as is custom with any new user, they often are disoriented on how or what to do upon joining. This is especially prevalent in ADN, because here, jumping into a random conversation isn’s bad etiquette, it isn’t creepy, its encouraged. If you spend the last few years on Twitter, you would not know this. You would simply feel isolated. And so you leave. And heck, you even post about it. While once you were invisible, the ADN cult now notices your post in global, and flames you right off the network. Why not help a new user out? Why not explain why ADN is so great to all of us? Some people try. More need to.

Developers were supposed to be the prized child of ADN, the ones who would skillfully build our way to success. And for the most party, many have. The developers of ADN have gone above and beyond their call of duty since the network has launched. Sure, there are some substandard ADN clients, but for the most part, solid ones exist like Felix, Riposte and Netbot. Yeah, Netbot. That app everyone hates. The one that is responsible for the largest spike in users in ADN history. The one that everyone asked for, a “Tweetbot clone with Netbot”, and once it came out, they belittled Tapbots for making it. Heck, Paul Hadadd, creator of Tweetbot and Netbot, took a break from this place because it was too negative for his tastes. Whether people want to admit it or not, ADN will never succeed without large developers. Sure, these “homegrown” apps are nice, and I use one in particular a lot, but big names draw big crowds. No matter how many gimmicky things ADN does like chat rooms and photo services, it is not going to change the fact that ADN needs big names to draw in more users. Netbot was proof of this. And I hope Netbot for Mac (the unicorn of ADN), eventually comes out and proves this again. But I worry about the “insider” mentality of ADN. The kind of mentality where only “one of our own” can succeed, and one of the “outsiders”, like Tapbots, can go to hell. If I was Twitteriffic and considering Apperiffic, I would look at what happened to Paul, turn around, and sprint back to Twitter.

Where does most of the blame fall then? In my mind, its with Dalton and company. Sure, they have done a lot so far, but much of it is questionable. Why the name App.net? I understand that ADN was designed to be more of an API, instead of the current Twitter clone it is passing itself off as now, so perhaps that is why. But following that trail, why Alpha then? Why not a more friendly, welcoming name? Why grey and dark colors? Alpha passes itself off as what it is, a nerdy looking place for nerds. ADN does some things right. The developer incentive program. Easy to work with API. Price drop for memberships. Invites for new users. But where has the marketing been? Where are the advertisements, the spreading of the word? The slow trickle of new users daily shows something needs to be done. The daily unique user count for ADN rests at 2-3k per day. Out of 30,000 users. This just does not seem right. And if you browse global, it is the same people day after day. I love this place, and I will be here until it succeeds or fails. I love the people here. I just hope everyone will contribute to a better ADN.

Apple appears tangled in pornography

Sun, 27 Jan 2013 23:50:00 -0500

Two days ago, Twitter launched the recently acquired video service Vine, which many are already calling the “Instagram of video”. Of course, like with anything that has to do with the internet, people already have been misusing it. The tech media, as they are keen to do, have already been exploiting the situation for page views with such titilating titles as Twitter’s Vine Has a Porn Problem and Warning: Graphic Porn Invades Vine. Don’t lie, as a guy, there is no way you skipped clicking on at least one of those, which is exactly what they were counting on.

Other daring souls are already questioning if Apple will pull the app for making it easy to find pornography similar to what they recently did with 500px. Personally, with how fond Apple is of Twitter, I believe this gets swept under the rug with Vine getting a chance to figure out how to solve this before any action is taken. But this leads to another important question: where does Apple start and stop drawing the line on policing the App Store?

As many people can guess, or personally experience, Safari is built into iOS and it allows the user to search for porn. I don’t see Apple pulling their own app (sarcasm). Some would argue that parental controls exist in iOS for this reason, but they also exist for preventing downloads from the App Store. Apple cannot start a trend of banning every photo app that shows sexual content, or else it will gradually escalate to video apps, and then beyond. Heck, do a hashtag search in Tweetbot for porn and you can find your fill. I constantly see naked spam photos browsing my Facebook stream. Apple’s solution either leads to total censorship or to playing favorites (targeting only popular apps or apps that draw attention). Solution? People need to grow up and accept that sexual content, within reason, is part of life. I obviously do not want to be on Vine and see a GIF of some dude playing with himself, but if you want to view sexual art on 500px, that seems to be your prerogative. The sooner Apple understands this, the better off all of our apps are.