This week I’m featuring my own iOS 11 iPad home screen, partly because it’s so weird. Here it is. (Click to enlarge.)

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The Gorilla on the Couch – That Crazy Dock

For a long time, I’ve kept all my apps on the home screen with everything not on the screen located in four folders. I’ve given those folders verb names, Make, Learn, Fix, and Play. Traditionally I opened apps from the home screen or one of those folders. I still do that on my iPhone.

To say I flipped out when Apple announced iOS 11 is an understatement. I installed beta 1 like a crazy man. One of my first observations about iOS 11 was that the dock is now much more important. It is prime real estate for apps, particularly if you like to use split screen multitasking. Unless you have your iPad connected to a keyboard, getting to apps to split the screen takes too many steps. At first I filled the dock with as many icons as it would accept but then they got too small and I use enough apps that I still didn’t have everything I regularly needed.

About halfway through the iOS 11 beta, I got the idea of putting all my apps on the dock. It started out as a sort-of joke so I could share screenshots of my iPad looking more like a Mac. The thing is though … it worked for me. So now my home screen is empty and my dock has a few essentials, but also my Make, Learn, Fix, and Play folders. Opening the folder to get to a split screen app feels silly but is still way faster than getting to an app on the home screen.

All of my nerd-friends think I’m crazy but I’ve been pretty happy with this setup. I think the tipping point for this is people that use multitasking without a keyboard. If that’s you, give this a try for a week.

The other thing I did was to turn off Suggested and Recent Apps to the right of my dock. I found I wasn’t paying attention to those so a few weeks ago I toggled them off in the Dock preferences tab. I haven’t missed them.

Some of My Favorite Apps

I love so many Apps. For this post, I want to focus on a few that particularly shine in iOS 11:

Gladys

There was a lot of talk prior to iOS 11 about adding a “shelf” to iOS. Federico Viticci did a great job of showing the advantage of such an interface in his iOS 11 concept video. Apple didn’t add a shelf but with the drag and drop tools, they made it possible for third party app developers to, in essence, make a shelf. The idea behind a shelf is a temporary space on your iPad where you can store things for later use, like digital walnuts you’re burying for winter.

There are a lot of developers releasing shelf apps and I’ve been buying and trying these as they release. I don’t know what app will rise to the top of this space but my current favorite is Gladys. With this app, I can drop most kinds of media, text, and links as I collect them on a project and, using slide over, have them available for use elsewhere as I work on my iPad. This is such a key tool for multitasking that I’ve put Gladys in my dock despite how much I dislike the icon.

Fantastical

Of course the Fantastical team was early to drag and drop. Not only can you now drag and drop events and reminders inside Fantastical, you can also pull events out of Fantastical and drop them in other apps. Drag an appointment out of Fantastical into an email and it becomes an ICS file. Drag some text into Fantastical and it creates an event using the dropped text.

OmniFocus

Drag and drop OmniFocus has been a game changer for me. Every day I start out auditing my email on the iPad with Apple Mail on the left and OmniFocus on the right. Much dragging and dropping ensues. One of the nice things is the link-back created in OmniFocus for linked emails works on both Mac and iOS. I’ve already started production on some screencasts around OmniFocus and iOS 11. It will be a free update to the OmniFocus Video Field Guide and I’ll be releasing it in the next month (hopefully a few weeks).

1Password

This is another app that jumped into drag and drop with both feet. The new 1Password lets me drag passwords onto web forms and re-arrange fields internally.

I feel like this drag and drop thing is going to only get better as app developers feed off each other’s ideas.

My Current Guilty Pleasure

I’m spending a lot of time in iBooks lately. It’s not debugging one of my own iBooks but instead reading Star Wars: From a Certain Point of View. A lot of Star Wars fiction is garbage. This is not.

A Small Change

If I were in charge at Apple, I would continue iterate on multitasking. One small change that I think could help would be to include Finder search at the top of the Control Center/Spaces screen. That’s accessible from a single swipe up from the bottom of the screen and would make it much easier to get to non-dock-based apps when multitasking.

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My Wallpaper

Another advantage of putting everything in the dock is that I can use really nice wallpaper and see it all. Currently I’m using some concept art from the Disneyland Star Wars expansion. I change wallpapers often though.

This week’s home screen post features Jason Tate (website)(Twitter). In addition to running Chorus.fm, Jason also hosts the Encore podcast, about the music industry. Jason’s also an Apple geek. So Jason, show us your home screen.

What are some of your favorite apps?

The big three are Drafts, Launch Center Pro, and Omnifocus. Omnifocus helps me run my life, and it was thanks to your great video courses that I was able to tap into the power the app offers. Drafts has become almost indispensable for me when handling text on the iPhone. Whenever an idea hits me I instinctively open Drafts. I know that I can easily move the text to a better place (event, todo, note) after it’s written out. And lastly, there’s Launch Center Pro. Which is kind of a cheat, because I use it to tie-in with Workflow to perform a variety of different tasks and give me access to a bunch of things I want to get to quickly, but don’t use enough to keep on the home screen. (E.g. 3D Touch to bring up fast access to the phone, settings, and different logging workflows I use.)

And I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention Overcast and Tweetbot. They just feel like such staples in my life now that I don’t know what I’d do without either. One for listening to podcasts, learning, being entertained, and one as a machine to check in on whatever fresh horrors are going on in the world at any given moment. (Also memes and @Darth photoshops.) 

Which app is your guilty pleasure?

Probably the Music app. There’s still some things that bother me about how it’s designed, and I feel like I’m one of the weird ones that hasn’t had many issues with Apple Music, but I do really like the app and service. Having access to my collection of music, anywhere, is something I’ve dreamt about since I was a kid. Now that it’s here, I still sometimes can’t believe how great it is. 

Beyond that? It would be Letterboxd. It’s not on the home screen, but it’s such a great little app to log what movies I’ve seen and see what other people are watching and enjoying. 

What app makes you most productive? 

Omnifocus, and there’s not a particularly close second.

What app do you know you’re underutilizing?

Ulysses. I use it mostly as a way to access all of the text documents that are stored in the app or in Dropbox. It has a fantastic, and very fast, search. However, I know I’m just scratching the surface of what the app can do.

What is the app you are still missing?

It seems silly, but I just don’t think there’s a photo app that has been cracked yet in a way that works right for me. I’ve tried a variety of third party apps, and all the big ones from the regular players, and none of them seem to stick, or feel right, for handling, managing, and searching my photos. It’s like all of them are close, but missing just enough to make it really work.

What Today View widgets are you using and why?

From top to bottom: Dark Sky, to give a quick and easy look at what the current weather is and what’s coming up. I live in Portland, OR, so knowing at a glance if I need to grab a coat with a hood when walking out the door is essential. Fantastical, so that I can get an overview of what events are on my calendar for the day. Streaks, which I use for a few select “habits” I’d like to maintain and track. Launch Center, where I just have quick links to Settings, Bluetooth, creating a Draft, and getting directions to a location. Then I have an ESPN widget to track my favorite sportsball teams and scores, and the batteries widget is at the bottom.

What is your favorite feature of the iPhone/iPad?

At this point it’s the incredible app ecosystem that continues to produce great apps that I think are second to none. There’s a high bar for great software, and developers continue to impress me and release fantastic updates to apps that I don’t think I could live without.

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

I think I’d work on a more robust backup and photo solution. iCloud Backups feel like a half measure to me, it’s almost as good as I think everyone wants it to be. The goal would be: your phone could be thrown in a lake somewhere, and you could sign into a new one and all your stuff would be there without much work. You wouldn’t need to worry about managing your backup “cloud space” and deciding when or what you want to backup. I think that’s the direction they’re moving in, but it’s not in a place where I’d trust it completely. Especially with photos or other important documents.

What’s your wallpaper and why?

My current wallpaper is a simple graph paper design. For the home screen wallpaper, I like something simple and non-distracting. I shift between enjoying a primary color with a “blur” effect on it, and these subtle lines. I’ve never been one for the completely solid color background, I want a little movement or structure to it, and this has felt like a good compromise. The lock screen is where I change up the photo more often, usually to whatever is striking my fancy on a particular month. It’s currently Spider-Gwen.

Anything else you’d like to share?

Nope! Thanks so much for featuring my home screen and for the great podcast and blog. I’m on Twitter posting mostly about music @jason_tate, and doing the same over at chorus.fm.

Greg Scown (website)(Twitter) started his programming career at Apple but eventually made his way out of Cupertino and into his the Apple developer community. Greg is one of the owners of Smile Software and is, in addition to being a geek like us, a very nice man. So Greg, show us your home screen.

What are some of your favorite apps?

1Password, Fantastical, Overcast, and Slack are all long-term faves. Micro.blog is my new/trending favorite, and Tweetbot is a stalwart.

Which app is your guilty pleasure?

Threes, sound on.

What app makes you most productive? 

1Password.

What app do you know you’re underutilizing?

OmniFocus.

What is the app you are still missing?

An app (or site) to search podcasts for appearances by a particular guest. Let’s say I want to hear Daveed Diggs. I’d love something which could point me to his appearances on Fresh Air, Morning Edition, Hamilton fan podcasts, etc.

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

I constantly use my iPhone, especially when I’m away from my desk. I’ve recently taken to leaving the iPad open and sitting on my desk so that it can be a gentle reminder of when HootSuite notifications come in from Smile’s Twitter accounts.

What Today View widgets are you using and why?

I’m not a Today View power user, so I mostly use it for Siri app suggestions.

What is your favorite feature of the iPhone/iPad?

Beyond the fact that it’s an amazingly powerful computer in my pocket, the likes of which was difficult to imagine just 15 years ago? I’d say the camera, in that having a camera in my pocket allows for spontaneous picture taking which I never did before the iPhone.

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

I’d liberate Newsstand and free the trapped New Yorker app.

Do you have an Apple Watch? Show us your watch face tell us about it.

Yes, and I crashed it trying to make a screen shot of my watch face. In fact, I can’t seem to get it to make a screen shot. I use the Utility face with the battery life, activity, and timer complications. I use timers on the watch all the time when cooking. I particularly like them when I have company because they’re discreet, so I don’t have to interrupt conversations with buzzers or bells.

What’s your wallpaper and why?

Sunset in Ixtapa, Mexico. It’s one of my favorite places.

Anything else you’d like to share?

I generally feel that one is meant to learn something from a home screen post, and I’m not sure there’s much to be gleaned from mine. Here’s one thing, though. I put Settings in a prominent spot because I use it for a DIY dark mode so that I can read myself back to sleep if I wake up in the middle of the night.

Thanks, Greg. Also … thanks for giving me an excuse to link Daveed Diggs at MacSaprky.

Last month we interviewed Apple Distinguished Educator, musician, and music teacher Shirantha Beddage (website) (Twitter) on Mac Power Users. Shirantha has released three jazz albums and is an excellent candidate for a Jazz Friday post here at MacSparky. Besides that, Shirantha’s enthusiasm for his music, his students, and using technology is infections. So Shirantha, show us your home screen.

What are some of your favorite apps? 

Oh, so many! On iPhone 7, I’m most frequently using Calendar, Maps (love the Apple Watch integration here!), Podcasts and Scanner Pro. Calendar and Maps are great for their clean interfaces and Watch integration. Scanner Pro has become an invaluable asset for capturing receipts on the go. As a small business owner (ie. musician), organization has always been a big challenge for me. I love the “workflow creator” in Scanner Pro, which helps me to capture my receipts as PDFs and send them into a Dropbox folder. These PDFs are then moved by Hazel into a Taxes folder on my home NAS server, which allows me to have everything in one place during tax season. Tempo Advance is my go-to metronome in a pinch, whether I’m dealing with simple music or complex polyrhythms. And I’m always firing up the Podcasts app, to stay up on my U.S. politics, true crime, and of course Mac Power Users. 

I use my 12.9’’ iPad Pro for teaching and practicing exclusively. I don’t have email or calendars set up on it, as this device was provided by my school. For teaching, GoodNotes has become my PowerPoint replacement for classroom presentations. The handwriting recognition is remarkable, and the TV-out features help to eliminate distractions on-screen.  For practicing, I use ForScore quite often. It’s a great all-in-one tool for reading PDF sheet music. I’ve been using it on live gigs as well, in situations where I’m more comfortable with my own mark-ups on the scores than the blank printed copies provided by the bandleader. 

Which app is your guilty pleasure? 

At the moment, I’m having a lot of fun with Clips. It’s great on my 12.9’’ iPad Pro. This past summer, my Apple Distinguished Educator colleagues showed me how to use Instagram filters, so I’ve been playing around with those a bit, too. In case you’re wondering, I look great as a koala bear.

What app makes you most productive? 

OmniFocus is the big winner here. On iPhone I use it for reference, or for inputting tasks via Siri, but I do the heavy lifting on my Mac. AirMail takes a close second prize. I love the snoozes, delayed replies, and integrations with other apps. AirMail helps me to stay fairly close to the coveted “zero inbox” (sweet bliss!).

What app do you know you’re underutilizing? 

The Camera app. Probably Workflow, too.

What is the app you are still missing? 

I’m not sure I have a desire for any new apps at this point; I’m mostly thankful for the tools I have, and I’m trying to use them as best as I can. On the other hand, if there’s an app that could do the dishes…

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

I limit my iPad Pro to teaching and music practice, so my use varies from day to day.  My iPhone is most frequently used as an music / podcast player, and I try to limit my use of e-mail apps to 2-3 times daily. Even then, I try to do most of my e-mailing on my Mac, because of the screen real estate, TextExpander snippets, etc.  My texts and phone calls are usually handled on my Apple Watch. I check in with social media, briefly, once a day, maybe twice on my phone.

By nature, I think I’m an easily distracted person, so I have to constantly take steps to cultivate my focus in order to stay present in many facets of my life. The iPhone is a both a blessing and a curse for productivity, so I try and use it only as often as I need to. I turn off most notifications on my devices, and I take pleasure in powering down my phone or using Do Not Disturb mode when I can. I encourage my students to do the same, unless it’s absolutely necessary. 

What Today View widgets are you using and why? 

Calendar, Weather, OmniFocus, and Workflow, though I don’t use the Today view very much at all. 3D Touch seems to cover me most of the time.  

What is your favorite feature of the iPhone/iPad? 

Apple’s stance on privacy. The iPhone and iPad provide a great mix of utility and usability, while protecting the privacy of the customer. I realize that it must be an enormous challenge to tread this fine line, especially since privacy and security issues are evolving at such a rapid pace. 

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

I have no complaints whatsoever, and I’m excited to see the new surprises that Apple has in store for us in the coming months and years, but I’m the kind of person that enjoys “diving in” and spending the time to learn new technologies as they evolve. I’m also aware that not everyone feels the same way.  

Do you have an Apple Watch? Show us your watch face tell us about it. 

Yes! I use the Apple Watch more as a productivity / reminder aid than as an activity tracker. For that reason, I really like the Utility face on busy days; I can see the date, my next event, weather, Drafts, and Omnifocus. When I’m not so busy, I flip over to Timelapse face to avoid information overload. 

What’s your wallpaper and why? 

Stock images mostly. I like simple wallpapers with minimal busyness.  Sand, calm waters, mountains, that sort of thing. Less distracting.  

Anything else you’d like to share? 

This was fun. Thank you!

Thank you Shirantha. Keep the jazz coming.

Gabe Weatherhead, author of the MacDrifter Blog, is one of my favorite writers on the Internet. He’s thoughtful and wicked-smart. Visiting Gabe’s website, you’re not only likely to find some bit of technology magic, you also may learn just a little more about Kurt Vonnegut. In addition to all of that, as a kid Gabe was an absolute badass. I remember that shirt. I wore mine out. Anyway … Gabe, show us your home screen.

What are some of your favorite apps?

Well, I guess every app on my home screen earned that place so by that logic they are all my favorites. But if you want to know what apps I enjoy using the most, I’d say MyScript Nebo is the one that makes me feel like technology is catching up to my childhood dreams. The handwriting recognition is a small miracle. In that same vein, I really like sketching with Linea Sketch. It’s so close to writing on paper but with the feel of a whiteboard. I think visually and sometimes it helps to just doodle and draw some lines. Linea works well for that. It’s not as advanced as an app like like Procreate. or Tayasui Sketches but sometimes all of those extra tools are just cruft in the way of thinking.

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Which app is your guilty pleasure?

I guess Slack since it’s mostly just for chit-chatting and memes. I don’t really feel guilty about it because my primary Slack group is a bunch of super smart people that are also pretty helpful.

I’m not really an iOS gamer. I enjoy Monument Valley but usually, iOS games leave me feeling uninterested after about 20 minutes. Strangely, I enjoy Wikipanion Plus for iPad with the Adventure Time, Wookiepedia, and Simpsons Wikias. I can spend an hour reading random pages.

Second to that would be my strange fascination with learning new knots using the Animated Knots by Grog HD or Knots 3D apps.

What app makes you most productive?

By design it’s OmniFocus, because that’s where I manage my project and task list. But, I really spend a ton of time in DEVONthink To Go. That’s where I keep pretty much every piece of information I might need for a task. The search performance is fantastic and it has one of the best share sheets for capturing from other apps. I know iOS 11 is bringing a new file manager, but I’m not sure if they can beat what I get with DEVONthink meta data and search.

What app do you know you’re underutilizing?

Without a doubt, I could get more out of iThoughts if I really forced myself to use it the right way. Every time I noodle around in iThoughts I find something new or something I forgot it could do. It’s a pretty snazzy research tool but I always forget to start in iThoughts, which is the best way to capture with the app. There are so many excellent apps for iOS that it’s hard to keep to just one workflow and really learn it in depth and build routines. But there are dividends when I focus on one application and disregard existing habits.

What is the app you are still missing?

Call Recorder for podcasting. That’s not very relevant for most people but the sandboxing and lack of true multi-tasking prevents the iOS platform from doing some things I love on the Mac. Apps like Little Snitch, Keyboard Maestro, and Hazel are among my favorite applications on the Mac and they aren’t just missing on iOS, they are impossible. I also can’t say that I want Apple to open up iOS like the Mac, either. It’s the sandbox on iOS that makes it so safe. But, there are a lot of smart people at Apple. I like to think that this is a problem with a technical solution that doesn’t depend on share sheets and switching apps.

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

There are about 1,000 waking minutes in my average day. So let’s say about 1,000 times.

What Today View widgets are you using and why?

I like the Crisp Weather Widget and more recently CARROT Weather to keep up with the nutty weather in New England. Then there’s OmniFocus 2 and Fantastical 2 for iPhone for quick access to my agenda and task list.

I use the Copied widget a lot since that’s the closest thing to a mult-clipboard on iOS. I just pull down and activate the widget to keep gathering items into the Copied stack. Later, I can get to everything from any of my Apple devices.

I also really appreciate the Drafts! widget for its dictation option. I use that far more on my iPhone than on my iPad though. I probably use that feature once a day, just to take down a quick thought. I even dump some half-considered tasks in Drafts to avoid cluttering OmniFocus with things I haven’t thought through.

The Workflow widget is nice but I’ll be honest, I don’t want to depend on Workflow too much. I don’t think it will be around that long and there are so many routines that I had that were unrealistic without Workflow. It felt like dangerous territory to depend on one app that’s now owned (and barely updated) by Apple. I still use Workflow, but I’m trying not to build new dependencies on the App until I see Apple move it forward and make it an equal iOS citizen with Mail, Safari, and Calendar. If it remains as important as Clips then I don’t have confidence in its future.

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What is your favorite feature of the iPhone/iPad?

My single favorite feature is portability. I know I should say that the limitations make me more focused, but that’s not as true anymore. If I had true multi-tasking like on the Mac, I’d be more productive on iOS. But what wins the day is how easy it is to pick up my iPhone and just get something done. Easy in and easy out.

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

iOS 11 is on the right track, but they need to rethink how sandboxing works. I think it’s time to rebalance the safety controls with the modern needs of a computing device. As I mentioned above, most of what the iPad can not do is related to the guard-rails Apple has against inter-app communication and system level access. I don’t claim to be as smart as a team of Apple engineers. Those are some smart cookies. But they are working with user requirements that are nearly a decade old now. I bet that if they really focused on the problem that they could come up with a way to allow a user to exercise their own control and accept the risks of those decisions, without endangering the device or the network.

Do you have an Apple Watch?

I wear an Apple Watch almost every day. I bet I’m not like a lot of daily users though. I wear it like I do a pocket knife. I have it with me because it’s nice in a few circumstances but most of the time I don’t need it. If I lost it, I probably wouldn’t replace it until the next revision.

I have two primary faces:

1. The daily face that’s pretty ugly but really functional
2. The distraction-free face that’s good for movies, bedtime, and when I don’t want to think about the outside world

What’s your wallpaper and why?

On my iPhone, I use the app WLPPR which has some terrific looking satellite images to use as wallpaper. Unfortunately, it hasn’t been updated since 2016 and doesn’t support the iPad.

I highly recommend two David Lanham collections available for sale. There’s a collection of over 100 cartoons that I love so much I have a few framed. His photography bundle is also fantastic.

Anything else you’d like to share?

I’ve considered myself a “Mac guy” for a very long time. Since the latest iPad Pro was released, I’ve tried to go iPad-only. It’s mostly been a success but when there are edge cases on iOS, they are pretty hard edges. No automation on iOS comes close to what can be done on the Mac. A lot of what I need to do is completely possible on iOS. Some of it is even easier with a dedicated app. This notion that there’s a competition between an iPad and MacBook is unreasonable. The iPad is not a Mac replacement for someone like me and it often requires ten times more work to get something done. My Mac is nowhere near as convenient and ever-ready as my iPad or iPhone. I wrote all of these words in Drafts on my iPad because it’s pretty handy. That doesn’t mean I don’t also love my Mac. They are two different things in my world but I use my iPad a heck of a lot more than my Mac.

Thanks Gabe!

This week I’ll be up in San Jose speaking at the CMD-D: Masters of Automation conference. The reason this remarkable conference is happening at all is because of the hard work of Sal Soghoian (website), former head of automation at Apple. The conference is all about automating the Mac and iOS and tickets are still available. Now that Sal is no longer with the giant fruit company, I asked him to share his home screen and he agreed. So Sal, show us your home screen.

First, Sal’s Thoughts on Privacy

I should probably preface my answers by stating that my view of cell-phones is a little “outside of average.” I am quite aware that cell phones are potential personal tracking devices to be used carefully, maybe a little apprehensively, for the convenience of communication. That means, I don’t use Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, video streams, etc. So my answers probably seem very “tinfoil“ — LOL! 

Generally, I try to avoid using the phone except for necessary encrypted conversation or messaging. My ideal phone setup would be one that could be erased at any time, with a minimum of resulting hassle. (Still working on keeping email off the phone.) I also carry a Faraday pouch for when I enter stores or public places where customer tracking of phones is an accepted practice.

That said, even though my phone setup is quite customized for my particular view of how the technology should serve me, I think the phone and watch are an amazing communications duo. 

What are some of your favorite apps?

“The Essentials:” ExpressVPN, Signal, Workflow, and NOAA Radar. Using Signal for messaging and ExpressVPN together is like “wearing clothes.” Fast, secure, and as easy as throwing on jeans and a shirt; why would anyone run around naked? Workflow eliminates much of the one-finger-tap-at-a-time business. NOAA Radar is info packed and very cool.

Which app is your guilty pleasure?

Solitaire. Playing solitaire is calming, focused and rewarding. The one I picked is from MobilityWare. 

My wife sometimes looks at me and doesn’t say it, but I know she’s thinking, “hey, instead of sitting there putting those cards away, how about your socks?” So, it really is a guilty pleasure. But I deserve it.

What app makes you most productive?

My particular view of how the technology should serve me includes the phone and watch in the roles of ‘an amazing communications duo.’ Thus, my use of the phone is all about communication, which makes productivity on the phone all about Signal.

What app do you know you’re underutilizing?

Generally, the apps I have on the phone suit my purposes for the device. Since my phone is a 5SE with the smallest screen Apple sells, my essential productivity apps, like OmniGraffle and OmniOutliner live on my Mac and iPad Pro.

What is the app you are still missing?

Not sure, I pretty happy with my setup.

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

If you count reading news, then all the time. First thing in the morning I read the local paper in the way it lands on my driveway. By the middle of breakfast, I’ve moved over to the NYTimes and Washington Post on the phone, until the first phone call comes in. And so it goes…

What Today View widgets are you using and why?

I don’t use widgets, Siri, or use the phone for scheduling purposes. I do get banking notifications. It’s another example of aligning the technology for communications, in this case from the bank.

What is your favorite feature of the iPhone/iPad?

Apple’s dedication to securing customers’ personal information. By far, the trust placed in Apple to secure personal information means more than money. Thankfully, Apple shares the belief, and Tim Cook beautifully stated it as “Privacy is a fundamental human right.”

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

Two things:

1) Add a “panic print” — a designated fingerprint that would erase the device immediately upon contact — no confirmation required.

2) Implement a system-wide user-automation scripting language similar to AppleScript on macOS. Magic ensues!

What’s on Your Apple Watch?

My Apple Watch has no 3rd-party apps or complications and is set to Micky Mouse. The watch’s main function is to alert me to messages and incoming Signal sessions.

What’s your wallpaper and why?

A picture of myself so that it is easy to identify which phone in the house is mine.

Anything else you’d like to share?

Thank you for being such a great friend of the Apple Automation community!

My Pleasure. Thanks Sal!

I love meeting new and interesting geeks. One such person is my friend Bill Willkins. Bill Started out a “farm boy” in from Durham North Carolina but eventually found his way to England and now Switzerland. Bill’s now 75 but still works as a European Outdoor Industry Consultant. I can only hope I’m as much a geek at 75 as Bill is.

So Bill, show us your home screen.

What are some of your favorite apps?

I still find Apple’s native contacts app as the most useful. No other contacts app comes close. I have Fantastical on every device and MacBook. Excellent.

While I’m using 1Password, I’m also testing out other password managers. Apple Notes & Reminders are run as a team on the home screen of my iPhone & iPad.

Which app is your guilty pleasure?

My iPhone is my app resource. I have at least 200 apps archived on my iPhone. I review them monthly. I have to start deleting some. I emphasize I don’t use them all but review them monthly.

What app makes you most productive? 

OmniFocus without doubt.

What app do you know you’re underutilizing?

Most likely, OmniFocus.

What is the app you are still missing?

I am not missing anything. The problem is the reverse. Too many.

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

It is the first thing in the morning and the last thing at night.

My iPhone is my most used Apple device. I can see the day coming when I move to a large iPad. This is mainly due to the ease of updates.

What is your favorite feature of the iPhone/iPad?

I can use them everywhere. I also like the ease of updates and the relative economy and/or price of apps. (The other side is I buy too many.)

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

I would not take the job even if it were offered.

There was a famous saying. You can please some of the people part of the people some of the time and a few of the people all of the time but you cannot please all of the people all of the time. 

What’s your wallpaper and why?

My wall paper is a plain black background. I do not want any distractions.

Thanks Bill!

This week’s home screen features Bob “Dr. Mac” Levitus. (Twitter) (Website) Bob is a prolific technology writer and one of my favorite members of the old Macworld Allstar Band. Bob has recently written his very first self published book, Working Smarter for Mac Users. I’m so pleased to see Bob doing his own thing. So Bob, show us your home screen.

What are some of your favorite apps?

Ulysses , Final Cut Pro , Logic Pro , Words with Friends

Which app is your guilty pleasure?

Real Racing 3 (with nearly 200 hours of guilt).

What app makes you most productive?

A Pomodoro timer.

What app do you know you’re underutilizing?

Photoshop.

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

Too many to count.

What Today View widgets are you using and why?

Dark Sky (hyper local weather), Workflow (shortcuts and macros), Launcher (shortcuts)

What is your favorite feature of the iPhone/iPad?

Voice control and Siri (especially with Apple Music)

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

Go back to selling Macs with user-upgradeable RAM and storage.

Do you have an Apple Watch? Show us your watch face tell us about it.

Yes, and I use the Simple face for its retro good looks and subtle elegance.

What’s your wallpaper and why?

“Welcome to Macintosh.” The “why” should be obvious: I like retro.

Anything else you’d like to share?

My mission is to show you how to use your Mac better, faster, and more elegantly; how to banish procrastination forever; and how to do more work in less time so you have more time for things you love.

My first self-published book—Working Smarter for Mac Users—ships on March 3 and I invite you to check it out or sign up for my weekly newsletter packed with productivity tips right here .

Thanks Bob.

This week’s home screen post features Robert Black (Website)(Twitter). Robert is a strategic cartoonist (bringing a bit of humor to corporate communications). Robert is also a geek and loves his iPhone. So Robert, show us your home screen.

What are some of your favorite apps?

When I originally studied engineering, we all had the classic engineer’s calculator, the HP15C, which used something called Reverse Polish Notation. RPN is kind of like the calculator equivalent of a Dvorak keyboard on a computer – much more efficient for difficult calculations, but as mind-bending to learn and use as it’s name suggests.

So although these days I don’t need a calculator nearly so much, and actually have the official HP15C emulator app stowed away in a folder on my phone for nostalgia, Soulver is the calculator that makes me grin from ear to ear every time I need to work out something simple or complex. I love it — it’s a brilliant rethink of how to make a calculator easy and useful!

On occasions when I have to make emergency changes or tweaks to my website from my iPhone, the combination of Textastic (code/html editing), Working Copy (a full, elegant Git client on a phone that integrates with Textastic!) and Prompt (the SSH client from Panic) is magic. It’s one of those moments when I have to pinch myself, that I’m actually doing what I’m doing from my phone.

Which app is your guilty pleasure?

Not Facebook! It would be Reeder. I’m an information omnivore, and I love gathering interesting articles from around the web by following the RSS feeds of clever people who’s instincts I trust.

What app makes you most productive?

I’m not sure I’d describe my time on the phone as productive. I don’t spend a lot of time on it, but if I have to pick something, I guess I’ll be boring and say Mail — it’s boring, but true.

Hey Siri on my Apple Watch has taken over an important function that I used to use the iPhone for — capturing task thoughts to my inbox as they occur to me, GTD style. But I do still use Drafts for capturing a cartoon idea if one pops into my head half-formed — I love the way Drafts greases the path to capturing first, and working out what to do with that text afterwards, which in my case is an action that appends the string to a text file of captured ideas that’s kept in Dropbox.

What app do you know you’re underutilizing?

I don’t use a 100th of the power of the text editor Editorial — it’s my iOS tool of choice for the text, Markdown and Taskpaper files that live in nvALT on my Macs. (I also have Ulysses and Scrivener, but the problem I have is that I just don’t write enough to make use of these fine tools. I spend my days drawing rather than crafting words. Well… strings of words longer than a cartoon caption, which does take some crafting!)

And FileMaker Go – I mean, I practically live in FileMaker Pro Advanced on my Macs, and it’s a literal miracle that you can design a custom app for your iPhone in FileMaker Pro and download it to FileMaker Go and have a fully-functional iPhone “app” that you put together yourself without writing a line of code, and yet, I personally haven’t found really compelling uses for FM Go on my phone’s small screen. But it boggles my mind that the whole FileMaker suite of products for small business are mentioned so seldom — they’re game-changing, and most people have never heard of them. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

What is the app you are still missing?

The full Adobe Illustrator… on a phone? I mean, I know there’s Adobe Draw for iOS, but it’s not the same thing. Hey, a guy’s gotta dream!

How many times a day do you use your iPhone?

That’s a good question. I suspect the only way to know for sure would be to film me surreptitiously, but if I were to hazard a guess, I’d say somewhere between 10 and 20 times.

What Today View widgets are you using and why?

Fantastical – well duh! Time Zones, because I publish stuff in multiple time-zones every week and stay up half the night to see what the reaction on the other side of the world is. And Weatherline, because I prefer its presentation of data.

What is your favorite feature of the iPhone?

The camera! I’m taking snaps of sketches or things for reference ALL. THE. TIME. Closely followed by Touch ID (magic!) and Air Drop (grumble not 100% reliable grumble)

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

Phew! That’s a tricky one. The first thing that comes to mind is a renewed focus on coding quality around edge-cases, but I’m prepared to give them a pass on that for now… I suspect that the massive new Apple Campus 2 has been consuming a lot of their time to get perfect, because that’s going to pay and repay dividends to the future of Apple if they achieve the lofty goals they’ve set for it.

So instead I’ll say DON’T DROP THE BALL with APPLESCRIPT on the Mac!!! The scriptability of applications on the Mac is probably my most cherished platform feature, so the recent ructions with the sudden departure of Sal Soghoian worry me greatly for the future of the platform I depend on!

I mean it Apple (finger wagging wildly)

Do you have an Apple Watch? Show us your watch face tell us about it.

I have a Series 1 Apple Watch. On the face I use the Modular face, mainly to get the best use of complications. Front and center I have Fantastical’s complication, followed by Streaks in the lower left (hmmm, must up my effort to instill good habits today!).

Lower middle is Workflow’s widget, which currently has 5 workflows that can turn on and off our big TV, various living room lights and our Big Ass Fans Haiku. These Workflow workflows call urls from my watch, triggering Keyboard Maestro macros hosted on a Mac Mini sitting under the TV (also acting as our PVR), which make AppleScript calls to wither EyeTV or iRed 2, which in turn controls an IRTrans USB infrared transceiver to control the TV, fan, and lights.

Just for fun 🙂

Normally all the home automation stuff is triggered via an older Logitech Harmony Companion Universal RF remote control, which channels everything via Remote Buddy to Keyboard Maestro, which acts as the nerve-center for scripting all these moving parts.

What’s your wallpaper and why?

Stars – no particular reason.

Anything else you’d like to share?

I’ve probably said enough already!

Thanks Robert.

Dan Fenner pays for his shoes as a data specialist. At night, he teaches English to adult immigrants. Dan is pretty passionate about travel and blogs about it at MuchoSpanish.com. Throughout it all, Dan’s relies on his trusty iPhone and iPad. He even uses his iPad as his primary computer. So Dan, show us your home screen.

What are some of your favorite apps?

iPhone: 

Overcast Podcast Player, Audible, Music, OperaVPN, Kindle.

iPad:

Pixelmator and Procreate: I use these for my Instagram images. I bought Pixelmator the day it came out. I just started using Procreate, since I just bought my Baby Pro in October 2016.

PDF Expert: This is my main PDF annotation app, mostly because of its Focus presentation feature. When I trace a box around a section of a document, everything outside the box darkens about 50%, which helps the focus on exactly the part I want them, too. Settings says PDF Expert is using 3.9 GBS of iCloud space.

Coda: I can make CSS changes to different websites that I run. I also like using Coda as my FTP app. I even designed a custom WordPress them in Coda.

Pages: I can design the lessons for my night class very easily and they look great.

Which app is your guilty pleasure?

I love spending time in Instagram and YouTube. Sometimes I search photos from places we’ll be traveling to.

What app makes you most productive?

Notes, since I can refer to it for everything in my life, especially now that we can lock them. I store SFTP info and website security questions, I keep to do lists here because I can write notes about the to-do item or take a photo and add it to the note, allowing me to get my head back into the task much more quickly. I love that I can use Siri to remind me about Notes.

What is the app you are still missing?

I don’t feel I’m missing out on any Mac apps, but I wish a lot of these iPad apps were more-fully functional.

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

I’m on my iPad all day long. My iPad is now my main computer at work. I love it because it’s so light and portable. I can put it down anywhere and start getting some work done.

What Today View widgets are you using and why?

Outlook (there are some work emails and meetings I can’t miss), Maps Destinations (so easy to get the best route to/from work), Calendar. I’ve also found that Siri App Suggestions has become very good at know what I want at specific times of the day.

What is your favorite feature of the iPad?

My favorite feature is the Pencil.

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

I would focus on making the iPad a more productive device. Split screen and keyboard shortcuts were a great addition. I look forward to seeing new productivity features this spring.

What’s your wallpaper and why?

Currently, I have an artistic rendition of my beautiful wife that I created on my iPad Pro with Apple Pencil.

Thanks Dan.