Joanna Stern for the Wall Street Journal recently did a piece on the many sins with laptop webcams. We talked about this on a recent episode of the Mac Power Users. I understand that laptop screens are very thin, but with the recent improvements to the sound system on Apple laptops, the camera system seems like the obvious next thing to upgrade. Also, if anyone can find a creative solution to the “put a high quality camera in a thin laptop screen” problem, it’s Apple.
Watchsmith: My New Favorite Apple Watch Complication
David “Undercore” Smith has a new app, appropriately called “Watchsmith“. I think about this app as the watch complication to end all watch complications.
There are two components to this app. First is the actual complication itself. You can customize it to show a lot of different data including date, time, calendar, activity, weather, tides, astronomy, time zones, battery level, and even blank. These views are highly customizeable and you can set the font, color, and background color for each one. For a long time now, I have wanted a simple date complication that just shows a date with a large number so I can read it with my glasses off. Remarkably, Apple’s own complication doesn’t offer that. This app does that and so much more. The app also has a mechanism to change the complication by time of day. Maybe you want the date to appear all day but then have it switch to activity rings at 5PM? Watchsmith can do that.
There are different configurations of the complications for different watch faces. Once you tap the complication it opens up the Watchsmith application, which lets you get information from a variety of sources including workouts, weather, health, calendar, time zones, games, and astronomy. David Smith has been making watch apps for a long time and his experience shines through here. In essence, the complication becomes a trigger for a rather sophisticated control center on your Apple Watch. I’ve been using the beta a few weeks ago and it’s a fixture on my watch. The app is free, but to unlock all of the complications and features you’ll need to subscribe. I’ve already subscribed.
I’ve always liked the round California watch face but never been able to read the date on it because Apple‘s version of the date complication for this watch face is too small. Watchsmith fixes that for me and gives me a whole lot more to boot.
Mac Power Users 530: Working from Home
Many people have started working from home for the first time. This week on Mac Power Users, Stephen and I tap into our combined decade of experience to share some of what has worked well for us working from home.
This episode of Mac Power Users is sponsored by:
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The G4 Cube: Favorite Mac?
Really? The SE/30 went down in the first round so the cube could win?
Home Screens — Jake Pugh
Meet Jake Pugh. So, Jake, show us your home screens.
What are some of your favorite apps?
Day-to-day, my most used apps are definitely Overcast (for what might be termed a small podcast addiction) for entertainment, Foreflight as the one-stop shop for all of my aviation needs, and Home+4 to really dig deep into managing my setup.
Which app is your guilty pleasure?
I’m not much of a gamer, so I’d have to say that getting rid of Twitter would probably save me a depressingly large number of hours per week. I also spend way too much time messing around creating playlists in Apple Music.
What app makes you most productive?
The latest version of Fantastical is the app I’ve been waiting for to manage both personal and work calendars, and I’ve recently tried to simplify my to-do management by mostly moving to Reminders, from OmniFocus.
What app do you know you’re underutilizing?
Drafts. So much power, and I use like 1% of what it’s capable of. I’m trying to retrain old habits and making an effort to really use it for all text input (like answering these questions!).
What is the app you are still missing?
Since being forced to move to full-time work from home, I would very much like Overcast for the Mac. Other than that, the main thing that keeps me from 100% iPad use is the lack of ability to easily create podcasts on the iPad with a remote co-host.
How many times a day do you use your iPhone/iPad?
I use them basically all day long. At my physical office, the iPad is my primary working device as I can move around, read and edit documents, and take notes in meetings. Now working at home, the iPad has taken up residence as a permanent second screen to my Mac Mini via sidecar.
What Today View widgets are you using and why?
CARROT Weather – Fun and snarky weather to tell me when I should take a break and walk the dog or go for a run.
Fantastical – Integrates calendars and reminders together in one widget.
HomeCam for HomeKit – Allows me to keep an eye on the kids from the (home) office while, at least nominally, getting work done.
What is your favorite feature of the iPhone/iPad?
With two little kids, the camera gets used everyday to capture the littlest things. At this point, it really is my upgrade driver each year, and I am AMAZED by what I can capture and how far we’ve come. I am as far from a pro photographer as you get, but the iPhone hides that a bit:)
Do you have an Apple Watch? Show us your watch face tell us about it.
I’m all in on the Apple Watch. I’ve used it is since it was released, as a fitness tracker (WorkOutDoors and Activity), sleep tracker (AutoSleep) and to keep up with important notifications throughout the day without relying on the phone as much. There’s a real part of me that would love it to be independent enough to survive with Watch/iPad and forego the phone, but that’s a ways off yet.
I want ALL the complications on the Watch face, so I currently use the Infograph, with a mix of productive (Reminders, Fantastical) and fitness (Activity and WorkOutDoors), along with CARROT Weather, Messages and FlickType for easier text entry. One of my wishes for a future WatchOS would be automatic face switching, based on time or location. I would love a “work” face to show up at the office, a “home” one at home and a “sleep” one at bedtime.
What’s your wallpaper and why?
On the iPad, the wallpaper is a high-res shot of the local area VFR aviation sectional chart because I’d almost always rather be flying!
On the iPhone, it is a monochrome Hamilton wallpaper that I keep since my mom passed away last year, and the last thing she and I did was see Hamilton in Chicago.
Thanks, Jake!
Fantastical Gets iPad Cursor Support
Fantastical has a new release with cursor support for iPadOS 13.4. One of my favorite things about the new Fantasticcal is that it is comparable to the Mac app. I’m happy to see Flexibits keeping the updates coming. There are several more features with the update but my favorite is the ability to now use the arrow keys on a connected iPad keyboard when attaching an event to a specific calendar. I do that multiple times a day and that saves me a bunch of time.
I hope this is the first of many app updates we see in the coming months now that the iPad has trackpad/mouse support.
Rocket Aid: A Charitable Virtual Conference for Lawyers
Rocket Matter is hosting Rocket Aid, an online virtual conference for lawyers on April 16-17. For you lawyers out there, it’ll be a chance to learn more about remote lawyering and tools to adapt in this changing world through media roundtables, panel discussions, minis sessions, and more. There is a $25 registration fee but ALL proceeds will go directly to United Way COVID fund, ProBono.net, and Feeding America. It should be fun and informative.
Focused 96: Working from Home
On this episode of Focused, Mike and I are talking about keeping your focus while working from home.
This episode of Focused is sponsored by:
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Mac Power Users 529: State of the Mac
For many of us, the Mac is the center of our computing lives, and it’s no secret the Mac has had its up and downs over the last decade. On this week’s episode of Mac Power Users, Stephen and I discuss the current hardware and software that make up our beloved computing platform. As a bonus segment at the end, we talk about the 2020 iPad Pros.
This episode of Mac Power Users is sponsored by:
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CleanMyMac X: Your Mac. As good as new.
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The Omni Group: We’re passionate about productivity for Mac, iPhone and iPad.
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Automators 46: Automating Dark Noise with Charlie Chapman
Dark Noise developer Charlie Chapman joins Rosemary and me on the latest episode of Automators to talk about his automation story and how he implemented automation in his Dark Noise application.
This episode of Automators is sponsored by:
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