A Few Notes From Apple’s Education Event

I followed the live stream blogs during today’s Apple Education event and took a few notes. These observations are based on reading the live blogs. I’m sure that people in the room will have more insight as the day goes on.

That New iPad

I’m happy to see the Apple Pencil support moving down the line. It’s pretty great, and everyone should be able to use it.
I think Apple still has a pricing problem. Chromebooks are in the low $200 range. The new iPad is $300, but when you add a case/keyboard $100 and an Apple Pencil ($100), a fully rigged iPad becomes nearly 2.5 times the cost of a Chromebook. When schools need to buy them by the hundreds (or thousands), that extra $300 is going to matter.
I think the non-pro iPad has come so far that it indicates we are going to get the iPhone X version of the iPad in June at WWDC. I’d be surprised if the rumors aren’t true about adding Face ID to iPad Pro.

Swift Playgrounds

I’m glad Apple is continuing to press forward with this app. Swift Playgrounds are fun, and I’ve done a lot of coding in there over the past few years. I consider it a puzzle game as much as a coding education. My kids never got interested, but I’m guessing a lot of kids will go nuts for the new augmented reality features.

iWork

The new features in iWork look interesting. They didn’t talk much about it.
I think collaboration is where iWork needs the most attention. I’d like to see it collaborate as easily as Google Docs and it currently doesn’t.

iCloud Storage

200GB per student is great. Hopefully, they follow suit at WWDC and announce everybody gets a free 200GB. The current free offering of 5GB, particularly in light of the cost of Apple hardware, feels pretty cheap on Apple’s part.

Teaching Tools

The classroom tools look impressive. I’ve not got any experience with them and am looking forward to hearing from teachers about this. As I understand it, for the past few years Google has been eating Apple’s lunch on classroom tools.

iBooks

I’m currently in the home stretch of an iBooks media-rich Field Guide, and I was very anxious about iBooks Author today. It looks like I’m fine. They are bringing the ability to create books to the iPad, but it doesn’t appear iBooks Author is porting to iPad. Instead, it will be an additional feature in Pages. So long as they keep improving iBooks Author on the Mac, I’m good.

The iPad in Education

On MPU several years ago we had Fraser Speirs on, who spearheaded one of the first one-to-one iPad programs in a school. When I asked him about why they used iPads instead of a traditional computer with Microsoft Word he had a really good answer. “We’re making CEO’s, not secretaries.”

The iPad is an inherently more creative device than a traditional computer, particularly something as basic as a Chromebook. Apple made this point with the new “Everyone Can Create” curriculum. I think schools and teachers, like Fraser, that take advantage of that will be doing something special for their students.

Three Things You Can Do Today to Increase Your Facebook Privacy

For years I was one of those curmudgeons that refused to use Facebook in any capacity. I’ve been turned around on that a little bit because of the success of the Mac Power Users and Free Agents Facebook groups at creating a safe, fun place to talk about shared interests. They are both special communities. Nevertheless, Facebook can be a dangerous place if you care anything about your privacy.

There’s a lot of questions about Facebook lately and I’ve been receiving a lot of email from listeners on the subject. I should preface this post by saying I am hardly a Facebook power user. I log in to participate in the above two groups, but that’s about it.

Nevertheless, even this limited exposure could get me in trouble because Facebook likes to collect data. Between the news of the last few weeks plus the recent discovery that they can also collect your call and text history, I decided it was time to spend a little bit of time tuning up my own Facebook settings and thought I should share with you. So here are a few things you can do today.

1. Delete All Facebook Applications from your Phone (and iPad).

A lot of the trouble arising from Facebook starts with their mobile applications. The trouble is that your phone has a lot of information about you and Facebook is insatiably hungry for information about you. Moreover, over the years we’ve had plenty of evidence that Facebook hasn’t been a real team player on the iPhone and they’ve done all sorts of dirty tricks to make sure their app is always front and center. This is both creepy, and it kills your battery faster.

I understand for a lot of people this is asking a lot. Their phone is their primary window into Facebook, and if that is really what you want, I don’t begrudge you. However, if you can live without Facebook on your phone, I think you’re better off. I just use Facebook in the browser on my Mac (or the browser on my iPad), and it’s just fine.

2. Audit your Privacy Settings

One thing Facebook has improved over the years is exposing its privacy settings. Years ago it felt like playing a videogame to find your way to the proper screens. Now it’s all combined in your setting screen under the privacy tab. Go through it and make changes to suit your level of comfort. I would recommend erring on the side of caution. You can always go back and make the settings more open if you’re finding that the more conservative settings are getting in the way.

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3. Audit your Application Installations

A big part of the recent problems is that the Facebook API is so liberal that apps you authorize are taking a lot more information than you may think. I have not authorized any apps to access my Facebook data and given the limited way in which I use a service; I expect I never will.

You may have some apps that you want to use with Facebook and that is fine but make sure it is your conscious decision to opt in. Take a close look at the apps tab in your Facebook settings and make sure you feel comfortable with every app you’ve authorized to access your data.

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Note there is also a setting on this screen, Apps Others Use, to edit the amount of information other people’s applications can use when accessing your Facebook data. I recommend tapping the edit button and making appropriate changes. I leave very little data exposed this way.

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Mac Power Users 423: Workflows with Jocelyn Glei

I chat with Jocelyn Glei of the Hurry Slowly podcast in this week’s episode. We talk about killing distractions, disconnecting from our devices, and getting more done by doing less.

This episode of Mac Power Users is sponsored by:

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The Omni Group: We’re passionate about productivity for Mac, iPhone, and iPad.
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Carrot Weather 4.6

I’ve written about Carrot Weather in the past. It’s the weather app with a snarky attitude. Today they released version 4.6 that adds notifications on the iPhone, new app icons, and a bunch of new dialogue.

It’s been several years since I first wrote about Carrot Weather and it still remains my favorite weather app. Sometimes I’ll turn off its legendary snark entirely for months at a time and it still remains a great weather app. I’m particularly impressed with changes in the last year. Both the today view screen and Apple Watch apps are some of the best in class.

Free Agents 43: Don’t Ask Us Permission

I attended a conference and was asked for advice (or was it permission?) from many potential free agents. When I got home, my professional life was in disarray. What are the lessons to take from that? To find out, listen to the latest episode. Also, Jason ponders putting more effort into video, and I continue down the path of hyperscheduling.

This episode of Free Agents is sponsored by:

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The Trello iOS Update

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Over the past year, Trello has become one of the key apps/services of my operations. It’s the place that I manage all work I’ve sent to others and is an excellent tool for teams and collaborators. I’m going to write up in detail exactly how I use Trello in the future but a simple explanation is that I’ve templated all the typical projects I send to my helpers and use Trello to assign the work and keep track of its progress.

If I had one gripe against Trello its that it has always felt, nearly exclusively, like a web app. There are versions of the app for iOS and Mac but they have always been pretty rough around the edges. I’d say that’s still true for the Mac app but yesterday they released an impressive update for their iOS app.

New features include: custom fields such as dates and text, drop-down lists, and checkboxes, a better date selector, better linking throughout, the ability to add more than one attachment at a time (hallelujah!).

I use attachments often with Trello. If I’m having someone work on a document for me, I’ll attach the document to the Trello card rather than emailing separately. The best new feature is the support for drag and drop, including attachments onto a card.

I’m happy to see Trello taking advantage the iOS platform features. I hope they put a similar amount of effort into the Mac app.

The Apple Field Trip and iBooks Author

You may have seen that Apple has a “Field Trip” event planned for next week. This will be an education event at a high school in Chicago. I expect we’ll see several education-aimed announcements surrounding Apple hardware and software. I also expect the iPad will feature prominently. The event invitation, with the script Apple is a great reason to think the next education aimed iPad will get Apple Pencil support.

I have to admit I’m a little nervous about iBooks Author. I’ve got a very-nearly complete book done in iBooks Author with over 300 hours invested in it. If iBooks Author comes up, I’d expect that they are only adding features and make it better. Still, a small part of me can’t help imagining them scrapping iBooks on me. If they do, you’ll find me in the corner next Tuesday afternoon curled up on the fetal position.

Mac Power Users 422: Low Power Mode: It Isn’t Just for Phones

In the latest episode, we talk about home security systems, the OmniFocus 3 beta, my new love of paper, the HomePod, our favorite non-tech productivity hacks, and more. We also tackle listener questions and share tech we’re playing with.

This episode of Mac Power Users is sponsored by:

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Hyper-Scheduling Feedback

I’ve had a lot of feedback about my prior posts about the hyper-scheduling experiment and implementation details. Here are the prior links:

The Hyper-Scheduling Experiment

Hyper-Scheduling Mechanics

This whole thing has turned into a short series here at MacSparky.com. There may be another post or two about this, but today I’d like to share some of the feedback. I’ve received a surprising amount of email/tweets/feedback on these posts. They fall into several categories:

Hyper-Scheduling is Insane

I recently spoke at the ABA Techshow, and at some point an old lawyer-nerd friend cornered me. “David, are you really doing all that crazy stuff with your schedule?” (That quote is nearly perfect. He didn’t use the word “stuff”.)

This sentiment boils down to a lot of people who have never tried something like this marvelling at what an extraordinary investment of time hyper-scheduling appears to be.

I agree putting something like this in place takes time, particularly when getting the habit started. However, having been doing it now for awhile, the time investment is not nearly high as someone who has never tried it would think. I schedule each day and the end of the day prior. Using the mechanics I explained in the last post, most of the scheduling is simply selecting prior instances in the calendar week view, duplicating the item, and then moving it into place. For me, most days start with some Field Guide Work for two or three hours and most days end with shutting things down and planning the next day and in between comes a whole lot of legal work and podcasting that varies on a daily basis.

A key competent of all of this is having a task management system that can help you keep track of all of your tasks (so you don’t have to) and unearth those priority tasks out of the database on a daily basis. I’m pretty adept at OmniFocus so it usually doesn’t take me long to find those tasks that will get checked off the day before and assign appropriate time blocks to get the job done.

For me, the trickiest part about setting it up is being realistic about how much can be accomplished in the next day and not biting off more than I can chew. The practice of hyper-scheduling however, has provided an excellent tool for me to get better at that skill. At this point, hyper-scheduling takes me about 20 minutes. As explained throughout this series of posts, a 20-minute daily investment for all of these benefits is a no-brainer.

Hyper-Scheduling is Unrealistic

No plan survives contact with the enemy.

–Helmuth von Moltke

This second category of criticism boils down to the above quote. It doesn’t matter how much time you spend scheduling if you walk into the office to find it on fire. I’d generally agree with that criticism. Several times since I’ve started hyper-scheduling, I’ve had days where a true client or family emergency appeared requiring me to sweep aside my carefully laid plans and spend the day manning the fire hose.

I guess the real question for these critics is exactly how often do they find that the office is actually on fire. If that’s a routine thing, I think that is more of a problem with the office than hyper-scheduling. The lawyer equivalent of a fireman is a litigation attorney. I was in that racket for 20 years and can tell you at the time I experienced a lot more fires than I do these days. If you have a job that requires you to put out fires on a daily basis (and you’re okay with that), I don’t think hyper-scheduling is for you.

Conversely, however, I’d ask you to make sure the there truly is a fire. As my law practice has transitioned to a transaction-heavy practice and away from the sausage factory that is modern litigation, before hyper-scheduling I was acting like there were daily wild fires where, in hindsight, there were very few. Too often I’d let the smallest problems derail me. Hyper-scheduling has given me more perspective so that a lot of things that I was earlier treating as four-alarm fires now just gets blocked into some time in the next few days and I’m able to stick with the original plan.

Hyper-Scheduling is Nothing More than Sophisticated Procrastination

One reader wrote me and opined that my hyper-scheduling seemed like re-arranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. The argument is that Hyper-scheduling is a way to fiddle, instead of doing work. I think this could be true if you were too precious with your scheduling. The minimum block of time for me to deal with a specific problem is usually no less than an hour. I don’t Hyper-Schedule by making a dozen 15-minute project blocks that I then carefully arrange like a jigsaw puzzle. That would be a waste of time. All of the little, important things I do every day get OmniFocus flags and lumped together in the “Capture Flags” block. I agree someone could implement hyper-scheduling in a way that gets too fiddly. However, I think someone that gives it the smallest amount of thought and deliberation could avoid that trap.

Hyper-Scheduling Doesn’t Actually Give You any Additional Time

Yup.

This was my own biggest source of resistance to the experiment in the first place. Scheduling myself for ten hours a day does not magically give me 20 hours of work. It’s still just 10 hours. While that is true, adding the planning and deliberation to the day has allowed me to get a lot closer to 10 hours of work done in a 10 hour day where before I was getting more like five or six hours of work done in a 10 hour day because I spent so much time blowing in the wind.

For me, Hyper-Scheduling adds a sense of purpose to the day and lets me be much more deliberate with my time and the projects I spend my time on. Either way, while it’s true this technique doesn’t magically give you additional time, it lets you use the time you do spend on important work much more efficiently.

Hyper-Scheduling is Nothing New

These are my favorite emails. I’ve received lots of affirmation from readers that have been doing this in some form or another for years and ask me, in one way or another, “What took you so long?” Some folks call it block scheduling, others call it fancier things like value-based time management. I’m certainly not the first guy to this party, and I find that comforting.