iPad Sans Bezel

Now that I’ve got a bezel-less iPhone in my hands, I’m looking at my iPad(s) a little sideways. Turns out I’m not alone. Benjamin Geskin did some lovely renders of a bezel-less iPad that feels to me like the direction Apple has to be going with this. The trick on iPad will be the swipe up gesture. Currently, there are two separate gestures: short up for dock and long up for the control center. If I was a betting man, I’d say that a bezel-less iPad would switch the long swipe up to match the behavior on the phone and they’d move the control panel to some other gesture.

The Case for RSS

For several years now, the trend among geeks has been to abandon the RSS format. RSS, or Really Simple Syndication, is a way to queue up and serve content from the internet. The MacSparky RSS, for example, gives RSS applications a list of all the articles I post here since you last checked int. It is a great way to read blogs and the backbone of podcast distribution. As social networks took off, a lot of my friends that were previously big RSS fans gave up on the technology and instead relied upon sources like Twitter and Facebook to get their news.

That was never me. The reason I’ve stuck with RSS is the way in which I work. Twitter is the social network that I participate in most and yet sometimes days go by where I don’t load the application. I like to work in focused bursts. If I’m deep into writing a book or a legal client project. I basically ignore everything else. I close my mail application, tell my phone service to take my calls, and I definitely don’t open Twitter. When I finish the job, I can then go back to the Internet. I’ll check in on Twitter, but I won’t be able to get my news from it. That only works if you go into Twitter much more frequently than I do. That’s why RSS is such a great solution for me. If a few days go by, I can open RSS and go through my carefully curated list of websites and get caught back up with the world.

A long time ago, I used Reeder as my primary RSS application. It’s clean, fast, and attractive. Then a few years ago I switched over to Unread, which I found to be slower but a little more delightful. For the last week, I’ve been using Reeder again just for giggles. Their addition of dark mode for iPhone X is great, but ultimately I don’t know where I’ll land between these two great RSS Apps.

If you are thinking about using RSS, I have a little advice. Be wary feed inflation. RSS is so easy to implement that it’s a slippery slope between having RSS feeds for just a few websites and instead of having RSS feeds for hundreds of websites. If you’re not careful, every time you open your RSS reader, there will be 1,000 unread articles waiting for you, which completely defeats the purpose of using RSS. The trick to using RSS is to be brutal with your subscriptions. I think the key is looking for websites with high signal and low noise. Sites that publish one or two articles a day (or even one to two articles a week) but make them good articles are much more valuable and RSS feed than sites that published 30 articles a day.

The Workflow for iOS Update

Every time I write that people should still be using Workflow for iOS automation, I get a certain amount of flak. Apple bought Workflow earlier this year, and the reason for the purchase was not so they could keep developing Workflow. With no inside knowledge, I’m guessing the Workflow developers are spending most of their time working on some fancy new automation for integration into the iOS operating system. (Why else would Apple have purchased the company?) However, I don’t think they are spending all of their time on the new project.

Workflow has been steadily getting updates since it went “in-house”. Most recently they released version 1.7.7. It adds iOS 11 drag and drop and iPhone X screen support. It also supports the new Apple HEIF and HEVC image and video formats. The update even adds a few new features, my favorite of which is the ability to save a templated OmniFocus project to a specific folder.

I don’t know how long we’ve got left with Workflow. But isn’t that true about everything in life? I expect the Workflow team will be allowed to continue to nurse the app along until they release their next big thing which, at the very earliest, would be iOS 12 in a little less than a year. Workflow has enough awesome that it’s worth using, even if just for a year.

PDFpen for iOS Tutorial Videos

I recently did a series of seven tutorial videos on how to use PDFpen for iPad and iPhone. They’re now available to watch at the PDFpen website and I think they’re pretty good. Looking back, it’s remarkable just how much my document review workflows have changed with the arrival of the iPad Pro. The combination of that big piece of glass with the Apple Pencil make it easy for me to review and annotate documents digitally. This is superior to my old method of printing it out and using a red pen and highlighter. Now I have way more annotation tools available and because the product is digital, it is easy to save, copy, and share. Another benefit I’ve noticed over time is how much easier it is to hold on to these digital annotations. I recently represented a client on a contract dispute and being able to look at my original annotations when the contract was signed last year was helpful.

Anyway, if you haven’t looked into digital document annotation lately, watch these PDFpen videos. I’ve embedded one of them below.

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Austin Mann’s iPhone X Camera Review

Austin Mann took the new iPhone X to Guatemala, where he took some remarkable photos and had some great feedback on the new iPhone camera. One discovery he made was how much faster the iPhone X is at focussing in on a subject in low light. I didn’t notice that until reading the article but playing around with the new camera in comparison to my iPhone 7 Plus, there is a significant difference. Anyway, read the full article and drool over Austin’s Guatemala shots.

MPU 403: Workflows with David_Smith

This week on the Mac Power Users app developer and business owner David “Underscore” Smith joins us to share his favorite hardware, software, and workflows. David is truly an “indie” developer and figured out some workflows that could really help anyone trying to make a go of it.

Keep on Top with SaneBox Reminders (Sponsor)

This week MacSparky is sponsored by SaneBox, the email service that adds power features to any email system. With SaneBox at your back, you add a powerful set of email tools that can work in just about any email client. SaneBox will automatically sort your email for you, defer your email to a more convenient time, set reminders, and automatically forward email.

One of my favorites is SaneReminders. With SaneReminders you can copy (or blind copy) an email to some time period at SaneBox.com. For example, 1week@sanebox.com. SaneBox will then keep track of that email and, if you don’t get a reply in a week, SaneBox will send you a reminder. This is a great way to keep track of email related tasks.

I use this feature a lot. So often I need to keep track of matters through email before they raise to the level of an OmniFocus project. SaneReminders are perfect for this. I send the email, activate SaneReminders, and SaneBox does the rest.

You can also use this system to send your future self time-sensitive reminders. For example, you could send an email to Feb14.2pm@sanebox.com with the subject line, “Buy Valentine Gift for Sweetheart” and SaneBox will send you the reminder at the designated date and time. SaneBox explains reminders further on their website.

Best of all, because you’re a MacSparky reader, you can get $10 off. Try SaneBox today.

Chasing Trane

If you’re interested in jazz, John Coltrane is a very big part of the story and this week PBS is running a documentary on his life, Chasing Trane. I haven’t seen it yet but it looks real good. The clip below is about A Love Supreme, which I wrote about in 2014.

A Few Random Thoughts After 24 Hours of iPhone X

I’ve spent the last 24 hours playing with my silver iPhone X and occaisionally making a few notes. Here they are:

Face ID is the real deal. I already like it better than Touch ID. I’m not the first person to say this, but it reminds me of the original iPhone where there was no authentication at all. You just lift the phone up and start working. Security almost becomes a non-event. I’ve tested it in the dark, outside with the sun at my back (and front), with sunglasses, and with a hat. It just works. I’m letting my beard grow for the week to see what happens but I fully expect it to continue working fine. The only failure I’ve encountered is when the phone is held upside down, which isn’t really fair but easier than you think given this buttonless flat piece of glass.
1Password and Face ID together are kind of awesome. It does feel like living in the future.
The longer screen makes sense. I spend a lot of time in apps that list data, like Notes, OmniFocus, and Fantastical. The extra vertical space is useful. Some apps handle the extra space (and notch) nicely. Others don’t, but it’s too early to call anyone out. The conscientious developers will figure out the best UI for the new display.
Speaking of the notch, I don’t like it. When I’m in an app that has a dark user interface, I don’t notice it. When I’m in a light colored app interface, I think it looks terrible. Edge-to-edge everywhere else really makes the notch stand out. All that said, I’m glad Apple didn’t wait until they could bury the sensors under the screen to make this phone. As much as I don’t like the notch, I’m willing to live with it in exchange for all the other stuff the phone can do.
After years of buying Space Gray, this year I went Silver. There are a few reasons for that. First, the silver phone still has a black bezel in front. (I wasn’t a fan of the white bezel.) Second, those stainless steel edges look damn fine next to my stainless steel Apple Watch. It kind of reminds me of the original iPhone. (Catching a theme here?)
Looking at an iPhone sans home button is jarring. After 10 years of seeing the same face on my phone, it still looks like something got cut off.
The new gestures do not take long to internalize. It’s kind of remarkable to me how quickly swiping up for home screen became second nature. I’m still not sold on having to go to the right ear to swipe down the control center. I’d have preferred a long swipe up from the bottom. Swiping left or right on the home bar lets you switch between apps. That is easily best app switching gesture Apple has provided us to date.
Reachability is taking a back seat. You have to go to accessibility preferences to turn it on and the gesture, swiping down at the home bar feels awkward to me.
The OLED screen looks great but it is not on the same level as the transition from non-retina to retina screens. After just a day, I don’t notice the OLED as much as I thought I would
Coming from the 7 Plus, the new camera system is better. This is particularly true with the 2X lens, which now also includes image stabilization and lets in more light. Indoor shots have improved. I took several test photos on my walk this morning and the iPhone continues to take better pictures. The biggest upgrade is the selfie camera, that can now take a pretty great portrait-style selfie. There’s a gallery below.
The sleep/wake button on the right is bigger and more prominent than I’ve ever seen it on the iPhone.
The iPhone X sounds excellent. I turned up the volume all the way, and the iPhone X speaker is fine for podcasts, audio books, and – in a real pinch – Dexter Gordon.
It’s too early to report on battery life. This thing has been hot and sucking down battery since I first turned it on. That’s typical for someone like me that has his entire life stored in cloud services. I expect things will calm down in a few days.
Carrier authorization when I was first setting things up was a mess. This also reminded me of the first iPhone.
Transitioning from a Plus size phone down to the iPhone X has been interesting. I like the way the smaller phone fits in my hand, and I’d forgotten about that feeling after using the bigger phone for the last two years. Despite physically being nearly the same size as the standard phone, the screen is nearly as big as the Plus size screen, which almost makes you feel like it is bigger on the inside. I’m worse at typing on the smaller on-screen keyboard but, overall, I’m looking forward to carrying a smaller phone.
Overall, I like the iPhone X. I guess there is no surprise in that. It’s not going to change the world in the same way the original iPhone did, but after so many years of evolutionary updates to the iPhone, it’s kind of nice to have something a little more revolutionary.

We had a lot of clouds last night. This is a slow shutter shot with the iPhone X on a tripod using ProCam.

Some flowers with portrait mode.

Here is a non-tripod based Live Photo with the long exposure effect.

Portrait mode outdoors.

Selfie portrait mode. Note how good it does with the background blur. As they say … a face for radio.

iPhone X and AppleCare+

If you’re like me and waiting for your door doorbell to ring, you may want to take a moment to read this post from Stephen Hacket about iPhone X repair costs. In short, they’re really expensive.

If you break the front iPhone X screen, out of warranty repair cost is $279. If you break the back, it’s a whopping $549 to repair. If you bought your new iPhone X without AppleCare, I’d recommend adding it … today. You can add AppleCare to a new device within 60 days after purchase.