The New Glif

I backed the new Glif iPhone tripod mount and mine showed up a few weeks ago. Studio Neat has come a long way with this product. The newest Glif is spring loaded and pulls back easily around your phone (any size, in a case or not). You then just press down the quick release lever and you’ve attached three tripod mounting points to your phone. The whole thing easily fits in your jeans’ pocket. Quick. Secure. Portable.

If you want to go crazy, Studio Neat also sells a wooden grip with a tripod screw on top and wrist strap. You can combine this with the Glif to have a nice comfortable handle for your phone. I used it in this configuration recently at Disneyland while walking in a crowd. Combined with the iPhone camera stabilization, it took some great video for something I just pulled out of my pocket. As an aside, you’ll see some cranes in the background at the end of the video. You’ll never guess what those are for.

This third iteration of the product is so good that I’m not sure where they can go next. If you have any desire to put your iPhone on a tripod, look no further.

Free Agents 23 — Hard to Get on a Different Train

The latest episode of Free Agents is available for download. In this episode, we talk about what business forms make sense for your new venture. Topics include sole proprietorships, corporations, LLCs, and what seems like an episode-long disclosure that you really need a local attorney to help you out with these things.

Sponsors include:

Freshbooks: Online invoicing made easy.
Storyworth: A new way to bring the family together.

Hazel 4.1 Update

I’m a little late on this story but Hazel got a very nice update over the last few months. The new version 4.1 adds several useful features including:

Better date matching
The ability to make a match based on file attributes of another file in the same folder
There’s also a new token for “any non-blank character”

These and other additions make this a nice improvement to an already useful Mac utility. I’m working on some new video content based on the updates. It will get added to the Hazel Video Field Guide when it’s finished. I’m not making any promises on a release date just yet.

Subscription Database

Several months ago we did an episode on Mac Power Users about managing subscriptions. During the show I explained that I have an Apple Numbers spreadsheet where I keep track of all of that information. I’ve finally gotten around to posting it. Below is a screenshot and at the bottom of this post is a download link.

The spreadsheet allows you to enter the name of the service and then whatever fee you’re paying. When you click the checkbox as to whether or not it’s an annual subscription, the spreadsheet does some conditional computations to figure out the monthly cost and annual cost in the following two columns. Those are the key locations that you’re going to be getting information about how much you’re spending. At the bottom of those columns you’ll see how much you’re spending per month and per year.

After that it’s just further information concerning the specific service like website, account number, contact information, and email. The point is you want to keep whatever you need in this database so you can cancel a subscription whenever you feel like it. The one thing I don’t keep in this database is passwords. For that I go to 1Password.

Feel free to download, use, and modify. Let me know how it works for you.

Download the Subscription Database.

10.5 Inch iPad Pro Reviews

Several of the early reviews are out and they are generally positive. My favorites are:

Federico Viticci at MacStories

Rene Ritchie at iMore

I particularly like the sample of the improved pencil scanning at iMore. The new iPad pros combined with iOS 11 improvements is going to let people get a lot of work done on tablets.

WWDC Reflections and Future Hopes

Now having returned from WWDC, I can’t help but take a few minutes to reflect upon the general mood in San Jose this past week. Developers were a lot less surly this year and I spoke with several developers inspired by Apple’s work to go and create the next big thing.

Why wouldn’t they? We got new Macs, iPads, and the software updates addressed many priority issues, like iPad productivity. I can’t really put my finger on it but it seems like Apple just has its eye on the ball better this year than it did last year. Talking to folks around San Jose, one explanation was that Apple had a lot of focus on the new building and the car project. I’m not sure if that’s the case. It may just be that the features they announced this year took longer than expected.

Indeed, it really doesn’t matter why it suddenly seems Apple is addressing these issues so much as the fact that they are addressing these issues.

The iPad gets a lot better with iOS 11. I have a long list of critiques having used it under fire for several days but, fundamentally, the iPad gets more useful when iOS 11 ships.

The bottom line is people are generally happy with what Apple announced last week. Now let’s keep the the momentum rolling. I’ve got three hopes for the next year:

I’d like to see that Apple is listening to feedback particularly on the iOS 11 iPad improvements. Beta users have some great ideas and I’d like to see the best of them make it in before iOS 11 ships.
I would also like to see Apple continue to do incremental updates to the Macintosh hardware. The fact that they upgraded the MacBook Pro to the most current processor in less than a year is a great sign. That is, however, just one data point. I hope that they continue to upgrade hardware as soon as the appropriate upgraded chips are available.
With the improvements of the iPad and the iPad operating system, we now need a healthy ecosystem where developers can spend the time necessary to make professional iPad applications and then sell them for enough money to justify the effort. Hopefully Apple can work with developers to find a way to make that happen.

MPU 381 – WWDC Special

The latest episode of Mac Power Users is live. I spent a lot of time this week speaking with developers at Apple’s WWDC. In this week’s episode, Katie and I break down Apple’s latest announcements along with what I’ve been hearing in San Jose and our analysis of what it all means. The episode came out great.

Sponsors Include:

The Omni Group We’re passionate about productivity for Mac, iPhone and iPad.
Fujitsu ScanSnap ScanSnap Helps You Live a More Productive, Efficient, Paperless Life.
MindNode MindNode makes mind mapping easy.
Fracture Bring your photos to life.

A Little iPad Productivity with iOS 11

I’m writing this post sitting in San Jose Airport. I didn’t have any WWDC plans today so instead I arrived at the airport ridiculously early, found a comfy chair and did about a three hours of real work on my iPad running beta one of iOS 11. I did this not wearing my MacSparky hat but instead my lawyer one. I wrote contracts, sent and received emails (with multiple attachments no less!), tracked changes in Microsoft Word, scheduled meetings in Fantastical, took notes with my pencil in Apple Notes, and otherwise made myself productive.

It’s still early days. This is the first after all. I wouldn’t recommend loading this early beta on your production iPad. I know of at least one person that managed to severely crash his iPad with the beta. Also, the battery life running the beta is about half what it normally is. (That’s normal for early betas.)

What I can say is that once iOS 11 releases, people that want to be more productive on an iPad most certainly will be. iOS 11 is very kind to iPad power users.

Mac Power Users 380 – Feedback Show

I’m a little late on this post but the latest episode of Mac Power Users is live. In this episode Ed Cormany joins us to talk about regular expressions, how it works and practical applications. We also cover lots of listener feedback including photo scanning, switching from Windows to iOS, privacy and the Internet of things, shared photo libraries and more.