SaneBox for Email Sanity While Traveling (Sponsor)

This week MacSparky is sponsored by SaneBox. SaneBox is the mail service that keeps you … well … sane. With a SaneBox account you can have your email automatically sorted for you so you only see the most important email in your inbox with less important email put in other folders for later viewing. You can also take your email and defer it for as little or as much time as you want. I’m traveling this week and I deferred several less important emails to next Monday, when I’ll be in a much better position to deal with them.

Those, however, are just two features. There is so much to the SaneBox service. You can, for example, throw unwanted email into the SaneBox blackhole and you’ll never receive email from that sender again.

Between attending the Apple Developer conference and managing the law practice, this week SaneBox has really been clutch for me. It has allowed me to manage the most important email but at the same time kept me from drowning in email.

SaneBox is a great service for anybody struggling to keep up with email. I hear from listeners all the time that love using SaneBox. If email is causing you any grief, you should check out SaneBox. Use this link and get a discount and let them know you heard about it here at MacSparky.

Insight on Apple from Craig Federighi

Last night I attended the live Talk Show episode where John Gruber interviewed Phil Schiller and Craig Federighi. (I’ll update this post with a link as soon as there is one.) John did a fantastic job. The star of the night was Craig Federighi. He did most of the talking and that’s exactly what I wanted.

It’s rare that Apple engineers get to speak publicly about what gets them excited but at these Talk Show events you get a fully un-restrained Federighi. He literally ran on to the stage when introduced and then spent the hour and a half sitting on the edge of his seat.

The overall takeaway I got is that Craig, who’s in charge of Apple software, is obsessive about delivering quality software. Among the tidbits that came out:

  • Apple “practice” installed the new Apple File System on millions of devices before releasing it to everyone with the 10.3 update.
  • Apple spent a lot of effort figuring out how to sync your text messages while still maintaining your secrecy.
  • When you say “Hey Siri” in a room full of your Siri enabled devices, they have a quick computer-style conversation to figure out which device is closest to you and which device you’ve used most recently. They then decide which device is most likely the one you were talking to and act accordingly.

The thing about these little stories is that they often were disclosed in passing, on the way to explain something else or answer a different question. They jump through these hoops every day.

The most telling part of the evening was when John asked if Apple could protect user privacy and make Siri competitive with Google’s assistant. In a rare moment when he was not smiling Craig looked at John, dead-serious, and said “Yes”. There was some mettle behind that answer and I have no doubt he fully believes Apple can compete.

Apple is such a secretive company that we rarely find out exactly how the sausage is made. That makes it easy to imagine magical things are happening (or just the opposite). What I took away was that Craig Federghi and his small army of engineers have a plan and are working hard on making it happen. It was really nice getting this message and I wish Apple would let Craig talk a little more often.

Initial Thoughts on iOS 11 iPad Improvements

I took a lot of notes this morning watching the WWDC Keynote right up until the point they started talking about iPad improvements. At that point I was completely absorbed by the presentation. That’s a good sign. I’ll be writing/podcasting more about this in the coming days but in the meantime, here are a few thoughts:

  • It’s a Mac … in a good way. So many of the features were very Mac-like. Spaces for instance is very similar to what we already have in macOS but probably even more useful with a touch interface
  • Selecting between multiple pre-arranged spaces is a feature I’ve always wanted without verbalizing.
  • The redesigned control center is a significant improvement over the iOS 10 three-page version. I still would have preferred to exchange stock apps for better third party alternatives, like switching PCalc for calculator.
  • Files. Amen. My biggest white whale on iOS is dealing with multiple files. Often I’m required to work with multiple documents and until today this was a huge pain point on iOS. With the Files app and Drag and Drop, my iPad got a lot more useful.
  • They only demonstrated iCloud in the Files app. Will we get “favorites” from third party cloud document providers like Dropbox?
  • Does the existence of the Files app indicate they’ll make it easier to open and save files to cloud services directly in Apps? That’s still pretty clunky.
  • The new 512GB iPads may make sense if you can locally store massive amounts of cloud data locally on your iPad.
  • Multiple file selection with gestures? Yes, thank you.
  • The Dock is another super-useful feature for power users. I need to get hands on this before saying more but that won’t be long now.
  • I have a feeling we are going to be wanting app suggestions in our iPhone docks before long.
  • They went through the multitasking stuff very quickly. There’s a lot there but it looks like a much-needed improvement.
  • I like the semi-transparency on drag-out multitasking. It really makes the old system feel pedestrian.
  • I am impressed with the scope of Drag and Drop but want to get my hands on it before saying more.
  • Interesting how much focus there was on Apple Pencil. It looks like we’ll also still be able to use the Apple Pencil to navigate but we’ll know soon enough as the beta gets out.
  • There were significant new improvements to Notes. I didn’t expect that.
  • Scan and Sign looks really clever. I hope it works as well as demonstrated.
  • The new QuickType keyboard looks pretty useful. How much time have you spent switching between keyboards on your iPad? Related – the 10.5 iPad software keyboard does not quite appear to be the awesome monster that the 12.9 iPad software keyboard is.

WWDC Table Stakes


I spent a good portion of the day today walking around San Jose with other bloggers and podcasters as the WWDC crowd starts rolling in. There are lots of familiar faces and several new ones. Moving the conference to San Jose seems to be generally welcomed by most folks I talk to. Hotel rooms are less expensive and downtown San Jose is pretty, with lots of good weather and trees.

There is also an underlying buzz of general excitement for Apple’s new announcements tomorrow at the keynote. There seems to be more energy than I’ve witnessed before prior WWDC keynotes. It’s as if following the attention-sucks that the new campus and the mythical Apple car created, folks expect Apple to come back home with focus on its existing (and possibly a few new) consumer electronic devices. 

My own feelings on the WWDC keynote are mixed. I’d like to get into the excitement but I also, frankly, feel a little exhausted. I’ve spent a lot of the last year doing work on the iPad and while there is much to love about the iPad, it often feels like swimming upstream when, at this point in the iPad’s lifespan, it shouldn’t. The general consensus here in San Jose is that tomorrow we’ll get a lot of power features for iPad but that doesn’t bring out joy in me as much as it does a sense of … well … “finally”. If Apple wants to impress, that is the starting point, not the ending one. If we don’t have significant iPad improvements tomorrow to file management and multi-tasking, I’m going to have to reconsider the iPad as a platform. To me, fixing several of the iPad productivity shortcomings tomorrow is table stakes. 

App Camp Benefit and Relay Meet-Up at WWDC

One of my favorite gatherings every year at WWDC is the App Camp for Girls benefit party/concert. This year it is on Wednesday, June 7 and tickets are still available. 

In addition to great music and a great cause, this year the event will also serve as a semi-formal Relay FM meet-up. I, along with several other Relay hosts, will be hanging out so join us and meet up with fellow listeners starting at 7pm. See you there. 


iCloud Authentication Video

Apple has recently announced that starting June 15, any Mac app needing access to iCloud data is going to need an app-specific password. While this is a bit of a pain, it provides a significant increase in your security and I’m all for it. The gang at Fantastical asked me to make a video explaining exactly how to make an iCloud app-specific password. This video is for Fantastical, which is my calendaring weapon of choice, but you’ll be going through the same steps with any third party app starting June 15.