Mac Power Users 2016 Geek Gift Guide

We had some great picks on this week’s 2016 Mac Power Users Geek Gift show. Listen now so you can put your requests in while your family members are in their post-turkey stupor on Thursday.

Sponsors inclue:

The Omni Group They’re passionate about productivity for Mac, iPhone and iPad.
Automatic The connected car company that improves your driving and integrates your car into yoru digital life. Enter code MACPOWER to get 20% off your purchase.
Making Light Get (or give!) a candle subscription and make some new habits. Use offer code “MPU”.

Task Management Pain Points – False Urgency

I’ve been working long hours the last few weeks and, despite my best efforts, I’ve been finishing my days with a nagging feeling that I’m not getting anything done. A big part of this is me biting off more than I can chew. As I’ve explained in the past, no task management system can make your day magically 30 hours long. You have to be realistic when planning your day.

There is, however, a related trap – false urgency. Specifically, in looking at my tasks, I’ve had this bloat of due dates and flagged items that are not merited. Part of this problem is a result of me going a little nuts with my project templates. As I showed in the latest version of the OmniFocus Video Field Guide, it’s now super-easy to add flags and due dates to your auto-generated projects. However, just because you can, doesn’t mean you should.

I can’t blame it all on the robot though. I’ve also been manually adding more flags and due dates than normal. This is a result of me feeling like I’m not getting enough done and then creating artificial deadlines to try and give myself a kick in the pants. While that may work for a day or two, in the long run it just made me feel further behind and desperate which, in turn, led to even more flags and due dates.

So over the past few days I’ve been looking really close at flagged and “due” items. Most of them did not need this artificial urgency and I’ve removed many of them. My task list once again only has a few truly time sensitive and flagged items and I’m getting my daily list back to something manageable.

Note that all of this is happening in my head. I’ve not technically increased the number of tasks I’m performing. Instead I’ve just made adjustments so I look at the list in a healthier fashion. I’ve been down this road before and can tell you that the net result will be an actual increase in productivity and a significant reduction in stress.

If you feel like you are drowning right now, take a look at the false urgencies you are carrying around and see what you can do about setting them down.

Home Screens – Joshua Holt

This week’s home screen features reader and listener Joshua Holt (Website). Joshua is a lawyer working at a big shiny office in New York. In his spare time, he blogs about personal finance topics while trying to build a community of lawyers to help each other avoid doing dumb things with their money. So Joshua, show us your home screen.

What are some of your favorite apps?

Drafts, Overcast, 1Password and Hangouts are my favorite home screen apps right now. My iPhone is mainly a device for capturing ideas, communicating and the occasional consumption of video.

I’m a total convert to Drafts. It’s my digital notepad on both my iPhone and iPad and my number one resource for capturing ideas, tasks, or anything that needs to be written down. It’s one of the few apps that is allowed to have badges turned on, which lets me know that I need to process through my notes (which is a snap thanks to the robust action platform that lets me send text to the right app).

Overcast is a must for my subway commute. It’s how I keep up with MacPowerUsers and thanks to a neat trick from Katie Floyd, it’s also a way to get Continuing Legal Education (CLE) credits, which are required in the legal profession.

A lot of people make a fuss about the security aspect of using strong passwords, but without 1Password I have no idea how people keep track of their various logins. It seems crazy to me. I have over 425 accounts according to 1Password. Without one program to manage them, I’d explode in frustration every time I had to login to a website.

Hangouts is a new home page app for me, but I am experimenting with dropping my voice plan since I rarely make voice calls. Hangouts allows you to make free calls to regular phone numbers over both wifi and data. So far, so good. I think the day isn’t too far away when voice plans will go the way of the dinosaurs. I already prefer to use FaceTime Audio thanks to the superior call quality and my work phone runs over the Internet, so why shouldn’t my mobile phone?

Which app is your guilty pleasure?

Chess. A few months ago, I discovered that you could play three minute games against anyone in the world. I’m hooked. I find it relaxing to get lost in a few quick chess matches in between tasks. I probably play more than I should, but I figure it’s a better habit than using Facebook.

What app makes you most productive?

I’m surprised to say this, but I’m most productive in the Mail app. I enjoy processing email on my iPhone more than on Outlook on my work PC. As a lawyer, we spend way too much time writing email and I appreciate the limitations on email responses that comes from replying with an iPhone. Also, the predictive “move” command in iOS 10 has really helped me keep my inbox clean which means I try to triage email as much as possible on my iPhone rather than diving into Outlook.

What app do you know you’re underutilizing?

ToDoist. It’s my favorite task management app, particularly because it is cross-platform and has a lightweight UI, but I’ve just never been great at running a task management system. There’s something about sitting down to handle tasks assigned by former me that I find really distasteful. Like, “who is that guy to be telling me what to do?” That said, I use Todoist as a running list of things I’d like to accomplish and open it up from time to time to pick things I feel like working on in a given moment.

What is the app you are still missing?

Hazel for the iPhone would be pretty amazing. I’d love to see an app that could automate certain functions and be triggered by things like time, files, or other inputs.

How many times a day do you use your iPhone/iPad?

Thanks to the app Moment, I can tell you that I picked my iPhone exactly 46 times yesterday. I don’t know how it’s working under the hood to provide that data, but I think it’s handy to get a sense for how much screen time I’m spending with my iPhone.

What Today View widgets are you using and why?

Workflow is hands down my favorite Today widget. I’m getting used to swiping right (rather than down) to bring up my helpful workflows. I work with a personal trainer and send him an email each day with photographs of what I ate. Using Workflow, in two taps, I take a picture, crop it and upload it to a Dropbox folder. From there, Hazel takes over and renames the photo using a timestamp. At the end of each day, Hazel drafts and sends an email automatically attaching my food photos of the day. It’s still magical to me.

What is your favorite feature of the iPhone/iPad?

I’ve always been blown away that we have more computing power in our pockets than Neil Armstrong had when he landed on the moon. If you had asked the astronauts in the 1960s whether by 2016 we would have traveled to Mars or invented a device that carried around the entirety of humanity’s knowledge, I think we know which they would have said is more likely.

If you were in charge at Apple, what would you add or change?

First, I would fix the search functionality in Mail on the iPhone/iPad. It’s not usable. Perhaps this isn’t their fault given that my work email is stored on an Exchange server, but I find it surprising that I can’t easily pinpoint an email in iOS that would take me a few seconds to do on my work PC.

Next, I would fix the problem with iMessage being tied to the phone number of the SIM card. Because iMessage automatically assumes your SIM card number is your primary number, iMessage “breaks” if you travel abroad and replace your SIM with a local SIM. If someone sends you a message at your primary number, you will not receive it. The way around this is to send iMessages to email addresses but not many people know that you can send iMessages to email addresses. The simple fix would be for Apple to allow you to associate any phone number with iMessage if you could prove ownership of the phone message (likely be receiving a SMS code similar to two-factor authentication). This is a big flaw in foreign countries where many people switch SIMs quite regularly and communicate via apps like WhatsApp (which doesn’t have this limitation).

What’s your wallpaper and why?

I can’t remember where I found my lock screen wallpaper, but it’s some type of zen Japanese artwork that I love. I’ve had the same wallpaper since my iPhone 5, so going on four years now.

Anything else you’d like to share?

I think JustSend is a great app. The developer bills it as “Zero Inbox” because it’s email without the inbox. When you open the app you’re presented with the Mail drafting pane and your only options are to send the email. The app makes it really easy to compose and send an email without getting sucked into the inbox.

Dolphin is a great web browser that I use when I’m not on wifi. It has a feature that allows you to turn off photos and videos. Pages load super fast and I don’t worry about using excess data.

Thanks Joshua.

Test Drive Touch Bar with Touché

If you’ve been wondering about the Touch Bar in the new MacBook Pros, check out Daniel Jalkut’s Touché. It’s a Mac app that simulates the Touch Bar on your Mac’s screen. I’ve been running it all afternoon and while putting the Touch Bar on the screen isn’t nearly as convenient as stretching it across the top of the keyboard, it does really give you a feel of how the Touch Bar works. The below image, which magnifies on click, shows the Photos Touch Bar on my screen.

In order for Touché to work, you’ll need to download the latest build of macOS. Daniel has a link on his website. While you’re there, check out some of Daniel’s other apps from his company, Red Sweater Software.

Din Tai Phun dumplings. There is no substitute.

Sal Soghoian Leaves Apple

Today the news broke that Sal Soghoian has left Apple. For those of you that may not know Sal, he was the longtime Product Manager of Automation Technologies at Apple, but in my mind his unofficial title has always been “Automation Tsar”. If it involved AppleScript, Automator, or any other technique to make your Mac do work for you, Sal was your man. For the last 20 years, Sal had a hand in all those little built-in automation services that improved your Mac experience. Every time Apple releases an update to macOS, one of my questions is, “What has Sal given us this year?” He’s been like Santa for automation nerds.

I learned all that I know about AppleScript a few years ago when I took a two day course from Sal at Macworld. That man can make a Mac dance.

Sal explains at his website that, “I was informed that my position as Product Manager of Automation Technologies was eliminated for business reasons.” Sal was incredible asset for Apple and I’m baffled by the fact that they would let him go. This does not bode well for the future of automation on Apple platforms.

I wish Sal all the best and I’m certain that we will hear more from him … perhaps even more than we heard when he was inside Apple. I recommend following his website at macosxautomation.com.

Free Agents #9 – The Feedback Episode

One of the nice things about the Free Agents podcast is the excellent feedback and questions we’ve been receiving since the show launched. Episode 9 tackles feedback with a wide-ranging list of questions an ideas.

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Pixelmator Now Touch Bar Friendly

Of course Pixelmator was one of the first to release a Touch Bar update for its Mac image editor. Indeed I think apps like Pixelmator are perfect for the Touch Bar. It gives users quick access to its more powerful features and speeds things up. It makes me wish there was a Touch Bar-based external keyboard for my iMac. This latest update (dubbed 3.6 Cordillera) also includes tabs (a Sierra feature), Smart Refine (which makes selections faster and easier), and Deep Images support.

If you don’t have an image editor at your disposal, I’d recommend checking out Pixelmator. It’s a one-time purchase, as opposed to the subscription-based model, and, as evidenced here, the Pixelmator team is always on top of things. You can learn more at the Pixelmator blog and there’s a cool Touch Bar video below.

MPU 350: Accessibility Workflows with Shelly Brisbin

This week the Mac Power Users hit a small milestone (350 episodes) and we celebrated by inviting Shelly Brisbin to bring us up to date on accessibility for Mac and iOS. Shelly is super-informed on this subject and this is worth listening to even if you don’t necessarily need any accessibility features.

Sponsors include:

Eero: Blanket your home in fast, reliable WiFi. Use code MPU for free overnight shipping.
TextExpander from Smile Type more with less effort! Expand short abbreviations into longer bits of text, even fill-ins, with TextExpander from Smile.
Marketcircle We help small business grow with great Mac, iPhone and iPad apps including Daylight and Billings Pro.

The New Nomad Apple Watch Bands

With watchOS 3 and the new Apple Watch hardware, I’m using my Apple Watch more than ever. I have also slowly been assembling a collection of watch bands. While Apple has some pretty impressive watch straps, they are also a bit pricey. Alternatively, there are several third party manufacturers making Apple Watch straps but they make me nervous. The last thing I want to do is put a strap on my expensive Apple Watch made with cheap lugs that break or disconnect.

Last year Nomad started selling Apple Watch bands. I’ve bought products from Nomad before and been happy with their quality. Moreover, the design was impressive and I really like their rugged leather straps. So when my family started asking me for gift ideas last year, I asked for the Nomad leather strap. I was a good boy and one showed up under my tree. It’s been my primary band for the last year.

Recently I purchased a brand-new stainless steel Series 2 Apple Watch. The nice people at Nomad offered to send me a few of their most recent straps to take a look.

The Nomad Leather Straps

Nomad now has two leather straps. The Modern Build is a brown or gray leather strap with a refined design. The stitching is subtle and the strap compares to Apple’s own brown leather buckle strap. Consider this the fancy one.

The Traditional Build leather strap is the successor to the original Nomad leather strap and features a more rugged design with heavy stitching and padded leather.

Both watches use Horween leather from Chicago. The leather in both this new sample band and my one-year-old Nomad leather strap looks great. It ages nicely and if you like leather bands, you’ll be happy with the look and feel of one of these Nomad straps. They only get better with time.

Both leather bands are sold with either silver or black stainless steel hardware lugs and buckles. My older Nomad strap has black hardware, which looked great with my space gray alluminum watch. The new one is silver and can match either the stainless steel or standard aluminum Apple Watch.

I like the lugs in this new Nomad watch band better than the ones they used last year. Third party lugs often look a little cheap and that’s what scares me most about third party bands. These new Nomad lugs are solid and wider than typical third party watch bands with a bit of a shoulder giving the watch a little extra dimension on the top and bottom. It’s both solid and different … in a good way. I feel my watch is secure with the Nomad lugs and I like the way it looks.

Vulcanized LSR Silicone Strap

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Nomad also makes an active wear strap designed from vulcanized silicone. As the name implies, the Vulcanized LSR Silicone strap is made of silicone (as opposed to petrolium-based) rubber, which has fewer chemicals and is better for your skin. This also makes the strap more water resistant. This strap also comes in silver and black stainless steel hardware options. Nomad explains on their website that this design should also allow the strap to hold up to weather and heavy use. The overall design is sporty and rugged. There is a bit of texture.

Overall, the design feels different in both texture and feel to Apple’s fluoroelastomer. I’ve been wearing the Nomad Silicone strap on my daily workout for several weeks now with no troubles. When this strap gets sweaty or dirty, I just wear it in the shower and it cleans right up. It still looks like new but you’d expect that after just a few weeks.

I like both of Nomad’s new Apple Watch straps and will be putting them in the daily rotation. Nomad gets obsessive with their design and to me that is always a good thing. I think their most impressive feature is the wide lugs they use in both watches. If you’re looking for a nice strap for your Apple Watch, I’d recommend either of these. See the below gallery for my review samples and more thoughts.