DEVONthink has made some significant strides in the last few years. Most impressive to me, is the way they’ve implemented iOS syncing. You now can have your entire DEVON library on your iPad and iPhone. This week we’re joined by Stuart Ingram, a busy guy that is getting the most from DEVONthink to hold it all together. We talk about the app basics, how to set it up and get started, and some interesting advanced features.
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This week 1Password released version 6.5 of the iOS app. There are several big improvements including a better onboarding experience and better group management. What really struck me, however, is the new Apple Watch app. It’s what I would refer to in my 80’s vernacular as “a sweet upgrade”.
The new Apple Watch app is a native Apple Watch app taking advantage of the the watchOS 3 update and running much faster. It’s now easy to set up and move key items from any 1Password vault (including 1Password.com vaults) to your wrist. I’ll be using 1Password on my wrist a lot more now. As an example, I still occasionally need to get my credit card PIN number when making a purchase. Now it’s on my wrist.
There has been an evolution with Apple Watch apps. With watchOS 1 and 2, watch apps felt like an experiment more than a finished product. With watchOS 3, Apple Watch apps have the possibility of being useful. That doesn’t mean that they all actually are useful. I think getting the user interface and feature scope on an Apple Watch app is a tricky thing. It’s a small screen and app developers need to think of it primarily as a consumption experience for getting data out of their app. 1Password nails this.
I mentioned in yesterday’s OmniGraffle sponsorship post that I made some cool new Star Wars Apple watch faces. That resulted in several emails from readers asking exactly how I did that. So here goes.
Custom Apple Watch Faces
Apple’s not big on custom watch faces. In fact, I would be surprised if they ever open the watch up for just anybody to make their own watch faces. Apple does, however, allow you to make a watch face based on your photo album. The idea is for Apple Watch owners to use their favorited photos on the background of a basic digital watch. If you love your dog, you can have your dog on your wrist every time you check the time.
I tested this watch face and didn’t like it because my favorited pictures (largely family pictures) don’t look good on a small screen and definitely don’t make a good background for a digital clock. That got me thinking about what would make a good background. Specifically, could I make something that approximates a custom Apple watch face so long as I’m willing to stick with the digital clock available on the built-in photo watch face? The answer is that it is absolutely possible to make interesting custom watch faces this way. The trick is to have a simple graphic and a pure black background.
Icons Are Key
As you may know, I love Star Wars. So I decided to make myself a series of Star Wars watch faces. Images shrunk down to a watch face size look pretty odd and anything with too much detail compresses into just a blob of pixels. Icons, however, are different. They are usually graphically fairly simple and can easily scale down to a small size for your watch face.
So I did a Google search for Star Wars icons. Specifically, the search was “Star Wars icons PNG”. It turns out there is a treasure trove of Star Wars icons on the Internet. Below is a more refined search of “Star Wars icons R2D2 PNG”.
A lot of icon files, particularly in the PNG format, are saved without a background making it really easy to drop them onto a black background to make your Apple watch face. To add a layer of difficulty for this tutorial, I picked this one that has a bright orange background. I then open the file in Preview and used the Instant Alpha feature to remove the background. It’s fairly simple. Just drag the mouse enough to remove the background and nothing more. When you’re done, save that file and then you’ll have a background-less PNG file of R2D2.
Removing the background in Preview.
A Black Background
Next I needed to get that icon on a solid black background. This is the part where I use OmniGraffle. In OmniGraffle, I made a black square. Notice it is not gray or partially black. It’s solid black. When the watch face displays on Apple watch, anything other than black looks off. I tried using gray backgrounds and other colors and they all look silly because of the way the watch is made. A pure black watch face fades right into the background. If you look at Apple’s own watch faces you’ll note that almost all of them also use the pure black background.
Then I simply drag the R2D2 PNG file on top of black square in OmniGraffle. The photo watch face displays the time in the lower-right corner of the watch. Therefore, that section always needs to be solid black. (You can make an adjustment to display the time at the upper-right portion of the watch face if you prefer but I want the icons on top.) While respecting the area for the time display, you can set your icon anywhere else on the black square. I center larger icons and place smaller ones to the left but do whatever blows your hair back. Don’t make the icon too small. Don’t forget that watch face is still pretty small. Once I got things laid out exactly how I want in OmniGraffle, I export the images as PNG and then import it into the Photos application.
By default, the Apple Watch imports your favorited photos. However, in the Apple Watch preferences app on the iPhone, you can change that to import any album you choose. So I made a new album called, appropriately, “watch”. Now I have the Apple watch sync the watch album over instead of my favorites. I’ve loaded that album up with various bits of Star Wars themed custom faces I made in exactly the way I described above. It usually takes a few minutes but eventually the new images will sync over your watch and if you set the photo face as your default Apple watch face, you’ll suddenly find you got some nice custom watch faces. If you aren’t feeling like makinig your R2D2 watch face but would rather just download mine, here you go.
Obviously, you don’t have to just use Star Wars icons. You could also simple icons from your interest (or fandom) of choice. The Internet is full of interesting, cleanly designed icons. Put any one of them on a solid black background and sync over to your watch and enjoy.
The latest episode of The Free Agents is out. In it, cover the importance of multiple income streams, and both the risks and benefits of getting your money from a bunch of different places.
This week MacSparky is sponsored by OmniGraffle. Did you know that the Omni Group recently released version 7 of OmniGraffle for the Mac? The new version adds several useful new features including Touch Bar support and the ability to convert lines and text into shapes. They’ve also dramatically improved the import and export features. But of all of the new features, my favorite new one is the infinite campus. As I build OmniGraffle documents, they often grow with my ideas. The infinite canvas makes it possible for me to easily do that.
I originally purchased OmniGraffle for the law practice. I use it to create diagrams for presentations and legal briefs. The application is perfect for that job but since then I find I use it for a lot of other things than the day job. In this last week, I used OmniGraffle to create our family Christmas card and also some sweet new Star Wars based Apple watch faces.
OmniGraffle manages to combine powerful tools with an easy to learn interface. This lets anybody use the application while at the same time giving you plenty of room to grow. If you ever find the need to create diagrams and images using your computer, you should really check out OmniGraffle. They’ve got versions of the application for the Mac, iPad, and iPhone. Head over to the OmniGraffle website and download your free trial. While you’re at it, let them know you heard about it from MacSparky.com.
After last week’s Wall Street Journal article led me to give up hope on AirPods in 2016, Apple proved us wrong by releasing them today. As I publish this, they are shipping right before Christmas but I have no idea how long that will last so act fast if you want them under your tree.
For several months I kept a running list of everything I love (and hate) about the iPad as a Mac replacement. This show is the debrief.
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Disneyland has a display of some props from Rogue One. So of course I made the trek and shot pictures. Enjoy. Expect more Star Wars coverage than usual this week. Rogue One releases in a few days and I’m feeling it.
Those AirPods that were originally promised in October now look like they’re pushing to 2017. I guess you can strike this one off the holiday gift list. In my limited time with the AirPods, I sure did like them. Hopefully we’ll get them soon after the new year.
This edition of Jazz Friday features composer and arranger Billy Strayhorn (Apple Music) (Wikipedia). Billy started his musical career as a classical music enthusiast and wanted to become a classical composer. This never came to fruition, partly because racism. Eventually, however, Billy found a love for jazz and brought his classical music knowledge to jazz. He wrote Lush Lifewhile still in high school!
In 1938 Billy met Duke Ellington which resulted in a collaboration that lasted the rest of his life. Strayhorn’s musical sensibilities fit perfectly with Duke’s vision for his own orchestra. As Duke later explained, “Billy Strayhorn was my right arm, my left arm, all the eyes in the back of my head, my brain waves in his head, and his in mine.”
Billy Strayhorn, a diminutive, mild-mannered, unselfish, and openly gay man in a time of extreme prejudice, is a jazz legend. Just a few of his songs are Take the ‘A’ Train (iTunes),Such Sweet Thunder (iTunes), and Chelsea Bridge (iTunes). I love listening to Billy Strayhorn jazz. There is a level of subtlety in it that you won’t find many places. His sense of harmony and syncopation, mixed with that original love of classical music combine to make something special. Billy and Duke also collaborated to write the music score for the motion picture, Anatomy of a Murder (iTunes). This was the first African-American-written score for a motion picture.
There’s a lot of great Billy Strayhorn music out there but if you’d like to just get one album, I’d check out Masters of Jazz – Billy Strayhorn (iTunes).
