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.

Get Productive with Daylite (Sponsor)


This week’s sponsor, Daylite, helps individuals, teams, and small businesses on the Mac, iPhone and iPad.

For those of you who don’t know about Daylite, it has been around for over 15 years. Daylite helps you manage clients, schedules, tasks, projects, emails and new business opportunities, all in one app where they’re interconnected. From a single client you can see emails to and from, who referred them, pending business deals, booked or upcoming appointments, and even future followups. Or from a single Project you can see each person and their role, the tasks and who’s responsible, meetings about the project, and notes, all in chronological order. Daylite helps you remember the little details so you don’t have to worry about anything falling through the cracks. And when you invite team members, you can share this information, assign tasks or check each others calendars before scheduling meetings.

The Daylite team is constantly coming up with new ways to make the app better. Most recently, the Daylite team announced they are adding iOS email support natively right inside the app.

If you’re looking for a mature, reliable system to manage your business, look no further. You can even read about other companies using Daylite here.

MPU 379: Workflows with Liana Lehua




This week on the Mac Power Users Liana Lehua shares her hardware and software setup, apps, and workflow for television production. We also share our hopes and dreams for iOS 11 and other Apple products at this year’s WWDC. Also, here’s a picture of me and Liana the first time we met in 1990.


Sponsors inclue:

  • Fujitsu ScanSnap ScanSnap Helps You Live a More Productive, Efficient, Paperless Life. 
  • Fracture Bring your photos to life.
  • Freshbooks: Online invoicing made easy.
  • 1Password Have you ever forgotten a password? Now you don’t have to worry about that anymore.

Apple Maps/Google Maps Comparison

Justin O’Beirne updated his Apple Maps/Google Maps comparison from last year. This is the most thorough comparison of the two products I’ve seen. One clever trick he did this year was run monthly screenshots giving you a sort-of time lapse.

Reading the article, Google seams better. I’ve been primarily using Apple Maps because of Siri integration but I’m going to run Google Maps for the next month to see if it makes any difference for me.

TripMode 2


There’s a new version of TripMode out. I’ve written about TripMode before. It’s a Mac app that will monitor your internet traffic and selectively turn off apps. This can be a lifesaver when tethering. As a quick war story, I once had a very large podcast file come in over Dropbox while I was tethering my Mac and burned through a month’s wireless data in about an hour. With TripMode, when I tether, I turn off Dropbox so that doesn’t happen.

The new version 2 adds several new features, including profiles and better app sorting. The best new feature is data limits. TripMode can now automatically block traffic when reaching a pre-defined data limit.

It’s a free upgrade if you bought version 1. If not, it’s just $8. If you ever tether your Mac to a wireless device, you’ll want TripMode.