Deliveries for Package Delivery Tracking


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Like a lot of people these days, I tend to buy things on the Internet. Many years ago I started using an app on the Mac called Deliveries from Junecloud. Well, it actually wasn’t app is much as it was a widget. (Remember those?) Deliveries was the most often used widget ever loaded on my Mac. Whenever I bought something new and shiny, it would help me track it as it moved around the world and eventually found its way to my doorstep.

Over the years, Junecloud has continued development and Deliveries has evolved. It’s now a separate application on the Mac and iOS. (They even support the Apple Watch.) The two platforms synchronize data between them so you can input data about your new iPad Pro pencil Mac and track it on its journey from China from your phone in your pocket. A few competitors have shown up but Deliveries still remains my favorite application for tracking packages.


This morning I happily received the 7.0 update to Deliveries on iOS with several new and useful features including:

  • Support for 3-D touch with peek and pop and Quick Action items from springboard.
  • Support for the iPad Pro and iPad keyboard shortcuts.
  • iCloud sync (The Mac App also got an iCloud sync update.)
  • Deliveries is now a sharing destination so you can share a delivery email directly to the app

It’s nice to see an app with the long history of Deliveries continue to get updates and, even after years of development, new and useful features. You can find Deliveries in the Mac App Store and iOS App Store.

Office for iOS Gets More Cloud-Friendly

Today Microsoft announced extended support for third-party file storage services inside the Office for iOS apps. This is a big deal for iPad workers.

This feature first rolled out a few months ago with Dropbox and now they’ve added Box. The advantage of this new integration is that you can open, edit, and save file stored in your cloud storage without making a separate copy in the Office for iOS app. This is always how you edited files on the Mac but up until very recently was impossible on an iPad or iPhone. Instead, iOS required you to make a local copy in and then re-upload it to the cloud service later. (And in the first days of the iPad you had to transfer documents using iTunes on the Mac and a cable.) Any file system that requires you to make multiple copies of a document in order to edit it will one editable result in lost data and many tears.

So Office for iOS now lets us work directly on files in Dropbox or Box without any multiple-copy shenanigans. All of this happens right from the Open menu. I’ve been working with my Dropbox documents in this manner since it first rolled out and it works great. Microsoft intends to add additional services in the coming months.

Unfortunately, missing from the list is iCloud and that is too bad. Currently, you can access your iCloud storage from inside Microsoft Office for iOS apps but when you open the file, it gets copied to the the Microsoft One Drive storage space and and the original gets left on iCloud. Again, you’ll be working with multiple documents.

It seems to me that Star Wars isn’t the only place where we’ve had an awakening. Microsoft has been upping its game for the iOS Office suite. I spend a significant amount of time in Microsoft Word and Excel with my day job and lately I’m finding the iOS versions of the the Office Suite more interesting, more stable, and more fun to use than their companion Mac versions. Moreover, with these continued updates it seems like there are no signs of Microsoft letting up. We are no longer dealing with the same Microsoft Word we saw just a few years ago and I like that.

34,000 IPH

Today was Apple’s earning’s call. There was lots of interesting information and again Apple earned enough money to fill a super-tanker with $1,000 bills. The most interesting stat I heard was that last quarter Apple sold 34,000 iPhones per hour (IPH). Every hour. 34,000.

I had never thought much about Apple’s IPH number but 34,000 is crazy. That means they’ve got to build, ship, sell, and activate 816,000 iPhones a day. Has manufacturing somethings as complicated as an iPhone on this scale ever been done? Congratulations Apple on this amazing accomplishment.

iPhone Owners Still Buy More Apps

Chance Miller at 9to5 Mac reports app sales on iOS are currently earning 75% more revenue than Google’s Play Store. For years I’ve noticed that Android owners simply don’t buy applications. Ask your Android-wielding friends to show you their phone and you’ll find a lot of free stuff and little, if anything, that they actually paid for.

Subconsciously, I’d assumed that had changed over the last few years as the Android phones have become higher-quality but apparently it has not. App Annie, the analytics company that supplied the data for the above article says they track more than 1 million applications and iOS revenue is still eclipsing that in the Google Play Store.

I don’t think it is as simple as Android owners are cheaper than iPhone owners. I think it’s more about the fact that iPhone owners (or at least a significant segment of them) are choosy about their software and more likely to pay for it. An addition point in favor of Apple is that people are also quite used up giving money to Apple for iTunes and generally trust the system. This makes it a lot easier to buy games and the inevitable in-app purchase that come with games, which the above-cited article explains earned $1 billion in revenue in December.

My OmniFocus Courses at Lynda.com

I recently had the privilege of spending a week at the Lynda.com studios recording screencasts about OmniFocus. It was a lot of fun and now the courses are available for viewing and download to Lynda member. There are two courses:

OmniFocus for Mac Essential Training

OmniFocus for iOS Essential Training

If you are a Lynda subscriber (or know a Lynda subscriber) please watch the screencasts and spread the word. I’m quite proud of them.

HomeKit, Where Art Thou?

I don’t think I’m alone in my disappointment with HomeKit. First announced in June 2014, it feels as if HomeKit has never really received the attention due to it. In the SixColors 2015 Apple report card, HomeKit did the worst with a grade of “D”.

There are apps that now support HomeKit. I use Siri to turn on and off my Hue Lights for instance. However, it is hardly seamless or, for that matter, easy to set up, comprehend, and use.

Apple even has a fancy website explaining all the nifty things you can do with HomeKit. However, despite being a super-nerd, I don’t know anyone who has gone all-in with HomeKit for home automation.

I think that home automation is now more on people’s minds than it ever has been. I also think now is a great time for Apple to step in with a single solution. It seems that the existence of HomeKit indicates at least a few people at Apple agree with me. The unanswered question is why haven’t they been pressing down the gas pedal on this?

If I had to guess I’d say it’s been difficult getting all the third party vendors on board but now it’s been over a year and a half and that excuse sounds stale. In the time that has elapsed so far, Apple could have made its own home automation hardware.

Another solution that is entirely within Apple’s Control is to create a HomeKit app. Right now, you must go to settings and third party applications to take advantage of HomeKit features, which is nuts. The iPhone should have one centralized place to manage all HomeKit enabled devices. You should even be able to mix and match between HomeKit devices in that hypothetical app so your lightbulbs turn on when the front door unlocks.

There are a lot of people out there that would love to further automate their homes but are not willing to jump through all of the hoops. This seems like the kind of problem Apple can crush. I sincerely hope HomeKit gets some serious love with iOS 10.

Free App of the Week: Lifeline




Awhile ago, I bought this little iOS text based game called Lifeline. It tells the story of a stranded astronaut who has managed, somehow, to get in contact with you and only you. Think The Martian, but creepier. Anyway, your stranded astronaut is freaking out and highly suggestible. He explains his problems to you and asks for your guidance. Your job is easy. Don’t kill your astronaut with bad advice. When I found myself going on the web to research issues before giving him advice, I knew they had me.

It’s all text-based but strangely engaging. It also works with the Apple Watch, which is nice because if you play it properly and he says he needs to hike for 2 hours, it will be 2 hours before you hear from him again. (There is a setting to advance time but where is the fun in that?)

Anyway, the game is a fun little diversion and not terribly difficult. Best of all, this week it’s free. Have a nice weekend.



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