You’ve Come A Long Way, Baby

Here is the original 128K Mac screen laid upon a 5K iMac display. Spoiler: It’s a postage stamp.

Update to Mail Send-From Trick

A few years ago I published a screencast explaining how to put keyboard shortcuts to your email send-from account. With the release of Yosemite, you are going to need to tweak that shortcut. Before, Apple Mail would wrap your email in <arrow brackets>. Now Apple Mail removes the brackets and adds an n dash (Option + “-“). If you’ve suddenly found your Send-From trick not working, that’s why. Go in and reset them with the new syntax and you’ll be back in business.

App Specific Passwords

As Apple ups its game with two-factor authentication (you are using it, right?), you may find some of your apps suddenly stop recognizing your iCloud password. I’ve seen this in my life with Sanebox, Fantastical, BusyCal, and Dispatch just to name a few. In these instances, Apple stops recognizing your password and instead requires you to make an app-specific password just for that third party application. If you suddenly find yourself locked out of third party email, calendar, and other iCloud account related applications, you’ll need to learn to set up your own app-specific passwords. It is not that difficult.

It all starts right here at the My Apple ID page.

You are going to want to bookmark the above link. You’ll need it often as you are required to create app-specific passwords. The My Apple ID page gives you a few options. Click on “Mange your Apple ID”.

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Next, you’ll need to insert your account credentials.

You’ll also need to provide two factor verification to get in.

Once your in, click on the security pane and the app-specific passwords are available at the bottom of the right pane.

Click on “Generate an App-Specific Password” and you’ll walk through the process. First you’ll name the App-Specific password. Name it after the app you intend to use it in. Then iCloud will spit out a new password. Use that in your designated third-party application and you’re in.

You can even access (or revoke) prior app-specific passwords. While a bit inconvenient, this is absolutely do-able. Moreover, having app-specific passwords is much more secure. Given the amount of data and information in my iCloud account, the increased security is worth the time this takes to set up.

Audio Messages in iMessages

Today iOS 8.1 releases (hooray!). Now that we’ve all been using iOS 8 awhile how big of a thing is the ability to send a recording of your voice via iMessages? I’ve done it once for the sole purpose of demonstrating how it works. I thought it may be a generational thing but my kids report they aren’t using it either.

The problem for me is that the ability to send an audio message defeats a lot of the advantages I get from text messages. When I’m in court, my secretary can send me updated witness availability via a text message. I can read that text message without having the judge throw me in the pokey. If instead, I start lifting my phone to my ear or playing audio messages, my results may vary. I just don’t see the ability to send audio messages (even with a slick interface) as something taking off. One wildcard in this for me is the Apple Watch. It may be a lot more convenient with something on my wrist. For now, however, I just don’t get it.

MPU 220: OS X Yosemi-fied

Episode 220 covers all that is shiny and new about OS X 10.10, Yosemite. Get is while it is hot.

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To Siri, With Love

Judith Newman wrote a touching piece for the New York times about her autistic son’s relationship with Siri. If you’ve previously written off Siri and iPhone dictation, you should try it again. It just keeps getting better and better. I’m dictating these words using it.

∞

Home Screens: Hay Oborn

This week’s home screen features Hay Oborn (Twitter)(Google+). Hay hails from Bournemouth, United Kingdom and routinely helps out with the Mac Power User show notes. So Hay, show us your home screen.

What are some of YOUR favorite apps?

Oh I have so many

Overcast – Is definitely up there as one of my favourite apps as I listen to podcast more than I listen to music, obviously this includes MPU – I think I have tried and tested most podcast apps including the Apple Default one and Overcast in my opinion is the best podcatcher.

Twitter – This is another app I have used many of, but I still always go back to the regular twitter application as it has everything I need – Sometimes I do jump over to Tweetbot too for a change of scenery.

Evernote – I can’t live without this app, I work as an IT Technician in a local secondary school and have to attend many meetings (Too many in my opinion) I send the meeting attendees the agenda and also the Meeting minutes afterwards and it’s just so simple to use, with the iOS 8 widgets Evernote is a must have – I also work off an iPad at times and this app just runs seamlessly.

TextExpander – I use 100’s and 100’s of snippets, literally if I have to write/type something more than once I will make a snippet for it, I use it regularly for email signatures etc. – By the way Smile Software – I LOVE the iOS 8 TextExpander Keyboard (Awesome Job)

1Password – I was a late starter with 1Password and after listening to MPU for YEARS I decided I needed to give it a bash, it takes a while to setup with changing passwords etc. – but once setup it’s another must have app – I can’t believe I hadn’t tried it before (I even use it on my MacBook Pro)

Which app is your guilty pleasure?

It has to be the iOS App Store as no matter where I am or what i’m doing I can always find something in there to help me problem solve, or keep me entertained when needed.

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

I listen to podcasts on my way to work every morning (20–30minute Drive) I use my iPhone constantly for reading and replying to emails when working around campus, I’m always listening to podcasts if I stay in one place long enough. My iPad is mainly used in meetings because if I use my phone for taking notes people think i’m not listening. I would much prefer using my iPad as my main work horse at work, but we run a Microsoft based network now and I work daily on a Windows PC – My iPad/iPhone/Mac still have a part to play.

What Today View widgets are you using and why?

I have been a slow starter when it comes to widgets – but I do use the Evernote widget which has just made things 10 times faster for me. I also use the Dropbox widget, which is helpful with sharing files and accessing them on the go.

Any Favorite iOS 8 Extensions

I love the 1Password extension, need I say anymore?

What is your favorite feature of the iPhone/iPad?

I have just jumped from the iPhone 5 to the iPhone 6 and Touch ID is a feature I absolutely love, using my thumb print to purchase apps from the store is just genius, also the iPhone 6 screen is just stunning. The camera is also superb and I will be taking advantage on the slowmo and timelapse features on various occasions.

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

Now that Apple own Beats – I was disappointed not to see some sort of Beats headphones with the new iPhone 6 and 6 Plus, I’d like to see that in the future. I would also like them to bring to the table more customisation features to iOS – i.e. Change layout of icons, Custom themes – With iOS 8 I think Apple have started to realise this and the integration of third party keyboards was great. (Love TextExpander’s and SwiftKey Keyboards)

What’s your wallpaper and why?

I like random wallpaper, anything that looks groovy – I’ve had this wallpaper since having the iPhone 6 and have only just realised it is DG Skate Shoes on their side – at first I thought it was some kind of animals face.

Thanks Hay.

A Few Notes on the October 16 Apple Event

I sat down and watched the video of today’s Apple event and was left with a few thoughts:

1. No More iPad Parity

I’m curious why they spent so much time talking up the new iPad Air and then talked about the iPad mini as an afterthought. I thought last year’s updates, which gave you essentially the same specs with different screen sizes, was a great idea. I wonder why that didn’t continue. I can think of all sorts of reasons ranging from low sales of the prior mini to trying to push users to the bigger one. (I am an iPad Air fan.) I also have to wonder if the iPhone 6 Plus plays a role. Either way, the iPad mini is now a second class citizen.

2. Retina iMac

The retina iMac looks pretty nice. As I explained earlier, I’m not planning on going by the Apple Store anytime soon. Did you notice how Apple made a big deal about the electronics they invented to push so many pixels at the screen? I suspect that means it may be awhile before we get a retina 5K cinema display.

3. Sans Steve

Notice how nobody talks about how they miss Steve in these presentations. Apple management has really come up with a new formula for these presentations and they are getting pretty good at it. My only critique is that very short goofy jokes are fine. Longer goofy jokes, like videos of handshakes, get tedious.

Drafts 4

Watching WWDC earlier this year and witnessing so much progress towards iOS automation, part of me wondered what that meant for the early iOS automation pioneers. In particular what would happen to those apps that were able to use the few automation breadcrumbs on the floor of iOS 7 to bake some pretty delicious cake? The first app to come to my mind in this category was Drafts.

Drafts was the first app that I used that took advantage of URL schemes to make my iPhone dance. And boy did it dance. The concept was simple. Tap the icon, start typing (or dictating), and then tap a few buttons to make your text do stuff. Drafts then used scotch tape, chewing gum, and URL schemes to do amazing things with that text.

So my thought after WWDC was whether or not an iOS that was much more sharing and automation-friendly would somehow make apps like Drafts less useful. Drafts 4 is out and it delivers.

New Features

One of the key new features is the ability to customize the keyboard. This isn’t just customization of a limited set of functions. Drafts is wide open letting you create commands, labels, text, and scripts. There is also an online directory of custom functions that can range from application specific functions, like sending text to a new Dispatch email or sorting a list alphabetically. Users are already uploading their own custom-created scripts and in just a few days, we already have a rich menu of interesting things we can now do with our words in Drafts that wasn’t possible in prior versions. This is going to get very interesting in the coming months. Using the “label” key type, you can even create directories of additional commands.

The other banner feature (for me) is the Action Builder. URL schemes were helpful but also always a bit cryptic. Drafts now lets you create actions with much more of a LEGO approach, like seen in Editorial. These are much more accessible to me and make creating custom actions for even small projects much more feasible. Also, you can go to the website from inside the app and download developer and user-created actions. Of course, the application also has access to the more vanilla style iOS 8 sharing features.

There is more. The application now has modes to highlight Markdown or social syntax. So thinks like Markdown syntax or social hashtags display in highlight. There are versions so you can move back in time if your draft text takes a left turn.

There is also an Arrange tool that lets you re-arrange individual paragraphs. This is a feature I’ve long used in Greg’s other app, Phraseology. I’m going to use it even more in my precious Drafts.

Drafts can also now keep track of where you started a note and where you finished it. If you are looking at a note that makes no sense to you but then can see you wrote it at a bowling alley, that may help you sort things out.

Drafts has always been a place to just start writing. This easy onramp to getting text out of my brain and into my iPhone and iPad is the application’s fundamental innovation and the reason it is in my dock. This new version, however, adds an extension to grab text from other locations and perform actions upon it and send it to Drafts. I haven’t found myself using this feature as much. I’m using Clips to capture text these days but the customization options of captured tasks via the Drafts extension make it ideal for web researchers and bloggers.

UI Love

With these new features and functions, the user interface (that was already getting crowded in version 3), could have become downright ugly in version 4. It did not.

The interface now splits buttons between the bottom and top of the screen. By splitting the user interface buttons, density is reduced but you may have to reach on your big new iPhone for some of the more important buttons at the top of the screen. The Action menu also has better internal organization breaking up services between social, services, basic, and Markdown. The new design is a win.

My WWDC worries for Drafts were ill-founded. Not only does Drafts take advantage of the new sharing pathways found in iOS, it blazes even more new trails with custom scripts, making it even better at taking my words and making them dance. This new version is better, stronger, faster. There are already some great new resources explaining these new tricks from some smart folks including Alex Guyot, Brett Terpstra, Gabe Weatherhead, and Dr. Drang.

Drafts 4 is published by Agile Tortoise, specifically Greg Pierce. It is a universal app and available in the iOS App Store now.