GOkey

About every six months I buy something dumb on KickStarter or Indiegogo. A few days ago, I got sucked in on the GOkey. It is a keychain dongle that includes a small battery for a brief charge, a Lightening cable for connecting your iPhone to a Mac or PC, a flash drive, and a Bluetooth radio that connects to your iPhone. There’s an accompanying app that allows you to push a button on the GoKey and make your iPhone beep or, alternatively, push a button on your iPhone and make the GoKey beep. The device itself is a little bigger than I would prefer but it feels like a nerdtacular Swiss Army knife. I’m in.

∞

Beats Music

A few months ago I sat in the speaker room at MacWorld Expo talked at length with Chris Breen about music streaming services. Chris is a musician and firm believer in streaming your music instead of buying it. I explained how I tried a few of the services and none of them stuck with me. Chris told me to try Beats Music.

Coincidentally, the very next day I received an email from AT&T explaining that I could get a free three month trial on the Beats family plan. If I stick with it, the subscription will be $15 a month and everybody in my family can run Beats at the same time playing different music. The service is already built into the Sonos app for my speakers and I can now easily stream just about anything I can think of throughout my house.

The big reason Chris told me to try Beats was because they have human curated playlists. I’m now halfway through the experiment and a lot more excited about streaming services than I was the last time I tried. I like the music exploration element of it but I also would like the idea of spending $15 a month buying a new album that I could own for the rest of my life. I think it really comes down to the question of how adventurous you are about your music tastes and how badly you want to own your music. Ironically, this experiment with Beats has led me to buy more music than usual through iTunes as a result of discovery new tracks. I’m probably doing this wrong.

The browser experience on the Mac doesn’t work without Flash, so I can only run it in Chrome. I think they could stand to have a stand alone Mac app but I’m sure that is not as high a priority as iOS. I’m not sure what I’ll do when I have to start paying but I suspect I’ll subscribe, at least for awhile longer. I have no idea if this proposed Apple purchase is an actual thing or a marketing gimmick. I can say, however, the Beats experiment is the first time I’ve taken to a streaming service. Josh Centers over at TidBITS did a nice write up explaining what distinguishes Beats from some of its competitor services. I thought the music sounded better than my last streaming experiment and Josh explains they are using higher bitrates.

Jazz Friday: Mercy, Mercy, Mercy

Cannonball Adderley (Wikipedia) is one of best alto saxophonists from the hard bop era. As a sideman, he played with Miles Davis including the Kind of Blue album. After he left Miles Davis, Cannonball started his own successful quintet. Cannonball viewed himself as a jazz educator, always trying to teach people about jazz and bringing younger players in his band.

One of those young players was Joe Zawinul (Wikipedia), who later headed one of the greatest fusion bands ever, Weather Report. While in Cannonball’s band, Joe wrote Mercy, Mercy, Mercy.

The song is more cross-over than traditional bebop but it sure is a fun listen. My favorite recording is the live one on Cannonball’s aptly named album, Mercy, Mercy, Mercy, Live at “The Club“. In it, Cannonball gives this fantastic introduction that makes me smile every time I listen to it, especially when faced adversity for which I am not prepared. Finally, I can’t introduce you to this song without at least pointing to my second favorite recording of it, done by the Buddy Rich Big Band in 1968.

Home Screens: Tom Merritt

This week’s home screen features Tom Merritt (Twitter) (Website). Tom is one of the premier tech broadcasters. Tom currently produces The Daily Tech News Show. I also enjoy Tom’s Sword & Laser podcast where he and Veronica Belmont covers fantasy and science fiction books. So Tom, show us your home screen.

What are some of your favorite apps?

I’m a big fan of Downcast on iOS. It does exactly what I want in
managing podcasts. I also rely on Feedly quite a bit for keeping up on news. And Tripit is indispensable to me when traveling. Finally Waze. I never go anywhere without it.

Which app is your guilty pleasure?

Heyday. It looks through your photos and reminds you of what you were doing on this day say, 5 years ago. A fun trip down memory lane.

What is the app you are still missing?

I think if I knew, I would have downloaded it, lol. Actually, I’ll say the new Tweetbot. I still just use the old one.

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

A dozen? Hard to say since I use it for podcasting, checking feeds, listening to audiobooks etc. My phone is on my pretty much at all times.

What is your favorite feature of the iPhone/iPad?

Do not disturb.

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

LET ME SIDELOAD APPS APPLE. I’M A GROWNUP.

What’s your wallpaper and why?

My dogs. Because dogs.

Anything else you’d like to share?

When the first iPhone came out it was a marvel. When the app store came out it was like entering a new world. When the iPad came out it was like being able to expand that world into new vistas. Since then the phone has become just a phone to me. It’s a commodity. And you
know what, that’s OK. My computer is a commodity too. Devices don’t have to have that special feeling of amazement if they help you out and do what you need them to do.

Thanks Tom.

In Support of Net Neutrality

I generally avoid politics here but today’s FCC vote (3-2) that would allow Internet providers to charge for premium access is a bad thing. Innovation starts in a garage, not in 50-story buildings. Ending net neutrality puts future up-and-comers at risk and feels, ultimately, like a raw deal for us consumers. President Obama campaigned that he was behind net neutrality. We should remind him of that.

Notebook Version 4

Circus Ponies’ Notebook is one of the most mature productivity apps on the Mac. Its developer, Jayson Adams, is a stand-up guy that has been pouring himself into this application for a long time. Over the past several years, Jayson and his team have been hard at work in a big update that just went live. I haven’t tried the new version yet but a lot of people like it. Courtney Stafford Hickey gives it thumbs up over at iPhone JD. Notebook’s appeal is the idea of one app to hold all your data. I know students that use it exclusively and lawyers that run entire lawsuits through Notebook. If you’ve not seen it before, it is definitely worth checking out.

iThoughts for iOS Update, New and On Sale

For nine months, Craig Scott, has been hard at work with a ground-up redesign of iThoughts for iOS. The new version is universal (working on both iPad and iPhone) and looks great in its iOS 7-ified brilliance. There are quite a few new features in this version including rich text support, faster Dropbox sync , Bluetooth keyboard support, and it imports Markdown files.

With the re-write, the app feels smoother than ever and really gets out of your way as you create and move entries around the screen. Like its predecessor, iThoughts gives you a lot of control over the look of your mind map with color palettes, tools, objects, and typography. iThoughts is firmly entrenched as the power-user mind mapping application on iOS. It has a lot of useful features.

This is a new version requiring a new purchase. iThoughts is 80% off for a short time making it easier for upgrades and first-timers alike. You really should have this app in your tool belt and at the temporary price of $2, you should probably go buy it now.

New Sonos App

Sonos released it’s updated iOS app and having spent some time with it, I approve. We continue to see repercussions from the iOS 7 redesign with companies not only giving their apps an iOS 7 coat of paint, but also rethinking how their apps work. I think this is one of the biggest positives to come out of the iOS 7 transition.

I also still love my Sonos system.

∞

Efficiency vs. Delight

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the role of delight in application design and how it relates to (and sometimes trumps) efficiency. I wrote a small piece about this and Macworld published it today.

∞

MPU 192: iOS Picks

In Mac Power Users episode 192, Katie Floyd and I share some of our favorite iOS application picks. In the midst of it all, we had an interesting conversation relating to read it later services and the sometimes-fallacy of “efficient” software. Enjoy.

∞