PDFpen for iPhone Released

The developers at Smile Software have been hard at work on PDFpen for iPhone for some time. Tonight it went live in the App Store. This version is built just for the iPhone and iPod touch screens and looks great. Moreover, it has all of the features I love about PDFpen: iCloud Sync, Dropbox Sync, easy annotations, text substitution, and a user interface for humans. Using iCloud, I now have my key PDFs in my pocket.

How much do I like it? Enough to make a video.

iOS 6

I realize just how deeply I suck at keeping up with news cycles. Nevertheless, Katie and I sat down to talk about how we are using our iPhones and iPads with iOS 6’s new features on the latest Mac Power Users episode.

Home Screens – James Floyd Kelly


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For some time now, I’ve been following Wired’s Geek Dad blog, authored by James Floyd Kelly (Twitter). In the process, I’ve been corresponding with James and he is just as awesome as I thought he’d be. He’s even agreed to share his home screen.


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What are some of your favorite apps?
Every app on my primary home screen would make that list, but Clear and Pocket stand out. Clear is the simplest To Do list app I’ve ever found and just having something listed in that app drives me crazy until I finish and delete it from the list. It’s a great motivational app for me. And I find so many great articles, interviews, How-Tos, and editorials on the web that I want to read — when I don’t have time, I throw them to the Pocket app (using a built-in button on my laptop browser’s toolbar) for later reading.

Which app is your guilty pleasure?
I’m not a big game player on my iPad, but I am quite hooked on both Kingdom Rush (when I want a little strategy) and Temple Run (when I just want a mind-break and something with almost zero rules that won’t last too long).

As far as non-game apps, I’ve been using Lift to help develop positive habits (like not drinking soft drinks or writing at least 1000 words per day). It’s got visual feedback that lets you know how you’re doing. It’s like a game, seeing how many days you can go with certain goals.

What is the app you are still missing?
A digital magazine clipper app. With print magazines, I just rip out the article and scan it. But with my digital magazines, I have to keep the entire magazine on my iPad because there’s no way to pull out a specific article. Some of these magazines really start to add up in terms of storage space, so it’d be great if someone offered an app that would let me “digitally rip” out articles from e-magazines. So far, I haven’t found that app.

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

My iPad is always with me. I spent many years at another job sharing a personal assistant with some co-workers. I don’t have that now, so I continually try to push my iPad to become that missing personal assistant. Right now, I’ve got just about every document, appointment, contact and resource available from my iPad. It’s rarely out of reach.

What is your favorite feature of the iPhone/iPad?

Right now the feature I use most is my iPad’s connection to Dropbox. And if I need something stored locally, I use GoodReader’s “Connect to Servers” feature to pull it from Dropbox.

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

I’d like to be able to throw my iPad’s screen up on my MacBook Air’s screen using AirPlay without a 3rd party solution. That should really be native and seamless. And while I don’t think Apple will ever budge, a micro-SD card slot to expand the iPad’s memory would be outstanding.

Anything else you’d like to share?
I spend a lot of time keeping my iPad uncluttered and organized. I only have three folders (Games, Misc, and Original Apps) and they’re on my second home screen. Pretty much everything I use daily is on the primary screen. I have a passphrase that’s required to access my iPad and, because my Dropbox and Box apps give direct access to my important files, passcodes are enabled on those two apps for added security. A passphrase on your iPad is the absolute minimum security anyone should configure — it’s just not worth the damage or loss of your data should your tablet fall into the wrong person’s hands.

Thanks James.


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RSS Sponsor: WeatherSnitch 2


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Thank you WeatherSnitch 2 for sponsoring MacSparky this week.

Finding the perfect weather app isn’t easy. Most apps rely on free information; providing the bare minimum and accuracy that leaves much to be desired. They lure you in with fancy effects and a flashy interface, distracting you from what matters most — the weather forecast. WeatherSnitch throws these tired gimmicks to the wayside. Focusing on highly detailed, highly reliable weather forecasts and an interface void of any ads, clutter and other convoluted features that get in the way.

Powered by SnitchWeather, you have access to 30,000 local weather stations in over 240 countries. Get detailed 15-day forecasts, precise hour-by-hour forecasts and near real-time observations for millions of locations around the world. Try it today and see for yourself why iTunes named WeatherSnitch 2 the best iPhone weather app in App Store Rewind 2011.

This week you can get WeatherSnitch 2 for only $1.99.

Sponsorship by The Syndicate.

iOS 6 and Every-Day Life

Shawn Blanc just saved me a bunch of time. I have an outline that includes a post highlighting the same features. Soon we will take these all for granted. I used the iOS 6 beta and the decline call and send a text message feature is already one of my staples.

The Trick to a Good R2D2 Ringtone …

… is to make sure to include spaces. He just can’t jabber endlessly. The little robot will give you a chance to respond. With five minutes in GarageBand and some web downloaded WAV files (which I’ll leave up to you to find), I just made the perfect weekend ringtone.


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Twist for iPhone

Ever want your iPhone to automatically notify friends, family, and collegues when you are about to arrive? TechHive has a nice reveiw of an app I’ve come to rely upon.

Kaboo Bags

My wife can’t stop talking about how much she likes her Kaboo Bag, a purse that includes a handy iPad pouch. They are made by a friend of ours and with the holidays coming up, you may want to check this out.

iOS OmniFocus ♥ TextExpander touch

Today’s iOS OmniFocus update is a doozy. The headline feature is the addition of iOS TextExpander support. As I’ve explained before, I aggressively use TextExpander snippets when creating tasks in OmniFocus. I even made a screencast about it. Now they work on the iPhone and iPad as well. I love that.

You can download a few of my OmniFocus related TextExpander snippets right here. In order to get them on your iOS device, install them in TextExpander on your Mac and use the Dropbox sync to transfer them over. If you don’t own a Mac, just create them manually in TextExpander Touch on your iOS device. These are really just a sampling. Once you get the idea, customize for whatever works for you.

While Apple added Keyboard Shortcuts with iOS 5, they are inferior to TextExpander shortcuts in several ways. First, they don’t synchronize. You have to add them manually to every single iOS device you own. (UPDATE: I’m told iOS 6 remedies this and Keyboard Shortcuts will sync between iOS devices.) TextExpander syncs to Dropbox and takes that tedium away. I find I create very few TextExpander snippets on my iOS devices and instead create them on the Mac and let Dropbox take care of the rest.

Also, there are some strange behaviors using the iOS Keyboard Shortcuts. Specifically, they need to be typed with no trailing characters. If you copy and paste text into a new OmniFocus entry and then move the cursor to the beginning of the pasted text to add a Keyboard Shortcut, it won’t work unless you add an additional space and then, using your finger, move the cursor back yet again another space before typing the Keyboard Shortcut. I found this vexing. With TextExpaner snippets in OmniFocus, the snippet fires whether or not there is an additional space. This makes a difference.

Another part of today’s iOS OmniFocus update is an improved synchronization with the native iOS Reminders database. This makes it much easier to synchronize these lists. The power tip here is that it gives you the ability to dictate with Siri to Reminders and have that automatically move over into OmniFocus. I use this feature every day and quite often. Again I made videos about this. However, the setup is simpler now than shown in the video.
The Siri command I use when adding items to my OmniFocus list is as follows:

“Add [task] to my reminders list.”

i.e., “Add fumigate DeathStar garbage room to my reminders list.”

OmniFocus watches the Reminders list titled “Reminders” (I appreciate that is confusing) and, once you open OmniFocus on your iPhone, incorporates any items found in the “Reminders” list to your OmniFocus inbox. This does not prevent you from having separate Reminders lists for other things. I, for instance, have Reminders list for Target, Groceries, and other running list type matters.

Overall, the addition of TextExpander support in OmniFocus is huge for me. I’ve been running the beta for a few weeks and couldn’t imagine going back. I’m guessing I’m not alone.