Home Screens – Jory Raphael

This week’s home screen features Jory Raphael (Twitter). Jory is the genius behind all of the 5by5 artwork, including the latest iteration of Daren Rolfe’s excellent Mac Power User’s logo. Jory is super-talented and a really nice guy. You can learn more about Jory’s work at Sensibleworld. So Jory, show us your home screen.

What are your most interesting home screen apps?

I think they’re all interesting!  The one app I use in an unexpected way is probably Adobe Ideas.  It’s replaced the notepad on my nightstand, as an easy way sketch ideas I have during the night.  That said, decoding those ideas in the morning can sometimes be a little tough!  Interaction with the iPhone and iPad touch screen is fantastic, but my finger can be cumbersome when trying to sketch a specific idea.  I’m definitely looking forward to the arrival of my More/Real stylus cap.

What is your favorite app?

The app I use the most is Tweetbot, followed closely by Reeder and Camera+.  I love the design of all of the Tapbots apps, and Tweetbot is no exception.  I’ve gotten so used to it’s features and layout that I feel a bit lost now when using pretty much any other Twitter app, iOS based or not.  Reeder is a definite must for keep up with RSS feeds, and Camera+ has proven invaluable to quickly capture important moments and milestone’s in my kids’ lives.

Which app is your guilty pleasure?

Instacast.  It’s invaluable as a way to easily keep up with podcasts.  I’d call it a guilty pleasure because it prominently showcases podcast artwork.  The majority of the shows I listen to are on 5by5, so I get to see my artwork full screen when I’m listening. Sparkynote: I love Instacast too.

What is the app you are still missing?

There is one app missing from my iPhone.  One astronomically fantastic app.  A real game changer.  It’s completely and totally amazing. Epic. Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious.  That is to say, I have an idea for an app that I have yet to design.

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

iPhone: Constantly.  iPad: On average once a day.  More if I’m out on the road meeting with clients.

What is your favorite feature of the iPhone/iPad?

The camera on the iPhone 4.  And, perhaps oddly, I love being able to easily access the display brightness on the iPad by double-clicking home and flicking right.  I tend to read on the iPad at night and quick brightness adjustment is key.

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

Wait, is there an opening?

Anything else you’d like to share?

I’ve recently jumped into UI design for iOS, so have been studying apps (and their icons) non-stop.  I’m also currently working on the next (free) update to my Symbolicons vector icon set to include optimized icons specifically for iOS design and retina displays.

Thanks Jory.

See more home screens here.

Animated sheet music

Outstanding find by Kottke (and pointed out to me by Ernie Svenson). Giant Steps and Confirmation are both rights of passage for every saxophonist. It is not the fact that you can faithfully play one of these solos that gets you in the club though. It’s the fact that you get to the end without slamming your horn against a hard, flat surface that gets you in.

Speaking of my sax, I pulled it out of mothballs last weekend and blew the cobwebs out long enough to record the new Mac Power Users song. The music is all live musicians. No loops. I’m, by far, the worst but thankfully everyone else makes me sound good. Stay tuned. The song isn’t named yet but I’m lobbying hard for Kernel Panic

Steve and Tim

That Steve would retire was not difficult to see coming. What we all wondered was whether they’d stay in-house for a successor or go outside. John Gruber nailed it last month. (No surprise.) Still, it is good to see that the company is in the hands of someone who gets it.

One of the most interesting angles of this is the way it all happened. The announcement wasn’t Friday, after markets close, but Wednesday. Moreover, in typical Apple fashion, nothing was left to chance. Steve is stepping down and Tim is replacing him. There was no public bloodletting or year long search committee and all the terrible mess and speculation that comes with such a committee. The succession plan was set, and activated. Steve even mentioned it in his letter. At its most fundamental level, this was presentation of a problem and a solution all at once.
How very Apple.

Finally, here is my favorite Steve Jobs related link. (via Merlin Mann)

MacSparky.com is sponsored by Bee Docs Timeline 3D. Make a timeline presentation with your Mac.

MPU 55 – Lonely Sandwich and 5by5

Things were so busy last week, I neglected to post a link to the latest Mac Power Users episode, where Katie and I interview Adam Lisagor. I got to know Adam a little bit working with him on this project and he is truly a charming person. This is one of the better Workflow interviews so don’t miss out. Get it on iTunes or directly from 5by5.

Speaking of 5by5, our transition to the new network went as smooth as can be expected. We had to start a new iTunes feed so there was a show transition. Existing subscribers moved to the new feed without any work. We did lose our prior reviews (over 400 of them!) but we are already getting new reviews with the new feed. (One more would never hurt from loving MacSparky readers.) I apologize for the double downloads some subscribers received. As near as I can tell, it was unavoidable.

I’m just so pleased to have been asked to join 5by5. I think Dan Benjamin has changed the face of Mac podcasting for the better and am thrilled to be part of the team.

On a side note, I’m hard at work on new theme music. We’ve got an original song, courtesy of J.F. Brissette, and doing most of the arrangement with live musicians. (I even recorded the sax line myself.) If not on the next show (publishing next weekend), you’ll definitely hear it on the show after that.

Home Screens – Dr. Drang

This week’s Home Screen guest is Dr. Drang (twitter). The good doctor publishes one of my favorite blogs, And now it’s all this, where he covers programming, productivity and other fine nerdery. So Doctor, show us your home screen.

What are your most interesting home screen apps?

The most interesting app, in the “may you live in interesting times” sense, is OnDeck Parent in the lower right corner. My sons swim for a neighborhood pool, and OnDeck Parent is the front end to an online database of meet results for the league they swim in. It’s an absolutely atrocious app, from its non-retina icon to its too-long name (love the ellipsis) to its scrolling toolbar (yes, it has a bottom toolbar you have to flick left and right to find its most important functions) to its tiny buttons. Everything Apple wants to see in an iOS app, OnDeck Parent isn’t.

It is, however, the only way to get mobile access to meet results, and it’s free. I think OnDeck makes its money selling meet management software and services to pools, and this app is sort of a throwaway freebie that’s probably written to be as cross-platform as possible. I think of it as a small taste of Android that reminds me to appreciate my iPhone.

With swim season over, I’ll be moving OnDeck Parent off to some netherscreen until next summer. 1Password will take its place.

What is your favorite app?

My favorite “app” (it’s just a web page, not a real app) is my homemade weather app at the end of the second row. It was sparked by Ben Brooks’ complaints about not having a weather app with just the features he wanted. I realized I felt the same way and whipped up a simple CGI script that gave me the current conditions, a brief forecast, and a radar map. It loads faster than other apps and is tuned to exactly the information I want. This is why I think learning to script is important.

Which app is your guilty pleasure?

I’m older than the President and well past the stage where I feel guilty about pleasure.

What is the app you are still missing?

I still want a timer app that mutes the phone for a set period of time. I use the mute switch when I go into a meeting or a movie, but I almost always forget to unmute it when I leave. A timer would be the perfect solution. (Maybe there’s one I haven’t heard of?)

How many times a day do you use your iPhone?

Constantly when I’m on the road, to the point where I need to carry an external battery with me. I got a Sanyo Eneloop Mobile Booster for just $20 at Costco a couple of years ago, and it’s been great. A little clunky, but it holds over two full iPhone charges.

I use my phone much less when I’m home or in the office, of course, because there’s always a computer around. I am surprised, though, how often I use the iPhone instead of my MacBook Air, just because it’s right there in my pocket.

Anything else you’d like to share?

Unlike some of the people whose home screens you’ve shown, I don’t really have a system for laying out my apps. My only rule is no folders—if an app is important enough to put on the home screen, it’s important enough to be out on it’s own.

Most of my apps are in Apple’s default positions. When I use a substitute for a built-in app, I usually put it where the original app was. You see that with Agenda, Notesy, PCalc, Due, and iTalk. I find that I launch apps by position. When I want to look at my calendar, my thumb reaches for the second spot in the top row, regardless of the app’s name or icon. (And if I’m not on the home screen, I still tap that spot and end up launching something else entirely.)

Thanks Doctor.

iPad Marketshare

There is some interesting news lately about iPad marketshare. Earlier this year, reports surfaced that Android tablet marketshare was between 20 and 30 percent. Here is an example. The problem is, these numbers appear funny. It looks like people are comparing the number of Android tablets shipped to the number of iPads sold. Gruber explains it best here.

The plot thickens. The Wall Street Journal’s All Things D now reports that of some 270,000 HP tablets shipped to Best Buy, approximately 25,000 were sold to customers. Granted HP and Android are two different operating system, I still think this all jives.

While there is no shortage of iPad competitors, they don’t appear very successful. The best evidence for this is in your local Starbucks. I’ve been making an active attempt to spot non-iPad tablets in the wild for the last month. Every time I’m in a place where tablets are present, I actively look for something not an iPad. I’ve yet to see one. While there may one day be successful competing tablets, today it seems there is an iPad market but no tablet market.