iMac Retina

A Week With the Retina iMac — Shawn Blanc

From all I’ve read about this iMac, combined with all I’ve experienced, this is the real deal. There is no disadvantage to being an early adopter here and there is no major tradeoff. I am so happy this computer exists. This is the dream. This is Retina Desktop Without Compromise. And it is wonderful.

I hope Shawn is right. The only question mark I can foresee is the one around long term reliability & longevity. My 2007 dual screen Mac Pro is still going strong and hasn't missed a beat for seven years.

I wonder if the iMacs, with more consumer grade parts, will endure similarly.

Drafts 4

Drafts 4 Review – MacStories

With a refreshed UI that irons out many of the kinks that had manifested in earlier versions, a newer and more accessible interface for creating powerful chained workflows, an amazingly useful Share extension, and impressive advanced automation techniques such as JavaScript support, an enhanced URL scheme, and a custom extended keyboard, Drafts 4 is an amazing update to a classic app. Drafts 4 shows us all that it’s ready for the future, and I can’t wait to see where it goes from here.

Got time this evening to get under the skin of the new Drafts app update and get it installed on my 6+. Two observations:

1) For the first time time it has completely blown Editorial out of my workflow. I'm a bit sad about that but there's competition.

2) It is so good - it has crossed a very important line. It's made it quicker (with less clicks & better automation) to post from an iOS device than on a Mac. Didn't think that would happen for some considerable time to come.

Owning an iOS device and not running Drafts 4 is like owning a horse without a saddle.

Why Retailers are skeptical over Apple pay

John Gruber is half right when he says..

And the reason they don’t want to allow Apple Pay is because Apple Pay doesn’t give them any personal information about the customer. It’s not about security — Apple Pay is far more secure than any credit/debit card system in the U.S. It’s not about money — Apple’s tiny slice of the transaction comes from the banks, not the merchants. It’s about data.

Data is part of it - It's not unreasonable for retailers to act to avoid others trying to muscle in on their customers and create a point of disintermediation but it's more than that. It also about fees.

Credit card interchange fees are substantial and if retailers can remove them from the value chain it will prove much better value for customers.

Unfortunately it looks like Apple Pay helps embed credit card fees and the 2 to 3 % they add to the cost of stuff, rather than help eradicate them.

iOS 8.1 issues

Everyone is raving about iOS 8.1 and iCloud issues. 

Federico Viticci:

For the past week, apps like MindNode, Twitterrific, Pixelmator, and (before the latest update) Drafts have been hanging or crashing at launch on my devices, forcing me to force-quit them, reboot (with a hard reset), or manually copy data because iCloud wasn't syncing. Each app was tested with existing document libraries as well as an empty database.

Stephen Hackett:

In short, apps using iCloud data will freeze or just crash at launch for many users. I'm seeing it all over the place in my iPhone 6, and like Fraser Speirs, can't use apps like Keynote. Infuriating and pathetic.

I wondered why I had no empathy or similar experiences. All the other stuff from the ridiculous iTunes 12 UI to 8.0.1 - all had created pain that I shared, but not this one.

Then I remembered that I don't have anything that uses iCloud. Dropbox worked before and still does.

From Text Expander to 1Password, my apps sync with Dropbox. When I go to my iCloud picker, it's empty.

Might be time for some to return to old faithful.

I don't know Marco Arment

Marco Arment:

Very few general-purpose retailers aren’t run by terrible people.

Really?

I have never met Marco. I don't know him, but I enjoy and respect his work. I read his blog, love his podcast and think he offers reliable and consistently smart insight into a whole spectrum across the world of tech. More than that, I think Marco is a bit cool, he carries a tiny degree of arrogance that makes me smile - it's apparent that he enjoys taking the role of being the one that has to deliver occasional, uncomfortable truths. I respect someone that is prepared to trade being a little unpopular for standing up for what's right. I even recently bought Overcast (in app purchase to be precise - some might say a bit like selling the high margin USB cable that you need for the printer after you have sold the printer at cost) even though I have no intention of using it - just because I'm a fan.

I don't know Marco but I do know that if I did, I'd like him.

It's in that context that I respectfully offer the following feedback on the sentence above:

That is the one of the stupidest things ever written.

Whilst I don't know Marco, I do know many people that run general purpose retailers and most of them are not terrible people. To say so is wrong and a tad insulting.

I have worked at the highest level, board level, for more years than I'd care to recall in retail and most of the CEO's and Executive Directors I meet are hard working, often humble, good people who get up every day and sweat on making decisions and setting direction that is trying to improve the lot of customers and normally tens of thousands of employees. Most believe that doing stuff better for customers (not screwing them) is the route to success but they have to navigate that route through an incredibly tough landscape.

Sure the business is tough and cut throat - it's a fact of life that all business is. And, sure there is the odd asshole at each and every level but no more than any other industry or sector.

A few of the people that run general purpose retailers are terrible people. Most though are actually decent people, whom if you knew, I think you would like.

The best RSS reader for iPad

Shawn Blanc on the best RSS reader:

There are three top shelf RSS apps for the iPad: Reeder, Mr. Reader, and Unread. All three are excellent — each in their own way — and I’ve used all three extensively over the years.

In our latest app review for The Sweet Setup, Robert McGinley Myers compares these three apps, hits on each one’s pros and cons, and lays out our reasoning for why we think Unread is the best of the bunch for most people.

I have the Reeder icon and the Unread icon adjacent to each other on page 1 of my home screen.

Can't decide between them.

I prefer the design and layout of Unread but always have to switch to Reeder when I want to edit or add to my RSS feed.

Unread feels unfinished without this feature (actually, not feature, ability) and the recent announcement from Jared Sincair that further development of Unread has ceased means that Reeder is likely to win out in the longer term.

A bit like giving up your pretty girlfriend for a more practical one.

Enabling Fresh Air

Many millions of words have been written on how mobile technology is enslaving modern society. Your boss knows that your iPhone and by extension, you - are available 24/7, at the tap of a send key. You are never off duty, blah, blah etc. 

I have never subscribed to this point of view. The responsibility of when and how you interact with others is a responsibility that lays clearly with the individual, not the device. In the pre Blackberry days, if your boss wanted you urgently he/she could phone you at home. If you took that call, uncomplainingly, every night - it would soon turn into a regular, normal occurrence. And so it is with whether you choose to respond to emails sent to you at inconvenient times or if you respond to unreasonable requests rather than ignore them. 

As I have watched mobile technology develop over the last decade or so I have had a growing dream, or more accurately an aspiration, that we would get to a state of advance where mobile tech would enable me to work truly anywhere. I dreamed that with my Apple Newton, my Palm Pilot, my Psion, even my original Sony laptops connected through an IR modem to a clunky Nokia phone. None of these solutions really worked. Almost always they created more work, less productivity, and more hassle than the choice of not using them but I persevered with each of them and many more (I'm looking at you HP pocket PC).

Today, I and my family climbed 2700 metres to here:

 When we got there, whilst they ate their lunch and read their books in the sun, I whipped out my iPad Air from my Grivel Rocksac and knocked off an hours work. 

It weighed nothing, it was perfectly on the network thanks to Swiss Telecoms, and I never gave a second thought to having enough battery. 

The dream has landed. It's empowering, not enslaving to have such tools at our disposal. They free time, rather than steal it - if used in the right way. If that isn't happening then it can only be through a lack of imagination, process or discipline.

Tomorrow we are going to try another ascent of a different peak. I can do it relaxed and focussed in the knowledge that if any thing important happens at work, I can deal with it once I'm on the summit. 

I'm 180 degrees away from thinking that modern devices erode freedom or personal time. At some point in the last couple of years we have crossed a rubicon where we have moved from an age of communal commerce to an age of individual mobility.

If that allows one extra day in a mountain cathedral like this. It can't be a bad thing. 

This weeks award for the best use of an expletive

Marco Arment, PHP Developer Needed in Columbus, OH

Robert Half Technology does everything that gives tech recruiters a bad name, and everything that makes looking for a tech job so incredibly difficult when you’re young and inexperienced. They do the entire industry a great disservice. Nobody who works there should be proud of what their company does, or be under the illusion that they’re helping anyone.

So, Robert Half Technology, kindly fuck off.

This is simply the funniest piece I have read in weeks.

Dr. Cool

Further to the last post on rubbish service I was amazed by the quanity of comments it attracted along the lines of, 'Ryan remained too cool, he should have told them to F*@K Off or threatened retribution'. I'm with Dr. Drang on how best to respond to poor experiences.

.. I don’t feel angry or outraged, nor am I disheartened by the sad state of the world. I’m just happy I planned for these mistakes and for others that didn’t happen. It’s something I wouldn’t have done when I was younger, and I would have ended this day upset. Now I see my interactions with customer service as a sort of strategy game: can I plan my way around the obstacles the game will put in my way? Today I came out on top. Tomorrow is another round.

I always buy some food for my 2+ hour train journeys before I get on the train - so when they tell me that all catering is closed due to staff shortages, I feel a small sense of victory rather than outrage.

I always make those calls to customer service centres, the ones where you know you'll be on hold for 10 to 25 minutes, from my desk where I can switch on the speaker phone, and work away on my Mac with a little background music, rather than suffer a frustrating wait.

I always tell myself that cool is everything and the only way I could be the loser in any outrageous failure of service situation, would be if I lose my temper.

I don't always succeed but I think the good Dr. is very wise - It's a game of chess, you win by being smarter and thinking ahead, not be being more pigheaded than whomever you are facing off against.

Tomorrow is another round. Indeed.

Ryan Block being bullied by Comcast

When customer service gets as bad as this you know that the company is coming to the end of it's useful purpose to society.

We have all experienced this sort of aggravation when we leave a telecoms or service contract (normally after being on hold for 20 minutes) but from now on maybe we should all follow Ryan & Veronica's example and post the call to the web.

Medium custodial sentences to any web based service where you can do everything online - except cancel.

How to create a new contacts group in iOS7

1) Realise after 10 minutes of fiddling about that you can't do this with the iOS contacts app.

2) Research on the web​ and discover that either you use (a)the Mac Contacts app or (b)the iCloud web interface.

3) As you are travelling iPad only, you choose (b)the iCloud web interface and open iCloud in Safari.

4) Find you can't get the iCloud web page in Safari but only this:

5) Download the Chrome Browser onto your iPad but find it's the same - no iCloud home web page.

6) Download the Dolphin Browser onto you iPad

7) Select Desktop mode in settings to emulate a non iPad browser and go to iCloud.com

8) Finally get to this page:

9) After a small celebration, select contacts, select the '+' icon to create a new group only to find it's not working on this web render.

10) Give up. Resolve not to travel without your laptop again.

Shabby Apple, really shabby.

Tearaway Trousers has come to an end

Matt Alexander:

For those who don't follow along on Twitter, 5by5, iTunes, RSS, Flipboard, various podcast apps, or newspapers, I bring you sad news.

We've brought Bionic to an end just after its second birthday.

Historians often reflect upon Bionic's turning point — episode 51 — wherein Myke accidentally loosened his grip on the narrative and we ended up on an odd trajectory discussing nothing in particular for 44 episodes. So, for those looking to see what all of this was about or wondering why "Car, Plane, or Boat?" is a serious question, I'd recommend starting there.

Bionic made the pencil note list and will leave a hole that is difficult to fill both in that list and in my weekly schedule.  For me it fulfilled that time when you fancy the escapism of infantile, nonsense, that moment of listening to a couple of guys always trying to take dicking around to whole new level of, well, dicking around.

The final episode was wasn't the funniest, it was even awkward in places, but it was poignant. It captured a moment we have all felt at some time or other - a moment where, despite our better instincts, we have decided to just grow up a tiny bit and we are not keen on the immediate consequences of that.

Bionic made me smile. 

Thanks Matt and Myke.

Keyboard Maestro & Sending Email to Evernote

Everyday I try and work my email inboxes down to zero and over time I have developed a number of Applescripts to help me automate and speed up some bits of the workflow on my Mac. These were never wholly successful as each new OSX release seemed to break another bit of applescript or invoke tougher sandboxing rules.

A few months ago I took another look at my workflow using Keyboard Maestro and have developed a very reliable and speedy method which I thought was worth sharing.

I have ten or so Evernote notebooks which I use as the key repositories for emails that I want to keep and I use Evernote reminders as the ToDo system for something that I need to return to or prompt myself about in the future.

Using the system in Evernote that allows you to forward an email to a unique user address with additions to the subject line that tell Evernote; which notebook, which tags and which/if any reminders you need, I have created automation that populates this data, sends the email off to Evernote, deletes the email from my inbox and moves focus to the next mail - all at the press of one key.

So in practice, the workflow looks like this.

First email in the inbox is an Amazon Receipt.

I Press CTRL 'R" - this fires a Keyboard Maestro Macro that sends the email off to Evernote with @RECEIPTS added to the subject line and deletes it from my inbox.

Focus moves to second email which is from a company that I work for, ACME, that needs attention in 2 weeks time.

I press CTRL 'Z' that fires a KM Macro that brings up this dialogue box:

It's already auto populated with today's date so I can just hit enter but in this case, I just change the date from 4th to 18th and hit OK.

When I then hit CTRL 'A' it fires a KM Macro that sends the email off to Evernote with '!2014/07/18' and '@ACME' added to the subject line. This files it in Evernote but sets a reminder for me in a fortnight time.

Each of the KM Macros for filing that I have set up; CTRL 'A' to file to notebook ACME, CTRL 'R' to file to notebook 'RECEIPTS', CTRL 'M' to file to notebook 'MISC' etc. etc. checks first to see if a reminder has been preset with CTRL 'Z', if it has, it files it and sets a reminder, if not, it just files it.

This way I can speed through my inbox dealing with most emails with one of two key presses. 

Either the delete key for something I don't need to keep, a CTRL 'A/B/C' key to put it straight into an Evernote Notebook or CTRL 'Z' to set a reminder date, followed instantly by CTRL 'A/B/C' key to put it straight into an Evernote Notebook. Boom - super fast triaging of mail.

After using this system for a while I realised that the most frequent reminder I set was for a week hence - normally because I'm looking at an email where somebody is saying that they will do something and I'm thinking, 'I ought to check that in a week' to ensure it's happened. So, I set up a third Macro, CTRL SHIFT 'Z' , that automatically sets the reminder preset for one week hence without a dialogue box.

This workflow has really accelerated my email time. I has stopped me pontificating about whether to keep something or not, if I'm unsure I just hit the hot key CTRL 'M' and file in 'MISC' - it will be there if I need it but's gone from my inbox. It's also emptied my inbox of emails that I might need to return to in a week or so. These are now set up as reminders for the future removing them as daily baggage.

The three Macro's are described here in the Nerdery:

KEYBOARD MAESTRO - SENDING EMAIL TO EVERNOTE

KEYBOARD MAESTRO - SETTING AN EVERNOTE REMINDER DATE

KEYBOARD MAESTRO - SETTING A REMINDER FOR 1 WEEK LATER

Dark Sky UK Weather App

About 100 years ago, if you lived in the UK you would have read everyone rave about Dark Sky, a weather forecast app available in the US that uniquely concentrated it's forecast on how likely you are to see precipitation, exactly in your location, in the next 50 minutes.

It's an app that is both useful and beautiful. It's probably been available in the UK for ages but I just discovered that it now covers the UK.

It has instantly blown my previous Met Office weather forecast app off the front page of my Phone. It's a brilliant exposition of form and function working together to deliver something useful. What's the likelihood that I am about to get wet.

Short custodial sentences for anyone living the in UK with an iPhone that doesn't buy this app.

The Putter

An incredible short film by Shaun Bloodworth

Contemporaries

• Japan
• Iran
• Ghana (Probably)
• South Korea (Possibly)

Teams that will end the world cup with the same points total as England.

How very, very far we have fallen.

Suarez Bite

The BBC reports

Uruguay's Luis Suarez was involved in a controversial World Cup incident as he appeared to bite Italy's Giorgio Chiellini during their Group D clash. The Liverpool striker, 27, lunged at Chiellini in the penalty area just before Diego Godin's Uruguay winner.

The allegation is yet to be proved but the evidence appears pretty damning. 

If it is true, this would be the third time that Suarez has assaulted another player through biting them on the pitch with previous incidents at Ajax and Chelsea already on record. 

Can you imagine any other profession; say a lawyer, or a software developer, or a university professor, where an individual was seen as one of the top performers in the world but colleagues just had to 'deal with' the fact that every so often he bit one of them when he got too excited about doing his job.

The individual would be in prison and, if they had done it three times, they be struck off permanently and cast out of their job. 

Football needs to demonstrate that it has some standards and as far as Suarez is concerned, it should be three strikes and you are out. 

For good.

When to use the Oxford Comma

A fascinating article on the correct use of the Oxford Comma by Walt Hickey, via Jim Dalrymple.

We asked respondents which sentence was, in their opinion, more grammatically correct: “It’s important for a person to be honest, kind and loyal.” Or: “It’s important for a person to be honest, kind, and loyal.” The latter has an Oxford comma, the former none.

The result was pretty much down the middle, with pro-Oxford partisans commanding 57 percent of the vote and opponents to the tyranny of the extra comma grabbing 43 percent. Although those numbers might be enough to defeat Eric Cantor, it’s hardly a clear victory for the Oxfordians.

This traditionally has been another situation where the issue has been hi-jacked by binary pedants. My way is better than your way.

I think we should step back a bit and remember why we invented the written word. It was invented to facilitate communication, effectively as a medium to convey spoken word in the absence of the orator. This means you should use that additional comma to convey the spirit and feeling of sentence when it is appropriate and omit it when the sentence would be delivered in more clipped fashion or when wanting to deliver less emphasis.

Example one - When to omit the comma:

I had fish, chips and peas for lunch.

Example two - When to use the Oxford Comma:

Juliet was ravishing. She had the looks, the presence, and the demeanour to capture your heart in an instant.

Not difficult. Everyone comply immediately please. I will be checking with diligence, tenacity, and relentless focus.

London Rain

At the end of a long day, gazing out of the window with a glass of wine and wonder - as to the stories that are unfolding under each and every rooftop.