Category Archives: iPad

I love the iPad mini.

When it was released, I got an iPad mini for the office for testing. I brought it home, put all my stuff on it to give it a proper test drive, and promptly decided it wasn’t for me. I liked my bigger iPad with its Retina display. I felt that Apple was being disingenuous with its promises of “iPad, concentrated” – it felt more like “iPad, crushed” to me. Sure, it was small and light, but honestly, there were too many trade-offs for my liking. I dismissed it, wiped the mini, put it in the testing pool at work and went on with my life.

Then something else happened. I didn’t go back to my larger iPad. I watched it, evening after evening, sitting on the TV console, fully-charged, ready to perform at a moment’s notice, but I never picked it up. I used the hell out of my phone, because the iPhone 5 is amazing, as we all know. But I didn’t feel like picking up that iPad. Every time I did, it felt so heavy. Like a really pretty manhole cover. Rene and I did a podcast in which he extolled the virtues of the mini, while I defended (theoretically, as it turned out) the need to have a bigger, nicer screen and a little more performance for the kinds of creative apps I was using.

Then it occurred to me: I wasn’t actually creating anything anymore on my iPad. It was, as I said, sitting. I watched and listened as my friends on the internet sang its praises, selling their large iPads, saying things like “it’s the best mobile device I’ve ever used”. I started to feel crazy, like I missed something… had I been too quick to dismiss the device? No, I know what I like, and my gut is usually right about things like this. Then I asked the people in my daily life who had them. Every single person said the same thing: it’s the best iPad they’d ever used.

With this gnawing at me, I couldn’t take it anymore. Deeply conflicted and doubting my own judgment, I ordered one, a white (HUGE departure from my lineage of black) 32gb Verizon mini. I sat back, suddenly relaxed that the decision was made. A weight had been lifted. If I truly didn’t like it, I could always send it back. I was ready to give it another shot.

Then it took two full weeks to arrive.

Agony. Having made the decision, I was ready to begin my new experiment. But I couldn’t. I had to wait and watch as a seemingly prehistoric process unfolded in front of me. I’m so used to Amazon Prime shipping speeds, watching as my mini was manufactured for a week and then stagnating as it trudged around the world was excruciating. It sat in a UPS facility in Kentucky for almost three full days. Doing nothing. I’ve had a 60" HDTV delivered to me from Amazon in less than 24 hours. This was torture. I casually wandered into the Apple store at the mall while my wife and I were shopping, in the hopes that they’d have a model I could grab that would at least be close to what I ordered. I was prepared to be flexible; sure, I would take a black 64gb LTE model. No problem. But nothing. Wi-fi only, everywhere I went. The cellular models were either the hottest sellers, or seriously undermanufactured.

When it finally arrived, I opened it and wept. Not really, but I was so happy to be done refreshing a shipment tracking page, I could have. I got to setting it up, put all my stuff in place, and configured it just so. Paired it with my Logitech Ultrathin (which looks positively gargantuan next to it now). Attached the Smart Cover I ordered while I waited for it to arrive. Began using it, picking it up, making it a part of my routine.

Verdict? I’m a jackass. I learned some things about myself and what I actually value. All the lip service I’d paid the larger display was truly worthless in the end, because I wasn’t even looking at it. The mini? I can’t put it down. It’s so light, I take it from room to room. I’d never done that with the larger iPad. I read more, I play games more, I bang out email, journal entries and draft posts more, simply because it’s there and ready. Everyone said it takes a few days to get used to everything being compressed a little, and it’s true. It’s been a week, though, and I couldn’t imagine going back. I stopped seeing the pixels about two days in, which was about 47.8 hours longer than I’d given it the first time. If only I’d not been so shortsighted.

The lesson for me is not about buying more crap and filling my life with more screens. It’s about not making snap judgments anymore. I find as I get older that I think I’ve got things pretty wired; that I know myself and what I think I like. The truth of the matter is that I’m woefully inflexible in my own mind sometimes, despite my ability to adjust to things in my real life (I just had a kid, trust me, I’m getting pretty awesome at “adjustment”). I have to learn to put aside my preconceived notions about things, and explore my options, because I’ll never know what I’m missing out on if I don’t.

Seems like a grandiose conclusion to draw over a gadget, but the epiphanies that matter the most to us don’t always come down on a bolt of lightning.

App.net | Twitter

Rewiring my brain with Drafts and TextExpander.

Drafts has become one of my very favorite apps on iOS. Prior to this week, it was iPhone only, but a recent update has not only extended its usefulness on the phone, but added a new iPad app too. It’s not universal, but that’s no reason to overlook it. This app belonged on the iPad from day one, and I couldn’t be happier that it’s here.

I’m going to skip the review, since there’s already a whole bunch of those, and they’re far more comprehensive than I’d be. What I was thinking about is whether or not I could take a highly extensible app like Drafts combined with a tool like TextExpander and change the way I use my iPad.

Since iOS prevents apps from running globally in the background as they can on OS X, apps like TE have a hard time being as useful on the mobile platform. Sure, you can try to do everything in the app itself, but after years of training myself to jump between apps on my iPhone/iPad, it seems unlikely that I’ll be able to (or want to) live in a single new app and try to push text everywhere. TE can allow your snippets to be made available in other apps though, and this is fairly useful, but the app needs to expressly support it and not all apps do. However, an app like Drafts feels like it might work. It supports TE snippets, and I’ve already grown accustomed to using it on my iPhone. It’s worked its way into my workflow, being both an instant scratch pad and a brain dump for chunks of text that will end up in other apps. It’s highly configurable, clean, and fast.

On the iPad, the interface is very similar to a handful of other apps that I’m using right now (Byword, Writing Kit). There are a variety of attractive font choices and a few different interface color themes to choose from, as well as variable text sizes, word count, and some quick shortcuts to useful text insertions. The thing that’s making me really reconsider what I do on the iPad is that I’ve grown fond of using text snippets on my Mac lately (I know, I’m a little late to that geek party, but whatever). I want to do the same on iOS, but the limitations of the system prevent me from doing it smoothly. If I pair the functionality I want with an app I’m already using, can I rewire my brain to do a lot of my text entry from a single start point? Obviously, I’ll still need to jump into apps to read things like Twitter and email, but for things like quick bursts of creativity, blog posts and longer emails, it’s a pretty compelling option. OH. I almost forgot – half the reason I’m willing to try this is that Drafts 2.0 has added a sync option. So your text goes between your devices effortlessly. It’s not through Dropbox (awww) but it works phenomenally well in my testing (yay!).

I’m going to give it a shot. I’ll probably talk about how it works at some point. If you want to ask about it, feel free.

The tyranny of two screens.

I have this habit that I’ve developed. On both of my iOS screens (iPhone and iPad) I try, whenever possible, to have all the same apps and icons in the same places. The reason I do this is because in thinking about it, I like the idea that no matter where I am, and on either device, I always have a quick mental map of where apps are located and the stuff I want is always where I expect it to be. It’s sort of interesting to go between the devices quickly and it certainly seems to work pretty well when I’m using my devices in tandem.

However, the truth is that I don’t really use the devices the same way. I have certain apps on my home screen on the phone that make no sense on the iPad. Like Messages, for instance. Used constantly on the phone, almost never on the iPad. Because the whole ‘get your messages wherever you are’ thing only works if everyone sends messages to your email address. And uses iOS. And not everyone does, and the years-long habit of using phone numbers to message people is not going away, no matter how much Apple wills it.

So I find myself using my iPhone intensely for a few days, then reaching for my iPad after a period of not using it, to find everything needs to be rearranged. And because I have mental problems, I often feel the need to do this before I do anything else because I’ve been looking at things the other (new) way so much on the phone that it doesn’t feel right the way it is now on the iPad.

I start to wonder about just setting up apps completely differently on both devices, as I did when I first got the iPad, the way most people probably do. Is it more valuable to have the perceived speed gain from mirroring the app layout in both places, or should my specific use for each device dictate how apps are arranged? Does anyone else ever think about this or should I just start looking for a decent therapist now instead of waiting?

Maybe I’ll just move them around.

Adding “value”.

Instacast released its 2.0 update yesterday to some Twitter fanfare. As a regular user of the app, I updated immediately. Now, to be clear, I don’t love Instacast. In fact, I have lots of personal issues with it. But as a regular listener of podcasts, it sucked the least of all the apps I’ve tried, and I’ve tried many. I wish so much that Apple would add even the most basic subscription support for podcasts to iOS within the native music app, but they haven’t, and it doesn’t look like they will any time soon.

What I found after updating was an interface that remained just as abstruse as the initial one, with the “added value” of reduced functionality. Most notably, the default behavior for podcasts downloaded within the app was altered. The original behavior of the app was that when podcasts were downloaded, they would stack up in a list, from oldest at the top to newest at the bottom. Now that order is reversed, to list the newest at the top. Which fundamentally changes the only way I listen to shows.

For a $1.99 in-app purchase, it appears that I could add functionality that would allow me to edit this playlist, and (I assume) change the order to something more palatable. I’m assuming this because I’m not going to make that purchase. And believe me, it’s not because I’m cheap. I buy tons of apps. I buy apps I don’t even plan on really using if I want to support the developer, because I believe in doing things like that. I won’t be adding that in-app purchase for two reasons:

1) because I don’t like paying again for what I was getting as a previous paying customer

and more importantly

2) because I have a hard time supporting something I don’t even really enjoy.

Instacast was originally a purchased app, not a free one. I understand completely if the developer of a free app wants to monetize through in-app purchase, but having paid for the app initially, and not expecting anything more than the basic continued functionality I was experiencing, to be forced to use the app differently is annoying, but then being told that I can use it the way I was using it if I pony up a few more bucks is really annoying. I’m not talking about adding new abilities or allowing some additional features. I’m talking about simply making it work the way it was previously working, one day earlier.

Furthermore, as I said, I don’t really love this app. And I know I might be in the minority, but I paid for and used the iPad app too, and I don’t like it either. Both UIs are needlessly complex, and expose inconsistencies throughout. The iPad app is almost unusable in my opinion because between the arcane controls and the spotty iCloud integration, I can never tell what’s actually happening within the app, and as such, I just stopped using it. I know a lot of people who wrote great things about it when it launched, and it was pretty as all get-out, but I’d be curious to know how many people are still actually listening to podcasts on their iPad at this point with it.

Listen, despite how this all came off and how my cranky tweets read, I don’t hate this app, nor do I hate the developers, their families or their pets. I just really believe very strongly that if you’re going to refine a UI, then really refine it. Don’t add things that seem like new controls yet obfuscate purpose. Don’t take gestures that were slightly difficult to discover but very useful and replace them with even more confusing options. If you have an overcomplicated hierarchy, make it simpler. And for the love of all things holy, don’t up-end the way people (especially previous paying customers) use the app and then tell them they can buy “great new features” in order to restore the basic way they’d been using the app to begin with.

I’m fully aware that these choices were most likely not arbitrary, and actually based on feedback. They represent a conscious choice on the part of the designers and developers to respond to feedback and provide what they feel is an improvement to the existing model. Choices are hard. I get it. The craziest part of all of this? Instacast is still, after all of this, significantly cleaner and easier to use than almost every single other podcast app in the App Store. Don’t even get me started on the other app everyone endlessly recommends to me (because I have it, surprise, and I have even fewer things I can point to as good).

Bottom line: creating in-app purchase options is a tricky choice, and I give a lot of credit to devs who pull it off successfully. But this kind of purchase isn’t adding value. The only thing it’s adding is frustration.

Update on Wednesday, May 9, 2012

This post was picked up at iMore and there’s some discussion over there about it. I was challenged as to the harshness of the post, and I defended my reasoning behind writing it if you’re curious about my motivations. (Hint: it wasn’t because I wanted to conduct a witch-hunt today.)

Update on Thursday, June 21, 2012

Since it was brought to my attention earlier today, it is worth noting (and I should have posted it as soon as the change took place) that Vemedio has since reinstated the features that were pulled from Instacast and placed behind the in-app purchase. They listened to their user base, respected the feedback, and in turn, I respect that decision. It was a tough call, and I disagreed with it initially, but I certainly harbor no ill will, despite how cranky I was the first time around.

​

Locked in.

One of my favorite things about the changes to OS X and iOS is the interoperability between the platforms. This will only be increased as OS X moves to Mountain Lion, with tighter links between the devices joined with iCloud as it becomes more robust. On top of this, the iTunes App Store is an unbeatable location for software downloads, and barring jailbreak, your one-stop shop for your iOS devices.

The strongest guiding factor in how I chose a mobile platform in the past (dating way back to the early-mid-2000s) was the availability of software for my device. I began on Windows Mobile, because at the time, they seemed more exciting than their Palm counterparts. WM had a ton of software, but installing it wasn’t elegant or particularly easy. The devices were middling at best, and required some serious hacking to even be usable. After that, I moved quickly through BlackBerries in a six-month tryst. I didn’t purchase the original iPhone because the idea of not being able to install apps was just unacceptable to me. But when the App Store launched, it made something I’d been doing laboriously for years exquisitely easy. I landed on the iPhone 3G shortly after it launched, and never looked back.

Well, that’s not entirely true. I’ve looked back lots of times. With Android, with webOS, with Windows Phone. I continue to look back whenever something catches my attention. That’s how I am. Something’s different now, though, and I’ve only recently been able to identify what that is. The idea of a platform lock in based on software purchases is not a new one; it’s happened on desktops for years. If you put a good deal of money into a platform, it’s hard to pull away from it when something new comes along. Psychologically, you attempt to add value to the decision based on the money you’ve already spent that is irretrievable. We know this as the sunk-cost effect.

However, I’ve discovered something far more compelling than a financial imperative to stay with a particular phone/platform. It’s something that isn’t as easily quantifiable, and can’t be assessed in a rational way as easily because there is an innate emotional component that ties directly to how I feel in the course of a given day. At its simplest, it’s my time, but that time is based and built upon complex workflows that I’ve refined over the course of years. Years spent on one platform (iOS) and strengthened by the addition of fantastic products and services that enable me to work more efficiently from wherever I am. I take great pleasure in discovering new apps that allow me to do things more smoothly or that add value to an activity in which I’m already engaged. That pleasure (and time-saving) translates directly to my dopamine receptors in some nerdy way, because I enjoy this stuff in a way that most people don’t, and can’t even understand. It’s a pure love of great software, but compounded with the benefits of enhancing (at least that’s what I tell myself) my daily life.

Sure, there are some apps that appear on many platforms. I live in Dropbox, and I can get it almost everywhere. There are plain text editors for every phone, I’m sure. I can scan documents with my phone and sync them as PDFs with a lot of different apps. But this isn’t always the case, and sometimes even though an app may appear on other platforms, it’s not as useful because to the developers it may be an afterthought since iOS is the main platform for which they build. More importantly though is not that I can get apps everywhere, but that I find myself unwilling to trade off to inferior versions of these apps or add steps to the processes that I can perform more easily on iOS. When I find a really great way to do something, I want to stick with it. I don’t want to spend time figuring out a new way to do something that probably isn’t as good as the way I’ve been doing it. And those words “spend” and “time” are more salient to me than any amount of money I can spend on software. I can always make more money; I’ll never get back my time – or at the very least, the perception of time.

The problem I’m facing as a lifelong lover of technology is that my excitement for new devices is still there, but slightly diminished because immediately after I feel the thrill of seeing something cool, there’s a part of me, however deep in my subconscious that surfaces a thought: “this is great, but it’s not going to fit”. It sounds dumb. Why can’t I just enjoy things? What’s my problem? As our devices become more interconnected, I dont see as much value in having any that aren’t. And as more manufacturers chase the idea that people are going to own all of their individual devices (as I do with Apple gear), it’s getting harder and harder to get the most out of things when they exist outside of your workflows.

I used to switch phones with what could only be described as alarming frequency. The only constants were that I’d enter my IMAP settings, add a few phone numbers, and that was mostly it. No platform interconnection, no syncing over the air, no compelling apps I simply couldn’t live without. Because they just didn’t exist. In the years since I’ve adopted iOS, I’ve created stores of application data, some of which I rely on heavily both personally and for business, and some of these can only be used within iOS and in some cases with a Mac. It’s not enough for me to try other platforms – I really can’t leave until I see a path on which to travel. For now, I’m locked in. Quite frankly, it’s a good problem to have.