All-In-One AI Chat Client for macOS
First-time guest Federico Viticci joins the show. Topics include how the coronavirus outbreak might affect WWDC, speculation on a possible March Apple event, the state of iPad keyboard (and trackpad) support, and iPadOS multitasking.
It was my pleasure to join John Gruber on this week’s episode of The Talk Show. Don’t miss the links in the show notes for the additional context regarding iPad apps and multitasking.
Over the past few weeks, I’ve been on a quest to discover the best iPhone and iPad apps to collect and edit various bits of text I come across every day. The result of this research was a collection in Issue 211 of our Club-exclusive newsletter MacStories Weekly, in which I rounded up the six most interesting plain text apps I’d found browsing the App Store. Members can check out the full collection in the newsletter archive, but, for context, here’s how I led the story:
I often find myself wanting to store random bits of plain text in a document, which I don’t want to save in Apple Notes or iA Writer where my more important notes and documents live. I just want a quick way to stash random, disposable pieces of text – phone numbers, addresses, URLs, etc. – that I will discard shortly after. Inevitably, my research led me to discover a bunch of apps I wasn’t familiar with.
[…]
For the purpose of this roundup, I have excluded apps like iA Writer, 1Writer, Drafts, and other, more complex text editors that go beyond the simple act of just saving text in a scratchpad. While it is possible to use those apps for that kind of task – and I believe plenty of folks use Drafts like that – I was effectively looking for iPhone and iPad alternatives to Apple’s TextEdit for Mac.
I use Apple Notes for general-purpose note-taking, but I’ve started moving some of my videogame-related documents and notes that require heavier formatting to Noto (which Ryan reviewed here). All my writing happens in iA Writer, where I do not want to store any other plain text (Markdown) content that won’t end up either on MacStories or Club MacStories. Lately, however, I’ve found myself searching for a tool that lets me jot down (or otherwise collect from Safari or Mail) random bits of text that are important for the moment, but ephemeral, and as such not a good fit for the richness of editing tools available in Notes or Noto. You may be familiar with this problem: maybe it’s a phone number you need to keep handy for a couple minutes, or a list of three items you need to buy at the supermarket, or a URL to a webpage you need to share with a colleague. To me, using Apple Notes or Drafts for this kind of plain text content expiring soon feels excessive; I just want a scratchpad that frees my brain of the responsibility to hold this text with as little friction as possible.
Enter Tot, the latest release from The Iconfactory. At a high level, Tot is a plain text editor that lets you swipe across seven documents from a single view; each document is represented by a colored dot, and the color is also used for the document’s background to make it visually stand out from the other six. You can switch between plain text and rich text editing modes with the tap of a button; there are word and character counts above the keyboard; when you’re done editing, you can share your text as .txt or .rtf documents with other apps. On a superficial analysis, Tot may not seem that different from the plethora of lightweight Markdown or rich text editors available on the App Store. What sets The Iconfactory’s latest app apart, however, is the combination of embracing constraints and adopting system technologies with a thoughtful, balanced design. Allow me to explain.
On last week’s episode of Connected:
Stephen shares a prepared statement. Myke suggests some games and Federico envisions a March iPad Pro event. Also: more Qi chargers have come on the market and a discussion about the HomePod’s future.
You can listen below (and find the show notes here).
Connected, Episode 282
Sponsored by:
On this week’s episode of Adapt:
Federico walks through the tasks that he still has to turn to a Mac to accomplish, then Ryan details how iPad apps do handling large text or PDF files.
You can listen below (and find the show notes here), and don’t forget to send us questions using #AskAdapt and by tagging our Twitter account.
Adapt, Episode 19
Sponsored by:
On this week’s episode of Connected:
Stephen and Myke launch new careers as iPhone designers and Federico keeps refreshing Apple Music. Also: Swift Playgrounds on the Mac, Apple News+ and a few things we are currently enjoying.
You can listen below (and find the show notes here).
Connected, Episode 281
Sponsored by:
On this week’s episode of Adapt:
Multitasking is key to using the iPad as a primary computer, but the current drag and drop-centric system is flawed. Ryan shares his idea for a new approach, then Federico details his email app discoveries.
You can listen below (and find the show notes here), and don’t forget to send us questions using #AskAdapt and by tagging our Twitter account.
Adapt, Episode 18
Sponsored by:
On this week’s episode of Connected:
This week, most of the show document got shredded as a bunch of breaking news took place during recording. iOS 13.4 is bringing a bunch of changes, Mac Catalyst could become more useful and universal apps are coming to the Mac. When not breaking news, Federico shares a sad story, Myke reads a tweet about bread and Stephen struggles with how to edit the episode.
You can listen below (and find the show notes here).
Connected, Episode 280
Sponsored by:
Jason Snell, writing at Six Colors:
It’s time for our annual look back on Apple’s performance during the past year, as seen through the eyes of writers, editors, developers, podcasters, and other people who spend an awful lot of time thinking about Apple.
This is the fifth year that I’ve presented this survey to a hand-selected group. They were prompted with 12 different Apple-related subjects, and asked to rate them on a scale from 1 to 5 and optionally provide text commentary per category.
It’s always a pleasure to share my thoughts about Apple’s past year in Snell’s annual report. Not only is it a great read – at this point, it’s also a fantastic historical resource collecting years of commentary about Apple.
You can read Snell’s complete report card here. For context, I’ve included my full responses to Snell’s questionnaire below.
On this week’s episode of Connected:
This week, the gang reflects on the iPad 10th’s birthday, complains about Google AMP and then reviews Fantastical 3.
You can listen below (and find the show notes here).
Connected, Episode 279
Sponsored by:
