“Normal People” And The iPad As A Second-Class Citizen→

Smart take by Diego Petrucci:

The misconception is that because most people don’t actually understand PCs/Macs, they do not have serious needs. That is wrong. People don’t do serious stuff on their PCs because PCs are incomprehensible to them. They just don’t work as they would expect. So they end up giving up and stop trying.

With iPads, though, they «get» computing. They notice that they can do stuff that was almost impossible (by their own standards) to do with PCs. They can make music (even if it’s just for fun), they can share boring blurred photos with their family members, they can look for skin problems with apps that recognize rushes and stuff like that. With time, their needs evolve. Doctors do doctory stuff with apps that understand patterns when dealing with uncommon diseases, housewives cross-check discounts on multiple apps and use notifications to be alerted when deals start, and so on. And yes, this is not my imagination, I’ve actually seen people do this stuff and these are real-world examples.

We (myself included) often refer to “normal” people, but we rarely reflect on just how empowering iOS devices have been for everyone. Diego makes some good points.

As I discussed on The Prompt, I also believe that, eventually, any iPad user – no matter the label you want to give them – will stumble across evident limitations of iOS. This is normal because iOS is still relatively young (especially after the iOS 7 reboot), but it’d be wrong not to bring attention to those issues.

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Pages, Going The Distance With Word→

Michael D. Shear compares Apple’s Pages to Microsoft Word at The New York Times. Before you begin yawning and close the tab, let me say that I liked the angle Shear used – instead of pointing out the advanced features that Apple removed (what I have also done), he considers Pages for normal people who don’t care about AppleScript and are typically fine with the basic formatting tools.

This bit about iCloud struck me as relevant:

The new version of Pages introduces an all-new sharing option, powered by the company’s iCloud service, that works remarkably well. Type in a person’s email address, click send, and that person receives a link to your document. When the link is clicked, the document opens in a web browser that looks like a fully functioning Pages application. (My mom didn’t even notice the difference.) The recipient doesn’t have to have Pages installed or have an iCloud account. It even makes Mac-PC sharing easy. The new version runs just fine in Internet Explorer, Firefox, Chrome or Safari on a Windows PC.

This is a solid point (emphasis mine). People like Shear’s mom and my folks don’t know the differences between “native” and “web” apps. Pages is Pages. Will they notice it’s Pages in the browser with a URL? Probably, but I guess a good percentage of people will just call it “Pages” or “the shared Pages”.

Here’s to hoping Apple will iterate on the web product quickly – the ease of sharing a document is indisputable, but it needs to be reliable and better integrated with every version of “Pages”.

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#MacStoriesDeals - Black Friday 2013: Best Deals for iPhone, iPad, and Mac Apps & Games

Black Friday is upon us once again! #MacStoriesDeals is the best place to find great deals for Mac and iOS apps and games, Apple hardware deals, and some great book and audio specials.

There are thousands of software and hardware deals online. We carefully pick the best ones and collect them in a single post with links to buy or share discounted products. You don’t need to be overwhelmed by Black Friday deals because we take care of finding the best stuff for you.

Bookmark this post, and come back every day to find updated deals for each category. Updates will be listed as new entries at the top of each category.

You can find us as @MacStoriesDeals on Twitter.

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Reeder 2.1 Released with Themes, Reading List Support, Fixes

On the same day that Tapbots launched Tweetbot 3.2 with a dark theme, developer Silvio Rizzi released Reeder 2.1, which brings several fixes and changes to the app introduced in September, plus themes – including two dark ones.

The new theme switcher in Reeder 2.1, located in the style menu of the article viewer, allows you to switch between four themes: White, Light (the original one), Dark, and Gray. Choosing a theme is a manual operation, and the dark ones should help users who have been asking for a background easier on the eye while reading at night. I’m especially a fan of the Dark theme, as it’s not completely black – it’s a darker version of the original Reeder sepia hue. Read more

MindNode 3

MindNode 3

MindNode 3

When I’m writing for MacStories, I tend to prepare articles as outlines in Evernote, where I’ll also throw in some images and hyperlinks. For pieces that are focused on a single subject (like an app review, a tutorial, or an opinion piece), the simple outline system works well because Evernote can keep everything in one place and show inline previews.

For longer articles that require deeper research and span a variety of topics, however, I like mind maps. Since I was in middle school and especially in high school, I got used to remember topics by creating mind maps (“concept maps”, as our teachers called them) with pen and paper for classes like History, Ancient Greek, English Literature, or Philosophy. Back then I had no iPhone or iPad and the school’s computers were some cheap Pentium 4s that the school administration couldn’t upgrade due to lack of regional funds, so I spent hours drawing little boxes and coloring them with highlighters. I made hundreds of them over the years.

When my brain has to jump from point to point several times and a text outline isn’t enough, I like the visual approach of mind maps. And in the modern age, unless I need specific advanced features of iThoughts, I usually open MindNode – IdeasOnCanvas’ app for the iPhone, iPad, and Mac. MindNode for iOS gets the 3.0 treatment today with a major update that redesigns the app, makes it iOS 7-only, adds new features, and cleans up some old ones while staying free for existing customers. Read more

‘A Gift From Steve Jobs Returns Home’→

Nick Wingfield for the New York Times:

On a recent night at an elegant Beaux-Arts ballroom in San Francisco’s financial district, Laurene Powell Jobs received a computer with an unusually rich history. Around 1980, Ms. Powell Jobs’s husband, Steven P. Jobs, donated the computer to a nonprofit organization, the Seva Foundation, to help the group manage data from its efforts to restore sight in the developing world.

The nonprofit was now giving the computer — an Apple II that spent the last 33 years in Katmandu, Nepal, most of it packed away in a hospital basement there — back to Ms. Powell Jobs and her children from her marriage to Mr. Jobs.

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