At WWDC, I was disappointed that the iOS 11 announcements didn’t include a shelf where content can be temporarily parked. When Federico and Sam Beckett made an iOS 11 concept video earlier this year they included a shelf, which felt like a natural way to make touch-based drag and drop simpler. I found the omission in the iOS 11 beta somewhat surprising. On the Mac, people use the Desktop as a temporary place to stash items all the time, and without a Desktop on iOS, a shelf that slides in from the edge of the screen seemed like a natural solution. In fact, it’s a solution that has an even more direct analog than the Desktop on macOS that makes a solid case for implementing something similar on iOS: Yoink, from Eternal Storms Software.
Posts tagged with "mac"
Yoink is the macOS Shelf Utility I Want on iOS Too
Three Tiny Laptops
The 12-inch MacBook with Retina display is a marvel of engineering. It packs the power of macOS into a tiny chassis that weighs just two pounds. You can carry it and an iPad before you reach the weight of the 13-inch MacBook Pro.
There are, of course, trade-offs when it comes to such a small machine. The single USB-C port is a show-stopper for many, as is the under-powered — but fanless — Intel CPU.
The fact that compromises are needed to make notebooks thin and light is nothing new. Over the years, Apple has made several bold moves in this direction. Three really stand out.
Every Default Wallpaper from Cheetah to High Sierra in 5K→
Each major revision of OS X and macOS has come with a different default wallpaper. Stephen Hackett of 512 Pixels has collected them all in one place and teamed up with designer @forgottentowel to create 5K versions of the lower resolution wallpapers. One more reason to get a 5K iMac or display.
Softorino YouTube Converter 2 Makes Downloading Streaming Video Effortless
There are few macOS utilities I’ve tried that take a potentially complex, multi-step process and boil it down to a simple task as well as Softorino YouTube Converter 2 does. That’s because it’s a difficult technical and design challenge to hide complexity without creating an inflexible app with too many compromises. Softorino YouTube Converter, also known as SYC, does an excellent job avoiding the pitfalls and striking a balance between utility and simplicity. It only takes a few steps to go from a URL to a downloaded video or audio file, but SYC still allows for just enough tweaking along the way that it preserves a level of versatility that should make it attractive to a wide range of users.
Drawing App Linea Adds iCloud Support and Mac Companion App
Earlier this week, The Iconfactory released version 1.1 of its iPad sketching app, Linea. The highlight of the release is iCloud syncing for all drawings stored in the app. This is a welcome addition for the sake of having safe backup files in the cloud, but it is also important because of a related app debut from this week.
Alongside Linea’s 1.1 update, The Iconfactory has also released a companion app for Mac called Linea Link. Ged Maheux shares the details in a blog post:
This new app is the easiest way to get sketches drawn on your iPad onto your Mac. Using iCloud sync, your work is instantly available for use in your favorite macOS applications.
Start a new Photoshop document using Linea’s layers. Reference a quick design idea while working in Xcode. Transcribe meeting notes into a Pages document. Or just tap the spacebar to preview Linea documents using Quick Look. Linea on iOS works great to get an idea started, and Linea Link on macOS lets you take the next step toward making it a reality.
Linea Link is a perfect bridge between the iPad and Mac for those who use both devices to get their work done. Third-party app support includes Sketch, Acorn, Pixelmator, Affinity Designer & Photo, and the above-mentioned Adobe Photoshop.
It is still the early days of Linea’s life, but it’s comforting to see continued investment being made to the app by The Iconfactory. As John shared in his initial review, Linea is an excellent example of an app that blends elegance and usability with just the right amount of tools and power needed to get creative work done.
Timing 2 Makes Time Tracking on Your Mac a Pleasure
Timing 2 for Mac is out today. I’ve been a long-time user of Timing, and have had the pleasure of beta testing the new version for a while now. It’s an excellent update to a great tool.
Timing is an app that runs on your Mac and tracks everything you do. Sounds creepy at first, but the data is completely safe, and the tracking is only for your own productivity purposes (never uploaded anywhere). By helping you see how you’re spending your time, you can start to change behaviors. Plus – because it can intelligently associate activities with actual projects – it serves as a detailed work timer for your paid projects.
Timing 2 comes in three versions: Productivity ($29), Professional ($49), and Expert ($79). No recurring payments needed, you own the app and you own your data. Some of the features I’ll be talking about are from the Expert version, so be sure to check the feature list before you purchase one of the other versions.
Timing tracks more than just what app you’re using. It will record what websites you visit, what documents you open, what folders you work in, and every way you spend time on your Mac. You can even add in notes about what you did while you were away from your Mac.
Timing 2 does a brilliant job of grouping tasks together and automatically assigning “keywords” to add new tasks to groups. You can also assign tracked tasks to projects, and do fine-grained editing on the criteria Timing uses to determine the purpose of the time it tracked.
Keywords and manual assignment of activities can be grouped into categories such as “Research” or “Podcasting.” As a result, you can easily see what activities you spent the most time on – and possibly realize that you’re not focusing on what you thought you were.
Timing also provides automatic suggestions for blocks of time that might belong together. It makes it easy to group activities and reap the benefits of manual time tracking with the ease of automation.
Then you get the reports. Timing 2 has truly upped its game in the data visualization section. Beautiful and useful graphs showing your most active times, most productive times, the type of work you spent your time on, and a pie chart of your most-used apps. Keep in mind that all of this is gathered automatically – you don’t have to configure anything to start getting detailed overviews.
When you edit a task, you can even assign a productivity rating to it. For me, an app like VLC gets a 25% productivity rating. A quarter of the time it’s active I’m watching something educational, but 75% of the time is probably less than productive. Now when I get reports, time tracked in VLC can automatically contribute to my overall productivity rating without unduly distorting it, and without me having to go in and manually mark each video as “productive” or “not.”
Timing 2 is the result of a solid year of development by Daniel Alm, who left his job at Google to work full time on it. In the process he’s turned a useful tool into an indispensable one for freelancers and productivity nerds. If that sounds interesting, go check it out!
The Taming of the iBook
Last month, I took a look at the Clamshell iBook G3, the most colorful notebook Apple ever made.
The Clamshell saw just one speed bump, and was replaced in less than two years. The second-generation iBook introduced the form factor most people think of when they think of the notebook:
Tomates Time Management: Elegant Pomodoro Timer for Mac
If you’re a fan of the Pomodoro Technique, you’ll be interested in Tomates Time Manager. Version 4 is a great-looking menu bar app with detailed reporting, Touch Bar support, and a handy Today Extension.
If you’re not familiar with it, the Pomodoro Technique is a timer-based way of getting work done in 25-minute sprints with short breaks between, and then a nice long break after a set of four. I first tried the Pomodoro Technique many years ago and it worked well for me, but I didn’t stick with it. Over the years I went back to it a few times, but it still didn’t stick. It was only last year when issues with my ADHD caused me to desperately need a system exactly like this.
There are a plethora of good timers available for Mac and iOS, including the elegant Zen Timer on Mac (which I’ve mentioned here before) and Focus Time on iOS. What sets Tomates apart is the combination of elegant design and powerful utility. It allows customizable work and break times, Work Series counts, alarm sounds, and handles task names and reporting.
Version 4 introduces a Today Extension, providing an overview of your progress right in the Today View of Notification Center, tracking your tasks and sessions along with trophies for reaching your goals.
Reporting is also enhanced, with both task and time-based reports. The time-based reports can show today, this week (or this workweek), this month, or a custom time period. The reports can also now be printed or saved as beautiful PDFs. I’ll admit those reports aren’t something I really need hard copies of, but they are nice looking.
Lastly, version 4 adds Touch Bar support so you can work with the timer from the Touch Bar on your MacBook Pro. Manage and reset timers, and reset the session and goal counters with a tap.
Head to the Mac App Store to check out Tomates Time Management. $2.99 US isn’t a bad price to pay for something that could change the way you work.
Interact Scratchpad for Mac Takes the Pain Out of Adding Contacts
Last year, Agile Tortoise introduced Interact for iOS, a powerful app for managing contacts. One of the most popular features of that app is the scratchpad that parses contact information, making quick work of turning a block of text into a new contact. Agile Tortoise has ported that functionality to the Mac in the form of a menu bar app called Interact Scratchpad.
Adding information to contacts is tedious. Too often I find myself switching back and forth between a webpage and the Contacts app typing information into field after field or copying little bits of text and pasting them into those fields. Scratchpad does the monotonous part for you by automatically recognizing all kinds of contact information.