Tag: Automation

I like the idea of automating things and getting one thing to control another. I experiment with a lot of stuff like that.

Numerous, the dashboard I don’t know what to do with

Posted by on in Tech, The Internet of Things

When I saw that IFTTT had integrated the Numerous app into their ecosystem I was intrigued. I hadn’t heard of the app before, but when I read about it I knew it was something that I’d want to play with. And it was. However, what I hadn’t bargained for was the that I’d very quickly realise that whilst it’s interesting to be able to collate all these numbers into a dashboard, I wasn’t really sure of what numbers I wanted to track. It was in effect a dashboard with no need for any information. Which is a little bit defeating.

So I’m still wondering what to use this for. What I can usefully measure or track that won’t be obvious or boring or pointless. I do hope that something comes to mind in the not too distant future as I think that Numerous and IFTTT are a great combination.

IFTTT comes to Android, and what I’d like to see next

Posted by on in Tech

Well it had to happen sooner or later. They’d done the iOS app, the iPad version, Android is the obvious next stop on the route. But I think they did it right. Adding a whole bunch of Android only functionality into the delivery. I thought that was a really nice touch.

Of course, on the day they launched their app didn’t support the 7″ tablet, so it wouldn’t install on my nexus, but it didn’t take long to fix at all which was impressive. I haven’t really had a chance to test out the Android only channels and functionality. Hopefully late this week or early next I might be able to do that, but what I’ve seen so far looks pretty impressive and should allow some interesting cross platform working to occur.

IFTTT have made themselves completely indispensable when it comes to web automation, I do wonder where they’ll go next though. They’ve added so many apps that their service is really comprehensive now, but what I’d really like to see is some improvement in some of the core services, like the simple ability to add multiple accounts for a service under a single IFTTT account.

All I’d like to be able to do is to add more than one twitter account in IFTTT. That would make it so much more useful. I expect that they will do this at some point, perhaps with some kind of ‘pro’ account feature.

I’d pay for that.

IFTTT comes to Android, but not your Android (well not mine really)

Posted by on in Mobile Applications, Tech

I got really excited today when I heard that IFTTT was finally coming to Android. It was always something I knew that they’d do, just a question of when, and the when was now. So when I opened up my Nexus 7 to find the IFTTT app on google play, and it wasn’t there I was a little disappointed. Of course, it was there, but just not for me, or rather, not for the Nexus 7.

I suppose it will come to Android tablets eventually, but it’ll take a little while I guess, which is a shame as the Nexus 7 was Google’s flagship 7″ tablet. I suppose I just don’t get why apps like this can’t come to the OS fully universal from day one? It doesn’t make sense to me.

So I’m back to waiting again for this, and what’s worse, I know about the Android specific channels that IFTTT have built into their Android app. So I really do know what I’m missing!

Audiobus Preset store

Posted by on in Admin, Mobile Applications

I thought I’d like to capture some Audiobus presets for myself and store them somewhere. So I found a way to capture the presets to a Google spreadsheet and then embed the sheet in a web page. The page you can find here. I’ll be adding to it over time, so it’ll grow and more and more Audiobus presets will get added. Obviously, to get them to work you’ll need to access them from your iOS device and not a desktop.

Updates coming to Pythonista and Editorial

Posted by on in Mobile Applications

This is of course amazing news. These two apps are incredible powerhouses of iOS automation and the new UI module and its associated features will take both apps into new directions for automating text using iOS devices. The developer’s extensive description of how it all works and what’s behind the release is brilliant too.

I can’t wait to get my hands on the new versions. I just hope it won’t be long.

Where I am with iOS automation now

Posted by on in Mobile Applications

I’ve been talking about this a lot over the last few months and probably one of the biggest issues I’ve had with automating things is actually finding things that I need to automate.

That might sound a little strange but in many ways it has been a solution in search of a problem for me rather than the other way around. Of course when you start to find things that need automating the solutions become more obvious and you start to wonder why you could see them before. Or at least that’s how it feels to me.

Anyway I thought I’d write about a few of the things I’m starting to find that warrant some form of automation. They’ll sound obvious no doubt, but it’s taken me a while to get around to sorting them out.

The first thing I’ve started doing is using drafts a lot. That sounds obvious. I said that it would. I’m writing this using drafts. It’s such a simple app for just getting ideas down and writing wherever I am. I probably should have started using it before. So for notes and that sort of thing I’m using it more and more. It’s great. So far so good. But what of the automation stuff. Yep, that’s a good question. We’ll with some very simple actions I can send articles posts etc wherever I want. No problem. One app, multiple destinations and no issues. I can write things for here or for palm sounds or wherever, easy!

So that’s my start for automation. I’m sure I’ll do more over time, and when I do I’ll explain. I also hope to be able to share some useful stuff too. At some point.

What I think that iOS automation needs right now

Posted by on in Mobile Applications

I was thinking about this today whilst reviewing some links on general automation stuff. One of the best tools for automating stuff on iOS is Editorial. I love its workflow generator. It’s great but it doesn’t go far enough. What’s needed is a simple editor for creating iOS workflows that span multiple apps and even incorporate web services like ifttt. Perhaps that’s too far. For a start anyway.

But something that could just help you use the available building blocks and get things moving would be amazing. Rather than having to use loads of URL encoding and stuff like that. It’s a thought. I would certainly buy it anyway.

A big bunch of Launch Center Pro sample actions

Posted by on in Mobile Applications

I found these the other day when I was checking LCP’s twitter feed for useful things, and it is very handy indeed. Not just for the actual actions themselves, but for use as a starter to understand how to create your own from them. It’s always easier to do that with something to work from.

So if you want to use these you’ll need to from within mobile safari on your iOS device.

And another app offers further automation possibilities … Phraseology

Posted by on in Mobile Applications

And now another app promises integration and connectivity with the growing array of URL scheme enabled apps that I own but as yet can’t work out what to do with. This one, Phraseology is a writing app for the iPad. It looks very useful, and is from the same developer who makes Drafts, Drafts for iPad and Terminology. So in theory it should tick all the boxes, and as such I’ll probably give it a try.

But it does make me wonder where all this automation capacity is going to take me, and when? So far I’ve managed to get a few things working, but nothing ground breaking, nothing that really changes my workflow and delivers enough automation against what I’m looking for. Of course, I could just be being over ambitious, that’s a distinct possibility. So for now I’ll keep at it, and perhaps try some simpler things to start off with.

A new app in the automation collection … Unread

Posted by on in Mobile Applications, Tech

I found a new app that I’m hoping will really help with some of my aspirations for automating things in iOS. It’s called Unread.

Here’s the app’s description (which I’ve edited down a bit):

Rediscover the joy of reading your favorite writers with Unread, an RSS reader for iPhone.

Unread will surprise and delight you in many ways, but that’s not important. What is important is that Unread will help you find a little peace each day through quiet, careful reading.

FULL-SCREEN READING

Focus on the act of reading with Unread’s full-screen article view. Articles are typeset in beautiful fonts from Hoefler & Co. Let nothing stand between you and the words of your favorite writers except a thin sheet of glass.

DESIGNED FOR COMFORT
Move anywhere in the app with a sweep of your thumb, all without having to reposition your hand. Unread’s stacked navigation was built from scratch to be the most comfortable interface you’ve ever used. Flick left-to-right to go back from anywhere on the screen, just like dealing a deck of cards. Tug any screen right-to-left to show options for that screen — just like pull-to-refresh, but sideways.

MULTIPLE THEMES
Like to read in bed? Don’t wake up your partner with glaring white light. Unread has multiple themes designed to make it easy to read under daytime or nightime lighting conditions. There are several fun hidden themes, too.

SHARE THE GOOD STUFF
You shouldn’t have to struggle to send articles to the places you like best. Apps should do that hard work for you. Share your favorite articles via the rich options built with OvershareKit, an open-source sharing library for iOS. OvershareKit was born inside of Unread, and is being discovered by more apps all the time.

SO MUCH TO LOVE ABOUT UNREAD

  • BACKGROUND REFRESH • Unread keeps your subscriptions up to date with power-efficient background updating. Articles and images are saved to your device for convenient offline reading.
  • SHARING • Send articles to Instapaper, Pocket, Readability, Pinboard, or your Reading List. Share articles and images via App.net or Twitter with as-you-type syntax highlighting, swipe gesture shortcuts for the cursor, and automatic smart quotes. Send a snippet of highlighted text to Omnifocus or Things for a quick reminder. Even more options are on the way.
  • QUICK ACCESS • Double tap an article summary to instantly toggle read/unread status. Press and hold to show a menu of options. This is great for quick sharing or for jumping straight to the web to view the original article.
  • LINKED-LISTS • If an article is a linked-list article, like those written by John Gruber at Daring Fireball, the article summary shows the domain name of the linked item’s site. Many times the domain is a punchline all by itself.
  • BIG THUMBNAILS • Turn on the optional inline thumbnails to see big previews of article images while you scroll.
  • FOOTNOTE POPOVERS • Articles with properly-formatted footnotes will show convenient popovers when you need to read a footnote.
  • PERSISTENT WEB BROWSER • Instead of a transient browser that disappears as soon as it goes offscreen, Unread’s web browser stays around. It remembers your back/forward history and retains the current page. Now you can finally switch back to finish an article without losing your place on an interesting site. You will wonder why every app doesn’t work this way.
  • VOICE OVER & ACCESSIBILITY • Unread has 100-percent VoiceOver coverage. Every screen and every feature is available to users with vision impairments. Font sizes are adjustable, too, from Tiny to EPIC and many points between.

What the description doesn’t really go into enough is that it is integrated with Drafts and is, as far as I can see, a reasonable step in the right direction in automation terms. So I’m going to try this out and see if it takes me in the right direction. We’ll see.