Tag: iOS

Apple’s mobile OS. I find that I use iOS (on the iPad and iPhone) for a lot of things these days, mainly because it’s just so useful.

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.

And then Launch Center Pro for iPad arrived

Posted by on in Mobile Applications

This has been a long time coming in my view. Launch Center Pro as a very handy app and well worth having if you’re trying to automate things on your iOS device. Now that it’s available for the iPad that represents a big step forward for automation and workflow.

Also it’s 40% off for launch (no pun intended), so it’s £2.99 right now.

Loving messing about with littleBits Korg Synth kit

Posted by on in Creative Process, Music
littleBits Synth with iPhone 3G and GuitarJack
littleBits Synth with iPhone 3G and GuitarJack

To the extent that I’ve been wondering about getting some of the other components to do even more interesting things with it. I’ve also been thinking about how to combine it with some of my other gear to see how it can work together. It really is awesome stuff!

I recorded some sounds from the littleBits kit using my GuitarJack line in and my iPhone 3G running FourTrack, which still works like a dream!

iOS Automation apps page is live

Posted by on in Admin

If you’re interested in automating stuff on your iOS device then I’ve just published a little list of the main apps I use for this. I hope to publish some more on the subject too, but for now, the list is available here.

A huge and amazing guide to iOS automation and workflow has arrived

Posted by on in Mobile Applications, Tech

I was recently contemplating setting up a page to collect all of the various resources for iOS automation and then today, Mac Stories published this guide to automating iOS workflows! It’s huge! I haven’t actually read the whole thing as yet, in fact I’ve just started reading it, but it has enormous promise, and I’m very hopeful that it is, in fact, just what I’ve been looking for to get me going.

So, I’m going to read the whole thing and then embark on my task of getting things properly automated in iOS. I think I probably will put together a resources page as well soon, and I think that this guide will almost certainly be on it.

Of course, if you don’t know about drafts (for iOS iPhone or iPad) then this won’t mean a lot to you. However, if you’re an iOS user and automation is something you’re interested in then this is the app to start with according to this guide.

Drafts (for iPad) on the app store:

Tydlig, Calculator Reimagined

Posted by on in Mobile Applications

I saw this app for iOS and knew that I had to get hold of it. It’s a very different way of calculating anything, and when you look at it and use it for any sort of calculation it is very intuitive, allowing you to take the result of one calculation into another.

In some ways it’s like a little spreadsheet for simple calculations. It’s a good start, but I think it needs some more work. I’d like to see the ability to save little calcs and also to schedule updates to them. I think it would be very useful if you could use simple variables in the calcs too. Things like today’s date would be useful, and I’m sure that there’s more too. I’d also like to be able to back up my calcs to dropbox.

Anyway, it’s a good start and I hope that the developer will take a it further.

My app of the week is Dispatch

Posted by on in Mobile Applications, Tech

As far as dealing with email goes, I’m not the best, not by any measure. But with an app like Dispatch, I find it a lot easier. Why? Good question, that’s easy to answer. One of the things I find myself doing a lot of is needing to deal with URLs / links from emails and send them to the right place or places quickly. With most email apps for iOS that means selecting the link to copy it or open it then copy it from inside safari then paste it into whatever app I want, Pocket, or Instapaper for example. With Dispatch I don’t have any of those complications. Tapping a link brings up the options I want in terms of sending it to the right place quickly and simply. No fuss.

In fact, that’s the main reason I bought the app in the first place, but it has a lot more besides, and, as usual, I’m scratching the surface so far and just beginning to find out what else the app can do.

I only just found out that the developer has published a URL scheme for Dispatch. This means that you can launch and run Dispatch from another app with parameters from the calling app. So, for example, you could use Drafts to ask Dispatch to open and create an email to a particular person, from a given account, and with a specified title. In fact, you could even tell it what to put in the body of the email too if you wanted to. That’s quite impressive.

The other thing that I like about Dispatch is that you can include snippets or blocks of text from within the app, like per account signatures and more. That could also be really helpful, but at the moment I’m not using that, so far.

So I’m slowly moving over to using Dispatch as my main email app on my iPhone, and I hope that the developer will eventually make it available for the iPad too as I think it would be brilliant there.