If you play guitar, you’ve probably tried the various tab and chord sites out there. I recently discovered Chordie.com and it has quickly become my favourite.
One thing I often do is look up chords for songs I’m listening to in iTunes. I do it so often that I decided to put together a little script to make it a bit easier to do.
When Apple introduced the iPhone and later the iPhone SDK, they established a series of UI metaphors, interaction models and conventions, that have served as a template for nearly all third party apps. Gestures such as swipe to delete, or UI elements such as springy lists are simply expected.
Apple has done such a great job of establishing best practices for nearly all types of UI interactions that it’s not often you see news kinds of UI interaction introduced by third party developers.
But when Atebits introduced Tweetie 2, it also introduced so-called “spring reloading”. Basically if you pull down past the end of a list, causing it to spring back, you can refresh the current list of tweets.
Many reviewers noted the ingenuity of this design, as it effectively turned a habit of many users (namely playing with the springy lists) into a useful feature. This design has since been adopted by several other applications and seems as though it may become a de facto UI convention on the iPhone OS.
Here is the original Tweetie 2 design:
Foursquare is basically a straight up copy:
This is Gowalla’s take on it – the logo appears to let you know you’ve pulled down far enough:
And the Wikipedia app Articles uses the design to lock or unlock your screen orientation:
It’ll be interesting to see if this convention is adopted by more applications going forward – or if Apple will even perhaps add it to their own apps. But at any rate, it’s nice to see good UI innovations from a third party developer being adopted by others. I can’t wait to see what Atebits and others come up with for the iPad.
For the first time ever, the iPad gives developers the chance to design desktop-class applications for a multi-touch based user interface.
Here are 3 Mac applications with user interfaces that I think would work really well on the iPad:
1. Times
This fantastic RSS reader is already multi-touch aware and is a dream to use on MacBooks with multi-touch trackpads. You tap to read full articles, 3-finger swipe up to return to the overview or 3-finger swipe left and right to switch between sections. The gorgeous UI is the closest thing to reading a real newspaper on your Mac and Times could be a perfect match for the iPad.
2. CoverScout
The coverflow-esque UI in CoverScout is a perfect fit for the iPad: You can swipe through your albums, double-tap to start a search and then drag a cover from your search results to an album to apply it.
The search results bubble introduced in CoverScout 3 is also very reminiscent of the new popover list UI element introduced for the iPad.
Whilst you can certainly argue whether this is the type of application you would use on the iPad, the interaction style seems as though it would be an ideal match.
3. Djay
If there’s one application that would really work well with a touch-screen UI, it’s Djay. Being able to use a MacBook multi-touch trackpad as your DJ controller is nice, but a 9.7 inch touchscreen control would offer a much better, hands-on experience. Currently it looks as though access to the music on your iPad will be restricted though, making a real port of Djay unfeasible.
2010
It’ll be interesting to see which Mac applications will be turned into iPad versions and what level of sophistication iPad apps have. Will they stay simple and iPhone-esque? Or will we see Mac application developers come out with truely desktop-challenging versions of their products? 2010 should be an exciting year for developers…
If you use your Mac professionally, chances are you often find yourself typing out certain bits of text over and over again. Whether it’s a URL, a file path or email snippets, typing these snippets over and over again can waste a lot of time. That’s where utilities such as Keyboard Maestro come in handy: they allow you to define keyboard shortcuts that will type out phrases or execute commands for you.
Unlikea more general-use utilities such as LaunchBar or Quicksilver, Keyboard Maestro is designed primarily for text manipulation and keyboard shortcuts rather than general purpose file system actions and macros. Having said that, it can also replicate some of the functionality those programs offer as well, giving it a bit of an advantage over more basic text replacement tools such as Typinator or TextExpander.
Performance
If there’s one thing you need your text-replacement utility to do, it’s reliable text replacement. You want it to work immediately, regardless of which application you’re working in. If it causes any extra delay, it would interrupt your thought and you would probably be quicker off typing things out yourself.
Keyboard Maestro performed very well in this regard and worked instantly every time, regardless of which every application I tested it with.
Advanced Commands
Once you’ve become accustomed to basic text replacement, you start thinking about more advanced things.
I for instance use a number of text replacements that allow me to create URLs based on file paths I’ve copied. So by copying the path “/images/example.jpg”, I can simply type the shortcut “..imgloc” to turn that file path into the URL “http://jetplanejournal.com/posts/images/example.jpg“.
But Keyboard Maestro can also trigger non-text events, such as mouse movements, system events (e.g. volume, disk ejects etc.) open URLs etc. The Keyboard Maestro website has a number of ideas and suggestions to help you optimize your workflow.
But there’s more…
So Keyboard Maestro is a text replacement utility, a keyboard hotkey tool and a time saver. What other tricks does it have up its sleeve?
Well, it can also:
Store your clipboard history and manage multiple clipboards
Remote control your Mac from your iPhone using its built-in macro trigger webserver
Run regular scripts and jobs for you
Record GUI-based scripts
Gripes
Keyboard Maestro is a very powerful utility, but manages to be easy to use thanks to a fairly simple and straightforward interface. However, the UI could do with a little bit of extra polish here and there and one or two Macros that are enabled by default may be confusing:
Some of the icons could be more obvious, e.g. you enable and disable macros by clicking a (stateless) check mark. A “no entry” icon is used for delete instead of the conventional “—” icon.
To finish editing a new macro, you can either close the actions pane, or click the “+” icon, neither of which is particularly obvious.
By default, Option+backspace is remapped to forward delete, which left me scratching my head for a few seconds, as I generally use that shortcut to delete entire words.
Similarly, Ctrl+Tab is remapped to Keyboard Maestro’s own application window switching function (which is similar to the Dock expose feature in Snow Leopard) – I use that shortcut extensively to switch between tabs in Safari.
But these are all minor gripes that won’t annoy you at all once you have everything set up the way you want, so I offer them mainly as feedback to the developer.
What about the tools built-in to OS X?
I know a lot of users prefer to use the tools and functionality built-in to OS X whenever possible, so you might ask what’s wrong with those tools…
Well, although text substitution service has been beefed up significantly in 10.6, it’s still lacking the customizablity you’ll find in utilities such as Keyboard Maestro. You could also replicate a lot of the functionality in Automator, but in my experience, Automator is so slow to execute a command, it’s not worth the effort.
Conclusion
Keyboard Maestro is a great utility for anyone that spends a lot of time working with text on their Mac. Whether you might be thinking of using it to help you quickly answer repetitive email, create blog posts or just to map certain mouse-based actions to a keyboard shortcut, it’s definitely worth checking out.
I’ve tried a number of similar utilities, but in terms of extendability and scope, Keyboard Maestro seems to take the cake. At $36, it’s not cheap for a utility, but considering the time it’ll help you save I think it’s a fair price. I’d recommend you try it out and see how well it could fit into your daily workflows. A free demo is available.
Recommended.
Disclaimer: Peter Lewis, maker of Keyboard Maestro kindly provided me with a license for this review. All opinions are however, of course my own.
I’ve been using my original iPhone since early 2008 and use it every single day. But the iPhone isn’t necessarily the right phone for everyone: The pricy contracts, issues with carrier coverage, a preference for physical keyboards or an objection to Apple’s App Store policies are all reasons some users are looking to alternatives.
Take Germany for example. The iPhone is only available with a 2-year T-Mobile contract. The contracts T-Mobile Germany offers are significantly more expensive than comparable contracts from other providers, so alternatives such as the Palm Pre have received a fair amount of interest. In the US, the situation is similar, but it is primarily AT&T’s poor network performance that has customers looking at alternatives.
So the Pre might be less expensive and on a carrier with better coverage than the iPhone – but can Palm match the great overall user experience Apple offers?
Disclaimer: I received a 10-day loan of a Palm Pre review unit with Touchstone charger from O2 Germany to review, which was returned at the end of the review period. I received no other compensation and the opinions stated reflect my honest impressions. Having said that, if you like this review you can save a few bucks, support the site and buy your Palm Pre at Amazon.
The short version
There’s a lot to like about the Pre: Multitasking, the quick-launch bar, the messaging application and background notifications are just some features that I would welcome on the iPhone. Occasional slowdowns, poor build quality, a tiny keyboard and the smaller number and somewhat simpler nature of 3rd party apps means the Pre is just shy of being a true iPhone alternative. Here are my top pros and cons for both devices:
Unboxing
Your initial experience of opening a product can set the tone for your overall impression. Apple’s attention to detail really shows in this area and Palm’s legion of ex-Apple employees seem to have brought this thinking with them to Palm: The Pre comes in a sleek white box that is very clean and uncluttered. This packaging is somewhat marred though by the plastic wrapper with specs that O2 insists on wrapping it in. When you first turn on the device, you’re forced to create a Palm Profile before you can start using the device. The Pre then launches an interactive tutorial, that shows you how to navigate around its interface and explains some of the gestures. This is important, as WebOS requires the user to use gestures to navigate back through menus.
A nice mood-video completes the initial setup and does a good job of leaving the user with a good first impression of the device.
Hardware
The device itself looks very attractive: the screen is flush with the body and the glossy black plastic enclosure is quite fetching. The back same glossy plastic is used on the default battery cover, which feels slightly slippery in your hand. Luckily, this can be swapped for the Touchstone-enabled back, which has a rubberized matte finish, that looks and feels much nicer. You can’t see where the screen ends and the housing begins when the screen is switched off, which gives the front a very smooth look. When closed, the Pre is a very nice size and fits nicely into your hand and most pockets.
Build quality
The single button on the front of the device has a nice “clickiness” to it, but the other the physical buttons on the device are all very mushy and feel extremely cheap (the power button is particularly nasty). For a phone with this price tag, these buttons feel almost unacceptably junky. Luckily you won’t need them very often though.
The Pre’s slide-out keyboard is hidden by a sliding hinge mechanism, which is easy to open in one hand. When the keyboard is hidden though, the screen can be wobbled slightly – quite the contrast to the iPhone’s sturdy fit and finish.
The Pre’s USB connector is hidden behind a small plastic cover on the side of the device. The cover is flush with the rest of the casing, but this does make it a bit fiddly to open. Since you’ll need to open the cover quite a bit to charge the device (more on battery life later), I’d definitely recommend investing in the Touchstone wireless charger instead, to save yourself the hassle.
Other Hardware Details
The device uses one of the various micro-USB connectors that you see on consumer electronics instead of a regular mini-USB jack. This means your existing USB cables probably won’t fit. If you plan on transferring media to the device on a regular basis, I’d recommend buying a second USB cable, as you’ll also need one to charge your Pre.
The standard 3.5mm headphone jack is nice. The Pre also comes with a wired headset, complete with a clicker for accepting calls and pausing or skipping music. The earbuds have little magnets on the side, so you can stick them together when not in use, which should help prevent the cord from tangling. The sound quality doesn’t quite match Apple’s earbuds though and the headset feels fairly cheap overall. Still, it’s nice to have and I hope we’ll see third party accessory makers offering compatible headsets in future.
Keyboard and typing
One feature many smartphone users would like to see on the iPhone is a physical keyboard. I’ve only ever used T9 text input on a regular phone keypad, so the iPhone keyboard was actually a welcome step up for me and I had high hopes for the Pre.
The keyboard is fairly tiny, so it actually offers less typing space than the iPhone’s on-screen keyboard whilst the width of the keys is about the same. The only way I was able to accurately hit a key reliably, was by using the very tip of my thumb, which slows you down a bit. On the iPhone, I can just type away and worry less about hitting each key exactly. I also feel that typing special characters, such as an apostrophe, comma or period slows things down as well: the iPhone usually autocompletes these, or has a shortcut. On the Pre, you have to hunt for the modifier key first. With some autocomplete intelligence built-in, the keyboard would be far better.
To give you an idea of how fast I was able to type, here’s a short comparison video – but bear in mind that I have much more practise typing on the iPhone:
WebOS
When Palm announced the Pre, the OS is what had everyone most excited. Palm had been floundering for years with several failed new OS projects, none of which were ever released. Palm OS was long overdue for an overhaul, but few people believed Palm would be able to produce anything to match the iPhone in the near future. Palm responded with WebOS – an entire mobile operating system built on web technologies and designed for a multi-touch interface.
WebOS feels quite snappy, but opening apps can be a little bit sluggish at times. This video demonstrates opening the phone app on both phones:
However, in contrast to Apple’s iPhone OS, WebOS is designed to enable application multitasking via it’s “card” metaphor. Open one application and it will take up your entire screen, just like iPhone apps do. But press the home button and the app will zoom out and you can launch another app beside it. You can then switch between two or more apps at any time with a simple press of the home button. Swiping up across a card closes the application.
Here’s multitasking in action:
Swipe and pinch are supported on the Pre just as you would expect from a multitouch device and it even has a few more tricks up its sleeve: Slide your finger up from the area around the home button (the “gesture area”) and you can bring up the Dock-like launch bar, for instant access to your 4 favorite apps. Swiping from right to left across the gesture area will take you back in menus and dialog screens. The back gesture could be a bit sluggish to respond at times and I don’t really a huge advantage over a soft, on-screen back button.
Unlike in the iPhone OS, taps are visualized by a small dot pointer and wave animation, that indicates exactly where you tapped (like a mouse pointer). Certain menu items, such as the wifi options in the menu bar require quite a bit of accuracy to hit, as the targets a quite a bit smaller than a finger. This is compensated somewhat by the visualization of your taps, but Apple’s approach of making every UI element in the iPhone OS finger-friendly is definitely a better solution. I sometimes found tapping UI elements in WebOS a bit challenging.
WebOS is also not quite as responsive as the iPhone OS. Scrolling in lists in just one example of the slight sluggishness you sometimes feel on the device. Overall though the responsiveness is still fairly impressive and the ability to open multiple apps makes up for the occasional slowdown.
My favorite feature in WebOS might be the global search feature. Unlike Spotlight on the iPhone, that requires you to go to the Spotlight home screen, global search doesn’t need any additional steps to get to: just open the keyboard and start typing to search within your applications and contacts. If no results are found on your phone, WebOS will offer to search Google, Google Maps, Wikipedia and Twitter.
Phone and contacts
The phone application is fine and the on-screen number pad for dialing without the physical keyboard is very useable. You can easily access your contacts and voicemail as well. Speaking of contacts, one of Palm’s heavily touted features is “Synergy” – the ability to sync and merge contacts from multiple sources. If you sign into your Google and Facebook accounts, those contacts will be displayed in a single unified list. Depending on how tidy you keep your Facebook contact list, this feature may vary in its usefulness.
Messaging
This is a bit of a mixed bag. Similar to the “Synergy” feature for your contacts, the Pre displays SMS text messages and IM messages in a single application. This makes a lot of sense, but can be confusing at first. Overall AIM and text messaging worked pretty well though and it definitely beats the iPhone, which doesn’t offer IM support at all out of the box.
Mail
The mail application is fairly basic. It has a nice “favorite” feature, that allows you to create shortcuts to your most frequently used mail folders. But it lacks batch move and delete commands you’ll find on the iPhone. It does have more advanced attachment capabilities though, so you can grab documents, videos, audio files or pictures and attach them to any mail message. On the iPhone, you’ll need to go to the respective application and either copy & paste your attachment, or select the email option in the app.
Connectivity and browsing
The iPhone 2G only has EDGE (which is fairly slow), so I mostly stick to RSS readers and dedicated apps for mobile data access on the iPhone. Apps such as Netnewswire, Facebook or Tweetie have little overhead and load data fairly quickly – even on an EDGE connection. But browsing the web is usually too slow on EDGE to be of much use, so I was interested to see how much fast browsing over 3G on the Pre is. Truth be told I was slightly disapointed: webpages still took quite a long time to load and the browser is slightly more sluggish than the iPhone, so it wasn’t the leap forward I had hoped it would be.
The browser itself is webkit-based (as is WebOS itself) and is quite snappy. Scrolling isn’t quite as smooth as on the iPhone, but overall it’s a very capable mobile webbrowser.
Battery life
I was asked by several iPhone 3G and 3GS users if the Pre’s battery life is any better than the notoriously power-hungry iPhone with 3G enabled. Whilst I don’t have exact measurements, I’d have to say probably not. My original iPhone can go about 2 days without a charge, but the Pre was usually nearing empty at the end of the day (and was probably being used less than I use my iPhone during that time). You could argue the Pre has an advantage due to its user-replaceable battery, but honestly for day-to-day use you don’t really want to have to rely on battery swaps. It is nice to know that when the battery reaches the end of its useable life, you can easily pop in a new one though.
Third party applications
Palm includes a handful of common apps with the Pre, but you can also download & install additional apps via the Palm App Catalog. The Catalog currently only has about 1000 apps, but you’ll already find apps for a lot of popular sites and services. I downloaded apps for Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, weather, music services etc. and found them all to be quite useable. Strangely enough, the App catalog has a lot of subcategories, despite some of them being empty. I understand this may be due to regional restrictions, but it does seem as though the subcategories are far too detailed considering most general categories often only had a handful of apps.
The apps that were available all felt slightly less sophisticated than comparable iPhone applications – Facebook can only display and post to your news feed for example, as opposed to the near-complete experience its iPhone counterpart offers. The twitter applications I tried were similarly limited. Most of the time, they offered the main functionality I was looking for though, so they serve their purpose. The WebOS SDK is also less mature than Apple’s iPhone SDK (don’t forget, it is already in its third iteration), so I’d expect to see the apps improve in future. But by design, WebOS will only ever offer an experience comparable to a web app (but as webapps become increasingly sophisticated, this limitation will become less significant).
Background notifications
Since 3rd party applications can run in the background on WebOS, it doesn’t need the klutzy push notification system you’ll find on the iPhone to send you messages or updates that you receive whilst using another app. Notifications appear along the bottom edge of the screen and tapping a notification will open the corresponding app. Occasionally I also received notifications for applications that I had closed, but I guess that feature is limited to Palm’s own Mail and Messaging applications.
Syncing
This is one area that Palm doesn’t really compete in at all. While the Pre launched with iTunes compatibility, a few iTunes updates soon put a stop to that practice, so the Pre now only shows up as a regular mass-storage device. You can easily drag music, videos and images to the corresponding folders on the device, but that still leaves you with no way to manage applications, podcasts, purchases etc. I know some users prefer the ability to manually manage content on a device, but I think nowadays most users will prefer the iPod-like syncing offered on the iPhone.
Overall
The Pre is a great phone. But is it better than the iPhone? I’d have to say no. Launching apps and most UI interactions feel quite a bit more sluggish on the Pre than on the iPhone (and remember – I’m comparing it to my original iPhone, which is considerably slower than the new 3GS). Whilst this isn’t a huge deal breaker, it does emphasize that most other smartphones can’t match the overall quality of presentation the iPhone OS offers. Web OS is very pretty and there’s plenty of love and polish on display – but it’s just not quite as polished as iPhone OS.
The apps are also just slightly less sophisticated, which seems at odds with the slightly more advanced gestures and multitasking support in WebOS. It’s a geekier, sleeker smartphone, but the apps seem better suited to less demanding casual users.
If the iPhone isn’t an option for you, the Pre is a great device. It has a lot of the features that make the iPhone special and is almost definitely a step up from your current phone. But if I had to choose, the iPhone is still an easy pick.
You may be able to use it as a display with your blu-ray player / games console
It’ll be perfect for watching Hulu or those movies and TV shows you’ve downloaded off bittorrent purchased online.
Front Row rounds out the package as your living room media center
It won’t fit the bill for everyone, but I can see a lot of college kids or people with combined office / livings rooms considering the new iMac instead of a regular TV.
In our house, my desk is positioned that I can swivel my display around to face the couch. The iMac would work really well in this kind of apartment layout.
Like this idea? Support the site and buy your shiny new 27″ iMac at Amazon.
(Who are we kidding? Get the quad-core version)
In my post Free alternatives to MobileMe earlier this year, I looked at some free alternatives to Apple’s MobileMe service. One crucial piece was still missing though: The seamless over-the-air syncing and push email experience offered by MobileMe on the iPhone.
Google Sync – the Missing Piece of the Puzzle?
MobileMe’s biggest advantage to date has been its support for push email and over-the-air syncing, which ensures that emails and changes to calendars and contacts are synced to iPhone users instantly.
But with Google Sync, Google aims to offer GMail and Google Calendar users the same over-the-air syncing feature that MobileMe does. To accomplish this, Google is basically taking advantage of the fact that the iPhone (and most other smartphones) natively support Microsoft Exchange syncing. So Google are offering their own Exchange-compatible service, that acts as an intermediary between your data stored in Google’s services and your iPhone. Configure Google Sync as a new exchange account on your iPhone, enable Push support and Google will Push any new email messages, calendar or contact updates to your phone.
When you consider that iCal, Address Book and Mail on the Mac also natively support syncing with Google’s services, Google Sync starts to look like a very interesting alternative to MobileMe. Change a contact in Address Book or add an appointment to iCal and those changes should be synced right up to your phone, without requiring a slow, USB iTunes sync – just like MobileMe. Emails should also be delivered right away, circumventing the 15 minute fetching interval limit. Or as Google sums it up it a cutesy comic:
But how well does it work in the real world?
Setting up Google Sync on your phone isn’t particularly difficult and Google offers easy step-by-step instructions. Enter your details, ignore a certificate warning, enter some more details and you’re done.
Emails
But mysteriously my Gmail inbox would only show 3 messages I had received this morning, with no sign of any messages I had received earlier in the week or later today. The same problem affected my other mailboxes as well. I was able to coax a few more messages off the server by selecting to only sync a week’s worth of email messages, but that does severely limit habitual emails hoarders such as myself. A know current limitation of the service is also the fact that drafts can’t be edited, once synced.
Contacts
My Google contacts showed up fairly quickly in my Contacts application. But new contacts didn’t seem to sync back up to Gmail, no matter how often I tried to coax Google Sync into action.
Conclusion
Judging by the discussions going on over on the Google Sync messageboards, it looks as though the service has been pretty flaky for users the last few days, so these are most likely serious teething issues. But until these reliability problems are sorted out, it’s hard to realistically see Google Sync as a serious MobileMe alternative anytime soon.
Having said that, it’s promising to see Google taking the initiative and trying to offer an Exchange-like experience for non-corporate / non-MobileMe user – so Google gets a gold star for trying. It’s also worth remembering that MobileMe (a $99 per year service) had its own fair share of teething issues, so let’s hope Google is able to really challenge Apple in this area in the near future.
But for the time being, I’ll be sticking with regular Gmail IMAP syncing for my emails and MobileMe syncing for my contacts and calendars.
Digital photography has made it easier for us all to take hundreds of near-perfect shots. But digital photography lacks some of the elements that made each photo taken with an analog camera unique. The type of film, processing techniques and photo-paper used all contributed to give each image a distinctive look.
CameraBag, by Nevercenter, gives digital photography enthusiasts an easy way to introduce some of that flavour back into their photography. Like its iPhone sibling (App Store link), CameraBag Desktop is designed to be straightforward and easy-to-use: Instead of presenting users with a confusing number of options, exposure settings, histograms and color profiles, CameraBag has 9 styles, that can all be applied with a single click.
The styles are based on a mix of classic analog cameras and media formats. The manual describes as such:
Helga: Square-format toy camera with washed-out highlights and old-school vignetting.
Lolo: Shoot from the hip and take life as it comes with vibrant, colorful shots.
Mono: Smooth, refined, balanced black and white
1962: Dynamic, high-contrast black and white from the photojournalism of a bygone era.
Colorcross: Hazy, chemical color-swapping straight from the darkroom.
Instant: No need to shake this instant-developing film.
1974: Your father’s camera: faded, tinted, and hip.
Cinema: Dramatic, moody coloring with a widescreen aspect ratio.
Magazine: Rich tones for glossy pages.
Once you’ve dragged your image into the main window, apply one of the styles by simply clicking its preview thumbnail. Each style will crop your image and apply a variety of filters. You can also mix & match styles by checking the “multi-filter” option. This will allow you to apply multiple styles on top of each other, creating distinctive looks and styles. If you want to start over, simply click the “original” thumbnail, to discard all applied styles.
CameraBag also applies a crop and border to your image, based on your style. If you prefer, you can also pick these manually though, allowing for even more image variations. If one of the styles doesn’t suit your taste, you can also “Reprocess” an image to see variations of that style. If a style produces an image that is too dark or lacking in contrast, reprocessing your picture will often deliver a much better result, so if you’re not happy with the way a photo turns out, try reprocessing it!
Some styles may not be everyone’s cup of tea, and I found myself using some more often than others. But most styles do a really good job of adding some flavour to your images.The CameraBag Photo Blog has some great examples of the kinds of results you can achieve, with nice before/after comparisons.
The UI is nicely laid out and very easy to use (although I’m not quite sure why the designers found it necessary for a user to “turn on” reprocessing). EDIT: @CameraBag clarifies:
“[...] reprocess auto-enables when clicked. It’s more about the off switch to get back to each filter’s signature look”
Styles are applied nearly instantaneously and while you’re finding the right style for your images the application feels very fast. Rotating and saving images causes a slight bit of delay, but both are extremely minor. For those who enjoy a good manual with their software, Nevercenter includes a detailed PDF guide, which I personally find a lot more useful than trying to find information with OS X’s built-in help system.
Overall CameraBag is a great and affordable way to liven up your shots. It’s an interesting new type of photo stylizer that works well as a complementary tool to traditional photo editing applications such as iPhoto or Picasa.
Available for just $19, it’s a must-have for every wannabe photographer.
As predicted, 10.6 will be released August 28th, slightly earlier than promised. It certainly makes sense for Apple to release 10.6 before Microsoft Windows 7 marketing can hit: Rather than trying to compete with Microsoft for reviews and media attention, release early and hog all the attention for yourself.
However, the extremely short lead-up between announcement and release is a bit surprising: both the 10.4 and 10.5 releases had longer marketing build-ups, with big release countdown clocks dominating the Apple homepage.
But the slightly more subdued marketing plays into the way Apple has positioned 10.6 as an incremental release: If you stick a big countdown clock on your website, people are going to expect huge fantastic changes. But with so few visible changes to Snow Leopard, that’s clearly not the kind of message Apple is trying to send. At the same time, early reviews have been very favorable and at the unbeatable price of $29, it’s hard not to be far more impressed by the new “fine-tuned” version of OS X, than the marketing would lead you to believe.
I guess that the goal of this positioning and marketing strategy is mainly to allow Apple to under-promise and over-deliver – a great way to prepare for Windows 7 this fall.
At any rate, existing Mac owners have some great improvements to look forward to, potential first-time customers will be reminded which OS is the pundits’ favorite and developers get some under-the-hood improvements to play with. All-in-all it should be a very solid release for Apple.
If you enjoyed this article, support the site: Purchase your copy of Snow Leopard at Amazon with free shipping via one of the links below:
Snow Leopard (requires 10.5 to be installed on your Mac)
In general, most people choose one of two types of cameras: Simple point & shoot cameras (P&S) that are extremely small, but don’t offer manual adjustment options – or complex & large DSLRs, which offer full control over nearly every aspect of your image. But the size and bulk of traditional DSLR cameras can make them unsuitable for certain occasions and events, where you might not want to lug a large camera bag and equipment around with you. Digital SLRs can also be intimidating for casual users, who worry about making the jump from their tried and trusted P&S.
The Olympus E-P1 ‘PEN’, based on the original Olympus PEN, has essentially created a new category for itself that sits in-between DSLRs such as Olympus’ own E-520 and other “enthusiast” compacts, such as the Panasonic Lumix LX-3 or the Canon G10. Unlike traditional DSLRs, this camera looks similar to most compacts, albeit slightly larger. But the interchangeable lenses and much larger sensor it DSLR-like capabilities, making the E-P1 a compelling for photography enthusiasts and “prosumers”.
Camera hardware
The E-P1 is extremely well put together: The aluminum housing gives the cameras a very sturdy, solid feel that reminds me of Apple’s Unibody MacBook design. Like the new MacBooks, there’s not a creak or wobble to be found in this case. Other elements such as the doors that cover battery compartment and USB connector feel very reassuringly solid as well. As it is made of aluminum and fairly large, the camera does have a considerable heft to it, but it’s “the good kind of heavy”, that makes you confident it won’t fall apart the first time you accidently bump it against something.
Whilst I didn’t have the camera long enough to conduct real battery life tests, I took around 350 pictures and shot 20 minutes or so of video with just one brief recharge in the 4 days I took it out with me. Swapping batteries is really easy as well, so battery life shouldn’t be an issue.
Handling & controls
As the E-P1 is styled like an oversized compact, it fits nicely into your hands and can even be used with just one-hand quite comfortably. The control layout on the back of the camera is well thought out and quite easy to reach whilst shooting. The obligatory mode dial on the top of the camera is nice and grippy, so you won’t have any issues quickly switching between modes. One minor gripe I do have is the clickwheel, which can be a bit too sensitive at times. Something with slightly more tactile feedback would make navigating menus easier. As any optical zoom capability is built-in to your lenses, you grip and twist the barrel to zoom in or out and the live view LCD displays a precise preview without any noticeable lag.
Menus
The menu system on the E-P1 is extremely comprehensive, to say the least. You can tweak nearly every button setting and mode to your heart’s content. But Olympus have also made the basic functionality very easy to discover, so that even an Olympus novice like myself can change settings, modes and options after a few minutes of playing with the camera. Having said that, I did find myself resorting to the manual at one point to figure out to manually move the point of focus.
Features & Functionality
Automatic & Scene modes
The E-P1 has a nice mix of professional and consumer-orientated features. Put the camera in iAuto mode and the E-P1 will figure out which settings to use, switching between macro, scenery, portrait and other non-specific scene modes as needed. Spin the dial to the SCN settting and you can pick from more precise scene settings, including Candlelight, Night portrait, Kids and all the other scenes types you’ll find on most consumer cameras. Unlike some recent cameras, the number of scene modes isn’t overwhelming though, so finding an appropriate setting is easy.
The only issue you may notice with one of the automatic shooting modes is occasional focusing issues. Usually the camera locks on to focus points quite reliably (although sometimes the focus can be a little bit slow) but every so often it seemed to struggle a bit.
Art mode
The Art mode is interesting and quite indicative of the type of audience Olympus seems to be going after with the E-P1: Instead of the usual Sepia, B&W and other effects you see on most cameras, the Art filters attempt to recreate the types of images normally seen in photographic artworks. Whilst you can easily recreate similar effects using most image editors, being able to preview shots with an art filter enabled did help this amateur photographer to take a few ‘arty’ pictures I probably wouldn’t have seen otherwise. The only drawback to using Art mode is the decreased framerate of the live preview on the LCD and the increased save times. If you have set the camera to record a RAW copy of your images, you can also apply the art effects later using the Olympus software. Art mode is also available whilst shooting movies, but the frame rate is severely limited there as well, limiting its usefulness.
Here are the six art modes offered, click for a larger preview:
Pop Art
Soft Focus
Pale & Light Color
Light Tone
Grainy Film
Pin Hole
Manual controls
As previously mentioned, the E-P1 offers full P, A, S, and M modes, allowing the photographer full control over the image settings the camera offers. When using the manual focus ring on the front of a lens, the LCD viewfinder will display a 7x or 10x magnification of the area in focus – very handy for making sure your subject is in focus. The AF+M mode is particularly useful for beginners, as you can have the camera auto-focus first and then tweak the focus manually before taking your shot. The camera also offers a dedicated Exposure lock button, bracketing options and the ability to tweak pretty much everything else a photography enthusiast might look for.
Full view, not in focus
Turning the focus ring on the lens switches the camera to a close-up ‘focus-assist’ view
The silver barrel wheel lets you zoom in even closer to focus
Software
As this was a review unit, the camera didn’t come with any software, so I decided to fire up iPhoto before installing Olympus’ own application. iPhoto recognized the camera right away and was able to import JPEG images and movies just fine. RAW images aren’t supported yet, but since this camera has just come to market, that was expected. But Apple frequently updates the RAW import capabilities built-in to OS X, so I’d expect to see native OS X support for the E-P1′s RAW files soon.
Olympus’ own application, Olympus Master 2, is a bit of a mixed bag. On the one hand, it does offer a variety of editing options, including the same Art filters built-in to the camera as well as the ability to import and edit the E-P1 RAW files. I was also pleasantly surprised to see basic video editing and YouTube upload support built-in as well (although the YouTube feature is currently limited to files under 100MB as it hasn’t yet been updated to reflect YouTube’s new 1GB limit). On the other hand, the application does feel a bit sluggish at times and has quite a ‘non-native’ look & feel to it. But kudos to Olympus for providing full functionality to OS X users.
Image quality
Overall I was very impressed by the unedited images out of the camera. Image detail is superb, skin tones are very natural and noise levels are quite acceptable, even at higher ISO levels 640 and above. The built-in image stabilization does a good job in most settings and can even be tweaked to adjust primarily for vertical or horizontal movement. But for shots with longer exposure times you’ll still want to use a tripod. The camera surprisingly lacks an onboard flash, so you’ll need to pick up the optional flash accessory if you plan on taking a lot of pictures in the evening or at night. Low-level performance without a tripod was okay, but not good enough to take acceptable pictures without the flash. I’d imagine the E-P1 would take good enough images of buildings or objects that were sufficiently well lit-up if you had a tripod though.
Here are a few sample shots – there are more in the gallery below (click an image to see a larger version).
Okay, so the E-P1 didn’t magically turn me into Annie Leibovitz – but, there’s no doubt the the level of image quality it produces places it firmly in entry-level DSLR territory. It handily beat images take with the older Canon D350 I had brief access to and are no comparison to the Panasonic Lumix TZ3 compact I own.
Other reviews will have all the precise details of the luminance curves and pixel-level crops the E-P1 produces, so I’ll just leave it with this: your photos will look great.
Lenses
Experienced photographers will tell you the quality of an image is dictated as much by the lens you use as the camera. The review unit I received came with a 17mm ‘pancake‘ lens as well as the 14-42mm kit lens. The pancake lens has the advantage of making the camera quite compact and as a prime lens also picks up more light, offering better image quality in certain situations. The bulkier zoom does have greater flexibility though for everyday use though and if I had to choose, I’d probably start out with the zoom. Both lenses produce very crisp and clear images and can also produce nice bokeh effect in images, given the right settings. In addition to micro four thirds lenses, E-P1 can also use other lens types via adapters. As the image-stabilization feature is built-in to the camera (and not the lens like on Canon’s DSLRs), it will work regardless of which lens you use.
Switching lenses is quick and easy to do, but won’t want to take too long as the large image sensor is directly exposed once a lens is removed. The E-P1 does have Olympus’ highly-praised anti-dust system, but even so I’d recommend avoiding leaving the sensor exposed too long.
Movie mode
A Video mode on cameras seems to be the “must-have” feature of 2008/2009, with the Canon D500, iPhone 3GS and Nikon D5000 all touting movie modes as one of their major new features. The E-P1 is no exception and can record 720p (1280×720) movies at 30fps. The videos look excellent, very fluid and crisp. Unlike other DSLRs with video modes, the E-P1 doesn’t seem to suffer much (if at all) from the ‘jelly effect’ that causes image distortions during movement. If you’ve selected ‘continual focus’, the camera will keep your image in focus, even whilst you move around. However, in movie mode, the occasional delay in focusing the camera seems to have becomes quite obvious: Whilst you move around, the camera will often need a few attempts to hunt for the ideal focus setting. But even in video mode, you can also choose to use the camera’s manual image controls and adjust the image to your liking. So experienced photographers might want to bypass the continuous focus option and focus manually instead.
The 44Khz audio on the recordings is very clear and audible and the built-in microphone does a great job of picking things up. The E-P1 does lack and external microphone jack though, which is a shame. If you have continuous focus enabled, you’ll be treated to the sound of the very audible autofocus motor every few seconds, which can be a bit distracting. A mic jack would have gone a long way in mitigating that.
Below are a few sample videos that demonstrate the image quality and focus noise. Keep in mind that the YouTube conversions lowers the quality somewhat, compared to the original footage.
Accessories
Olympus included the optical viewfinder, leather camera case and strap accessories with the review unit, so I’ll briefly cover those as well:
Viewfinder
A lot has been made of the fact that the E-P1 lacks a real optical viewfinder. However, as most my photography has only ever been done without one, I can’t say I particularly missed it. The optical viewfinder accessory seems to be designed primarily so salespeople can reassure traditionalists that the E-P1 does have a viewfinder option. Once you clip it into the hot shoe, you basically have a square box through which you can squint at part of your image. Unlike the viewfinder built-in to other DSLRs, it doesn’t actually show you the image coming through the lens, so you might as well just make a circle with your fingers and look through that. Don’t get me wrong: I can see why an eye-level viewfinder with focus and exposure information would be useful, but this isn’t it.
Leather case & strap
The half-case covers the bottom half of the camera and is made of very nice leather. However if I was after a case, I would be tempted to wait for something that covers more of the camera body than this. The matching leather strap (sold separately) is very nice though and feels quite a bit more secure than the bundled nylon strap.
Conclusion
I’m not a photography expert by any means. But for a while now I have been looking into cameras that offer more control over images and produce better overall results than your average point & shoot. The E-P1 Pen does a great job of bridging the gap between traditional DSLRs and compact cameras, offering very respectable image quality and control in an acceptably compact package. The E-P1 is fun to use, compact enough to take with you to most events and performs really well across the board. Occasional focusing issues and the noisy auto-focus in video mode are minor blemishes on an otherwise superb camera.
Overall: Highly recommended.
If you enjoyed this review, consider supporting the site & purchase your E-P1 at Amazon.com below:
Belkin’s latest version of their popular 7-port hub has been redesigned and adds cable management features. This review will take a look at the changes, design and performance of Belkin’s latest offering for USB junkies.
Design
The first thing you’ll notice is the design Belkin has chosen for this hub: Its rectangular shape means it’ll take up less space on your desk than previous versions, while retaining the two top ports – useful for USB memory sticks and similar devices. The top ports are also spaced out a bit, so you should be able to connect larger USB devices without any problem as well. The device features an attractive white & blue color scheme – quite a departure from the usual gray, black and silver. Belkin also offer a brown edition of the hub, if white’s not your thing.
Cable Management
At the end of the device Belkin have included a cable loop made out of firm but rubbery plastic The loop can be adjusted slightly, making it easier to cram all your cables inside. The loop allows you to reduce cable clutter, makes for a tidier look and is useful if you need to route one or two of your USB cables to the front of your desk (e.g. for your keyboard). I’m forever losing the business end of my camera’s USB cable behind my desk, so this feature should prove to be very useful.
Build quality
As expected of a device with this price tag, the build quality is great: the materials feel very solid and smooth and even the power brick feels less cheap than other generic power adapters. The cable loop material is thick enough to be reass The only slight issue I encountered: The top USB ports were a little ‘stiff’ at first, making it quite difficult to plug in a regular Apple USB cable. After a few times it did become significantly easier though.
Performance
USB 2.0 obviously has performance rates and limits imposed by the standard itself, so you ask whether performance is an issue at all. Often though, you’ll see reduced throughput if you connect a lot of high-speed devices to a single hub. The 7-port Hub Plus performed tremendously though, even with 2 external harddrives, iPhone, digital camera, Logitech wireless mouse, iMic audio interface and printer connected.
The hub also comes with a power supply. Whilst you can use the hub without power, you’ll need it to use (and charge) devices such as iPhones, iPods or USB-powered harddrives.
Support & Warranty
Belkin offer a lifetime warranty of this device and I was pleased to find a single folded piece of paper with all their technical support numbers in the box. Whilst this may seem like a given, a lot of manufacturers will bury that kind of information of their websites. I don’t expect needing a lot of support with a hub, but it’s still nice to know it’s available.
Conclusion
The hub performs very well and will also help you to reduce some of the cable clutter on your desk. If you have a MacBook, it’s great to be able to just plug in a single USB plug and have access to all of your devices. Whilst more expensive than generic hubs on the market, it’s thought-out form, design and functionality are well worth it.
JetReader is a style I’ve created for NetNewsWire, arguably the best RSS Reader for OS X. This is my first attempt at creating a NNW style, so there may be a few glitches – you’ve been warned!
It’s been designed with legibility in mind, as I’ve found that black on grey is typically easier on the eyes – particularly on the new, very glossy, very bright aluminum MacBook. JetReader also uses a relatively large font size, as I often browse headlines on my secondary display, which is usually a little bit further back. Having said that, I’ve designed the style to fit a 13″ screen, even when using NewNewsWire’s 3-column widescreen layout.
Credits
The style is partially inspired by the excellent Readability bookmarklet from the good folks at Arc90.
Credit also goes out to Antonio Carusone of LegiStyles, whose excellent White Serif style served as the inspiration for JetReader’s header styling.
How to install
To install JetReader, simply download it and double-click the “JetReader.nnwstyle” file to install it into NetNewsWire:
Once installed, select the style from the bottom right corner of the NetNewsWire window to activate it:
Screenshots
(Click for full-sized preview)
If you have any comments / suggestions / bug-reports, please let me know in the comments.
Today I’m taking a look across the fence and am going to walk you through the installation of Windows 7 Release Candidate under Parallels 4.
The installation is pretty self-explanatory, however it did take me a few attempts to get the correct setup, as 7 isn’t officially supported by Parallels yet. But if you follow these steps, you’ll be up and ready in no time:
Download Windows 7
Head on over to the official Microsoft download page. You’ll need to sign in with a Windows Live ID, but you’ll get an activation key that’s valid for one year for your trouble.
Setting up your VM
Create a new virtual machine, select the .iso image and choose ‘Windows > Other Windows’ as the OS you’re going to install. Be sure to select a custom setup and assign your VM at least 512MB of RAM. Set the other options according to your preferences.
Update: If you download the latest version of Parallels 4, you now can also access an experimental Windows 7 option here instead. (Thanks Alex!)
The installation
After you’ve configured your VM, Parallels will reboot using the Windows 7 .iso image. Follow the steps on screen and enter your Activation key when asked. This part is mostly smooth sailing, provided you’ve setup your VM correctly. If you selected other options (e.g. if you selected ‘Vista’ as your OS version), your installation may stall or throw other errors. In that case, double-check your VM settings, or start over with a new VM.
Installing Parallels Tools
Once your installation has completed, you’ll want to install Parallels Tools for Windows, in order to enable seamless mouse, clipboard and app switching between OS X and Windows 7. Select ‘Virtual Machine > Install Parallels Tools’ from the menu bar and wait for the installer to complete. Reboot when prompted and you should be all set! Now you can get to the real business of exploring the exciting new innovations that “7″ offers:
Caveats
Some of the more interesting new Windows features such as Aero Peek and other UI changes won’t yet work, due to the limited graphics card drivers Parallels currently uses. But 7 still seems to run faster than Vista, given similar resources, and works well enough for everyday use.
Podcaster? Screencast creator? Amateur musician? If you’ve ever tried your hand at any of those, you’ve probably found yourself wondering how to record better audio with your Mac. There are many solutions out on the market, but most require a bunch of bothersome cables, fiddling with filters or an audio engineering degree.
Enter the Røde Podcaster: This USB microphone promises to make recording professional-sounding audio with your Mac really simple. But does it live up to the promise?
What’s in the box
The Podcaster comes in a sturdy black box: Apart from the mic itself, you’ll also find a USB A to USB B connector (the kind most printers require but never include), and an adapter ring for connecting the mic to a stand.
Build Quality
The microphone has a solid metal enclosure that gives it considerable heft and weight, but in a really good way. It has a fairly large pickup area that is also protected by the outer casing, which is good as the mic grill is something that is often damaged by knocks or drops on traditional microphone designs.
The adapter screw also doubles as the USB port enclosure and is also entirely made out of metal. This should also do wonders for this mic’s durability, as the stand adapter is often under a lot of strain on mics and can often crack if made out of plastic.
The one minor gripe I have is the headphone volume control on the front of the mic: It’s made out of plastic and feels a bit wobbly and out of place on a mic this well made.
Audio performance
Probably the most important factor when choosing a mic: How good does it actually sound? Røde promise “High quality broadcast sound” and I’m pleased to tell you that the Podcaster delivers. It has an incredible textured sound that gives recordings a “studio” feel. It sounds very accurate without too much treble and produces clean, warm audio.
A normal recording setup requires:
- A mic
- A mixer with preamps and monitoring capabilities
- An audio interface
Whilst there are some solutions out there that can act as an interface as well as a mixer, this mic is so much quicker to get set up: A single cable to your Mac, plug in your headphones and you’re set. Ever tried to record decent audio without hearing yourself? Or without hearing your overall mix? Getting monitoring set up (without a delay!) is usually more trouble than it’s worth – the Podcaster solves that issue nicely and you have zero timing issues.
I’ve created a short audio snippet to give you an idea of the audio quality: Both the voice and guitar heard in this video were recorded with the Podcaster.
Compatibility
The Podcaster works out of the box with OS X: Just connect the USB cable and you’re all set. There are some Windows drivers and applications on the CD that’s included, but you can safely ignore those. Fire up Garageband, select one of the vocal presets and you’re good to go. It also shows up as an audio output device immediately as well.
Tip: Remember to turn off Garageband’s live monitoring feature if you use the Røde as your output device (the mic will already pipe your audio to your headphones) – otherwise you’ll start hearing yourself twice!
Conclusion
The Røde Podcaster is a great microphone for any Mac user. It is well suited to creating podcasts, screencasts, movie voiceovers and even recording music. The build-quality is almost flawless and it offers an ideal feature combination of features for fast and easy recordings.
I’ve found myself quickly recording song ideas and voiceovers, simply because it’s so much less hassle to do so (previously I had been using an interface with a traditional microphone, which usually required extensive setting up and configuration to get decent results).
The Podcaster includes a 10 year guarantee and is available online for around $229 – less than a traditional microphone, audio interface with mixing capabilities would cost you. The convenience and audio quality you get for that price is currently unmatched in my opinion. Highly recommended.
Things, a task-management application for OS X, debuted this year at Macworld after a lengthy public beta. Despite being Cultured Code‘s first foray into the world of task management apps, Things 1.x is an extremely polished, attractive app – but does it actually make you more productive? Read on to find out…
UI & Design
Cultured Code really nailed the visual presentation of Things: The UI is very “mac-like” and looks very nice. Features are easy to discover and UI elements are easily identified.
The list view Things uses to display your tasks feels as though it is very iPhone-inspired does a good job of displaying your tasks and metadata without clutter. Cultured Code make a point of not using the typical column-based layout you see in other apps, and only show the information you’ve entered – not empty columns.
You won’t find any revolutionary UI innovations in Things, but the UI works and is well thought out – far more important in this type of application.
Ease of use
One issue I’ve had with other todo managers in the past has been the barrier of entry: Managing todos is something you can easily do with a pen & paper, so a dedicated application needs to offer functionality beyond that. However: if entering todos is too convoluted and time-consuming, you may question whether it’s worth the effort – particularly if the task isn’t that important, time-consuming or complicated. Task managers can only help you avoid “I’ll get to it in a minute”-syndrome if entering tasks doesn’t become its own chore.
Extremely stripped down managers tend to be too simple – preventing you from adding supplementary information or tags to your tasks. At the other end of the spectrum you have todo managers that are too complicated, overwhelming you with sub-categories and scheduling features – so you end up spending more time managing your tasks than completing them.
Things manages to strike a nice balance between those extremes. You can use it as a simple notepad to scribble down a list of things you need to get done, but you can also set up projects, repeating tasks and areas of responsibility, if you’re so inclined.
Quick Entry
To allow for even quicker task entry, Things offers a Quick Entry hud-panel, that can be activated via a system-wide keyboard shortcut. Tasks added via the panel will be discreetly added to your Inbox, allowing you to continue working on whatever you happen to be doing.
Tagging
Things offers powerful tagging features, offering some features that cause clutter in other task management apps: You can of course just assign regular keywords, but Cultured Code also suggests assigning your tasks time estimates, difficulty ratings and priority levels. Using tags to add that sort of metadata is a very clever way of hiding complexity: Users that don’t need that kind of detail won’t be distracted by those fields cluttering up the task entry interface, but power users still get the features they need.
Adding tags to your tasks is also nicely supported: In addition to iPhone-esque tag autocompletion, Things also intelligently assigns each tag a keyboard shortcut. Just select a task and hit the corresponding letter on your keyboard to tag it. Shortcuts can be edited later on, but by automatically assigning keyboard shortcuts, Things removes another step on your path to productivity.
Syncing
Under preferences, you’ll find syncing options for iCal and a companion iPhone application, which I’ll be reviewing separately soon. Those two options make it simple to get your tasks onto your mobile device, but there’s no built-in support for Mac-to-Mac syncing. But Things does support selecting your own library location, so you can easily set up syncing using a free Dropbox account.
Suitability for students
Students will appreciate the flexibility Things offers: You can choose to create Projects for some more involved courses, or just add your assignments and reading requirements to a semester-specific project or area of responsibility.
For team projects, the ability to delegate certain tasks to teammates is also very useful, helping you to keep track of jobs and follow-up with collaborators if necessary. On campus the iPhone application has proven invaluable, as it allows me to quickly make a note of something I can later follow up with when I sync up with my MacBook.
(And if you think Things is a bit expensive on a student’s budget, be sure to check out Cultured Code’s generous educational pricing offer!)
Hidden gems
While preparing this review, I found myself frequently coming across little points of detail in the application, that just go to show how much attention to detail was paid by the development team:
Ability to print lists with several formatting options
Support for teammates, including iChat status indicators and Address Book integration
Things has definitely helped me get organized and plan out my university assignments, work to-dos, personal projects and other errands. It’s easy to pick up the habit of adding even mundane tasks to your Things inbox and there’s nothing more satisfying than crossing off something you’ve completed.
The intuitive interface makes it easy to enter to dos, but also allows you to focus on certain tasks and plan out your day – something more basic task managers usually don’t offer.
But most important of all: Things stays out of your way and allows you to focus on your tasks and not on managing them, allowing you to get things done.
