By now, it has become fairly obvious that the latest round of iPad competition has made little impact on the public mindshare that Apple occupies. One thing that I have heard repeatedly from Apple supporters is that Apple needs competition to push their products. I have generally taken this for granted, but I have now changed my opinion.
Looking over the Apple product line, it is evident that they are only competing with themselves.
I purchased the Sony DRC-BT30 Bluetooth Headphone Adapter about a month ago from Amazon. After a month of heavy use I thought I’d share my experience with it. Be warned, it's an unsatisfactory ending.
Why? I listen to podcasts and music all day. My sole music player is my iPhone 4. I generally switch between a couple different headphones based on the working conditions. If I am stationary for awhile and need to concentrate, I will wear my Beyerdynamic DT 770 headphones.
I had already been testing a new iOS app named Notesy when the boys over at the B&B podcast started to recommend it. I have to say, I really like the app. However, I started to see some funny business while I was test driving new note naming systems. I’ll post about that experiment later. However, I discovered some interesting limitations when using Dropbox for taking notes. Dropbox limits the characters used in note titles.
I listen to a large number of Podcasts. My queue of podcasts has almost doubled since Dan's 5by5 really started pumping out quality material. While I love the increased variety, managing and sycning has become a mjor stumbling block to getting the latest content. Even if I charge my iPhone all night, I still need to connect it to Mac to sync with iTunes every morning before I leave for the office.
I've avoided much of the iPad 2 buzz this past week. Some of it was easy to avoid but I do read Asymco regularly and even Horace Dediu chimed in about the launch.
I prefer not to add to the mindless chatter that has been taking place in the Apple blog echo chamber, but I would like to say a bit about what I saw.
In Line not Out-Of-Line
I bought into the Simplenote world from the moment I read John Gruber rave about it. Since then I have relied heavily on the Simplenote platform for both personal and professional note taking and list making. The beauty of Simplenote lies in its unique restriction to plain text. I have been tempted by the luxuriousness that is Evernote. However, after a brief project to extract all of my notes from Evernote into a file structure that would outlive the hosted service, I realized that there was safety in simplicity.
OmniFocus from Windows
There's no doubt that OmniFocus by the Omni Group is the quintessential mac app. It's elegant, easy to use and simply makes work easier. It has nearly solved the digital ubiquitous capture problem. It's an iPhone app, it's an iPad app, it's desktop app, it's a whipped topping. Unfortunately it is not a windows app (yet).I spend most of my work hours on a Windows machine. I have developed a couple of rountines that allow me to integrate OmniFocus with my workflow on Windows.
I think a large number of folks have already established the Pinboard.in is an excellent bookmarking service. Now, comes the task of getting immediate and convenient access to those bookmarks. I have been happily using the app DBD Delicious Bookmark Discovery ($1.99 on the Apple app store) for that very purpose. While the name indicates that it is a tool for Delicious bookmarks, it is a top notch tool for accessing Pinboard bookmarks.
Day One Goes Premium:
Day One is evolving. We’re transitioning to a more stable subscription business model to ensure this app and these services always stick around.
Let me start this right. I think Day One Journal is an awesome app. Maybe the best journaling app around.1 The developer (Paul Mayne) has always seemed professional and nice when I’ve interacted with him. This is exactly what makes me sad.
Clark did a reasonable real-world test and has a reasonable real-world conclusion.
