Life as a parent gets busy. Your focus shifts, your free time changes, and your priorities are no longer yours to decide. The things you want to do get quickly replaced by all the things you have to do on top of the things you had to do already. It's normal and completely fine. It just means that sometimes you're late to the party on things… Most that know me understand that I have a watch band…
I'm always in search of both the best and minimal setups I can get. Camera, computer, EDC, you name it. And that is especially true for when I want to have solid charging when I'm traveling. I've had setups previously that did the trick, but over time my needs have changed. The computing hardware got better, became capable of charging faster, and the technology and features of the devices that…
As the new season of WWDC has closed, the time for sharing the beta screenshots is upon us. And while I love to see framed images, my preferred way of sharing is frameless. And there's no better tool for that than FrameShot for iPhones, developed by my friend Keir. [1] I've used a version of the shortcut before, but Keir has taken it upon himself to add not only my favorite frameless but also…
For a while now, I've had my iPad Pro next to a 27 monitor for my home setup. This is on a dual-monitor VESA Mount using a magnetic mount for the iPad Pro. It's been working out very well for a long while, given that I had the M1 12.9" iPad Pro. So when the new iPad Pros were announced and I knew that I was going back down to the 11-inch size, I figured it might be a while until I had a magnetic…
Back in April 2021, the new M1 iPad Pros were announced. At that time, I wanted the largest screen iPad Pro I could get, so I ended up getting the 12.9" model. There was so discussion surrounding the hardware story: the latest processor – just like the Mac – and a Magic Keyboard to make it just like a laptop. Most of the stories at the time focused on one key thing: the potential. Depending on who…
This morning when I couldn't sleep in the middle of the night for whatever stupid reason, I thought about how I've been using some of my shortcuts and trying to figure out how to improve them. As one does at 3:30am. And in my sleepless productivity, I created a couple of simple shortcuts that are going to improve capture for me. Both of these have the same basic blocks, so I'll show them side by…
I recently shared my home screen setup in the Club MacStories newsletter. As is tradition with me, I changed it about 3 days after publication. And then again. And again. But rather than just mixing it up, I sat down and totally re-thought the functionality of my home screen, from what I'm using to the placement of the icons & widgets. Whereas I started and ended with a single home screen, the…
I'm always in search of the best possible charging solution for all my travel needs. I have some very simple requirements: it needs to be minimal and be capable of charging all my devices while on the go. It's evolved over time, and with some improvements to AirPods and MagSafe accessories, I've finally landed on what I think is the best possible solution for me. I say for me because your needs…
Inspired by the collection of posts gathered by Robb Knight , here are my app defaults for 2023. I'll keep this as an additional page ) that I keep updated should things change. 📨 Mail Client: Mail.app 📮 Mail Server: Hover Gmail 📝 Notes: Drafts for everything Notes.app - for items which need attachments or sharing ✅ Task Management: Reminders.app Drafts for personal wiki 📷 iPhone Photo…
A short while ago, I created a new shortcut called Action Health to use with the Action Button on the Apple Watch Ultra. I submitted it to MacStories as part of Automation April , purely to share what had been created and hoped that others might find it useful. To my surprise, I won the Best Health Shortcut this year, something I didn't expect at all. Truth be told: I actually had forgotten that I…
When the Apple Watch Ultra was released, I knew I wanted it. Bigger watch face, insane battery life, the titanium finish, and the Action Button. And it really delivered on three of those things. But the biggest disappointment was the robustness of the Action Button, specifically for me surrounding the single action capability. The Action Button can do a few things, but only one at a time: start a…
I'm not always sure where my thought process starts with certain feelings I have. And generally speaking, I make my peace with that. This can be for many things: home, work, hobbies, etc. Things ruminate for a while, sometimes they go somewhere and sometimes they don't. Sometimes they completely consume me. It's that last point that really has been on my mind lately: consumption. For better or…
I was a late iPhone adopter. I held on tight to my BlackBerry for way too long. It wasn't until the iPhone 4S that I made my way over to the iPhone. And then a new opportunity really opened up for me – the App Store. There was a lot more development happening on iOS than any other platform, and there were new possibilities for me to explore. Of all the apps the App Store had to offer, one of the…
Ever since Reminders got the redesign in iOS 13, I've been back to using it for my personal tasks between the app and the other Reminders clients out there. With the new features added in iOS 14, I've been using the Reminders app exclusively. With the state of the API – something that I hope Apple fixes, and soon – most of what I do for my personal life needs to run through the Reminders to work.…
Listening to Upgrade recently, I was reminded about a feature that I really want to see incorporated into the Apple Watch fitness tracking: rest days . I'm not a fitness expert by an means, and I have a long journey ahead of me to start living a healthier lifestyle in 2022. But I've done a lot of training in the past, and I can adamantly say that rest days are vital whether you're starting a new…
Recently, I created a shortcut for the Club MacStories Discord as part of the Automation Academy. If you're not a member , I highly recommend doing so. This shortcut was in response to the latest lesson, all about Reminders. I've been meaning to create this for a while, and it seemed like a good idea to apply this lesson in practice. From the Discord: I've been using packing lists in Drafts for a…
With Techtober coming to an end, all of the major OS releases from Apple are finally out there, however buggy they may be. And of course, Drafts 29 has been released to accommodate the features in them. But some of the new features aren't even dependent on the latest OS releases, and add new levels of functionality to an amazingly capable app. Not only does the Mac have full Shortcuts support with…
Not long ago, my buddy Seth walked me through a bit of his Drafts setup. He's been creating a lot more workspaces as of late, but didn't think the workspace switching actions I had created before were enough, and he wanted a better way to cycle through them. My coding skills aren't that great, and quite frankly, are rusty as hell because I haven't really done a lot of it due to other commitments.…
In the past few years, after a summer of running and testing beta software, I often find it difficult to sit down and think about what is new. Don't get me wrong: it's not because there isn't anything, but rather that it's become second nature to the way I'm working with my systems. This is probably why I don't do massive reviews of iOS, iPadOS, watchOS, or macOS every year: having to keep all…
Even though Seth and I no longer have a podcast , we still talk nearly daily about a lot of things. One of them is Drafts , and how we are using it for small life improvements here and there. Journaling is one of them, and it has become a part of standard practice for me. I don't always have to put something in that's poignant, but I do document quite a bit from time to time. I'm not perfect at…
With WWDC this past week, I've spent some time sitting – stewing, somewhat – about the iPadOS 15 announcements and the subsequent sessions that have highlighted everything coming in the fall. As I watched the Keynote, I couldn't help but be slightly disappointed in what we didn't get. [1] At the time of writing this, and for at least until the public betas, I don't have anything installed. I'll…
I remember the day back in 2011 where I drove up an hour and a half to go take a visit. "We're just going to look", I said. On the way up, we talked about what we wanted and how firm I was in some of my thoughts and ideas surrounding a life-changing decision: getting a dog. Getting a pet of any kind is an endeavor, and it comes with a lot of wants and desires for what puppy fits your family best.…
Since the very recent release of Drafts 26 there have been a couple of changes to theming in Drafts that make creation, modification, and switching easier. After appearing on the Automators podcast, I shared my module-switching action group, which included the scripts to switch themes based on workspaces. I wished that this feature get rolled into the workspace manager, and although there are a…
In my second appearance on Automators (part of the Relay FM network), [1] I'm back to talk with David Sparks and Rosemary Orchard once again about Drafts . We dive in on some of the new stuff from version 26 which introduced custom themes and syntaxes. We also touch on a few other updates from the first version to now as well. I hope you enjoy it. There were a couple of things in the episode that…
Back when I wrote about my wishlist for Drafts 5.0 , I wanted to have a custom syntax for the editor in Drafts . At the time, this was based on my usage of other text editing apps, and I wanted a theme with a bit more color for MultiMarkdown. Now we are almost 3 years into the latest major version of Drafts, multiple large feature updates later , and we are finally here at tapping into the…
Today is a day that will change my life forever. It's a culmination of a bunch of events that have happened to me over the past few years. And for all that is going wrong with the world on a macro level, my micro-world has been full of great things. But I'm getting ahead of myself. To tell you where things are and where they're going, I have to take you back… Several years ago, things weren't…
Well, hello. It is with heavy hearts (and overtaxed livers) that we tell you we just don't have it in us anymore to keep on going. It's time to take Fundamentally Broken out behind the woodshed and put it down humanely. Go ahead now, turn away. You don't need to see this. The past year or so since we last recorded has certainly had some ups and downs. It came a lot of new responsibilities for both…
I get asked often for what's on my Home Screen: what apps, what wallpaper, what layout. Now with iOS 14, I'm asked about my widget setup as well. I've shared some updates through posts and social media sporadically. A lot of my current setup is visually unchanged (except the wallpaper), but I wanted to cover the why of the Home Screen - where apps/widgets are placed, what stacks are being used,…
I'm sure all of you have been hearing the same thing: " We have to get used to a new normal. " I myself have been hearing this a lot lately as well. Whether it's a global pandemic, social injustices, the attacks on media or science, or changes in our weather due to climate change, there's a lot of "new" out there to get used to. I've thought about this a lot as I'm getting older: norms change all…
Every year, I hesitate on jumping on the betas. I worry about the bugs, the data loss, and all the ways it can screw with my devices. Then, inevitably, I end up jumping on them around beta 2 or 3. When the releases come out in the fall, I usually delete the beta profile and do an install with the release version. I follow the recommended steps for backing up, then just install the OS and carry on.…
I'm going to be blunt: I'm not even sure why I'm sitting down to write this. I don't know where this post is even going, and if I'm honest with myself, I'm a little scared by where it might go or what I might say. [1] But I think I just need to get these thoughts out of my head and out into the ether. The last few months, in the midst of the pandemic, have been mostly ok for me and my family. I'm…
I'm often asked what different uses I have for Drafts , my everything-text app of choice. I have a variety of core use cases which I use Drafts for every day: even with my posts and large reviews , journaling is by far the highest volume of content I create. I've journaled for a while. And while I'm not perfect at doing it and frequently miss days because life sometimes gets in the way, there are…
Some of you have asked about my new site design, and the reasons behind some of my choices. Rather than explain them individually, I thought I'd drop them all here. The original site design dates back to 2016. I did most of it myself, with the exception of some help from my sage web advisor – Jeff Mueller . I was happy with it for a long time – nearly four years. There were things that I wanted to…
I'm not ashamed to admit that there are many times that I doubt myself. I suppose that's the nature of a parent. Or maybe I'm getting older and these are things that happen. Or maybe it's a global pandemic and a global call to end systemic racism. Maybe it's all of these things, and probably a whole lot more. But I find that in these times, I often end up finding my way. Life, for the most part,…
The new Magic Keyboard for iPad Pro is now available and starting to appear in reviews. Most of them have been video reviews , but I am starting to see written reviews as well. In watching the video reviews, my early suspicion of the Magic Keyboard for iPad Pro was confirmed: I won't be getting it. Not because it's bad, but rather it comes down to a matter of use cases for me. Sure, weight and…
For a long time, I've wanted my own office. For a while, I've had a podcast space of my own , but it has never been what I've truly wanted in a home office/podcast studio. So in this time of social distancing and staying-at-home to reduce the spread of COVID-19, I realized very quickly that my podcast area was going to be very insufficient for long-term working from home. This sent me down a path…
Over the years, I've added and removed multiple things from a travel kit. When I got my tactical bag , I started to think of minimal carry. In fact, it's starting to bleed into my regular life as well. But that's a post for another time. At the start of the year, I started thinking of an all-USB-C charging setup. I've had other power bricks and cables, but as I move towards devices which can…
Drafts 15 has been released to support both iOS and the new iPadOS 13. And as it is with the major releases, I had the opportunity to write about it over at MacStories . I encourage everyone to go read it there, but wanted to offer a couple of highlights: Enhanced Shortcuts Support : the support for Shortcuts has been very well implemented and enables users to not only create, but to pull from…
When I purchased iPad Pro 11", I immediately bought the Smart Keyboard Folio (SKF, as I refer to it). [1] At the time, this was the best – and only – keyboard option made specifically for the iPad Pro. I needed something that wasn't heavy, something portable, and something versatile. Over time, some of those needs have changed, and I've added a few more use cases that might not be best satisfied…
As I'm writing this, I'm taking a much-needed 3 days of "staycation". I've often loathed this word, but as things have become more and more busy for me at work along with everything that I've endured with my personal life, I need it now more than ever. I have a ton of things to catch up on while I'm off: some appointments, my house, hopefully a movie, and some much needed writing time as well. But…
I got into podcasting late. I've been listening for years, but I never started my own. But by the time that Seth and I did , there was an emerging idea started by Jason Snell: recording and editing podcasts iOS-only. As someone who rarely ever touches a Mac for their day-to-day work, this idea has continued to gnaw at my brain. I tried my hand a couple of times at doing something differently with…
Over the course of the last year, I had transitioned away from GoodTask to Things, then Todoist, then back to Things. I might have even missed a quick affair with OmniFocus as well. But I digress. GoodTask has been my long-time favorite Reminders client. From the surprise the first time I started really using it to now, it has made improvement after improvement in both functionality and appearance…
For many years, Drafts has been the place on iOS where text starts. But for all of those years, there has been a missing component: a macOS counterpart. That ends today. Drafts for Mac has finally been released to the public. Last time there was a major release, I wrote the Macstories Review . But when it comes to a Mac and how best to integrate Drafts into the macOS ecosystem, I'm simply not the…
Today, Greg Pierce posted a tweet about the new #ShotOniPhone Challenge : My favorite part of this #ShotOniPhone contest announcement is the specification of a file naming convention. I bet less than 0.1% of iPhone owners know how to save a photo as a file, rename it, and attach the renamed version to an email. https://t.co/1DOwvaOjvh pic.twitter.com/7C0Yh5xxlz — Greg Pierce (@agiletortoise)…
Last week, Drafts released version 5.6 . While it is not as big as some of the other releases before it, it does bring some important enhancements to the app. Adding Shortcuts It is now easier than ever to add a specific shortcut to run in Drafts. A new interface is presented when adding a shortcut, as you can see by installing this example shortcut and selecting a shortcut to add. It prompts you…
For a while now, I've had the same backpack . It's been my trusted bag for everything: work, travel, day tripping, etc. It carries everything I could think about needing and then some. But with some changes in my needs, I started realizing that for some situations – like going to my 3rd office that is known as Chipotle – it's way more than I need. I need something smaller on the weekends when I'm…
After the release of Drafts 5.5 , I’ve been using Critic Markup even more for the writing I’m doing.[1]("#fn:1" ""see") I hadn’t really used it before now, so leave it to Drafts to provide me some tools to improve the way in which I write. In that post about the improvements in Drafts 5.5, I had shared updates to my actions for standard and linked posts. These have been super useful for me. But…
The latest Drafts update brings some improvements with Markdown syntax. In addition to the standard Markdown (which has been simplified to represent the original Markdown specification ), there are two additional syntax options: MultiMarkdown and GitHub Markdown. MultiMarkdown is a flavor which allows for footnotes, tables, citations, etc. GitHub Markdown is a different flavor of Markdown which…
Me, writing for MacStories : Drafts 5 was recently updated to version 5.4, which brings a host of new features. While there is support for iOS 12's Siri shortcuts and all that they have to offer, there are also other important features that have improved the app's capabilities significantly. It's a really great release. And I was thrilled to write it for MacStories. If you haven't checked it out,…
Federico Viticci, writing for MacStories : Even though I don't consider myself an advanced PCalc user (I mostly use the app for conversions and basic operations), I've grown to appreciate the convenience of running frequent calculations with Siri and I've started integrating PCalc with the Shortcuts app in some interesting ways. As a result of its adoption of Siri shortcuts in iOS 12, my overall…