The actress Dana Delany, who will star in “Body of Proof,” a coming ABC drama, said she now has revisions sent to her digitally. “I think it’s the greatest invention in years,” Ms. Delany said. (The iPad will be a fixture in the medical examiner room on “Body of Proof,” which will start in early 2011.)
Mr. Orci’s iPad has served as the daily “call sheet” with the day’s instructions; acted as a map in an unfamiliar location; and allowed him to keep tabs on “Fringe” and “Hawaii Five-0,” two shows he helps produce.
Does this mean we should all cancel our Twitter accounts, stop checking email and throw our iPhones in the trash? No, we just need to exercise some moderation. Consistently spend some time concentrating on doing one thing and ignore distractions. Not only will our brains thank you in the long run, but in the short term, you’ll see performance improve, too. Of course, doing it is easier said than done. Luckily, technology can give us all a little SelfControl.
I discovered this app this morning thanks to Daring Fireball’s John Gruber. It’s called “Due” and it lets you enter quick reminders for stuff you don’t want to forget about. Walk the dog in 30 minutes. Call your boss after lunch. Check on MacStories giveaway announcement in 5 hours. That kind of stuff. (more…)
On my Mac, iPad and iPhone I use OmniFocus to help me getting things done. I manage various projects in it, schedule tasks and dump all the stuff I need to do at some point in the day. However, I’ve recently stumbled upon this neat application called Alarms which, surprisingly enough, has managed to find its way in my workflow.
Alarms is a fast and lightweight reminder app for Mac that lives in your menubar. It’s not a GTD application, yet it’s a perfect companion for softwares like Things or OmniFocus. How so? (more…)
EpicWin is an interesting app for iPhone to get things done we reviewed a while ago which combines typical productivity features as a todo list with…RPG elements. As you get things done and check off items from your list your character moves on in a RPG-inspired map, collects loots and becomes an epic hero. It’s an original approach to mobile productivity you should definitely check out. (more…)
LG’s vice-president of marketing for mobile devices Chang Ma told the WSJ:
“Our tablet will be better than the iPad.
The tablet will include content focused on creation such as writing documents, editing video and creating programs. It will also have “high-end features and new benefits,” many of which will focus on productivity, Mr. Ma said.
“It’s going to be surprisingly productive,” he said.”
We’ve been waiting for you, LG. Sort of. Mainly because we wanted to mark such words and save it for future reference. Funny thing is, many of these manufacturers made jokes about the iPad when it was announced, and now they’re desperately trying to catch up.
I was really looking forward to the release of EpicWin for iPhone. Ever since it was first announced, I thought that it might be interesting to see whether an RPG-based productivity app could shake things a little bit in the App Store. Yes, the App Store is full of crappy “business” and “productivity” apps; on the other hand, there are some exceptional tools like OmniFocus and Things that lead the mobile GTD revolution.
Still, many people find these apps boring. They don’t get things done with them because they don’t feel motivated enough. You missed your daily review? You get a badge on the homescreen. And they don’t get things done.
EpicWin is meant for all those people who want to be productive but haven’t found the right iPhone app yet. By making your to-do list feel like a quest, can EpicWin really change the way we organize and complete our tasks?
To me, GTD apps used to be worse than Twitter clients on the iPhone before Tweetie: ephemeral.
Yes, even worse than financial apps: I didn’t know how to choose one and keep rolling with it. You know – that new kid on the block could be better and has a beautiful UI. You know the drill. I was a GTD user who couldn’t manage to find an actual GTD to get going with. To better understand the situation, it’s important to specify the workflow I used to have, and the one I have now. Before the iPad came out, I organized all my tasks and projects on my Mac (whether in a desktop app or online service) and didn’t really care about achieving a cloud-based workflow. I had an iPhone (a 3GS, to be exact) but I just didn’t see it as a device to carry my GTD database around. I tried Things, iCal to-dos, Basecamp, Backpack – all sorts of productivity apps / project management tools out there. None of them survived.
Talking about GTD apps and online tools is difficult, and you know why? Because my method of Getting Things Done will always be different from yours, so will the apps I use, so will the fact that I used to constantly switch between different softwares. More on this tomorrow, though.
Discussing GTD is like talking about favorite foods: at an extent, it’s pointless. I can’t come up here and say “Hey, you should work this way – don’t organize tasks like that”. That’s why when Cody and I reviewed Basecamp and Backpack we decided to talk about our experience, rather than giving away some pretentious advices to wanna-be entrepreneurs and the like.
GTD is personal. A couple of weeks ago I signed up for a Nozbe account and downloaded the iPhone and iPad apps. I was intrigued by the whole “Do in the web, find it again on mobile apps” concept, and I was fascinated by the terrific amount of integration with 3rd party online services the developers advertised.
So, Nozbe. I’ll just throw this out there: if you’re not an OmniFocus user and feel the need of having more than just tasks in your GTD application, Nozbe is the best you can have right now. With real OTA sync. With real Evernote integration. Oh, and with team-management capabilities.
