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My Must-Have Apps, 2013 Edition→

Today, I published the last installment of this year’s “My Must-Have Apps” series. I had a lot of fun compiling these lists for the past two months, cutting them down as much as possible to only include the apps I consider essential for my iPad, Mac, and iPhone.

Because these articles have kept me busy for the better part of December, I decided, inspired by John Siracusa, to offer a quick recap with links and stats.

In each list, I named an App of the Year:

All three articles have been written and edited in Editorial for iPad. HTML output was generated from Markdown files with Marked 2. Using a couple of Editorial workflows, I compiled some stats by scanning the original Markdown version of my articles.

I started with the basics – the number of apps:

  • 33 iPad apps
  • 32 Mac apps
  • 50 iPhone apps

(115 apps listed across three articles)

Then, I counted hyperlinks (formatted as inline links in Markdown):

  • 98 inline links iPhone
  • 63 inline links Mac
  • 98 inline links iPad

(259 hyperlinks across three articles)

For prices, I first counted the total number of apps again, then split free and paid apps, and last I calculated the total and average cost of paid apps. Please note that prices have been fetched from iTunes today, therefore some apps may still be discounted for the holiday sale.

iPad

  • 33 apps. 14 free apps and 19 paid apps.
  • Total cost of paid apps: $116.81
  • Average cost of paid apps: $6.15

Mac (only Mac App Store apps)

  • 13 apps. 2 free apps and 11 paid apps.
  • Total cost of paid apps: $175.89
  • Average cost of paid apps: $15.99

iPhone

  • 50 apps. 18 free apps and 32 paid apps.
  • Total cost of paid apps: $145.68
  • Average cost of paid apps: $4.55

Last, I counted the occurrences of specific words/phrases in my articles. They were all written separately in the month of December 2013, so I wanted to see if I could find curious patterns in my writing style and editing process. Searches were case-sensitive; both links and occurrences were counted using Editorial workflows from my book.

Occurrences for…(by article)

  • “workflow”: 7 (iPhone), 8 (Mac), 7 (iPad)
  • “love”: 3 (iPhone), 2 (Mac), 2 (iPad)
  • “I don’t know”: 1 (iPhone), 2 (Mac), 1 (iPad)
  • “I don’t like”: 2 (iPhone), 0 (Mac), 1 (iPad)

You can find all my three “Must-Have Apps” articles here.

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Fantastical→

My thanks to Flexibits for sponsoring MacStories this week with Fantastical. Both on the Mac and iPhone, Fantastical lets you create and manage events using a beautiful and intuitive interface with an expressive and accurate natural language parser. With Fantastical, you can type something like “Lunch with Michael at 1 PM tomorrow” and the app will create a calendar event for it, filling all the necessary date and time fields for you. Same for reminders, recurring events, and other commands. It’s great.

I’ve been using Fantastical for years now, and I wouldn’t be able to go back to using Apple’s default apps for events and reminders. Fantastical 2, which is my iPhone app of the year, introduced an iOS 7 redesign and new features such as direct Reminders integration, a new week view, a dark theme, and more. For power users, Fantastical 2 has a powerful scheme that lets you chain it to other apps to build handy automated workflows.

For a limited time only, Fantastical 2 for iPhone is $1.99 (60% off) and Fantastical for Mac is $9.99 (50% off). You can find out more about Fantastical 2 for iPhone and Fantastical for Mac here and here.

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My Sweet iPad Setup→

I was interviewed by my friends at The Sweet Setup about the way I use my iPad mini – what apps I use the most, and why.

The iPad is, essentially, my primary work device. In the past year, I was forced for various reasons to use an iPad, and while I came across a lot of limitations for my workflow in the first weeks of extensive usage, I ended up loving the iPad as a work machine. I think that a lot of people have made up their minds about the iPad based on prejudices and won’t give the device a fair chance when it comes to using it for more than reading comics or watching Netflix on it.

Check out the interview here.

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My Must-Have iPhone Apps, 2013 Edition

Must-Have iPhone Apps 2013

Must-Have iPhone Apps 2013

For the past three years, I’ve been running a series called “My Must-Have Mac Apps” that, once a year, would list the apps that I found indispensable on my Mac. This year, considering the changes that I went through from a workflow perspective, I thought it would be appropriate to start focusing on iOS as well. The first installment was about the iPad; then, I covered the Mac; today, I’m going to conclude this year’s series with the iPhone.

Like many others, I don’t use the “phone” part of the iPhone much. The iPhone is my portable computer. And I have lots of apps on it.

My workflow has changed a lot over the years. I used to have a MacBook Pro and I later got an iMac and replaced the MacBook Pro with a MacBook Air. I thought that I’d always need the Air but then I was forced to work from an iPad and I didn’t like it. As I kept trying, I ended up liking my iPad setup so much that I turned it into a tool more versatile than my Mac and wrote a book on it. But the way I use my iPhone has never changed: the iPhone is the computer that’s always with me. If anything, the software that runs on it has evolved through the years, with apps getting more powerful, inter-connected, and, in some cases, “desktop class”. And then, earlier this year, iOS 7 happened.

As expected, iOS 7 provided a fantastic opportunity for developers to reimagine and redesign their apps to take advantage of Apple’s new OS features and design language. Three months into iOS 7, I think that the developer response has been remarkable, but the results are very much still in flux. For the apps that I use on a daily basis, I’ve seen a few major relaunches of apps rebuilt from the ground-up for iOS 7, apps that still have to be optimized for it, and a lot of “compatibility redesigns” that brought lighter color schemes and translucencies without substantially altering the way an app works or is structured for iOS 7. As Apple itself is still trying to fully understand their own new design language, I think it’s fair to assume that third-party developers will need more time to really “get” iOS 7.

As I thought about the apps I wanted to include in this year’s last installment of the Must-Have Apps series, I realized that there was a good mixture of software that was built before and after iOS 7. As usual, my goal was to mention apps that I consider must-haves for my daily workflow, and for this reason you’ll find a mix of brand new iOS 7 apps, minor iOS 7 design updates, and a few pre-iOS 7 apps too. When it comes to having the best tool for the job, I value utility over fashion, and I cherish an old app if it still is the best for me.

The list below includes my 50 top picks and is organized in four sections: Main, for apps that I use several times every day; News, for discovering links and staying on top of RSS; Entertainment, for media consumption; and Utilities, for single-purpose apps that I use often but not heavily every day. Each app is listed with its App Store link and, at the end of the article, you’ll find my iPhone app of the year.

Read more

The Prompt: Too Long; Didn’t Listen→

This week, the boys talk about music consumption.

Specifically, we talked about iTunes Match, Rdio, Spotify, and the differences between these services and apps in terms of sound quality, user experience, and royalties paid to artists. I had a lot of fun doing research for this episode and putting together links for the show notes – which I recommend checking out.

We’re not done discussing music but this is a good start. Get the episode here.

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Making Perfect Pictures On The iPhone→

You’ve captured your image, tuned and processed it, added some additional flare using some specialized apps like BigLens and Piction, and finally shared it on Instagram. But, unfortunately, you’re left with an absolute mess of a camera roll. This is a place where Android shines, since most iOS photos apps aren’t built to talk directly to each other: the apps are forced to export and then reimport the full-resolution image every time you travel between apps, which leaves a mess of semi-processed images in their wake. Some chase inbox zero. I believe in camera-roll zero.

A good roundup of iPhone camera and photo editing apps by Jordan Oplinger at The Verge. It’s funny that he mentions “camera-roll zero” – that’s exactly what I do as well. Every day after I’ve taken a bunch of pictures, I open CameraSync and upload them to Dropbox; my Mac mini then takes care of automatically sorting them in a folder structure, and desktop uploaders for Loom and Picturelife (I’m trying both at the moment) monitor the source folder to upload photos to their respective services. When my photos are uploaded by CameraSync on the iPhone, I delete them and leave an empty camera roll. I can later view photos using Photo Stream (for the latest ones), Unbound (for the full Dropbox folder), or iOS apps by Loom and Picturelife (I prefer Picturelife’s app for now).

After The Sweet Setup’s recommendation for the best photo editing app for iPhone, I’m also trying VSCO Cam. While I don’t share many edited photos and I don’t like the custom UI of the app, VSCO does have some great filters and editing tools.

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Dan Frakes On The New Mac Pro→

Dan Frakes:

While older Mac Pro models were appealing to a broad range of demanding users, the 2013 Mac Pro focuses almost entirely on the things true professional users need: multi-core performance, workstation-class GPUs and GPU computing, fast I/O, and the like. Say what you will about the new Mac Pro’s lack of options for internal expansion, but Apple doesn’t appear to have spared much expense when it comes to the components it did include. The result is that the new Mac Pro is the first Mac in a long time that’s clearly—and almost exclusively—for actual professional users.

See also: Dan’s review at Macworld and FCP.co’s first 24 hours with the new Mac Pro and Final Cut Pro 10.1. For video professionals, the tests performed by FCP.co are impressive.

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Ohai→

Our thanks to Ohai for sponsoring MacStories this week.

Ohai is a journal app for keeping track of memories. Save thoughts, photos, and locations into a beautiful digital book, and flip back in time day by day. Check in to places, either privately, or to Foursquare, Twitter, and App.net. Your journal entries and photos are stored securely on App.net, even free accounts, so your data is always portable and recoverable. It’s the perfect way to capture memories for the holidays.

With the recently released 1.1 update, Ohai added a new design for iOS 7, Foursquare check-ins, and the ability to edit and delete journal posts. You can now create posts for events in the past, and you can also add new thoughts and photos without locations.

Ohai is currently on sale at $2.99 on the App Store (regular price $4.99).

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