Posts tagged “ios”.

Newton Poetry First-Ever Software Giveaway™: OneThingToday

December 7th, 2011

OneThingToday screenshot

Last fall I heard about a to-do app, OneThingToday, with a simple premise: get just one thing accomplished each day. Simple, straightforward — and something I thought any worthwhile text file junkie could do on his or her own.

OneThingToday’s developer, Mike Sykes, looked through his referral logs and found my post from last year. He dropped me a note to say he appreciated the mention, even if I showed how to do the whole thing yourself.

“You are absolutely correct when you say it’s nothing that can’t be done via many other methods, but I like to think there’s a little less friction with a dedicated app,” Sykes said. “Also for me iCal is for reminders, not tasks – that’s just how my mind works.”

He’s absolutely right, of course, especially if you work under David Allen’s GTD system. The calendar, so it goes, is sacred — and reserved for time-sensitive appointments or obligations. Sykes system takes your to-dos off the calendar and into a seamless system where the goal is modest (but appropriate): just do something today.

Sykes was nice enough to offer a few promo codes for people to try out OneThingToday, both for OS X and iOS, for free.

To get one of these promo codes, simply drop me an e-mail at newtonpoetry [at] gmail.com with the subject line, “OneThingToday Giveaway,” and tell me if you want the OS X or iOS version of OneThingToday. And while you’re at it, tell me a bit about yourself: how long you’ve been reading, if you still use your Newton, what else you’re interested in, etc. I’ll give a few promo codes out to the first couple of e-mails.

Thanks again to Mike Sykes for the chance to try out his software. He has a few other titles you can try out, too, at his Line Thirteen site.

‘The Alternatives are a Real Step Backwards’

October 28th, 2011

Paul Potts, in a write-up over at Folklore.org:

The Newton programming application, although flawed, gave us a taste of what software development could be – faster, more efficient, allowing us to focus more on ideas and design and less on mechanics…I think the end result is that we will continue to pursue handheld applications, but not with the gusto, and certainly not with the enjoyment, that we once did.

Perhaps not until iOS, that is.

Thanks to my podcasting partner David for pointing out another great post over at Folklore.org. The site has a few Newton-based essays, and they’re pretty great.

Going full time on TouchArcade

February 1st, 2011

Blake Patterson at Byte Cellar:

Once the App Store went live, TouchArcade quickly became a large and active community for iOS gamers, and it’s done nothing but grow ever since. It’s wonderful to finally have the opportunity to make TouchArcade my entire professional focus and do the work that I so enjoy, having been an avid gamer my entire life.

Congratulations to Blake for heading up TouchArcade full time. It’s the best iOS gaming site out there, with reviews on everything, and Blake has a passion for this stuff.

I got to interview Blake back in the early days, as TouchArcade was getting off the ground. I give a lot of credit to him for helping me out in the early days of Newton Poetry; Blake gave me a lot of pointers to get things started, and I appreciate it very much.

Navigating the filesystem

January 28th, 2011

Thomas Brand over at Egg Freckles:

Yesterday’s Mac trained users on how to navigate the filesystem, while modern operating system like Mac OS X discourage its use. The gap between the abstraction of user space, and system space is widening. As computers become more like appliances the underlying operating system is becoming harder to access.

The question – is this a good thing or not? – can largely be answered depending on what type of person you are.

Geeks have been talking about Apple products as appliances since the beginning. To Apple, it’s part of their philosophy: computers for the rest of us, whereby “rest of us” means “those of us who aren’t willing to dive into the nitty gritty.”

I feel Brand’s apprehension about operating systems, with the iOS devices and with the new version of OS X, moving away from the ability to navigate the file system. I’m a folder-and-text-file kind of guy, too. When I got my first OS 9 Mac, it was a joy to dig into the System Folder and poke around at what was in there. This is probably why people ask me to help them work out software and hardware problems at work and at home. My brain is comfortable in a file system environment.

But golly, I’m surely in the minority. And so is Brand. We navigate the file system because it brings us the joy of discovery. For most people, they recoil in horror.

“Where did that file go?”

Brand says OS X provides too many options to find that file:

On Mac OS X Apple has hidden the Hard Drive icon and replaced it with a pre established list of shortcuts that offers speed of access at the price of user confusion. Should I go to the Dock, or the Finder’s sidebar to launch my application or open my file? How about a Spotlight search? With so many possibilities it is no wonder Mac OS X users are often confused about where their files are located.

But maybe the problem is that, either way, you’re forcing them to think about a certain file in a certain place in a certain folder. Right now, OS X fails to make that file easy to find, no matter how many UI schemes Apple introduces. People don’t care about where the file is, because they aren’t interested in organization or structure. They just want to work.

This is what makes iOS devices so popular: you don’t think about where the file is, you think about which app you’re going to use. And with iOS, apps couldn’t be easier to find.

Maybe it’s about expectations. I didn’t expect to go anywhere near the file system when I bought my iPhone. But I bought a Mac expecting that tinkering is a part of its operation. As long as Mac OS X has it both ways, where you have dashboard-style navigation cues for regular folks and the geekiness of the file system for the rest of us, I won’t put up too much of a fight.

Finally: Newton Einstein project on iPhone

September 15th, 2010

Check that out.

Matthias Melcher has done something I’ve only been able to dream about: put the Newton OS Einstein emulator on an iPhone.

As he says, it’s only proof of concept right now. You can see it lags just a tad. But imagine this thing running full-power and full-speed on an iPhone, iPad, or iPod Touch.

UPDATE: Steven Frank went ahead and threw Einstein on the iPad. Fan-friggin’-tastic.

[Much abliged to Matthias for keeping me updated in the comments.]

Touch screen iMac G4 idea

June 29th, 2010

iMac Touch?

Austin Leeds at Low End Mac:

Apple could revive the design of the iMac G4 (with sharper angles, a thinner display, and integrated speakers – all in unibody aluminum, of course). By utilizing the oh-so-ergonomic display design, touchscreen computing could be made quite comfortable. And cute.

Well there’s an idea – although I wonder if you need a G4-style body, with the domed based and swivel neck. Wouldn’t another version of the current iMac do just as well?

Part of me (okay, all of me) would love to see the old G4 design return. Practically, it would be nice to bring the screen closer if you need to touch it. Or maybe tilt it a bit to do some drawing.

File this in under “what happens if/when iOS and Mac OS combine.”

Newton Launch Day

June 24th, 2010

Happy Newton Launch Day, from Thomas Brand.