There are several narratives that exist through my blog posts. Productivity apps, Workflows and me trying to quit social media. The latest news in accordance with the latter, is trying to use Twitter more intentionally and it’s working very well.
We’ve all been there. Standing and a queue, waiting for something, or just generally any moment where or lives aren’t rushing along – the first reaction is to pull the phone out and start scrolling through an app.
Despite Drafts being around for ages, I am very new to using it for any length of time. I’ve already posted about my love of the app after giving it a chance, so I won’t go into that here but thought I’d share some of my most used and favourite actions.
Send to Things I really don’t need to discuss my love of Things here again, do I? This action enables me to write multiple todos and pass them all to Things at once.
I’ve made no secret that I have been crying out for the ability to add attachment to Things 3. I love the app but this is the only thing that is keeping me using Todoistfor work related reminders. I have tried loads of different options and work arounds, been helped out along the way, but could never find something good enough. This isn’t perfect but the best way is to use Bear to add files as attachments to Things.
After giving it some time I am very happy with doing all my blog writing in Drafts 5. Unfortunately due to Workflow’s slowing updates, actions take ages to update and I have been stuck on a way to update my old Bear for ideas Workflow. Luckily using Drafts actions and the robust URL scheme I’ve been able to get this going again.
For this Workflow to work you will also need this Drafts 5 action.
As I slowly split my life into different sections, and live a life with different apps for home and work – Things 3 has become vitally important. It takes a more relaxed approach than Todoist and allows me to remember things to do but not feel stressed about them.
So I’ve put together a simple Workflow to place a list of items I need into a checklist in Things 3. This can be launched from the Today widget so you can type in all the items, just tap return between them.
Believe it or not it was Google I/O keynote yesterday! I completely missed this until the event was on, not sure if it is publicised less or I take less of an interest now. Even so Google put all of their eggs in the AI basket and also demonstrated loads of updates to Android. Throw in a few self driving cars for good measure, but most controversially Google Assistant voice capabilities.
It has been a while since I have been genuinely excited to dive into a new app. After my initial trepidation, and following the massive buzz around the 5th instalment of Drafts app, I decided to give it a chance and I am so glad I did.
I have tried Drafts 4 a few times when interesting things come up, these things more often than not involve Viticci et al discussing it’s merits.
Every so often we have a paying for apps debate, sparked off by a popular app releasing an update or changing income model – and here we are again. Drafts 5 launches to quite a bit of fun fair from reviewers and also some backlash from users. Time and time again you hear “I won’t pay for app subscriptions”.
“Its a terrible business model, that I don’t agree with”
Since Apple expanded the subscription model, quite a few apps have adopted the option of charging a small monthly fee or yearly price.
There appears to be some confusion around what copying is. Couple this with the argument breaking down into an inevitable Android vs iOS debate and Twitter has been exceptionally noisy today.
Gruber, although a little confused, got the final thoughts in his reply to an earlier blog post spot on with:
If you write an article, and then I write my own article about the same topic, that just means you were first.
Right from the off the Apple Watch got a tremendous amount of negative reaction. Reviewers said it was under powered, looked strange and the OS felt like a confusing mess. Some had valid points about watchOS, and ever since Apple have been stripping away parts to make it more cohesive. Yet the hate for the ‘honeycomb’ layout app grid remains – but I like it.
There is no denying that the original watchOS was confused and full of half baked ideas.