Tag: ipad

Excellent writing tool, Scrivener, is available on iOS

Earlier this week, Literature & Latte announced that their writing tool Scrivener is now available on iOS.

I wrote my entire book on the Mac version of Scrivener and oh man do I wish I had this on my iPad throughout the process.

Scrivener is a non-linear word processor that allows you to write and organize lengthy projects. I only scratched the surface while writing my book but you can do all sorts of neat things with it including: clipping urls, images, and other research into your project file all within the same interface that you organize the various written sections of your work.

If you are writing a book, thesis, dissertation, or even just need to organize larger writing projects in a flexible way, you should give this app a try.

Interesting tidbit: Scrivener uses Dropbox instead of iCloud to sync projects across devices. The developers wrote about that decision here. It is interesting that Apple’s own syncing solution is not flexible enough for pro software developers to build their apps on. I continue to be worried about Apple’s ability to stay relevant with both cloud services and the professional market. This is not a promising story but I am glad that the developers of Scrivener made a decision that ensures security and reliability for their users, even if it does come with some compromises.

My favorite apps of 2015

I feel the need to defend these apps in a way that I didn’t for my favorite albums of 2015 list I posted yesterday. In part, this is because music’s role in my life has a certain type of inevitability that makes it difficult for me to immediately understand its value myself. Secondly, the music I experienced this past year is worth so many more words than I could possibly type. Finally, apps, especially paid ones, tend to require a defense; a “why do I need to buy this?” Their value is also often technical and practical, and can be condensed down into a few sentences.

Productivity

Documents by Readdle

I can’t remember what getting work done on an iPad or iPhone felt like before discovering this app. Think of this as the missing Finder on iOS.

Due

My new favorite for setting timers and reminders. I like how persistently it bugs me until I actually complete the task.

Workflow

Unbelievable automator for creating multi step workflows on iOS.

Scannable

For getting all physical paper into the cloud as beautifully formatted, text searchable, PDFs. Syncs effortlessly to Evernote, lightning fast, and zero step scanning.

Apple Notes

Stellar update this year to the notes app that comes bundled with Apple devices. I love the rich text formatting, web clipping, and list support.

OmniGraffle

A great app by the makers of two of my favorites: OmniFocus and OmniOutliner. OmniGraffle has come to replace Adobe Illustrator for me. It is my go-to for designing graphics. Specifically, I use it to design seating charts for my classes.

IFTTT

Amazing service for linking different internet connected services and devices. You can create if-then statements to automate them. Example: If I am tagged in a Facebook post, save that photo to my Dropbox. Another example: When I arrive at home, then turn on the lights in my house.

Paprika

Cooking game changer! My wife and I clip recipes from the web into this app and it formats them beautifully so we can isolate ingredients, directions, and set timers. It has a built in grocery list and meal planning feature that can send data to Apple Reminders and Calendar apps, respectively.

Overcast

I have been listening to a lot of podcasts this year. Overcast offers the best experience of all the podcast apps I have tried.

Music

forScore

Not a new app to me but I have really taken to organizing my scores on the iPad with this app over the last year. It has truly revolutionized my musical workflow throughout my band directing, private teaching, gigging, and church music directing jobs.

Tempo

Still my favorite metronome app on iOS.

Tunable

My favorite tuning app. Features gamified tuning, polyphonic tuning drones, just intonation, and simultaneous metronome and tuner playback.

Health

Using these apps (and more) in combination with the Apple Health app and Apple Watch, I have lost about 30 pounds since late August. Ok, really, I worked out and changed my diet some, but the apps helped.

Waterminder

Helps me set goals for water consumption and see my progress each day. Logging water is easy with the Apple Watch app and all data syncs to the Apple Health app.

Lark

This app is fun for tracking work outs and food, but I use it primarily to track the hours I sleep each night. It accomplishes this through the motion of my iPhone.

myfitnesspal

I have been using this app to track calorie and nutrition data for almost a year now. Really easy and addictive to use once you get into a routine.

Spire

This app, in combination with the wearable tracker by the same name, has allowed me to track trends in my breathing for the last few months. The app categorizes my breathing patterns into “focus,” “tense,” “calm,” and “activity.” When it senses a streak of tension, it sends my watch a message to breathe slower. It also allows me to set goals for minutes of focus per day, offers guided meditation, and syncs respiratory rate data to Apple Health.

Home

All of these require home automated hardware to be useful. By recommending them, I am recommending the devices themselves as well.

Harmony

Automated TV remote. No more fuss over HDMI inputs and multiple remotes. This app controls all of the things plugged into my TV and allows me to trigger different things on and off with simple one tap button presses.

Philips Hue

Lights that connect to wifi. These can be controlled from a phone app, automated with services like IFTTT, and commanded with Siri.

Sonos

High quality speakers that connect to one another over a home wifi network.

Games

Crossy Road

Shooty Skies

PAC-MAN 265

iOS 9

iOS 9 was released this past week. I have been running the beta on my iPhone and iPad since late July and it is just really a great update. 

Here are a few unsorted thoughts on the update:

– Battery life. Battery management has improved tremendously. I can actually get through most days using my phone like a normal person without needing a recharge at 3pm. Low power mode is also a nice touch. At 20 percent, my phone offers to conserve battery life by doing things like turning down the backlight and restricting apps from running in the background.

– Power features on iPad. Now the iPad can view two apps on the screen at once. You can also close out of an app you are watching a video on and the video will stay visible in the corner of the screen even when you leave and enter into other apps. I also love the keyboard update. Dragging with two fingers on the iPad keyboard turns it into a curser. No more pressing and holding to use that flakey magnifying glass.

– Spotlight for all apps! Now any app can allow you to search its contents from the Spotlight search, making it really easy to search apps like Dropbox and Documents. Sadly, Evernote has not enabled this feature yet.

– Siri is quiet. Small thing. But I love that Siri does not make a “boop” sound when activated anymore.

– Proactivity. Now my phone tells me when I need to leave for my next appointment based on my calendar and traffic info. It also searches the signatures of emails sent to me to suggest the names of people who are calling me if their names are not in my contacts list. Some of these features are lackluster. For example, going to the Spotlight search is supposed to suggest to you the apps you use and the people it thinks you might want to interact with based on usage patterns. I have found it to more often just suggest recently opened apps. But I have been noticing all sorts of other features of this nature that Apple has quietly added. For example, today I got in my car and booted up Apple Maps. The first option for directions was to my friend’s house. The address had a mail icon next to it. I can only assume that Maps looked in my mail and saw the email from that friend inviting me to a party, including both that days date and his address, so it connected the dots and suggested that I might be driving there at that time. Fantastic!

– Another great example of Proactivity. Every morning, I launch an app that my school system uses to take student attendance on. Now, around the start of my first period class every morning, my iPad has been showing me a tiny version of the icon for that app in the lower left corner of the screen. All I have to do is touch it and swipe up to instantly launch into that app. 

– You can now search for different parts of the Settings app!

– The new system wide font looks great.

– Maps is smarter and more accurate than ever before.

– Reminders stay on the lock screen until they are checked off to be extra remind-y.

– The new Notes app is awesome. But it is just not going to replace Evernote for me. 

If you have been scared to update an Apple device before due to them being buggy or taking up too much space, I would still encourage you to download iOS 9 immediately. Not only does it have all the features listed above and more, but it really does feel a hundred more times polished than the updates of the past few years.

Here are a few of my favorite reviews of the operating system so far:

iOS 9: The MacStories Review, Created on iPad | FEDERICO VITICCI

iOS 9 Review | RENE RITCHIE

iPads, Chromebooks, and the responsibilities of the post-PC educator

Below, I share some thoughts on the recent article in The Atlantic about why some schools are selling their iPads. Click here to read the article.

I was always skeptical of how quickly schools adopted iPads on a large scale. While they are easy to adapt as teacher tools for organization, proper training is necessary before they are put in the hands of an entire classroom. Generally speaking, educators are behind the times when it comes to technology because of how long it takes to organize and implement new hardware and curriculum. The iPad’s potential got hyped back in 2010 and though I know there are situations in which they are engaging kids, my experience tells me that many administrators are buying them out of the excitement of being seen as “technological” and telling interested teachers to just go right ahead without any plan how to enhance existing learning.

The examples in The Atlantic suggest some excellent points about the productivity of tablets vs. laptops. The idea that kids see tablets as “fun” devices and computers as “work” is of central interest to me. I wonder if American adults were surveyed, if the majority would say that their iPad is a reading, web browsing and light gaming device, or instead, that it is primarily used for email, documents and professional software. I use mine for both. However, I find myself leaving it at home from time to time. Though tablets are both productive and mobile, they are also playgrounds of varying different activities and amusements. I soon learned, for example, that if I wanted to get any serious reading done, I had to bring my plain old Kindle on the go instead of using the Kindle app on iPad where I would constantly get distracted by email, text messages and game notifications. For getting “real” work done, my Mac has the software features and keyboard for getting it done faster. Of course, I have seen many examples of iPads used in the classroom where it seemed the teacher intended them to be used as a fun gimmick rather than a tool for engagement or productivity, but that is a criticism for another post.

The question I raise is: do we as educators have a responsibility towards teaching students to manage the distractions that come with the utility of modern technology? Or do we “edit” real life, making school less like the real world but one in which getting positive results out of children is more immediate? I am talking about editing the classroom in the same way, for example, elementary school children get in line to travel down the hall or band directors give donuts to the section who has 100 percent sectional attendance. I understand why Chromebooks are favored in the examples in The Atlantic. There is something organized and concrete about putting your device in “listening mode” where it has to be in an objectively fixed position and no distractions can get through. I get it, but if we are truly living in a post-PC world, do kids need to learn how to cope with the distractions of a tablet as much as they did the inconveniences of a PC years ago?

As for IT management, Chromebooks make total sense. While I have known Google devices to be far more frustrating to manage for IT departments due to their open source nature, when kids are using apps as basic as Google Docs, the cloud is the perfect place to work. The nature of Google apps, Docs in particular, is to function entirely on the web. There are no software hassles, disk space shortages, or any of these other traditional “computer-y” ideas. Apple has to step up here. They are catching up, but I still have to think a little too hard about what is happening to a document when I save it to the cloud on a Mac or iPad. Google’s simple approach is a huge asset for students to share work with teachers and making sure that there are fewer management problems on the student end.

Chromebooks have appeared useless to me due to their limitations, but it seems these limitations are an advantage with large numbers of students in the classroom. I am interested to see if there is continued iPad fallout in the coming years or instead, an establishment of how post-PC devices are valued in education.