Tag: Apple

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Technology

iOS Twitter Apps

For the longest time I used the now-dead Tweetie for iPhone as my iOS Twitter app of choice. After Tweetie was bought by Twitter I used the renamed Twitter for iPhone (later Twitter for iOS)  and was relatively happy … even through all of the stupid things like the trends car that they would do from time to time.

The reason is because Tweetie was still there.

However, with the release of Twitter for iOS 4.0, they changed everything, and I’ve been pretty sour on Twitter for iOS 4.0 since the release. I’ll get into the specifics a little later. So I’ve been trying out three different Twitter apps for the iPhone to try and find one that will work best for me. So Twitter for iPhone, Twitterrific for iPhone, and Tweetbot have been the “big three” so far. Needless to say, I haven’t settled on one yet.

Twitter for iPhone

  • Good Stuff
    • Fast, probably the fastest of the three apps
    • Will have access to the newest stuff Twitter releases
    • Integrates seamlessly with the built-in Twitter auth in iOS 5
    • The Connect tab show mentions along with follows and retweets
    • Has an iPad and Mac app available
    • Push. Notifications.
  • Bad Stuff
    • Extra UI chrome distracts and takes away from the actual tweets
    • The Discovery tab is absolutely useless
    • Must click on tweet and be taken to a separate page to do anything with the tweet
    • Changing accounts is cumbersome (and the shortcut is a non-obvious, hidden swipe)
    • Both iPad and Mac apps are decidedly different applications
    • Doesn’t use the built-in Twitter keyboard supplied by iOS 5
    • Demotes DMs and Favorites into your profile
    • Feels user hostile

Twitterrific for iPhone

  • Good Stuff
    • Uses the built-in Twitter keyboard (makes adding hashtags and usernames a lot easier)
    • Can complete actions on tweets without being taken to another screen
    • Provides both light and dark themes
    • Closely related Mac and iPad apps
    • Easy to understand navigation (not hidden)
  • Bad Stuff
    • No pull-to-refresh
    • Does not integrate with built-in Twitter auth
    • No. Push. Notifications.
    • Handling of URLs in tweets is sometimes spotty

Tweetbot

  • Good Stuff
    • Clicking on a tweet brings up options but does NOT take you to a separate page
    • Very easy to change accounts
    • Some integration with built-in Twitter auth
    • Push. Notifications.
    • Quick and customizable navigation (two tabs are customizable)
  • Bad Stuff
    • Does not use built in Twitter keyboard
    • Highly stylized UI chrome can sometimes feel heavy
    • There are some hidden actions that can simplify things but are hard to find
    • The integration with the built-in Twitter auth is incomplete (but that is the fault of Twitter)

Conclusion

I wish I could mash the there of them up or just get Tweetie back. Sadly, neither of those are possible, so I am now trying out Tweetbot after spending time with Twitterrific for the past week.

At some point in the future I will go ahead and report back what I decided on.

Categories
Technology

Time Machine and FreeNAS

While working on getting Time Machine backups to work with my FreeNAS box, I ran into a permission issue with the dataset I was using.

My recommendation to get it working on more than one machine (so you can use the same dataset for TM backups on multiple machines):

  • Setup a specific user for the backups (I used “tardis”)
  • Change the permissions for the dataset being used for backups so that the owner and group owner are your new user (for me, “tardis”)

After that change, along with all of the other ones outlined at the FreeNAS documentation website, I have been able to go ahead and use that new user to setup the new ZFS dataset on both laptops for Time Machine backups.

Awesome.

Categories
Technology

What the iBooks Author!?

I’ve read enough hyperbole on iBooks Author to really fill my plate for the rest of time, but I thought I’d throw my hat into the ring to outline what my own thoughts are about the program from a purely theoretical standpoint.

If you want to read more in-depth coverage on iBooks Author and the controversies surrounding it, I recommend the following:

I’ve read quite a bit on it and I’m just going to have a few things to say … and split this into two sections: what iBooks Author IS and what iBooks Author IS NOT.

Let’s go!

iBooks Author IS

  • An authoring tool specifically for iBooks 2 on the iPad
  • Free, as in beer
  • Related to, but not a part of, iWork
  • Available only on Mac OS X Lion

iBooks Author IS NOT

  • A generic ePub authoring tool
  • Something you pay for
  • Available on any other platform
  • Apple’s attempt to take over ePub

Conclusion

I don’t know. I don’t like the EULA, but I think most of the anger comes from people’s want for a generic ePub authoring tool from … anyone. Expecting Apple to release such a product is … strange.

From where I sit, it seems like iBooks Author is more of a front end to iBooks publishing than anything else. Contrary to some people’s worst-case-scenario-thinking, I don’t think Apple has any standing to sue for control of your actual content through the EULA.

iBooks Author looks really cool, and maybe I’ll use it at some point, but I think that we (as a collectively tech community) need to just take a deep breath and give ourselves some time to just settle down before we start writing some of the ridiculous drivel that has been released so far.

However, I’m still holding out for a really great generic ePub authoring tool. Anyone want to get on that?

Safari Omnibar

Ever since I switch to Safari as my main browser from Firefox/Chome, the one thing I have missed is the awesome/omnibar.

Well, no longer!

Safari Omnibar is a bundle that adds the omnibar functionality to Safari (including disabling the separate search field in the toolbar). You can add your own search providers and the only thing is seems to be missing for the moment is injection of live search suggestions (which is said to be coming).

Go ahead and give it a try. I’m enjoying it with DuckDuckGo at the moment.

The Worst of Apple

John Gruber over at Daring Fireball had this to say about the restriction of iBooks Author files tot he iBookstore:

This is Apple at its worst. Let’s hope this just the work of an overzealous lawyer, and not their actual intention.

I completely agree. I can only hope that this will be changed very soon. If not, it really kills a lot of the good will that Apple could otherwise have fostered at this event. There is a lot of good stuff they announced, but this needs to change.