Send Multiple Tasks To OmniFocus Mail Drop At Once With Drafts and Pythonista →

Send Multiple Tasks To OmniFocus Mail Drop At Once With Drafts and Pythonista

Nice workflow by Nathan Henrie to send multiple tasks to OmniFocus at once using Mail Drop, Drafts, and Pythonista:

I’ve also recently started playing with Pythonista, and I came across a Python script written by the dev himself that creates a little SMTP server and sends email directly from Pythonista. Between the two, I found it pretty easy — even for a beginner like me — to put together a combined Drafts / Pythonista workflow that makes for a superior way to import a bunch of tasks to OmniFocus at once (aka “brain dump”).

The Python part is based on the same script I covered in November to send emails through Pythonista; Nathan added a clever Drafts integration by splitting multiple lines (from the draft) into separate email messages sent to your Mail Drop address. Make sure to check out his video to see the workflow in action; I have started using it myself and I like how fast tasks go from Drafts onto OmniFocus via email (I have configured the script with my Gmail address using 2-step verification).

I have become a big fan of OmniFocus Mail Drop. It’s been extremely fast and reliable in my experience, and it works well with Drafts’ email actions.

Permalink

Launch Center Pro 1.1

By Federico Viticci

LCP

Released in December 2011, App Cubby’s Launch Center re-ignited interest in iOS URL schemes – shortcuts to automate communication between apps and get specific things done faster with less manual tapping and interactions. Its direct sequel, Launch Center Pro, was released in the summer of 2012 and doubled down on the entire idea of automating iOS tasks by providing a “Home screen for your actions” to allow users to better and more visually organize their shortcuts.

Launch Center Pro 1.1, released today, focuses on improving three key aspects of Launch Center Pro: native in-app actions, the Action Composer, and TextExpander support in URLs. Read more

Chris Hadfield And His iPad In Space →

Linked By Federico Viticci

Chris Hadfield And His iPad In Space

Canadian Space Agency astronaut Chris Hadfield has been orbiting Earth 16 times a day on the International Space Station. When he’s not busy operating advanced machinery like the Canadarm2, Hadfield seems to be enjoying his iPad a lot.

I got curious when I saw Hadfield’s photo of his iPad teleprompter yesterday on Twitter; as noted by Cult of Mac, the app should be Teleprompt+. I did some research, and it looks like Hadfield is using his iPad as an entertainment hub for the entire ISS as well. As written by the Canadian Space Agency:

Chris Hadfield has put a lot of music on International Space Station (ISS) already, directly from his iPad ─ thousands of songs.

In seeing the teleprompter photo, however, I also wondered: how did Hadfield lock the iPad in landscape mode in absence of gravity? The iPad has an accelerometer, and my limited science knowledge told me that gravity is a factor to consider when developing devices with embedded accelerometers on Earth. Did he lock his iPad in landscape mode before leaving Earth?

Of course, I asked Dr. Drang. The simple answer is: give the iPad a shake. The complex, scientific answer is here.

Permalink

Google Field Trip

By Federico Viticci

Earlier today, Google released Field Trip for iPhone, a tour guide app to alert users through notifications of ”cool, hidden, and unique things” that are nearby. Using your location, the app can provide notifications for “your interests” such as Food, Drinks & Fun, Museums, Deals, and more. The app uses various data providers, including their own Zagat, to provide information about places to the user.

Released on Android in the Fall of 2012, Field Trip can “speak” notifications using either a Bluetooth headset or the iPhone’s speaker. A cool thing about Field Trip, in fact, is that you have control over audio output in the Settings: you can choose whether the app should speak the name of an interesting place or also its description, or if you want to enable the app’s audio notifications when device is docked, connected via wired headset, or through a Bluetooth device. This part of the app is really well done. Field Trip can even detect while you’re driving (my guess is through GPS).

The interface and data availability leaves much to be desired. In terms of UI design, my personal taste doesn’t like the choices made by Google: there’s a strange mix of fonts, plus rounded and non-rounded flat buttons that make browsing Field Trip confusing. Furthermore, the app puts buttons to switch between views in the title bar rather than a bottom toolbar – something that is utterly confusing on iOS in my opinion. Read more

Jailbreak Tweak Creates An iOS Services Menu with URL Schemes

By Federico Viticci

I don’t normally cover jailbreak tweaks here at MacStories, but I’m intrigued by ActivityAction after reading Jeff Benjamin’s preview over at iDownloadBlog.

ActivityAction is a an extension of Ryan Petrich’s Action Menu – one of my favorite tweaks when I had a jailbroken device. ActionMenu extends Apple’s Copy & Paste popup menu with additional actions and services to deal with selected text or an app’s content area. ActivityAction adds a button that lets you set up UIActivity-like actions based on app’s bundle identifier and its URL scheme. Read more

Fantastical 1.1 Brings Clipboard Detection, Multiple Alerts, Calendar Improvements

By Federico Viticci

Fantastical

Fantastical is my favorite calendar app for iPhone. From my review of the first version:

Fantastical for iPhone gets many things right without cluttering the interface or forcing me to learn a new set of rules and menus. Like Tweetbot’s tap & hold actions, Instapaper’s footnotes, or Launch Center’s presentation of shortcuts, Fantastical’s DayTicker and natural language support made me ask myself: Why hasn’t anyone else done this before?

Fantastical was already a part of my daily workflow on the Mac; with the iPhone app, I’ve found myself using the app even more thanks to its beautiful and easy to use interface that makes it super simple to get a quick overview of a day’s events. Combined with my OmniFocus-to-Calendar system, I wouldn’t be able to go back to Apple’s Calendar app after using Fantastical.

Fantastical 1.1, released today on the App Store, adds a series of improvements that make the app even better to use.

In terms of UI tweaks, there are new options in the Settings to highlight weekend days and dim past events for the current day. Both changes are welcome as they make it easier to quickly “read” the calendar; weekend days are dimmed both in DayTicker and calendar view. Another option that has been added in 1.1 – but which I don’t use – is the possibility to hide empty days from the DayTicker. The Dock icon can now show a badge indicating the current day of the month or remaining events for the current day (I prefer day of the month).

For calendar management and event creation, Fantastical 1.1 comes with new features that I really like. Events can be moved or duplicated by tapping & holding them and choosing Duplicate or Move from a popup menu; the same tap & hold gesture can be performed on the title bar (where the date is shown) to bring up a beautiful date picker that uses the same “loupe” effect of the DayTicker (shown above). If you don’t want to manually pick a date, you can now scroll the entire event list instead of being limited to the current month; scrolling will also automatically scroll the DayTicker or calendar views.

Fantastical

Alongside time zone support, pending invitations management, and multiple alerts (I managed to add 20 alerts to a single event, more than Week Calendar), Fantastical now has a smart clipboard detection tool that will look for date strings in your clipboard and offer you to quickly create a new event. For me, this has been particularly useful for dates of app releases or Skype calls that I frequently receive via email; I can copy the date, open Fantastical, and the app will parse it, letting me type the name of the event and save it.

Fantastical 1.1 is a solid update to my go-to calendar app for iPhone, and it’s available on the App Store.

Textual Siri →

Linked By Federico Viticci

Textual Siri

NotSiri

Here’s a good article by Rene Ritchie from June 2012 about a textual interface for Siri:

If Spotlight could access Siri’s contextually aware response engine, the same great results could be delivered back, using the same great widget system that already has buttons to touch-confirm or cancel, etc.

I completely agree. Spotlight lets you find apps and data to launch on your device; aside from its “assistant” functionality, Siri lets you search for specific information (either on your device or the web). There’s no reason find and search shouldn’t be together. Siri gained app-launching capabilities, but Spotlight still can’t accept Siri-like text input.

The truth is, I think using Siri in public is still awkward. My main use of Siri is adding calendar events or quick alarms when I’m a) cooking or b) driving my car. When I’m working in front of an iPad, I just don’t see the point of using voice input when I have a keyboard and the speech recognition software is still failing at recognizing moderately complex Italian queries. When I’m waiting for my doctor or in line at the grocery store, I just don’t want to be that guy who pulls out his phone and starts talking with a robotic assistant. Ten years after my first smartphone, I still prefer avoiding phone calls in public because a) other people don’t need to know my business and b) I was taught that talking on the phone in public can be rude. How am I supposed to tell Siri to “read me” my schedule when I have 10 people around me?

I think a textual Siri, capable of accepting written input instead of spoken commands, would provide a great middle ground for those situations when you don’t want to/can’t talk in public. Like Rene, I think putting the functionality in Spotlight would be a fine choice; apps like Fantastical have shown that “natural language input” with text can still be a modern, useful addition to our devices.

Text input brings different challenges: how would Siri handle typos? Would it wait until you’ve finished writing a sentence or refresh with results as-you-type? Would Siri lose its “conversational” approach, or provide butttons to reply with “Yes” or “No” to its further questions?

Text, however, has also its advantages: text is universal, free of voice alterations (think accents and dialects), independent from surrounding noise and/or microphone proximity. With a textual Siri, Apple could keep its users within its control by letting them ask for restaurant suggestions, weather information, unit conversions, or sports results without having to open other apps and/or launch Google.

It’s just absurd to think semantic search integration can only be applied to voice recognition, especially in the current version of Siri. I agree with Kontra: Siri isn’t really about voice.

More importantly: if Google can do it, why can’t Apple?

Permalink

Week Calendar HD Review

By Federico Viticci

weekcal

Week Calendar has always been a calendar app for power users. I remember taking my first look at the iPhone version in March 2011, calling it a “powerful iCal alternative for iPhone”; two months later, I covered the release of the iPad client, which was then given a new theme to better differentiate it from Apple’s own Calendar app.¹ After a long absence on the App Store, Week Calendar for iPad is back today as Week Calendar HD, which I have been testing for the past few months.

Just like its predecessors, Week Calendar is a calendar app for power users. You will find dozens of options and settings to tweak, perhaps even too many if you don’t like the idea of tweaking every font size, calendar behavior, or menu to your liking. The compromise of using a feature-rich app as Week Calendar is that there is an initial learning curve – not too steep, but definitely something worth keeping in mind if you want to get the most out of the app.

Therefore, instead of listing every single feature in detail, I’ll try to focus on the ones that I have been using on a daily basis.²

MacHash Apple News Aggregator Gets 4.0 Update

By Federico Viticci

MacHash

I’ve always been a fan of MacHash, a service that aggregates RSS posts from Apple-related websites. From January 2012:

I’ve been a huge fan of MacHash since I started using the service last year. With a straightforward web interface that aggregates the latest Apple headlines from websites like ours, MacRumors, TUAW, Macgasm, AppStorm, iMore and many others and an iOS client that offers more customization options alongside an in-app browser, MacHash has become my go-to place to stay on the top of the latest Apple news and commentary from the community.

Released yesterday, MacHash 4.0 brings a new, cleaner interface, iCloud syncing for settings, and improved sharing.

Sites are now available in a Facebook-like sidebar that you can access by swiping horizontally on screen or tapping the list button in the top left corner of the title bar; you can pull to refresh this view, or “star” sites that you want to display in the Favorites tab. Starring a site will give you quicker access to its standalone stream of articles, which, as in previous versions of the app, is fetched via RSS: if a site doesn’t have a full-text RSS feed, it will be truncated in MacHash (just like any other RSS reader).

MacHash already had a filtering option to “mute” sites that you weren’t interested in seeing in the main stream, and in this new version filters should sync alongside sync across various instances of MacHash (say on the iPhone and iPad) through iCloud. I say “should” because, in practice, my settings are being constantly reset to default state every time I start the iPad app. I have no idea whether this bug is due to MacHash itself or iCloud, but I wouldn’t be surprised to know the latter is the culprit.

My favorite new feature of MacHash 4.0 is the tap & hold menu for sharing. You can now tap & hold any article to bring up a Copy & Paste-like menu with options to view the full website, a mobilized version, share the link on Twitter, or open more sharing actions. Because the middle button is configurable, and because auto-sharing can be activated, I can now send articles to Evernote with just two taps without having to confirm the clipping action every time. It would be nice to be able to send links to specific Drafts actions, though I understand the added complexity of specifying a Drafts URLs to send links to.

MacHash 4.0 comes with other speed and stability improvements (though the app still crashed for me once) and an overall more polished interface. MacHash continues to be my daily destination to get a quick overview of a day’s Apple news, and the app is free on the App Store (with In-App Purchase to hide ads).