Beardy Guy Musings

I'm on a new quest in how I use the iPad and it can be best expressed with one word: Simplicity. I've always considered myself a "power" user of Apple tech. Of course this is a relative term but I'll just describe it, in this context, as this: I've always used my Macs with a goal as doing as much as possible with them. I used a seemingly limitless variety of apps and utilities. I tinkered. I installed betas. It was practically a goal to break things so that I could fix them. I enjoyed troubleshooting. But I was also concerned with getting things done.

My early use of the iPad was similar. I jailbroke my first two iPads primarily so I could share the cellular connection to my Mac. I immediately installed any app that might allow me to do my "work" on the iPad. From finance tracking to website updating to blogging to graphic creation to database apps. Of course I'm still curious about the possible solutions apps can provide for the tasks I need to do but I've recently realized that I often have the most success with a more straightforward approach. Just as Spotlight gradually replaced Quicksilver and LaunchBar on my Macs, I'm finding that Apple stock apps such as Notes are often be my best option.

I've used Notes quite a bit over the past few years and no doubt, it began as a fairly simple app. But Apple has nurtured it into an app that is, in its current iteration, really very capable. Interestingly, during the same period, I also tried using Evernote more than a couple times but I never quite settled into it. I could understand why so many people used it given its extensive feature list but it never quite clicked for me. My typical use with Apple Notes was saving text notes and the occasional link. I generally did not need to add attachments (on a Mac I preferred to just put any files such as pdfs or images in the Finder) and didn't need to share or collaborate with anyone. I bumped into it's limitations on occasion but it was never enough to stop me from using it.

The best way I can describe my use of Notes is that it is my catch-all for text and links, often as a sort of shared clipboard between devices with an easy way to share out via Messages, Mail or any number of other apps. One unfortunate limitation, links saved in a note seem to export with any method. Any effort to copy/paste or to use a share sheet to send a saved link and any text in a note, removes the link and only results in the plain text of the article title. Not very helpful and a bummer because this could be useful in a lot of different ways. Almost every other attachment can be shared out along with any text I've added to a note. One limitation of attaching documents such as pdfs, Pages or any other document that might have editable text is that they are not indexed. Not a deal breaker but it would be nice. In my personal use I don't tend to accumulate lots of notes with attachments because I tend to use them for projects rather than long-term storage.

More often than not when I create a new note it is a text capture via a share sheet from another app. Quite a few notes are for projects or clients and they might be something that I just scribble in and delete a couple days later or they might be longer term. In the past I've tried different apps for tracking time on client projects but several months ago I realized I wasn't all that happy with the apps I'd been using for such tracking. I decided it might be easier and simpler to do this tracking with a note and I was right. It's worked out great. I have a "Timecards" note and every project gets tracked there. Each project gets a section and anytime I work I log it with a simple line item: Date Time Description in that section. Simple and efficient. Eventually those line items get entered into an a FileMaker Pro invoice.

I've only had a need to share notes via the collaboration feature on a couple of occasions but it has worked well in those instances. It's a nice feature to have when I need it.

A lot of Apple nerds have been raving lately about Bear. I gave it a try and it is a nice app but it's not for me. Between Apple Notes and Ulysses much of what I do with text is covered. In the past I've also tinkered with Drafts and for awhile I used Byword and Editorial as a part of my gathering and writing process but not lately. While I've not yet deleted those three apps I likely will. I've not used any of them in quite some time and doubt I'll have any need of them in the future. They are superfluous. As I whittle down my folders of apps I am enjoying a certain confidence in the fewer tools that I choose to keep.

Over the past year or two there have been quite a few write-ups comparing note taking apps particularly comparisons between Apple Notes (since it's big update with iOS 9) and Evernote and most recently the new app, Bear. Inevitably such write-ups always leave out the newest Apple Notes features that were added in iOS 9 and iOS 10. In fact, I'm often left wondering if the writers of such comparisons actually bothered to really use the updated Notes app at all!

1. You can lock any note with a password.
2. All kinds of files can be sent via the share sheet to a note as an attachment. The first that come to mind: Pages, Numbers, Keynote, PDF, audio files, video and images.
3. PDFs and images can be annotated using the same tool box that allows annotation of such files in the Mail app.
4. Offline viewing and editing is possible.
5. While markdown is not possible some formatting is: bold, italics, and underline.
6. Also, any note can easily be shared as a collaborative note with any user that has an iCloud account.
7. Notes can be exported as PDFs via the print preview though that option is not immediately obvious-not sure why Apple hides it in the print dialog on iOS devices.
8. The text, links and attachments within a note can easily be shared via the share sheet.

I'm sure there are others but this is just a quick list I put together in response to the most recent articles I've come across. As a default, free app, Apple notes really is a powerful app with many of the features found in paid services and I suspect it is underutilized by most users. It's the sort of app that often provokes the response: "I didn't know you could do that!" It's an app I use daily and I expect to do a post on how I'm using it soon. In fact, it fits in well with my recent post about doing more with the stock Apple apps when possible as opposed to cluttering up my iPad with third party apps. Stay tuned for that!

I’m a geek and so I tend to enjoy tinkering. Back in the day I used (or tried to use) speakable items on my Mac. It never stuck because it just didn’t work very well. But it was fun to play with. Something that did stick was Quicksilver. And Launchbar. And then Spotlight. I switched back and forth between the first two but as Apple’s Spotlight got better I eventually just settled on that. Which is to say I went from the more powerful third party tools to Apple’s simpler option.  Maybe I’m just less of a tinkerer than I used to be because as time goes on I seem to prefer simplicity.

As I’ve experimented with some of Federico’s favorite iOS productivity apps such as Workflow and recently Copied I’ve begun to think that my needs (or my methods) just are not suited to so much complexity. For example, in his recent post about clipboard workflows using the Copied app or his powerful clipboard manager using Workflow, Federico offers many of the details that make him more productive. But I spent the better part of two hours with Copied and just came away frustrated. It may be that it’s just not suited to the way I work or maybe I need to spend more time learning it. Or, just as likely, it may be that I don’t write the kind of content or perform the kinds of tasks that benefit from that kind of app.

One lesson learned from the experience: when evaluating the tools and workflows of others for my purposes, be open but be critical. Will they really enable me to get things done in a better way or will they just end up slowing me down? Are they the right tools for the jobs I need to get done? These are obvious questions to ask but I think often it’s easy to get caught up in the tools and techniques of others. New and shiny is better right? So, my new goal is to find a balance of being open to new tools but not to spend too much time dwelling on it all.

All this cruft can get in the way. I live and work in a tiny house which requires being very deliberate in the choices I make about owning stuff. As often as stuff is useful it is just as likely a burden that gets in my way. Stuff has a way of accumulating and is often kept around even when it’s not all that useful. One reason I love the iPad is that it strikes a beautiful balance of simplicity and power. I don’t want to ruin it with lots of apps and utilities, many of which overlap in what they offer.

Why was I interested in using Copied? I like the idea of gathering links to posts with titles and relevant quotes and having them ready to put into a blog post just as Federico seems to do. But what I’ve discovered is that I find it much easier to just use the share extension to send items to their own sheet in Ulysses. If some of these are meant to be shared together in the same post I can easily use the merge sheets function of Ulysses to consolidate them all into one. Problem solved without the help of any extra utilities and quite possibly with less effort from me.

Another area in which I thought Copied might be useful was in saving groups of text for websites I manage. But here’s the thing. Again, my tool of choice, Coda, already has that covered with the text snippets or clips function. With a tap I get a dropdown list of my snippets and another tap I get the text I want pasted right into my document. Or I can assign a tab trigger for any snippet. These seems a better option than using Copied.

Another third party utility that I recently purchased that seems like it may be more work for less benefit is Launch Center Pro. As with Copied it may well be that I’ve not spent enough time with it to learn the benefits. I get the gist of it. But so much of what it seems to offer I would file as solutions in search of problems. Much of what it offers I can just as easily accomplish with Siri. Shortcuts to apps end up being just as many taps as clicking on the app or asking Siri to open it or using Command-Space to open via spotlight. On the iPhone with 3D Touch most of my regular apps have short cuts built in. It also seems to duplicate Workflow in many ways and I’m still trying to get a handle on Workflow.

My plan going forward is to focus on using each app as it is provided. This isn’t to say I’m not interested in utilities that might add benefit to my workflows. But I will cast a more skeptical eye towards utilities and workflows that seem overly complex in the name of saving me time. If my use of an app or combination of apps results in obvious friction then I’ll see what I can do to reduce it but step one is to ensure that I’m using all of the features of the app as intended.

Appreciating (and greatly enjoying) the tablet form factor of the iPad and an external keyboard this morning.

Fact 1: I live in a rural area and expected a package via the USPS. If I wanted this package in my hands I needed to be at the mailbox by the road when the delivery person arrived. If I missed her I’d only have a note letting me know my package was waiting for me in the post office in town.

Fact 2: I normally walk the one mile to the mailbox as a part of my 4 miles a day walking routine. Today we had rain in the forecast.

Fact 3: I am not even a little fancy and do not own a Tesla. But we do have a golf cart for getting around our property. It runs off of batteries. I pretend it is a Tesla.

Fact 4: I knew I might have a wait because I only knew that our postal delivery person normally arrives before 11 am. I went at 8 and took my iPad and keyboard.

Fact 5: With little effort I managed to arrange a comfortable writing situation and got stuff done.

I'm planning to do a post each Friday that will cover the interesting "getting things done with iPad" articles of the week. Currently Federico Viticci, Serenity Caldwell and Matt Gemmel are consistently posting about using the iPad for getting work done. There are others of course and I'll post those as I find them.

This week Federico had another in his iPad Diaries series: Clipboard Management with Copied and Workflow. I'm still reading that as I was busy most of yesterday. Will finish it and digest today. That's the beauty of Federico's posts, the require digesting. Which is to say, they are never easy. He works and writes on a level that usually means the reader is actually going to learn something. For someone who writes about working on a device known for it's simplicity and ease of use, Federico does a damn fine job of complicating it- but in a good way. A really good way.

I've tried using Clips a bit and found it useful. I'm curious to read about what Copied does that might make it a better choice.

Also worth a bookmark, Federico's archive of iPad articles on MacStories. Wowza.

Matt Gemmell has been working on his own series about going iPad-only and has another great post this week on taking notes with GoodNotes. That's an app I recently picked up on sale for .99 cents. I use Apple notes on a regular basis and I'm not sure GoodNotes is something I'll use but for 99 cents it's silly not to try it. Much of the appeal of the app is handwriting. Actually, that's much of the point. I've often joked that I don't do pens and pencils, I do keyboards. My handwriting is atrocious and I've never taken the time to work on that. That said, I do appreciate and love the idea of sketchnotes. As I've been painting with Procreate in recent moths I've become a bit more interested in seeing what I can sketch and thinking about lettering as art rather than writing is appealing.

I’ve got a client that emailed me back in September. After years of working for other people as a truck driver he had bought his own truck and was going into business for himself. He’d purchased an iPad and needed to know more about using it. Of course I was happy to help him out.

His prior computer experience to that point was primarily a Windows laptop. It was an older and heavier laptop and he didn’t want to lug that around. He called me a couple weeks after getting his iPad because he had a list of tasks he’d not yet discovered an app for. We ended up meeting three or four times. He often receives emails with pdf attachments that need to be filled out and signed and returned. He also gets documents on paper that need to be archived and/or replied to. So, the first thing we did was get him set-up with a scanning and pdf workflow. He followed my advice and purchased Scanner Pro and PDF expert. We discussed iCloud, data-use and the benefits of keeping everything synced up. We went through the process for sharing a pdf from Mail to PDF Expert and then the reverse. We did the same for using Scanner Pro to PDF Expert to Mail. We also downloaded a faxing app for the rare occasion when he needs to fax instead of email.

I helped him set-up an invoice template in Pages. We discussed sharing that out as a pdf via Mail. He’d also purchased a printer for wireless printing which we set-up. He rarely prints but wanted it “just in case”. We’ve not yet gotten into spreadsheets yet though I suspect that might be an interest and we’ve discussed it briefly. Last, he’d downloaded a series of apps specifically for truckers for routing, mileage tracking, fuel purchases and scheduling. He didn’t need my help with those as he’d already been using them on his iPhone for many months. Same thing goes with email which he’d been using on his iPhone. The only new trick there was learning to use the share menu and to effectively move/save/share attachments. Last but not least, when he’s not driving he uses the iPad with the DirectTV app to watch movies and tv shows and FaceTime to chat with his at-home spouse.

He’s now been carrying loads since early November. Nearly five months on the road and he’s very satisfied with his iPad as his primary on-the-road computer. Maybe I should have told him that the iPad is only good for Facebook and watching movies?

Our extended family has some shared land with a small lake left to us by my grandparents. Sometimes that means we have to coordinate projects together. From road and dam maintenance to creating trails or any number of small things. In the past this was done via phone calls, sometimes email. Lately it’s been texting. But it can be a bit chaotic with anywhere from 3-7 people (sometimes more) chiming in with ideas or criticisms of the process involved in more complicated projects.

A good example would be a recent project clearing the area behind the lake dam which had become too densely overgrown. As we evaluated the project we took the opportunity to look at related tasks such as dredging out parts of the lake that had accumulated silt over the years. Also, there’s always the issue of repairing damage by beavers and muskrats and spillway maintenance. I’ve been helping coordinate with my dad, aunt and two uncles as well as someone we hired to help with some of the work. If my dad and uncle were a bit more technologically savvy I might try hooking them up on Slack. I may do that yet.

Due to repeated confusion (when texting and phone calls are primary it’s easy to loose track of who knows what!), the other day I decided to put together a project plan of sorts. Just a simple Pages document with a map and diagram. I emailed it out and suggested folks add in details, make changes, etc. But then I realized as I was suggesting they either reply via text in email or use pdf editing built into Apple Mail that at least two of them would likely be confused with the pdf editing. One of them is using an iPhone that he barely knows how to operate. So, it occurred to me that a shared Note which they can all access via iPhone, iPad or Mac might be simple enough and yet allow for the communication to happen all in one document that anyone can edit. It was a trivial task to copy/paste the material from the Pages document into the note. Time will tell if the shared note will prove effective.

Something that I’ve realized with this project is that the iPhone and iPad are a nearly perfect compliment to one another. I suppose I knew that going into it but it’s just working out so well that it seems worth mentioning. I use the iPhone to take notes, measurements and photos. Then from the iPad and a Bluetooth keyboard I can elaborate on the basics and create diagrams and maps with Graphic and Apple Maps. I’m using Numbers (mostly on the iPad) to keep an ongoing record of expenses and dates on which significant work is done.

I’ve not recently been in a position where I needed to do any sort of complicated project management but I’m guessing it could be done fairly well with these two devices and the right apps. In many ways they seem to be the perfect fit for project management taking place “in the field”.