I'm a Christian, a designer, and a gadget fan who lives in Cheltenham, UK.

This is my blog, a creative outlet to mess around and play with as well as a place that logs my thoughts and inspirations.

Tag: mac

How Apple Saved My Life ›

If you do only one thing on the inter­net today, please watch this video by James Rath. In a world where so often tech­nol­o­gy can make us feel dis­con­nect­ed and absent from those around us, it’s impor­tant to see things from the oth­er end some­thing. In the case of James Rath it’s incred­i­ble to see how much tech­nol­o­gy has influ­enced his life in such a pos­i­tive way.

Airfoil 5.5: Now Playing on Chromecast! ›

One of my favourite Mac util­i­ties has just been updat­ed to add some excel­lent func­tion­al­i­ty. Air­foil now sup­ports Chrome­cast and it works very well.
I’ve nev­er under­stood why Air­Play from an iOS device only allows you to send audio to one speak­er at a time, Air­foil is the per­fect way to fix that. My Mac­Book Pro is nor­mal­ly on and so I Air­Play to Air­foils sis­ter app Air­foil Satel­lite and then using the iOS Satel­lite app send the audio to what ever speak­ers I want. Since I have a Chrome­cast in my lit­tle stu­dio I can now eas­i­ly send Apple Music to my speak­ers with­out faffing around with cables. I put it to good use this morn­ing stream­ing to both my stu­dio speak­ers and kitchen speak­ers while I moved between the two rooms.

App Store 2.0 ›

News broke last night of some changes to the App Store. Chief among them was the avail­abil­i­ty of sub­scrip­tion pric­ing to all types of apps. Many peo­ple seem to see it as a pos­i­tive for devel­op­ers, and I agree to some extent, but it all depends how those sub­scrip­tions will be used.
This quote from The Verge’s cov­er­age of the news is exact­ly what I’m con­cerned about.

Tsid­don says his com­pa­ny makes around $10 mil­lion a year from its pre­mi­um apps, which are sold for a one-time pur­chase fee of $3.99 or $4.99. Lightricks has sold 8 mil­lion app down­loads to date. Tsid­don hasn’t ful­ly com­mit­ted to a sub­scrip­tion mod­el yet, only say­ing that he’s “excit­ed to exper­i­ment with the busi­ness mod­el,” but based on back-of-the-enve­lope math he believes if his com­pa­ny saw 4 mil­lion down­loads while charg­ing a $4 month­ly sub­scrip­tion fee, he could make 10 times his cur­rent annu­al revenue. 

If devel­op­ers start to shift to pric­ing like this, I and many oth­ers, will stop using their apps. I sim­ply can not afford, and even if I could I would not be able to jus­ti­fy, pay­ing $4 a month to use an app. Espe­cial­ly when it’s mul­ti­plied by the 12 inde­pen­dent apps on my iPhone home­screen. That’s not sustainable.

Ulysses 2.5 for iPad and, Now, iPhone Review ›

A glow­ing review which I could­n’t agree with more. Ever since I down­loaded it for my iPad I’ve been using the app, now it’s on my iPhone as well every­thing I write for this site goes through the app. Paired with the Mac app, it’s great for writ­ing ser­mons in as well.

I’m Done with MacBooks ›

When I read this post from Khoi Vinh I found myself nod­ding along in agree­ment. This part in par­tic­u­lar struck a chord,

When I think about where I’m most pro­duc­tive with OS X, it’s always at my desk, where I have a huge mon­i­tor (on my iMac, at home) or even two Cin­e­ma Dis­plays (at work) 

I upgrad­ed my Mac near­ly a year ago and had a long debate about whether to get an iMac or a Mac­Book Pro. The iMac was appeal­ing for so many rea­sons, but I could­n’t quite bring myself to give up the flex­i­bil­i­ty my Mac­Book offers. How­ev­er there’s no deny­ing that I’m most pro­duc­tive at my desk with a larg­er screen, and since upgrad­ing my iPad 2 to an iPad Air 2 I’m using that for more work leav­ing me more focused when I’m on my Mac as well.
In the future I can cer­tain­ly see myself mov­ing to an iMac over the Mac­Book Pro and maybe, if bud­get affords it, and iPad Pro. Espe­cial­ly as it’s capa­bil­i­ties grow and allow for more and more work to be accom­plished on it.

Introducing Day One 2 ›

I’ve been a Day One user over the last few years, hav­ing spells of using it more than others.the release of Day One 2 brings a slew of new fea­tures and a visu­al over­haul, I’ve already picked up the iOS ver­sion, but I’m debat­ing the need to pick up the Mac one.

Debut of OmniFocus 2 — Blog — The Omni Group ›

The new Fore­cast mode shows you a sum­ma­ry of your upcom­ing time-based com­mit­ments at a glance in the sidebar.

I use Omni­Fo­cus every­day, in fact I’ve used it every­day for the last 2 years. It’s an excel­lent way of track­ing all the bits you need to do, with the Fore­cast mode from the iPad and iPhone com­ing to the new Mac ver­sion I’m, rather geek­i­ly, excited!