Alfred 2: OK, I'm In

Up until now, I've been giving Alfred a shot here or there. I would download the free version and play around with it and then run into roadblocks with its support of some things I'm currently doing with Launchbar. I have trouble overcoming the friction and eventually give up on it. It was a shame because people who didn't use Launchbar swore by Alfred. I found Launchbar seemed very well-suited to how I worked, not to mention the fact that I had already built up considerable muscle memory with Launchbar hotkeys. My interest in Alfred always persisted however and I'm glad it did.

Enter Alfred v2. It is a re-designed (from the ground up, I'm told) new version of the app and after hearing a lot of rumblings about the efficacy of the new workflow system, I thought I'd give it a go. And this was to be a real go -- one that wasn't just a dip into the common features and a surface recognition that things weren't going to work out for us, Alfred and me. No, this was going to go all the way.

So what did I find? I found a deep, useful and profoundly productive tool which has shown more promise with each day I've spent with it. At this point, Alfred has not only replaced Launchbar for common use throughout the day, but it has extended beyond it into things that Keyboard Maestro used to do. If you've ever used Keyboard Maestro, you'd know how amazing that is. That's not to say that it is perfect. It's also not to say that there are limitations as well. But it is a really, really good product (with the PowerPack installed) and I'm happy with the results so far.

I am not going to go too far down the rabbit hole in this post but I will run down some of the things that struck me about the new version of Alfred as well as some of the features that allowed it to overcome some of its previous shortcomings.

One thing that used to kill me was that I had some really fast, custom shortcuts in Launchbar -- "OL" would fire up Outlook, "PF" would fire off Pathfinder, etc. Alfred , however, picked the target apps itself and used heuristics to push things up the list of popular choices. Sometimes it picked "OL" for Outlook but if it decided that OmniOutliner made more sense, you couldn't "brute force" the choice to always choose Outlook like you could in Launchbar. I am not a huge fan of having to hit ⌘-1, etc. for additional choices so having the first choice be exactly what I want, when I want it, is key.

With workflows, that restriction is gone. I just open the workflow designer, create a trigger, map "OL" to Outlook and I'm done. The whole process takes about two minutes and it's all clicking, dragging and minimal typing.

Some cursory perusal of the Alfred forums yielded some great workflows to quickly create OmniFocus tasks, completely control Rdio, and provide a fast way to list time zones in various parts of the world. All of this functionality comes from typing a few choice keys the Alfred command box. Brilliant.

Combine that with automating some previously keyboard-intensive things I used to do like launching a terminal and typing some common commands (like "top -oCPU" etc.) or clever ways to launch framed windows to remote machines[1] and I'm saving tons of keystrokes.

I am sure my use of Alfred will change and grow over the coming weeks and, once they launch a better way to browse community workflows[2] the tool will evolve in ways people are barely able to imagine right now. At this point, I can safely say that I won't be ditching Alfred any time soon. The app looks gorgeous, has lots of options and clearly has a keen design vision behind it. I can't wait to see where this goes.

1. Using "open vnc://MyMacMini.local" when on my home network or "open vnc://MyMacMini.{MyiCloudID}.members.btmm.icloud.com" when I want to launch a Back to My Mac session ↩

2. It looks like they are working on it. ↩

Dropvox: Simple Recording Straight to Dropbox

Shout-out to Shawn Blanc for pimping Dropvox[1]. I am a long-time user and have been putting it through the paces recording lectures I attend and for saving thoughts while driving. It has seamless Dropbox integration and seems to transmit the data to its destination even with bad connectivity. I have been impressed by its stability and simplicity.

The idea is that you hook this app to your Dropbox account and hit "record". That's basically all you need to know. The mp3 file is uploaded to a special application directory and you can do whatever you like with it. These recordings can be any length and I'm finding more and more ways to use it. Some recordings become emails, DayOne entries, memos or the framework for a much larger document that I want to get a headstart on before arriving at work. I have also recorded multi-hour lectures with nary a hiccup.

For the files that I record in the car on the way to work that are destined to become emails or documents, I have a little workflow to convert them to text. Sadly, it isn't a cheap solution but it is one that works pretty well. MacSpeech Scribe ($149USD) is a tool created specifically for transcribing voice files to text. It takes some training but it works quite well.

One hiccup is that recording in the car is much simpler if I use my Bluetooth in-car voice control (and obviously its safer since it is handsfree) but the bluetooth voice quality is much lower than it is for standard recording. As a result, Scribe has a much harder time transcribing my voice files. After training it for a "car voice", Scribe started getting much better but its not perfect. That said, it is still better than transcribing it by hand myself.

I've gotten my $2's worth from Dropvox. It's a very simple and handy app and worth a look if you're in the market for a recording device that integrates seamlessly with Dropbox.

1. Affiliate links ↩

Rise: My Mini-Review of an Unintentionally-Silent Alarm Clock

Rise is a new app for iOS that has a really nice design sense. This thing is gorgeous. The gesture controls are well thought out and generally it works well. That said, it does have some shortcomings concerning what you really need it for -- waking you up.

I was really excited when I picked the app up - so excited I grabbed it on release day. I've always wanted to have something wake me up besides my blaring iPhone alarm and having the potential of a replacement, especially one that looked so good, was an inviting proposition. That said, I've had little to complain about regarding the built-in iPhone alarm. It has been rock solid for me since I started using it with my iPhone 1. I've never gotten up late for work due to an alarm SNAFU which is a pretty decent track record.

Rise allows for setting up repeating alarms, progressive alarms, pleasant sound effects and alarm songs/patterns and, going through the settings, I had high hopes that it would do what I needed it to do.

Luckily, I was able to press it into service during my vacation so if I woke up late it wasn't going to be the end of the world. How did it go?

Three of the five mornings I used it, the app wasn't able to rouse me from sleep. The most prevalent problem was that there was no noise at all. In fact, I am doubtful that it caused my phone to vibrate either. Curiously, I confirmed that the app was set to "vibrate" but, if it was vibrating, it was so quiet or brief that it didn't get the job done. As a further insult, when I eventually woke up, I was met with several screens of notifications telling me it was time to wake up. Thanks, Rise...

Now, it's certainly feasible that I was doing something wrong. But even if I was, alarms need to be a bulletproof, battle-tested thing and if I should have been doing something differently, then it wasn't apparent. Remembering to put an app in the foreground and confirm everything before sleeping is something I haven't had to deal with since... well since forever, so having to do it now isn't something I want to deal with. The risk of a mess up is just too great at this point.

I realize that there are iOS development restrictions that prevent things like this from working as well as the actual iOS alarms. The hooks for the alarms have very deep integration into the operating system. That's a disappointment because Rise has a lot going for it visually. Given the downsides, I'd avoid it for now.

Good Times for iOS Users

It is a great time to be an iPhone owner. The last two weeks or so have seen the release of some of the most exquisite, well-designed apps in the App Store today.

Tons of excellent writing has already been appearing on some of my favorite websites so I won't go into massive amounts of detail. I just want to remark on some of the highlights and to let you all know that, if you haven't downloaded these apps yet, you're missing out on some of the best the platform has to offer.

1Password 4 was released the other night. I've long been a huge fan of the original app, buying it for anyone who has either shown an inkling of interest or demonstrated a large amount of identity theft risk. The changes are all really nice and, rather than go into a ton of details, just take my word for it. It is worth the $7.99, even if it is simply to further the hard work and effort of the folks at Agilebits.

Twitterific was released and I wasn't too sure I was even going to bother with it. I have switched over to App.net (ADN) and have been very happy with Felix as my main social networking application. But I am weak. After seeing the screenshots and hearing the praise on ADN, I decided to take the plunge.

The app design is a clinic in usability and it is one of those apps that makes you happy to use it. It supports all of the main features, as well as adding some nifty ones like Dark/Night mode. The downside of Twitterific is that I'm using Twitter again. It was good enough to bring me back (for now!).

Google Maps came out the other night to unsurprising fanfare. The fawning press have waited for this app with the same zeal they had for finding Apple Maps problems to hype. It was going to be the savior of iOS mapping and set the world right again.

In truth, it is a really nice mapping app. The transit directions are great, as they always have been. The vector graphics look really nice and clean and overall the app is far more polished than I expected from Google.

That said, there are some issues -- some just nitpicking but some I'd consider pretty glaring. There is no way to map directions directly to a contact from your Contact list. This seems like a bafflingly obvious use case and it seems fishy that it's not there.

The app also has a fairly obtuse interface, hardly surprisingly for the same company that is responsible for the Android settings screens. Some controls are expertly hidden, some gestures don't do what you expect them to do and if you shake your phone (or drive over a few bumps) you will be asked if you'd like to provide feedback. Admittedly, I can see the humor in driving down a dirt road, late at night, lost due to bad phone directions and having the bumps trigger a screen asking if you'd like to report a problem, but I don't think that's what they were going for here.

Since people are so gung ho about reporting every time the Apple Maps app led them to the wrong place, I think I should disclose that Google Maps expected me to make an illegal left hand turn across a 2 lane highway (ignoring the New Jersey jughandle to my right). It cost me about 5 minutes but there were no disasters like those of the recently-lost idiots in Australia.

I'd still say its worth a download. The app itself is small and it's never a bad thing to have more than one mapping app on your phone.

The folks behind Fantastical have introduced an iOS version of their stellar Mac app. Innovative, slick interface design and seamless execution has convinced me to use this as my main calendaring app these days. Highly recommended.

Sparrow got a surprising update to support iPhone 5's larger screen and still continues to be my go-to for Google-based mail. (Google released their Gmail app recently but their method for switching accounts was obtuse and fiddly and the omission of a Unified Inbox was baffling.) While I'm intrigued by the upcoming Mailbox for iPhone, Sparrow will see me through until then.

The Simple banking app continues to improve, now with the ability to photograph checks for deposit -- something I've wished for as a way to improve an already-stellar banking service. I am banking more and more with Simple and I haven't been disappointed.

All in all, a great week for iOS apps. I'm aware it is none too easy on the wallet but let's be real -- these apps are still cheap and they're a small price to pay to have these great developers keep doing what they do.

Recall - An App To Store Stuff You Want

Recall by Overcommitted is a new app I noticed when it was written up by our good friend Federico Viticci on Macstories.

The gist of Recall is that you can search for apps, books, TV shows, movies and other products that aren't yet released and then save them in a smart queue. The app will send you a reminder when the selected item is released and also provides links into the respective stores for easy purchasing.

At first, I thought this was the kiss of death for someone like me who likes to be on top of things when they release and generally likes to try apps or read books as soon as they become available. It just gave me an easier way to part with my money -- hardly welcome given the great stuff releasing lately.

After a few days of use, it struck me that this app was turning out to be a way to save me money. What I've been finding is that just adding something to Recall, especially if it is immediately available, gives me a nice spot to hold ideas until I can thoroughly think through how I might use them. Or, in the case of books, it serves as a reading queue until I can find time to read them.

What was happening before was that I'd buy something to try it out because I knew I would forget about it a week or two later. Having a place to simply hold the thought has cut down on the impulse buys so far (it's only been a week or so). In the case of books, my Kindle library of purchased books was my reading queue. The problem I faced was that things would be added to it my virtual library faster than I was able to read the books that were already there. The result was a lot of unread books and, ultimately, wasted money.

Having a handy place to park stuff is a good way to provide the space I need to avoid silly impulse purchases. It is an experiment but one that appears to be working. I'll report back if it continues. For now, my wallet is thanking me.