iOS Archives - Daniel J. Lewis

iOS 8 review from a former Android user

September 26, 2014 by Daniel J. Lewis 1 Comment

iOS 8 review from former Android user

iOS 8 is out and it contains many features quite familiar to Android users. I used to be an Android user, and here's what I think of iOS 8 on my iPhone.

I have cycled through many smartphone platforms. My first smartphone was a Palm Treo, then a Windows Mobile Treo, then a BlackBerry, then Android, and then iOS. I'm most content with the iPhone because the iOS platform gives me the best reliability and integration with the rest of my Apple devices.

Before I share my thoughts, know that my exposure to Android was limited to two and a half years. I primarily use Gingerbread on a rooted HTC ThunderBolt.

Alternative keyboards

The most exciting feature to me on Android was its wide selection of alternative keyboards. I was a proficient T9 “texter” on my old Motorola E815 flip phone. I learned to generally trust the software to choose the right word after I typed all the letters, instead of trying to correct it along the way. (One battle I could never win was between “home” and “good,” since both words are typed with the same T9 sequence. Context wouldn't help, either, because I would say, “I'm home” and “I'm good”—despite its poor grammar—quite often.)

This trust was less necessary when I used Treo and BlackBerry devices with physical keyboards. But the jump to an Android phone made this more difficult. But I was familiar with trusting, so I quickly acclimated to a touchscreen keyboard.

My mobile typing changed when I was introduced to Swype, the keyboard that allowed me to drag a single finger (usually my thumb) across letters to form words. Swype would intelligently understand words based on where I started, “bounced,” crossed over, and stopped with my finger. This drastically sped up my mobile typing and made it easier to write messages with only one hand.

LastPass on Android also provided its own keyboard that could intelligently login to apps with my secure credentials (with randomly generated passwords).

Then I switched to iPhone and I was back to a standard touchscreen keyboard.

I learned to adapt again and trust iOS to understand what words I generally meant, based on possible combinations and the relative locations of each tap. It seemed that the more I trusted iOS, the faster I would type.

Then iOS 8 supported alternative keyboards.

After updating my iPhone 5 to iOS 8, the first app I installed was SwiftKey (I wasn't ready to spend 99¢ on Swype before knowing whether I would like the alternative keyboard experience). I immediately felt at home with SwiftKey's similar swiping method for typing. It was like a long-awaited relief.

I enjoyed the experience so much that I actually wanted to type more on my phone, just to relish each quick moment of swiping instead of tapping. This felt like touchscreen home to me; it brings the thing I loved most about Android onto the mobile platform I love most—iOS.

The downsides

But this new feature isn't without its negative quirks. iOS 8 won't consistently activate an alternative keyboard unless I remove the standard keyboard.

I have also noticed longer delays for the keyboard to show when I'm using SwiftKey instead of the built-in keyboard. I understand that it's essentially a new program to load, but I would like to see these miniature apps treated like startup items that remain in the system's memory.

There is no LastPass keyboard yet, but I am seeing more 1Password integrations in apps.

Custom widgets

The second thing I loved about Android was the world of widgets. I had become quite familiar with widgets on desktop computers by installing third-party, cross-platform tools. This carried naturally onto my Android phone where I could place information or interactive widgets on any of my home screens.

Once I rooted my HTC ThunderBolt and installed an open version of Android (I typically preferred LiquidSmooth, but also liked Gingivitis), I also had limited widgets in my notification area. I could toggle certain features like wi-fi or my flashlight.

iOS 7 introduced the extremely helpful Control Center, which supported some system toggles, a flashlight, and quick access to a calculator, alarm/timer, and camera. This also brought the new Today screen, but no extensibility.

Then iOS 8 offered developers the ability to place information and interactive widgets inside the Today screen. My favorite, so far, is Evernote, with its buttons to quickly create a particular kind of note. I also like using an alternative calendar like Calendars 5 or Sunrise when it supports the Today screen (I still prefer Google Calendar).

The Today screen on iOS 8 is not as versatile for widgets as Android's home screens, but I do believe it saves battery life by not always loading the widgets when I don't need them. (It was common for widgets to cause battery drain on Android.)

Developers are getting creative with their Today-screen integrations. I also find these iOS widgets to be more consistently better designed than Android widgets.

But this also means that my iOS home screen is still not as beautiful as some of the Android home screens. (It's also not as ugly, as a former Tumblr blog used to showcase.)

Sharing integrations

I'm highly active on social networks and one of iOS's biggest annoyances was that I couldn't share from any app to any network I wanted. I prefer Tweetbot over the official Twitter app, I prefer Buffer for sharing lots of messages to multiple accounts over time, and I like Google+. I also use a different email app and productivity apps like Asana and Evernote.

Some iOS newsreader apps, like Mr. Reader or Feedly, would offer some of these integrations. But sometimes I wanted to share from a different app.

This was all easy on Android because every app seemed to put something in the “Share” menu. So I could share almost anything to almost anything.

iOS 8 finally opened up the sharing panel to third-party developers. I eager look forward to app updates to support tweeting through Tweetbot, sharing to Google+, queuing up something through Buffer, and so on.

Browser extensions

Last, but not least, the mobile browser is a high priority since many things go back to the Worldwide Web. Since I use LastPass for secure password management, I was at home with the Dolphin browser on Android. This has a quite seamless integration with LastPass to let me login to sites quite easily.

Until iOS 8, the only way to use LastPass was with annoying and cumbersome-to-create bookmarklets. These Javascript-based bookmarks would perform little actions on web pages, but I would have to add them through my computer and sync back to the mobile device. It seemed that my bookmarklets would be logged out almost every week. I eventually started not using sites in my mobile browser because it was too annoying to login to LastPass again in order to ensure the bookmarklets would log me in—sometimes.

iOS 8 opened up to browser extensions. Now, I can easily login to websites through either Safari or Chrome on my iPhone or iPad. The experience is much smoother, much more mobile friendly (with larger tap areas), and far more reliable.

There are more, helpful browser extensions, such as viewing the HTML source.

iOS 8, the most Android iOS ever

Yes, I realize that many of iOS's features have been inspired by either official or unofficial Android developments. I don't really care, anymore, about who came up with the idea first. I just care about which is the better experience and fits my needs the best.

So if you are or were an Android user, what do you think of iOS 8? Does its approach to some features seem more desirable to Android's approach?

5 ways to use Google Voice (and why it’s not going away)

September 12, 2014 by Daniel J. Lewis 24 Comments

Google Voice is a communications web and mobile app that can make and receive phone calls, send and receive SMS, transcribe voicemail, and more. Learn more about its features here or watch the video below.

Here are five creative ways to use Google Voice for business, hobbies, and home.

1. Use Google Voice as a business phone number

Google Voice can forward to any other phone number, and it's easy to make call from a Google Voice number through your computer, mobile device, or any other phone.

I created a Google Voice phone number for my business, and I have the convenience of answering calls either through my personal wireless phone, or my computer through Gmail/Hangouts.

The greatest business feature of Google Voice is the “do not disturb” (DND) feature. This can be enabled on demand, or for any number of minutes, hours, or days. It will not forward Google Voice calls to any of your phones, but send the caller directly to your voicemail inbox. DND is perfect for focus times or preventing business calls in the evenings.

2. Use Google Voice to ring multiple phones

You may be a multiphone person: you have a home phone, wireless phone, and work phone. Your Google Voice number can ring all of these phone simultaneously to ensure you don't miss an important phone call.

But don't just think about your own phones. You could have a single “family” number that rings your phone and your spouse's phone.

If you don't want to continue the conversation from a particular line, press * and you can switch lines.

3. Use Google Voice as a feedback voicemail system

I host several podcasts and love the convenience for my viewers and listeners to send feedback with their own voice. This is especially convenient for celebrities.

Google Voice can be set to never forward to another phone number. This will make it function like a 24-hour voicemail system.

You can have these messages forwarded to any email address (like your podcast feedback address) so you'll have a rough transcript and the audio recording file.

4. Use Google Voice to protect your privacy

Concerned about giving out your home or wireless phone number to businesses? Make a Google Voice number in your local area code and you'll never have to give away personal, direct numbers.

This is also a convenient way of having a local phone number, for the rare case where that actually matters.

My wife and I used a Google Voice number when selling our house. That allowed us to also have a custom voicemail greeting to point callers to our house website for more details when we couldn't answer the phone.

5. Use Google Voice to make and record phone calls with your computer

One of my favorite features of Google Voice is the ability to make a phone call through the Internet. My home office is currently in the lower level of my home, and our home is in a valley. So wireless phone reception isn't always the best.

Google Voice solves this by allowing me to conveniently make and receive phone calls through my computer and not have to worry about wireless signal strength. If I need to leave the computer, I just press * to switch the call to my phone.

Also, by routing a phone call through your computer, you can easily record the call with several apps and devices. This is great for interviews, or conversations you simply need to document.

Why I'm convinced Google Voice isn't going away

I've seen some old fear, uncertainty, and doubt (FUD) about Google Voice's future. But I'm quite convinced that—like Celine Dion, World of Warcraft, and the ending of The Lord of the Rings—Google Voice will go on. Here are several quick reasons.

The Google Voice website uses the standard Google account bar, which is on all of Google's most current and updated properties. (Interestingly, this isn't on FeedBurner, which is the more likely candidate to shut down since it has already ceased development.)
The Google Voice website also uses the same clean design as other, modern Google properties. (Again, FeedBurner doesn't.)
Google Voice calling has been integrated into Hangouts, which enables sending and receiving calls in Gmail, Google+, Google+ Hangouts, and YouTube Live / Google+ Hangouts on Air.
The Hangouts app and Google Voice app for iOS have been recently updated to include phone-calling with a Google Voice number from any iOS device. (Yes, you can even call phones for free from your iPod Touch or iPad!)
The Google Voice app for iOS has finally been updated to iOS 7 design standards (the week before iOS 8's release).

Considering all of these things, I would not be surprised if the Google Voice service is eventually merged completely into Hangouts, but I'm convinced that the core functionality will remain.

How do you use Google Voice?

Why I switched from Springpad to Evernote before I had to

August 15, 2014 by Daniel J. Lewis Leave a Comment

I used to be a diehard fan of Springpad and a hater of Evernote. I was even a guest on the Beyond the To-Do List podcast praising Springpad (although that was shortly after I started my transition).

What are Evernote and Springpad?

Evernote and the late Springpad were designed to help you remember things. Evernote was simple with notes that could contain text, links, images, and audio.

Springpad was a lot more intelligent with note types that could be recipes, products, videos, images, people, and much more. Each Springpad note type could have its own fields, options, and intelligence. For example, I could scan a book's barcode with Springpad and it would load the book's photo, description, best price, and link to Amazon.com.

Springpad wanted to be your personal assistant, Evernote wanted to help you remember everything (thus its elephant logo).

Alan Henry wrote on Lifehacker that you could even use Evernote and Springpad together.

But I couldn't settle for having my information in two places, so I made the switch and even upgraded to Evernote Premium. So I switched to Evernote long before Springpad shut down. Here are my reasons for switching and why I use Evernote for managing information.

1. Evernote has integration, Springpad didn't

Integration was a huge feature to me. It seemed like everything could integrate with Evernote! If This Then That (IFTTT), email apps, RSS readers, to-do lists, writing apps, and more. Besides integrating with other apps, Evernote could even integrate with my own device better. I was initially creeped out when I started a note at the Mixwest conference and Evernote accurately titled the note “Note from Mixwest” because it had looked at my current calendar event.

I was commonly frustrated by Springpad's lack of integration with almost anything. The best Springpad could offer was adding to notebooks via email, which was very limited.

2. Evernote has a desktop app, Springpad didn't

A desktop app may not seem that important until you consider features like offline use, quick startup (especially if your browser has to launch a bunch of tabs), and even local search integration (OS X's Spotlight search would search inside Evernote notes).

Springpad was web and mobile only. I would either have to visit their website (which logged me out far too often) or use the mobile app. If I was offline, I had no ability to make or access my notes.

3. Evernote has rich text formatting on mobile, Springpad originally didn't

Rich text formatting (RTF) is something we take for granted in most apps—the ability to bold or italicize something, change to bullets and numbers, indent, color, and more. Depending on your writing style for taking notes, RTF may be necessary for your notes to make any sense.

I started using Evernote more seriously because of its RTF. I loved the ability to make bullet points in multiple levels, which made taking conference notes really easy.

Springpad used a Markdown hybrid. That could seem great until you think about typing special characters like hyphens and asterisks on a touchscreen keyboard.

4. Evernote was simple; Springpad was complicated

I liked Springpad for its intelligence and various note types. But this intelligence made things complicated. It was impossible to change a note from one type to another, such as from a book type to a note type, or vice versa. Sometimes, things would be added as the wrong type, which meant having to re-add the note to pick the right type.

Evernote keeps things simple. A single note can contain any kind of information, formatted in many ways. A note can have an assigned URL, contain a photo or contact information, or almost anything that I wanted.

5. Evernote was fast, Springpad was slow

Adding or searching for notes on Evernote—web, desktop, or mobile app—is fast, even with a massive catalog of notes. But Springpad always seemed sluggish to me, especially on mobile (Android or iOS). It was common for me to delay a group because Springpad was working slowly to add my notes.

6. Evernote worked all the time, Springpad worked most of the time

Springpad could sometimes correctly recognize products from their covers or barcodes, and then enter the title automatically. This was great, but it worked only about half of the time. I actually had a progression of backup methods for adding things—scan the barcode; if that didn't work, then search for the product; if that didn't work, add the product manually.

Evernote simplifies this and just works. Although I wouldn't get the luxury of scanning barcodes and automatically entering text, Evernote could take a picture and make the text in that picture searchable—even for handwriting!

If you need to organize and remember stuff, try Evernote!

I like to describe Evernote as a blank canvas. You can create whatever “art” of information you want—plain text, bookmarks, photos, files. You can now attach reminders to any of these.

Evernote has a lot to offer, so try it today! If you find it really useful, as I did, upgrade to get more storage, security, and more.