Last month we interviewed Apple Distinguished Educator, musician, and music teacher Shirantha Beddage (website) (Twitter) on Mac Power Users. Shirantha has released three jazz albums and is an excellent candidate for a Jazz Friday post here at MacSparky. Besides that, Shirantha’s enthusiasm for his music, his students, and using technology is infections. So Shirantha, show us your home screen.

What are some of your favorite apps? 

Oh, so many! On iPhone 7, I’m most frequently using Calendar, Maps (love the Apple Watch integration here!), Podcasts and Scanner Pro. Calendar and Maps are great for their clean interfaces and Watch integration. Scanner Pro has become an invaluable asset for capturing receipts on the go. As a small business owner (ie. musician), organization has always been a big challenge for me. I love the “workflow creator” in Scanner Pro, which helps me to capture my receipts as PDFs and send them into a Dropbox folder. These PDFs are then moved by Hazel into a Taxes folder on my home NAS server, which allows me to have everything in one place during tax season. Tempo Advance is my go-to metronome in a pinch, whether I’m dealing with simple music or complex polyrhythms. And I’m always firing up the Podcasts app, to stay up on my U.S. politics, true crime, and of course Mac Power Users. 

I use my 12.9’’ iPad Pro for teaching and practicing exclusively. I don’t have email or calendars set up on it, as this device was provided by my school. For teaching, GoodNotes has become my PowerPoint replacement for classroom presentations. The handwriting recognition is remarkable, and the TV-out features help to eliminate distractions on-screen.  For practicing, I use ForScore quite often. It’s a great all-in-one tool for reading PDF sheet music. I’ve been using it on live gigs as well, in situations where I’m more comfortable with my own mark-ups on the scores than the blank printed copies provided by the bandleader. 

Which app is your guilty pleasure? 

At the moment, I’m having a lot of fun with Clips. It’s great on my 12.9’’ iPad Pro. This past summer, my Apple Distinguished Educator colleagues showed me how to use Instagram filters, so I’ve been playing around with those a bit, too. In case you’re wondering, I look great as a koala bear.

What app makes you most productive? 

OmniFocus is the big winner here. On iPhone I use it for reference, or for inputting tasks via Siri, but I do the heavy lifting on my Mac. AirMail takes a close second prize. I love the snoozes, delayed replies, and integrations with other apps. AirMail helps me to stay fairly close to the coveted “zero inbox” (sweet bliss!).

What app do you know you’re underutilizing? 

The Camera app. Probably Workflow, too.

What is the app you are still missing? 

I’m not sure I have a desire for any new apps at this point; I’m mostly thankful for the tools I have, and I’m trying to use them as best as I can. On the other hand, if there’s an app that could do the dishes…

How many times a day do you use your iPhone/iPad? 

I limit my iPad Pro to teaching and music practice, so my use varies from day to day.  My iPhone is most frequently used as an music / podcast player, and I try to limit my use of e-mail apps to 2-3 times daily. Even then, I try to do most of my e-mailing on my Mac, because of the screen real estate, TextExpander snippets, etc.  My texts and phone calls are usually handled on my Apple Watch. I check in with social media, briefly, once a day, maybe twice on my phone.

By nature, I think I’m an easily distracted person, so I have to constantly take steps to cultivate my focus in order to stay present in many facets of my life. The iPhone is a both a blessing and a curse for productivity, so I try and use it only as often as I need to. I turn off most notifications on my devices, and I take pleasure in powering down my phone or using Do Not Disturb mode when I can. I encourage my students to do the same, unless it’s absolutely necessary. 

What Today View widgets are you using and why? 

Calendar, Weather, OmniFocus, and Workflow, though I don’t use the Today view very much at all. 3D Touch seems to cover me most of the time.  

What is your favorite feature of the iPhone/iPad? 

Apple’s stance on privacy. The iPhone and iPad provide a great mix of utility and usability, while protecting the privacy of the customer. I realize that it must be an enormous challenge to tread this fine line, especially since privacy and security issues are evolving at such a rapid pace. 

If you were in charge at Apple, what would you add or change? 

I have no complaints whatsoever, and I’m excited to see the new surprises that Apple has in store for us in the coming months and years, but I’m the kind of person that enjoys “diving in” and spending the time to learn new technologies as they evolve. I’m also aware that not everyone feels the same way.  

Do you have an Apple Watch? Show us your watch face tell us about it. 

Yes! I use the Apple Watch more as a productivity / reminder aid than as an activity tracker. For that reason, I really like the Utility face on busy days; I can see the date, my next event, weather, Drafts, and Omnifocus. When I’m not so busy, I flip over to Timelapse face to avoid information overload. 

What’s your wallpaper and why? 

Stock images mostly. I like simple wallpapers with minimal busyness.  Sand, calm waters, mountains, that sort of thing. Less distracting.  

Anything else you’d like to share? 

This was fun. Thank you!

Thank you Shirantha. Keep the jazz coming.

Gabe Weatherhead, author of the MacDrifter Blog, is one of my favorite writers on the Internet. He’s thoughtful and wicked-smart. Visiting Gabe’s website, you’re not only likely to find some bit of technology magic, you also may learn just a little more about Kurt Vonnegut. In addition to all of that, as a kid Gabe was an absolute badass. I remember that shirt. I wore mine out. Anyway … Gabe, show us your home screen.

What are some of your favorite apps?

Well, I guess every app on my home screen earned that place so by that logic they are all my favorites. But if you want to know what apps I enjoy using the most, I’d say MyScript Nebo is the one that makes me feel like technology is catching up to my childhood dreams. The handwriting recognition is a small miracle. In that same vein, I really like sketching with Linea Sketch. It’s so close to writing on paper but with the feel of a whiteboard. I think visually and sometimes it helps to just doodle and draw some lines. Linea works well for that. It’s not as advanced as an app like like Procreate. or Tayasui Sketches but sometimes all of those extra tools are just cruft in the way of thinking.

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Which app is your guilty pleasure?

I guess Slack since it’s mostly just for chit-chatting and memes. I don’t really feel guilty about it because my primary Slack group is a bunch of super smart people that are also pretty helpful.

I’m not really an iOS gamer. I enjoy Monument Valley but usually, iOS games leave me feeling uninterested after about 20 minutes. Strangely, I enjoy Wikipanion Plus for iPad with the Adventure Time, Wookiepedia, and Simpsons Wikias. I can spend an hour reading random pages.

Second to that would be my strange fascination with learning new knots using the Animated Knots by Grog HD or Knots 3D apps.

What app makes you most productive?

By design it’s OmniFocus, because that’s where I manage my project and task list. But, I really spend a ton of time in DEVONthink To Go. That’s where I keep pretty much every piece of information I might need for a task. The search performance is fantastic and it has one of the best share sheets for capturing from other apps. I know iOS 11 is bringing a new file manager, but I’m not sure if they can beat what I get with DEVONthink meta data and search.

What app do you know you’re underutilizing?

Without a doubt, I could get more out of iThoughts if I really forced myself to use it the right way. Every time I noodle around in iThoughts I find something new or something I forgot it could do. It’s a pretty snazzy research tool but I always forget to start in iThoughts, which is the best way to capture with the app. There are so many excellent apps for iOS that it’s hard to keep to just one workflow and really learn it in depth and build routines. But there are dividends when I focus on one application and disregard existing habits.

What is the app you are still missing?

Call Recorder for podcasting. That’s not very relevant for most people but the sandboxing and lack of true multi-tasking prevents the iOS platform from doing some things I love on the Mac. Apps like Little Snitch, Keyboard Maestro, and Hazel are among my favorite applications on the Mac and they aren’t just missing on iOS, they are impossible. I also can’t say that I want Apple to open up iOS like the Mac, either. It’s the sandbox on iOS that makes it so safe. But, there are a lot of smart people at Apple. I like to think that this is a problem with a technical solution that doesn’t depend on share sheets and switching apps.

How many times a day do you use your iPhone/iPad?

There are about 1,000 waking minutes in my average day. So let’s say about 1,000 times.

What Today View widgets are you using and why?

I like the Crisp Weather Widget and more recently CARROT Weather to keep up with the nutty weather in New England. Then there’s OmniFocus 2 and Fantastical 2 for iPhone for quick access to my agenda and task list.

I use the Copied widget a lot since that’s the closest thing to a mult-clipboard on iOS. I just pull down and activate the widget to keep gathering items into the Copied stack. Later, I can get to everything from any of my Apple devices.

I also really appreciate the Drafts! widget for its dictation option. I use that far more on my iPhone than on my iPad though. I probably use that feature once a day, just to take down a quick thought. I even dump some half-considered tasks in Drafts to avoid cluttering OmniFocus with things I haven’t thought through.

The Workflow widget is nice but I’ll be honest, I don’t want to depend on Workflow too much. I don’t think it will be around that long and there are so many routines that I had that were unrealistic without Workflow. It felt like dangerous territory to depend on one app that’s now owned (and barely updated) by Apple. I still use Workflow, but I’m trying not to build new dependencies on the App until I see Apple move it forward and make it an equal iOS citizen with Mail, Safari, and Calendar. If it remains as important as Clips then I don’t have confidence in its future.

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What is your favorite feature of the iPhone/iPad?

My single favorite feature is portability. I know I should say that the limitations make me more focused, but that’s not as true anymore. If I had true multi-tasking like on the Mac, I’d be more productive on iOS. But what wins the day is how easy it is to pick up my iPhone and just get something done. Easy in and easy out.

If you were in charge at Apple, what would you add or change?

iOS 11 is on the right track, but they need to rethink how sandboxing works. I think it’s time to rebalance the safety controls with the modern needs of a computing device. As I mentioned above, most of what the iPad can not do is related to the guard-rails Apple has against inter-app communication and system level access. I don’t claim to be as smart as a team of Apple engineers. Those are some smart cookies. But they are working with user requirements that are nearly a decade old now. I bet that if they really focused on the problem that they could come up with a way to allow a user to exercise their own control and accept the risks of those decisions, without endangering the device or the network.

Do you have an Apple Watch?

I wear an Apple Watch almost every day. I bet I’m not like a lot of daily users though. I wear it like I do a pocket knife. I have it with me because it’s nice in a few circumstances but most of the time I don’t need it. If I lost it, I probably wouldn’t replace it until the next revision.

I have two primary faces:

1. The daily face that’s pretty ugly but really functional
2. The distraction-free face that’s good for movies, bedtime, and when I don’t want to think about the outside world

What’s your wallpaper and why?

On my iPhone, I use the app WLPPR which has some terrific looking satellite images to use as wallpaper. Unfortunately, it hasn’t been updated since 2016 and doesn’t support the iPad.

I highly recommend two David Lanham collections available for sale. There’s a collection of over 100 cartoons that I love so much I have a few framed. His photography bundle is also fantastic.

Anything else you’d like to share?

I’ve considered myself a “Mac guy” for a very long time. Since the latest iPad Pro was released, I’ve tried to go iPad-only. It’s mostly been a success but when there are edge cases on iOS, they are pretty hard edges. No automation on iOS comes close to what can be done on the Mac. A lot of what I need to do is completely possible on iOS. Some of it is even easier with a dedicated app. This notion that there’s a competition between an iPad and MacBook is unreasonable. The iPad is not a Mac replacement for someone like me and it often requires ten times more work to get something done. My Mac is nowhere near as convenient and ever-ready as my iPad or iPhone. I wrote all of these words in Drafts on my iPad because it’s pretty handy. That doesn’t mean I don’t also love my Mac. They are two different things in my world but I use my iPad a heck of a lot more than my Mac.

Thanks Gabe!

This week I’ll be up in San Jose speaking at the CMD-D: Masters of Automation conference. The reason this remarkable conference is happening at all is because of the hard work of Sal Soghoian (website), former head of automation at Apple. The conference is all about automating the Mac and iOS and tickets are still available. Now that Sal is no longer with the giant fruit company, I asked him to share his home screen and he agreed. So Sal, show us your home screen.

First, Sal’s Thoughts on Privacy

I should probably preface my answers by stating that my view of cell-phones is a little “outside of average.” I am quite aware that cell phones are potential personal tracking devices to be used carefully, maybe a little apprehensively, for the convenience of communication. That means, I don’t use Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, video streams, etc. So my answers probably seem very “tinfoil“ — LOL! 

Generally, I try to avoid using the phone except for necessary encrypted conversation or messaging. My ideal phone setup would be one that could be erased at any time, with a minimum of resulting hassle. (Still working on keeping email off the phone.) I also carry a Faraday pouch for when I enter stores or public places where customer tracking of phones is an accepted practice.

That said, even though my phone setup is quite customized for my particular view of how the technology should serve me, I think the phone and watch are an amazing communications duo. 

What are some of your favorite apps?

“The Essentials:” ExpressVPN, Signal, Workflow, and NOAA Radar. Using Signal for messaging and ExpressVPN together is like “wearing clothes.” Fast, secure, and as easy as throwing on jeans and a shirt; why would anyone run around naked? Workflow eliminates much of the one-finger-tap-at-a-time business. NOAA Radar is info packed and very cool.

Which app is your guilty pleasure?

Solitaire. Playing solitaire is calming, focused and rewarding. The one I picked is from MobilityWare. 

My wife sometimes looks at me and doesn’t say it, but I know she’s thinking, “hey, instead of sitting there putting those cards away, how about your socks?” So, it really is a guilty pleasure. But I deserve it.

What app makes you most productive?

My particular view of how the technology should serve me includes the phone and watch in the roles of ‘an amazing communications duo.’ Thus, my use of the phone is all about communication, which makes productivity on the phone all about Signal.

What app do you know you’re underutilizing?

Generally, the apps I have on the phone suit my purposes for the device. Since my phone is a 5SE with the smallest screen Apple sells, my essential productivity apps, like OmniGraffle and OmniOutliner live on my Mac and iPad Pro.

What is the app you are still missing?

Not sure, I pretty happy with my setup.

How many times a day do you use your iPhone/iPad?

If you count reading news, then all the time. First thing in the morning I read the local paper in the way it lands on my driveway. By the middle of breakfast, I’ve moved over to the NYTimes and Washington Post on the phone, until the first phone call comes in. And so it goes…

What Today View widgets are you using and why?

I don’t use widgets, Siri, or use the phone for scheduling purposes. I do get banking notifications. It’s another example of aligning the technology for communications, in this case from the bank.

What is your favorite feature of the iPhone/iPad?

Apple’s dedication to securing customers’ personal information. By far, the trust placed in Apple to secure personal information means more than money. Thankfully, Apple shares the belief, and Tim Cook beautifully stated it as “Privacy is a fundamental human right.”

If you were in charge at Apple, what would you add or change?

Two things:

1) Add a “panic print” — a designated fingerprint that would erase the device immediately upon contact — no confirmation required.

2) Implement a system-wide user-automation scripting language similar to AppleScript on macOS. Magic ensues!

What’s on Your Apple Watch?

My Apple Watch has no 3rd-party apps or complications and is set to Micky Mouse. The watch’s main function is to alert me to messages and incoming Signal sessions.

What’s your wallpaper and why?

A picture of myself so that it is easy to identify which phone in the house is mine.

Anything else you’d like to share?

Thank you for being such a great friend of the Apple Automation community!

My Pleasure. Thanks Sal!

I love meeting new and interesting geeks. One such person is my friend Bill Willkins. Bill Started out a “farm boy” in from Durham North Carolina but eventually found his way to England and now Switzerland. Bill’s now 75 but still works as a European Outdoor Industry Consultant. I can only hope I’m as much a geek at 75 as Bill is.

So Bill, show us your home screen.

What are some of your favorite apps?

I still find Apple’s native contacts app as the most useful. No other contacts app comes close. I have Fantastical on every device and MacBook. Excellent.

While I’m using 1Password, I’m also testing out other password managers. Apple Notes & Reminders are run as a team on the home screen of my iPhone & iPad.

Which app is your guilty pleasure?

My iPhone is my app resource. I have at least 200 apps archived on my iPhone. I review them monthly. I have to start deleting some. I emphasize I don’t use them all but review them monthly.

What app makes you most productive? 

OmniFocus without doubt.

What app do you know you’re underutilizing?

Most likely, OmniFocus.

What is the app you are still missing?

I am not missing anything. The problem is the reverse. Too many.

How many times a day do you use your iPhone/iPad?

It is the first thing in the morning and the last thing at night.

My iPhone is my most used Apple device. I can see the day coming when I move to a large iPad. This is mainly due to the ease of updates.

What is your favorite feature of the iPhone/iPad?

I can use them everywhere. I also like the ease of updates and the relative economy and/or price of apps. (The other side is I buy too many.)

If you were in charge at Apple, what would you add or change?

I would not take the job even if it were offered.

There was a famous saying. You can please some of the people part of the people some of the time and a few of the people all of the time but you cannot please all of the people all of the time. 

What’s your wallpaper and why?

My wall paper is a plain black background. I do not want any distractions.

Thanks Bill!

This week’s home screen features Bob “Dr. Mac” Levitus. (Twitter) (Website) Bob is a prolific technology writer and one of my favorite members of the old Macworld Allstar Band. Bob has recently written his very first self published book, Working Smarter for Mac Users. I’m so pleased to see Bob doing his own thing. So Bob, show us your home screen.

What are some of your favorite apps?

Ulysses , Final Cut Pro , Logic Pro , Words with Friends

Which app is your guilty pleasure?

Real Racing 3 (with nearly 200 hours of guilt).

What app makes you most productive?

A Pomodoro timer.

What app do you know you’re underutilizing?

Photoshop.

How many times a day do you use your iPhone/iPad?

Too many to count.

What Today View widgets are you using and why?

Dark Sky (hyper local weather), Workflow (shortcuts and macros), Launcher (shortcuts)

What is your favorite feature of the iPhone/iPad?

Voice control and Siri (especially with Apple Music)

If you were in charge at Apple, what would you add or change?

Go back to selling Macs with user-upgradeable RAM and storage.

Do you have an Apple Watch? Show us your watch face tell us about it.

Yes, and I use the Simple face for its retro good looks and subtle elegance.

What’s your wallpaper and why?

“Welcome to Macintosh.” The “why” should be obvious: I like retro.

Anything else you’d like to share?

My mission is to show you how to use your Mac better, faster, and more elegantly; how to banish procrastination forever; and how to do more work in less time so you have more time for things you love.

My first self-published book—Working Smarter for Mac Users—ships on March 3 and I invite you to check it out or sign up for my weekly newsletter packed with productivity tips right here .

Thanks Bob.

This week’s home screen post features Robert Black (Website)(Twitter). Robert is a strategic cartoonist (bringing a bit of humor to corporate communications). Robert is also a geek and loves his iPhone. So Robert, show us your home screen.

What are some of your favorite apps?

When I originally studied engineering, we all had the classic engineer’s calculator, the HP15C, which used something called Reverse Polish Notation. RPN is kind of like the calculator equivalent of a Dvorak keyboard on a computer – much more efficient for difficult calculations, but as mind-bending to learn and use as it’s name suggests.

So although these days I don’t need a calculator nearly so much, and actually have the official HP15C emulator app stowed away in a folder on my phone for nostalgia, Soulver is the calculator that makes me grin from ear to ear every time I need to work out something simple or complex. I love it — it’s a brilliant rethink of how to make a calculator easy and useful!

On occasions when I have to make emergency changes or tweaks to my website from my iPhone, the combination of Textastic (code/html editing), Working Copy (a full, elegant Git client on a phone that integrates with Textastic!) and Prompt (the SSH client from Panic) is magic. It’s one of those moments when I have to pinch myself, that I’m actually doing what I’m doing from my phone.

Which app is your guilty pleasure?

Not Facebook! It would be Reeder. I’m an information omnivore, and I love gathering interesting articles from around the web by following the RSS feeds of clever people who’s instincts I trust.

What app makes you most productive?

I’m not sure I’d describe my time on the phone as productive. I don’t spend a lot of time on it, but if I have to pick something, I guess I’ll be boring and say Mail — it’s boring, but true.

Hey Siri on my Apple Watch has taken over an important function that I used to use the iPhone for — capturing task thoughts to my inbox as they occur to me, GTD style. But I do still use Drafts for capturing a cartoon idea if one pops into my head half-formed — I love the way Drafts greases the path to capturing first, and working out what to do with that text afterwards, which in my case is an action that appends the string to a text file of captured ideas that’s kept in Dropbox.

What app do you know you’re underutilizing?

I don’t use a 100th of the power of the text editor Editorial — it’s my iOS tool of choice for the text, Markdown and Taskpaper files that live in nvALT on my Macs. (I also have Ulysses and Scrivener, but the problem I have is that I just don’t write enough to make use of these fine tools. I spend my days drawing rather than crafting words. Well… strings of words longer than a cartoon caption, which does take some crafting!)

And FileMaker Go – I mean, I practically live in FileMaker Pro Advanced on my Macs, and it’s a literal miracle that you can design a custom app for your iPhone in FileMaker Pro and download it to FileMaker Go and have a fully-functional iPhone “app” that you put together yourself without writing a line of code, and yet, I personally haven’t found really compelling uses for FM Go on my phone’s small screen. But it boggles my mind that the whole FileMaker suite of products for small business are mentioned so seldom — they’re game-changing, and most people have never heard of them. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

What is the app you are still missing?

The full Adobe Illustrator… on a phone? I mean, I know there’s Adobe Draw for iOS, but it’s not the same thing. Hey, a guy’s gotta dream!

How many times a day do you use your iPhone?

That’s a good question. I suspect the only way to know for sure would be to film me surreptitiously, but if I were to hazard a guess, I’d say somewhere between 10 and 20 times.

What Today View widgets are you using and why?

Fantastical – well duh! Time Zones, because I publish stuff in multiple time-zones every week and stay up half the night to see what the reaction on the other side of the world is. And Weatherline, because I prefer its presentation of data.

What is your favorite feature of the iPhone?

The camera! I’m taking snaps of sketches or things for reference ALL. THE. TIME. Closely followed by Touch ID (magic!) and Air Drop (grumble not 100% reliable grumble)

If you were in charge at Apple, what would you add or change?

Phew! That’s a tricky one. The first thing that comes to mind is a renewed focus on coding quality around edge-cases, but I’m prepared to give them a pass on that for now… I suspect that the massive new Apple Campus 2 has been consuming a lot of their time to get perfect, because that’s going to pay and repay dividends to the future of Apple if they achieve the lofty goals they’ve set for it.

So instead I’ll say DON’T DROP THE BALL with APPLESCRIPT on the Mac!!! The scriptability of applications on the Mac is probably my most cherished platform feature, so the recent ructions with the sudden departure of Sal Soghoian worry me greatly for the future of the platform I depend on!

I mean it Apple (finger wagging wildly)

Do you have an Apple Watch? Show us your watch face tell us about it.

I have a Series 1 Apple Watch. On the face I use the Modular face, mainly to get the best use of complications. Front and center I have Fantastical’s complication, followed by Streaks in the lower left (hmmm, must up my effort to instill good habits today!).

Lower middle is Workflow’s widget, which currently has 5 workflows that can turn on and off our big TV, various living room lights and our Big Ass Fans Haiku. These Workflow workflows call urls from my watch, triggering Keyboard Maestro macros hosted on a Mac Mini sitting under the TV (also acting as our PVR), which make AppleScript calls to wither EyeTV or iRed 2, which in turn controls an IRTrans USB infrared transceiver to control the TV, fan, and lights.

Just for fun 🙂

Normally all the home automation stuff is triggered via an older Logitech Harmony Companion Universal RF remote control, which channels everything via Remote Buddy to Keyboard Maestro, which acts as the nerve-center for scripting all these moving parts.

What’s your wallpaper and why?

Stars – no particular reason.

Anything else you’d like to share?

I’ve probably said enough already!

Thanks Robert.

Dan Fenner pays for his shoes as a data specialist. At night, he teaches English to adult immigrants. Dan is pretty passionate about travel and blogs about it at MuchoSpanish.com. Throughout it all, Dan’s relies on his trusty iPhone and iPad. He even uses his iPad as his primary computer. So Dan, show us your home screen.

What are some of your favorite apps?

iPhone: 

Overcast Podcast Player, Audible, Music, OperaVPN, Kindle.

iPad:

Pixelmator and Procreate: I use these for my Instagram images. I bought Pixelmator the day it came out. I just started using Procreate, since I just bought my Baby Pro in October 2016.

PDF Expert: This is my main PDF annotation app, mostly because of its Focus presentation feature. When I trace a box around a section of a document, everything outside the box darkens about 50%, which helps the focus on exactly the part I want them, too. Settings says PDF Expert is using 3.9 GBS of iCloud space.

Coda: I can make CSS changes to different websites that I run. I also like using Coda as my FTP app. I even designed a custom WordPress them in Coda.

Pages: I can design the lessons for my night class very easily and they look great.

Which app is your guilty pleasure?

I love spending time in Instagram and YouTube. Sometimes I search photos from places we’ll be traveling to.

What app makes you most productive?

Notes, since I can refer to it for everything in my life, especially now that we can lock them. I store SFTP info and website security questions, I keep to do lists here because I can write notes about the to-do item or take a photo and add it to the note, allowing me to get my head back into the task much more quickly. I love that I can use Siri to remind me about Notes.

What is the app you are still missing?

I don’t feel I’m missing out on any Mac apps, but I wish a lot of these iPad apps were more-fully functional.

How many times a day do you use your iPhone/iPad?

I’m on my iPad all day long. My iPad is now my main computer at work. I love it because it’s so light and portable. I can put it down anywhere and start getting some work done.

What Today View widgets are you using and why?

Outlook (there are some work emails and meetings I can’t miss), Maps Destinations (so easy to get the best route to/from work), Calendar. I’ve also found that Siri App Suggestions has become very good at know what I want at specific times of the day.

What is your favorite feature of the iPad?

My favorite feature is the Pencil.

If you were in charge at Apple, what would you add or change?

I would focus on making the iPad a more productive device. Split screen and keyboard shortcuts were a great addition. I look forward to seeing new productivity features this spring.

What’s your wallpaper and why?

Currently, I have an artistic rendition of my beautiful wife that I created on my iPad Pro with Apple Pencil.

Thanks Dan.

Rishabh R. Dassani (Twitter) is a creative nonfiction writer and a management consultant at Dazné. He writes short essays on personal effectiveness for design and business leaders. You can find them at right here and also sign up for his weekly Newsflash. So Rishabh, show us your home screen.

What are some of your favorite apps?

I have used most of these apps for many years now. I find them indispensable in getting work done. Please note they may not all be available on the App Store as some of them are quite old and sport older UI.

• Things (App Store)(Website): is a list manager that I find fast and a pleasure to use. I have found its Sync feature second to none.
• Tweetbot (App Store)(Website): Although I have used the newer version, I find myself coming back to the older version (3.6.3).
• Simplenote (App Store)(Website): I use it with Notational Velocity on the Mac to keep small snippets of text for quick access between my Mac and iPhone.
• Ninjawords (Website): Super fast dictionary. Sadly, the app is no longer available. But they have a website that you can use to look up words quickly. You can even add it to your iOS home screen.
• Articles (App Store) (Website): is my Wikipedia app of choice. It has remained without update since 2013, though that hasn’t deterred me from using it.
• Due (App Store)(Website): I use it for time-sensitive reminders. Great app.
• Dialvetica (App Store)(Website): I use it for dialing contacts quickly. It has remained in my Dock for years.
• Fantastical (App Store)(Website) is great for quickly adding calendar events. Also, the week view is great in landscape orientation.
• Evernote Scannable (App Store)(Website) works great for scanning documents quickly.
• Overcast (App Store)(Website) is my podcast app of choice, though it is far from perfect.
• Letterboxd (App Store)(Website) is great for keeping track of films watched.
• Deliveries (App Store)(Website) app is an old favorite for keeping track of shipments.
• Cloak (App Store)(Website) is great for keeping yourself (and your data) safe using VPN.
• Fast (Website): Not really an app but you can add it to your iOS home screen. It shows you the download speed of your internet connection.
• Productive (App Store)(Website) for keeping track of new habits.
• 1Password (App Store)(Website) for managing my passwords and credit cards.
• Find Friends (Website): I use it for keeping track of my family members for emergency/safety reasons.

Which app is your guilty pleasure?

YouTube. (Website) I spend way more time with it than I should. Tweetbot and Instagram are a distant second.

What app makes you most productive? 

Things on the iPhone (App Store)(Website) works great for me to capture items on the go. Later I use Things on the Mac (2.2.6) to process them.

What app do you know you’re underutilizing?

Drafts. (App Store)(Website) I only use it for a handful of things right now, though I know it can a lot more.

What is the app you are still missing?

I want my Apple Watch to track my sleep automatically. There are apps out there that let you do that but you have to turn them on/off manually.

More than an app, the feature I most want in my Apple devices is Proaction. I want these devices to learn from my use patterns. For instance, it knows that when I am at home, I turn off the Cellular Data (and turn on wifi), and when I am away, I turn on the Cellular Data (and turn off wifi). It would be great if it learns from you without you having to do it every time.

How many times a day do you use your iPhone?

I use my iPhone a few times (10+) during the day. I am trying to cut it down.

What Today View widgets are you using and why?

• Fantastical (App Store)(Website) for viewing today’s calendar.
• Battery widget (iPhone and Watch).
• PCalc (App Store)(Website) for doing quick calculations.
• Activity for keeping track of Move, Stand, Exercise.
• Shazam (App Store) for quickly identifying music I come across.

What is your favorite feature of the iPhone?

3D Touch: I use it all the time on my most-used apps. For instance, I use this feature with the Phone app to turn on/off Cellular Data and to put phone in Low Power Mode quickly.

If you were in charge at Apple, what would you add or change?

I would have longer cycles (more than a couple of years) between hardware and software releases.

I would also make the new macOS more mac like. One of the reasons I haven’t upgraded to the newest OS is because I found its UI to be less pleasing to the eye. I also find the older iTunes 10 better. I am happily using Mountain Lion (10.8.4).

Show us your watch face.

I use the Modular watch face most of the time as it can have as many as 5 complications. The complications I use are Activity, Timer, Day and Date, Time, and Calendar. I also use a Utility watch face with the same complications. Although, there are now third-party complications available, these are the ones I have found to be essential.

What’s your wallpaper and why?

I use wallpapers from a collection called Focus Backgrounds (no longer available) designed by my friend, Joe Darnell. I have been using them on my Mac (10.8.4) and iPhone (iOS 10) for quite some time.

Anything else you’d like to share?

I am excited to share that earlier this week I put out my 100th piece for my weblog. Please have a look at the Archive page to see what tickles your fancy. And if you like something, please share it with others.

Thanks Rishabh.

Zack Blum (Website)(Twitter) is a clever guy that runs Fleetsmith, a company that helps folks manage fleets of Macs. Zack is also serious about his iPhone. So Zack, show us your home screen.

What are some of your favorite apps?

A few of my favorite apps are:

1Writer

My notes app. It keeps my plain text notes synchronized on all my iOS devices and my Macs via Dropbox. It’s also how I keep track of my work, brainstorming, and ideas, so I can access and edit while on the go.

Citymapper

My public transit app. There’s something comforting about having the same, simple interface at home and while traveling!

Dark Sky

My weather app. Knowing when rain is coming in advance is a sixth sense.

Overcast

My podcast app. Features like Smart Speed and Voice Boost are game changers. I listen to podcasts like SaaStr and the Google Cloud Platform Podcast to stay in the loop.

Unread

My RSS app. I’ve tried them all and Unread nails the quick skim and the deep dive.

Which app is your guilty pleasure?

Snapchat. It has allowed me to connect with an entirely new generation, which has been eye opening. I’m older than most Snapchat users, so I had a few late teens/early 20s family members show me how they use it. I feel like I’m getting an authentic view into their lives for the first time. Social, visual storytelling has never been so frictionless.

What app makes you most productive?

Slack. Aside from the chat component, which is beautifully executed, the breadth and depth of integrations means information from other SaaS (and some non-SaaS) products we use at Fleetsmith is consumable by Slack. 

Data like Fleetsmith customer support tickets, payment information, news, and other data gets to me instantly. I don’t have ask my team for recaps because I’m updated in real-time—as if I were in the office, or if I were to check each integration source individually.

What app do you know you’re underutilizing?

Photos and Camera. The latest Photos release feels closer than ever to something that aligns with my photos consumption workflow. The Memories, People, and Places albums are great for automatic organization. As far as the camera, I’m an enthusiastic (but still very much amateur) photographer, so there’s a lot more I could be doing to take better shots. Third party camera app recommendations anyone?

What is your favorite feature of iOS

Stability and security are a killer combination. With iOS, Apple delivered both in spades. 

I also love that Apple innovates most around their devices’ unique human interface experiences. It makes each platform feel special while maintaining enough coherence ”whether you’re using macOS on a Macbook, iOS on an iPhone, or watchOS on an Apple Watch” to make them feel warm and familiar. 

Do you have an Apple Watch? Show us your watch face tell us about it.

I do and I love it! I’m actually new to Apple Watch: my first one’s a 42mm Series 2, Space Gray Aluminum Case with Black Sport Band arrived couple weeks ago. I regularly rotate between three watch faces: Activity Analog, Modular, and Solar.

Activity Analog is my standard daytime watch face. It keeps me motivated to get up from my computer and move around. Paired with the battery, Dark Sky, and heart rate complication, I get a little more information on the watch, the weather, and how serious of a workout I’m actually getting.

The Modular face is my travel watch face. It shows me local time in the upper right, any alarms I’ve set in the upper left, the date in the middle, and the current times in San Francisco, New York, and UTC at the bottom.

The Solar face is my calm, evening watch face. It’s mostly black, with the date, time, and sun position. I’d venture so far as to call it relaxing!

Anything else you’d like to share?

I just launched a new Mac-focused company, Fleetsmith! My co-founders and I wanted to build something that made managing Macs as easy as setting up G Suite. Fleetsmith empowers anyone who manages Macs—IT, ops, security, office managers, and more—to manage an entire fleet easily, quickly, and securely. 

It also automatically manages apps, settings, and security preferences across a Mac fleet, and offers fleet-wide upgrades to macOS Sierra with one click. You can find out more and try it for free at fleetsmith.com.

We’re in beta, so we’d love to hear your thoughts and feedback!

Thanks Zack. Good luck!

Lately I’ve struck up an email friendship with Todd Peterson, the Director of Project-Based Learning and Professor of English at Southern Utah University. Not surprisingly, Todd is an articulate guy and pretty passionate about his new iPhone 7. Thankfully, he’s agreed to share his home screen with us. So Todd, show us your home screen.

What are some of your favorite apps?

Flic

This app helps me review and delete pictures I don’t want to keep. It’s step one of my developing photo organization workflow. My old process was untenable. This app gets me going in the right direction.

Scannable

Evernote is my digital filing cabinet. I love the OCR, searchability, and relational algorithms in it. Evernote helps me find cool associations in the menagerie of things I capture and store. Because of iPhone scanning, I now keep a large piece of black poster board by my desk, which makes a great contrasting background for auto-edge detection.

Drafts

This is my workhorse application. It’s helped me eliminate the stacks of scraps paper. The prepend and append functions are amazing. When I’m waiting for a meeting (or bored in one) I will process captured bits of text. It’s very satisfying to have all that material in the cloud and findable. 

Ulysses

I love this application. I’m currently revising a novel for an agent using this application. The sync is spot on, and the iPhone 7 Plus is big enough, I’ve found I can actually write and edit a little on it in a pinch.

Which app is your guilty pleasure?

Instagram. I’ve been working on curating a pretty good list of friends and strangers. I love peeking into their lives and seeing various bits of the world throughout the day. I also love to capture my own moments (a lot of my kids) and post them. My wife and high school-age-daughter are both on Instagram and they say the photographs really capture our family. It’s a delightful, politics-free way to interact with others.

What app makes you most productive? 

Slack. There are so many reasons why this has been a break through for me as a college professor. I can’t even start into it, or this post would be 10,000 words long.

What app do you know you’re underutilizing?

OmniFocus. It’s such an important application for me, and I know I’m only using about 30% of it. I could do so much more with time estimates, views, perspectives, and geofencing. I need to take a day with the Mac Sparky OmniFocus Field Guide and play around.

What is the app you are still missing?

Drafts for desktop. Drafts has so fundamentally changed my idea of how to capture and process ideas, that I feel shackled on a desktop. When an idea hits while I’m working on my MacBook Pro, I’ll often go to my phone to capture and process it.

How many times a day do you use your iPhone/iPad?

Since I have Apple Watch, my iPhone use has gone down. I’ve filtered and sorted notifications so I can focus. As a college professor, a lot of my work is headdown thinking, reading, writing, planning, and grading. Distractions kill my momentum. I’ve also recently pulled all social media apps from my iPhone except Instagram, so I’ve only got my head in my phone a couple of times an hour. Before these changes, it was ridiculous with how often I checked my phone.

What Today View widgets are you using and why?

Up Next

I’m always forgetting about meetings I’ve scheduled. It was worse when other people were scheduling for me. It’s better, actually, now that I schedule myself, but I need to keep those promises right up in front.

Kindle

I have so many books in the cloud, this widget reminds me of what I’m currently reading, and I love how it shows progress. Instead of grazing social media when I have a spare moment, I swipe into notifications, tap, and read. 

Dark Sky

I love this app so much, and I like being able to quickly tell my kids why they can’t leave the house without a jacket even though it seems fine right now.

Stocard

My key ring was getting shaggy with all those dumb-but-necessary bar code cards. I’ve moved them to Stocard, and I love that they are available right off the lock screen. There’s a watch app, but it’s too many taps.

What is your favorite feature of the iPhone/iPad?

I really like the “hard press.” In my mind, I’m always begging developers to reduce the number of steps to do something. Drafts is the pinnacle of this for me: tap, write, tap, and it’s done. On the flip side, playing any music on iTunes is: tap, tap, tap, scroll, tap, play (or worse). Drives me crazy. 

I haven’t had the iPhone 7 Plus for very long, and I’m still finding places where there are hard press opportunities.

In general, though, my favorite feature of the iPhone is the fact that it sits at the core of my workflow. It’s not just part of an ecosystem, or attached to it, like an Android phone would be. I’m not lying when I say the camera qualities of the Google Pixel camera are enticing, but my iPhone is a window into my entire workflow, it’s a dashboard, input device, quick reference and retrieval tool. A Google phone would be outside of all that and would seriously mess with my mojo.

If you were in charge at Apple, what would you add or change?

Bluetooth makes me crazy, especially for audio. I like the idea of it, but in practice I’m forever connecting and disconnecting speakers. I have a nice Tivoli PAL^BT radio that sits on my desk and a Bose SL III in the kitchen. They always seem to tangle each other up. If I could connect and disconnect Bluetooth devices using Siri, then we’d be off to the races.

I would also try to hire Greg Pierce, the man behind Agile Tortoise or the people at Realmac, who make the delightful list-making app, Clear, to dive into the UI of iTunes. I think these people have a good sense for how to reduce friction points in a user interface. Things are a little better for iTunes in iOS 10, but in my opinion iTunes is the least of Apple’s achievements.

Do you have an Apple Watch? Show us your watch face tell us about it.

I love my Apple Watch. Its primary function is to keep me from always checking my phone, and it works. I have the notifications finely tuned, and I only get messages and information that really matter: Slack messages from key people on my team, texts from my wife and kids, emails from my dean. Otherwise, these potential distractions are sequestered in the phone.

I love analog watches, and that was a significant concern for me in going to a smart watch. The hands on a watch or clock are cool because they don’t just tell you what time it is, they also tell you what time it has been and what time it’s going to be. I feel like an analog face always keeps time in context for me.

I have two customized faces.

Regular

Complications: Fantastical, Day/Date, Temp, Activity. All of this is information I check and re-check throughout the day. Having my next calendar item on the watch face has had a very positive effect on my tendency to forget to check appointments.

Travel

Complications: Date, Breathe, United/Delta, World Clock. When I travel I check very trip-specific information, so I’ve built a face that has all of that stuff. It’s based around displaying my destination time using the World Clock, and then my airline’s apps, and the Breathe app, which helps me mellow out in stupid TSA lines.

What’s your wallpaper and why?

A black nylon pattern. I’m really distractable visually, and I like low-clutter minimalistic backgrounds but not a flat tone or color. Given all the visual complexity on a home screen already, adding a picture would be too much. I have a great close up picture of a Batman action figure on my lock screen. It is delightful everytime I see him scowling at me.

Anything else you’d like to share?

The apps are one thing, but how I actually manipulate the phone is a big deal, too. The Loopy Case is a game changer for me. The iPhone 7 Plus tests the reach of my thumb, and I always feel like the thing is going to fly out of my hands. A developer friend of mine put me on to this case. He says he can’t fathom using a iPhone without it, and neither can I.

Thanks Todd.