Sponsor: SaneBox and SaneFwd




This week MacSparky is sponsored by SaneBox, the email service that can start saving your bacon today. Recently SaneBox announced the SaneFwd service. The latest new feature at SaneBox is SaneFwd. It’s an easy way to automate email forwarding to your favorite third-party apps and team members.

With SaneFwd, you can:

• Automatically turning emails into tasks with Any.do and Todoist

• Automatically saving emails and attachments to your Evernote

• Automatically forwarding receipts to Expensify

• Automatically forwarding trip itineraries to Kayak

• Automatically forwarding certain emails to certain friends or colleagues

As an example, let’s say you have a newsletter that you want to automatically save to Evernote. With SaneFwd, you can train SaneBox to keep on the lookout for future newsletters and automatically forward them to your Evernote account. 

The list is growing and SaneBox is working with service providers to make this feature even better. SaneFwd is just one more example of how SaneBox can help manage your email so you can get on with your life. I use SaneBox to sort and defer email. I also use it to check back on people that don’t timely reply. Using SaneBox to power through email almost feels like cheating. Why not sign up for a trial and use this link to get a nice discount off your subscription and let them know you heard about it here. 

The Apple Watch Series 2


I’ve been putting my new Apple Watch Series 2 through its paces and thought it worth checking in on my initial thoughts.

Apple Watch Believer

I bought the original Apple Watch Sport when it first launched and I’ve worn it every day since. A lot of people lost interest in the Apple Watch in the months following its release but I find it quite useful. Every day I use the ability to see my next appointment on my wrist, the whole world of notifications, and the fitness tracking. I’d used smart watches before (like my original Kickstarter Pebble) and for me, the Apple Watch left them all in the dust. 

What I didn’t like about the original Apple Watch was the performance constraints and, in hindsight, the quirky user interface. After getting excited about the changes with watchOS 3 and seeing that Apple added some new features (and performance horsepower) to the Series 2, I decided to upgrade.

The New Watch

While my original Apple Watch was the space gray aluminum, I upgraded with the new watch to Stainless Steel. This was a luxury but since I’ve already been wearing an Apple Watch for awhile, I know I’m sold and I wanted something nice.

The stainless steel watch is, not surprisingly a bit heavier than the aluminum watch but not uncomfortably so. The watch definitely feels more solid than the aluminum watch and I’m going to enjoy the new band combinations that I can get with the stainless steel. 

One concern with the stainless steel watch is the taptic engine. My friends that purchased the original stainless steel Apple Watch complain that the taptic engine doesn’t work as well as it did on the Apple Watch Sport. What ever problem they had with the original stainless steel watch got fixed with the Series 2 watch. The taps work just fine and don’t feel significantly different than they did on my original Apple Watch Sport.

Another difference I’ve noticed is the spin of their crown. It feels like it is slightly more weighted than with the lighter aluminum sport. I thought this was just in my mind but when I tried the aluminum and stainless steel watches in the Apple Store, I had the same impression.

Another benefit of the stainless steel watch over the aluminum is the material used on the face of the watch. The stainless steel watch uses Sapphire crystal and the aluminum watch uses Ion-X glass. The Sapphire crystal is tougher and comparing it to my year-and-a-half year old aluminum watch, looks noticeably better. I’m hard on watches and I’m hoping this new watch face holds up better.

The fit and finish of the stainless steel is great and while it hurt a little spending the extra money on it, I like the look of it a lot more than my original Apple Watch.

Performance Boon

My biggest gripe with the original Apple Watch was performance. While the original Apple Watch was a great productivity tool with the built-in basic features, I eventually gave up on all but the most rudimentary apps. Between the faster S2 processor and the improvements in watchOS 3, I find that is no longer the case. In attributing performance gains between the hardware and software upgrades I did not run any benchmarks but I can tell you that I ran watchOS 3 on my original Apple Watch for months and apps are snappier on the new hardware.

Apps actually work on this new watch. My OmniFocus database is a big one. Getting it over to my watch and navigating it on my wrist was unbearable with the original Apple Watch and now it can work. I still get occasional lags but they are fractions of a second. Since getting the new watch, I’ve never had an app show me the spinner and, ultimately, just quit on me like used to happen on the original Apple Watch.

The new processor and software now make it possible to use third party apps. Once you wrap your head around that, you’ll need to start rethinking which apps may be worth the trouble. It’s still an incredibly small screen and it takes pretty clever app developer to make it work. However, apps are now on the table and that is going to be interesting.

So Bright

The original Apple Watch has 450 nits of brightness. The new one has 1,000 nits. That’s a lot of nits. In case you were wondering, a “nit” is a unit of luminance equal to one candela per square meter. I’m not going to entirely unpack that but I can tell you the brightness on the new watch is immediately apparent. So much so that I’m looking at the original Apple Watch screen and trying to get over how dim it now looks. 

While performance was the feature knew I wanted most in the new Apple Watch, screen brightness is the feature I did not know I wanted most. It’s easier to read now, indoors and outdoors. If you are on the fence about upgrading your Apple Watch and want to save money, I recommend not comparing screen brightness between the old and new Apple Watches.

Water Resistance

I was pretty cavalier with the original Apple Watch and water. Because it was always on me, it often got pretty wet. I occasionally wore it in the shower, I’d wash it under the sink if it got dirty, and on more than one occasion my hand went into the water while wearing the watch. I feel even more reckless with the new watch. Water just isn’t a consideration for me now. In addition to all the above, I’ll be wearing the new watch in the pool and the ocean. 

GPS

With the GPS radio, you can now go for a run or a hike and leave your phone at home. The watch will track your route and show it to you once you get back to your phone.

The inclusion of a GPS radio on the new watch is great for runners but it also exposes a few flaws. It is still goofy trying to load music files onto the watch. If you regularly listen to temporary media (like podcasts and audio books), you’re going to spend more time than you want getting data on the watch if you want to leave your phone at home on your next run or hike.

Recommendations

Granted it is early days but I really like the improved Apple Watch. If you didn’t get an original Apple Watch but have been thinking about it, now is an excellent time to get on board. The case for upgrading from the original Apple Watch is more difficult. If you are a swimmer or a runner (and want the GPS), you should definitely upgrade. The reason I upgraded is because I really like my Apple Watch and I wanted the latest and the greatest. The increased performance and screen brightness make the watch more useful to me. Now that I can actually use apps, I’m very curious to see how I’m using the Apple Watch in a few months.

iPhone 7 Plus Portrait Mode

The latest iOS 10.1 beta includes the promised portrait mode for the iPhone 7 Plus. I think everyone was pretty surprised how quickly this feature made it into the betas. Several people have published example photos including Matthew Panzarino and MacRumors. My favorite example is Jason Snell’s cat. Jason posted an image that rotates between a standard and portrait enhanced picture of his cat. This shows off the strengths (and limitations) of this software feature. Pay particular attention to the cat hair along the edges.

Austin Mann’s iPhone 7 Camera Review

Every year, Austin Mann does the definitive iPhone camera review. He’s just posted some video, pictures, and thoughts about the iPhone 7 camera that he used to follow gorillas through Rwanda. They’re amazing. Austin is pretty remarkable too. He was a guest on Mac Power Users last year and if you’re interested in getting better at taking pictures with your iPhone, here’s a pretty good place to start.

MPU 341: iOS 10

In this week’s Mac Power Users episode, Katie and I break down our favorite bits of iOS 10 for the iPad and iPhone. Get it now.

Sponsors include:

  • Squarespace: Enter offer code MPU at checkout to get 10% off your first purchase.
  • PDFpen from Smile With powerful PDF editing tools, available for Mac, iPad, and iPhone, PDFpen from Smile makes you a Mac Power User.
  • Automatic The connected car company that improves your driving and integrates your car into yoru digital life. Enter code MACPOWER to get 20% off your purchase. 
  • Fracture Bring your photos to life.

Sponsor: Shimo, the Mac VPN Client for Everyone




This week MacSparky is sponsored by Shimo, an outstanding Mac VPN client.

Later this week we’re getting the macOS Sierra update and if you use a VPN client, you need to take note that Apple’s built-in VPN client will no longer support PPTP VPN. Never fear though. Shimo does. Indeed Shimo supports several VPN protocols including OpenVPN, IPSec, PPTP, SSL, AnyConnect, SSH.




Shimo sits in your macOS menu bar and is always ready to work for you. User experience is key to this app and you’ll be surprised how easy it is to configure and operate. 

Shimo also takes your security seriously with its support of two-factor authentication and Trigger Automation, which lets your Shimo automatically connect VPN accounts based on certain trigger conditions. All of this adds up to seriously good security with a seriously good user experience.

Up your VPN game today with Shimo.

AquaPhone

Happy iPhone day to everyone getting their new handset. (Mine is still about a week away.) Today YouTube is lit up with people doing things like dunking their iPhone 7 in coffee and taking it in the pool (3.5 feet deep!) and the phones are still working. My favorite is the iFixit ongoing stress test. As I write this, iFixit’s iPhone has been underwater for 4 hours and is still working fine. This doesn’t mean the new phone is an underwater camera so much as the next time you fall in the pool or drop it in water, you’re probably fine.

Messages Improvements and Apple’s New Challenge

When Apple announced all the changes to the Messages app and the addition of animations, stickers, apps, and other whiz-bang features in June, a lot of my nerd friends thought it was silly. I didn’t. As I write this, I’m sitting at a Starbucks doing a bit of work. Two women sitting at the table next to me are in fits of laughter as they send themselves stickers, balloons, and other text effects. What pushed me over the edge to stop and write this is when one said to the other, “This is the best update … EVER!” 

Granted this is just one example but I’m hearing about the new Messages features from many non-geek family and friends and they all love it. As much as I wanted Apple to put more work into iPad productivity with iOS 10 (that may still be coming later), I absolutely see why they went so hard at improving Messages. People love this stuff.  When Android users see their iPhone friends using these effects, they will be tempted. This will sell iPhones.

The challenge I think Apple faces with this is to keep it relevant. Apple has a history of doing innovative things and then leaving them in place as they move on to other things. If Apple really want to make this work, I think there should be a team constantly adding new screen animations and text effects. Ideally they’d change monthly and include holiday themes effects. Why not have turkeys in November and wrapped gifts in December? They’ve got a lot of happy consumers right now with these new features. I hope they don’t let this turn stale.

MPU 340 – Digital GTD with Mike Williams

Speaking of OmniFocus, for a while now I’ve been wanting to really geek out on task management with a GTD Pro on the Mac Power Users. This week I got my wish. Mike Williams is the president of the David Allen Company. He lives, breathes, and teaches GTD regularly and he’s a geek like us. When we got on the mic with him this week, time flew.

Sponsors include: 

  • The Omni Group We’re passionate about productivity for Mac, iPhone and iPad. 
  • Marketcircle We help small business grow with great Mac, iPhone and iPad apps including Daylight and Billings Pro.
  • 1Password Have you ever forgotten a password? Now you don’t have to worry about that anymore. 
  • MindNode MindNode makes mind maping easy.