Tag Archives: apps

Why I Switched to Poster

You may have noticed some changes here recent­ly. Here’s a hint: fresh con­tent! Want to know my secret? The Poster app! Now I know we’ve all heard that the iPad is not a con­tent-cre­ation device, but I’m find­ing it pret­ty easy myself. In fact, I haven’t reopened my Mac­Book once, not even to change my blog theme!

Why do I like it so much? It does­n’t try to do any­thing more than allow you to draft, sched­ule and pub­lish con­tent. I don’t need a read­er baked into the app, or to see stats on my per­son­al blog. I just want to dive in and bang out 250–500 words about some­thing I liked enough to write about. Like Poster! If you want to start using your iPad for blog­ging, you should check it out.

Renewing My iPhone Vows

It’s hard to believe, but I’ve had an iPhone for near­ly 5 years. I’ve late­ly noticed more of my friends are switch­ing to Android, and I’ve read a num­ber of arti­cles about blog­gers cut­ting ties with Apple. Would I join them in 2013? Could I break free from famil­iar iOS apps and move to Android?

Turns out I won’t be mak­ing the switch. I’d dialed in on the Droid DNA. I’ve been research­ing it for weeks, watch­ing YouTube videos, read­ing reviews and talk­ing to friends who’ve been try­ing to get me to move to Android for a while. I was con­vinced this was the phone for me. More­over, I’ve recom­mit­ted to Google on iOS in a big way. Throw in Google Now and I was sure I’d switch.

And yet I won’t. Why?

I had no idea how much I’d grown to love the iPhone form fac­tor. I’ve seen the “feels good in the hand” meme, but there’s some­thing to it. I just could­n’t switch to some­thing that felt like a less­er prod­uct, know­ing full well the specs are off the chart.

Instead I’m choos­ing to stick with the iPhone when I upgrade and switch to Ver­i­zon. With that in mind, what are the apps you can’t live with­out? I’m com­mit­ting to Ever­note, blog­ging with Poster (it’s great!), lov­ing YouTube and I can’t say enough good things about Zee­box, a great app Com­cast invest­ed in last year. Rec­om­mend your favorites and sug­gest good blogs, Twit­ter accounts, YouTube chan­nels and pod­casts that you fol­low to stay up with the lat­est and greatest.

Facebook Places or Foursquare?

Face­book Places. Game, set, match. Why? Because even though every last des­ti­na­tion I vis­it has­n’t been loaded into Face­book, it means acti­vat­ing one less wonky app that crash­es unex­pect­ed­ly and then scolds me if I try check­ing in again. Anoth­er plus? Peo­ple I know actu­al­ly use Face­book. Foursquare? Not so much.

Face­book Places does to Foursquare what Twit­ter’s acqui­si­tion of Tweet­ie did for every­one else in the mobile Twit­ter app mar­ket: killed ’em dead, at least on the iPhone. I know Foursquare’s try­ing to put on a brave face, but if Face­book want­ed to intro­duce badges and oth­er rewards, it would­n’t be hard and it gives peo­ple the all-in-one con­ve­nience they want in a mobile experience.

I used Foursquare off and on for months, some­times delet­ing it from the phone, then rein­stalling it if a friend con­vinced me to do so. It was point­less. The loca­tions are sil­ly, as are the tips and rewards. I know how it feels to be a reg­u­lar at my local bar. It’s great. I don’t need an app to dri­ve that point home. As I tweet­ed after Face­book Places was launched, “we don’t need no stinkin’ badges!” At the same time, I like to let friends know that I’m out if they’d like to join me some­place. Revive the drop-in vis­it! How fun!

Do your­self a favor and delete Foursquare already. You’re wor­ried about pri­va­cy con­cerns? Here’s a thought: don’t both­er check­ing in! I’ll go a step fur­ther and say that you should real­ly cat­e­go­rize all of your Face­book con­tacts in a way that pro­tects you from weirdos. That should be a no-brain­er at this point in the game. As in so many things, be care­ful and have fun!