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Review: Can the BrydgeMini keyboard for the iPad mini live up to the full size version?
The iPads are not actually vertical – it’s just the angle of the shot …
I reviewed the Brydge Keyboard for the iPad Air/Air 2 back in March. At the time, I found it hard to choose between this and the ClamCase Pro, and for a while switched between them. However, the Brydge won the battle in the end, becoming my daily driver for my iPad Air 2.
Brydge has two models for the smaller iPad, one for the iPad mini 1/2/3 and a second version coming out next month for the iPad mini 4. Both have the same all-aluminum construction, the same matching colors (silver, space gray and gold), the same three-month battery life and weigh the same 300g.
One of the beauties of the original is that you pretty much get a full-size MacBook keyboard for your iPad, with key sizes and spacing very close to that of a MacBook Air. They keys are slightly narrower and a touch closer together, but the typing experience is very similar. With the much smaller footprint of the iPad mini, however, I wondered how the BrydgeMini would compare …
My immediate visual impressions were extremely favorable. It didn’t look like a dramatically smaller keyboard, and it actually took a couple of seconds to figure out how they’d managed to fit a decent-sized keyboard into such a small space.
What Brydge has opted to do is to keep the letter keys as large and well-spaced as possible, and to sacrifice the width of a handful of other keys to pull it off. Specifically, it has a half-width combined tab and caps-lock key, and even slimmer keys for left square/curly bracket, colon/semi-colon and quotation marks (single and double). The only oddity in the setup is that the number 1/exclamation point key is also one of the extra-thin ones.
The company also combined several keys, using a fn key to access the alternative functions – more on this later – and brought the front row of keys much closer to the edge of the casing.
The payoff for these compromises is that the main keys are remarkably similar in size to the keyboard for the full-size iPad.
The rest of the design is identical to the full-size version. As with that, it roughly doubles the thickness of the iPad. On the left is the slimmer iPad Air 2, while the iPad mini is the full-fat iPad mini 2, but you can see that the keyboard thickness is virtually identical.
You do have the same slightly messy visible hinges, but I very quickly got used to those and now don’t mind them at all.
And the back of the iPad is left exposed, but that’s one of those swings & roundabouts issues: no protection versus no extra bulk and nothing to spoil the look of the device.
My iPad Air 2 has been carried around with me in a variety of bags with no rear protection, and remains unmarked more than a year later, so it’s not something I worry about.
Typing experience
With my earlier review, I had remarkably little to say about the typing experience because it was so similar to typing on a MacBook. For this review, I switched back and forth between three keyboards – my Apple Wireless keyboard, full-size Brydge and BrydgeMini – and have a little more to say.
The feel of the keyboard is identical to that of the larger model, which in turn is extremely similar to that of any of the MacBooks bar the butterfly-key 12-inch MacBook. The stiff hinges allow you to position the iPad at any angle, and have it stay there reliably. The BrydgeMini is also perfectly stable when typing on your lap.
I scarcely noticed the switch between Apple and Brydge keyboards. The BrydgeMini does feel a little more cramped – more so, I have to say, than I expected from looking at it. But given the much smaller size of the device, I’d say the company has done a great job. My typing speed was a little down, but I wasn’t making any more errors than usual.
The only thing that did prove a minor pain was that very thin colon/semi-colon key; as regular readers will know, I’m a bit of a fan of the semi-colon in particular.
I mentioned earlier that Brydge had combined several keys. These are the tab/caps lock, the tilde (~)/grave accent (`) and right-square/curly brackets with backslash (\) and vertical bar (|). As a writer, and an English one, I have little call for most of these characters, so these weren’t issues. The tab key was awkward, but completing web forms is the only time I really use it (and then only if I can’t use autofill), so this wasn’t a big deal for me. If you do frequently tab, or use any of the other characters mentioned, you may want to try before you buy.
Conclusions
The BrydgeMini is a remarkable achievement. The company has delivered something that’s 90% as good as the original in a form factor that is, of necessity, significantly smaller.
It has approached the size reduction in an intelligent way which – for most people – involves very few compromises. As with the full-size model, it’s not cheap. The model for the iPad mini 1/2/3 is $129.99, while the iPad mini 4 version is currently available for pre-order for $99.99, with shipping in January. But you’re getting something which essentially turns your iPad mini into a tiny MacBook, with very Apple-like looks and a great typing experience. If you need to do a lot of typing on an iPad, I’d say that it’s well worth the investment.
The BrydgeMini is available direct from the company: iPad mini 1/2/3 at $129.99, iPad mini 4 (pre-order) at $99.99. The BrydgeAir model is $149.99 (for iPad Air & Air 2).
Filed under: iOS Devices, Reviews Tagged: Brydge Keyboard, BrydgeMini Keyboard, iPad, iPad mini, iPad mini keyboard, iPad mini keyboard reviews, iPad mini keyboards
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Apple Pay now works with BJ’s store cards, over 60 more banks
The year is almost up but Apple Pay is still popping up in new places. BJ’s Wholesale Club already accepted Apple Pay in its stores for members, and now BJ’s has become the second retailer to allow their store cards to be added to the Wallet app and be used for Apple Pay. Kohl’s was officially the first retailer to add Apple Pay support to their store cards in October, while JCPenney is said to be testing support ahead of a 2016 rollout. Apple Pay is also going live with cards issued from over 60 more banks and credit unions around the country:
American Community Bank of Indiana
American United Federal Credit Union
Anheuser-Busch Employees’ Credit Union
Aspire Federal Credit Union
Bank of Colorado
Bank of Montgomery
Catholic Federal Credit Union
Cedar Rapids Bank and Trust
CFCU Community Credit Union
ChoiceOne Bank
Community Bank of Mississippi
Community Bank (Coast)
Community Bank (Ellisville)
Community Bank (North MS)
Credit One Bank
D.L. Evans Bank
Dane County Credit Union
Diamond Credit Union
East Wisconsin Savings Bank
Educational Community Credit Union
Farmers Bank
First Alliance Credit Union
First Bank & Trust Company
First Federal Savings Bank of Twin Falls
First National Bank & Trust Company of Weatherford
First State Bank of Middlebury
Fox Valley Savings Bank
Greater Kinston Credit Union
Hanscom Federal Credit Union
Home City Federal Savings Bank
Hondo National Bank
Indiana Members Credit Union
INTRUST Bank
Kemba Financial Credit Union
Land of Lincoln Credit Union
Laramie Plains Federal Credit Union
LCNB National Bank
Liberty Savings Bank, FSB
Local Government Federal Credit Union
Mississippi Federal Credit Union
Montgomery Country Employees Federal Credit Union
MVB Bank Inc
Neighbors Credit Union
New Horizon Federal Credit Union
NorState Federal Credit Union
North State Bank
NW Preferred Federal Credit Union
OMNI Community Credit Union
Pinnacle Bank Sioux City
Pinnacle Bank Texas
Pinnacle Bank Wyoming
Quad City Bank and Trust
Republic Bank & Trust Company
San Antonio Federal Credit Union
SCE Federal Credit Union
Sharon Credit Union
South Shore Bank
State Employees Credit Union
Sun East Federal Credit Union
Sunrise Banks
Texas Capital Bank
The Bank of Missouri
TruWest Credit Union
Vantage West Credit Union
Wayne Bank
Wilson Bank & Trust
As for 2016, there’s a lot to look forward to with Apple Pay including new locations accepting it like Starbucks, KFC, and Chili’s, plus potentially a new way to send cash to other Apple Pay users with a rumored peer-to-peer payment feature in the works. Walgreens recently became the first retailer to support reward cards through Apple Pay, and even more including Dunkin’ Donuts and Panera Bread are expected next.
Apple Pay works with iPhone 6 and later, Apple Watch, iPad mini 4, iPad Air 2, and iPad Pro.
Filed under: Apple Pay Tagged: Apple pay, banks, BJ’s, credit unions
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Sonos rolling out Apple Music support in beta from today
Sonos is beginning to roll out support for streaming Apple Music content to its wireless speakers starting today. The feature is available in beta and limited to select Sonos customers who signed up earlier this month when the update was first announced. Sonos will continue to add more people to the Apple Music beta ahead of a wider release to all Sonos customers early next year. I’ve had a chance to try out the Apple Music beta with Sonos, which works through the updated Sonos Controller app, and in some cases it looks better than Apple’s own app.
Unlike Bluetooth and AirPlay, playing Apple Music through Sonos is controlled completely from their Controller app which also supports a number of other streaming services including Spotify and Pandora Radio. Once you add Apple Music to your list of music services within the Controller app, the experience is pretty familiar if you’ve used Apple Music before, although it doesn’t look exactly the same.
Apple Music in Sonos is organized by For You, New, Radio, and My Music. The recommendations and everything else generally reflects the same content between the Music or iTunes app and the Sonos Controller app, so you’re getting the same material either way.
Apple Music in Sonos
Radio even supports streaming Apple’s Beats 1 station as well as any other featured stations or stations you create. Playlists and music libraries carry over as well, although more features around this are coming in the future as the beta has a few limitations.
In my week of testing on iPhone, iPad, Mac, and even Android where Apple Music is also available, I found that for me Apple Music availability dramatically increases the appeal of Sonos speakers. Podcast playback is still a mixed experience (something a new or refurbished AirPort Express can fix), but being able to control Apple Music including my Christmas music playlists across multiple rooms through Sonos is really useful. I really like using Apple Music playlists as alarms through the Sonos speakers. It’s a nice touch to waking up.
The same content in Apple’s Music app
If you’re curious about trying Sonos, you can pick up a Play:1 speaker 2-pack in white or black from $350 (reg. $400) for a limited time. Sonos also recently released its new flagship Play:5 ($500, hands-on and reviewed here) for those looking for the top-of-the-line Sonos speaker.
Sign up to try the Apple Music beta in Sonos here, and download the latest Sonos Controller for iOS, Android, Mac, and PC here.
Filed under: Apple Music, Apps Tagged: Apple Music, Beats 1, Sonos
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Leaders Should Inspire Change Through the Rear View Mirror
Leaders Should Inspire Change Through the Rear View Mirror
By Roy Osing
There is certainly no shortage of advice on what actions leaders should take to successfully implement change.
However, despite the plethora of guidance available, organizations generally have difficulty executing their “brave idea”. The desired change doesn’t see the light of day; the intended benefits aren’t realized; […]
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Apple wishes retail employees musical holidays with gifts of Beats earphones and Apple Music subscription
Apple had a small surprise for its retail employees yesterday. After gifting them with urBeats earphones last week, Eddy Cue yesterday sent a video message stating that they would also receive a promo code for a free 9 month Apple Music subscription.
MacRumors reports that the subscription runs for nine months. While nine months rather than a year seems a little odd, it does mean that anyone who has not yet used up their three-month free trial would get a year in total.
With the headphones retailing at $100 (though cheaper on Amazon), and the Apple Music subscription worth $90, it makes the gift significantly more generous than the Incase Staple backpack they got last year.
The urBeats headphones were recently updated to offer a rose gold option.
Filed under: AAPL Company, Apple Music Tagged: Apple Inc, Apple Music, Eddy Cue, headphones, Holiday gift, retail, urBeats, urBeats earphones, urBeats headphones
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11 of the Best Infographic Designs of 2015
Infographics that really stand out are far more than just a smattering of pictures and charts. They might tell an engaging story — one built around compelling data, graphics, or illustrations. Or perhaps they serve as a really helpful visual resource.
While great infographics come in a variety of forms, the common thread is that they’re visually pleasing and designed in a way that makes complex topics easy to understand whether you’re a novice in the subject or an expert.
Here are 11 brands from all different industries — from education to insurance — that totally nailed their infographics this year. Check ’em out and get inspired.
Download our 10 free infographic templates in PowerPoint here so you can create great infographics of your own.
11 Great Infographic Examples of 2015
1) Music Timeline, by Google
The best infographics communicate information in an intuitive and beautiful way. Google nailed it with their “Music Timeline” microsite, which visualizes music trends from 1950 to present, by popularity. The best part? The version on their site is interactive: When you click on one of the genres, you’ll get a more detailed visualization of that genre’s popularity along with a list of the most popular albums of the time in that genre.
2) The Daily Routines of Famous Creative People, by Podio
In this infographic, the folks at Podio took a simple concept and executed it fantastically. Using information from the book Daily Rituals by Mason Currey, it shows the daily schedules of famous creatives broken down by time and activity. Not only is this an example of engaging data, it’s also a fantastic editorial piece for a brand.
3) Men’s Dress Codes Made Simple, by Samuel Windsor
The visual elements of an infographic are the most important part — that’s why you made the content into an infographic in the first place, after all. When you have a topic that’s inherently visual, an infographic is a great way to go. The graphic below decoding men’s formalwear reads like a cheat sheet. The design is simple and intuitive — and the paisley design behind the title is a fun nod to the menswear industry. We also love how there’s no more copy on here than there needs to be — just a few simple titles and a handful of bullet points.
4) 10 Dinner Table Customs From Around the World, by Wimdu
Any time you’re writing about the “do” vs. “don’t do” dichotomy, you might consider making an infographic out of it. You can easily put each “do” and “don’t” beside one another in two columns for a great visual — just look at the example below of dinner table customers from around the world. Each section is a different country, inside of which is one important dinner table custom that readers may not know about if they’ve never been to that country. Capping the number of tips per country to one keeps the content from feeling overwhelming.
5) A Guide to Who’s Fighting Whom in Syria, by Slate
Mapping out the relationships between two or even three entities can be pretty simple. But what about when you have a lot of things to compare to one another? That’s where putting that information into infographic form can really help you educate your readers in a way they’ll understand. In Slate‘s case, they wanted to show the relationships among groups of people in the Middle East who are involved in the Syrian Civil War. By using a table format and familiar visuals and colors, the folks at Slate did a great job simplifying this data into a digestible format — and the version on their website is beautifully interactive.
6) How Music Affects Your Driving, by No Nonsense Insurance
Work in a “boring” industry? Believe it or not, you can still create interesting and exciting content — even if you’re not working with a “sexy” topic such as food, travel, or culture. Want proof? An insurance company created the infographic below on how music affects your driving. Not only are the graphics fun, but there’s a lot of helpful content in there, including facts and statistics paired with great visuals. Read this blog post for more tips on creating interesting content in a “boring” industry.
7) Our Dwindling Food Variety, by National Geographic
Infographics don’t have to be long to be great — it’s all about how well the data is conveyed visually. The infographic below from National Geographic is short but sweet: It shows how many varieties of different kinds of fruit and vegetable seeds we had a century ago in comparison to today. Instead of using a traditional bar chart, they chose to hit the point home by designing a chart that looks like a plant.
8) #GivingTuesday By the Numbers, by Classy
The look and feel of each infographic has a lot to do with brand personality. Here’s a great example of an infographic with a design that stays true to brand. It pairs fun fonts with cute, block-color graphics. For example, check out the first set of bar charts: They use tree graphics in place of classic bars to make it more visually interesting without sacrificing clarity.
9) Cost of Living Around the World, by MoveHub
Here’s another example of an infographic on an interesting topic that isn’t riddled with numbers — but this one’s even simpler. There are no bells and whistles here: no introduction, simple colors, and not a lot of copy. The only thing missing is a short explanation of where the data comes from. Although they include a link to the source at the end and also offer more details about the data in their own blog post’s introduction, it would have been helpful for others hoping to share the image or embed it on their site to have that information somewhere on the graphic. Still, we love the simplicity and straightforwardness of both the topic and design.
10) The Anatomy of a Perfect Checkout Page, by VWO
Here at HubSpot, we find that infographics on the “anatomy” of something typically do quite well. Here’s a great example of one from VWO. It takes the reader through an example of what the “perfect” version of a checkout page would look like. The graphic breaks the page down into manageable chunks that are easy to follow. At the same time, the design is fun and attractive, combining colorful graphics with screenshots of real checkout pages for reference.
11) How to Keep Fruits & Vegetables Fresh Longer, by Full Plate Living
Who knew that some fruits and vegetables “get along” better with others in storage? I certainly didn’t, and I found this infographic to be a wonderfully simple, yet comprehensive visual guide. The timelines are clear and readable, and each of the visuals is easy to skim so readers don’t even have to read the names under each piece of food (unless they aren’t sure what a plum look like).
Which infographics from this list was your favorite? What other top-notch infographics have you come across from 2015?
Editor’s Note: This post was originally published in July 2015 and has been updated for accuracy and comprehensiveness.
Samsung takes five-year legal battle over infringed Apple patents to U.S. Supreme Court
Despite the $548M settlement reached earlier this month, Samsung has now asked the U.S. Supreme Court to hear an appeal of its patent battle with Apple, reports the WSJ. The company is arguing that lower courts misapplied the law concerning Apple’s design patents.
Specifically, Samsung is asking the court to review rulings concerning “design patents” that cover the look and feel of a product. At trial, Apple convinced the jury that basic design elements of certain Samsung smartphones—essentially a rectangle with rounded corners and a touch-screen grid made up of smaller icons—borrowed too closely from Apple’s iPhone design.
Samsung argues that lower courts made two mistakes …
First, suggests the company’s lawyers, the judge failed to properly instruct the jury on the difference between ‘functional’ and ‘ornamental’ features. Samsung said that its smartphones had to adopt the same general form factor as the iPhone in order to perform the function of a smartphone.
“The jury could look at Apple’s patented designs, look at Samsung’s phones, see that both have rectangular shapes, rounded corners, flat screens and colorful icon grids, and decide, voilà, that there must be design-patent infringement—even though those shared features are…functional, not ornamental,” wrote Samsung’s lawyers, in the brief.
Second, the company says that the damages awarded were too high.
In Samsung’s eyes, according to Monday’s court filing, it was wrongly ordered to pay Apple all of its profit from infringing profits. Samsung says the 1887 law pertaining to design patents is outdated and too punitive for modern products such as a smartphone, which Samsung says contains about 250,000 design and utility patents.
The company likened the case to a car company being ordered to hand over all its profits on a car if the company was found to have copied a patented cupholder.
The U.S. Supreme Court will need to decide whether or not to hear the case. CNET quotes Stanford Law School intellectual property law professor Mark Lemley as stating that asking the court to take on a case “is always an uphill battle, but this is a very high-profile case.” The court may be influenced by the fact that Google, Facebook and others have sided with Samsung, though Apple has said that Google is not a disinterested party.
Photo: Wikipedia
Filed under: AAPL Company, iOS Devices Tagged: Apple Inc, Apple Inc. v. Samsung Electronics Co., Apple vs Samsung, Ltd., patent battle, Patent trial, patents, Samsung patent trial
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Newsletter Optimizations Your Publication Should Make
Even though the digital publishing industry is in flux, there’s one truth that remains steady: email is and will continue to be an important part of any future monetization plan. Here’s why.
Study after study says that email is one of the most valuable marketing channels out there. It’s also versatile. You can use email at all stages of the sales conversion funnel and target a wide range of buyer personas and purchase needs. Not to mention, email has a close tie to monetization: in addition to selling sponsored placements, publishers can leverage the channel to nurture audiences and drive engagement at all stages of the conversion funnel. For reference, take a look at HubSpot’s recent Digital Publishing Benchmarks Report.
Cliff notes:
- 34.3% of B2B and 14% of B2C publishers use email or subscriber lists to drive revenue
- 64.6% of B2B and 48% of B2C publishers rely on website banner ads or newsletter sponsorships for monetization
- A high proportion of media companies see alternative monetization streams like sponsored content (54.8%), events (34.5%), and paid subscriptions (15.8%).
The bottom line? Even when facing ambiguity about their long-term plans, publishers will need to invest in email. And sending better email is one of the only sure-fire ways to protect deliverability and guarantee you his the inbox, not the spam folder.
Optimization Opportunities That Your Publication Can’t Afford to Ignore
Here are some optimizations worth making–even before a company is ready to have a solidified, long-term revenue strategy in place:
1) Always A/B Test Headlines
Send multiple versions of the same email to see what performs best. A/B testing will allow you to iterate upon your messaging consistently and help you drive the most awareness and interest. Remember that audience attention spans are spread thin, and headlines represent the first point of connection for rapport-building. Make the most out of that touchpoint to ensure that you’re always delivering your best message.
For a comprehensive guide on how to utilize A/B testing in email, check out this guide from HubSpot Academy. Here are some additional ideas to help guide you:
- Use top headlines from your website as your headline
- Test consistently formatted subject lines, or pull some wild cards to surprise your audience (like The Skimm)
- Personalize your subject lines
- Test different value propositions
Chances are, if you’re dealing with a business question or having trouble making a judgment call, you should A/B test your idea.
2) Use Heatmaps to Study Scrolling and Reading Patterns
When you send an email, you’re dealing with a lot of wild cards: ultimately, you don’t know how the person on the other side of the computer screen will react and respond–or whether he or she is even paying attention. For instance, you may have a call-to-action (CTA) as a downloadable guide, text link, or button. Are your audiences noticing? When it comes to an email list, it can be very easy for your audience to lose attention, fast.
Heatmap technology can help you make more educated decisions about the placements of your CTAs. In a nutshell, this software allows you to track how audiences are browsing and scrolling. You can then aggregate subscriber browsing data to better understand where they’re likely to be clicking. Looking at data over time, you can improve the UX and design of your email newsletters.
3) Groom Your List
Names in your email database are perishable inventory. Over time, a bulk of your subscribers will stop engaging with your content–that’s just the way it goes.
The best step to take here is to stop dwelling over your list’s size. Instead, focus on quality by performing consistent quality upgrades. Here are some steps that you can take to keep your lists fresh and optimize your engagement rates as a result:
- Remove old subscribers who aren’t engaging with your emails
- Delete old subscribers who are no longer relevant to your core business
- Discontinue automated messages
Stop relying on purchased lists: they’re a definite way to reduce the shelf-life of a campaign and get instantly blocked, as these audiences didn’t opt into your list in the first place.
A groomed list will result in fewer spam complaints and higher engagement rates. Even if your subscriber count goes down, you’ll preserve the integrity of your subscriber base and IP. It pays to prioritize quality and relationships.
Don’t send unsolicited email. Make sure that your messages are well-received.
4) Refine Your Value Proposition
Publishers will often use their email newsletters to build top-of-funnel awareness. This tactic is especially strong for reaching new audiences and driving brand visibility. But far too often, publishers overlook a crucial missing ingredient: conversions.
Even when you’re driving top-of-funnel awareness, you can still share details about your company and brand. Make sure that you’re positioning your brand-building newsletter campaigns as a tool for driving valuable engagement on your website.
Challenge yourself to ensure every email newsletter has one mention of your media company, with a call-to-action (CTA) to your website. Rely on email to kick start your audience relationships.
The Toughest Step?
Be prepared for a little trial and error. Over time, as your revenue strategy matures, your newsletter strategy will change dramatically. Let your email marketing strategy evolve along the way, to maintain close alignment with your business and revenue goals.
How to Track the ROI of Your Video Marketing
Are you struggling to measure the ROI of your marketing videos? Looking for tools to help track sales from your videos? A simple framework and a few tools can reveal if your video campaigns are working for you. In this article you’ll discover how to track and measure the ROI for your video marketing efforts. […]
This post How to Track the ROI of Your Video Marketing first appeared on Social Media Examiner.
Social Media Examiner – Your Guide to the Social Media Jungle
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How to Keep Your Computer’s Desktop Clean & Organized: 7 Helpful Tips
With 2016 quickly approaching, now seems like a better time than ever to rid your desktop of the ghosts of projects past.
You know what I’m talking about — all those forgotten documents and miscellaneous screenshots that have been slowly taking over your screen for weeks and months.
Hoarding files on your desktop not only makes it challenging to locate what you need when you need it, but it can also compromise the speed of your computer.
To help you keep your desktop tidy, we’ve come up with a few helpful tips. From creating a folder system to trying out a new desktop design, these suggestions are designed to help you unbury yourself and stay productive in the process.
7 Tips for Keeping Your Computer’s Desktop Clean & Organized
1) Create a folder system.
Be honest: How many files do you have on your desktop right now? 10? 20? 100? Have you lost count? If your desktop looks anything like the image below, you may want to start by moving everything into one folder to clear the air.
To create a new folder on a Mac, right-click on your desktop and select New Folder from the menu. The folder will appear on your desktop instantly. To change the folder’s name, right-click on it and select Get Info from the menu. Under the Name & Extension section you’ll see a text box where you can insert a new name.
To create new folders in Windows, right-click on your desktop and select New > Folder from the menu. To rename the folder, click on it, enter a new name, and then press Enter.
Once you have your folders created, you can begin to divvy up your files. How you choose to organize your folder system will be dependent on your specific role. For example, I frequently write blog posts that contain a lot of visual examples. To simplify the process and keep a record of what I’ve included in the past, I’ve created two folders: Current Examples and Example Archive.
When I’m rounding up examples for a new post from the web, I drop them in the Current Examples folder. This way, I can easily locate them when I go to write the post. Once the post is prepped and scheduled, I move the images to the Example Archive folder to make room for my next post.
2) Experiment with a sectioned wallpaper.
Want to take your folder organization a step further?
While your desktop wallpaper is a great place for you to display a photo of your dog or latest vacation, there are also a ton of wallpaper options available that can actually help you stay organized. These wallpaper designs — in combination with your folder system — make it easy to corral specific sections of your work. (It’s kind of like using iPhone folders … but for your desktop.)
To get you started, we’ve included a few options to choose from below.
[Download here via Moritz Fine Designs]
[Download here via Lifehacker]
[Download here via Moritz Fine Designs]
[Download here via Lifehacker]
3) Use this Chrome extension to pre-organize your screenshots.
Screenshots are one of the biggest contributors to desktop clutter. When you capture a screenshot on a Mac (Command + Shift + 3) or PC (Alt + Print Screen), the image saves directly to your desktop. And if screenshoting is something you find yourself doing a lot, you’ll notice that it doesn’t take very long for them to make a mess of things.
To avoid having your screenshots automatically save to your desktop, you can use a screen capture tool such as the Awesome Screenshot extension for Chrome. Not only does this tool provide you with more advanced screen capture capabilities — annotations, selective capture, delayed capture, etc. — but it also aims to simplify the way you store your shots.
With Awesome Screenshot, you have the option to manually choose where you’d like to save your file to, or you can create an account where you can save files to specific projects.
The latter will require you to sign up for a free account, but here’s how it works:
- Capture an image by clicking on the extension and selecting an option from the menu.
- Crop and annotate your screenshot as you see fit, and then hit Done.
- Select your desired option for saving from the menu on the right. If you’d like to save the image to a project’s folder on Awesome Screenshot, select Save on Awesome Screenshot at the top.
- Insert a name for your file and identify which project you’d like to save it to by selecting an option from the menu. To save it, hit Upload.
- To access your file at anytime, visit the appropriate project folder in your account dashboard.
- When you add screenshots to a project folder, you can then collaborate with other members of your team by sharing the folder, adding point-specific comments, further annotations, etc.
4) Get inspired by a motivational wallpaper.
Not a fan of the sectioned off wallpaper? No worries. There are other wallpaper options that can give you the motivation to stay organized.
According to psychologist and motivation expert Jonathan Fader, inspirational or motivational messages often serve as a powerful incentive for us to try harder. “There’s a little bit of implicit coaching that’s happening when you’re reading it. It’s building that self-efficacy in that kind of dialogue that you’re having with yourself,” he explains.
So if you’re looking for a little coaching to help you stay organized, adding an inspirational message to your desktop can serve as a friendly, daily reminder.
Want to create your own motivational wallpaper? Follow the instructions below to learn how using Canva.
- Click on “Use custom dimensions” in the top right-hand corner and add your dimensions. Some of the most common desktop wallpaper resolutions are: 1024 x 768, 1280 x 1024, and 1920 x 1080.
- To add a background image, click on Elements > Photos. You can also choose a plain color or pattern background by selecting Background.
- Select a photo and adjust the size using the resizing points around it.
- To add text, click on Text and choose a heading or template from the options listed. Adjust the template text by adding your quote of choice. (I chose a quote from Barbara Hemphill on clutter.)
- To save your creation, click on the Download button in the top right-hand corner and select Image: high quality (PNG).
To set this image as your wallpaper on a Mac or Windows computer, refer to the following tutorials:
5) Download a desktop customization tool.
Your computer desktop often functions as a hub for all of your work-related needs. To enhance the functionality of your workspace, there are a couple of really cool desktop customization tools available.
For Mac users with OS 10.6+, GeekTool is an application that allows users to display custom information on their desktop. The tool comes equipped with three plugins: file plugin, shell mode, and image mode. Each plugin serves a different purpose, from launching custom scripts to monitoring bandwidth usage. For extended display options — battery percentage, weather, Spotify info — users can explore and download different Geeklets.
Image Credit: Lifehacker
For Windows users, Rainmeter provides the free tools necessary to add important information — weather forecasts, calendar, to-do list, RSS feeds, etc.) right to your desktop. While it comes with a few starter “skins” or themes, there is a large community of users who are constantly creating and sharing new options. To check out some of their creations, visit this list.
Image Credit: InvincibleJelly
6) Invest in a storage solution.
If you’re constantly dealing with managing and organizing a lot of files, you may want to invest in an application like Dropbox to better manage your assets.
Dropbox is a file hosting service that offers cloud storage and file synchronization. Users can create a folder on their computers that syncs with the service, making it easy to access the content no matter what device you’re using. Rather than dragging everything onto your desktop, simply store it in Dropbox where you can quickly and easily search for it whenever you need it.
You can also share folders with other users to create a central space for all of your shared files. This helps to prevent any bottlenecking that might occur when others are forced to wait on you to locate a specific file.
Clean desktop. Organized files. It’s a win-win for everyone.
7) Schedule a weekly or monthly cleaning.
As shown by the example we used back in the first tip, it’s easy for your desktop to get kind of, well … scary.
To ensure that you’re keeping up with desktop maintenance on a regular basis, set a recurring event on your calendar to remind you to get rid of anything unnecessary. This can be a weekly or monthly event, depending on how much damage you typically do.
We also recommend scheduling this at the end of the day, as it serves as a great use of time when you’re starting to wrap up or lose focus.
How do you organize your desktop for productivity? Share your tips below.
How to Drive Traffic to Your Blog Posts: A Game Plan for the Top Social Networks
Do you want to drive more traffic to your blog? Looking for ways to use social media to promote it? Understanding how to best share your blog posts on many social networks will maximize your visibility and reach. In this article you’ll discover how to promote your blog articles on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram and […]
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Apple’s Craig Federighi discusses open sourcing Swift and more on The Talk Show
Earlier this month, Apple made good on its promise and made its Swift programming language open source. Following the announcement, Apple’s senior vice president of software Craig Federighi did a pair of interviews to discuss the motivation behind open sourcing the platform and what the future holds. Now, Federighi has joined John Gruber on his podcast The Talk Show to further discuss Swift
Federighi opened the interview by discussing what kind of things Apple has noticed during the first week of Swift being open source. The Apple exec noted that Swift is more active than any other language on Github and that because of this, the Swift team within Apple is more engaged with developers than any other team in the company.
Federighi also explained that many teams within Apple are incredibly excited about using Swift. For instance, the iCloud team has started applying Swift to variety of their projects, while the OS X team is also working on converting aspects of the platform to Swift. Specifically, Federighi mentioned the dock and window management tools in OS X converting to Swift. “Teams recognize what’s practical and what’s not practical and find ways to use Swift where they can,” he said.
Much like he did last week, Federighi explained that one of the biggest benefits of Swift going public is that it can now be easily taught in schools everywhere. CEO Tim Cook expressed last week that he believes coding should be taught in every public school in America, and Swift being open source enables that to be a possibility. Federighi also again mentioned that Swift will be the major language for the next 20 years.
When asked about the downsides of making Swift open source, Federighi said that there weren’t many. He explained that Apple has accepted the fact that Swift can and will now be used in all kinds of contexts outside of Apple and that developers are going to do things that aren’t related to Apple’s businesses.
In terms of timing, Federighi explained that Apple knew it wanted to open source Swift, but it wasn’t sure if it would happen this year or next year. Leading up to WWDC 2015, however, Federighi said that the “hunger was great to do it this year.”
At WWDC this year, Federighi made the comment that Swift is Objective C without the baggage, which led to some criticism from developers and fans of Objective C. On The Talk Show, however, Federighi clarified and elaborated on that comment. “What we were able to retain is the literate nature of APIS that Objective C enabled, plus a syntax that is much more concise,” he stated.
The full interview can be listened to on Gruber’s website.
Filed under: Developers Tagged: Apple, interview, Swift
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Microsoft Outlook on iOS updated w/ 3D Touch support, more
Microsoft today has released an update for its Outlook app on iOS that brings the app to version 2.0.8. The update makes Outlook join the growing list of apps that support the new 3D Touch feature of the iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus.
With 3D Touch support, Outlook users can now create new emails and events and access the calendar by simply pressing on the app’s icon on the home screen. In addition to support for 3D Touch, the update also adds the ability to print any message or conversation from directly within the app.
What’s New in Version 2.0.8
Three new features for you this week:
– 3D touch is available for all iPhone 6s users right from the Outlook icon to create new emails and events or access the calendar directly.
– Finally, you can now print any message or conversation from the email view. Check out the top right corner of the app to try it out.
The update is available now on the App Store for free.
Filed under: iOS Tagged: 3D Touch, email, iOS, Microsoft, Outlook
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Report: Apple developing thinner & brighter screens in secret Taiwanese lab
Image Credit: Maurice Tsai / Bloomberg
According to a report out of Bloomberg, Apple has opened a secret production laboratory in northern Tawain to focus on developing new display technologies. The report claims that the lab, located in Longtan, has at least 50 engineers and various other employees working to develop iPhone and iPad displays.
Apple has reportedly recruited its employees for the lab from competing display makers AU Optronics and Qualcomm. Apple allegedly opened the lab earlier this year, hoping to make displays that are thinner, lighter, brighter, and more energy-efficient than other options currently on the market. In order to achieve those goals, the company is said to be switching to organic light-emitting diodes, which are thinner and don’t require a backlight.
Another goal of Apple’s with developing its own screen technology is to reduce reliance on suppliers like Samsung, Sharp, and Japan Display. Apple already does a lot of the research for its devices in-house, but outsources the actual manufacturing processes to several other companies.
Apple is said to have moved into the Taiwan lab in April. Qualcomm Display occupied the lab from 2008 until this year. Earlier today, Morgan Stanley issued a report in which it claimed Apple would see its first ever drop in iPhone sales next year due in large part to robust inventories rather than weak demand. One potential thinking on Apple’s part could be that if it begins to manufacture more components in-house, they could have a stronger control on the flow of production.
A report from last month claimed Apple will shift iPhone displays from LCD to OLED in 2018. That technology could very well be what Apple is working on in its new Taiwan lab, especially when you take into consideration a Ming-Chi Kuo report that said Foxconn has recently invested $4 billion into a new LCD display plant.
Filed under: AAPL Company Tagged: Apple, display lab, japan display, Qualcomm, Samsung, Sharp
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Apple buys former semiconductor plant in North San Jose for $18.2M
According to a report from Silicon Valley Business Journal, Apple has recently purchased a former chip fav in North San Jose. The deal reportedly went through last week and saw Apple pay $18.2 million for the 70,000 square foot building.
Prior to Apple’s purchase, the plant was a manufacturing plant for semiconductor company Maxim Integrated Products. The listing for the property touted that it is well suited for “prototype, pilot, and low-volume manufacturing.” The space, however, is too small for any serious manufacturing. Maxim purchased the facility in 1997 from Samsung, but later closed ti down when it pulled out of the consumer electronic business.
More than likely, Apple will use the facility for prototyping and light development. The purchase doesn’t appear to signal an entry into chip manufacturing for Apple. It’s also worth noting that Samsung Semiconductor facilities are located just down the road from Apple’s new 70,000 square foot space.
“It’s pretty small for a fab,” said Dean Freeman, research VP at Gartner, where he leads the Internet of Things Center of Excellence. “The only thing I can think that they would be doing is potentially be saying, ‘OK, we need to do some prototyping in some way or form.’ Or they want a clean-room space to do some tweaky development. This isn’t big enough to do anything (production-wise).”
The most likely use case for Apple with this new facility is increased product-development, pre-manufactyring, and prototyping. Back in August, Apple purchased a 43-acre developmental plot in San Jose for $138 million. Apple is also, of course, currently developing its new Campus 2 headquarters in Cupertino, which open in 2016. You can read our full timeline of that project here.
Filed under: AAPL Company Tagged: Apple, San Jose, semiconductor
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Hulu iPhone app overhauled with iPad-like design, new features for parents
Hulu gets a major update today with an all-new design for iPhone alongside a few new features in version 4.7.0.
The new iPhone design looks a lot like the design Hulu was already using on the iPad with navigation tucked under a menu button in the upper left section instead of tabs along the bottom. You’ll also find mostly grid layouts with larger images when the app is displaying lists of content.
Here’s a look at the old Hulu iPhone app (left) versus the new design in today’s update (right):
And in addition to the updated design, iPhone users will find Hulu’s Kid Lock functionality now available. The parental control feature can be enabled through settings to restrict content for children using the service.
The updated Hulu app for iPhone is available on the App Store now.
Filed under: Apps Tagged: 4.7.0, app, App Store, Hulu, iPhone, kid lock, update
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AppFigures now lets developers easily share favorite App Store reviews, Parse SDK adds tvOS and watchOS 2 support
There are a few new goodies for iOS developers shipping during the holiday season. Over the weekend, app analytics firm AppFigures released a cool new feature called ‘Sharable Review Cards’. Essentially, developers can curate their App Store reviews for some of their best feedback and quickly share a link to that comment for others to admire.
The cards take on the theme from the app icon, so each review card appearance matches the app it is about. In the example above, my app Bingo Machine uses a dark blue background tint, so the AppFigures Card uses the same blue for the review title. It’s a pretty cool feature for devs who want to positively promote their app on social media with actual customer testimonials.
There are also some new releases from Facebook’s Parse, the third-party cloud sync framework that Apple later aped with its own CloudKit service, with complete support for the newest Apple platforms, namely watchOS and tvOS.
Today, Parse has officially released SDKs suitable for Apple Watch and Apple TV with relevant forks for watchOS and tvOS, respectively. Although Parse could run tvOS and watchOS apps previously (thanks to the underlying shared Foundation core that underpins all of Apple’s platforms), there are some optimizations that really make the SDK easy to use and intuitive for each platform.
For example, with the Parse tvOS release, the company has removed any references to saving state to disk as Apple TV apps are not allowed to use local storage at all. In particular, the Parse watch SDK now fully supports watchOS 2 so you can write Parse-powered apps that run natively on the device itself for maximum performance.
Alongside tvOS and watchOS integration, the 1.11.0 release also adds the ability to schedule push notifications for a particular time which benefits apps like calendars and event trackers. You can download the new release from the Parse GitHub repository. Check the Parse blog for more details on the new version.
Filed under: Apps, Developers, iOS, iOS Devices, Tech Industry Tagged: App Review, Apple TV, Apple watch, Facebook, Parse, shareable app cards, tvOS, watchOS
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How-To: Find and create Christmas stations + playlists with Apple Music
While it undoubtedly drives the rest of my family crazy, I sure love Christmas music and don’t mind one bit that it takes over radio stations on November 1st. FM radio is okay in the car and I’ve used Pandora and iHeartRadio the last few years to find a variety of Christmas music, but ads and skip limits are no good when you’ve got access to a streaming music catalog everywhere you go. This year I’m all in with Apple Music and finding it terrific as my own personal Christmas music station.
Apple Music does a pretty good job of serving up a variety of ad-free Christmas music through stations and playlists … if you know where to look. Here are a few tips to set you in the right direction if you want to feel festive and spread the Christmas mood:
The easiest way to just press play and start enjoying some Christmas tunes is through the Radio tab within iTunes on Macs or PCs or the Music app on iPhones, iPads, iPod touches, and new Apple TVs. Radio with unlimited skips is included for Apple Music members, and without a membership you can still listen for free but with limited skips.
Apple has made a Christmas Classics station that it’s currently promoting under the Featured Stations section under Radio. Look for the vintage phonograph and candy cane record. This station is probably most like what you expect to hear on FM radio, but without the ad breaks and station promotion. You can also heart or favorite songs you like to improve For You recommendations or add them to your library or playlist if you subscribe to Apple Music. Here’s a Christmas Classics station link that should open on your device.
Apple also has created a collection of other Christmas stations found under the Radio tab that you may enjoy. These include Holiday Hits, Soulful Holiday, Latin Holiday, The Sounds of Christmas, Classical Holiday, Rockin’ Holiday, Country Holiday, and Swingin’ Holiday. Each station has its own festive cover art, too, which I really like.
Radio is easy to start and doesn’t take much managing, but playlists let you know which songs are playing next and you can download the tracks for offline listening if streaming isn’t an option. Offline playlists are best for playback away from Wi-Fi for anyone with cellular data caps.
For Apple Music members, the curators at Apple have created several Christmas music playlists that I’ve enjoyed this year. These can be found under the New tab on iTunes or Music for Mac, PC, iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, and 4th-generaion Apple TVs. There are a few places to look from here to find the right Christmas playlist.
The front page of New will list everything that Apple Music is currently promoting across various genres. Swipe or scroll down to Hot Playlists and you’ll likely find a few holiday playlists to get started, but there’s also one place to find all of Apple’s curated Christmas playlists.
From the New tab, look for Apple Editors Playlists then the Holiday section. The Featured section promotes albums, radio stations, playlists, tracks, and music videos while the Playlists section includes 16 different playlists with music from the ’50s to ’00s, a jazz collection, folk and indie playlists, and more.
For even more Christmas music recommendations in Apple Music, head back to the front page of the New tab and change All Genres to Holiday. This changes the promoted albums, singles, stations, and playlists to focus on everything Christmas including an Essential Albums section with must-listen picks like A Charlie Brown Christmas by Vince Guaraldi Trio. (I started playing this one a week before Thanksgiving which did not thrill my wife.)
If you want to create your own giant Christmas music radio station with lots of variety, my personal tip is to create a single playlist called Christmas Music then add a few of your favorite Apple curated playlists plus albums and singles to it, then hit play with shuffle turned on.
This year I’ve got a Jawbone Big Jambox connected to an AirPort Express placed behind my Christmas tree and hidden by the presents around it with my Christmas music playlist wirelessly AirPlaying to it from my Mac. (Starting tomorrow December 15th, Sonos will start rolling out Apple Music playback in beta, which will similarly let you create an out-of-sight setup with wireless speakers.) I’m looking forward to impressing my family with this setup (which includes Siri-controlled lights) when they visit, and it’s made my own living room feel more festive even if it’s 75º outside.
Not an Apple Music subscriber or just want some cheap Christmas music to own? Check out 99 Must-Have Christmas Classics ($2.19), 99 Must-Have Christmas Chillout ($1.09), and Amazon’s other digital holiday music collections with popular albums and bundles with loads of MP3s that you can play anywhere or upload to Apple Music.
You’ll be dad-dancing like Eddy Cue in no time:
Have any of tips for using Apple Music to discover and playback Christmas music or want to share your playlist with others? Let us know in the comments below! Don’t forget: Apple Music includes a free, three-month trial for first-time subscribers, plus for the next few weeks select Beats products include a $60 credit (and pro tip: follow 9to5Toys for iTunes gift card deals all year long).
Filed under:
How-To, Apple Music Tagged: Apple Music, Apple Music radio, Christmas, Christmas music, Christmas stations, holiday music, itunes radio, Music, playlists, radio stations, stations
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