It's The Battle Of The Read It Later Apps! Read It Later vs. Instapaper vs. Readability. Sometimes we just don’t have the time to read longer articles that we may come across on the Web, and we would rather just read it later. And with that, Marco Arment basically invented the “read it later” app space with Instapaper (a $4.99 app) in 2008. Almost a year later, his first direct competitor, Read It Later, came out in 2009, along with a free version. And now, in 2012, we have the third major direct competitor: Readability, which is completely “free.” Now we have three choices to pick from for sending articles to read later.
Which one is the best? Let’s find out. Instapaper Let’s start with the original. Personally, I have been using Instapaper for the past several years. The Social Features Are Just So Good [caption id="attachment_279797" align="aligncenter" width="1259" caption="Finding what your friends are reading is one of the best features of Instapaper. "] [/caption] Keep Your Articles Organized The Actual Reading Experience Readability Design Matters Read It Later The Winner(s)?
How to use the iOS Reminders app. The arrival of iOS 5 last fall brought with it the ability to manage your to-dos in the form of the built-in Reminders app. Reminders won’t threaten the many task management utilities available from the App Store—Apple’s built-in tool is really geared more toward storing simple lists for shopping, packing, and the like. But there are some time- and location-based tricks you can master with Reminders on your iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch.
Here’s a quick guide on how to make the most of the app. Lists When you first launch Reminders, you’ll see, by default, a blank list; the name of that list, appropriately enough, is Reminders. You can create multiple, separate lists in Reminders, and assign individual tasks to any one of them. On the iPad, your lists are always visible on the left-hand side of the screen.
To add a new list, tap the Edit button. Tasks Now that you’ve mastered lists, it’s time to start adding tasks—reminders, in the app’s nomenclature. Scheduling reminders Reminders with Siri. Apple to announce tools, platform to "digitally destroy" textbook publishing. Apple is slated to announce the fruits of its labor on improving the use of technology in education at its special media event on Thursday, January 19. While speculation has so far centered on digital textbooks, sources close to the matter have confirmed to Ars that Apple will announce tools to help create interactive e-books—the "GarageBand for e-books," so to speak—and expand its current platform to distribute them to iPhone and iPad users. Along with the details we were able to gather from our sources, we also spoke to two experts in the field of digital publishing to get a clearer picture of the significance of what Apple is planning to announce.
So far, Apple has largely embraced the ePub 2 standard for its iBooks platform, though it has added a number of HTML5-based extensions to enable the inclusion of video and audio for some limited interaction. GarageBand for e-books Our sources say Apple will announce such a tool on Thursday. Will Apple launch a sort of GarageBand for e-books? New Apps for 2012. With the new year, many people make up resolutions that often involve losing weight or spend less time checking email and Facebook. Whilst those are certainly noble resolutions, they don’t quite fit the goals that I have set for this year when I began thinking about 2012 and the things I’d like accomplish in the next 12 months.
Instead of working more to make more money, I’d like to work less but work smarter, as Shawn recently mentioned in an episode of Shawn Today. I want to spend more time with my family and friends and use the “time for work” with better tools to get the same things done, but better. I’m working on a series of completely new projects, too, but I also would like to optimize my existing tasks to require less time yet yield better results. Which means I have to get new tools and understand how to properly use the ones I already have. I don’t have access to my Mac 24/7 anymore. These are two key points: access and writing. Apps I look forward to a great 2012.
Is Dropbox Really The World's 5th Most Valuable Startup? Dropbox, the online file sync and sharing service, was recently named 5th in a list of the The World's Most Valuable Startups by Business Insider. To put that in context, the only 4 companies ranked above Dropbox were (in order of valuation): Facebook, Zynga, Groupon and Twitter. Dropbox was listed above the likes of Wikipedia, Craigslist, Hulu and Tumblr. Business Insider estimated the value of Dropbox at $4 billion, based on its latest funding round at the end of August.
But let's face it, this valuation of Dropbox cannot be relied on. That $4 billion is mostly derived from fat cat VCs competing for a hot deal. It's far more important to ask: who is using Dropbox currently and is there anything in the use cases that justifies such a high valuation? Dropbox became popular due to successfully tapping into two huge trends on the Web over the past few years: 1. 2. However it's Dropbox that has emerged to become the leading file sync service, since launching to the public in September 2008. Stepcase Lifehack How I Use GoodReader. iPad has changed the way I do everything digitally. The way that I interact with devices, read, write, organize, and get things done. It is engrained into my life and I wouldn’t want to go back to the way I was before without it.
One of the apps that have slowly creeped their way into my life is GoodReader for iPad. GoodReader is an app that allows you to read, manage, organize, access, and annotate just about any file that you would want to. It was released as primarily a PDF reader / “annotater” at first, but now hos taken on a life of its own with ways to download files, sync with Dropbox, create, edit, and manage annotations on PDFs, and much more. Here are a few ways that I use GoodReader to get things done. Syncing documents with Dropbox This is what I use GoodReader for the most and without it, my PDF reading / annotating on iPad wouldn’t exist. Better (paperless) meetings and discussions One of my issues to resolve this year is to make my life more paperless. Signatures Conclusion. Verses Is The Notebook For Creative Poets And Songwriters. Verses – a notebook for creative writers ($0.99) by Derek Kepner is a nifty tool for those crafting their next collection of poems or songs.
I absolutely love writing, even when it comes to forms of literature and poetry. Back when I went to school, I took some poetry classes and actually liked it – though I’d rather create my own poems. This can be tough though, especially if you plan to make it rhyme (seriously, this is one of the hardest things to do). Thankfully, there’s an app for that. Verses can be the best app to have around for aspiring poets, even songwriters. When the app is opened, users are presented with a very minimal and clean interface. The best part about Verses is that it can help you find words that will rhyme. When you’re finished with your work, you can tweet it out (if it’s short) using native iOS 5 Twitter integration, or you can save it in Verses. When you view one of your multiple past writings, you can look through them all by swiping left and right.
Working In Word, Excel, PowerPoint On an iPad - Walt Mossberg - Personal Technology. Although Apple’s popular iPad tablet has been able to replace laptops for many tasks, it isn’t a big hit with folks who’d like to use it to create or edit long Microsoft Office documents. While Microsoft has released a number of apps for the iPad, it hasn’t yet released an iPad version of Office. There are a number of valuable apps that can create or edit Office documents, such as Quickoffice Pro, Documents To Go and the iPad version of Apple’s own iWork suite. But their fidelity with Office documents created on a Windows PC or a Mac isn’t perfect.
This week, OnLive Inc., in Palo Alto, Calif., is releasing an app that brings the full, genuine Windows versions of the key Office productivity apps—Word, Excel and PowerPoint—to the iPad. And it’s free. These are the real programs. I’ve been testing a pre-release version of this new app, called OnLive Desktop, which the company says will be available in the next few days in Apple’s app store. OnLive Desktop is a cloud-based app. Best Free Apps of the Day on 1/11. Opus Domini Mobile, Paper Glider vs. Gnomes, 480 BC: The Spartans, & More! | Best Apps.