The Full Measure

Simple, brilliant ideas are often obvious in hindsight. Like the great new app, VisualRuler, which allows you to precisely measure the size of an object (like a piece of art you want to frame) using your iPhone.

The app is simple: take a picture of an object next to a credit card or driver’s license – something you’re likely already carrying around at all times – and the app will extrapolate the object’s size by relative comparison, then allow you to export the measurements.

It’s $2.99 on the App Store, and it works like a charm. Measure away.

July 27, 2016

Chameleon

I’m not normally a big video-gamer, though I do tend to play games on my iPhone while riding the subway. As I almost always listen to a podcast or audiobook at the same time, I tend to like mindless yet engaging games – something to distract me visually from the sweaty summer riders crowded in around me, as complement to my earbudded audio cocoon.

In the past, Alto’s Adventure has been a favorite, as has Candy Crush, Two Dots, and Twofold.

This past week, however, I discovered Apple 2016 Editor’s Choice Award-winner Chameleon Run, and I’m thoroughly addicted.

The game is an autorunner, with a simple twist: you can change your little running guy’s color from yellow to pink, and you can only run on planks that match your current color. That addition – forcing you to monitor color-switching with your left thumb, while jumping with your right – makes the game far more difficult and interesting than a standard, one-choice autorunner. The levels are also extremely difficult, with multiple variations and paths through each: collect all the marbles, collect all the stars, complete the level without changing color.

Most brilliantly / nefariously, the game also leverages economist Richard Thaler‘s insight about the power of default behavior: when you die (which happens quite a lot), the game automatically restarts the level, without you having to click something to begin again. That small nudge is enough to keep me playing one more try, wait just one more after that, okay seriously just this last one, no seriously after this one I’m putting it down, etc.

If you’re looking for stupid brilliant immersive fun, go download it (for iPhone or Android) yourself.

June 30, 2016

Night Shifted

Early this month, I wrote about the beta of iOS 9.3, and its new Night Shift feature. Night Shift reduces iPhones’ blue-spectrum light output in the evening, which in turn helps you preserve your circadian rhythm for a better night’s sleep.

This week, Apple released the final version of iOS 9.3, which you may have already updated on your phone. I had hoped that in the final release, Night Shift would be turned on by default. But though it now appears as a button in Control Center (see below), it doesn’t turn on at sunset automatically as it should.

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Because the settings are a bit buried, here’s a quick step-by-step guide to configuring Night Shift so that it runs on its own for maximum health benefits:

1. Open the Settings app, and choose Display & Brightness.

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2. Choose Night Shift.

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3. Toggle on the Scheduled slider, so that it turns green.

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4. Choose the newly-appeared From / To option.

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5. Check the Sunset to Sunrise option.

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6. Finally, go back to the Night Shift pane, and move the Color Temperature slider all the way to More Warm.

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Voila! You’re now all set. Enjoy the sweet dreams.

March 30, 2016

Out of the Blue

Five years back, I wrote about F.lux, a free piece of software that reduces the blue light emitted from your computer screen at night.  I still use F.lux today, and I’m even more convinced now of its importance.

Your brain perceives blue-spectrum screen light as daylight.  Just ten minutes of looking at your phone screen has the same impact as walking for an hour in bright daytime sun. Viewing that fake ‘daylight’ at night leads your body to mis-adjust your circadian rhythms, which in turn leads to large and lasting negative health impacts.

By now, most of us are more likely to spend the evening staring at smartphone screens than computers.  But while apps like Twilight have followed F.lux’s lead on Android, there hasn’t been a similar solution for iPhones and iPads.

Fortunately, Apple has taken the matter into their own hands. Their next system update contains a feature called Night Shift, that cuts the screens’ blue-spectrum light at night.  The final release of that update is still a month off.  But it’s stable enough that Apple has just released a public beta.

It is, indeed, a beta. I haven’t had any problems with it myself, though your mileage may vary.  If you choose to install it, back up your iPhone first.  That way, you can roll back if the install turns out to be a disaster.

But, as I said, it’s worked without a hitch for me thus far.  And the new Night Shift feature makes it more than worth the chance, especially if you’re an evening iPhone reader.

You can download the public beta for free, directly from Apple.  (After you do, you’ll still need to turn on Night Shift in Settings.) And then you can get an excellent, light-unimpeded night of sleep.

 

March 5, 2016

Squared and Infatuated

For years, whenever I traveled around NYC (or the rest of the world), I depended on Yelp to pull up quick hit-lists of places to eat, drink, grab coffee, etc. But in the more recent past, the taste level and discourse of Yelp reviewers seems to have swung down to YouTube-commenter levels. (Relatedly illustrative piece of techno-art: this mashup of the most recent comments from YouTube alongside the most recent comments from Metafilter’s faithfully erudite community.)

Over the same time, however, I started seeing Google search results for bars’ and restaurants’ Foursquare pages. While Foursquare initially launched as a way for people to ‘check in’ at venues (and thereby see if friends might be checked in somewhere nearby), over a decade of use, the app developed an impressive database of reviews and venue-specific tips. About two years ago, Foursquare spun out the check-in functionality to an entirely separate app, Swarm. Foursquare, in turn, became simply a search-engine for places. Based on the quality of the search results I’d been stumbling across, I re-downloaded Foursquare on my phone, and it’s now become my first-pass go-to when trying to pull up a list of spots nearby, whether to find a new restaurant, or to jog my memory about bars I’d visited drunkenly years back and since forgot.

In parallel to Yelp-ing, I’d also long depended on Zagat for more focused restaurant reviews. But once the company was acquired by Google, the whole thing seemed to sort of fall apart. So, instead, I switched over to LocalEats, whose listings of restaurants beloved by local professional reviewers would invariably align with the stuff I already liked in areas I knew well. Because LocalEats skewed towards well-established spots, I also regularly checked in on Eater, to keep up with the cool and new.

A few months ago, however, I discovered the Infatuation. As they put it:

You know the trusted friends you turn to when you need a restaurant suggestion? That’s us. We aren’t “professional” food critics, meaning you won’t hear any pretentious foodie hobnob from us. We also aren’t restaurant industry insiders, nor do we accept invites, comped meals, or solicited reservations. Ever. What we are is a website and mobile app [started] by two guys who wanted to help their friends find not only great restaurants, but the right restaurant to suit their needs on a particular evening. That’s still what The Infatuation is built on today.

With a great new app, The Infatuation has become the second half of my one-two punch (alongside Foursquare) when trying to figure out where to head off to eat.

I highly recommend downloading both apps – The Infatuation and Foursquare – and using them to do the same.

February 16, 2016

Trim

A slew of pundits have observed that we now live in a ‘rental economy’.  We no longer buy hard drives; we rent space in the cloud.  We don’t buy music or movies; we rent them from Spotify and Netflix.  We rent Zipcars by the hour for day trips, rent Citibikes to jet around town, rent rooms from individuals when we travel using Airbnb.

All of which is excellent.  We get access to more, while paying less.  So much less, in fact, that it’s possible to completely forget that you’re paying at all.  You signed up for LinkedIn Premium while you were looking for a job, trialed a Hulu subscription to find an obscure TV show, signed up for Audible to listen to business books while you commute.  And though you’ve now stopped doing all of those things, the subscriptions remain, small enough to overlook on your crowded credit card statement.  Sure, none of those subscriptions break the bank individually.  But, en masse, they add up.  Your available balance is dying a death of a thousand cuts.

Enter the very smart Trim, a new free web service that analyzes your credit card and bank statements to pick out recurring subscriptions, then lets you cancel the subscriptions you no longer want with a single click.

It’s the first step in a larger vision, one where a machine-learning software-driven assistant keeps an eye on your personal finances, so you don’t have to.  And while I’m excited to see how the company evolves, it’s also more than useful enough in this initial iteration to make it worth your time to quickly sign up.

Head on over, and purge away.

January 20, 2016

Chorus

It’s amazing how big of an impact small improvements can make in your life.

Considering it’s just ten bucks, the SoundBot HD Shower Speaker sounds remarkably good, and has transformed an otherwise fairly forgettable ten minutes of my day into an off-key sing-along that invariably brightens my mood.

Apologies to my dogs who are forced to hear it, but there’s nothing like belting terrible, terrible Top 50 pop to start the day on the right foot. Selena Gomez, look out.

October 21, 2015

Medium

For as long as I can remember, and across pretty much all of my thinking and writing tasks, I’ve been torn between using computers and using pen & paper.

By now, I keep my to-do list online (still in ToDoist), though I print it out each morning (from my trusty, highly-recommendable and cheap Brother HL-L2340DW), and work all day from the paper version.

I brainstorm and outline best on paper, but can draft and compose far faster on-screen.

And after recently converting the contents of a slew of separate Mac and iOS apps (Day One, Paprika, NVAlt, etc.) into a series of Evernote notebooks (as I’m now testing out using Evernote as my ‘everything bucket’), I’ve also taken to scanning all of my incoming mail, receipts, etc., into Evernote (primarily using their free Scannabale app), and lazily filing the physical papers by simply sticking all the stuff from a given month into a single file folder together (ie., “October ’15”).

Nonetheless, I also recently backed a Productivity Planner project on Kickstarter. Which, in turn, drove me to buy a Five Minute Journal, the prior project from the same designers.

I’m a pretty reliable journaler already, and in fact even previously used the outline of the Five Minute Journal questions as part of what I recorded daily in my digital journal file. But, as often turns out to be the case, there’s a difference between the experience in one medium versus the other. With the Five Minute Journal bedside, I’m more reliable at answering its short questions as the first thing I do when I wake up, and the last before I go to sleep.

So, consider a hard-copy Five Minute Journal – it seems to be making me happier, at least. And give some thought to which tools you use for your various pursuits. McLuhan may have overstated it, but if the message isn’t the medium, the medium still certainly very much matters.

October 9, 2015

Shyp

I purged my closets in the move, and ended up eBaying off a bunch of odds and ends. It’s a painless process, until you then have to actually pack and ship the stuff you just sold.

Fortunately, I discovered the app Shyp, which makes shipping as easy as listing items in the first place. Enter the destination addresses, shoot photos of the items, and for a $5 flat fee, the company will send someone to pick everything up, pack it, and send it off via the cheapest carrier option available.

It’s a smart business model, as the $5 fee is just supplementary income for the company, which makes most of its money on the arbitrage between the retail shipping price and the discounted price they pay based on their high shipping volume. Thus, the cost to ship is the same as you’d pay at the post office or UPS, and packing labor and supplies are free. That makes shipping cheaper than doing it yourself (as you’d otherwise have to buy those packing supplies), while still making enough money to keep the company profitably around for the long haul. Or, at least, that’s my hope, as I don’t want to have to go back to the prior process of packing, schlepping and sending myself.

September 2, 2015

Touchscreen

Over the past few months, I’ve been leaving my phone in my bag more often. A week back, I stopped sleeping with it in my bedroom, and I’m now considering ditching my Apple watch in favor of my analog Omega.

Basically, this:

September 1, 2015