goodie
Retro Mountainscape (phone wallpaper)
There are 2 variants of this week's 80s-style wallpaper. As always, both versions are 4K (2160x3840). Downloads below!
Blog
watch
What Even is the Apple Watch?
Long time readers will be more than a little familiar with my affinity for the Apple Watch. I love my Apple Watch and it's one of my absolute favorite tech products I own. But even today, almost a full year after buying it, I still get asked "what does it do?"
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On the Challenges of Marketing Virtual Reality (sponsor)
My thanks once again to NSShadowcat for sponsoring this month of BirchTree! Like I said last time, this site is absolutely worth your time. Author Mayur Dhaka takes on the tech news with a unique perspective to the tech news of the day.
This week Mayur posted a good piece on the challenges marketers (and
goodie
Introducing Quick BIN Lookup
Today I am happy to release Quick BIN Lookup, simple one-use website that lets you easily find some basic information about any credit or debit card. This is primarily useful to merchants who need to look up where a payment is coming from.
As the name implies, this site is aimed at getting you
Game
PlayStation 4 Remote Play Comes to Mac and PC
This is more of a public service annoucement than anything else, but Sony just released their version 3.5 update to the PlayStation 4. You can download it now by going to your PS4 and going to Settings>System Software Update and choosing to install the udpate. It only took 5 minutes or less
microsoft
Abandoning Old Biases (or How I Kind of Like Microsoft Now)
You might have been able to tell that I'm an Apple guy. I loved my Performa in 1994 and I love my iPhone in 20161. This of course means that I have a life long distaste for all things Microsoft. I had long debates with my friends on why Mac OS X was
A harsh Reminder to Shut Up and Listen
When I saw this headline pop up in my Twitter timeline this weekend, I thought it was just a lazy piece of clickbait: Tabletop Gaming has a White Male Terrorism Problem. But oh was I wrong.
Since July of 2015 fans of the game Malifaux have been attempting to overwhelm me with death and rape
watch
watchOS 3 Proposal: Fixing the Side Button
The Apple Watch is great, but it has some major flaws that Apple needs to address to make it even better. Today I wanted to explore how Apple could fix the side button on the Apple Watch. You know, that button that you double-tap to activate Apple Pay but have never used to bring
feature
I Tried Google Play Music, but Apple Music Still has my Heart
It seems I am rather unique in my love for Apple Music. While I am surrounded by people in my same world who have abandoned the service for competitors like Spotify and Google Play Music, I am having a blast over here in the Apple Music camp. But why am I happy when so many
goodie
Jonathan Adler-inspired Phone Wallpapers
My wife just bought a new phone case and I made her these companion wallpapers to go with it. Because I love you guys and thought you might like them as well, here they are.
These are pretty simple, and are a direct reproduction of the case design by Jonathan Adler. AS always, these are
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NSShadowcat: A New Apple Blog You Want on Your Radar (sponsor)
NSShadowcat is relatively new tech blog created by Mayur Dhaka and it's off to a strong start. At its core, NSShadowcat is primarily an Apple weblog that links to great content around the web. Recently, Mayur has started to write lengthier original content and I'm very happy to see him go
My One and Only Productivity "Hack"
Write it down.
That's my one and only tip for being more productive. Yes, I know this pales in comparison to the depth of advice you'll from someone like David Allen or Shawn Blanc, but it's the best universal tip I can provide.
Writing it down takes your goals
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Wax & Wick: Awesome Hand Crafted Soy Candles (sponsor)
My thanks to Wax & Wick, an upstart candle company based out of Chicago, IL, for sponsoring BirchTree for the entire month of March!
Launched in 2015, Wax & Wick is not what you would expect from any other candle company. Their candles are made of 100% soy instead of paraffin wax, which is a
feature
A Love Letter to My Apple Watch
There is no shortage of blog posts and podcast episodes with people discussing at length why they stopped wearing their Apple Watch or what drastic changes they think Apple needs to do to make the Apple Watch the least bit useful. I won't suggest that the Apple Watch is perfect or that it
Game
Uncharted 2's Stellar Storytelling
"That movie looks like a video game" is one of the harshest criticisms you can level against a film. Video games are traditionally terrible story delivery mechanisms, and we've only recently gotten anywhere near having stories that aren't embarrassing1. Even games that are considered to have good stories nowadays
Losing Our Minds Over a Little Camera Bump
As people are want to do, they freaked out about the camera bump on the back of the new 9.7 inch iPad Pro that Apple unveiled this week. "This is ridiculous!" "Jonny Ive has clearly lost his way." "Steve never would have let this happen!" "They should
5 Short Podcasts You Should be Listening To Right Now
I recently decided to mix up my podcast lineup a bit and got some new shows in my rotation. I don't have a ton of time to listen to podcasts, so I was on the lookout for shows under 30 minutes so I could cram more shows into less time. I simply don&
Game
Video Games Are the Last Bastion of Premium Priced Consumer Software
What if I told you that there is a market out there that routinely sells software for over $50 and has a large, thriving market that is happy to pay that amount? If you come from the worlds of mobile and desktop software, you'd probably think that's crazy talk. Most apps