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Going from "It Just Works" to "I Just Work"
The "it just works" message pushed by Apple and the company's fans in the early to mid 2000s was a sometimes tricky pitch to pull off. Of course at the time, Macs were much more intuitive to the average person than Windows1, but it opened them up to criticism when any
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Rating Apple's watchOS 3 Announcements at WWDC
Apple talked about a lot of stuff at their WWDC keynote today, and there are literally thousands of articles posted today about what they announced. But if you came to this site, you want to hear something about the Apple Watch, so don't worry, it was the watchOS 3 news that got me
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366 Days of Thinking Deeply About the Apple Watch
We just hit one full year of the Apple Watch's release and I realized I've written a lot about it in that time. I've been an outspoken advocate for the value of smart watches in general, as well as a supporter of the Apple Watch as the best smart
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Kobe Bryant and the Drive For Greatness
Image compiled from The LA Times' amazing graphic.
I knew Wednesday night was the last game of Kobe Bryant's career, but I didn't really care that much when the Lakers v Jazz game started that evening. I didn't care that much because the Warriors were playing at the
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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
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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
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3 Reasons PlayStation VR is the Headset to Beat in 2016
There were a couple moments during Sony's VR event today where I just knew the PlayStation VR was going to "win" the VR space in 2016. Sony came out swinging with some key talking points that show not only that they are a company that can make cool products, but that
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Review: Ulysses Mobile (iPhone-specific review)
Ulysses has long been one of the best text editors on the Mac and their iPad counterpart is a stunning example of high-quality software on a tablet. I love using both of these apps on a daily basis, and they are where most articles you see written here originate. One glaring omission from the
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Review: Remember the Milk 4 (It's Amazing)
According to my App Store receipts, I bought OmniFocus in early 2012 and it has been my go to task management app ever since. I own it for iOS and the Mac, and while I have experimented with other task managers since 2012, I'm always quick to go back to OmniFocus. No app
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The Best Health, Better Apps, and Outstanding Communication: My watchOS 3 Pitch
Apple first pitched the Apple Watch in September 2014, and they had 3 pillars that the device stood on: timekeeping,
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How to Download Your Entire Twitter History
Twitter has a surprisingly great data export feature built into the service and taking advantage of it is really easy. Below I have broken down the brief steps needed to get your tweets.
When you do your export, you'll get a ZIP file that contains an index.html file that you can open
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Cupertino Kool Aid or: A Return of the Bad Apple
This is a response to my own piece that I wrote last week about how it's good for Apple to kill old technology and move on to something better. After some further consideration, I am wondering how good a move it really is, since they wouldn't be replacing the audio port
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What are TLC, MLC, and SLC NAND Flash Anyway?
I mentioned this on the most recent Bite Size Tech, explaining how the 16GB iPhone uses TLC and the 64 and 128GB iPhones use MLC. As stated in the episode, MLC is a little more expensive, but why? I'm not an expert on storage, but I thought this was interesting and wanted to
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Using the iPad for: Web Development
This is part 1 in a new series on the site about some false notions out there about what you can and can't do on the iPad. The iPad has long been criticized for being a "consumption device" and that "real work" still needs to happen on a desktop
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What I Want to See in iOS 10 for iPad
iOS 9 was a good release for the iPhone, but it was a great release for the iPad. Split screen support, enhanced Bluetooth keyboard features, and picture-in-picture really made it a more powerful machine. These features in conjunction with some great app updates over the past few months have really made the iPad
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5 Years and a Book!
Last month I celebrated 5 years of writing at BirchTree, which is quite the milestone. I am extremely grateful for all the congratulations and positive feedback I got that day; it was more than I ever expected and only solidifies my belief that I have the best readers on the internet.
One of the things
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(REVISED) TLS, the June 30, 2016 Deadline, Online Payments, and You
UPDATE: The PCI compliance council has said they are pushing the deadline back to June 30, 2018, so this article is now a couple years early. It's a surprising move considering the state of TLS 1.0 security today, but that seems to be the direction they're chosen to go.
You
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How People Really Shop for TVs
There's been talk of the mythical Apple TV set for years. Apple launched the first Apple TV in 2007, and people have been asking ever since if Apple intends to just make the whole damn set themselves. They’ve left us hanging year after year, defiantly refusing to make one. They seem totally
