Inspired by ParisLemon’s post on Medium:
This was another banner year of basically giving up on more cutting-edge stuff. In December, I installed Overcast and Slack despite using the built-in Podcast app for years and doing all of my messaging through Google Voice. Slack is used by only my GF and I. I’d consider adding more people but no one I know socially is in front of a device @ work or even at home really so I’d have no one to talk to. Looking at my Google Voice and iMessage conversations, I get a new message on average every 12-20 days from people that aren’t my girlfriend so communication is incredibly basic.
Fantastical is a piece of crap if you use Exchange Server. I’m going back to the built in Calendar once this post is over. If I add a calendar appointment to iCal or to Fantastical, it won’t show up for days which is awful if you move an appointment now for 2 hours from now.
I don’t use Apple Music but I have 80 gigabytes of music on my iPhone stored locally with iTunes Match turned off as well. Wunderground is my favorite weather app but I may go back to NOAA because WU was bought by Weather Channel this year and NOAA is publicly funded. The Wunderground UI is nice. Alien Blue because I read car, Apple and tech news sub-reddit when I’m bored, Untappd because beer. Instagram because beer, Deliveries because Beer, Fuelly because car and tracking. I still use Swarm merely for data-logging. When I try to figure out when I have a new exhaust put on my car, I went to Foursquare.com’s history tab for places in Lee, NH and found the day I checked in at EFI Express. I use it to remember where I was and on what date for posterity / data logging. Writing about travel on this blog I can find exactly when I went to a restaurant in copenhagen or what the restaurant was called. Foursquare’s check-in service although private for me is incredibly valuable.
Camera+ should go away but I keep forgetting to delete it and while Maps is good for mirroring to my VW’s CarPlay, I prefer TomTom’s current and beta application because the data is stored locally. I don’t have any other apps that deserve to be on my front page. 2nd page is just built in apps that I’ll never use and travel apps like Tripit, United, Uber, Square that I use only when traveling. (we don’t have Uber, square, etc here in New Hampshire).
The iPad is clearly more entertainment focused. Slack, Outlook and Tweetbot can probably be deleted as I never use them. Untapped, Instagram are there because I’m at beer tastings and like to independently access these iPhone apps on another screen. When I’m on this iPad, I’m in Reeder, Twitch, YouTube, Plex, AlienBlue or Kindle. Those are really the only apps I use on my iPad, I’m just too lazy to move things around to make it work for me and be more efficient.
—
There you have it. A former technologist’s iOS devices and how they’re overpowered Reddit devices now. I don’t write on these devices, take notes, send emails or browse the web.I have a MacBook or iMac within reach at all times. typing on either device hurts my wrists and hunching over them at a desk is bad for my posture. I think it’s a cool exercise to see if these will change next year.
One thing is clear, I don’t think I need 128GB iOS devices. Aside from music, they’re all pretty infrequently used. Side-note, I’ve toyed with the idea of going back to a flip-phone w/ an iPod and just using my car’s built in navigation and using the iPad for Untappd and Instagram while at beer events.