I love web apps. Hardly anything inspires me to write a detailed review like an exciting new web app. I got started writing online back when I only had a Windows PC, and web apps were the most exciting thing there with the all-but-inexistent indie app market on PCs. So I found the best of them, curated them at the now-defunct GreatWebApps blog, then got my first editorial job at Web.AppStorm.
And yet, I'm a hypocrite. I use plenty of web apps — mainly as services to feed into native apps. When I'm writing, my words might be synced in iCloud or Dropbox, but they're usually written in a native app. Same for almost everything else. I use web apps to publish my site, track stats, collaborate with team members, and everything else that obviously has to be networked. Everything else might be synced with the cloud, but I reach for native apps for work and fun whenever I possibly can. And I suspect the same is the case for almost most others.
Foster at Mysterous Trousers just wrote a detailed article about the numerous little things that stack up to make us conditioned to not rely on web apps for our normal work. They make a very good point:
"Someone could build the most amazing web app ever and they’d be battling our history with hundreds of other web apps that have let us down."
Go read the full article for all the reasons they came up with for why people are scared of relying on web apps, which are all too true. It puts in words what I've been thinking about web apps — even those I love — for quite some time.
Ever wanted to run an ad specifically on Techinch.com to make sure our readers hear about your app or service? Here's your chance. Right now, we run only one ad from InfluAds on Techinch.com, and we're proud of the minimalist quality of their ads. It keeps Techinch's hosting paid for without the ugliness of Google Adsense, and if you pay attention, you'll likely find stuff you actually like from the advertisers (case in point: right now, we've got ads from the beautiful hosted CMS Squarespace, the cute Instagram-powered magnets Instantgram, and more).
And now, if you want to make sure your app is featured with an equally stylish ad on Techinch.com, you can. Just head over to our Techinch InfluAds Page, where you can get your ad on Techinch — exclusively — for $85/month, or in our RSS feed for $25/month. Or, you can purchase a brand-new sponsorship page for $100/month. The rates are rather low, so now's a great time to get in.
Looking forward to having your app featured on Techinch.com!
Yesterday, I got an email about the newest update to NewsBar, a simple Mac RSS ticker app. It just got updated with iCloud sync — a custom-built iCloud sync that uses a custom file format and iCloud's document sync instead of the less reliable database sync. It does its own native RSS subscriptions, then syncs your subscriptions, starred posts, and read status over iCloud between your Macs and the iPhone app.
And you know what? It actually works great. Despite iCloud's sync issues, it works as reliably here as it does in most text editors. Check out the full review on Mac.AppStorm for the whole scoop, but if you're looking for a simple RSS reader that runs directly on your Mac or iPhone without needing another web service, it's a great option.
Want an awesome text editor in your browser? Then you've got to check out Oak Outliner, the newest project from Hog Bay Software. It's awesome … but best of all, it points to a new future of amazing text-powered web apps.
Check out my full review on Web.AppStorm. Oak Outliner is fun - and terribly useful - today, but I for one can't wait to see what's next.
Go take 10 minutes and watch this video made from an excerpted portion of author David Foster Wallace's 2005 commencement speech at Kenyon College. Then make a reminder in your todo list to watch it again a year from now.
It's nothing like what you're expecting, but everything you need to hear right now.
Really. You won't regret it.
…also, I don't know what it is with commencement speeches, but the best of them — say, Steve Job's Stanford Commencement Address, which is another must watch that's oddly also from 2005 — could easily rival the best TED talks, ever. Any day.
Gmail has dropped its free apps plan — though you can still get a single email account through a workaround. And still, there's always that little thing about trusting Google with so much of our online lives, even if you did want to pay.
The good thing is, there's a lot of other options. Atmail Cloud is a nice option, as is Microsoft's new hosted Exchange with Office 365 for Businesses. There's a ton of options that I run through in this new roundup at Web.AppStorm. Check out the full roundup there if you're looking for a new place for your emails.
I'm looking forward to giving Office 365 for Business a shot sometime soon, myself.
If you've ever blogged on Posterous — and so many of us have since it was so insanely easy to start a blog just by sending one email — then you've got something you need to do this weekend: backup your old Posterous site and find it a new home.
It's not that hard, either. Just downloading the Posterous backup will only take a few minutes, and you'll have a full site you could actually FTP to your server and have a new home for your site in minutes. Or you could just save the backup to your computer to flip through in the future for nostalgia's sake. Or, you can get a new start with WordPress.com, Squarespace, Tumblr, or even Kirby.
Check out the full article on Web.AppStorm for the full scoop. But don't forget: you've only got until Tuesday to backup your Posterous site, before it's deleted for good.
Several weeks back, I wrote about Apple being [unapologetically different][https://techinch.com/blog/apple-unapologetically-different]. Apple's choosy in what they'll release, and they tend to stick by their choices and lead the industry. They're opinionated, in their software choices, in their devices, and in the way they market and deal with the public. It does its best to seize the future in the way it deems best.
Microsoft has long been accused of simply following — then near-monopolizing — market trends, from their user interface to their browser and more. Yet, with their Metro (now called Modern) UI design launched in Windows 8 is a distinctive style that's [boldly different][http://www.zdnet.com/microsofts-windows-8-approach-bold-arrogant-or-both-7000013905/] than any previous version of Windows.
Bold changes take determination, and they don't always take off. But Microsoft needed to try something drastic — anything, almost — and Windows 8's design is a defining change that's attracted grudging admiration from even Microsoft critics. Windows 8 looks and feels new, and while it copies from competitors where it makes sense — with its own App Store, "natural" style scrolling, minimal scroll bars, integrated spell check, and included internationalization, all like Mac users have expected for years — it's different enough that Windows 8 feels fully unique.
If you approached Windows 8 as a brand-new operating system, sans-desktop and legacy apps, it's very interesting on its own right. But Microsoft decided to leave the desktop in, apparently to cater to their primary customers — businesses that have stuck to XP and have grudgingly at best adopted Windows 7 — while still trying to win the future in tablets and mobile. They took out the start menu, moved most settings and commands — including shutdown — to the new style of Windows 8, but left traditional apps running in a stripped-down Windows desktop that looks like Windows 7 with less features and a broken Aero interface.
Of all weird things, Office 2013 — quite an ambitious release in itself, one that's strongly integrated with the other half of Microsoft's future: the cloud — is only for the traditional desktop aside from a separate OneNote app. Office 2013 should have been the strongest supporter of the new Windows style, and here it sits in the now old-fashioned desktop. And that's not all: the Windows Live suite of photo and video editing apps are still in the desktop, as are the bundled apps like Paint.
It's like Microsoft got a solid vision for the future, went far enough with it to shake up their whole OS strategy … and then got cold feet and backed up. The market's done the same: Windows 8 has incredibly low adoption rates, and complaints from users and the press continue to roll in.
The word now is that the next release of Windows, so-called Windows Blue or Windows 8.1, will include new ways to customize the new Windows 8 start screen and have more of Control Panel moved into the new Windows Preferences, but will also include options to boot to desktop and possible see a return of the iconic Start button. There's also word — possibly — of an update to Office 2013 that'll bring it to the Start Screen as a modern Windows app.
On the one hand, it sounds like they're doubling-down on the new design, working to fix the problems many have complained about in it. But at the same time, they're making it easier to stick with the old Windows desktop, which now doesn't look like it's destined to as certain a death as it did in Windows 8's initial release.
Microsoft, you need to make up your mind. If you want to cater to those who don't want to move forward, release a new version of XP. The market would love that, I'm sure. But if you want to win the future, do everything you possibly can to make the new Windows 8 interface the very best it can be, with the best apps your teams can put out. Make stuff to showcase its power. And move legacy apps to the new interface; surely you can flip a Win32 window boarder switch to make the old apps fit in the new start screen sans their normal title bar and exit/minimize/maximize buttons, albeit without being customized for it.
Make up your mind, stick to your guns, and be opinionated. We might not all agree with the choices, but we'll sure respect you for it.
Yup, another article of mine you should check out, this time reviewing a great new way to view your Google Analytics data: Handsome Stats. It's really good, even if a tad lite on the features.
Check out the full review for more details. It's nice.
I just reviewed a new app, My Files, on Mac.AppStorm. It's an attempt to make it simple to store files in cloud storage services without taking up local space on your Mac.
See, cloud storage for the most part is a catch 22: it's billed as a way to make up for smaller amounts of storage on your devices (Hey, don't worry your phone has so little storage, it comes with 25Gb of Dropbox storage), but then that storage either takes up an equal amount of space on your computer or the files are difficult to access. My Files attempts to blur the lines by letting you see and search through all the files you've saved in your cloud storage accounts, without syncing the files themselves to your computer until you need them.
It's a great concept, but right now, it's little more than a proof of concept. It's clunky and prone to crashes. Check my full review at Mac.AppStorm; it's still worth downloading for some, but likely not something you'll use that much for now. Here's to hoping it improves — drastically — going forward, because it's an app concept I'd really like to see done well.
