I recently joined the beta to test out an app called The Shelf. If you don’t know, iOS 11 introduced a feature that allows you to drag and drop different types of text, files, maps and much more across apps. The Shelf is meant to be a place where you can temporary store your stuff before moving it to the location you want to move it to. For example, if I find an image I want to send to someone by email, I want to be able to find that image again easily without having to scroll through my image library for hours to find it. So, I simply drag it into The Shelf, compose the email, and then drag it out of The Shelf into the email.
The Shelf at first glance is just a temporary place to store your text. However, it does have a lot of useful features, so let’s get into them.
If you are looking for an editor for Windows, macOS and Linux, look no further. Write! is a workspace that allows you to create notes, essays, writing projects and any kind of text. With a clutter-free interface, Write! has all the features that you’d expect to find on a word processor. Write! allows you to backup your documents to the cloud on their secure server, so you’ll never lose them again, and it also has some powerful document tracking features, along with sessions, notes and much, much more.
iOS 11 has added video recording natively, so it’s really easy to enable video recording and start recording videos on your iPad and iPhone without anything else. You can record device audio along with microphone audio, so it’s perfect for making videos on apps and a video if you want to help someone else use an app.
The above video is a 10 second video to show you how to set up video recording on iOS 11.
(Note that this video was taken on iOS public beta 6, so by the final release it may change a little)
I’d thought I would share my iPad home screen. I’m currently on the iOS 11 beta, so I’ve got my most used apps in the dock. I’m also using an iPad Air 2, so I can thirteen apps in the dock (excluding the three suggested apps). The apps are listed by row, left to right on landscape mode.
V for Wiki is a beautifully made Wikipedia reader for iOS and the Apple Watch. Wikipedia is a great resource for information, however it doesn’t look great and the large paragraphs of text can often make it hard to read. V for Wiki has a beautiful layout and typography that will make you love reading Wikipedia again.
Copied is an application that lets you quickly save text, images, gifs and more from your clipboard. Using Copied, you can quickly add whatever is on your clipboard to the app, come back to it later if you need to. You can then easily copy something you saved back onto your clipboard.
Supporting all the newest iOS features such as split screen, a widget, a custom keyboard that allows you to easily insert items added, and more, Copied is a easy to use app that also offers some very advanced features.
Ulysses, one of my favourite apps for iOS, has just moved to subscription pricing. The team have said they did this because they wanted to continue updating the app, and that the revenue they were getting from one time purchases made it difficult to support the app.
Subscriptions are also the only match for the way technology works these days. As explained earlier, operating systems and devices get overhauled every year now, and major new features come out even throughout the year. Think TouchBar on the new MacBook Pro, or think the iPad Pro’s 12.9” and 10.5” form factors. It’s why Phones get “bought” on a subscription now, and why most people get a new one at least every two years. But with each device generation come new features, so the environment for apps is changing at a rather rapid pace, and we need to keep up. Our users expect us to always perform well. All those adjustments, as small as they may seem, continuously take time and energy. Subscriptions are the only sensible match for these new cycles.
After paying £23.99 for the app, it can be annoying that you now have to pay yearly or monthly for future updates. However, Ulysses has sweetened the deal with a permanent 50% off the yearly subscription plan if you have previously used Ulysses1. However this deal only lasts for two months, so be sure to get it soon.
Another advantage of the new pricing is that you unlock Ulysses on all devices with the single subscription, and you don’t need to buy each app on each platform individually. So, you get all the features across your iPhone, iPad and Mac.
If you don’t want to pay, you can continue using the old Ulysses app however you will not receive any updates. It is iOS 11 compatible though.
I’m going with the subscription, as I think Ulysses is an awesome app, and I want to support continued development.
Ulysses is free on both iOS and macOS, with a 14 day trial and is $4.99/month or $39.99/year afterwards. Full pricing can be found on the Ulysses page.
Thanks for reading!
Ulysses also offers a monthly and student pricing plan. ↩
Making habits is a very hard thing to do, but luckily Streaks for iOS and WatchOS (Android may be coming) is here to help you out. Imagine Streaks as a to-do list that helps you form good habits. Choose up to twelve things that you want to turn into daily habits, and every time you complete a task, your streak is extended. If you don’t complete a task, your streak is broken. Streaks also has many cooler features such as HealthKit integration, a Today widget and more.
Managing a busy inbox is often a struggle, with important emails hidden beneath piles of newsletters and promotional emails that you don’t really want. SaneBox filters out unimportant emails from your inbox, and moves them to a folder in your email account. Then, everyday you are sent a daily digest with email summaries for quick processing, or when you have time you can go into the SaneBox folders and read the emails yourself. SaneBox is trained by you, so you can make sure you don’t miss out on any unimportant emails.
Streaks is an awesome iPhone app that allows you to track your goals and complete them. You choose up to twelve tasks you want to turn into daily habits, and every time you complete a task, your streak is extended. Working on something every day helps you form a new habit, however if you do not complete a task, your streak is broken.
Enter to be one of five people to win Streaks, which is worth £3.99.
