Apr 02
2012

I don’t like outliners. It’s not that I see anything wrong with them, they just don’t click with the way my brain works when I’m brainstorming or planning. It’s why I use mind maps. Nonetheless, I had to try Tree (MAS link) when I saw it. It looked different. It was.

An outliner is an outliner, but Tree adds one thing that makes it infinitely more useful to me and my…

Mar 14
2012

Markdown lovers rejoice, Byword for iOS is here! I’ve been beta testing it for a while now and it’s my new favorite way to write Markdown on my iPad. There’s also full iCloud (and Dropbox) sync with the desktop version, so the writing circle is complete (at least for me). For background, see some of my previous thoughts on Byword.

Dec 03
2011

I thought a couple of additional discoveries after my LiveReload review yesterday were worth mentioning in a second post. First, Andrey Tarantsov (the developer) stopped by the post and let me know that the planned price is US $9.99 when it gets to the App Store. He’s charging almost exactly what I think will value his work but not freak out potentially valuable customers. I’m…

Dec 02
2011

I linked LiveReload on Twitter the day I discovered it, but I haven’t given it a truly thorough test until tonight. Suffice to say I was impressed enough to take some time out to write it up.

LiveReload is a tool for web designers. It watches for changes in a given folder and–in a way similar to what Marked does for Markdown files–it updates your web browser(s)…

Dec 01
2011

This is the last of this run of Thanksgiving giveaways. There will be more soon, I promise, but Smile was generous enough to donate–in addition to the TextExpander licenses I gave away yesterday–three codes for PDFpen as well. I don’t usually run giveaways on apps I haven’t specifically reviewed, so I’ll try to roll both together here.

Nov 21
2011

Dropzone recently showed up on the Mac App Store. I’ve been using the previous incarnation daily for years now, and I was ecstatic to see it hit the App Store and still be under active development. As with any pre-App Store app that makes a 100% conversion to the App Store environment, plenty of users are bitching and moaning about having to pay again (as well as changes that were…

Nov 18
2011

If you’re still looking for a slick Markdown editor for iOS, there’s a new candidate up for your vote. WriteUp is a polished editor that covers the basics well. With Dropbox support and available as a universal app for both iPad and iPhone, it makes a nice addition to your all-around writing workflow.