I have never been one to use calendar apps. It has mostly been an on off relationship that starts off with me saying I’m going to be organized and write down all my appointments, and ends up with me never writing down anything after a week. Todo apps have had much more consistent success with me, but still have never made their way into a truly permanent standing in my workflow. Lately I decided to restart using the app 2Do that I bought awhile ago. And when I saw fantastical for iOS go on sale the other week, it intrigued me as a possibility for a calendar app since its ability to create appointments in natural language (i.e. “Lunch with bob at noon on Tuesday”) seemed like it would make it easy enough to create appointments that I might actually start doing so. But then a family member of mine pointed out the app Pocket Informant, which he’s been using since the Palm Pilot days. Seeing that it was a free download to try it, I figured I’d give it a shot.

Soon after, the premium upgrade went on sale and I bought it. This post will talk about some of the features that pushed me over the edge and actually made it a viable calendar app for me to use.

When the iPad was first released a few years ago, it was envisioned primarily as a device for consuming content, like a really really flexible Internet-connected futuristic book. To this day, the iPad is still great for that very purpose, but it’s potential has expanded far beyond that, becoming more and more a viable platform for getting work done. This is thanks in part to the ever increasing power and speed of the hardware, but also due to innovative apps that make possible a lot of things that we couldn’t do before. One of these apps is Workflow.

As expected, on October 16th, Apple announced the new iPad Air 2 and iPad Mini 3. So, what makes them different from last year’s models, and more importantly, if you’re looking for a tablet, should you get one of the cutting edge new ones or just get an older model at a cheaper price? Read on and all your questions should be answered. Or just skip to the TL;DR (Too long, didn’t read) section at the end if you’re chomping at the bit for answers.

One thing I seem to hear a lot is “My iPhone battery doesn’t last very long.” to be honest, I had that problem when I first got my iPhone too. But now I rarely have a problem getting it to last the whole day. So here are a few tricks I learned that hopefully can help you get through the day without having to dash in a mad panic for the charger to keep your beloved Siri from passing out.

Awhile back I bought the app which was “app-tly” named 2Do (I know, I know…) for both iOS and OS X so I could have a good task management program with the ability to sync between platforms. For a long time, I loved the Hit List, but I got sick of waiting for them to release an iOS version, and when they did, synchronization cost money, and not wanting to open my wallet,  I went in search of a new one. What I found was 2Do.

For a long time, Photoshop and Illustrator have been the de facto standard for image editing, graphic design and all like things. However, recently it seems that more and more qualified competitors are stepping up to the plate to compete. While they may be still be some of the more full featured apps in their domain, they certainly are on the pricey end of the scale.

For awhile, the photo editor apps I tried always left me wanting more. But not long ago my attention was drawn to an mac app called Pixelmator.