The
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Add tasks to Put Things Off straight from your Mac

28 August 2011

Put Things Off users with a Mac, Alfred, and the Powerpack have a great new way to get tasks out of your head and into your Put Things Off Inbox.

The Put Things Off Alfred extension lets subscribers to the Put Things Off Web Tasks service add tasks to their Inbox straight from Alfred. And it feels like magic.

First, download, unzip, and double-click the extension to install it on your Mac:

• Alfred v1 extension
• Alfred v2 workflow

Now, log in to Web Tasks by typing:

‘pto your@email.com;yourpassword’

The email address and password should be the one you set up when you subscribed to Web Tasks from within Put Things Off on your iPhone.

Finally, add tasks by typing ‘pto task name’:

That’s it! The task will appear on your iPhone within moments:

If you’re not using Web Tasks, you can try it free for 30 days from within Put Things Off by tapping the settings cog at the top of the screen. And if you’re not using Alfred on your Mac, or you haven’t upgraded to the Powerpack, check it out today: http://alfredapp.com.

My thanks to Masafumi Okada for supplying the Alfred v2 workflow.

Google’s Guide to the App Galaxy

20 May 2011

Great advice from Google on the subject of launching a mobile app in their beautiful Guide to the App Galaxy.

Includes advice on promoting an app, earning enough to quit your day job, measuring downloads and engagement, and evaluating what needs to be improved. Also includes case studies from successful apps, such as this one on Angry Birds.

Please Don’t Screw It Up

1 February 2011

Those are the five words that come into my head each and every time I see the little red badge on the App Store app — the one that tells iPhone users that an app update or two are available.

Some people feel that new features make software better. For me, though, it’s more of a coin toss: new features have a good chance of making my favourite software worse.

I’m sometimes asked why I don’t update Put Things Off every two-to-four weeks like some developers do. It’s because, for every 100 people who email new feature requests each week, I’m pretty sure there are a thousand more who don’t email me; a thousand cheerful souls who are happy with the app as it is.

Whenever I think about adding a new feature, I think about the 1,000 happy customers. I imagine them holding their breath when that little red badge shows up, wincing as they open the app, and praying that I haven’t screwed it up. Sometimes, the little changes that benefit the vocal few aren’t worth the stress and upheaval they might cause the silent many.

Why I’m Buying My Apps Again

19 January 2011

Read my thoughts on The Beatles, the Mac App Store, and hear the reason I’m repurchasing my Mac apps:

“Why I’m Buying All My Apps Again”

Stop when you get to the comments section, though. It gets pretty grizzly down there. If you can’t resist a quick skim through the well-reasoned, more thoughtful ones, there’s a quick way to do that. (Hint: some folks aren’t afraid to use their real names.)

The Feature Trap

13 January 2011

Tim Ferriss over at the 37signals blog, on the biggest mistakes startups make:

“The biggest weakness I see is companies getting focused on implementing new features,” he says. “That’s the biggest waste of time that I see. They have a viable product that people are paying for and instead of identifying their cheapest avenue for acquiring profitable customers or focusing on polishing the product they already have, they focus on adding ten new features.

My guess is a fair few iOS developers could benefit from thinking about this.

There’s a Mac App Store?

9 January 2011

“I love my Mac,” said the woman sitting opposite me. “But I wish I could find apps for it. You know, like the ones on my old Dell.”

“Have you heard about the Mac App Store?” I said. “There are some pretty good ones on there.”

It’s not hard to see why the Mac App Store is being celebrated in the indie developer community. But it’s easy to undervalue the biggest benefit it brings. My conversation with a friend who bought her iMac about a year ago made me see how big a hurdle the discovery process is.

The greatest benefit of the Store is not the streamlined purchase, installation, and updating process — it’s in training users that when they have a problem to solve, they can buy the answer in the App Store. Conditioning Mac users to see the Store as a solution to their everyday computing problems empowers users and developers, because the discovery process is the hardest part for both groups.

Solving the discovery process for the Mac App Store itself is another challenge. But, as more developers sell apps exclusively through the Store and collectively train visitors to go there first, there’s a good chance we’ll hear, “There’s a Mac App Store?” less often.