Getting impatient for new Apple gear

We are at this stage in the realm of stupid rumours and much talk of things that will never come to pass. It is a good time to stop listening to any of the Mac and Apple-based podcasts, at least until after the ninth of September. All of these supposedly news based Apple sites are trying to guess what Apple will come up with in the event. They are either saying over and over again things like, ‘there will be an iPhone 6’ which is a given and why bother saying it. Then there are many that are coming up with a repeat of rumours heard elsewhere such as the size of the new iPhone. There are comments about whether the two new sizes, which are only rumours anyway, will be made available at the same time. It could drive you nuts if you were to pay any attention to any of this rubbish. At the same time though, you can’t help but get a little bit caught up in it.

Swype Swype on iPhone and iPad

Going back to using just Apple

I have been using the Samsung Galaxy S3 for over a year now and I did love using the phone for the first five or six months. I loved the newness of it and the fact that it was different from the iPhone that I was using before. I find that the difficulties to upgrade the operating system is very annoying and at the moment the thing is running slow. Maybe I could sort it out with doing an update of the Cyanogenmod system. That would be a bit of a pain in the arse to do though. In particular I really liked the way that the keyboards could be swapped out and I have used SwiftKey and Swype. I liked both of these keyboards and have ended up using Swype the most. When iOS 8 comes out I will have the ability to use these third-party keyboards on my iPad and on an iPhone.There are other changes to the iOS operating system that are quite interesting. Overall, I’m getting drawn back into being an Apple user.

It is all about the applications

I have a number of applications that are only available on iOS. This is a huge reason for me to want to change to iOS and Apple and just use one mobile platform. On the other hand, I don’t really have any applications on Android that I can’t do without. I will miss using Noom as I have got quite used to using it every day as part of my weight reduction plan. It is very good for recording the food that I eat and also for keeping an eye on the amount of exercise I am taking. I am not too worried about whether I will be able to find something similar on iOS. I may get myself a Fitbit as I have tried one out for a week and found it to be a useful tool. There are apps that work with the Fitbit Over on iOS. I do have the option of using an application called Moves which is great for recording the number of steps I take per day. There will be other applications that I can use for keeping track of my weight and the food that I eat.

DayOne and other iOS apps calling me

I am a big user of Day One which is a journalling application that I really do use daily. I can also publish from Day One to Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare and Tumblr, which is very useful indeed. Then there is the application Drafts which is a great way to capture text, notes and ideas. From drafts I am able to send those bits of text to various places from social networks to other applications such as OmniFocus. I have OmniFocus for the Mac and also for my iPad. By using the Samsung Galaxy S3 and Android it takes me away from getting the best use out of my iOS applications. I have to think about workarounds to get the flow of text from Android and into the place where I do most of my work which is on the Mac and to a growing extent, in iOS. Another application that I really like for taking to do notes is the application called Clear. It is very simple in its design, but if I want to make a quick note of something I need to remember to do it is just perfect. I think it is a much better design than the Reminders application.

Day One A simple and elegant journal for iPhone iPad and Mac

Good but not quite good enough

I have felt that to a certain extent I’m getting a second rate experience by using Android. There are some very good applications and the design of them can look pretty nice indeed. I do find though that generally the standard of applications is not quite as polished as you find on iOS. Now that IOS 8 is coming with the ability for me to use the keyboard that I like, there is not much need for me to stay with Android. It has been a good and worthwhile experiment and I still quite like using my Nexus 7. I’m not getting as much use of it as I was before an account of the fact that I have been picking up my iPad. It is good to have all of the things that I need to create my digital content or in one place.

What technology do I get next?

Initially I was thinking that I would just be getting the iPad with cellular connection, either the iPad air or the iPad mini. Now I am wondering about the iPhone 6 and I will be interested to see what price it will be to buy. Still want to have a new iPad though as I need something of that size. I might even sell the Nexus 7 I have.