Tot: A small but mighty app that bridges text creation and reference
When Tot was released, I thought: do I really need another text editing app.
I currently use four different writing apps daily, and would use more if I didn’t limit myself. But Tot is different, it’s an app where you just don’t write, but have text hang around.
Tot, in brief: Seven text documents, each color coded. Synced. No tasks. Limited formatting. No frills.
I downloaded the Mac version and immediately saw how it could fill a void: a place for priorities, ideas and lists. Text I want to refer to frequently, like priorities, little pieces of information and quotes.
Tot is the perfect app for this: I have personal priorities listed on one list, work priorities on another. There’s nothing else there to distract. No due dates. No other small tasks. When I get overwhelmed or don’t know what to do next, I command-tab over to Tot and refocus.
Here’s how I’ve currently organized the lists:
- Yellow: Personal priorities
- Oarange: Work priorities
- Red: Prayers
- Purple: Pocket Camera ideas Ideas
- Blue: Ideas
- Blue: Floating text
- Green: Text scratch pad
I can see these different notes changing as I need them. It’s flexible. Tot bridges the gap between text creation and reference.
There’s been a lot of talk about the pricing model. At first I balked at the $20 price tag, but having used it for over a week, it’s totally worth it. This small app may not be for everyone, and I’m not sure my exact use is what the developers intended.
Tot Is specific app that is simple enough it can be used for multiple purposes. Thanks Iconfactory for making such a great app.
32 things I’ve learned in 32 years
Today is my birthday, and I’m celebrating with a list of 32 things I’ve learned as in many years.
This isn’t a definitive list of the most important things I’ve learned, just what came to mind.
- You can only have as many true friends as you have fingers.
- “Good” coffee is a balance of quality and convince.
- Semper ubi sub ubi (Always where under where — it’s a Latin joke, but also good advice when you read it aloud).
- Η ΤΑΝ Η ΕΠΙ ΤΑΣ (Come back with your shield, or on it)
- There’s always something different, you just have to look for it.
- Discipline is a vehicle for joy.
- Make time to spend with people you care about.
- Tweak your system, but don’t have a system that’s just tweaking.
- There’s good food in every town, you just have to look for it and enter with no expectations and an empty stomach.
- It’s a lot of work to have long hair.
- Don’t over subscribe to RSS feeds or over follow on Twitter
- If you think you have something funny or edgy to say, text it to your group of friends first.
- You slowly pick up traits of the 5 people you spend the most time with or talk to.
- You can only physically be in one place at any moment — don’t try to be at both.
- Turn read receipts on for Messages.
- It’s easier to find a job when you have a job.
- If you have an idea, write it down.
- Our minds aren’t filing cabinets for information and to-dos, have a system.
- Making broth is one of the most fulfilling things you can cook.
- When you look at WebMD, remember that they need to say “see your doctor” for liability reasons, you might not need to.
- Seeing your favorite band multiple times on the same tour is incredibly rewarding.
- When two cars hit each other, it’s a crash, not an accident: You don’t know the intent of the motorists.
- Movie theaters are really the best way to see a movie.
- Study what interests you, not what you think will get you money.
- Don’t drive too fast.
- Turn off most of the notifications on your phone and computer.
- If you do anything with social media for work and post personally as well, get two phones.
- Some folks just can’t grow a beard (myself included).
- File organization is important on computers.
- Back your files up, and back up the backups.
- If you see something that catches your eye, take a picture, it might never occur again.
- Don’t get mad at other people, there’s no way you have any idea what they are going through.
One more: The best way to do something is often just to do it.
iPhone 11 Pro Smart Battery Case Review: A whole new way of taking pictures
The one thing that drew me to Apple’s latest Smart Battery case has nothing to do with extending the life of the phone: it’s all about what it adds to the camera.
The Smart Battery Case for iPhone 11 and 11 Pro includes, for the first time, a mechanical shutter button for taking pictures and video.
My short review: it’s amazing.
My long review:
The shutter button
I’ve often used the volume controls on the side of the phone in the past to trigger the camera. However, their placement often requires using two hands. Having this new button for the camera near the bottom of the phone makes taking pictures an ease.
The button fits the index finger well. It feels natural and sturdy, like something you’d have a larger camera.
Holding the button for about half a second will open the camera app anywhere you are on phone, even if it’s locked. I do wish the camera launched quicker, but it’s super simple and has become the most frequent way I get to the camera. I’m not as concerned about accidentally triggering the shutter as much as I am missing the moment I’m trying to photograph.
While it makes sense that the button will open Apple’s Camera app, one downside is that you can only use it to take pictures in that app. There have been times when I’ve lauched a third party app like Hailde or FiLMiC and tried to use the shutter button to no avail. Apple could open this up to developers, since they currently can use the volumne control buttons to trigger the shutter.
Something else I noticed that was frustrating was not being able to use the camera trigger when I had directons throgh the Maps app. Hopefully this is a software bug and will be fixed.
I would love to have a regular case with a shutter button or even have it added to the iPhone hardware. I know Apple doesn’t like to add buttons to their devices (they’ve only removed them) but, as someone who uses my iPhone as their main camera, it would be a welcome addition without the bulk of the battery.
I’ve taken the case off or used a different case a few times and missed the button: my muscle memory adapted quickly. I’ve kept the case on most of the time because of this and have a hard time imaging taking pictures with my iPhone any other way.
The extra battery
I recently took it on a four-day trip to Las Vegas and I only really needed to charge my phone twice. It was great to have the camera shutter (of course) but also to have the peace of mind that, no matter what happened, I had enough battery life to get me through 24 hours plus.
The case is bulky, as expected, but the design feels sleek. You only really notice the bulk when a) you first put the case one b) you take the case off or c) you have another phone that is ceaseless or has a case. I’ve stopped minding the extra weight and size.
What makes the Smart Battery Case so good is the intrigation that Apple includes. You see a battery status when you connect it and the percentage of battery shows up in Control Center. My favorite feature of previous versions of Apple’s case is the iPhone also knows when it’s drawing power from the case and will not perform intensive backup or other processes. Using other battery cases, the iPhone will think it’s charging connected to the wall.
For all the other “smarts” fo the case, Rene Ritchie has a deeper dive over on iMore.
At $130, the Smart Battery Case is a pricy upgrade, but the only battery case to consider if you use your iPhone as a camera. A forewarning: once you start using the shutter button, it might be difficulty to go without it.
Apple announced Night Mode iPhone photo challenge
Apple has announced a new photography competition for photos taken with Night Mode on iPhones 11 and 11 Pro.
Night Mode has been a welcome addition to the iPhone camera system, but I’ve found the results mixed, with sometimes photos appearing “fake” with too many colors highlighted.
However, the images included in the announcement are stunning and inspire different kinds of shots.
I wish there was a way to easily see if an image was taken with Night Mode. You can use Metaphoto to look at an image’s metadata to see if Night Mode was used.
I’ve always wondered about photos selected for these competitions. It appears they can be edited:
Photos can be straight from the camera, edited through Apple’s editing tools in the Photos app or with third-party software.
Entries will be accepted until Jan 29, 2020. Looking forward to playing around with Night Mode and seeing all the pictures folks share with the hashtags #ShotoniPhone and #NightmodeChallenge.
An image taken with Night Mode on my iPhone 11 Pro. 
You can check if Night Mode was used on an image using the Metaphoto app.
iPhone 11 Pro Review: Capturing beyond what the eye can see
One of my guiding principals of photography is to capture the world as I see it. This was core to my training as a photojournalist and the iPhone has been perfect camera for this: a single 26mm lens, no optical zoom and a sensor that allowed little editing.
While being a good snapshot camera, there have also been tools and methods that photographers have used to capture images beyond what the eye can see. The iPhone 11 and 11 Pro are the first to really do this for Apple’s camera system. Night Mode and the Ultra Wide Lens are two hallmark features that bring the iPhone into a different category of camera.
Through the iPhone’s processor, Night Mode captures colors and light in darker scenes while holding the camera in your hands. Any other camera would need a tripod and a long exposure to achieve this. The Ultra Wide lens captures a much larger scene than the eye can see and gives an effect that only an expensive fish eye lens could. Both features provide new ways to capture images with just the camera in your pocket, no additional tools required.
These are my impressions of the new iPhone having used it for three months. Like any iPhone update, the improvements are noticeable throughout the camera system. But with the addition of the Ultra Wide lens and processing power of Night Mode, the iPhone 11 and 11 Pro take portable photography into a new era.
Ultra Wide
When I worked in my local newspaper’s photo department, there were two rules for interns: You could only take one photo of the downtown fountain surrounded by mirrors and you could only submit two photos taken with the fisheye lens.
Cashing in: a photo o f the mirrored fountain taken with the Ultra Wide lens.
Why these rules? Sometimes, as a photographer, you can overuse a certain lens or location, and these were two that interns consistently overused, especially when they had access to a fisheye lens for the first time
Like one of those young photographer, I found myself immediately drawn to the Ultra Wide lens on the iPhone 11 Pro and have used it for about 37 percent of the pictures I’ve taken.
With my DSLR, an ultra wide or fisheye lens would be the last one I would carry with any regularity. First of all, they are expensive and I only rent one a couple times a year for special projects. Second, even if I had one, it’s another lens to carry. Using it would also require switching lenses or carrying a second body. I don’t know many photographers who have this lens as part of their daily kit. They produce a nice effect, but they do not offer a lot of versatility for the cost and extra bulk.
Without the constraints listed above, it’s been a joy having this lens always available on the iPhone. It really opens up so many new kinds of photos and videos that were impossible to capture previously on a camera that fits into your pocket.
The day the phone was released, I headed to Northern Michigan for a good friend’s wedding. Right away I saw the benefit of being to capture groups of people and the surroundings.
But I also quickly remembered that just because an image is wide doesn’t make it good. I would take a dozen pictures with the Ultra Wide thinking they were great because of the new perspective I was seeing only to be disappointed later when I reviewed them.
There’s also an issue with quality. The Ultra Wide angle lens reminds me of the iPhone 4s camera. It captures stunning images in daylight, but indoors or at night, I was a little disappointed with image quality. A lot of this has to do with the distortion that comes shooting so wide. It doesn’t benefit form some of the same low light sensor as the other lenses, not including Dark Mode.
While the quality isn’t the best, the Ultra Wide lens was able to capture this moment of snow falling during a production of Elf: The Musical. I’ll take the perspective over the quality. Distortion with the Super Wide.
As the quality of iPhone lenses and sensors have continued to get better each year and I expected the Ultra Wide to be on par with the rest of the camera system. This isn’t anywhere near a dealbreaker, however. The moments I’ve been able to capture with it, even if they weren’t as good of quality as the other lenses, is worth it.
For landscape images, Ultra Wide is stunning. Something to keep in mind is that the wide angle lens distorts the image, especially if you put it close to something. It’s very easy to take images that do not look like what the eye sees. This can be a fun effect, but isn’t something you can do for every photo. (It’s a lot of fun with dogs).
For a lot of people, this will be their first time holding a camera with such a wide view. If my excitement any indication, I can only imagine theirs.
The greatest benefit of the Ultra Wide
My absolute favorite feature of the iPhone 11 camera system is being able to capture outside of the frame of images taken with the Wide and Telephoto lenses.
This is something that no other camera offers — additional information. If you take a photo or video at 1x or 2x, it will use the other lenses to capture information surrounding it. So if your taking a picture of a running dog and she moves outside the frame, you can crop and add in part of the image outside of the frame.
This is really revolutionary in a lot of ways, something all photographers have probably hoped for at some point. It really is a photography-shifting feature that I thought I was going to miss when going back to other cameras. However, my use of it was relatively short lived. A month or so after the phone was released, Deep Fusion was released in iOS 13.2. This is a new feature of the iPhone 11 and drastically increases the quality of images by “computational photography mad science,” in the words of Apple senior Vice President Phil Schiller.
There’s no way to easily toggle it on or off outside of the Settings app or to see if an image uses Deep Fusion. So I’m back to taking images the old way. I’ll choose the quality of Deep Fusion over the additional information that is captured. This is probably because I’ve been taking pictures without the extended data collection for decades.
I hope Deep Fusion and outside the frame collection comes in future releases.
Night Mode
One of the three pillars of photography is Shutter Speed: the longer the shutter is open, the more light can hit the sensor. At night, you almost always need a tripod to get a sharp image that’s properly exposed. But if you leave the shutter open for one, two or three seconds, you can capture light and colors in a way the human eye does not perceive because you are allowing the sensor to soak up the light a longer period of time.
I’ve dabbled with night photography in the past, but didn’t get into it too much because I didn’t like having to carry around a tripod with me. iPhone 11 Pro changes that.
I didn’t realize I was using Night Mode the first time I used it. Unlike turning on the flash manually, Night Mode will activate when it notices low light. When you hit the shutter, it will tell you to hold the phone still for one to three seconds. You can turn it off by swiping on the viewfinder to see the redesigned control panel.
I held the image up to what I could see and they were drastic. The Night Mode photo looked as if there were large baseball field lights nearby.
Regular exposure (left) vs Dark Mode (right)
It’s amazing to be able to capture that level of detail. It creates a stunning image that’s free of blur. But after three months of using it, I don’t know what I like more: the standard image or the Night Mode version. However, I’ve noticed friends have been blown away by what Night Mode can do.
One thing Night Mode doesn’t do is capture movement. One neat thing about night photography is when cars or other lights move by, it creates streaks. Night Mode really captures what you see when you press the shutter button and enhances that. If you’re looking for a long exposure app that captures light streaks, check out Spectre.
There’s something about capturing night as we see it. I don’t like the increased colors as I do the more muted and dark ones. I like something in between.
A few steps away for reality
So what do these two new features mean for photography on the iPhone? Is is bad for a camera to capture the world in ways we can’t naturally see it? Not inheritly. A camera is a tools like a pen or a paintbrush — you can create art that is realistic or more fantastic. One great thing about photography is also showing people the world in a way they’ve never seen it, and this iPhone offers two major new ways of doing that.
Using the iPhone 11 Pro is a little jarring at first that it can capture things in ways beyond which the eye can. These are all tools I have used as a photographer, but given the need to carry an extra lens or tripod, rarely used. Now that they fit in the phone in my pocket, I will utilize them more often.
The promise of Computational Photography made with the release of the iPhone XS come true with the 11 Pro. Smart HDR was a stunning addition and has gotten even better. The iPhone 11 camera system is a huge step forward, offering more tools for anyone who takes pictures with it. Night Mode and the Super Wide lens have ushered in the next era of mobile photography, replacing yet again tools and methods unreachable to most people,
Other iPhone 11 Pro observations
- As with other iterations, Portrait Mode has improved significantly.
- The UI redesign of the Camera app is overall nice, but some areas are taking some time to adapt to. Other areas leave me with questions, such as why does the lens selection have three circles in Photos mode but only one in Video? You need to tap it to toggle the different lenses. Strange. But so happy that an iOS 13 update allows you to change the video format settings right in the app.
- All of my selfies are now taken in the wide mode. With the ultra wide lens on the rear camera, I want to the front camera to go even wider.
- I remember the Slofies announcement during in the keynote, but it took me a while to figure out it wasn’t a specific setting, but just shooting slow mo video with the front facing camera.
- Videos are absolutely stunning and the upgrade should be noted.
- I’ve noticed some delays in using the app and switching between different modes on longer shoots. Usually it comes during heavy shooting. No app crashes, just some delays.
Happy New Year! We have the time in 2020
A happy and blessed new year to everyone from Kalamazoo!
I’ve gone back and forth over the years about the importance of the changing of the calendar and what it means. While I’ve come to feel that a new numeral at the end of the date shouldn’t be the only time to reflect and make goals, it is a good sign post along our path in life.
There’s a quotation from Om Malik from a blog post last week on the 12th anniversary of his heart attack that really resonated with me:
We don’t have enough time, and yet we have enough of it to change things.
Let’s keep this in mind as we reflect on 2019 and enter 2020.
