reminders
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iCloud.com slip-up shows Notes and Reminders, iOS 6 references
Looks like Apple's going to add more than just banner notifications to iCloud.com in the near future: a randomly available beta.icloud.com page has shown Notes and Reminders alongside familiar iCloud fixtures like email and Find My iPhone. If that wasn't enough, some skulking about in the HTML code of the beta page showed for a time that access to the new features requires signing in to the "iOS 6 beta," a fairly strong indicator that a web refresh will go hand-in-hand with a new mobile platform at this year's WWDC. What else is in store will likely have to wait until the developer event next month, but we at least know now that our iPhone's grocery lists will survive on the web. [Thanks, Tommy]
Mountain Lion Developer Preview 2's new features detailed
When Apple dropped the second developer preview of Mountain Lion on Friday it didn't see fit to include release notes, instead leaving it to us and the rest of the blogosphere to dig up the new features ourselves. The big ones are clearly Twitter alerts in the Notification Center and the introduction of tab syncing in Safari through iCloud. The latter of which should sooth iPhone fans that were jealous of Chrome for Android. Smaller enhancements were also turned on, including warnings when a program asks to access your contacts and location-based alarms in the Reminders app -- which can be shared with your iOS-based mobile device as well. We'll keep looking for more, but let us know you discover any new features in the comments.
Switched On: Mountain Lion brings iOS apps, malware traps
Each week Ross Rubin contributes Switched On, a column about consumer technology. According to Wikipedia, the mountain lion, also known as the cougar, is distinguished by having the greatest range of any large wild terrestrial animal in the Western Hemisphere. Indeed, from what we've seen so far of Apple's forthcoming Mac operating system, its new features will likely find favor with a broader range of Apple users than Lion.
Apple unleashes OS X Mountain Lion Preview to Mac Developer Program
You may still be purring your way through our in-depth preview, but Mountain Lion is now officially out of the bag, with Apple releasing a preview version of its latest OS X to the members-only Developer Program. If you're up to date on those $99/year dues, you can head on over to the Member Center to get your OS 10.8 fix, and start checking out those shiny new Messages, Reminders, Notes and Notification Center apps. Or kick up your feet and bring your desktop to the big screen with AirPlay Mirroring. If you have the Apple-approved credentials to proceed, you can find all that and more by making your way over to our source link just below.
OS X Mountain Lion 10.8 in-depth preview
Apple OS X Lion (10.7) review Apple's OS X Lion USB sticks now available online for $69 Apple updates EFI firmware on 2010 Macs: offers Lion internet recovery, not much else You can bid farewell to the days of Apple's theatrical OS reveals -- at least until OS 11 rears its head, anyway. In the meantime, the outfit has seemingly been content to strip away more and more pomp and circumstance with every subsequent big cat release. Lately, the company has settled into an evolutionary release schedule, eschewing full-fledged makeovers in favor of packing in lots of smaller changes, many of them quite granular indeed. It's a trend that can be traced as far back as 2009's OS X Snow Leopard (10.6), a name designed to drive home the point that the upgrade wasn't so much a reinvention of the wheel as a fine tuning of its predecessor, Leopard. The arrival of Lion (10.7), though, marked a full upgrade. With features like Launchpad and Mission Control, it seemed like it might be the last version Cupertino dropped before finally pulling the trigger on operating system number 11, and perhaps transitioning to something with an even stronger iOS influence. Right now, at least, the company's not ready to close the book on chapter X, but it is giving the world a first peek at 10.8. Ladies and gentlemen, meet Mountain Lion.
Introducing Memo Touch, a tablet designed for elders with short-term memory loss
Here's a product you don't see every day: a tablet designed specifically for senior citizens -- albeit with rather limited functionality. The Memo Touch is designed as a reminder tool for those who struggle with short-term memory loss, and can be used to deliver gentle cues when its time to take a medication, go to the doctor and the like. It's collaborative, too, as family members may add calendar events, phone numbers and to-do items, or even share photos and personalized messages, all from the product's companion website. Based on the Archos 101, the Memo Touch sells for $299 and requires a six-month ($174) or 12-month ($300) subscription. For those who don't take to the new-fangled gadget, the tablet carries a three month return policy, where purchasers may opt to receive a refund or have the tablet restored to its Android roots. Hey, it's one more way of keeping that rascally parent under your thumb, anyway. Overbearing children will find a full press release after the break. Now, where'd we put that damn tablet?
Tidying up location contacts for Siri and Reminders
My personal address book has no shame. I have contacts for people I haven't spoken to in years, contacts for people who I met at tech conferences, contacts for schools, for local stores, for repairmen, and so forth. It's one big old happy jumbled mess. I'm cool with that. When I want Siri and Reminders to be able to trigger a location-based event, I just throw it into my address book where it joins the hundreds of other often sad and neglected entries. I believe this makes makes me a type "N" on Myers Brigg or something like that. Not everyone will be happy with this kind of unstructured approach and an overflowing address book, or this kind of lack of organization. If you want to be able to to set location reminders without messing up your address book, TUAW reader Will Herbert has a solution. On your Mac, launch the Address Book application and create two new groups. Call one Contacts and the other Locations. Drag all your normal contacts into the Contacts group and create a set of location-only contacts in the other. Add stores, offices, dry cleaners, supermarkets, and so forth. These are all places that you don't necessarily want in your day-to-day contacts list. Each of these is still available in the address book and therefore still available to Siri and Reminders. At the same time, they won't clutter up your standard contacts. Score one for the Felixes of the world. The rest of us Oscars will trudge on as we were.
Remember The Milk adds Siri support
Remember the Milk is an online task management system that lets you create and sync tasks with your mobile devices. If you have the iPhone 4 or earlier, Remember The Milk users can install an iOS app that'll sync their tasks for them. But if you have an iPhone 4S, you can use Siri to add tasks your RTM account. Apple has not released an official API so the developers at Remember The Milk have created a clever work around. They use CalDav to push your reminders to RTM. If you have the latest iPhone, you can point your browser to RTM's website and follow a few simple steps to setup this feature on your iPhone 4S. Once you have CalDav in place, iPhone 4S users can use Siri to create a reminder and it will be sent automatically to your RTM account. Check out the video below to see this work around in action.
iOS 5 features: Reminders
Of all of the new bits and pieces of iOS 5, one of the apps I'm using the most is Reminders. It's a simple yet effective app for iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad that is used to set up self-reminders and task lists that are synced through iCloud. Let's take a look at this latest feature of iOS and Mac OS. The icon for Reminders describes at a glance exactly what it does -- it looks like a list of tasks, each with a check mark indicating completion. Reminders works on the concept of lists, and you can create any number of them. The app automatically adds a list called "completed" that contains any task that you have finished but have not deleted. To add a list, there's an edit button on the Lists page. With a tap you see the names of all of the lists that you have created, and can create new lists either on the device you're working on or in iCloud. For syncing, it's best to create new lists in iCloud. On the Lists page, a tap of a specific list ("Work" for example) displays all of the individual tasks underneath. %Gallery-136321% Creating tasks is also easy: you just type in the name on the Lists page. Once the name is entered, a tap of the task takes you to a Details page where you can enter in a reminder. How do you do that? Tap on the "Remind Me" button, which opens up a dialog asking if you wish to be reminded on a day, at a location, or both. Choosing a day to be reminded brings up a standard date and time picker for an alert, while choosing a location displays buttons for Current Location, When I Leave, and When I Arrive. A tap on Current Location brings up a list of locations -- usually your current location, a work location, and a "choose address" location. The latter only lets you pick addresses from your contact list. That's a real bone of contention for me, since I'd like to be able to set location reminders for businesses that aren't in my address list. For example, let's say that I want to be reminded to buy laundry detergent when I go to the nearby Whole Foods Market. I don't want to enter the grocery store into my contacts, but right now that's the only way I can add the location into a reminder -- that or go to the location and set the reminder using "current location." You can choose to repeat the reminder at a set duration, either every day, week, two weeks, month, or year. The Details page also provides a way to add a priority and notes to a task, or change the list that it is added to. You can look at your reminders not only by list, but also by date. The date view provides a calendar you can look at, or you can swipe between dates. For each date, any reminders that "come due" are listed. As with the Calendar app, you can tap a Today button to see what's on your agenda for the current day. On the iPhone and iPod touch, Reminders only works in portrait orientation. On the iPad, you can flip between portrait and landscape at will. How well does the syncing over iCloud work? If I entered a task on the iPad, then turned to my iPhone to bring up Reminders, the new task was already there. That's fast. Of course, the syncing also works with the Mac. "But wait," you may say, "There's no Reminders app on the Mac!" You're right -- but iCal does have a Reminders pane that appears. You can add new reminders in iCal (5.0.1 or later), and they'll appear instantly on all of your other devices. There's also the ability to add a local (on my Mac) or iCloud Reminder list from iCal, as well as a shortcut for creating Reminders using Command-K. But wait, there's more! If you want to access those Reminders from any other computer in the world, all you need to do is sign onto the iCloud.com site with your Apple ID, bring up the calendar, and there they are. Windows users who don't want to use the iCloud.com website should note that using iCloud with a PC requires Windows Vista or Windows 7, and Outlook 2010 or 2007 is recommended for accessing contacts and calendars. Reminders is also integrated with Siri, although I was not able to test that integration prior to publication. Just ask Siri to remind you to do something at a particular place or time, and a reminder is created. This is going to be a powerful app, and it's something that really needed the fast response times and exceptional integration of iCloud. For me, it's replaced a handful of iPad / iPhone / Web apps that I was using for tasks, and it's free. I'm giving Reminders an enthusiastic thumbs-up, and several of the other bloggers here at TUAW have been happy with it as well.
OmniFocus gets iOS 5 location-based reminders
OmniFocus has updated its popular OmniFocus for iPhone and OmniFocus for iPad apps. The updates bring iOS 5 compatibility and the usual bug fixes, but they also bring a very cool new feature OmniFocus users are sure to love: Location Reminders. Using iOS 5′s geo-fencing APIs, both the iPad and iPhone OmniFocus apps will now alert you to a reminder when you are in the appropriate area. This is the same feature found in Apple's Reminders app, included with iOS 5. However, OmniFocus doesn't just duplicate the features already found in Apple's Reminders app. It's added some more of its own; as noted by MacStories, OmniFocus offers more options than Reminders, including more granular control over your location settings. Though the OmniFocus updates are available now, users will have to wait until they have iOS 5 up and running on their devices to take advantage of them. OmniFocus for iPhone is US$19.99 in the App Store, and OmniFocus for iPad is $39.99.
5 iOS features that OS X needs
iOS 5 is set to launch this Wednesday and the beta testers I've talked to say it's a monumental leap forward. iOS 5 adds over 200 features to an already polished mobile operating system, which is arguably the best on the planet. As many Mac users know, Mac OS X Lion is no slouch either. Features like Mission Control, Launchpad, and full-screen apps make Lion the most powerful, intuitive OS Apple has ever released. However, that's not to say that Lion can't be improved. Apple only needs to look to iOS for further inspiration. Below is my list of five iOS features that I hope will migrate to OS X. Feel free to leave your requests in the comments. 5. iBooks I actually just added this one in because I know a lot of people have asked for it. Even paperback fans can't deny that ebooks are the future. Though they may not be quite up in Kindle territory, iBooks and the iBookstore are growing more popular by the day. While users can access their iBooks on the iPad, iPhone, and iPod touch, there's no way to get them on the Mac...yet. This is one area where Apple needs to take a play from Amazon. Kindle owners can read their books on the Kindle, the iPhone, iPad and Android phones, as well as with Mac and Windows apps and a web browser. While reading an iBook on a desktop might not be the platform of choice, it would be nice if iBooks users had the option. This is especially true for people who buy research or school books through iBooks and want to reference the book on the same screen as an assignment in progress. 4. Notification Center The Notification Center is one of the big new features of iOS 5. It allows users to see all their texts, emails, news alerts -- nearly every kind of notification -- all in one place. Currently OS X relies on numbered icon badges to show users notifications on a per-app basis. And while there are third-party apps like Growl that do a good job at alerting users to notifications, a dedicated Notification Center would further solidify the link between iOS and OS X and make it easier for users to see the things they need to attend to all in one place. 3. Reminders The great thing about OS X's and iOS's Mail and Notes app is that a user's email messages and notes sync between iPhone and Mac. However, iOS 5 offers a dedicated Reminders app that allows users to set reminders with an impressive array of notification options. While a dedicated Reminders app makes infinitely more sense on a mobile device, OS X Reminders integration would be a welcome feature. After all, many of us will use the app to set reminders for tasks to be completed at our desks. Why not be reminded by the computer we are working on? I'm not suggesting a dedicated Reminders OS X app. But what I would like to see is the Reminders app features and UI built into OS X's Mail app, much like Notes is today. [Note: Many readers have rightly pointed out that Reminders.app reminders are synced with iCal on your Mac. However, my take on it is that the array of ways to set reminders in the iOS app and the app's UI should be integrated better with OS X.] 2. iMessage FaceTime was perhaps the coolest feature of iOS 4. When it first came out it allowed iPhone 4 users to video chat with each other. Then Apple added iPod touch support and iPad 2 support. But, for me, FaceTime didn't become really useful until Apple released the FaceTime app for OS X. When they did, FaceTime brought unity to the entire Apple ecosystem (which, incidentally, is the common theme of all my feature suggestions in this article). iMessage in iOS 5 is arguably cooler than FaceTime because many people text a heck of a lot more than video chat. iMessage is great because it allows free texting among iPhone owners. But what's even more impressive is that it also allows iOS users to text people on Wi-Fi-only iPod touches and iPads. Like FaceTime before it, the last piece of the puzzle is adding iMessages to OS X. It's a lot easier for me to reply to a text from my iMac while I'm working on it than to stop and pick up my iPhone. Of course, the arrival of iMessage and FaceTime presents somewhat of a problem. I've had a lot of people who aren't the most Mac-savvy users say they are confused about the differences between FaceTime and iChat's video conferencing. If Apple would add an OS X iMessage app, that would probably only broaden the confusion ("Is an iMessage the same thing as an AOL IM?"). While I think Apple needs to absolutely add iMessage functionality to OS X, it needs to do so without adding more clutter and confusion to its messaging (be it IM, video, or texting) apps. Do they scrap iChat in favor of an iMessage app? Or do they add iMessage support to iChat? Dedicated apps are simpler, but all-in-one apps are more convenient. It's a tough call. 1. Siri Siri, iOS 5's AI personal assistant, is the start of the future for smart phones. It takes dictation, and lets you do dozens of other things using only your voice. But it's not just voice recognition software. It's powerful AI that knows what you want based on syntax, history, and context. There are no rigid voice commands needed. You can talk to it like you do to a human being and it figures out what you want it to do. Right now Siri is only available on the iPhone 4S. That's because it requires quite a bit of horsepower under the hood to accomplish its tasks. Or, quite a bit of horsepower for a phone. Every Mac sold today has more than enough memory and processing power to support Siri integration. And when Apple adds Siri to OS X it will be the start of a revolution in personal computing. Indeed it may one day even lead to the elimination of (or drastic reduction of) the keyboard and mouse. And don't get me started (yet) on a Siri-integrated Apple television set. Goodbye remote control. But first, let's get Siri into OS X. Imagine being able to talk to your Mac like you do a person, saying things like: "Pull up the Keynote for my April meeting." "Take me to Apple's website." "Revert to the Version that I was working on last week." "Show me all the photos from my trip to Berlin." "Organize all my Word files into a folder and then sort them into sub-folders based on month created." The possibilities are almost endless. Hello OS X 10.8.
Vitality GlowCap review
The Vitality GlowCap concept's been floating about for years now, but it still slightly blows our minds -- you stick a tiny, battery-powered wireless computer on top of your pill bottle, which reminds you to take your medicine on time. Well, it turns out they aren't exactly a concept these days, as you can buy one for $10 with a $15 monthly plan, and we've actually spent the past month living with the chirping, glowing, AT&T-connected device, keeping a journal all the while. After the break, find out what a life-saving nag feels like. Note: Amazon's actually out of stock at the time of this writing, but Vitality says a new shipment should arrive tomorrow. %Gallery-114026%
TUAW Giveaway: Bugger puts repeated reminders in your pocket
Given the number of things you have to keep track of in a day, sometimes a simple task manager -- the kind that reminds you once and then waits until the next day to tickle you again -- doesn't seem adequate. If you wish you had a snooze button for your tasks, maybe Bugger (US$0.99) is worth a look. Developer ZZTech built a tool to solve this problem, and it does the job pretty well (note that it requires iOS 4 and a backgrounding-capable device). You can create reminders for any future date and for an assortment of categories, then set a 'bug level' of every 10 minutes, 30 minutes, hourly, daily or weekly -- and if none of those intervals suit you precisely, you can customize them. After the reminder trips, you'll get on-device background notifications every time the clock ticks around until you either get 'er done or delete the reminder. There's no sync to desktop or cloud task managers, and none of the power features of higher-echelon GTD tools, but in this case you probably won't miss them. For speedy, gotta-finish task tracking, Bugger gets it. We've got 10 promo codes for Bugger to give away, and all you need to do is leave a comment below telling us what task is most likely to slip your mind. Open to legal US residents of the 50 United States and the District of Columbia who are 18 and older. To enter leave a comment on this post about your most misremembered task. The comment must be left before Friday, September 24 at 11:59PM Eastern Daylight Time. You may enter only once. 10 winners will be selected in a random drawing. Prize: One copy of the Bugger app (Value: US$0.99) Click Here for complete Official Rules.
First Look: Moments
Have you wanted to remember an event, or just remember a small bit of information for later? On the Mac there's a cool application called Stickies, but there really wasn't a great application for doing this same thing on the iPhone ... until now. [Where's the love for Evernote and the built-in Notes app, Cory? :-) -Ed.]Enter Moments [iTunes link]. This small application is your one stop for remembering small pieces of information or events.Even though this application has a simple agenda and interface, it is executed beautifully. Moments has an interface composed of three gorgeous themes: corkboard, steel, and a fabric print. Sticky notes are aligned in a grid of 2 x 3 across the screen. You can reorder your stickies, and when you run out of room a new screen will be created that is similar to the layout of the iPhone home screen. When you create a new sticky, you are able to create just a note, or a "moment." A moment has a date associated with it, and can be something in the past or future. A note just has a larger text area that will let you add more information. Overall, this application is really nice for remembering things, and looks just as good as built-in iPhone apps. However, there are three things that I would like to see: (1) User selected sticky note colors, (2) A place to add more details about a specific note or email the note, and (3) More themes to choose from. This application is really great the way it is, and is well worth $.99 US in the App Store. You can check Moments out on the App Store, or check out our gallery of pictures.%Gallery-51763%
Jott2iGTD: Use voicemail to add tasks to iGTD
As many of you know, iGTD is a killer task management app that can't stop bringing cool features to the table. As fewer of you might know, Brett Terpstra at the Circle Six Design blog also can't seem to stop bringing awesome tools and features to the table; he's responsible for stuff like the FlickrMate bundle that provides some powerful Flickr integration with your TextMate projects, as well as the TextMate AutoTag bundle for WordPress, offering some great tagging features that integrate well with your WordPress blog. Amazingly, Brett's at it again, and this time he's allowing you to add tasks to iGTD using only the power of your voice - with a little help from Jott and Apple Mail, of course.Jott is a service that allows you to send email and text messages by calling a private phone number. Calling this number allows you to leave a message which then gets dictated and sent to a recipient, including yourself. With the power of Brett's new Jott2iGTD utility and a customized rule you created in Apple Mail, you can leave a message with Jott that is emailed to you, which Mail processes and automatically converts into an iGTD task. Jotting (ha!) down a reminder or idea probably can't get much easier than this, though some setup and file shuffling is involved to get this all running properly.As with his other goodies, Brett amazingly provides Jott2iGTD as donationware, with a PayPal link hidden at the bottom of the page (I really think you should move it above the fold, Brett!). A changelog is provided, along with instructions to get you all set up.
