Toodledo consistently seems to work on the website (though I still can’t stand the plain-Jane UI) and adds features.   The feature set is much better than RTM and they have a date picker for due dates!   Seriously, this is the one major thing that pissed me off about RTM even though it might seem like a nitpick.  Their date picker is fantastic as it interprets strings like ‘next Tuesday’ in the due date field and translates them into dates.  However as great as that feature is sometimes a person just wants to choose a date from a calendar and that feature doesn’t exist in RTM.   There is a calendar icon that makes it look like it can be done but it can’t.

Toodledo also syncs wonderfully with Todo from Appigo (iPad or iPhone) which I just discovered yesterday with the release of the iPad version.  It is a fantastic todo list application with a beautiful user interface.   Todo actually syncs with RTM as well but you have to pay the $25 yearly “pro” fee to get the sync functionality which Toodledo provides for free.   I paid $14.95 for a yearly “pro” fee for Toodledo.  Hmmm….$25 for a stagnant application or $14.95 for an updated one.    Tough choice.

A $25 yearly fee certainly is viable if you provide a service for that fee but keeping the website stagnant and ignoring customer requests certainly isn’t what I’d call viable.  So it’s been fun RTM but you lost me.  ?Sorry.

While reading the page can be turned by swiping a finger across the screen which results, at least if it’s turned on, a page curl effect. Underneath the page can be seen the text of the new page. Visually it is pleasing to be sure but I am still trying to grasp the point of such a thing on a device that most certainly doesn’t have real pages.

The use of metaphor in user in user interfaces for software is nothing new obviously. All major OS interfaces use the desktop metaphor with “folders”, “files”, etc. I just find it odd that programmers are wasting time creating a page turn effect for something that isn’t paper. Yes, you can drag your finger across the page but it’s much faster to just tap the side of the screen corresponding to move to the next (or previous) page. In my opinion it’s s misplaced metaphor. Fun? Yes. Appropriate? No.

Icon for the Save button is still a floppy disk, despite the fact that Apple hasn’t sold a machine with a floppy drive for a decade.

So what do you suggest they put there John?  It’s a well-known icon regardless of platform 8-year olds not withstanding.  I suspect the 8-year olds probably haven’t used a manila folder either yet the open manila folder is a standard icon for opening files.

Buying a new kind of product sight unseen is foolish. Especially given how mysterious Apple has been on what the iPad can do and what restrictions on capabilities and media access it will place on users and content providers.

Really?  Has Apple been mysterious?  I was pretty clear on what the iPad can do and what it can’t do based on the presentation from Steve Jobs when he introduced the device.   It’s based on iPhone OS  and has, currently, the same limitations as iPhone OS.   There are changes to account for the new screen and there are new applications but it’s a Wifi and/or 3G larger iPod Touch.   What is so mysterious about it?   And what restrictions and media access is Galen Gruman referring to that we don’t already know about?

I really wish people would just get over the fact that Apple makes good products.   If you don’t like them don’t buy them but stop faulting others for buying them.

1. A story titled ‘Apple’s “renaissance” is under way’ it is reported that the author thinks that because he is seeing Macs everywhere now that more people are buying them.  This shocking item is backed up with the claim “There’s now data to back up these observations”.  Well gee, there has been data to back up those observations for quite awhile now.  Apple has been consistently improving Mac sales quarter over quarter.   This Mac website is just seeing this now??

      Oh and of course the peanut gallery kicks in with the typical ‘People just buy <insert popular Apple product> because they want to be seen with it’.  Hate to break it to those folks but I bought an iPod, a Mac, and an iPhone because they’re the best products…not because I want to look cool (and in the case of an iPhone millions of people don’t all want to look cool.  Please.).

2. In another story titled “HTC and other OEMs prepared to challenge the iSlate” we get the brilliant little nugget: “The announcements are sure to place some price pressure on Apple: Freescale’s design is intended for retail prices in the $200 range, much less than the $600 – $1,000 expected for Apple’s device. “I’m going to bet that the Freescale tablet will be every bit as good as it’s $200-range design.  Meanwhile people will part with their hard earned dollars in droves to get the Apple tablet because Apple knows what they’re doing and they seem to be the only company that gives a damn about design and how people interact with their products.

      To be sure the author throws in: “Of course, Apple is all about the design, functionality, and user experience of their devices and software, and the capabilities of the tablet will need to show perceived value to potential customers.” just to make sure they cover their bases.  Again I find it astounding that this is coming from a website who’s main purpose is covering Apple.   Have they not noticed that during this awful recession Apple is making money hand over fist on premium laptops and desktop systems?

This is the best these guys can do?

a MONSTROSITY!

Why would they make a user interface this awful?  They even point out “Keep in mind that Pimlical is highly configurable, so things like fonts, colors and the screen configurations can be changed by preference settings and appear quite different from these samples.”

You can’t polish a turd guys.  This is an awful design.  I’m not even sure where to start with this one so I’ll leave it as an exercise for the reader to take a look.

Wow…nothing generates conversation in the tech industry like Adobe Flash. In just the past couple of days I’ve read articles about how HTML5 might be a ‘Flash killer’ along with articles on the release of Flash on the major mobile platforms, aside from iPhone. Along with those articles comes a lot commentary ranging from the people complaining about the lack of Flash on the iPhone to those with a strangely visceral hate for Flash who think that the lack of Flash on the iPhone is a bonus of the platform.

HTML 5 as Flash Killer

With all due respect to John Gruber over at Daring Fireball Adobe doesn’t view HTML 5 as a threat to Flash not because of anything to do with Internet Explorer but because of the history of HTML and CSS themselves. HTML 5 has a lot of great features and sounds like a real winner paired with CSS3 but modern browsers still can’t get the older standards right. There are still many workarounds required to get things rendering the same way on different browsers. Granted the situation is better than it used to be but these things simply aren’t an issue on a Flash-based user interface. While the browsers continue to play catch-up in the compatibility space Adobe will keep adding compelling features to Flash. I just don’t see HTML 5 being a serious challenger to Flash anytime soon.

Flash on Mobile Devices

I’d love Flash to be available on the iPhone. I really don’t get the reaction people have to Flash in general but when people go as far as saying that no Flash on the iPhone is a feature….please. Get a grip already. The iPhone experience would be that much richer with Flash available on the phone. HTML 5/CSS3 support on mobile Safari could be 100% compliant but until people start adopting those features on a mass scale it won’t be an alternative to having Flash available on the phone (see above).

I’m just not getting the dust-up over this stuff. Flash is a tool like anything else. Wider support of both HTML 5/CSS3 and Flash makes the web better, not worse. To those who would rather not have Flash exist at all: I think the web is a richer place with You Tube, Pandora, etc. than without them and they exist because of the ubiquitous nature of Flash. You seriously don’t? Because they wouldn’t exist right now if it weren’t for Flash.

At the same time the Mac client is really awful.   The latest update has some new icons, etc. but they haven’t improved the editor functionality.  There is no ability to create lists as in the Windows client.  Given that the Mac development environment, which comes with the OS, has the source code to the TextEdit application I’m not sure why the Evernote folks can’t duplicate that functionality in their client.

To make things worse the Web client now has more editor functionality than the Mac client.   Guys, if you’re not going to at least have parity between the clients why are you bothering with the Mac client at all?

Update:  OK.  So apparently the Mac client does support lists….just not directly.  I found out that creating a note with a list in the web client results in the list being maintained in the Mac client.  When you add more items to the list numbers/bullets (I assume…I didn’t try bullets but numbers do work) increment automatically (and decrement if you remove items).   There just is no way to create these directly in the Mac client as of yet.  Very weird.

Update 2:  Ok.  According to this forum posting the Evernote folks are going to address this in the next Mac client release.  Great to read this as it might mean not having to run Windows in VMWare Fusion to get the better desktop client.