The Touch Generation →
A video of my son Samuel using an iPhone at 9 months old.
iPhone Apps for Basecamp Next
With the arrival of the new Basecamp earlier this year (initially codenamed “Basecamp Next”), it has become an integral part of our workflow at savvy apps. We run both in-house and customer projects through it to iterate through designs, discuss broader development related-items that might not have tickets in Sprint.ly, and keep track of schedules.
The new Basecamp launched with an entirely different API though, meaning all mobile Basecamp clients became obsolete. Thankfully, there are now more than a handful of iPhone apps available on the App Store, which are built against the new API. Considering the importance of being able to quickly participate in discussions or track updates while on the go, I’ve given about six options a try with Carabiner, Rappel, and Lodge bubbling to the top.
While each app has their own merits—and in particular, Lodge and Rappel are nicely designed (although I’m not a fan of Rappel’s app icon)—I prefer Carabiner for four reasons:
- Latest Activity
Carabiner provides a decent overview of everything happening in a project. In my opinion though, Rappel has the best project “Overview” screen. I prefer its layout and design to Carabiner’s but it comes up short in other areas.
Comparatively, Lodge doesn’t have any activity information, which results in having to visit multiple tabs to check for and subsequently view updates.
- Scroll to Latest Comment
My favorite feature in Carabiner is a real time saver; when selecting any “Discussions” item, the screen will automatically scroll down to the latest comment. Carabiner also includes a “+” button in the navigation bar, which allows a comment to be added independent of the current thread position.
Similarly, Rappel has a permanent way to add comments and its approach reminds me of Campfire for iPhone. Lodge requires scrolling all the way to the bottom of the thread to add a comment, which is particularly tedious for length discussions.
- Viewing File Attachments
Related to the last point, of these three iPhone apps, Carabiner is the only one that allows quick viewing of file attachments. Specifically, it will provide a visual cue when files are attached to a comment. To view a file, Carabiner only requires a simple, single tap on the file icon to view it right then and there. Rappel includes a visual indicator as well but requires a tap to initiate a download first. Once the download is complete, another tap is needed to view the file. As far as I can tell, Carabiner combines both steps into one.
Lodge is the worst offender on this front. In the “Discussions” item, there’s no information about file attachments. Thus, it is very easy to miss that a comment had a screenshot posted with it unless the commenter mentioned that in the comment itself, such “Here’s an updated version of the screen attached…”
- Full Featured
Even though it’s read-only right now, all “Text documents” are viewable in Carabiner. Lodge goes a step further, allowing editing as well. Rappel doesn’t include “Text documents” at this time. In general, Lodge and Carabiner appear to support the most Basecamp features right now.
Concluding Note
I had been using Lodge as my main iPhone client until last week but continued to struggle with the issues above. Additionally, Lodge never seemed to remember the last view I was in and is the most unstable of these three options. Carabiner does have at least one nasty bug too, which is that I’ve infrequently seen “Discussions” sometimes show as empty or blank.
Even though I’m not regularly using Rappel right now, if it handled file attachments like Carabiner and offered a way to quickly jump to the bottom of a thread, I would likely replace Carabiner. That’s despite the fact that I’m not a huge fan of Rappel’s icon; it just seems odd relative to the interface of the app. I could get over the icon because I really like Rappel’s “Overview” screen for projects (shown above), their global activity views across projects, and how they approach threading comments on “Discussions.”
In the meantime, Carabiner is the way I’m using Basecamp on the iPhone. I’ve kept Lodge and Rappel installed though, as they both have proven to receive regular updates. The good news it that Basecamp clients are again alive and well on the iPhone and elsewhere. Give these options a try and see which one makes the most sense for your own workflow.
First World Problems for the iPhone 5
SNL writers have cracked the inner geek circles with this one.
Hand-controlled Computing with Flutter →
It’s a bit like Minority report. Just raise your hand and your computer responds with an action. Motion-based controls with your hands, now more common with modern gaming consoles (PlayStation Move and XBOX Kinect), still feels a bit futuristic.
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Flutter is a small tool for recognizing motion gestures on OS X, which recognizes you via a webcam (iSight or external) to control your favorite music player. After downloading it, you have work through a tutorial to get to become familiar with the hand gestures. Flutter then sits in the background, with your Mac’s iSight camera on (obviously required for running Flutter) and awaits your actions.
Related: See this video interview from Robert Scoble with John Underkoffler, chief scientist at Oblong Industries. Oblong was the company that did the actual UI for the Minority Report.
Dave Caolo on Status Bar Tinting →
I’m not sure I know anyone who likes status bar tinting. When I first saw screenshots in the keynote, I thought the folks at Apple had AirPlay running the whole time. Soon after, developers started playing with it and we saw some interesting results.
Fast forward to it now being available in iOS 6…as I mentioned on Twitter, the best example I’ve seen it put to use it where it actually is not that bad is Jasmine.
Committed for GitHub →
Nice tool from Justin Williams now available…integrates GitHub commit messages into Mountain Lion’s Notification Center.
We receive these kinds of notifications through Campfire but I can see many cases where Committed will be useful for developers.
Christine Chan on the iPhone 5 →
It’s almost been a week since the launch of the iPhone 5 and Christine Chan had some great initial insights on her experience with Apple’s latest device:
Five rows of apps: I had perfected my 4S home screen, but having an extra row available really changes things. I am now able to have four more incredibly useful apps on my home screen, which means less taps to access them. I’m a bit of a home screen junkie, so I definitely appreciate having the extra space.
This change is more significant than people might suspect. For example, every time I pick up a 4S/4, I’m surprised by how small it feels. That’s similar to when I use an Android device for a while and come back to the iPhone. My recommendation is to put your newest apps at the very top of the screen, since muscle memory would have trained you to typically not tap there.
Headphone jack: I like it on the bottom. Why? Now, if you have headphones plugged in and are snapping photos, the cord will not interfere with your images. I also slide my phone into my pocket with the screen facing inward, and the top of the phone goes in first. Now I won’t have to fumble around with the cord since it will be near the pocket opening, and my phone will be ready to use in my hand the moment it comes out. It’s just natural.
The Galaxy Nexus has a similar setup but with the wider screen, I don’t find it as annoying. For the iPhone 5, I find the bottom headphone jack makes it much harder to use the keyboard at the same time the EarPods are connected. I do agree, however, that it feels more natural when putting the phone in your pocket.
Lightning: I was definitely surprised at how small this new plug actually is…and I love the fact that the Lightning cable is now androgynous, so that it can be plugged in both ways. No more fumbling around in the dark trying to figure out which way is the proper way to plug in your iPhone!
I’m really liking Lightning. I have four cables in total. The one that came with the iPhone 5 is at the office. Then, I bought one for the car, one for my bag, and one for the house. No adapters required!