The Awesomeness of iA Writer

These days most of my writing begins with a Field Notes notebook.  As I have written previously on this blog, I carry one with me almost everywhere and use them to capture inspiration and ideas.  Eventually, those ideas need to be shared and that means they have to be transferred into a digital format.  After going through a writing "dry-spell" last summer and consequently re-architecting my entire writing process, I made a conscious choice to eschew high powered, feature-bloated word processors for a more simplified approach.  I wanted to focus my attention on the act of writing - getting the words and thoughts out of my head and into good form on the page and screen.  So many of the "features" found in Microsoft Word or Apple's Pages actually get in the way of that process.  I wanted something simpler.  

Early last summer, I started trying out a number of Mac text editors with the hopes that they would offer a solution to my problem.  I had several criteria that guided my search.  The right application for me would have to have: cloud sync to Dropbox, iPad and iPhone versions for writing and editing on the go, good typography, a full screen mode, word count, the ability to save files as plain text, and no floating palettes.  This led me to several choices: WriteRoom, Byword, PlainText, and iA Writer. A number of other text editors seemed to be either too complex (such as those designed for writing code) or too ugly to consider. 

While WriteRoom, PlainText and Byword are fine products, I settled on iA Writer for a number of reasons.  First, iA Writer has no preferences with which to fiddle.  On the Mac, you can choose to enter a full screen mode which hides all other open apps so that you can direct your attention to working on your current document or FocusMode which allows you to direct your attention to one sentence at a time in your open document.  Other than those two choices of writing modes, there are no other options.  Being something of perfectionist, I can easily detour off the task of writing and spend an inordinate amount of time selecting just the write font in which to write or tweaking the best background color for my writing environment.  With iA Writer you get one font and one background but this is not a problem as they are both perfect for my tastes. They not only work to minimize distraction, they work together to create an elegant writing environment.  

Like many of the other text editors, Writer has Dropbox support and was the first Mac/iOS writing app to integrate with Apple's iCloud. Regardless of which cloud platform you choose, syncing is seamless and error-free. This allows me to write in the same beautiful enviroment on each of the devices I use and access my current work wherever I am - home, office, or on the go.  

iA Writer's Mac and iOS versions are solid and reliable with almost identical capabilities. Indeed, I believe that Writer began its life as an iPad app and was later ported to the Mac.  What had been missing was an iPhone version and the developer filled that gap a couple of weeks ago with the release of an updated universal iOS version that provided support for the iPhone.  This was a generous move and one that is much appreciated.  Something that took a couple of days to sink in as I used Writer on my iPhone 4S, was the ability to use the voice dictation built into iOS 5 running on the 4S to dictate my thoughts directly into the app.  This has made capturing ideas and inspiration almost effortless.  When you combine that with Writer's flawless cloud syncing, you end up with a powerful tool to dictate your ideas into your phone and have them "magically" appear on your Mac.  And if you are fortunate enough to have a new iPad you can do the same thing because it also allows for voice dictation.  Whenever I dictate a document into my iPhone or iPad, I feel like I have stepped into the world of Star Trek where everyone talks to computers instead of typing. It is a wonderful taste of the future.

All of these things work together to create a writing environment that allows me to work wherever inspiration might strike. This is the best of Apple and third party software working together to make my life easier and better.

Who Takes the Blame?

A little over a month ago the New York Times reported on an incident that occurred at the New York Philharmonic on November 9 of last year.  During the final measures of Mahler's Symphony Number 9, the unmistakable sound of the marimba iPhone alarm tone disrupted the performance and continued well past the usual few seconds it takes for someone to silence an offending device.  This iPhone was particularly distracting because the racket was emanating from the front row. The conductor halted the performance until it was silenced.  (Kudos to him for having the courage to tackle such an offense head on.)  Finally, the gentleman to whom the offending phone belonged figured out that it was indeed him who was causing the incident and he silenced the phone.  According to the New York Times, the man was horrified that he had disrupted the performance and claimed that he had only been given the iPhone the day before and did not know that an alarm had been set to go off.  To his credit, he had toggled the ringer mute switch to silence the iPhone before the performance but had no idea that an alarm would sound even if the switch was set to mute.

This gentleman learned the hard way that toggling an iPhone's ringer mute switch does just that - it silences the ringer and all other alert tones save one.  The exception is an alarm set to fire in the built in clock app. I almost learned this lesson the hard way myself not long after getting the original iPhone.  I was on my way into a funeral and had set my iPhone to mute well before entering the church but several feet from the sanctuary doors my iPhone started playing the scifi alarm tone.  I had the alarm set to go off each weekday to remind me to pick up my oldest son from school.  Because of the funeral, I had made arrangements for my wife to pick him up but the alarm was still set to go off.  Thankfully the alarm went off before the funeral and not during it, but my close encounter prompted me to research the behavior of the iPhone ringer mute switch and learn that alarms overide the mute setting.  Since that time, if I need to be absolutely sure that my phone is going to be silent, I either turn the phone completely off or disable all pending alarms in the clock app.

The New York Philharmonic incident set off an intense conversation among the iPhone faithful and Apple pundits.  Everyone was asking "what is the correct behavior of the iPhone ringer mute switch?"  The answers were varied and many of them were quite thoughtful and well articulated.  I particuarly appreciated posts by John Gruber, Andy Ihnatko, and Marco Arment.  All of them raise great points and arrive at valid conclusions regarding how and why Apple designed the iPhone ringer mute switch the way they did.  That said, the emphasis in most of the discussions I read or heard was on how Apple could have or should have designed the ringer mute switch.  This seems to place most of the responsibility back on Apple.

However, isn't it fair to examine our responsibility as users?  Shouldn't we know how to operate the devices we carry on a daily basis?  If we can't or won't take the responsibility to learn the essentials of their operation should we even be carrying them?  If my iphone alarm had gone of during that funeral I'm not sure I could have shifted the blame away from myself and onto Apple.  That would be like driving a convertable through a car wash with the top down and expecting someone else to get wet. I don't think angry funeral attendees would have welcomed a cry of "Don't blame me. It's the fault of those wacky Apple designers." They would have seen it as my fault.  They would have seen it as my responsibility to know how to operate my phone and to have the good sense to mute it given the setting I was in. To his credit, the gentleman whose iPhone alarm went off during the concert personally apologized to the conductor and the New York Philharmonic. He took responsibility for not knowing his phone well enough to prevent the disruption.  I wish I had heard more of this kind of reasoning in the excellent discussions of ringer mute switch design that followed the incident.  In the end, the buck stops with users - the people who buy the phones and carry them wherever they go.

Writing is Fun Again With Field Notes

 Several years ago, I adopted a digital workflow for writing, task management and note taking.  The iPhone made this easier to do than ever before since I could carry a satellite to my digital information and work with me wherever I went.  Then the iPad came along and made it even better. I was hooked - my work flow was completely digital. For my work I have to attend a number of meetings where taking notes is essential.  I also have to manage projects and day to day tasks and there I try and follow a GTD system.  Keeping lists of tasks and projects is important to that process as is ubiquitous capture of tasks as they come along. My work also requires me to do a great deal of creative writing where I have to generate and then distill ideas and thoughts into a coherent document.  Up until recently I have done all of those things with my Macs, iPhone and iPad because they allowed me to do my work more efficiently.  The system has worked well and has not let me down, but for some time now it has felt like it is missing something. The closest I can come to naming this missing element is "personality" or "soul."

This nagging sense of dissatisfaction with my workflow and thought processes came to a head in the last couple of months.  In particular I started to hate writing.  That is a serious issue because it is a big part of my profession.  I could complete a project but it felt mechanical and hollow. When you no longer like what you do you need to rethink how you do it or if you should even be doing it at all.  The latter was not an option so I started to reconsider how I approach the task and process of writing.  

One day I was reading an article on Daring Fireball and saw an ad in the Deck for Field Notes.  I had heard of these little pocket notebooks at some point in the past but had dismissed them as an analog relic of the past. But in that moment the idea of getting back to actually writing things with pen and paper was appealing.   I clicked the link and decided to order what they call "The Kit" to dip my toes back in the water of pen and paper and see if I liked it. "The Kit" is a great way to do this as it includes a couple packages of their pocket notebooks, two steno notebooks plus some nice pencils and pens. Several days after opening my package of Field Notes, I jumped in with both feet and ordered a Colors Subscription that guarantees delivery of their special limited edition notebooks plus regular supplies of their standard notebooks. I was surprised that this happened so quickly considering how immersed I had been in the digital world prior to using Field Notes. I sat down one night with pen in hand and a Field Notes notebook to journal about this change. What follows is the fruit of that reflection.

Since my main goal in ordering Field Notes was to help me capture inspiration wherever it might strike, the size of the notebooks was appealing. Carrying one of these notebooks with you wherever you go is pretty easy as they are the perfect size to fit in a pocket of your pants. They are also neither too thin or too thick to sit comfortably in a back pocket.  The unpretentious covers are thick enough to be durable but pliable enough to mold to your pocket and develop some character as they wear. The paper is thick enough to hold up in daily use but not so thick as to feel harsh. Field Notes just feel good to carry around and touch.

The fact that they feel so good to the touch has something to do with the quality of their construction. They are a pleasure to use.  There is obvious attention to their crafting. First, they are printed and made in America.  I like that - especially in today's economy.  It maintains skills that our country shouldn't lose in the mad rush to make things as cheaply as possible through outsourcing.  The back cover of each notebook tells you what paper, ink and staples were used and where they were printed and put together.  This led me to look for more information on their website and there I found numerous well-produced videos detailing the printing processes of several of their special edition notebooks as well as the work that goes into their standard edition.  I like that each notebook has a back story. For some people a notebook may be just a notebook but for me quality thoughts deserve quality paper to give them shape and expression and these little notebooks deliver it. 

All this adds up to make Field Notes the ideal daily companion for brainstorming, note taking, journaling, writing, diagramming or drawing.  I know that there are countless apps that could do this digitally but it seems more coherent to do all this on paper.  There are a lot of great apps for drawing, outlining, writing, and note taking but there is no single perfect app for all of them combined so you have to use several of them.  A result of capturing your ideas in several digital apps is that your work ends up compartmentalized in these apps and you can't see it as a coherent whole. I think this was one of the factors contributing to the break down of my writing workflow.

There is also something about the medium of pen and paper that has unlocked my creativity. The glide of the pen across the page of a Field Notes notebook seems more natural than touch typing my ideas onto a capacitive touch screen.  I seem more connected to the writing. My thoughts are rendered in something uniquely personal - my handwriting - instead of a precisely rendered digital font.  My printing is less than perfect and full of idiosyncrasies but it is mine and there is something satisfying about seeing my thoughts given shape in it. It also slows me down enough to actually think about what I am writing. Pen and paper provides fewer distractions that keep me from hearing the words form in my mind. No pop up alerts to interrupt my train of thought and typing. Another benefit is that there is no annoying auto correct to fiddle with as a I write. I have lost too many good ideas to this "feature" over the last couple of years to count. 

One of the other uses for which I purchased Field Notes is note taking during meetings.  I have found that taking handwritten notes using a Field Notes notebook is less conspicuous than pulling out my iPad or iPhone. Pen and paper on a table or in your lap produces less of a barrier between you and the person(s) with which you are meeting.  If the interaction of people is why you hold a meeting then introducing obstacles to that interaction seems counterproductive. By keeping an electronic device out of sight, no one thinks that you are tweeting, texting, emailing or playing Angry Birds during the meeting.  This tells them that they have your undivided attention and that you value their time and input.

 

While you can't backup the handwritten pages of a Field Notes notebook as easily as you can a text file to Dropbox or secure sensitive notes with a PIN code or password, the benefits of this analog medium outweigh the drawbacks.  Ideas and words are once again flowing and writing is fun.  Thanks to Field Notes for making such a great tool. Their cool little notebooks have a found a home in my heart and in my pocket right next to my iPhone. 

I have also posted a photo of the first installment of my colors subscription featuring the American Tradesman special edition on my photos page.