Then you have things you were forced to use (either out of the malevolence of others, lack of choice or misfortune).  You wish they’d go away, but they just don’t.  Even though you’ve made a conscience decision to move away from them, they just hang around.  I’d certainly put Flash and Internet Explorer 6 into these categories (along with Real Player, damn you Real Player).

So it is with great joy that I can report some serious moves being made towards killing off these two web relics.

Firstly, Internet Explorer 6.  After the recent IE6 empowered attacks in China, Google will be dropping support for IE6 in its web apps from next month.  This may seem like a bold move, but one would assume that anyone savvy enough to be using Google Apps would also be savvy enough to not be using IE6.  Possibly an even more important move comes from the UK’s Department of Health, which has told the NHS to stop relying on IE6.  As someone who’s worked on large scale government IT projects over the past six years, some of which have used IE6 (through no choice), I can’t convey how important a move like this might prove to be.

Out of all the organisations in the world, the UK’s government is so hopelessly uneducated, under-qualified and misguided that it wouldn’t be unreasonable to suggest that it would be the last place on earth to abandon IE6.  So if the government is moving away from IE6, there may be hope for the rest of us yet.

So what about Flash?  I mentioned in my brief coverage of the iPad that I hoped it signalled the end of Flash, and that sentiment seems to have been echoed around the web.  Rather than seeing the lack of Flash support in the iPad as a bad thing, many commentators see it as a positive.  It’s an acceptable means to an ends, if the end is the death of Flash.

The problem that Flash has is that it’s currently very hard to make a business case for it.  What do you use Flash for that can’t be done better using a more open, or a more user friendly, or a stabler, technology?  Video, for example can be more than adequately handled by HTML 5’s video support, and anyone who’s running a less that stellar machine would be well served to switch their YouTube preferences to HTML5 – it’s made a world of difference to the video performance of my ageing MacBook.  Rich media presentation, for example slideshows, are better handled by JavaScript, a move that’s greatly facilitated by the new breed of JavaScript libraries like JQuery.  JavaScript also has the advantage of not requiring a relatively expensive development environment to get started (i.e. you can code it in notepad if you want, you don’t need to buy Adobe’s Creative Suite).

Zeldman makes a good point that developers may now be forced down the route of best practice because the number of devices supporting Flash is falling, and will continue to do so.  Developers can no longer start with the aim of building a Flash site, but rather should concentrate on the semantic construction of the site and then augment that with Flash should the requirements be there.  I, like many other observers, feel that once developers start building around the actual requirements, and don’t start with Flash in mind, they’ll discover that Flash is surplus to requirements.

Looking more specifically at the future of Flash, Scoble asks “who can save Flash?” and includes a number of insights.  The analogy to the early days of FireFox is interesting.  One key difference between the iPhone platform and FireFox is the audience, though.  Early FireFox adopters were tech-savvy, early iPhone users are not (necessarily), and the same will be true of the iPad one would imagine.  A typical iPhone user will not look at the blue box of failure and blame Apple, nor Adobe, they’ll blame the website.  ”All the other websites work fine on my iPhone, why doesn’t yours?” will be the cry.  And when that cry reaches substantial proportions, websites owners will have to start taking notice.  The smart ones, as Scoble pointed out, are already removing Flash from their future roadmaps.

Given the amount of time I’ve spent “fixing” websites so they work with a broken browser, and the number of browser crashes I could reasonably attribute to Flash, I’m looking forward to the future without these two relics.

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I’m not adverse to the beta label, in fact I’ve been using the FireFox Beta releases for some time, but I’m also not your average Joe user. Given the push from Apple to get their products in the hands of normal consumers, releasing a beta version of a key piece of software may not be the most “joined up” move.

I mention the beta label to make it clear that Apple are expecting constructive criticism on this release. So in the “beta” spirit, I’ve made the following observations about Safari 4, and have some suggestions for improvement.

The New URL Bar

This upgrade has been a long time coming, and Apple have gone some way to matching the functionality found in Chrome and FireFox. In fact, the limited URL bar functionality in previous versions of Safari have been one of the main reasons I avoided it. However, it’s still not perfect. I notice it’s limitations particularly when typing out addresses. Typically I omit the “www” from the start of the address, in the past, FireFox has filled this in for me. Safari does not, and will just take you to the address you type. For 90% of sites out there, this isn’t a problem as the address without the “www” will not resolve. There are, however, sites for which this doesn’t work.

I also miss the ability to search from the URL bar, a feature in FireFox called search bookmarks. I’ve described my reliance on this feature earlier in the week, and it gets no easier to accept.

Bugs

Safari 4 is not free of bugs. For example, I cannot write blog posts in WordPress because the lightbox WordPress uses in the editor breaks Safari. I don’t know whether this is the fault of Safari or WordPress, but either way it’s not working and remains a problem. This isn’t an isolated problem either, as it happens on other sites as well.

Auto-Complete

Safari 4 has got an auto-complete feature, but it doesn’t seem as comprehensive nor as reliable as FireFox’s. As someone who’s both lazy and very forgetful, having to repeatedly type user names and passwords is tiresome and stressful. Which leads me on to my next point…

Cookie Management

I don’t know why, but it appears as if the “remember me” setting on many sites simply does not work with Safari 4. I find myself constantly logging in to my Google Reader and GMail accounts, which isn’t something I had to do nearly as regularly in FireFox.

The UI

I’m not entirely sold on the UI. The “tabs on top” approach doesn’t necessarily feel the most natural, and the points I made earlier in this series still hold true. I don’t know if this is just something I need to get used to, or whether I have a more serious issue with it. Dragging the window remains the biggest annoyance.

Summary

Safari 4 can now be classed as a serious contender for the “best browser” crown. Compared to FireFox, it feels paired down and simple. Compared to Chrome, it feels more established and next to IE, well, it does a far better job of browsing the web than IE. Being predominantly a Mac user, my choice comes down to FireFox or Safari, and for the moment at least, I’m sticking with Safari. The amount of time I save with every page load, every action, more than makes up for the odd occasion I’d use a FireFox extension or feature that isn’t present. If I just want to get through some no-frills browsing, then Safari seems like the best option, for now. I eagerly await Mozilla’s response, specifically on the performance gap that appears to exist between Safari 4 and FireFox.

Note: Please forgive the lateness of this conclusion and the unavailability of this site over this weekend and last, I assure you the two are not unrelated. Unfortunately out web host had been experiencing some significant technical issues leading to our unavailability. These issues should now be resolved. Thanks for your patience.

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My History with FireFox

I have a long history with FireFox, picking it before it officially hit version 1, so I’ve become used to its features, layout, workflow and quirks. In the very first post of this series I mentioned my delight at the fact Safari has now adopted FireFox’s shortcuts, and that delight stands as a testament to my familiarity with the browser.

Over the last few years I’ve also become accustomed to a number of FireFox’s plugins, which up to this week I genuinely believed were essential to me. They’re not.

The point I’m trying to convey here is that my browsing habits are entrenched in FireFox, and have been for a number of years now. Switching to another browser is not an easy or trivial task. It also puts the alternative browser as a severe disadvantage. As those of you who are familiar with usability will know, the longer you spend with an application, the closer you become to being an expert user. An expert user sits at the opposite end of the scale to a novice user. Novice users rely on big, obvious signposts so they can complete tasks easily. Expert users are more likely to know how to use the application already, and will be familiar with advanced options and shortcuts so they can complete tasks quickly.

Unfair Comparisons

I’ve pointed out above some of the reasons I’m apprehensive to do a direct comparison between Firefox and another browser, in this case Safari 4. It’s not a one way street though. Because of my continued usage of FireFox over the last few years it’s become a bit of a bloated mess. I have many many extensions loaded, custom skins, numerous Greasemonkey scripts and who knows what else running all the time.

As a result, the relatively poor experience I sometimes have with FireFox, and the semi-regular crashes, might be the fault of something I’ve chosen to add to the browser, as opposed to the browser itself. This makes comparisons difficult, unfair and dangerous. Not only am I reliant on features that do not ship with FireFox by default, but they may also be causing me to have a less than stellar experience.

It’s unfair, but it’s where we are.

Note: Sorry for the delay in getting these last few articles out. Out host had been experiencing some serious downtime over the weekend.

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Performance

Apple have made a big deal about the performance improvements in Safari 4 with some outrageous claims of how fast Safari is compared to its competitors. Seeing as performance was one of my main reasons for considering switching browsers, this was a area of particular interest to me.

I want to point out at this stage that the following is simply my opinion and is based a completely unscientific day of usage. I’ve added some samples from OSX’s process viewer simply for comparison and illustrations sake. My test machine is a launch day MacBook which has a 2GHz Intel Core Duo CPU and 2Gb of RAM. It’s running the latest version of OSX, 10.5.6.

In the few days I’ve been using Safari 4 I would rate its speed as “blistering”. Loading pages seems quicker, and javascript-heavy pages, such as GMail and Google Reader and notably faster than FireFox, which has always struggled somewhat. Perhaps most impressive is that Safari uses nigh on zero CPU cycles when its idling, this is in sharp contrast to FireFox which always seems to be humming along using resources. The image below is a snapshot of the Safari 4 process after leaving it running for several hours.

This second image is a snapshot of the FireFox process after a significantly shorter amount of time running.

Both browsers had five tabs open with identical sites fully loaded. Each browser had been idling for around a minute. As you can see, Safari is using around half the CPU of FireFox. The additional memory usage of Safari can probably be attributed to the fact it had been running for a longer period than FireFox (therefore had more pages cached, and a longer history list).

However, the figures are largely meaningless seeing as in real world tests, Safari feels significantly faster, and over time seems to do a better job of releasing memory to other applications.

Stability

Considering Safari 4 is officially a Beta release, it’s very stable. So far, in three days, I’ve had one crash. This is comparable to my experience in FireFox over a similar amount of time with a similar usage pattern. I’m also pleased to report that I haven’t experienced any “hangs”, where the browser becomes unresponsive for a period of time. This was a particular problem for FireFox, which would often remain unresponsive for over 10 seconds, sometimes much longer, before regaining its composure and letting me back in. It’s annoying, frustrating and can really ruin a browsing session if you’re trying to achieve something.

I do need to point out at this stage that there are reports from Safari 4 users highlighting problems with certain plugins, or as they are termed in Safari world, Input Managers. I was sure to clear down my existing Safari installation before installing version 4, so I’ve avoided any of these problems. It might just be something that tips the balance with regards to Safari 4 for you if you rely on such adornments.

As I’ve said, these aren’t scientific tests, and as such should be taken at face value. As always, your mileage may vary.

Tomorrow I’ll be looking at why comparisons to FireFox will never be fair.

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Tabs

It’s difficult to discuss Safari 4 without talking about the Tab placement. Following in the footsteps of Google’s Chrome browser, Apple have moved the Tabs to above the address bar, and actually placed them at the same level as the window itself. There are various arguments for and against this approach. Most notably, the proponents will argue that it enforces a visual hierarchy, as switching tabs also changes everything below it. I can see the sense in this approach, visual hierarchy is important in applications, and helps users set expectations. I’m not completely sold on Apple’s approach however. By putting tabs at the same level as the window title, they’ve lost the cohesiveness that usually comes with applications. The result is that safari looks like a group of tabs, rather than an application that contains tabs.

For me, and this may be less of an issue for others, I found the new tab placement difficult to get used to. I found myself repeatedly clicking in the wrong area when trying to switch tabs. This usually resulted in my clicking of a bookmark instead of a tab. I’ve no doubt that this is something I will eventually get used to, but it’s a little jarring at the moment.

To Drag or Not To Drag

In the previous version of Safari, version 3, Apple introduced some advanced drag and drop functionality involving the tabs. For example, you could drag a tab out of the current window to create a new window containing just that tab. For the drag and drop mechanic to work, it has to be clear which areas are draggable. The image below is a screenshot of the top of Safari. I’ve put some numbers on it and I want you to guess what will happen if you attempt to drag the area pointed to by the numbers.

The areas, when dragged, do the following.

1. Drags the tab, for example to reorder the tabs in the current window or to drag the tab into a new window.
2. Drags the entire window, to reposition it on your desktop.
3. Resizes the search and address fields.

As you can see, it certainly isn’t obvious. The distinction between the area used to drag the tab and the area used to drag the window isn’t clearly defined, and it’s easy to get the wrong one.

Top Sites

Another feature Apple has liberated from Chrome, which in turn liberated it from Opera, is the Top Sites page. Of course, Apple has given it a certain spit and polish that only Apple can. This is a feature that wasn’t present in my previous browser and I’ve sort of dismissed it when it got added to other browsers. I was wrong to. I’ve actually been using this feature allot, and it’s become my home page and the page I load when opening a new tab. It’s very handy.

For those unfamiliar, the Top Sites page presents a grid containing screenshots of the sites you visit the most often. Sites can be removed / hidden from this screen as well as rearranged and pinned in place. I’ve chosen to lock a couple of sites in place and let Safari take care of the rest.

Coverflow

Apple have also introduced their Coverflow mechanic in Safari, which seems to be slowly permeating into every area of OSX. This isn’t necessary a bad thing in Safari, as it adds a nice visual cue to the history and bookmark pages. Browsing your history using coverflow is particularly satisfying, and lets you identify a page you were looking for more quickly than using text and page titles alone. It’s possibly less useful for Bookmarks, but I’m sure it will come in handy.

One observation is that the screenshots for bookmarks seem to only load intermittently. Some still haven’t loaded, and I’ve been using the browser for a couple of days now. This problem doesn’t appear to be present on the history screen though, which is a relief.

Loading?

My brief, glancing experiences with Safari in the past have highlighted one little interface gem. The URL bar loading indicator. It just seems like such a good idea, and works brilliantly. Yet, for some unknown reason, it’s absent from this build. Now it may just be that they didn’t get time to add it in to the Beta, but I suspect this is more down to the unified look they are striving for in OSX. The blue, aqua-style bar doesn’t really fit in anymore. Hopefully they will find a way to reinstate this feature in a more carbon-like guise, because the current loading indicators don’t cut it. They are too anonymous and can make it difficult to tell whether the page you are viewing is loading, or whether it’s another tab. The loading indicator, a small rotating circle similar to the ones found n websites, will appear either in the address bar or on the tab. If you have multiple pages loading in multiple tabs, it can become confusing, and doesn’t seem nearly as elegant as the old approach.

Tomorrow, I’ll look at performance and stability.

Read more from my Week with Safari 4.

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Comfortable Shortcuts

I’ve tried to switch to Safari before, but I found the different keyboard shortcuts very difficult to learn. In the end it was an insurmountable hurdle for me, and as such I went stumbling back to FireFox, feeling a little battered and bruised. This release, thankfully, seems to have adapted some of my most used FireFox shortcuts. For example, Command + K now jumps to the search box while Command + L jumps to the address/location bar. Same as FireFox. Control + Tab now switches between tabs. It’s all very comfortable and familiar.

Bookmarks

Luckily, I didn’t have to go through the process of importing a load of bookmarks into Safari on account of my reliance on Delicious for my bookmarking needs. Whilst the nifty FireFox plugin is now gone, the bookmarklets seem more than adequate. The same goes for Evernote, which is also now missing a plugin which has been replaced by a bookmarklet (for those not in the know, a bookmarklet is a small piece of Javascript that you save to your bookmarks, allowing you to easily run it at any time on any page).

Having said that, the bookmarking interface in Safari is nice. Apple has used the coverflow interface for browsing through your bookmarks and just generally made it very slick. I think, if I remain with Safari after this week is through, I’ll need to rethink my bookmarking strategy. I’ve typically used Delicious as a place to store articles that I may be interested in at some point in the future, and mixed in with those articles are the sites that I actually visit regularly. I can see myself using Safari to store my commonly used sites and a combination of Evernote and Delicious for note taking and URL storing.

What am I missing?

I’ve always identified FireFox’s extensions as the main reason I could never move away from that browser, but in fact, it hasn’t really been an issue. The extension I’m missing the most is actually Twitterfox, a plugin that lets you read from, and post to, Twitter. I’m yet to find an alternative that fits in with my workflow quite as well. Oddly, all the other extensions that I thought I couldn’t live without have, for the most part, fallen by the wayside.

Another aspect of FireFox that I’ve found myself missing is the ability to add shortcuts to text boxes through bookmarks. This is an often overlooked feature, but one I used multiple times every single day. For example, if I wanted to search for something on Amazon, I would just type “amazon product name” into the URL bar and it would automatically be translated into an Amazon site search. I’ve got a fair few of these shortcuts set up, some for searches, some for performing various actions (“tweet” to send a message to Twitter, “tu” to shorten a URL using TinyURL and many others).

Tomorrow I’ll go over some of the interface changes in Safari 4, from a FireFox user’s point of view.

Read the other posts from my Week of Safari 4.

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Recently, my love for FireFox has been dwindling. Performance, particularly on my 1st generation MacBook (which is essentially just an internet browsing machine for me), has been less than stellar. There have been noticeable slowdowns when rendering Flash and as I’ve moved more and more of my life online, sluggish performance in my browser has become less and less acceptable. I wanted more speed, I needed more speed, but am I prepared to trade off some of FireFox’s advantages?

So it’s time to put my money, or at least my time, where my mouth is. For the next week, seven days, I will be using the new Safari 4 Beta as my one and only browser. Much of the publicity and fanfare surrounding this release has been focused on the amazing claims of speed

The image at the top of this post represents my default browser setting this morning, and then again tonight. Such an innocuous looking setting is actually a major step for me.

Over the next week, I’ll be documenting my day-to-day findings and experiences using Safari 4 on OSX Leopard. So stay tuned!

Are you planning on trying Safari 4?

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The BBC have decided to use Adobe’s Air platform as the basis of the new download iPlayer.  This includes Adobe’s proprietary DRM solution, FMRMS.  All things considered, this seems, on the face of it, a wise move. It will allow the BBC to eventually move to a single version of each show (eventually, more on that in a bit) as well as paving the way for HD content (Adobe Air and the FMRMS support .h264 HD).

The Wider Implications

There are wider implications to the BBC’s decision.  Initially users will have to deal with a new platform.  People are used to Flash, and by association, Adobe, so it shouldn’t be too galling.  It is, however, something out of the norm.  Your typical Windows users is used to downloading an application and just having it work, this whole “runtime” deal may be a step too far for some.  This is likely to become an issue should the BBC decide to discontinue support for the Windows DRM download service, forcing users of that to move to the Air tool – a move which seems inevitable. Not only will the idea of a runtime be introduced, but also these users will be moving to a completely new application.  It’s much more than your average upgrade.

One of the biggest winners in this situation has to be Adobe.  While Air has some potential, all it’s really been used for up until this point is some nifty widget like applications. Nothing really meaty.  Most of the applications created for it have also been fairly niche, limiting its distribution and appeal.  The BBC iPlayer is about as mainstream as it gets online, it’s huge and everyone in the UK uses it* (*completely made up statistic). What I’m trying to convey here is that the BBC iPlayer is going to open up Adobe Air to a whole new audience.

In the article linked to above, the author identifies some new features that are likely to be heading to the Air Download iPlayer in the near future.  What isn’t mentioned, nor implied, are the other opportunities that may open up to the BBC using Adobe Air as a platform. You can, for example, see an Adobe Air application focusing on the BBC’s Sports coverage being very successful, with live scores, news, video and audio streams all rolled into one app.  The same goes for news. The current disparate set of tools, applications, widgets and web pages could be consolidated and simplified, providing a more rounded, integrated solution to the end user whilst also reducing maintenance costs. Again, this seems inevitable.

What’s on the Table?

This is a big deal.  The BBC is a major player when it comes to content provision and creation, and they wouldn’t have arbitrarily chosen the go with Adobe without some sort of deal being struck. This isn’t me being cynical, or paranoid, just realistic.  I’ve been involved in large deals before, and big customer simply get better deals than smaller ones.  They can use leverage and size to their advantage.

For the BBC’s Adobe Air iPlayer to work, Adobe and the BBC have to be aligned in their visions.  For Adobe this is the vision for Adobe Air as a platform, and for the BBC it’s meeting license fee payer’s needs whilst upholding the values of the corporation as defined by the BBC Trust. For the BBC this comes down to value for money, and maintaining one application that functions cross platform fits that bill nicely.  To enable the BBC to do that, Adobe would have had to commit to a development roadmap that allows the BBC to maintain this platform independent development regime. That means keeping the Windows, OSX and Linux versions of Adobe Air close enough together in terms of features and releases.  Once one version slips away from the others, the BBC lose the advantage of using Adobe Air as a platform.

We’ve already seen the first evidence of this, with Adobe Air version 1.5 for Linux being released the same day as the iPlayer download app – this is clearly no coincidence.

The Application Itself

I’ve been playing with the iPlayer download Air Application on OSX for a few days, and unfortunately some of the problems present in the Windows Media version have been carried over.  Namely the still-confusing DRM (why one show needs three expiration dates is beyond me) and the slightly disappointing video quality. There’s also no integrated browser, despite this being a selling point of Adobe Air, and you get some bizarre error messages (even after fully downloading a show, you can still get a message saying it’s “Temporarily Unavailable”).

It appears as if the DRM will continue to be a problem into the future.  I don’t have a problem with DRM per se, but I find the BBC’s implementation confusing at best and at worst obstructive. Just to summarise, each show can be downloaded up to seven days after airing, then you have up to 30 days to watch it, or, seven days after you’ve started watching it. So for every show there’s three expiration dates, I just don’t see why it needs to be so complicated and restrictive, and I’ve yet to see any justification that squares that circle (I understand revenue protection, but there are better ways of doing it).

The other “issues”, while being fairly minor, all sound like they are being addressed.  High quality streaming (although the claimed “near TV” quality sounds disappointing when compared to other survives HD quality) will be a welcome addition, and talk of scheduling downloads and series subscriptions seem like obvious additions. It’s also important to remember that this is a beta produce, available only through the BBC Labs, so the odd error here and there is easy to forgive.

Overall, the new iPlayer Desktop is a welcome addition, and I can certainly seem myself using it more than the web based player.  The reliability of knowing you can download and then watch a show, as opposed to streaming it and risking losing connection part way through, is relieving. It also seems a step up from the Windows desktop player, which seems a clear signal of intent. I’m impressed, although surely not as impressed as Adobe.

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Identifying a Need

I’ve been enjoying photography as a hobby more and more recently. It seems to satisfy my creative side and has the bonus of allowing me to get nerdy when it comes to the equipment. It’s like painting with technology, what’s not to love! And like many eager photographers I’ve been developing processes, tools, techniques and a style as I’ve been going along. However, one of the big gaps in my armour has been scouting locations and remembering potential photos. I’m not the sort of person who carries my photography gear around with my everywhere, so when I see something interesting, I need to note it down and return. I’ve been using my Moleskine to do this for a while, and as much as I adore my Moleskine, it doesn’t really make it easy to find the information later.

So in steps Evernote.

The Process

My current process is to add a note in Evernote containing the name of the place that catches my eye. I then gradually add more information to the note to make sure I’m well armed for the day I finally venture out to take some photos of my own. As a minimum, I add the following to each note: -

• Google Maps URL – I add this in the “Source” field of Evernote. This is pretty much the key piece of information, so I make sure it’s there and stored consistently.
• The Address – Of course you need a fall back.

In addition I try to add the following: -

• Some Photos – I usually do a quick search of Google or Flickr to grab a couple of photos of the location and add them to the note. If possible, I try and grab some at different times of the day. I do this for two reasons, the first is for inspiration, the second is so that I know what to expect. Turning up at a stunning gorge is different to turning up at some interesting urban decay.
• An informative link – If the location has an official URL, I’ll add it to the note. If not, I’ll try and find something informative about the location. For locations like parks and National Trust locations this is very important as it will contain things like opening times, parking locations and fees.
• Any other notes – Traffic, parking, good spots, lenses etc.

So that’s typically what I’ll add to each note. Of course, if there’s something interesting I stumble across, I’ll add that as well. It’s all about getting as prepared as possible before hand. You don’t want to miss the shot because of lack of preparation.

Fortunately, Evernote makes it easy to add this information either using the OSX Client, with drag and drop capability (just drag an image into it, and drop) and the FireFox Extension.

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Out in the Field

When it comes time to actually head out I’ll load up the saved note to take a look. If I’ve made any comments about kit, weather etc. I’ll bear them in mind. Then I’ll hit the Google Maps URL on my iPhone and get some directions. One of the fantastic things about the iPhone is that any Google Maps URL will just open in the Google Maps application, no mess, no fuss. If you’re looking for the “Source” URL in the iPhone app, you have to click on the “Details” button to find it.

When you are out in the field, you can also make notes about composition, position and exposure in Evernote, all the while backing it up with iPhone photos. You never know when you may want to revisit a site, and you will see lots of stories from photographers who fall back to their old notebooks many years later and find the information invaluable.

The Evernote Advantage

Much of what I’ve described above could be achieved in other applications, so why Evernote? The key advantage is the cross device availability combined with the excellent iPhone integration. The ability to see all this information as well as having access to links, maps and directions on the go really sets it apart. And of course you’ve always got the text recognition to fall back on, so you can snap road signs, street signs, brochures and all sorts of information that would otherwise be inaccessible.

Another tool you’ve got in your arsenal is the ability to share notes on the internet. So if you go out as a group, just send everyone a link to the note. Very handy.

The Next Steps

There are ways of expanding this system beyond Evernote. Something I find handy is a custom Google Map with all my places of interest plotted on it. The beauty of having that to hand is that you can easily see any when your planning a trip or journey. If you do use Google Maps to do this you can add notes to each location. And you can always import this data into Evernote so you’ve always got it with you.

So is it Perfect?

The title of this post is a question. I’m not stating that Evernote is the perfect photographer’s notebook, I’m wondering. For me, it’s close. One of the main restrictions I find is the iPhone app. Specifically editing notes, which just isn’t possible unless it’s a text only note. I don’t see why I can’t take a picture and add it to a note. The iPhone is certainly capable of it, and it seems odd that Evernote have crippled what is by far their largest customer base in this way. If I want to add images to notes on the go I currently take photos on the iPhone, upload them to Mobile Me and then add them to the note when I get home. It’s an awfully convoluted process and not in keeping with the smooth operation of the rest of the service.  The “Pending” screen in the iPhone app also seems redundant to me, and the space could be put to better use with the button removed (it actually takes a rather prominent place in the app, if it is required I can’t see any reason for it to be as prominent as it is.  Putting it in Preferences would work fine in my opinion).

I also find the way notes are organised limiting.  For example, I have a “Photography” notebook which contains some quick tips on photography, locations, gear etc.  I’d rather have sub notebooks (let’s call them chapters), one for locations, one for gear etc.  That may just be my personal favoured way of organising information, and there is the option to tag notes, but I can’t see how adding an extra level of notebook would be problematic.

As for missing features, I’d love the ability to “hand draw” notes. These could be site plans or really quick scrawled notes. It could be a killer feature on the iPhone combined with the competant text recognition feature.  And how great would it be if you could use the “hand draw” feature to annotate notes and images, like having the ability to highlight areas of a map where the best photography spots are (you can currently do this through another app and import the images in, but again, it’s a convouted process).

Some Examples

I’ve added some sample notes throughout this post, so you can see how well it works.

Do you use Evernote?  If so, for what?  Or are you a photographer? What do you use to take notes?

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This post was originally published on The Oak Innovations Blog. Follow me on Twitter.

Being a British iPhone user, I wasn’t hopeful that we would see a simultaneous launch of the app with the US, so imagine my surprise when there was a notification of an update to the Google App when I checked today.  Take a look at the release notes for the app, and tell me if there’s something missing.

No mention of voice search anywhere.  Regardless, I updated the app because I use it frequently.

After updating I had a bit of a play around to see what had changed, and of course the first place you visit is the preferences tab (or is that just me?).  Take a look at the options you get.

Yes, there it is, hidden away in the preferences.  It’s worth noting that, for me at least (with a Welsh accent), the voice search is very hit and miss – hence the disclaimer I guess.  It also doesn’t quite work as advertised.  The You Tube video put out last week indicated that holding the phone to your ear would automatically put it in a receptive mode, this isn’t the case.

Have you tried out the mobile app?  If your a non-UK user, was the preference off by default?  How are you finding it?

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