Instapaper

Easily the one of the most impressive and indespensible apps running on my phone. I read about a dozen articles a week. I accomplish this mostly via instapaper’s browser bookmarklet; a tiny button that I added to my browser. When clicked it sends whatever I’m reading to my Instapaper account. Instapaper stores it and waits until I log into my account via the iPhone app. It then magically downloads the article onto my phone, (making it accessible to me even if I’m not online) and formats the text to be easily readable on my phone. Truly Magical.

It’s great. It’s perfect. It supports folders and it keeps an archive of stuff I’ve read. My favorite app on my phone by far. [App Store Link (free) (Full Version)]

Stanza

Similar to Instapaper in that it’s a text reader for the iPhone, Stanza is probably an application that will either be struck dead or will live long, strong, and proud when the iPad is released.

Allowing you to read public-domain books on your phone as well as purchase books from a variety of book merchants, the app is gorgeous and works like a dream.

It also has a desktop companion that allows you to sync or “send over” PDF’s, or raw text files and convert them to the Stanza format; thereby allowing you to read them on your iPhone. More magic and wonder. [App Store]

simplenote

I first heard about simplenote via Daring Fireball. Gruber made me think it was the greatest thing since sliced bread. It really is revolutionary, but it wasn’t until Merlin Mann mentioned Notational Velocity that I really started to get cranking with it.

Essentially, simplenote is a note syncing service that replaces the ugliness that is Notes.app with an über sexy interface and design. I use it to sync grocery lists, to do’s, lists of unwatched movies, and any other bit of text I can think to throw at it.

Check out Merlin’s workflow for a starting point on this. [App Store Link]

Dropbox

I’ve been using dropbox for about a week now, and I think I really like it. There are a couple of PDF’s that I like to keep handy so I’ve uploaded them to my dropbox account and they sync to my phone. Boom. That’s it. That’s all I use it for, and it works great.

According to the fine folks at dropbox it does other stuff too. Like let you watch video you send to your dropbox, or listen to any audio file you send to your dropbox. I admit that’s all freakin’ awesome stuff but it kicks so much fanny in my one little department I don’t think my tiny human brain would be able to comprehend all that other fancy jazz. So for now I’m sticking to simple PDF syncing. [App Store link]

moleskinery^†

I’ve been using this since it was a jailbreak app. It’s changed quite a bit since then. I don’t know if it’s gotten better, but I do feel that my use of it has diminished.

If there are any strong points, it’s the folders. You give me folders and I’m almost always happy. Developing a structured hierarchy for workflows is always a good idea and more apps should take that into consideration. Especially since the all of the structure is within the app now and not spread out where a user might want it ¹.

The ability to hammer out some text when I’m not near an internet connection (either Wi-Fi or 3G) is really important to me², and it’s delivered that for the most part – except when it hasn’t. There have been times when I’m about twenty to thirty words into something and then — zap — the app just crashes. With no autosave this can really hurt. Bad. It keeps me from using the app with confidence and hinders what I use it for and how often I use it.
[App Store Link]

1. The argument about whether this is a feature or a bug is an old one by now among nerds. I dunno, I could go either way on this one. On a mobile device it seems really nice to have all of your text files to be opened by one app. Then again, sometimes there’s something that you want to do to an image file and need more than one app, but your file is locked in. Good or bad it’s the way things are (and will most likely stay).

2. No, I will not use Notes.app. Mostly, because of that stupid font that it uses. It’s also locked into Apple’s pretty little universe and it adds a couple of steps to my workflow to get it out. So, nope, no notes.app for me.

† While gathering the links for this app I noticed that the url for moleskinery is no longer working. I think it’d be safe to assume that this app is no longer supported — and it’s not even in the iTunes Store anymore, so there you go.

Cory Doctorow’s new book Makers has been serialized over on Tor’s website for a few months now. I thought I’d let it get a little ahead of me in the event that I really liked it. Turns out I do. I find myself re-reading sentences over and over again, after my mind has been distracted by the idea or the potential ideas that Cory explores.

One of my favorite concepts thus far is that the death of something like a company (or for that matter an economy), is not the end of innovation. On the contrary. During times of economic struggle it becomes critical for the big brains of our world to find smarter, leaner ways of doing things. To find ways to trim the fat.

Which is something that I think Cory has continuously done with his novels. Releasing his books via a Creative Commons license has allowed him to experiment and push boundaries in ways others may have shied away from due to fears of economic failure. Cory’s desire to share content that he created at no cost to his audience has created a loyal fanbase that gladly support his creative endeavors with purchases of physical books but also with word of mouth, blogs, fansites, songs, remixes of the work and any other medium that fans want to show their appreciation.

I should mention that I’ve been reading Makers in a somewhat non-traditional way. While the text has been available via Tor’s site accompanied by some amazing illustration by Idiots’Books, I’ve been reading the book on my iPhone using one of favorite apps; the truly amazing Instapaper. Instapaper strips the text from a webpage and allows you to read it offline on the iPhone. It’s an amazing app and you should really be using it.

To be clear: I’m reading a novel, released under a Creative Commons license, distributed via a publishers website that is trickling out chapters three times a week, I am taking those chapters and reading them on a smart phone; whenever I want.

These a fantastic and amazing times that we live in.