Sneaking Into the Everyday
Standing in cold, pre-dawn WWDC keynote line, I met a couple of the friendly Mac & iOS engineers from 6wunderkinder, makers of the beautiful Wunderlist apps. I’d tried Wunderlist in the past, but some weeks later, I thought I’d give it another go. Turns out, it’s been great! Just the mix of power and simplicity that I need to stay focused on my tasks.
This change made me realise that quite a lot of my most-used tools are also things I’d picked up only in the last year or so. On the Mac, they are:
- Task tracking: The Hit List → Wunderlist
- Writing: iA Writer → Byword
- Note taking and “everything” storage: Yojimbo → Evernote
- Text editing: TextMate → Sublime Text
And on iOS:
- Mobile photos: Instagram → Flickr
- Photo processing: Camera+ → VSCO Cam
- Note taking: Simplenote → Scratch
- Weather: iOS Weather → Yahoo Weather
All this has happened without any particular conscious effort. Apps come to my attention, and if I like them, there’s a good chance they stick around. Granted, as a software developer I may be more curious than most, but I still take this as a heartening thing: no matter when you launch, if you offer something better or compellingly different, you stand a real chance of finding your way into people’s everyday.
