Last year, Doctor Who ended the first half of its seventh series with a rousing send-off to two of the show’s longtime characters Amy and Rory. The first half of the series had been well received and featured some surprises such as an appearance by next companion Clara Oswald. Played by Jenna Louise Coleman, Clara’s character (revealed in the series opener “Asylum of the Daleks”) had an enjoyably lively personality with showrunner Steven Moffat’s quick-witted writing to back her up. After seeing this presentation of the new companion, I immediately yearned for more. She played off of Matt Smith’s Doctor quite well and seemed like a perfect fit for the show. Her second appearance in the “The Snowmen” Christmas special only served to strengthen my enthusiasm for the second half of the series, making me look forward to learning more about her and how she would travel with the Doctor full time. However, as I write this article in the week preceding the series 7 finale, I’m struck with disappointment in how the show has been handled as of late.

You see, Clara’s character was introduced to us in a very peculiar way. In both “Asylum of the Daleks” and “The Snowmen,” she died, and not the “if there isn’t a body then she’s not dead” kind of death either. Her character died in both episodes but somehow kept showing up in the Doctor’s life again and again. This was the mystery the show presented to us in Clara: who is this strange girl? How is she still alive after dying twice? Why does she keep showing up in the Doctor’s life? We’ve almost come to the end of the season, and we still don’t know the answers to these questions, but that’s not why I’m disappointed. Answers aren’t always everything, and the journey characters take can be just as important as the reveal of a big mystery.

Since Clara’s first two appearances showed such promise, I was extremely excited about the second half of the series starting this spring. The first episode, “The Bells of St. John,” was a fun enough jaunt of an episode written by Steven Moffat, who was doing his very best James Bond writing. We were presented with Clara again, and she was still the same clever, lovable girl that we’d met twice before, but something was missing. Her character wasn’t quite as quick with a comeback and was a little bit less inclined to give the Doctor a quippy nickname. But again, that’s not why I’m disappointed. The episode was fun enough, and I had a good time watching it despite its corny use of wireless networks and technology as an enemy.

You can blame my current state of disappointment on the episodes that aired after Moffat’s premiere. The majority of the episodes that have aired so far this season, from “Hide” to “The Crimson Horror,” have all had something missing: a companion. The exclusion of this core aspect of the show has left the second half of series 7 wanting. Since “The Bells of St. John,” not one writer has been able to give any real personality or voice to Clara’s character, even in an episode like “The Rings of Akhaten” that began with a scene exploring her backstory. During Amy and Rory’s tenure on the show, every character seemed to be unique and human in a way that sometimes only Doctor Who could capture, but recent episodes have struggled with this. These episodes have largely had to prop themselves up on side characters such as the professor in “Cold War” or the team of brothers in “Journey to the Centre of the TARDIS.” While I love a good, memorable one-off character, it’s just not the same as a strong central character supporting Matt Smith’s antics as the Doctor. The only episode that has been able to pull this off so far has been Neil Gaiman’s “Nightmare in Silver,” which greatly benefited from the novelist’s love of the show’s history and his ability to quickly generate viewer investment in new characters.

So what’s going on? Why is Clara, a character that was originally engaging and displaying good chemistry with the Doctor, such a boring figure when she finally joins us for regular adventures? Why is the Doctor constantly disappearing in the middle of episodes, content to leave the “only mystery worth solving” alone in the most dangerous situations? I’m not sure, but I still have some hope. We have yet to see what Steven Moffat has planned for us in the series 7 finale titled “The Name of the Doctor” and the 50th Anniversary Special later this year. Who knows? The writing of the last five or so episodes could be stunted on purpose, setting us up for something big that may be coming down the pipeline. Maybe we’ll face a startling revelation in the series finale that will cause us to view the whole second half of series 7 in a brand new light. Knowing the antics that Doctor Who‘s story has gotten into in the past, especially with some of the elements laced throughout series 5, it’s not too hard to imagine that we’re being set up for something big.

But would that make it worth it? We’ve had a pretty mediocre half series so far, and the general consensus seems to be that the quality of Doctor Who has taken a sudden and drastic downturn. I’m not sure if Moffat is setting us up for a big reveal or if he’s just too busy with his other show Sherlock. Whatever the reason, the current story could have been handled far better and needs to see a sharp uptick soon if it hopes to keep this fan’s interest burning bright.

Limelight is a new app from the team at 9:42AM that makes tracking movies simple and gorgeous. The 9:42AM team is made up of developer Oliver Cameron and designer Marcelo Marfil, and the focus of their newly found app shop is to make easy-to-use apps that have a unique beauty in their design. They’ve done just that with Limelight.

I’ve had the pleasure of testing Limelight for the last month or so, and what surprised me most — aside from the ease-of-use — was the attention to detail. No pixel goes unattended, and being somewhat picky about how apps look, Limelight quickly became a joy to use to easily track both movies I’ve seen and those I want to see when they’re released. The app is also designed to be social in a very non-intrusive way. You can look up users and share your profile to various social networks, but it’s done in a way that keeps the focus on movies. I wouldn’t say that the social component is hard to use, but it’s definitely kept out of your way. I like this approach.

Limelight has two main lists: “To Watch” and “Watched.” The “To Watch” list keeps track of all the movies you have yet to see. One of the nice details here is that if the movie hasn’t been released yet, the app will attach the release date. The “Watched” list is exactly as it sounds; movies you have catalogued and rated show up here. They’re also nicely sorted by rating. The big win here is the gorgeous artwork and easy trailer viewing. Just tap on the artwork, and you’re presented with a synopsis, Rotten Tomatoes rating, and the trailer. Easy.

One thing that Limelight has over most other movie tracking apps — which I touched on earlier — is the social component. One of my main struggles when using apps with a similar focus is remembering what movies I’ve already seen. Much like the fantastic service Letterboxd, you can just hop onto a friend’s profile and mooch off of their list (you can find mine here). I found this to be a super easy way to find previously viewed movies. It’s also a simple way to find things you may want to watch later. If you don’t care for the social side of the app but want to search out something specific, Limelight has you covered there as well. Tapping the “+” button will take you to a search screen where you can search for a certain film or browse predefined categories. Just about everything I looked up was there. Only the most obscure movies were missing, and even then, it wasn’t many.

There’s no shortage of apps that share the same goal as Limelight, but I have to say that there are very few that look this good and are this easy to use. I can’t think of any strong gripes I had while using it as the development team sent improved builds very quickly. Limelight is a gorgeous app that doesn’t try to go overboard with features; it just helps you keep track of movies you love. Considering how far the app came along in beta, I would suspect that there are some awesome things down the road. You can get Limelight for just 99¢. If you’re a movie buff, that buck is well worth it.

My problem with Facebook Home isn’t that it’s a dumb idea or that it’s used poorly in practice, but rather that Facebook simply isn’t like that for me or numerous other people. The idea behind Facebook is to help you connect with people that you deem “friends,” enabling you to see what they’ve been up to in their lives. This sounds perfect for most people, but if you’ve been using Facebook for more than a few days, you come to realize that it’s not that clean cut of a system.

Facebook Home is meant to be a way for you to catch up with old friends and family by seeing information about their daily lives. You’re supposed to be able to see that Clara went to a birthday party for her nephew, Jason went to a play this past weekend with his girlfriend, and Sophie was involved in creating something amazing for Pixar. These kinds of updates are what Facebook thinks inhabit their ecosystem of a social network, but Facebook Home as an entire platform can’t work for the average person.

For example, my timeline is very clean, but it’s rarely (if ever) populated with images of cool activities or photographs that have been aesthetically thought through and taken with quality cameras. The type of timeline I have is covered with text or news updates. On top of that, my Facebook feed has the occasional meme pic that I’m sure everyone has to deal with. Facebook is used differently for an array of people, but this dream Facebook that is portrayed in the social network’s commercials must be something that only exists for a small number of people.

When thinking about the commercials themselves, they portray Home as something that you take quick glances at, and those quick glances help you dwell in the community in which your friends live. That’s fun and interesting to see, but it doesn’t really work that way. My problem is that if I were to get a Facebook Home enabled phone, I would only be able to see a status similar to the ones in commercials maybe once a week or every few days. I want the Facebook that is portrayed in the ads because Facebook Home is an intelligent and thoughtful approach to the social network that people desire, but it’s not doing a good job of making it useful to those people who ideally want to capture its meaning.

With Facebook’s approach to this, they seemingly got stuck in the mode that using Facebook is an experience in and of itself, that opening Facebook is all about seeing vibrant pictures from friends and not just small text updates here and there. Between the friends that upload small pictures with horrible resolutions or those people who take crappy cellphone pictures while drinking at a basement party, this dream of Facebook is slowly turned into a nightmare. This is a problem I have, but it’s one that I think the majority of people also deal with. You don’t see these happy and fun updates from more than a handful of your friends, but between the hundreds of others, you see things that aren’t favored. It’s not really a fault of Facebook Home, but rather one of Facebook itself that hasn’t had any help in changing. My feed is fine. I see updates from friends I haven’t seen in awhile, I keep up on news about the Ravens, technology, and all sorts of things. The one problem is that the Facebook app serves me a better use of Facebook than Facebook Home possibly could.

Facebook Home is something that could be great if it fully fell into its dreams and ideas. People are already leaving Facebook because they’re not fond of their “friends” from high school posting pictures of battered dogs in hopes of raising awareness about animal abuse. Or they’re not cool with meme pics of people saying “O RLY?” all the time. To be perfectly clear, this is a fault of the user. The user has the choice of who to be friends with, who to block, who to hide, so on and so forth, but the problem arises when Facebook thinks that Facebook is used in the way that the commercials display. Facebook is practically one of the only sites that I visit solely to make sure that I can be updated on real life. I can contact old friends and invite them to lunch. I can keep up with what Bradley’s been doing since he went to college. I can make sure that everything is still okay with friends who were sick recently. It’s real life at my fingertips, and I love it for that, but this constant flow of captioned pictures and engaging comments doesn’t exist for more than a few people. I want Facebook Home, but I want it to be real rather than a dream.

Culination is a new start-up that aims to deliver the delicious, healthy meals that you and I crave to the home. Without breaking the bank or being painfully exhausting to prepare, Culination provides something that appeals to today’s average person with interactivity, easy-to-follow instructions, and the ability to pair up with an iPad, iPhone, or any Android device. Culination is reimagining the idea of a cookbook, not only with fun recipes and simple instructions, but by making it easier for all of us to prepare these meals on our own.

I had the chance to sit down with Culination’s co-founder Geoffrey Sechter this weekend, and he was able to answer a handful of questions that I threw at him. These are not your everyday questions, rather ones that try to explore the mindset of this particular start-up.

What is Culination?

Culination is an interactive elearning platform designed to help people feel more confident exploring food and beverages by bringing seasoned taste experts such as chefs and mixologists into people’s kitchens. Accessibility is one of the key values Culination delivers by approaching culinary education in a layered approach, using healthy recipes as a familiar pathway to introduce people to the fundamentals of cooking. Within each recipe, our goal is to provide everything a complete beginner needs to feel comfortable in the act of culinary creation from start to finish, including: step-by-step instructions, pictures of every step, easy reference points for ingredient portions and the necessary tools for each step, descriptions and substitutions for each ingredient and tool, and with how-to videos to illustrate techniques.

Another important concept of Culination is that of community, and making the experience of what it means to be a “Culinator” driven by the users as much as possible. We are taking a two-pronged approach as we develop Culination to give people the opportunity to define the platform: a request platform to ask taste experts to create content, where the requests with the most votes will be translated into lessons, as well as the ability for anyone to create and share recipes they’ve made. While we’re really excited about these two types of engagement, taking the role of being a steward of a community seriously means we’re always listening and will do our best to provide different community-focused experiences if that’s what our Culinators want.

What is the inspiration behind Culination?

Culination is the melding of the myriad passions and values of the founding team, but above everything else we are driven by the goal to increase accessibility to information. One thing we recognize is that the availability of information, which the spread of the Internet has accelerated at a tremendous rate, is not the same thing as accessibility. When it comes to food, more ingredients than ever before are available to the average person, but how accessible does dragon fruit or even a pomegranate feel compared to an apple or banana? True accessibility is about creating familiarity and confidence centered around availability, and all of us are really passionate about “making your kitchen a place of inspiration, not intimidation.”

What do you plan on accomplishing?

We plan on creating the most accessible online platform that can scale a complete novice in the kitchen to someone excited to invite their friends over for dinner in the shortest time possible. In addition, our goal is to create a resource that intermediate and advanced cooks can use to refine and expand their skills and creativity in the kitchen. We want to shift as many mindsets from “what am I going to eat tonight?” to “what do I get to make tonight?” to keep the creative spark alive in the kitchen, and to make cooking a fun experience for everyone.

Do the members of the site have any things that they’re excited to share with the world?

Breakfast tostadas are delicious! Besides that, we’re really excited to have the opportunity to build the foundation of the Culination community through our current Indiegogo campaign, and would be delighted for anyone interested in exploring food more to check out our campaign.

When creating Culination, did you have to tweak any ideas or start fresh?

Our approach to creating Culination has been designing and developing instruments for collecting feedback so our ears can be as close to what people want as possible. Almost everything that Culination is today was different at some point, which reflects our journey and focus on finding the right mediums to communicate our message most effectively. Specifically, our lesson framework has gone through almost 20 iterations (with several more planned) based on feedback we’ve been receiving. Initially, our lessons were video-driven supported by text and images, but what we found through user testing and research was that images were a better anchor to guide people through the process of following a recipe, with video as a supplement when more complex techniques arise.

What makes Culination new?

Culination takes people on a journey. We show you how to transform raw ingredients into something delicious—using a timeline-based approach, illustrating each step with visuals of the ingredients, and providing supporting information for those that want to dive deeper. Some cookbooks achieve this level of detail, but we haven’t seen anything that offers this level of interaction in a digital format.

Where can people reach you?

People can reach me on Twitter, @gsechter, or through email at geoffrey@culination.co. The entire team can be reached through Culination’s Twitter, @culinators, or at team@culination.co—and we’re always happy to chat! Interacting with and learning from our community is what has gotten Culination to where it is, and will be what propels us into the future.

Culination is what web innovation should look like: the desire to do something new by creating new experiences without restricting them to the elite. We hope Culination flourishes, and we hope you’ll be able to enjoy what it brings in the coming weeks. You can sign up for an invitation on their website or on their Indiegogo page.

Without warning, various genres of iOS apps will suddenly propagate the App Store in bursts. It happens all the time. I’m sure you all remember the Twitter app explosion; icons designed with every kind of communication metaphor imaginable came exploding onto the scene. After that, it was task management apps. In fact, there are people that still cringe at the thought of seeing another icon with a checkmark front and center. Then, personal bias begins to play up when the initial boom of these apps slows down. People pick sides, and opinions are formed and defended. Developers that are late to the game get ignored. (If you ship the 27th todo app we’ve seen this month, you’re quickly written off.) The newest genre to hit this iOS app trend is weather, which is both a good and bad phenomenon.

You’ve probably tried your fair share of weather apps, which seem to be flooding in non-stop. Mockups on Dribbble, apps in the Store available to download, web apps — complex and simple; they’re everywhere you look. But why? Why are there so many weather-related apps out there? I’m not sure we can explicitly nail that down, but we can attempt to determine a way to wade through these waters. Sick of the puns yet?

Some of these apps have been around since the iOS SDK was first made available. For instance, The Weather Channel’s app has been around for ages, so why the sudden influx of other third-party additions? It’s simple in my mind: people don’t like ugly applications.

Design matters

You could argue that TWC’s app has some of the best data out there, but that’s meaningless if it’s not properly presented. It’s just not nice to look at. Furthermore, it’s busy. Over the last handful of years, we’ve seen plenty of beautifully designed apps released. Outside was initially a hit as was WeatherSnitch. These are two examples of apps that are nicely designed but have a different set of problems, chief among them are updates and data.

Fair or not, the one fatal flaw of an iOS developer is not shipping updates. There are various reasons that the flow of updates slows to a crawl, mainly poor sales from a lack of customer interest, but your app is guaranteed to drop into an early grave if you leave a buggy mess on the table.[1]

Another huge hurdle to success with weather apps is offering accurate data. It’s the one type of app in which developers can’t afford to blow it with bad information. Outside (among others) suffered from this, so its slow death was inevitable. Therefore, if both design and data matter, what are the choices for having both, and what enables us to get there?

Use a good API, and go flat.

Climacons and APIs

Adam Whitcroft is the creator of Climacons and arguably the main conduit that spurred this explosion of “flat” weather apps. I’m not a huge fan of these, but it could be that I’m just overloaded. A simple search on Dribbble reveals boatloads of prototypes that feature this icon set. These simple, visually effective icons have literally revolutionized weather apps in the Store. While it’s easy to act annoyed by the constant influx of new apps — like I said, I’m guilty of this as well — we should probably take a step back and think it over. This is what we wanted: variety. So now that the design seems to be fixed, provided that flat UI is your thing, where’s the data coming from?

NOAA seems to be the most popular choice when it comes to choosing an API for a weather app. The government agency provides loads of information that is available commercially via an API. From what I’ve seen, the data seems relatively solid, but I assume it’s more about how it’s implemented into the app. Wunderground is also a popular choice, and searching either of these terms in the App Store will yield a hefty amount of results.

Another source that we’ve seen increasingly is from the guys at Dark Sky. We’ll get back to this app and its impressiveness in a moment, but the real key is its rock-solid data. It does one thing and does it well: precipitation. That’s it. All you get from the Dark Sky team is precipitation forecasts, and it’s damn good at it. So good, in fact, that they forecast rain down to the minute — something that I assume is extremely difficult. If you’re interested in finding out more, check out their blog.

Now that we’ve got what we think are the ingredients for a great weather app, I’ll offer you my favorites.

What I use

After a quick review of my purchased tab in the App Store, I found that I’ve tried 17 weather apps recently. Most of them were awful. Here’s my attempt to try and help you save some hard-earned cash.

One of my favorite weather apps of all time is Dark Sky, which I mentioned earlier. It’s a one-thing-well type of app. If you need to know if it’s going to rain, it tells you when, where, and for how long. It’s extraordinarily accurate, and an added bonus is its classy interface. I really can’t overstate how ridiculously accurate Dark Sky is. If it tells you rain is coming in six minutes, get an umbrella.

Another two apps I’d recommend are Today Weather and Check the Weather. Today is a gem brought to you by Savvy Apps, best known for the calendaring app, Agenda. Today presents you with a solid overview of the week ahead. You can browse hourly, daily, and weekly views, and again, the key is that it’s accurate. I really enjoy how the weekly information is presented — it’s colorful and informative. The folks of Savvy Apps have made a name for themselves by delivering solid apps that just work. Today is another example of that reliability. Check the Weather, additionally, comes to you from veteran developer David Smith. The interactions in the app are very similar to Today, although it’s important to say that CtW came first. It’s really a matter of which interface you prefer, but I can undoubtedly recommend both.

If you’re into the flat trend, we’ve got treats for you too. Conditions is an app by Jake Marsh that gives you a simple approach to weather. It’s basic and beautiful and also my favorite of the Climacons-type weather apps. Much like Dark Sky, CtW, and Today, Conditions is accurate. Honestly, it’s hard not to be when the app is this simple. If you’re looking for something that just gives you a succinct five-day forecast stripped of minute details, Conditions may be for you.

What’s to come

As I said before, it’s easy to be annoyed by the flurry of apps that come in bunches, but I say let’s embrace it. There are options, and we should appreciate that. The problem with these outbreaks is wading through the crap, and hopefully we’ve helped you do just that. We like trying apps and tossing out the junk so you don’t have to. Weather apps are no different. As the amount of developers increases, these large clusters of apps will continue to crop up. That’s not a bad thing if we allow the good stuff to float to the top. Be comfortable that we’ve got you covered.

iOS screen in header image credit to Olli Wiegner

The Twelve South SurfacePad for iPhone is a special accessory made for a specific group of people. The cover makes itself known by appealing to those who do not like cases and refuse to use one. That can be a large number of people, but it still only speaks to a small portion within that group. Some will find the SurfacePad massively appealing, lovely, and dignified while others may find its form too different or too restricting.

When opening the SurfacePad, I first noticed that it had an adhesive to attach to the back of the iPhone. This threw me for a curveball since I’ve only ever come face-to-face with adhesives when it was for a one shot application. I was worried that once I installed the cover, that was it. However, after many “tests,” I came to realize that the adhesive is one that stays strongly attached, but it also lets me remove it and restick it numerous times without the possibility of residue or wearing. No corners were cut here, and none should be cut when it comes to protecting a device that costs hundreds of dollars.

Beyond the unique adhesive application process comes the use of the cover. It is very sleek and made of luxury Napa leather, so the SurfacePad isn’t similar to those three-dollar cases you see on eBay or the imitation leather cases you see in stores — this is made of the leather seen in high-class luxury cars. The cover looks and feels incredible. With the type of attention to detail put into this, you won’t see any noticeable shortcomings. The way the SurfacePad is made and presented gives your iPhone a sense of elegance and extravagance that speaks on its own. Not many companies manage to perfect their own style and capitalize upon it, but Twelve South has clearly done it with their SurfacePad.

The appeal of this cover lies behind people’s personal preferences. The cover itself is marketed to those who don’t use cases, yet the SurfacePad is really for those people who don’t use any iPhone-specific accessories while at home. The main issue I had with the cover is that I either had to sacrifice seeing notifications on my phone while it was docked or contort the cover in some way so it would properly fit on the dock. The dock and cover aren’t two accessories sold together, nor should they take each other into consideration, but if you use a dock regularly, you’ll have to decide if not being able to view notifications at a glance is something you can live with.

Along with having to sacrifice the use of a dock, I also lost some of the ease that I’ve become accustomed to. For instance, pulling the phone out of my pocket while walking down the street requires the use of both hands to see who’s calling. The top flap doesn’t shut with magnets or anything of the sort, so you could potentially swing the front open with the tip of your thumb, but it lacks the seamless ease of use I’ve come to expect when using my iPhone.

The SurfacePro feels unique and professional thanks to the exquisite, luxurious piece of leather protecting my phone. With the smooth Napa leather and the use of some superior-level adhesive, it doesn’t feel like an accessory that someone had to make, but one someone wanted to make and took the time to ensure it was the best it could possibly be. It’s the level of design and elegance put into this cover that makes it one of a kind. You can find similar book-esque cases, but you won’t find anything that reaches this level of refinement. It’s a new type of cover for a modern level of class.

The problems are entirely based on the type of person you are and how you use your phone. When I use my phone, I like to have it rested on a dock while at home. However, if you’re the type of person who likes to have your phone rested on a desk or propped up in landscape mode, this cover is made for you. Some prefer the ability to pull the phone out of their pocket and attend to it as soon as possible. Yet, some rather use their phone only when they’re not preoccupied or bustling through the streets. Those people need this. The SurfacePad is made for a specific type of person — the type that uses his or her phone leisurely, yet with sophistication. There’s a line that the folks at Twelve South have seen, and they’re attending to one side of it exceptionally well.

The Twelve South SurfacePad for iPhone can be purchased for either the iPhone 4S or 5 for $34.99 on Twelve South’s site. If you want to either test the waters and use your phone differently or you already use your phone as mentioned, get this cover. It’s made for you. However, if you use your phone a specific way and aren’t ready to sacrifice or change habits, you may want to reweigh the pros and cons.

Why read? The simple answer to this question is because I enjoy it. I enjoy being able to sit down, be silent, and have an entire world unfold in my mind. How I decide to give these characters faces, personalities, lives, and above all, give these words life is all up to my imagination. However, the reason I read now as opposed to why I didn’t read before is different. It’s honestly a lifestyle change that I think is worth sharing.

I started reading with the intent I do now in the middle of 2012. During that time, a lot of my life had changed, and the events that transpired made me realize that the things I used to get enjoyment from weren’t bringing me joy anymore. There were the TV shows I watched, the games I played, and Twitter. All of these things didn’t negatively impact me in the slightest, but I wanted to explore what else I could do and how I could prolong the excitement that I felt when watching a movie based in a different world or reading a blog post about new science leading to unexplored possibilities. Suddenly, books began to play a part.

Books have, for the most part, recently replaced a large part of wasted time. They’ve taken me from saying “I don’t know what to do now” to “I should finish Coraline!” With a medium like books that allows a story to fully evolve within your own mind, you can’t let them fall by the wayside. Movies manage to capture that feeling of a “new world” and let you lose yourself in them, but they completely remove the self-created originality that occurs when reading books. The words on the page of any novel will correlate to a thought in your mind, and you end up creating the scene for yourself, seeing it play out. Reading is more or less an adventure of your own imagination where the script is given to you, but you’re the director. You control how it looks in the end even though the writer has already given you the needed components.

With books, I feel as if my time is used pushing the possibilities of my imagination. It’s not something I do because I’m bored, but rather something I do that keeps me from becoming bored. Before, it was all about how I needed to fill time with a task. Be it YouTube, Reddit, Twitter, Digg, I wasn’t satisfied with how my time was being spent. When I pick up a new book, I fall into the pages. I fall into a world that’s foreign to my own, and I get to experience it. My mind changes, and my creativity falls in line not with how I can spend time but what I’ll spend time with. Seeing the places, people, and ideas that these authors have crafted lets my creative process breathe.

Reading is something that was once considered to be worse than the plague to me. Literary reading always seemed like a bore without much to gain, but it wasn’t until I had the choice of what to read (and when) that I started to enjoy it. I started enjoying that movie that played in my head, and I started enjoying that time I had in pure silence. In the end, reading has become something that lets my mind wander into areas unknown. It lets my imagination and my life align.

With my writing here and reading there, I know what I am doing and what I could potentially be doing. I could be doing something new, reimagining something, or exploring fields I’ve never previously ventured to. These writers create new worlds and play God in them. As a writer, I play myself, yet the world bends and molds in my own hands when it comes to ideas that I give birth to.

On January 24th, Twitter released Vine, and it’s since been labeled as the Instagram for video. This statement seems true at first glance, but what if Twitter is going for a different concept entirely?

The Twitter Promenade

Rewinding to March 21st, 2006 when Twitter was first planted, the initial intention of the service was to tell people what you were doing at that instant, using only a moment’s worth of words. It has since grown into a communication platform while still staying true to its original real-time information-sharing concept. In addition to sharing moments, Twitter has also grown into a platform for sharing a variety of media, mostly using other services (except for the company’s own photo-sharing service). Otherwise, all content comes from third-party sources such as Droplr, Imgur, Instagram, Twitpic, or YouTube.

Just by looking at the few popular media-sharing sites listed above, it’s clear that photos are accounted for and can be easily shared on Twitter. The one gap left in the age of instant media sharing via Twitter is video. Since the rise of Instagram’s popularity, companies have been searching for and developing the “Instagram for video” social service, but they haven’t quite hit the mark yet.

This was my first Vine post, DANCE FOR VINE

The Advantage and Struggle of Video

Since computers have been able to connect to the Internet, people have been able to communicate via text, and social networks have only made that easier. And with social networks also comes the sharing of images and video. Aside from YouTube’s format, though, instantaneous video sharing has been an awkward feat.

In order to tell a compelling story, you have to either edit the video or be able to capture an audience’s attention long enough for them to completely receive the message. This process is time-consuming, so it isn’t for everyone, and for some, the message you try to share is irrelevant or not worth sharing by the time the entire shooting, editing, and uploading process is done.

For the quickest way to share an experience with the world, there’s also live video streaming with services like USTREAM and Qik, but with usually long recording sessions, a lack of editing, and technical viewing restraints, the sharing aspect has yet to catch on. It’s being used now in some successful ways like Twitch.tv, but for personal uses, trying to get users to actually stream or watch live video is hit and miss.

However, Vine makes way for a better approach to instant video sharing. It’s similar to Instagram in the sense that it’s allowing users to share what they’re seeing immediately and with ease. Yet in a larger scope, the comparisons from here on out are few and far between. Some users aren’t exactly excited with the concept, but for those who love what’s possible (my self included), it’s a new favorite way to play and share.

Credit: @pasql – “A really incredible computer simulation by @chrisallick”

Vine Does It Differently

Vine isn’t an Instagram for video. It can be something close depending on how you use it, but when boiled down to its simplest form, it’s closer to something like a tweet.

Vine posts are only allowed to be a total of six seconds long, just enough time to deliver your message (and just enough time to make a really stupid joke). This time limit combined with the simple process of creating a Vine post seems like the perfect solution to sharing video. When your thumb is down on the onscreen viewfinder, it’s recording. When it’s up, it’s not. You’re allowed to pick up and drop your thumb as many times as you want until you use up your six seconds. As a result, the end product looks like a chopped, condensed, and quick-cut YouTube video, which is quite perfect for the usage.

Because of the short six-second time limit, users are forced to focus more on the content rather than the aesthetic. There are no filters, there are no effects, it’s just pure “here’s what I see” video. Vine posts also feel more worthwhile for two reasons. First, the user isn’t dressing up something mundane to have an attractive appearance. It is what it is and nothing else. The second reason is the inability to upload from your camera roll, and this makes several contributions in itself: there’s no content from other apps that let you make a bedazzled, ruined-typography vomit of a post, and you also know that all video content is from moments before.

Overall, Vine is something new. It’s visual, it’s happening right now, and you can’t possibly spend much time creating and viewing each post, yet you can tell a story, joke, or narrative easier and with more emotion than other feature-rich services. It’s more instant than other video services and loads almost immediately. It’s practically a gif with sound, and that makes Vine a perfect medium for the Internet’s ever-shrinking attention span.

Credit: @joeyellis – Good morning, internet friends

Looking back, I wish I had done a lot of things differently. Taken out less student loans, waited a bit longer to get a sleeve tattoo, and maybe I would have journaled more. I wish I had photos and videos and Facebook posts from my teenage years (er, Myspace posts…). There’s no use in tears though, because with the Momento app, I can begin collecting my 20s!

Momento is one of the most robust and fully-functional diary apps available in the App Store. It came out a few years ago (my first post was in August of 2010) and includes complete social integration. I love looking back at my tweets and Youtube videos from years past. It’s a little scary to have a full catalog of relationships, jobs and friendships, all documented by photos, notes and social media, but it’s way more awesome than it is awkward. The app is password protected to maintain the personal privacy of a journal, and can be backed up so you never lose your memories.

The app even allows you to integrate with Last.fm, Flickr and has tagging capabilities, so you can search your journal entries by person. It’s available for download in the app store for $2.99 (money well spent).

Images via Momento.

Since the launch of the iPhone 5, the arms race to create the best case has been never-ending. With the introduction of a new, slimmer design, case manufacturers have to adjust to this curve. We’ve covered a few, but one quality case that is simple, clean, and minimal stands out above the rest. The Incase Snap, Poetic Atmosphere, Noot, Switcheasy NUDE, and Anker Glaze all try to adapt to the new specs and come quite close, but only the Power Support Air Jacket manages to perfect the design.

Power Support is a company that has been around for years making incredible screen protectors, cases, sleeves, and various accessories for Apple products. Principally, Power Support brings experience to the table. Their knowledge of the market is one thing that makes me excited to see what they offer when it comes to the Air Jacket for the iPhone 5. They’re not a company to cut corners; instead, they create products that will set them apart from competitors.

The Air Jacket itself follows a very simple design that I, personally, have been looking for. I buy cases for their looks and scratch protection. I’m careful with my phone and not prone to drop it, so extremely durable cases like those from the Otterbox line add extra bulk that I don’t need. Scuffs and scratches are my main issues. With the Air Jacket, the entire back surface and sides of the iPhone fit snugly inside the case. There are small cutouts for each respective button and port with no large cutouts similar to what you’d find in other cases like the Incase Snap. There are two small holes for both volume buttons, another small cutout for the silent switch, an additional one for the power button, and similar openings for the headphone jack and lightning connector. On top of that, the case’s area for the speaker has tiny holes drilled into it that are perfectly superimposed on the iPhone’s own speaker grill. The attention to detail in this case is astounding.

Aside from the attention to detail, there’s always the way a case generally feels in your hand. There’s no reason you should buy a case if you see yourself dropping the phone repeatedly due to how slippery or grease-prone the surface may be. After receiving the Air Jacket, I felt the case slipping between my fingers like hot butter on bread. However, after a few days of use, the problem seemed to correct itself — the surface of the case now feels more definite and grippy, which allows me to pick it up without hesitation.

The case itself is made of plastic similar to what you’d receive from any other company. There’s nothing special about this plastic aside from it not being the worst quality available. There are various other suppliers that skimp out on the quality of their materials, and it ends up showing when the case picks up scuffs and heavily noticeable scratches. The Air Jacket has been in and out of my pocket for the past few weeks and still looks incredible.

The look of the Power Support Air Jacket really captures the ideas of minimalism and simplicity. The range of colors from white and black to clear and smoke give the user choices while still maintaining elegance. The opaque colors (black and white) allow the case to add its own aesthetic to the device, and the clear and smoke colors lend themselves to the actual look of the iPhone. The smoke variant that I received is noticeably nice and blends almost too well with the black iPhone.

All in all, the Air Jacket from Power Support is one of the first cases that I have been fully content with. It’s the first case that I’ve used for an extended period of time and have felt that it suits my needs perfectly. The simplicity of it helps me realize the beauty of the iPhone, and the absence of huge, gaping cutouts reminds me that my phone will always be protected from scratches. Although, if you’re looking for something that will protect the phone from drops or if you want a lip for resting the phone face down, you might want to take a look at one of the other cases we’ve reviewed. For my needs, however, it’s perfect. Clean, simple, elegant, and sturdy. The Power Support Air Jacket goes for $39.95 on their site and comes in black, white, clear, and smoke. If your needs match mine, I highly recommend it.