Zentrope

Documents in iCloud

From what I can figure out, the idea of documents in iCloud is that you start up an application on your Mac, select the document you want to edit from a list and then start working. All your changes are saved to the server and synced to other devices. Great stuff.

But doesn’t the notion that you get to your documents by opening Pages (say) seem like a step backwards?

My projects often consist of a document, a diagram or two from Omnigraffle, other images, text files, supporting PDFs and web-links. I store them all in a single folder named after my project.

This arrangement puts the focus on my project rather than on applications and keeps all the elements that get “compiled” into my “publication” in one, self-contained package. I can open the folder, click on a web-link (opened by Safari), or click on an image (opened by Preview). I can open the document itself in Pages, drag in and place the image, or cut/paste a diagram from Omnigraffle. The folder is the content, the applications merely helpers. Data processors.

Is this new world, where documents are stored in apps like email messages in Mail.app, or contacts in Address Book, throwing out the data-centric model?

I suspect not.

You’ll be able to drag documents from an application’s chooser into a folder to organize things in a data-centric way, same as always. At best, the object in the folder is really a pointer to the application’s data-store (or at least contains such a thing) such that when you open the app, the document is synched to iCloud and shows up in the app’s document list just the same as it normally would. Optionally, an app might have a concept of a project into which you can drag objects from other apps.

Here’s what I’m going to love about the new paradigm: not everything I write in Pages is part of a project: blog entries, notes, research, how-to docs. When I need to write something down, I do, but then comes the question: Where can I store it so it doesn’t get mixed in with a lot of documents from other sorts of apps? What keywords do I add so that a Spotlight doesn’t find a whole host of stuff I don’t need when I know I’m interested in a document? Wouldn’t it be nice if, like Notational Velocity backed by SimpleNote, I could have a big list of docs inside Pages I could search through? Ever since I watched the WWDC keynote, I’ve been self-conscious of how I use my computer and how much (admittedly minor) stress I produce for myself thinking about organizing stuff that really doesn’t need organization. This new paradigm of applications managing the content they enable is the right sensible default.

New Mac?

Because of my new job, I think I need a new mac. But which one to get?

Here’s the scenario. Right now, I have a really nice 15” Macbook Pro. Maxed memory, disc speed, etc, etc. My original intention with this machine was for it to be my main home machine, while at work, I’d use the Macbook Pro they provided. This worked out relatively well. I removed all personal stuff from the work machine, including iTunes, mobile me, everything except Dropbox.

Then I changed jobs.

My new job has provided me with a desktop and laptop (with Ubuntu), but they can’t provide me a Mac. I tried to get along with Ubuntu. I really did. It’s not bad at all for the kind of thing I do at work. But I use a couple of apps (OmniFocus, OmniGraffle) which have no equivalents anywhere else. These tools really help me keep on top of things. Indispensable. So now I use my home Macbook Pro for both home and work. I’m not sure I like this situation. I don’t like all my personal stuff being at work. I don’t like having to carry the machine back and forth so much. I’m afraid of dropping it, for instance (which I did, once).

So, the question is, if I get a new Mac, which one?

• A new 13” Macbook Air would be super nice. I could probably do development just fine, even running server processes in the background (if I upgrade the RAM to 4GB). It’s not quite as nice as the Pro, but probably good enough. 256GB of disk space is good enough if I’m not storing TV shows, photos, iPhone movie footage, and so on. Developing software is mostly about text.

• A new 21” iMac. Probably good enough to have as my home machine, and use my Macbook Pro for my development machine. The small screen isn’t much fun, but then I don’t do a lot with my home machine anymore, and if I wanted to, I could hook it up to a much larger monitor.

• A new 27” iMac. Nice big screen, but, like the 21”, I can’t really move it around the house too much.

In the end, I think a Macbook Air seems the most reasonable. I can leave it at work, or carry it back and forth. It’s light enough and small enough not to be a hassle (even though I drive). The SSD storage probably resists drops. And I can hook it up to a big screen. I should note that I used to do quite a bit of distributed programming development using an old plastic white Macbook circa late 2006, and it worked just fine. It’s not like I’m testing for performance or load.

What I’d really like to do is take a MacBook Air 13” home for a week and really test it and see how well it goes. Then make the decision.

What do you think?