iOS -Keyboards


by simplysaru

iOS has come a long way since the version 1.0, in fact it has been 8 years since the OS was first launched. To be truly judgemental, version 8 has seen the most exciting features ever since the launch of App store. Since this is a very detailed post on iOS 8 Keyboard Extensions and there are quite a lot of features that shipped with iOS 8, its better you check out the full list of features elsewhere here.

Extensions across iOS has been the most talked about feature of this release, and I have been looking forward to third party keyboard extensions ever since I saw the swipe keyboards on Android. iOS 8 brings keyboard extensions to all iOS 8 supported devices which are iPhone 4S and later models, iPod 5th Generation, iPad 2nd Genartation and later and iPad Mini all versions. Here is how some popular third party keyboards work and how they fare so far in real life. But before that some Continue reading “iOS -Keyboards” →

Keyboard shortcut to connect AirPods


by simplysaru

This  alfred workflow is cool. I accidentally stumbled on this post today via Dustin and immediately ended up creating the workflow in Alfred.

I am bookmarking this for future to ensure I can use the apple script for other types of bluetooth devices I have :).

BTW if you aren’t using the Apple AirPods you should give it a try. I would definitely say they were my best purchase in 2017. They are so comfortable that I sleep with them sometimes and I wake up with them intact in my ears and I don’t even realise I had them plugged in my ears.  If you aren’t convinced here is a review by Sajib that you can read to convince yourself 🙂 .

Welcome 2018!


by simplysaru

It has been a good couple of years for me. I am extremely thankful and happy for what I have and how far I have come. Sadly the blog hasn’t seen much during this time and hopefully I will work on it better this year. I don’t have a new year resolution to post X number of posts or any such thing. But I do have a framework of what I want to do this year. My one keyword for this year is going to be HABITS. I plan to work on creating a quite a few good habits or get rid of a few bad ones over the entirety of this year. The idea is to focus on one habit every month and stay disciplined to create that habit at the end of the month. Most of these are going to be about small minor wins to be had on a daily basis.
This month I am going to try to Read at least a page of book first thing in the morning, every day of January.

Photo credits teestassi.

Website Obesity.


by simplysaru

Intriguing talk by Maciej Cegłowski on Website Obesity.

In the age of Netflix and youtube we take for granted that internet and data is free/unlimited for everyone. Actually that isn’t true at all. From where I come, data is very expensive given most of it is via the mobile phone and loading a 3mb site from the 1gb/month of data plan is just expensive and not to mention that it is sometimes painfully slow depending on my cellular service.

We don’t prioritise optimising the (bytes) size of our websites for those users who are from the developing countries where data might be at a premium.

User experiences are important, but not at the cost of your users. The talk is an eye opener for anyone who works in UX/Web experience. Do ponder for a moment if anything you create worthwhile needs to be resource heavy (dig at resource heavy apps Slack 🙂 )/costly. Cross platform and ease of development etc needs be considered yes, but taking the easy route always isn’t the right/best path for the longterm. Remember that there are a static/simple HTML sites still out there that still get the job done with out any issues. 

The text version is here for your use if you wish not to view the video. Now back to working on how to reduce the size of my website. 🙂