QOTD: Wireless updates?

6 Responses to QOTD: Wireless updates?

1. Neil says:

   April 24, 2011 at 7:24 am

   I have a lot of different sources, but, for ease, I prefer them to come to me, rather than me looking for them, such that I try to minimise the number of individual apps I have – whilst I like apps for some things, I do not like the “every website has its own app” ethos, although I recognise that there is not a huge amount of difference between accessing 10 sites within one browser, requiring browsing to each site in turn, and accessing 10 sites through 10 applications, where looking at each site/app in turn requires clicking a new icon.

   For me, I get updates in a number of different ways:
2. Neil says:

   April 24, 2011 at 7:52 am

   - email: some times, I’ll subscribe to mailing lists. This is particularly true for legal updates, which I tend to have emailed to a per-subscription email address (e.g. [sitename]@example.com), and the aggregated within my mailbox, so looking through updates is simply a case of browsing through a list of email, occasionally clicking on links for the ones I want. (Apple – please add flagging an email to iOS!) I am not a huge fan of subscribing to mailing lists, but, sometimes, it’s the only option available.

   - RSS: this is my preferred form of updates, since I can aggregate these into one place, refresh/reload once (since I rarely need an update the exact moment it’s published), and then read them conveniently, without clicking to multiple sites. I’d much rather subscribe to a full RSS feed (i.e. where the full story is published), rather than subscribe to a snippet and need to click through to the actual site, since this is less convenient, but, equally, I understand that, for some, it takes away from advertising revenues. Very disappointed that the BBC only provides snippets, though – although it cites licensing reasons for this. Currently, I’m using “The Early Edition” on my iPad for RSS; although I thought having an old-school newspaper styling might be a bit tacky, I’m actually enjoying using it.

   – websites: for sites where I’m less worried, I’ll just browse when I have time, and when I remember. Generally, these are sites where an update might be for passing interesting, rather than because I “need” to know what’s going on – in other words, sites which I don’t want cluttering up my RSS feeds, and certainly not my inbox!

   – podcasts: very much an “exception only” method for me; for me to listen to a podcast, I’d need to have a clear idea of the content, and why I’d want to download and listen to it. I prefer text over audio/video, although, some times, hearing someone explain something, rather than reading about it, can be useful – however, generally, I prefer to read at my own pace, rather than have to listen to content at someone else’s pace, without the (easy) ability to skip to the part I want, highlight information etc.

   With everything other than a podcast, if there’s something I read which is important, and to which I might wish to refer in the future, I’ll run it through Readability, and then convert it to PDF, before storing it in my document management system – I value the ability to have my own archive of information for reference purposes.
3. lazyboy says:

   April 24, 2011 at 10:02 am

   I mainly use Flipboard and Zite on my iPad – both pull in content from a variety of sources, with the latter constantly tailoring itself to my tastes and preferences, likes and dislikes. So, rather than being overwhelmed by the number of sources I need to check, the content comes to me in an engaging, magazine format which I can leaf through at my leisure.
4. lazyboy says:

   April 24, 2011 at 10:05 am

   …anything I want to save for later reference is sent to Instapaper.
5. gavinfabl says:

   April 24, 2011 at 1:08 pm

   Exactly the same as Lazyboy.

   Flipboard uses twitter feeds which is better than RSS feeds now.

   I also have a number of news apps, which provide breaking news notifications on the front screen of my iPhone.
6. bobbd says:

   April 24, 2011 at 3:39 pm

   I read PDA-247 and AppAdvice over breakfast, along with the weather, sports (hockey mainly) and the Dilbert Blog (Scott Adams). At lunch, I’ll peruse about 20 sites for news, Apps, and so on. I gave up trying to scan all the new, changed, and price reduced Apps about a year ago.

   Bob