Over the last year I’ve been using all the betas from Apple on my iPad and iPhone. Usually when there’s a beta one and beta two I might just wait a little bit and jump in with beta three. This year with the new updates on iOS 15 and Mac OS Monterey I jumped in with the first public betas on the iPad because of some the changes I really, really wanted to try. I think it’s been a wise move to wait a little bit longer with the iPhone because it is something I have to use all day long every day. It’s a vital piece of equipment for me.
No Drafts on Monterey Beta
I went with the beta for the Mac OS Monterey as I was keen to try out the Shortcuts application on the Mac. The funny thing is though, I haven’t had an awful lot of time to try it out so far. Last night I installed the latest public beta on my iMac and I immediately noticed the main application I use for inputting text, Drafts wouldn’t open. This is one of the applications which is set to run at login. I usually dictate everything into Drafts and then send the data to wherever it is needed. It looks like I’m going to have to use a different text application until the next beta version of the operating system comes out. That could be one or two weeks, but I think I’ll be able to live with it. I have BBEdit which will do just fine even though it hasn’t got the same automation functionality I love so much with Drafts.
One of the great things about using Drafts is the fact that it’s works both on iOS and on the Mac. Any text I input on whichever device is available on all of my devices. I could try using Craft to get the same functionality. Or maybe even dictating everything into the Notes application. With the new functionality in Notes in iOS 15 I should be using that application more anyway. It doesn’t really have the support for Markdown, but it has everything else. I sometimes wish Drafts would also allow the addition of images. Then when I think about it, it’s probably better off keeping it text only.
What About IA Writer
Another possibility to have my text everywhere would be to use IA Writer. To do this I would have to to pay for the Mac version of the application. Why couldn’t it have been like Drafts where you pay for it once and get it everywhere.
Ulysses - Please Step Up
Another of my favourite applications is Ulysses. It doesn’t have the automation Drafts gives me, but it’s great for everything else. Mostly I’ve been using it for the organisation and outputting of e-books. It has fantastic facilities for organising text into very long documents. Whichever one of these I’m going to use will depend upon which one is best for dictation. Up until now, DragonDictate has always worked best in Drafts. With some of the others the dictation starts making mistakes and getting confused when I get to having written a thousand words.
What Has Been Your Experience with Beta Software?
Have you been trying any of the betas from Apple? Have you run into any problems and wished you hadn’t bothered? I’m a little bit impatient and I need to get the new toys as soon as possible. Partly because I just want to play with them and partly because I need to write about them.