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Every Sunday night, I create graphics like this in Acorn.
From time to time, people ask me what image editing software I recommend. For years now (not kidding, since 2009) I've used Acorn. Today Acorn 5 was just released and it's being offered at a steep discount to celebrate the launch. If you need a powerful image editing tool that isn't overwhelming to use, I highly recommend Acorn. It's currently just $24.99.
Our friend (and colleague) has started a new site which launched today. Hand on heart, Danielle's one of the most incredible people we know. She's intentional, loving, thorough and dependable. Everything she puts her hand to blossoms, so it's thrilling to us that she's started a blog detailing how Danielle lives life. Her first article is up and all about setting goals. This will not be a blog of empty ideas, but live tested, lived out in full wisdom. One to bookmark.
It's no secret that I'm an Apple nerd. So when the Apple Watch was announced most people assumed I'd get one. Thanks to new IRS guidelines for qualified health spending we discovered we could use our health savings account to purchase two of them (more on the health side effects of an Apple Watch later).
I'd read a bunch of reviews from people I trust and knew the pros, the cons and limitations before I bought one. But reading about one and owning one are two different things. Below are my initial impressions after owning the watch for a couple of weeks.
Ordering was easy. Getting it once we'd ordered? That wasn't so fun. Either Apple underestimated the demand, had trouble meeting the demand or something else I can't guess, but it was a bit of a mess. We ordered April 29th and AJ received hers a month later and mine came two weeks after hers. For most of the time our tracking said, "Ships in June".
Setup was very unique. Basically your watch produces a beautiful (unique?) hologram-esque image that your phone takes a picture of via the Watch app on your iPhone. Wait a bit, wait a bit longer and your watch is ready for use.
I'd read Craig Hockenberry's suggestion of wearing the watch in a reverse crown orientation and was instantly intrigued. Craig's a smart guy and spends a lot of time thinking about usability. In my imagination, his suggestion totally worked and so out of the box I setup my watch that way. That didn't last long as I found my thumb was not a great digital crown manipulator and quickly reverted to the regular way of using the watch.
Using the watch takes a little getting used to. But I think that's mostly because we have been trained to use touch screen Apple devices for years now. It's tempting to use the digital crown in the same way you use the home button on your iPhone/iPad but that's not a perfect analogy.
There are similarities between using the watch for the first time and using the original iPhone for the first time. When the iPhone came out there were new interface metaphors to get used to. We were rewarded with delight while getting used to pinching to zoom and swiping to scroll but it was still a little disorienting. Disorienting, not because it was hard to use, but because it was unfamiliar. I remember having a sinking feeling that I could potentially be missing out on a feature because I wasn't familiar enough with how the phone worked. Using the watch gave me a similar feeling of déjà vu.
Take for example the watch's force touch feature. In some apps, pressing firmly on the screen brings up another menu, not accessible via normal onscreen options. While this is brilliant, it also leads to "options anxiety"; what if there are other yet-to-be discovered menus hidden behind a force touch? John Gruber discovered yet another hidden option - long touching (not to be confused with force touching) the color palette in the digital touch menu will lead you to a color picker. This is not documented anywhere (to my knowledge) and could've remained undiscovered if I hadn't followed John on Twitter. None of this is bad of course, but in the last few weeks of owning the watch, I've been reminded of the first few weeks with the original iPhone.
In reading some of the early reviews, I was led to believe that the digital crown usage (press once to turn on, press once to return to watch face, press once to go to app launcher screen, press once to center app launcher screen) was complicated. It is on paper but not in real life after a couple of days. This is primarily where the digital crown = iPhone home button comparison breaks down.
The home screen on the iPhone is where everything begins. It's the center of attention when you are not using an app. You'd think, given that the watch also has a home screen with app icons that can be rearranged, that this is where everything starts on the watch, but that's not the case. I've found that the watch face is where everything starts - it's the default screen that loads when you raise your wrist (unless you change it in settings of course). I find that most of my interaction is with this screen. I launch the most common apps I use straight from this screen using the complications (tiny icons that relay information from apps like weather, calendar or fitness). The rest of the apps I regularly launch are launched from the glimpses screen.
Speaking of apps, the built in apps are beautifully crafted. Again, there's a nod back to the iPhone. The original iPhone launched with no app store, so you were stuck with Apple's stock apps and they were brilliant. Highly polished, did what you think they would and were full of clever little touches. It was a limited device. So is the watch. And that's not a bad thing. It's far easier to get to grips with a device that you understand and can comprehend its limitations than something that is unwieldy where you are left wondering what it's for.
So the stock apps are nice. The third party apps are a bit of hit and miss really. On any given day, my third party apps will just stop working. I haven't managed to determine why or how to get them working again. Thankfully more often than not, they do work and actually I've found tremendous use in some of them. I'm a big user of Roomie Remote for example and when it loads on my watch it's a killer device. It literally feels like I am in the future controlling all of my audio visual equipment (plus my lights and thermostat) from my watch.
Of course we're bound to see this improve when watchOS 2 is released in the fall. Again, my third parallel to the original iPhone is regarding apps. Before the App store launched on the iPhone we were given "web apps" for iPhone. They were a crumby compromise (especially in light of what came after them) and I suspect we'll look back on the current third party watch solution in a similar fashion once we get "proper" watch apps.
In several weeks worth of use, I've yet to run out of battery. This includes the days I've had late bed times. Even at 2am there's still juice running in my watch and I've never had to worry. So much so that I stopped using the battery complication to check on battery life - it's simply not an issue.
Weirdest thing about using the watch so far? Siri on the watch does not speak back to you. After years of hearing Siri speak, it's so weird to not hear Siri's voice on the watch. Yes, Siri is faster, yes Siri is handy, but again - similar to the original iPhone - you find yourself having to learn to use the watch in new ways. For example, today I had to make a phone call. I thought I'd initiate the call from my watch but found it odd that the phone app didn't have a dial pad. You can call your favorites, anybody you've called recently or any of your contacts but you can't dial a number. "That's odd", I thought and picked up my phone and dialed the number the old fashioned way. It was only once I hung up I wondered if I could've called the number via Siri. Totally could've.
Promoted by Apple as their most personal device yet, the marketing materials for the watch stress the "new dimension to the way you communicate" and our ability to use the watch to say things "with feelings". Sounds like marketing hyperbole right? You've probably heard about the feature that lets you send your heartbeat to other Apple Watch users. This sounds frivolous and yet in my experience I've found it's something quite special. Put it this way, I know four other people with Apple Watches and yet I've only sent my heartbeat to one of them: my wife.
The first time we tried sending our heartbeats to one another we were genuinely surprised how it felt; not just physically via the watch's taptic engine but also emotionally. It really is an intimate and private way of communicating affection. It's turned out to be one of my favorite features of the watch.
This is the area I was most interested in exploring. I'm not what you'd exactly call athletic. I've never enjoyed physical exercise for the sake of exercise and most efforts at trying to exercise regularly have failed spectacularly. Obviously I am aware of the tremendous health benefits that exercise brings, but for whatever reason I've never done anything with that knowledge.
For all my lack of physical prowess, I do have a desire to complete things. Take for example video games. I don't just want to complete a level, I want to finish and pick up all the bonus challenges, the stars, the coins, the rewards (which is why I am still trying to finish Champion's Road in Super Mario 3D World).
So despite the fact that external motivation doesn't seem to have an impact on me, I'm aware that there's an intrinsic motivation at work. So does Apple apparently because their inclusion of three little rings on the watch has changed my daily activity drastically.
Each day, the watch monitors three things; your movement (recorded in calories burned), your exercise (anything that raises your heart rate above that of a brisk walk) and how much you are standing throughout the day. These are represented as three concentric rings. At the start of each day they are faded out, or empty. As the day continues, you fill up each ring with the goal being to complete every ring. The most "difficult" one to fill is the exercise ring. So much so that AJ and I often talk about needing to work on our green ring. What this means is that I'm looking for opportunities throughout the day to get my ring filled up so that I have less "real" exercise to do at night. That means I am speed walking throughout the day, I'm happy to park somewhere inconvenient in order to get points. It's also meant that I am walking an extra 2 miles a day or burst training to ensure I get those points.
Not only have I hit my daily goal everyday since I got the watch, I'm also looking at ways to earn the medals that are offered. This means I have to go above and beyond the daily limit. For example, in about half an hour, I'm going out with the goal to go burn 1,000 calories and keep my heart rate raised for an hour to win a bunch of awards. This is something I've been planning (and dare I say it looking forward to) all week. Somewhere along the way Apple has figured out how to motivate people like me. And that's a big deal. (The only thing I'd love to see added to the health side of things is the ability to "compete" with others.)
I've made several references to the original iPhone. In the same way that I loved my first iPhone for what it was (even though, living in Canada I couldn't even use the phone part of it!) I loved it for what it would become. So too with this watch. I really enjoy using it daily. It's deliberately limited - in part because technology has to catch up, but also I think it's been designed with limitations to teach users a new way of interacting with this new piece of technology. I love it for what it can do now and I look forward to what it will be able to do in the future.
I saw this video over at the NYT website. So unbearably sad and yet at the same time incredibly powerful. These relatives speak to the killer that murdered their loved ones and extend mercy, forgiveness and attempt to lead him to Jesus Christ.
It has been fascinating reading the feedback you guys have been sending us about the podcast. One interesting piece of revelation we've had is that about a third of you don't know there are show notes for each episode. The notes - while not exhaustive - provide links to more details about anything we mention in that particular episode: people, places, products - that sort of thing.
If you are using the Podcast app on your iPhone (which apparently 90% of you are), just go to the list of podcast episodes and tap the "i" to see the show notes for that episode.
Tap the "i" button to see the show notes.
And look! Show notes!
Overcast, our preferred podcast client has a similar feature. Just swipe up on the artwork of the podcast you are listening to, to see the show notes.
Swipe up on our smiling faces to see the show notes.
Voila! Show notes!
If you listen to the podcast via our website, just scroll down on the page you are listening from to see the show notes. You can also see the show notes for any episode you want by adding an episode number to our website address. For example, to see the show notes for episode thirty six, just enter the following into your web browser.
alynandaj.com/36
Substitute the number of the episode you are looking for and you'll be taken straight to that page and its corresponding show notes. If you'd like more hints and tips with setting up any of these apps or podcasts in general, read our little podcast page.
Forgive us for the self congratulatory nature of this post, but as we've been reflecting on our first year of podcasting we saw this review about Keeping Up With The Joneses on iTunes and it made us smile:
“Oh how I love this podcast! It’s a glorious love mix of fish tacos, Apple products, transatlantic accents, glory, wisdom, life hacks, heart hacks, humor with a large dollop of (un)common sense and more than a bit of sauce!... proof, if it were ever needed, that ALL of life is sacred.”
Aside from the kind words, I love this review because it does a great job of summing up what we wanted the podcast to be, but never knew how to articulate when we started. People would often ask us what the podcast was about and we would say, "Uh..." - unsure how to describe it. Now we'll just quote The Denner.
One of the things we do at Grace Center is oversee the School of Supernatural Life; an eight month school that runs from September through April. As we head into our fifth year of running the school, we're stunned once again at the transformation our students experience. We prepared some videos of the students talking about their time at the school. Watch below.
You can watch more of their stories here.
Remember that one time Chris McClarney stopped by to record a podcast episode with us? And remember how he secretly dropped an exciting project that was in the works? Well that project is now public. Chris has a new album coming out with Jesus Culture. Even better, there's a short promo video and a free track from Noise Trade too. Go watch and grab.
UPDATE: You can pre-order now on iTunes.
Today marks our 52nd podcast episode, so I guess we're podcasters now. We've learnt a lot podcasting (almost) every week for a year and want to thank our listeners for their support and encouragement. It started out as a gamble but now with a couple of thousand listeners tuning in each month we're really excited about where this goes. Thank you once again for joining us.
If you've just started listening, here's a few of my favorite episodes.
How’s that for a clickbait title? But in all seriousness, are you? And would you even know if you were? This week we recount our journeys toward emotional wholeness and AJ gets real real talking about her journey of emotional suffocation this past year.
Our friends, marriage experts, inner healing specialists and all round good guys Mike & Phyllis Best stopped by to talk healthy relationships. These guys are the real deal. They spend their life ministering to people who feel stuck and specialize in marriages. Join us on this special episode to get all you need about marriage.
Jessie Early: voice of a thousand angels. If you've ever been to emanate or at Grace Center while Jessie's leading worship, you'd know it. But behind the worship leader is a wonderful friend, a beloved wife, an accomplished singer/songwriter, creative whirlwind and independent artist in the truest sense of the words. On the week of the release of her new EP - Wild Honey - we sat down with Jessie and asked her a wide range of questions from how she arrived at Grace Center, to the creative process of making Wild Honey to the most important one: "What's your favorite Peter Gabriel song?". Thank you Jessie, we love you! Enjoy.
This week Dann Farrelly, the associate pastor at Bethel Church in Redding, California joins us to talk about a ton of stuff. Topics include Bill Johnson's arrival at Bethel, manifestations of the Holy Spirit, the price you pay for future glory and a whole bunch of wisdom about stepping into your prophetic words despite the crazy journey it may entail.
This week our friend Steve Long joins us all the way from Toronto, Canada to share on the Holy Spirit and healing. Steve is one of the best ministers we've ever heard teach on healing and has a way of simplifying complex truths into practical steps. All of this plus some follow up from last week's episode on the election.
Money. It's sometimes a touchy topic, but on this week's episode we talk about three principles that we've found to be essential regarding personal finances. That and AJ keeps doing Yoda impersonations. But mostly money.
All of us have been hurt in life. Our approach to dealing with that hurt will vary from person to person, but until Jesus is able to minister to that hurt, our hearts can become hardened and sore. This week we talk about the value of inner healing, AJ's new (new!) iPhone and Alyn comes clean on his love for burritos.
We've been thinking about leadership a lot the last few weeks. We've either been asked questions about leadership or have been asking leaders about leading. But there were some questions we just never got to, so we talk through them here. Plus, AJ's unique iPhone 7 review.
Have you ever stopped before you started? This episode is an encouragement to do that thing you've been too scared to try because you don't think it will work. With 100 episodes to look back on, we share some of the encouragement we've found from God to starting small. Let's face it, we all have to start somewhere. The people you are impressed by right now? They most likely started years ago, with something small. Start today and before you know it, you'll be shocked by what you've made.
This is more than an hour of solid gold Holy Spirit goodness. On this episode we ask David to share the story of how God transformed him from a suicidal alcoholic schizophrenic into the cuddly loving mercy prophet we have today. If you're not encouraged after listening to this episode, have a bag of skittles and try listening again.
