Here’s a minor iOS 6 tweak that was just pointed out to me:

When you’re choosing a wallpaper, images are automatically resized to fit the full display – since I assume most people don’t like using only part of an image as a wallpaper (I certainly don’t).

Here’s what it would have previously looked like (in iOS 5) if you chose an landscape image to use as a wallpaper on your iPhone:

Instead, iOS automatically fills the screen with your image, like this:

You can of course shrink the image down if you like, but it’s nice not to have to play around pinching in and out if you just want your image to fill the display vertically.

Hat tip to @amelia_rosebell for pointing this out!

I was stunned when I saw a TV commercial for Internet Explorer during this season’s premiere of Breaking Bad last night, so I decided to look it up on YouTube to share with a friend.

While doing so, I came across another IE 9 ad – this time quoting ConceivablyTech:

I then decided it would be a good idea to check out this “Conceivably Tech” website…

Now I can see how “Conceivably Tech” called it “simply stunning”.

Also note that Microsoft refers to them as “Conceivably Tech” (two words), when it should read “ConceivablyTech”.

It’s a little surprising (or maybe not) that Microsoft would quote such a small and unaccredited website in a major commercial, alongside The New York Times…but then again, it is Microsoft.

Note: I’m not making any judgements about ConceivablyTech’s writing – I didn’t read anything there. I do however, recommend they invest in a good web designer.

Today’s a big day for me. 

After a ton of hard work I can finally share what I’ve been working on with the rest of the world – Checkmark for iPhone.

It all started last year when I began using Reminders for iPhone during the iOS 5 developer preview. Reminders quickly became my favourite app for iPhone, specifically due to the ability to set location-based reminders. 

Setting location-based reminders for my to-do’s ensured I always remembered to do them when I was able to. I was in love.

After a few weeks of heavy use I realized how annoying it was to set these location-based reminders with the Reminders app. It’s almost as bad to set a date/time based reminder too.

Of course with Siri it’s not a huge hassle but who wants to talk into their phone when they’re out with friends to set reminders?

A bit of research confirmed my suspicion – most of the people I spoke with only use Siri to set reminders if they’re driving. A few people mentioned that they use it if they’re alone, but usually they just enter them manually because they’re used to doing that. Nobody wants to be heard saying “Shave when I get home” when they’re out at a restaurant with a group of friends.

So I set out to build an app that would greatly improve the reminder creation process for both location and time-based reminders. And that’s how Checkmark came to be.

We brought the reminder creation process down to 3 steps from 11 for location-based reminders, and from 8 to 3 for date/time reminders.

Along the way we decided to add some other cool things, like the ability to add a time delay to a reminder (props to Adam Lisagor for the idea) so that your phone doesn’t alert you while you’re walking in the front door with your arms full of groceries – set it to remind you 15 minutes after you arrive. We can also show you a list of everything you have to do, sorted by how far things are from your current location, and more

This is just the beginning for Checkmark. We have a ton of plans for the future and we’re already hard at work on some exciting new things.

I can’t wait for everyone to try it.

Visit www.getcheckmark.com for a sneak peak. We’ll be shipping soon!