Post-PC #3: Personal Finance

If there's a ready-made application for a mobile device, it's bill paying and personal finance. It should be a relatively low-overhead application that needs to receive frequent updates and be aware of and communicate with other applications like credit cards and banks. Mobile payments and banking has really grown in parts of the developing world for precisely these reasons. Even low-end Android phones can easily run the needed apps. This should be a slam-dunk for iOS. 

At first glance, it is. You've got a million personal finance apps out there including the well-regarded Mint and Check. Banks and credit cards have their own apps too, though these are not typically designed to be full personal finance solutions but instead to facilitate things like balance inquiry and bill paying.

In fact, the two areas all these apps seem to concentrate on are expense categorization and mobile payments. While useful, these two applications on their own are insufficient to meet my needs for household money management (I can't speak to the needs of running a small business so my comments here are restricted to personal finance).  I don't really need to be told where my money went; I'm interested in knowing where it will go, and what my bank balance will look like at any given point in the future. In our household we have a pretty good handle on expenses; we're not over-spending all the time on frivolous stuff, so there's very little eye-opening information to be gained by slick categorization of past spending. I'm really surprised that the various apps I've either researched or tried cannot do this. Even Quicken has difficulty with bank balance forecasting and replacing that forecast with actual results as they occur. Something that you'd think would be really valuable: will my checking account have enough money in it at any given point into the future, based on my current and projected spending? Seems like an easy question to answer but I've not yet found an app that does it. If you know of one, let me know!

Full disclosure: a couple months after installing Mint and linking all our accounts to it, we had multiple instances of fraud on 2 different cards. I can't say with certainty that it was the fault of Mint because I have no proof, but I strongly suspect Mint was somehow to blame. I changed my card numbers and stopped using Mint immediately, and we haven't had fraud since. That experience soured me on giving out all that banking and credit card info to some app, no matter how highly-regarded. Your appetite for risk may be different, and maybe it was just coincidental timing for me, but I'm not sold on those apps.

Setting aside security issues of linking accounts, and since I need an app that budgets future cash flows and banking balances, replacing that budget with actuals on the fly throughout the month or year, I've decided to continue to use a spreadsheet that does this cash forecasting for us with a minimum of manual input. We've used this spreadsheet for 4 or 5 years now and it works for us. It's in Google Docs and while editing complex formulas is a pain in the neck on iOS, simple quick data entry is actually quite easy and I've been fairly happy with using my iPad for that so far - but the setup was all done on a real computer using the Google Sheets web interface. If I have to make minor edits to things I can probably live with the inconvenience on iOS, but I'd never, ever want to have built this spreadsheet from scratch using iOS, even with a bluetooth keyboard; it would take 10 times as long (at least) and be fraught with frustration.

The one catch to the spreadsheet is that I can't download a transaction .csv file from the Capital One app on my iPad (Capital One being our primary credit card where almost all of our credit card spending goes); I have to go through the web browser. Oddly, Google Drive can't open the resulting .csv, and it's impossible to open it in Numbers and copy/paste into Google Sheets (you can't copy cells from Numbers and paste them into Sheets). So I'm a little stuck on how to easily get my credit card transactions in to the Google spreadsheet (I'm not going to key them all in, let me tell you). It would probably work better to port my budget spreadsheet over to Numbers, which deals fine with the .csv file and could easily integrate it into the overall budget spreadsheet. That would take a lot of work, though, since it's already working great in Google and it's got a tab for every month of the year and a decent amount of formulas. Of course I could use my work PC to do the once-per-month transaction download, or use the PC to more quickly port the budget spreadsheet itself to Numbers, but that would be going against the spirit of this little experiment! 

Bottom line is this: if you want simple, easy categorization of expenditures and automatic download of transactions from your bank and credit cards, there are tons of apps out there like Mint and Card that do that. But if you have specific needs that only a home-brew solution like a spreadsheet can fulfill, there are some definite headaches in creating said spreadsheet in the first place, or importing data into that spreadsheet. Light data entry is no problem in iOS in either Numbers or Google Sheets.

So this post is actually less about personal finance applications themselves than it is about an unexpected difficulty in living iOS-only: taking a simple, downloaded file and uploading into an existing spreadsheet. It makes sense that iWork/Numbers can do this; after all, it's Apple's recommended spreadsheet solution for OS X and iOS. I'm surprised Google Docs can't read the .csv file from my iPad since it deals fine with .csv files on the PC.

Living Post-PC #2: Hardware

When I came to the conclusion that we needed a new computer at home, I wanted to try something different. I always felt that we under-used our iMac; I didn't do lots of in-depth photo or video editing, I'm not a gamer, and I don't do much desktop publishing either. An entire computer seemed like overkill. But in 2007 when I bought our old iMac, options were limited to desktops or laptops.

Now that mobile computing has come so far, I realized that for our home use those devices could completely replace a traditional computer. In deciding to go mobile-only, I wanted to make the right choice when it came to hardware. When choosing an ecosystem, my desire was to stay with Apple. I'm not going to rehash the Android vs. iOS war in this blog. You have to choose an ecosystem and I chose iOS. The choice of hardware was therefore straightforward: I needed a new phone to replace my iPhone 4S which was experiencing serious problems due to moisture damage, and I needed a tablet for higher-powered tasks than a phone could perform. The iPhone is now on par with the iPad on internal specs but you need a larger screen for some things. 

When possible, I believe in buying the best quality product I can afford for a given use-case. That meant the 5S for a phone and the iPad Air for a tablet. Certainly the 5C and the non-retina mini or iPad 2 are still capable machines, but they're far enough behind in the technology curve that I think I can save money in the long run by buying state-of-the-art now. I recognize there are several schools of thought on this and wouldn't fault anyone for choosing the less expensive options, especially if those devices still meet their needs.

This isn't a formal review of these devices - there are lots of people out there with far more expertise and knowledge who can do a much better job than I'll ever do providing in-depth reviews. This is more of my impressions as a consumer and what drew me to the 2 devices I settled on.

iPhone 5S

My phone is still my most important device simply because it's always with me. I didn't want to skimp by getting a 5C. Compared to my 4S, the 5S is quite a step forward. I wasn't feeling deprived with my 4S, but even the added screen real estate has been an eye-opener. I feel like I'm using some everyday apps for the first time because their layout is optimized for the larger screen. Photos look so much better (and I always felt they were great before) and the response is much snappier. After playing with a 5C at the Apple Store a while ago, I was confirmed in my opinion that the 5S was the right choice, especially for "only" $100 more.

iPad Air

The decision on iPad Air vs. iPad Mini with retina was much tougher. The mini's form-factor is unbeatable for reading and it's so thin and light that it's a real joy to hold and use. If the choice had been between the iPad 4th gen. and the new Mini, I likely would've chosen the Mini. But with the advent of the Air and its significant weight reduction, that choice became a lot harder. In the end, additional screen real estate won out, especially since it's replacing a full-size computer. But I can't say you'd be wrong for choosing the Mini instead.

Wireless Keyboard

Regardless of which iPad I chose, I knew going in that I'd need a keyboard. Any kind of thumb typing for more than a quick email is unbearably agonizing, and while I can type fairly well on the on-screen keyboard on my iPad, it's still an exercise in frustration for anything of any length. Nothing beats the feel of real keys. I chose the bluetooth wireless keyboard because of its full size and the fact that it will work with any of the other devices we have in the house - the iMac, my wife's iPad 2 and even my iPhone should the need arise (I kind of hope it doesn't!). I could've gone with a cover/keyboard combo like the kind Belkin and others make, but I didn't want to burden the sleek iPad with that much extra weight and I really wanted full-sized keys. Using the full-size keyboard with the iPad propped up behind it is basically equivalent to a regular laptop. For long-format writing, that's a must, at least for me.

So that's my setup. The Air is now my computer. I still have the iMac plugged in but I'm going to try to do all my home computing on the Air from this point forward. I've got a pretty cool setup with a nice stand from Griffin which I'll discuss when I talk about accessories (it was quite a challenge finding the right mix of them for me and my needs). Some other topics I want to cover are password management, storage, cloud services, iWork, and personal finance in iOS. If you have any other suggestions, definitely let me know!

Living Post-PC #1: The Challenge

I've begun this post on a mid-2006 iMac running Snow Leopard and Safari 5. iCloud is telling me my browser isn't supported and helpfully suggests I upgrade to a newer version of OS X and Safari. Unfortunately, my iMac doesn't support anything newer. But with any luck, this will be virtually the last time I have to use this machine for anything other than media storage (and maybe not even for that!)

I've decided to fully embrace the post-PC era. This means that this old iMac may be the last traditional computer in my house.  The future of computing is mobile and iOS is a mature enough platform that suffices for everyday home use. At least, that's what I'm telling myself. In this experiment, I plan to use only my iPhone 5S and iPad Air for my home computing needs. No desktops or laptops and no traditional operating system. Do the advantages of living completely within a mobile OS outweigh any potential drawbacks and irritations? I hope to find the answer is yes.

Of course, this isn't much of a risk for me. I'm not a power user in my home environment and for work I have a company-issued, relatively high-end Windows laptop so if I get into any jams with my iOS lifestyle, that machine is always available in the background to bail me out. But I'm going to try really, really hard not to need it. The goal is to do all my personal computing using iOS and only fall back to a regular computer in the most dire extremity.

There are a few reasons for this little experiment: the first is cost. A decent iMac runs $1200 and up, and the cheapest Apple computer you can buy is the Mac Mini that starts at $599 sans monitor, keyboard, and mouse. When I examined what we use our iMac for, it's really hard to justify a thousand-dollar price tag for what is essentially an internet and email machine. $1200 gets you a couple of really nice iPads, for example. And since so much of our computing is content consumption along with some light productivity (say, updating a resume, curating photos or writing for this blog), I have a really hard time forking over that kind of cash - it's overkill. iOS can meet all those needs less expensively and hopefully more flexibly. You give up some power, but I seriously doubt I'll need all those CPU cycles for home use.

I've got some friends who run their own businesses (or side businesses) from home using their own machines. Certainly in that case a mobile-only lifestyle is not really workable. I understand this type of setup isn't for everyone. But I'm convinced that the vast majority of home use can benefit strongly from the right mobile setup (for example, a high-quality iPad paired with a physical Apple wireless keyboard for long-format typing) and that we have truly entered the post-PC era. Most home users simply don't need all that power under the hood with its attendant complexity and cost.

The one area of risk to this plan is storage. Local storage on iOS gets really expensive and tops out at 128GB on the iPad - that's not enough for photos, music, videos, etc. Fortunately, the latest generation of wi-fi enabled storage devices support saving both to and from iOS, so something like Western Digital's 2+TB "MyCloud" drives will allow hugely expandable storage beyond what iOS devices have. This means I feel comfortable with a 16GB phone and a 32GB iPad. So part of this strategy is relying on cheap network storage coupled with use of free cloud accounts like Dropbox (for several reasons, I'm not too keen on paying a monthly or annual subscription for cloud storage - I'll go into why in another post).

This blog will chronicle various aspects of living post-PC using only mobile devices (for me, that'll be my iPhone 5S and iPad Air). I'll have some posts on what specific hardware I chose and why, what apps I consider essential for the iOS-only household, and any challenges or irritations I encounter. Hopefully after a few months of this, I'll look back and congratulate myself on not spending big bucks on a full-blown machine. Time will tell, but I hope it'll at least be an interesting exercise.

Endnote: I finished up the final editing of this document on my iPad Air paired with Apple's wireless keyboard - so I'll be sure to post some thoughts on why I chose the model I did. But first, I'll discuss my new iPhone 5S.