One of the secrets of MacOS ninjas are shortcut utilities such as TextExpander, TextMate, and TypeIt4Me. These programs allow you to type abbreviations that are automatically replaced by words, sentences, or whole paragraphs.
Apps like these have been absent from the iPhone until now. Along comes TapIt4Me from Ettore Software, the maker of TypeIt4Me on the Mac.
Unlike its big brother, TapIt4Me uses a document-centric rather than snippet-centric approach. You compose a note in the TapIt4Me app and later inject that note into Mail.app in its entirety. This may look kludgy and limited to some people, but it handles repetitive email content the way that Mail2Group handles repetitive group addressing.
Quite a few A-list bloggers and podcasters swear by shortcut utilities to be able to efficiently handle correspondence with their audiences. In October, MacBreak Weekly host Leo Laporte said that a significant part of his audience communication is answering the same questions repeatedly. TapIt4Me allows you to begin a reply to an email in Mail.app with text from a pre-written note. As such it would help extend an established productivity solution from the Mac to the iPhone.
I've used TextExpander to help increase my posting productivity when blogging on my site Operation Gadget (now on hiatus, but coming back in February). It's important to note that this usage pattern is not transferrable to the iPhone, because TapIt4Me does not integrate with Safari or SMS on the iPhone, only Mail.app.
At this writing, TapIt4Me is $4.99, which is said to be the introductory price. Is it worth owning? For me, yes I think so. I'm going to be working with it to create a series of pre-written reply emails. I hope that this approach increases the number of messages I can respond to in real time.
Is TapIt4Me a mobile email productivity tool that can solve problems for you also? I'd love to know. Feel free to leave a comment.
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I agree that what you say is useful... but equally useful would be the ability to expand shortcuts as typing, with the ability to create a custom library. So, that when writing (emails, txts, notes) I could type gg, and have it expand to going, or t, and have it spell out the word the. For me, it's the thing I missed most from when I switched from my blackberry (a switch I'd make again, in spite of AT&T).
David
@David Bressler expanding shortcuts as you type is exactly what TapIt4Me does. define gg to expand to going or t for the and TapIt4Me will happily expand them.
Riccardo (developer of TapIt4Me)
Our company spends a fair amount of time answering the same 8 to 10 questions from our users, so we'll definitely be checking out TapIt4Me.
On another note, I tried emailing a suggestion to iphone@oreilly.com and got an error - is there a different email address to use?
Please explain how is tapit4me even remotely usefull? Why not just place text in any notes app and copy paste. I read many postings, none of which explain to me why this is useful. I downloaded the app and tried an abreviation in mail, nothing happens. Wow, impressive
Please explain how is tapit4me even remotely usefull? Why not just place text in any notes app and copy paste. I read many postings, none of which explain to me why this is useful. I downloaded the app and tried an abreviation in mail, nothing happens. Wow, impressive
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Cheers
Peter
TapIt4Me allows you to begin a reply to an email in Mail.app with text from a pre-written note. As such it would help extend an established productivity solution from the Mac to the iPhone.
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