The Brooks Review

This week: why apps like Excel fail to understand iPadOS, the $20 million test, why OmniFocus uses Stockholm’s Syndrome to keep users, and Black PR — it’s a thing.

You must be a member to read the rest of this article.

New year, short post. I’ll be back to full length next week, but for this week: News+ subscription, miscellany to kick of the year, bag talk, and the finally tally on the poll.

You must be a member to read the rest of this article.

I saw an article recently, which shared a ‘new tip’ for dealing with distraction in the digital age. The tip: keep your phone near the entrance/exit to your domicile — and if you need to use your phone walk to it and stay in that area while you use it. This, they say, is a great way to keep yourself from being distracted.

It’s also incredibly stupid. There seems to be this idea that tech itself is addicting and that many are handcuffed to tech by way of their phone. And so often the advice, like that advice above, is along the lines of eschewing tech during some part of your life. It’s bad advice, it’s avoiding the hard questions and finding a scapegoat.

Continue reading: The Smartphone Isn’t Evil, Chill

Short one this week: a poll, a pen thought, and Shortcut Automation fails me.

You must be a member to read the rest of this article.

This week: very brief thoughts for another two iPad trick, a link to smart speaker privacy, and a note about watch accuracy. Back to full scheduling on 1/6/19.

You must be a member to read the rest of this article.

This week: a trick for managing two iPads, update on my news diet, my weekly watch obsession, that thing about wearing my watch on my right wrist, perfect watch collections, holiday travels, some great videos, and someone broke a GORUCK bag.

Trick For Managing Things Between Work and Personal iPads

I have long used a different Apple IDs for buying stuff, and for iCloud. This goes back to 2004, because something weird got put in place for me back then (I think I started using one Apple ID in iTunes to buy music, and then later signed up for .Mac/MobileMe/iCloud and got a new Apple ID for that, and you can’t merge those). Anyways, I use two IDs, but there’s an advantage to that. Because the purchasing App Store ID I can use for my App Store ID on my work devices while not exposing my personal iCloud account to those devices as well.

You must be a member to read the rest of this article.

This week: some follow up to my iPad guide, and to my watch guide, lefties and watches, my news intake reduction, and the lies of morning routines.

iPad Guide Follow Up

Two errors, a month of writing. I had two typos in the article, which I have fixed, but I do want to point out that I worked on that post everyday for a month and still two slipped by. Dang, that’s annoying.

It seems for most people the post resonated, but some wondered why it wasn’t more of a getting started guide. That’s a good idea, but I think that’s ultimately a lot of what I have written in these member only posts about going all in on iPad Pro.

You must be a member to read the rest of this article.

My first memory of lusting after a watch was in 4th grade and it was over a G-SHOCK my friend had. I wanted that watch. Over the years my obsession for watches has not subsided, and I have owned many watches. Over the past two years I have really focused in on what it means to me to own the perfect watch(es). Here’s my advice for anyone starting out, or wanting to buy a watch but feeling overwhelmed by the amount of options out there.

Scroll to near the end to get yourself the listing of my recommendations, but you really should read my reasoning behind it all…

Continue reading: The Watch Guide

This week: iPads in portrait, Ulysses Sheet love, WiFi 6, month of writing, DuckDuckGo, and how I am tackling news heading into the end of the year.

Yesterday I published my article about switching to iPad Pro. This is the article I spent all of November working on each day, I quite like it.

You must be a member to read the rest of this article.

How do ‘we’ best integrate computers into our daily lives? Computers are complex and often overkill for most of what we do, and yet feel absolutely essential for modern life whether work or personal. So if you want to simplify, you have single purpose computing devices, like a calculator, good at a smaller subset of the tasks, but good at only those tasks. So where do you go if you find that level of simplifying to be absurd?

iPad Pro sits in what feels like no-mans land. It is not as good as a laptop in many ways, nor is it as good as a single purpose device at one specific task. But then there is the fact that (in 2015) I, along with many other people over the last few years, decided to walk away from traditional computers and embraced iPad Pro as a primary computer. I wasn’t sure how successful this would be, but I have never looked back. (Think of it like how you could go away for a weekend with just one pair of pants, but could you actually take that leap of faith and only pack one pair?)

The iPad Pro has not only been a success with replacing a laptop, but it’s proven a better tool than a laptop.

Continue reading: Why You Should Ditch Your Laptop For iPad Pro

For a while now, I have been putting together my own holiday gift guides. Each year I don’t hide the fact that this is a great way for this site to make a little extra money. This year is no different, but the list is much different this year.

Here’s 2018’s.

So, if you are wondering what may be good buys, wonder no more.

Continue reading: Holiday Affiliate Cash Guide

How is it almost the end of a year already… Anyways, this week: external displays with iPad Pros, naked iPad, standing desks at work, Keychron, daily writing, and watch talk.

You must be a member to read the rest of this article.

I have wanted a great Bluetooth mechanical keyboard for a very long time, and yet it has been very hard to find a good one. But Keychron, the K2 especially, has gotten a lot of good press, so I figured I would give it a go, and see if there is finally a good option out there.

Continue reading: The Keychron K2

This week: naked iPad Pro, new iPad stand, my alarms, waking up early, out of touch experts, and evil Silicon Valley.

You must be a member to read the rest of this article.

I’ve spent a long time now optimizing and finding the most ideal items for me to carry everyday. There’s a huge community around this topic, but no one seems to cover two things I faced:

1. My life is always changes, and thus so are my needs.
2. I didn’t want an abundance of crap in my house.

To that end I have tried to be overly realistic about what I actually need and to build out my kit around that. Here’s what I have settled on:

I’ll go through every item in there in a moment, and why, but first: the case is the Cache EDC Valet from Drop.com since you were probably wondering and I highly recommend it.

Continue reading: State of My Everyday Carry Collection