Category: Member

Over this holiday break my iPad Pro setup changed. I had no intention of switching my setup, but a generous gift of an 11” iPad Pro upended my thinking. As I’ve [written in the past](https://brooksreview.net/2018/10/the-new-ipad-pros-everything-i-wanted-and-nothing-i-needed/), there was no real need for me to upgrade my iPad hardware, but that’s not to say that the new devices aren’t very nice.

So what happened next was simple, I decided to proceed with the 11” iPad Pro which had the base 64gb of storage (this is how I know first hand this is actually enough storage). I used that setup for a week and a half and sold off all my other iPads. And then, I changed my mind and swapped the 11” for a 12.9” model and since I was swapping I went ahead and increased the storage size for peace of mind down the road. So what I want to talk about this week is threefold: the 11” iPad size, the new 12.9” footprint, and some accessories I have added to my stable.

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I’ve long struggled with how to layout and ‘design’ my desk area. There’s two competing “best” ways to go about this: looks and ergonomics. And these are nearly mutually exclusive (you can’t have a beautiful desk which is also perfectly ergonomic), but I also have come to realize that I have been thinking about this all wrong. And, contrary to popular opinion, that the iPad is not the ergonomic nightmare most think it is.

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It’s been a while since I wrote a full iPad Productivity Report, so for the new year I am back at it. This will be the first of many to come over the next couple of months as some big rethinks are in the works for me with my iPad Pro setup(s). Today I want to address a few things I am playing with: font management, space needs, Notion, and Vellum. And then at the end I want to touch on a few upcoming things with my setup.

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At the end of October, I started a little experiment. I stopped sleeping with my electronic devices in the same room as me. Specifically, that means my iPhone, and iPad(s). There’s a lot of research/studies/hypotheses around the impact devices have on our health, but there is one thing I believe in all those: the blue light from the devices is terrible for you at night.

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I’m worried about Apple’s stance that their ecosystems must be pure and free from debauchery, remaining family friendly at all times. Or to put it another way, free from pornography and swearing.This isn’t a straightforward thing, and it’s not clear what is good or bad for society as a whole, though I would argue that Apple’s approach of random censorship is more *bad* than good. And at best, absurdly hypocritical.

## Apple’s Current Stance and what we know as why

Generally speaking, iOS users today are restricted as follows:

– no pornography based apps
– sexual ‘wellness’ apps are fine, but hindered in what they show. For example: you could get away with depictions by way of illustration, but not out right photography of them.
– there amazingly does exist a plethora of ‘sexy’ games, but most seem to be benign truth or dare style text based games.
– iOS autocorrect will not allow you to swear easily, you have to jump through many hoops.
– any app that allows easy access to adult content, porn, is likely not to survive long, if at all. Unless it’s very popular.

We know about the why for some of this:

– [here’s info autocorrect and swearing](https://bgr.com/2018/11/07/iphone-keyboard-autocorrect-problems-swear-words/)
– [here’s a peek into banning pornography on iPhone](https://techcrunch.com/2010/04/08/steve-jobs-on-why-the-iphone-doesnt-allow-unsigned-apps-they-dont-want-a-porn-store/)

It’s all what you would expect. There’s too great a risk for unintended consequences with autocorrect working with curse words, and Apple generally feels pornography is a slippery slope which is not manageable for them. Which is fair, until you realize the complete shit that makes it into the App Store already then your like, wut.

But these two rather simple decisions have quite a ripple effect on our lives as a whole.

## Swearing

There’s something innocuous feeling in Apple’s refusals to acknowledge curse words. At first glance this seems rather obvious, it would be too easy for a kid talking about a duck, to send a message that says fuck. I am going to go out on a limb and say that a machine learning based autocorrect system will quickly learn that fuck is far more common than people talking about ducks. Which is perhaps why it is so ducking annoying that iOS doesn’t make cursing easy.

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For a while now I have been using a handy little shortcut which randomly selects an item from a text file. This allows me to create a really simple text file, with each ‘item’ on a new line, and have Shortcuts randomly select one and tell me which one. I’ve been using this on days when I want to do a workout at home, and have it select the order in which I do things. Or when I am raffling off something and need to select a random name. Building a text file on iOS is dead simple, and from there I just need to select which text file Shortcuts pulls and I get a nice little random item picker.

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It’s that nag that keeps you awake at night. The trigger which spins your morning from the enjoyment of a well rested night, to a deep sinking feeling. I don’t know how to make it go away, not for you, and not really even for myself. I do know when I am stressed, and I do have a few top tips for you to help delay the feeling of stress in the morning, and to keep it at bay through the night. To help focus during the day.

My advice is to use two tried and true methods:

1. Bury your head in the sand and;
2. Always get some small wins.

I’ve been working through most of these ideas since the beginning of this year, so allow me to share them with you now.

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November 15th started off like any other day, and then Tom Warren, a verified twitter user (I suspect that’s important to him, so I’ll note it), [tweeted](https://mobile.twitter.com/tomwarren/status/1063216386573504512):

> Nilay made this point on Vergecast, but the people who have replaced their laptops with an iPad are people who do fuck all work. The rest of us hard working people use a laptop, because we have real stuff to do other than send emails and fart around. Don’t @ me `¯\_(ツ)_/¯`

I respected his wishes not to “@“ him, and am instead posting some longer thoughts here. Before we dive into this, I do want to point out the best response to that [tweet from Steve Troughton-Smith](https://mobile.twitter.com/stroughtonsmith/status/1063220129931149314):

> Real hard-working people don’t use a computer at all 😛 You don’t know how easy you’ve got it

That’s a very kind way of telling both Warren and Nilay Patel to fuck off. A less kind way is to say that — as someone (me) who has worked manual labor in construction for years, has started two companies which were very small (2-3 employees) and as someone who has run a tech company — that Patel and Warren can fuck right off with that arrogant bullshit they spout everyday. How a website dedicated to technology can so loathe new technology is beyond comprehension.

It is, though, worth actually diving into this topic of “real” work versus “fuck all” work.

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On November 1st, I wrote about how Apple’s new Keyboard Folio doesn’t make a lot of sense for the money, and I made a small note at the end of that post:

> Fundamentally, typing on a slab of glass should be possible on the slab of glass.

Shortly after publishing, I cleaned off my desk, and put away all my keyboards. I’ve been using only the software keyboard on my 12.9” iPad Pro since then. Let’s see how that’s been going.

## First, Why ?

Ideally you don’t have to carry around or use a keyboard, right? Ideally the *device itself* is enough for everything you need to do. Which means you need to be able to input text without an accessory. So you either dictate everything or use the software keyboard. I started by testing the software keyboard, because I wanted to know where and how it fails.

## Speed and Accuracy

Going into this I knew it would work, because many before me have done this. Hell, there’s been entire novels written on smartphones, so surely a bigger keyboard on the 12.9” would be just fine. What I was surprised by was the accuracy and speed with which I could type. It’s not faster or better than other methods, but it’s a far cry from being the deal breaker I assume it would be — it has lasted me 19 days now.

For speed, I’ve found that I am fast enough, but not nearly as fast as I am on a hardware keyboard. That said, it’s only been two and a half weeks, and I am sure I will get faster. When I’m really not thinking about it, I can move quite quickly.

Accuracy is the big issue, or I assumed it would be. Finger placement is the hardest part of typing on the glass. You have to trust the system, you have to keep going even when you see an error, because there’s a really good chance the system will fix that error for you. All in all, I am not sure I am any less accurate than I am on the Smart Keyboard cover, it’s just different errors than before.

Which really brings me to the big part of typing on the software keyboard: confidence. You have to be confident in where your fingers are landing and with the system itself. If you slightly miss, that’s ok because the system will likely fix it for you. You also need to not look at your fingers and trust where they are and that they know what they are doing. Which is why I think this only works on the 12.9” model as the smaller iPad models don’t have a good enough layout for most people to be able to use them how they need to be used.

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A post I recently read about overbuying cars, wherein you come in with a budget of X per month and leave having bought a car of X+30% per month for about two years longer than you wanted too, had me thinking a lot about how this applies to everything we do in life. Because we want the best, we want the shiny, the new, the features. We want it all.

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For this week, let’s talk about running a VPN full time on your iPad, again, then we can dive into software keyboards for iPad users before wrapping up talking about the state of the iPad in light of the new iPad Pros. It’s going to be a busy one.

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I said I wanted a faster iPad Pro, same 12.9” screen size, with a smaller overall footprint. Face ID, *sure*, USB-C, *whatever*. We got all that, and honestly I am not sure I see a reason to buy these. Which seems absurd given that just a couple days ago I was writing how I was noticing my iPad Pro (12.9” which is version 1, not the 10.5”) was feeling a touch slow in areas.

Apple produced everything I was hoping for in an iPad Pro — except a kickstand, I mean what are they waiting for — and I feel completely ambivalent about upgrading. I’ve not ordered one, and might not for a few days, weeks, months, ever.

And if you already own an iPad Pro, then you probably don’t need to upgrade either.

Before we dive into all that, let’s talk about the new goods in general.

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Rumor has it, that tomorrow there will be new iPad Pros coming out, and that’s always the best tech day of the year. The basics of the rumors are Face ID, USB-C, and a more edge-to-edge display. I’m sure some of those are true…

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There’s a real problem occurring right now with the royal us not coping well with interconnectedness, and how fast and easy information can and does pour in. Some point to smart phones as the culprit, others to high speed internet, or rather the internet’s underpinnings itself. The issue is all of the above and us.

And this was never more evident than my recent internal debates about whether or not I should get an Apple Watch series 4 to try out — and no I won’t be getting one. Because the more you think about the Apple Watch, the more you realize that it exacerbates the problem — you have to choose: do you want to relax, or do you want to be more connected? If you want to relax, or have any hope in doing so, you need to get rid of your phone and Apple Watch as best as you can.

Apple watches are at their core, a way for your iPhone to reach out and tap you on the arm to bother you better, in hopes of solving a user *want* to use an iPhone less. Or put another way: people wanted to ditch their phones, so Apple Watch was made to allow people to ditch their phones without ditching the addiction. It’s like stopping smoking to only become addicted to nicotine patches or vapes. You really solved nothing, you just substituted one thing for another.

And, ok, let’s argue that people use the Apple Watch wrong and first and foremost it should be a device to promote good health. I call bullshit on this. It’s not, if it was, it’d be great and I would own one. But it’s not a health device firs and foremost, here’s why:

1. If the Apple Watch really wanted you to get out and be healthy, they would not advertise that you can go catch some waves on a surf board while also not missing that important conference call. “Get fit, be healthy, but don’t ditch your device — that’d be nuts.”
2. If Apple Watch wants to help you be more mindful and relaxed, then “breathe” is not the best avenue — having *no* notifications is. And, actually, that’s technically easier to accomplish than the Breathe complication, so that tells you the lengths being gone through. I got 95 notifications on my iPhone during Friday — and I have almost all notifications turned off. That would be 95 times the Apple Watch tapped my wrist — there’s nothing at all relaxing about that.
3. Standing up, as much as you think it does something, doesn’t do jack shit for extending your life. But congrats on hitting those rings and goals. What would be better: using your computer or device less, but yeah that really is not good for sales, right?
4. The rings, yeah sure they are probably accurate, but let’s not forget that your diet is far more important than your exercise — it’s just that we don’t like to accept that because it’s harder to change the way we eat, than it is to full those rings. I am glad they get people out and doing stuff, that’s good, but knowing how hard you’ve worked out is not in itself important. Actually, another issue here is that it does tend to make people skip workouts they would have otherwise done when they see they have almost already filled their ‘rings’ for the day.

That’s the thing about the Apple Watch: for everything it purports to do for the good of the person, all it does is seek to make them more addicted to the tech itself. And it’s not just me, and it’s not just Apple Watch, here’s [Matt Honan on the Google Pixel 3](https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/mathonan/google-pixel-3-review-android):

> I don’t recall exactly when my phone became such a festival of stress and psychological trauma, but here we are.

Replace phone with watch and it still fits. That’s certainly how I felt and how I feel every time I wear an Apple Watch. Luckily, I was able to quit, but it wasn’t easy. And don’t even mention Screen Time — all that does is calm down Wall Street, while giving us more in-actionable and meaningless data. If Apple really wanted Screen Time to mean something, they wouldn’t allow it to be so easily bypassed — but in doing that we might miss something and surely the world would end, or so I assume, I dare not test out that theory for fear I miss something myself.

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This is a shorter post this week, but I wanted to share a few thoughts about cloud infrastructures and the transformation with all of them.

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This week is all about Siri Shortcuts, and the new Shortcuts app. I don’t think people quite realize how powerful these new features are, and how easy they are to get to work on. One such shortcut made the news rounds as a shortcut to use when you are pulled over, it does a series of actions which culminate to letting someone know where you are and what is happening and silently recording the event. It’s neat (and sad it is needed), and really only scratching the surface of what is possible.

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Facebook recently saw themselves hacked, again, but that’s not what I am here to talk about today — because that’s going to be par for the course with any big tech company now. Instead, we need to talk about something else which seems like a ‘so what’ but is really much more nefarious than it first seems.

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During the summer, while I had iOS 12 betas on my devices, I never downloaded the beta of Shortcuts, Apple’s revamp of Workflow. I also rarely use Siri unless I am driving in general. But last week I was playing around with Shortcuts and with Siri settings for Shortcuts and found that I wanted to record some voice triggers.

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Picture for a moment the three leading tablets on a desk. On the left you have an iPad Pro with Smart Keyboard and a Pencil beside it, next you have a Surface Go, or Pro doesn’t matter, with a Type Cover and Pen, then at the right a Samsung Galaxy Tab S4 with the SPen and associated keyboard cover. They represent the state of the art of tablets made to replace laptops, or more generally “the future of computers”.

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Last week I chatted with Tim Bradshaw of the Financial Times about the iPad, and more specifically how I use it as my only device and a bit of prognosticating about why more don’t use it. The article, if you can’t read it, gives a good overview of where things are. Of course, reading it, I have many more thoughts I’d like to expand on, so here we are.

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