Recent Articles

A lot of people have been using iOS as a full time OS for far longer than I have, but this is new to me (mostly) and so I felt it worth noting some of the odd hang ups I ran into over the past few weeks. Obviously, these are not deal breakers for me, but I could see how some mix of them might be for other people.

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Fair warning: I am going to talk about CMS systems here and you likely should not read this, because there is nothing more detrimental to writing than playing with your CMS instead of actually writing. So don’t read this if you are prone to think there are better tools out there.

As the title suggests, this is another installment of: WordPress is better than your CMS.

No, really, it is.

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I’ll admit right off the bat to having no inkling as to which way this will ultimately fall, and I have also asked a few other iPad Pro users who gave me little more than a ¯\_(ツ)_/¯. The question at hand is: if the iPad Pro is staying in your life, is there room for other iPads and if so, which size? Most of the people I asked are iPhone 6 Plus users like I am, so we have a big phone and a big iPad — do we need a device between these two? It doesn’t even matter if the iPad Pro is your main computing device or not, it really only matters if the iPad Pro is something you plan on actively using a lot.

This is a question I have been struggling with a lot myself — I know the iPad Pro is going to be my main computer going forward, so would it make sense to get an upgraded iPad to be a companion to this? I currently have both an original iPad mini and an iPad Air, so I know what the general sizes feel like. And if you are wondering why I would want to upgrade either: once you go split-view there is no going back and neither of those devices support split view.

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The one accessory I was eagerly anticipating using was the new Smart Keyboard, and it was also the last of the accessories I received. Having said this, let’s look at it.

For the Smart Keyboard, Apple has taken the Smart Cover and added a keyboard on to the end of it, the keyboard can also fold away and create a noticeable bump in the cover — still it folds away in a relatively thin package. It requires no batteries, as it powers off the iPad itself using the new connector on the edge of the iPad Pro.

It is quite an excellent keyboard.

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When I wrote about the iPad Pro as a laptop replacement the other day, I talked about it in a very specific sense: propped up like a laptop screen with some sort of keyboard attached to it — as you would a typical laptop. This time around though I want to talk about using the device as just an iPad, which means no keyboards connected to it.

Looking at it this way gives us three different setups to talk through: flat on table/desk/lap, propped at an angle on a table/desk/lap, and held in your hands. For the sake of brevity I am just going to talk about these placements in the sense of a desk, but know that I mean any flat surface you sit or stand working at. And for the sake of further brevity you can assume the iPad Pro works the same in your lap, with much less comfort overall. So if say the iPad works great flat on a desk, it would just be OK in your lap like that.

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With great search engines and no shortage of expert bloggers out there, we have solved a lot of life’s little mysteries. You want to know about the tax code, there’s probably a couple dozen people on Reddit’s Explain it like I’m 5 threads who can explain it all to you. Or you can look it all up and read it yourself — why would you — but you could.

There are other little mysteries though, and I think they are better left as mysteries. Better left as mysteries because it is far more fun to speculate as to why they are the way they are, then it is too look up why and know the real answer. In this post, I shall explore some of those mysteries without looking up the real reason — because fun is fun, and people really need to learn to be ok with guessing.

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The other day, on Twitter, my pal Pat tweeted this at me:

@BenjaminBrooks Ultimately, isn’t the method you enjoy the most going to be the one that produced the best results?

This of course made me think: which method of note taking do I enjoy the most? Hand written notes, or typed notes. I’ll be honest, when faced with that question the only thing I could come up with was: UUuuuhhhhhhhhh.

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When Apple announced the Pencil alongside the iPad Pro, a lot of people saw it as the killer feature of the device. People wanted it more than anything else Apple announced that day. I wasn’t one of those people. That’s not because I didn’t think it was cool, but strictly because I thought the new iPad Pro, and its accompanying Smart Keyboard, was a far more interesting set of tools.

Still, I got the Pencil when they started shipping and have been using it a lot more than I had planned. Initially, when people would ask me how I liked the Pencil, I would tell them the same thing: “It’s really nice, but I am not sure I have much use for it.”

I still feel that way at times, but honestly it is a much better device than I thought it would be and I think it will become increasingly more useful.

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Technically he isn’t my cat, he’s my wife’s cat, but ask anyone (including the damn cat) and he is my cat. You see my wife had a cat when we met, this small, shy, skittish cat named Mojito. Overall, ‘Mo’ was a pretty good cat, but she had one fatal flaw: she liked to spit up.

I don’t mean puke, because most of the time it was just this gross clear liquid, and you see she would shoot this crap all over our place if we left for any substantial period of time. Out all day? Twelve gross as shit piles of clear liquid. It drove us nuts.

The only thing which helped was cat pheromones called Felaway. This stuff worked well, but was expensive and was only good for us being gone for half a day. Progress, but not enough. It was so decided that getting another cat, would solve this problem.

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I should clarify, this post is not about whether you can replace a laptop with an iPad Pro — at least not in that I am going to go through scenarios and talk about all that crap. That type of article is far too subjective to be worth your time, and I am guessing you could probably figure this out on your own. Instead, I want to talk about what it has been like for me to use my iPad Pro as a laptop, as a primary computer.

My typical setup for this was the iPad Pro on a small tripod type stand, with a Magic keyboard paired to it via Bluetooth. In short, this setup works far better than I thought it might, but still has a ways to go before it isn’t annoying at times.

Most of my daily activities center around being able to type, and this setup is beyond ideal for this, and my other large activities are Skype and GoToMeeting, both of which work perfectly well on iPad Pro. This leaves a bunch of smaller tasks, which are not deal breakers should they not work well with this setup.

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After my iOS content blocker extravaganza, many people wanted to know when and if I would be posting a similar analysis for Mac content blockers. (iOS developers can easily port their iOS content blockers to the Mac and have a nice little plugin.) I initially figured this was something I would tackle, but after playing with Mac content blockers I won’t be looking into these.

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Now that I have had some time to dive into the iPad Pro, and make it my primary machine, I wanted to look at the apps which really excel on the iPad Pro. The software, the apps more specifically, are what will really make or break the iPad Pro in the long run, as the hardware is all there and the accessories are all there as well. Whether the device succeeds or not is resting on the shoulders of the software for a change.

This isn’t just about new apps either, this is about any app out there which makes a better experience on the iPad Pro. This could be a stock app, or some new app you have never tried.

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When I started work at MartianCraft I decided that I would try to shake up some of the ways I worked. It felt like the right time. And since I knew there was going to be a great deal of things I would be learning, my note taking system seemed like the ideal candidate.

I threw out my entire structure for digital notes, grabbed a few Field Notes and started scribbling notes in them. After a month or so, I had decided the experiment was enough of a success to warrant moving to a better notebook. I looked around and decided on the Leuchtturm1917 journal as it looked nice, had solid reviews, and mostly it was on Prime.

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