Top Posts
At three thousand words, this is a doozy about keyboards, iPads, and navigation apps. Also: say fewer words.
This week: I go deep on this idea of contextual menus for iPad multi-tasking and describe why it is beyond stupid; let’s go to mechanical keyboard school, to help you out in your office or my office; the stress of different navigation apps; and a life pro tip your lawyer will love.
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Wherein I explain why I think you should work in an office if you want to do your best work. Also, planes, how do they work?
This week: my thoughts on remote work and offices; chicken nuggets; bedding scams; flashlights; and how do airplanes work.
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A small little beast of a knife.
I love carrying Benchmade’s Proper series of knives, and I think they are among the best knives you can daily carry, but there are times when you want something smaller. Something lighter, just to have, just in case. But you don’t want that something to be crap.
Some behind the scenes on recent design changes to the site, management advice stuff, and a smattering of other things.
This week: my advice for managing when pissed; paying for gas got better; watch statements; kudos to News+; notification hell; my new pocket organizer; site design updates, and how I split the work between Mac and iPad; and lastly a note on Apple Watch face design.
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I dive into specifics about what the iPad really needs to propel it even further forward.
Yesterday, [I posted a response](https://brooksreview.net/2020/02/ipad-turns-10-people-lose-their-damn-mind/) to many of the complaints I have seen about the iPad. Today, I write about the things I see missing from the iPad and touch on how I am using it full time these days. Including what exactly I think we need on the software front. Read on…
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I start with how great the iPad is, touch on the media sucking, and end with an explanation of a new virus called ‘Mac Brains’.
I was going to post this as my member post for the week, but then I had an entirely different take for that. Instead, as most of you know, the iPad hit its ten year mark last week. Good for it, best computer ever made by a laughable margin. It seems though that many people are still split, and not of that same mindset. The word “disappointment” seems to be the best summarization of these elite tech bloggers.
Let’s get to it.
Find out what it’s the epitome of practicality, while I also talk about a bag that is not a backpack, or made by GORUCK.
This week: what I carry in my briefcase and brief reasons why; phones and looking at them always; living on Swiss time with watches; 5G and remote work; VPNs.
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This is the most perfect watch I have ever found, and you really need one.
I know when this started — it started with my grandfather passing away. Shortly after his passing my grandmother handed me his watch, and told me she wanted me to have it. A Rolex Datejust, not particularly old having a 2007 model year, but it was the only watch I had ever seen my grandfather wear (something my dad confirmed). From the day my grandfather got that watch, and onward, it was always on his wrist. And for the next year and a half I basically never took it off either.
But that watch is not the style I would pick, and truth be told at the time I really didn’t know what my style was or is. So I started trying to find a watch, because that Rolex was what caused me to ditch the Apple Watch and never look back. I started with a classic Steinhart and have been on a rampage ever since then.
That thing where I manage to talk about bags, pens, and my toilet paper and cat litter supply all in one article.
This week: paper and pen, keyboards stress me out, someone thinks Apple is evil, my toilet paper supply, overrated work perks, toilet seats, and then we dive into the topic of bags.
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What the heck is an app that is user hostile.
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.
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I got a new bag, and Seattle is super cold and dark so that was something.
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.
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Let’s just be honest about the fact that we are addicted to escape, and phones offer a convenient way of escaping.
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.
What if Apple allowed pen designers to design the Pencil?
Short one this week: a poll, a pen thought, and Shortcut Automation fails me.
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A short journal for this week.
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.
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No, really, someone broke a GORUCK bag by using it normally.
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.
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I found a question that even the internet doesn’t have an answer to.
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.
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Here’s how to buy watches.
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…
That thing where the Twitter preview is going to be a very confusing picture of my iPad Pro.
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.*
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The how and why of switching to iPad full time.
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.
Gotta make that money.
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.
So, if you are wondering what may be good buys, wonder no more.