I’ve been using the iPad Air 2 for a few days now, and I’ve got some thoughts. I’m coming from using both the original iPad Air (still available), and the iPad formerly known as iPad mini with retina display, now just plain iPad mini 2.
To me, iPad Air 2 is the perfect iPad. That’s because I create as much as I consume on my (primary) iPad. I picked up the iPad mini with retina display last year to question this, because the iPad Air felt unnecessarily big when reading. Granted, the iPad mini form factor is lovely, superior even, for reading, and I do that quite a lot. But I write a lot too, and edit texts, and although I often rely on external keyboards, there’s still a difference thanks to the screen size.
But I digress. This piece is about the iPad Air 2. It’s also about how the device is reviewed, sort of, without turning into too much of a meta review.
I love stuff like this. An iPad (or other device with flash based storage) full of apps weighs more than an iPad fresh out of the box.
The extra weight comes from flash storage storing more data in memory. The transistors in flash memory distinguish between a 1 and a 0 by trapping electrons.
Det är alltid kul att se hur bortgjord man blir efter en förutsägelse. Jag postade mina tankar inför Apples oktoberevent, vilket gick av stapeln igår kväll, och det blev väl… Ja, hur blev det egentligen?
Ny iMac blev det, vilket jag trodde, men inte i flera olika färger dessvärre.
Det blev ingen bump av någon MacBook-modell, inte helt oväntat men jag trodde ändå det skulle bli något litet i samband med eventet. Förvisso inte för sent än, men Intel verkar vara ganska långt borta med sina nya processorer, och såväl Air som Pro har fått uppdateringar hyfsat nyligen.
På tal om det, ingen MacBook Air med retina-skärm, och ingen tolvtums-Air, som jag trodde.
Mac mini fick en bump, med smärre förändringar i portarna, vilket jag förutspådde.
Mac Pro nämndes inte alls. Jag trodde på en mindre bump här, inte för att det finns några nya processorer att stoppa in, men den börjar bli lite gammal.
Inga Thunderbolt-skärmar, som jag trodde.
Apple släppte OS X Yosemite, som väntat och förutspått.
Inga nya iPod touch-modeller, som jag trodde.
Apple pratade inte om HomeKit, vilket jag trodde. Däremot hade jag rätt i att det inte blev någon ball App Store-version av Apple TV. Tyvärr.
Nya iPad Air, kallad iPad Air 2, är tunnare och bättre, med Touch ID, som väntat.
Nya iPad mini heter iPad mini 3 och är en mindre uppdatering än jag trodde. Den fick Touch ID, och inte så mycket mer än det.
Prissänkningen på iPad-modellerna var förvånande.
Slutligen, ingen ny stor iPad-modell, som jag trodde.
There’ll be an Apple event on October 16, and it’ll be livestreamed for all to see. The previous event, announcing the iPhone 6 models and showing off the Apple Watch, was a major fuckup for most viewers, so Apple’ll want to get this one right.
The tagline, “It’s been way too long”, hints at a new iMac, I think. The fact that Apple’s using the rainbow colors makes me think there’ll be color variations of the new iMac yet again. All speculation of course. I’d also expect a Mac mini, but I don’t think there’ll be anything particularly interesting in terms of design there, just a bump and possibly some minor tweaks.
The iOS 8 adoption rate is lagging behind iOS 7. From 9to5mac:
iOS 8 gained only 1 point from 46% to 47% since September 21st which should have well exceeded 1% gain by the millions of new iPhone 6/Plus shipments alone – even if not one person had updated their iPhone 5/s/c. Even more confusing is that the “Earlier” category of iOS 6 and before devices actually grew in percentage from 5% to 6% over the previous two week period.
I’m not sure if this is such a big deal just yet. There are a lot of 16 GB phones out there, and they tend to be pretty jampacked with apps, photos, and movies. That makes the iOS 8 update tough to install, since it’s requiring some 6 GB, at least in some cases. Still, if developer feels they can’t rely on iOS 8 growth similar to that of previous versions, then they won’t dare to rely on iOS 8 features exclusively. That’d be a shame, because iOS 8 is an under the hood release and it’s in all our best interest to see it widespread.
Rumor has it that there’ll be a gold iPad in October, much like there are gold iPhone models. I’ve always thought it makes sense to use similar colors and types of casing across the mobile product line for Apple, and the only reason to omit gold from the iPad product line is if it looks bad on a larger device. Given that the iPhone 6 Plus is both huge and available in gold, I can’t see that as a reason not to have a gold iPad model anymore.
Screens are interesting. I’ve got a lot of screens that I interact with. It’s obviously the actual device behind the screen that makes a difference, but I’s still fascinated by screens.
I’ve got a HDTV (several, in fact). I watch and play stuff on it, but other than that it’s not much of an interaction.
There’s the retina MacBook Pro too. This screen is gorgeous, a truly impressive piece of technology right there. Having switched to retina iOS devices a long time ago, I now have a hard time using an operating system on a non-retina screen, or equivalent. I love the retina MacBook Pro screen, and I can’t wait to see it on other devices.
I’ve got a full day ahead of me today, with errands and events lined up across town. There’ll no doubt be downtime, so I’ll bring my day on the town kit. It consists of small and light gear, packed in my excellent Axial Mini Messenger bag from Modern Industry. I can get a lot done with these tools.
I used to have a pocket knife and a lighter in my kit, but I forgot about them at customs once and it was somewhat stressful, so now I don’t bother with that anymore.
What cannot be denied is that the first Macintosh changed my life completely. It made me want to write, I couldn’t wait to get to it every morning. If you compare computers to offices, the Mac was the equivalent of the most beautifully designed colourful space, with jazzy carpets on shiny oak floors, a pool table, wooden beams, a cappuccino machine, posters and great music playing. The rest of the world trudged into Microsoft’s operating system: a grey, soulless partitioned office, with nylon carpets, flickering fluorescent lamps and a faintly damp smell.
Whatever tool you choose, the one that you’re happy with is the one that’ll let you perform best. I Stephen Fry’s case, back in the day, the Macintosh was empowering him, making him want to write. Today lots of writers dream of MacBook Airs because it just seems like a sexier way to churn out words than the black fat plastic Windows laptops they’re stuck with. It’s nothing special really, we all want better tools.
There’s a lot of talk about how the iPad is almost the PC replacement that we all seem to crave, but not quite there yet. Famous tech writer MG Siegler broached the subject recently, stating that although he would like to not buy any more computers, he didn’t think the iPad (his primary tablet of choice as far as I can tell) was ready yet. In fact, he thinks the iPad’s years away from replacing the computer for all tasks, obviously painting i very broad strokes.
Promo image of the iPad Air
In some cases he’s right. I don’t see myself developing high end websites on my iPad anytime soon, although it is theoretically possible already. Siegler’s example, what a nuisance it is to publish (primarily) text content online using the iPad, compared to using the web browser, is a moot one. The comparison with the web browser workflow is also moot, because the tablet offers a different view altogether.
There are those who dream about not having to carry around a smartphone. That’s obviously easy enough, just get a feature phone, or dumbphone if you will, and use it. Thing is, these people don’t want to give up the functionality of a smartphone. For that they have the tablet instead, a device that in many ways mirrors that of a smartphone. “Why should I have to carry both?” they tend to complain.
Why indeed.
The Nexus 7 and a dumbphone picked up in France while snowboarding
The idea is this. By replacing the smartphone with a dumbphone, you cancel out all worries about battery life (any dumbphone worth its name can work for days, weeks even, without charge) and the fact that you’re carrying an expensive piece of glass-encased machinery that could easily be lost. Dumbphones are cheap and accessible, and they do one thing well (being phones), thus they’re superior at their prime function, or so the reasoning goes.
It should come as no surprise that I’m a big fan of the iPad. There are so many reasons for this, but the most obvious one is that it’s a unitasking device. Yes, it multitasks, much like a bunch of other tablets and smartphones do, but although you have a fairly large screen at your disposal, most apps let you do just one (1) thing at a time.
This fellow is definitely multitasking. Photo by erkuthanci (CC)
Compared to the 27″ Thunderbolt Display I hook up my retina MacBook Pro to every day at the Odd Alice office, that might not sound so great. The 27″ screen gives so much screen real estate it’s almost silly, I can stack windows all over the place, and tend to do so. There’s the Mail app, Reminders, HipChat, Tweetbot, Skype, Simplenote and/or Notes, and more often than not a few Finder windows on top of that, and it’s still just the first screen of four…
Sometimes it’s great to be able to monitor everything, but it’s not the way to stay productive. I tend to produce more code when I’m sitting by my 13″ MacBook Pro, without the Thunderbolt Display. That’s because I have my relevant apps in fullscreen, something I’ve written about previously.
The iPad offers me the same unitasking experience. I can jump between apps easily enough, but I’m not tempted to open Mail or Tweetbot when I’m writing, because they’re not there, at the edge of my vision, begging for attention, as they would be on my 27″ screen. I just see the app I’m working in (this is written in Simplenote on my iPad mini, by the way), and the only thing that can possibly disturb me are notifications, so I tend to limit those severly. It’s the same as running fullscreen apps on the Mac, which I do regularly on the MacBook Pro, but never when connected to a 27″ screen because it looks like shit.
Unitasking is about doing one thing at a time. Finish what you’re doing, which could be a part of a task or the whole thing itself, and then you can go procrastinate on Twitter.
Compare that to taking a sneak peak at whatever’s your procrastination poision while working, and you’ll soon realize that’s not the perfect work environment.
This is why I love the iPad as a writing tool (which sparked me to write The Writer’s iPad in the first place), and this is why I think fullscreen apps are awesome.
Now if you’d excuse me, my Twitter feed needs my attention. So, you know, THE END and all.
The modern smartphone is a pocket computer. Let’s just get that out of the way. For some reason, the whole Post-PC thing have been entirely focused on tablets, when all smart mobile devices should be implied and considered.
Here’s an example: A relative of mine just bought an iPhone 4S, and a 11″ MacBook Air. She’s happy with both, but wonder what she need the computer for, really? What she should get is an iPad, at least when the apps and web services (banks and government mostly) support it all the way. They might already. Funny thing is, to her the iPhone 4S is almost a valid replacement to a computer. Next year, the iPad will be that replacement, because the parts of the infrastructure that hasn’t caught up with the times yet will have by then.
Think about that for a second. An older person, not an Apple fanboy or a techsavvy cord-cutter, thinks that a smartphone is a valid computer replacement. That’s very much Post-PC. (more…)
There’s been rumors about a larger iPad for quite some time. I have no doubt that Apple have larger iPad prototypes than the 9.7″ full-sized iPad we can buy today. They have prototypes smaller than the iPad mini too. This is what product companies do, they create products, and the ones that they actually launch are ideally just a small part of all the ideas that have passed through R&D.
With that in mind, let’s speculate a bit, dream even, about an iPad Pro, much like the e-ink typewriter I’ve written about previously.
The iOS operating system isn’t just for content consumptions anymore, and hasn’t been for a long time. The case for the iPad Pro has gotten a lot stronger this year though, because Apple are talking about it, in strong terms (and not just this). People are doing this, people are doing that with their iPads. Creating music, writing, drawing and illustrating, doing mockups and design, and so on. Nothing new there, iPad users have been creating things using their devices since launch day. It’s just gotten a lot easier, and a lot more accessible thanks to better apps, better accessories, and better iPads too. Personally, I often rely solely on the iPad in my work, it’s a great tool.
It should come as no surprise that I write on my iPad. This is the setup I’ve been enjoying most of the time this summer, in my summer home.
The bookshelf features a desktop that you can pull out, fitted to a regular dining room chair, which is what I’ve been using too. I put the iPad mini on the first shelf to get a better angle. My keyboard of choice have been the Logitech Tablet Keyboard, covered previously. I’m not sure it’ll be what I use when I leave my summer home, but I decided to give it a fair shot and thus I left my trusty Apple bluetooth keyboard and its Origami casing at home. Just as well, as we picked up this combined bookshelf and cupboard this summer, and it would’ve worked less than great here. I think it’s good to be able to detach the keyboard from the stand, most of the time, and obviously that’s the case here.
