Category Archives: Apple

WWDC 2016


It’s that time of the year when Apple nerds gather in a big herd in San Francisco for Apple’s WWDC (World Wide Developers Conference.) There is, of course, the other big event in the fall when Apple announces/releases the new iPhone and the new operating systems. But June is centered on app development and it’s where the coverings come off of the details of the new operating systems: watchOS, tvOS, iOS and now, the newly renamed macOS.

I’m not going to deep dive the various platform changes as plenty of others have done that, here’s the MacStories Overview and Walt Mossberg’s Unpacking. Rene Ritchie has a great overview of the whole week: WWDC 2016: Beyond the Keynote.

As usual, there were a great many expectations (and hopes) in the Apple and larger tech community. Some of them realistic, some of them not so much. This year there was much rending of clothing and gnashing of teeth about Siri and how far Apple has supposedly fallen behind Google and Amazon. The expectation being that Apple would bring forth major improvements to Siri, putting itself back on level ground with it’s competitors.

Of course Apple did announce improvements but as it often goes, the improvements are iterative. Siri will be opened up to the developers of apps in a few categories only. The intelligence of Siri will be improved but within the privacy goals previously set by Apple. They will rely on in-device processing as well as something called “Differential Privacy” which is very selective processing by Apple of your data but only in aggregate (with other users) and with injected random noise. The idea here is that they learn about the collective base of users but each individual user’s data remain’s private. Whether the results will be up to the expectations of users remains to be seen. Google collects far more data. Amazon is a bit more open and aggressive.

Along the lines of a more powerful Siri many hoped for the announcement of a new Siri-powered Apple device that would compete with Amazon’s Echo and the devices announced by Google. No such announcements were forthcoming. The closest Apple came was in announcing a new app called Home as well as the Siri improvements. For now the current lineup of Siri enabled devices will be Apple’s offering with the AppleTV and iPad (plugged in) serving as Home-kit hubs.

I’ve been a bit disappointed with the 4th gen AppleTV. I’d been looking forward to Siri searching my content but alas Siri doesn’t search Homesharing content nor has it been announced for the next version of tvOS. But the new remote app will be a welcome addition and no doubt the other improvements will be welcomed by many. I’ve found that the Plex app is far more useful than Apple’s Homesharing interface which seems clumsy by comparison.

I was a bit disappointed that there were not more iPad related improvements to iOS. It’s possible that there will be some improvements that were not highlighted in the opening presentation or in the week afterward. In time more of the hoped for changes will come. Of course Federico Viticci had some thoughts on this.

AppleMusic and News are both going to look a lot nicer. Photos is getting some great improvements and Messages was obviously a focus and is benefiting more than any other app. I use Messages a lot and am looking forward to enjoying the new features. Notes is getting collaboration which will come in handy for folks that need that feature. Split screen Safari might be handy.

macOS Sierra is getting some nice improvements. Most notably, Siri which will be able to handle local file searches, image searches on the web and much more. Some of those searches will be pinnable or saved for later use. Other notables: tabbed interface for many apps, ApplePay, Picture in Picture, iCloud Drive sync for your Documents and Desktop folders, Universal Clipboard, and Auto Unlock.

Katie Notopoulos writing for BuzzFeed
The End of the Apple Man

But the effervescent demo of Apple Music by the charismatic Bozoma Saint John — a black woman who looked and acted nothing like the typical Apple Men onstage before her and who in her opening remarks mentioned being a mother — felt like a breath of fresh air signaling that perhaps the winds are changing. There were other signals too. In the video segment cheering on developers using Apple’s Swift programming language, the video ended with a black woman joyfully expounding how awesome coding was — certainly not the stereotype of a coder, and not totally reflective of the crowd there watching the video. At another Apple event in March, another black female Apple executive, Lisa Jackson, took the stage to talk about Apple’s environmental efforts.

Breaking the Apple Man stereotype in the people who appear on stage as the Apple’s evangelists is symbolic. Having a black woman present on stage might just mean the company is more aware of the optics of its events.

I’ll end with one of the highlights of the keynote and that was Apple’s announcement of Swift Playground which is a part of their efforts to encourage coding:Everyone Can Code. Many were hoping for full-on app development on the iPad, this is not it but it is a great start. I expect many kids will get their start coding via Swift Playground and many adults too. Very exciting.

Apple and NASA collaborate on short film to celebrate Juno Mission: ‘Visions of Harmony’

As an avid amateur astronomer, NASA supporter and all around science nerd I was pretty happy to read today that Apple has partnered with NASA to produce a nine minute short film to celebrate the Juno spacecraft entering Jupiter’s orbit. The film is available on iTunes and Apple Music for free and is called “Visions of Harmony.” On a personal note, as is often true for many amateur astronomers, Jupiter was one of the first things I looked at with my own telescope when I was a 9th grader working on a science fair project. The view through that little telescope was breathtaking though strangely, it didn’t quite seem real and it was a moment I’ve never forgotten.
From the NASA website:

NASA announced a collaboration with Apple that will serve to enhance the agency’s efforts to inform and excite the public about dramatic missions of exploration like Juno. “Destination: Juno” is a synergy between two seemingly disparate worlds: popular music and interplanetary exploration. The works resulting from this collaboration showcase exploratory sounds from artists who have been inspired by Juno and other NASA missions, including Brad Paisley, Corinne Bailey Rae, GZA, Jim James featuring Lydia Tyrell, QUIÑ, Trent Reznor & Atticus Ross, Weezer and Zoé.

Apple has captured moments in this journey with a behind-the-scenes documentary spearheaded by the Juno mission’s principal investigator, Scott Bolton, and scored by Academy Award winners Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross. The content is available on various Apple platforms. Other Juno-related content, including educational opportunities with Bill Nye on and an “Interactive Guide to NASA’s Juno Mission,” will roll out over the course of a year and throughout the length of the Juno mission.

The Juno spacecraft launched on Aug. 5, 2011, from Cape Canaveral, Florida. JPL manages the Juno mission for the principal investigator, Scott Bolton, of Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio. Juno is part of NASA’s New Frontiers Program, which is managed at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate. Lockheed Martin Space Systems, Denver, built the spacecraft. The California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, California, manages JPL for NASA.

One thing I can say from personal experience as an amateur astronomer is that music does indeed go very well with our exploration of the Cosmos. When I go out to spend an evening at the telescope observing distant galaxies or planets in our solar system I always have a bluetooth speaker with which to play my “Stargazing” playlist. While the quiet sounds of nature are always a nice soundtrack it’s usually when I have music playing that I’m most likely to have those moments which seem most otherworldly. There’s nothing quite like looking through a telescope at Jupiter or something more distant such as galaxy that has been sending its combined starlight out into the universe for 12 million years. That’s the kind of visual experience that is wonderfully enhanced by music.

To go along with the short film, Apple has created a new featured section on Apple Music called “Destination: Jupiter” that highlights the short film as well as the music that appears in it. I’ve not yet listened but it includes tracks by Trent Reznor, Corinne Bailey Rae, and Quin. The film not only includes live music by the above artists but also an interview with Juno principal investigator Scott Bolton.

NASA missions into the solar system are always exciting. Years of planning followed by years in space and then months to years of data collection. Juno, launched in August 2011, will have been traveling just shy of five years when it enters  a polar orbit on July 4.

The spacecraft is to be placed in a polar orbit to study Jupiter’s composition, gravity field, magnetic field, and polar magnetosphere. Juno will also search for clues about how the planet formed, including whether it has a rocky core, the amount of water present within the deep atmosphere, mass distribution, and its deep winds, which can reach speeds of 618 kilometers per hour (384 mph).

According to Apple the goal of its partnership with NASA is to educate and inspire people, while also highlighting the link between exploring space and making music. From USA Today: “The goal is to make science and technology more accessible and relatable to everyone.” – Apple vice-president Robert Kondrk.
For those that might ask, what’s the connection between space exploration and creative expression? I would answer that there’s nothing we might do that requires the imagination and creativity like space exploration does. Science, in a general way, is often rooted in a creative process. Much of what Einstein accomplished had it’s origins in creative thought experiments in which he imagined different scenarios so that he might work through. And he isn’t the only one to have used such thought experiments! Spend some time browsing around the fantastic NASA website, have a look at the many ongoing missions and past missions and consider the beautiful dance of science and creativity that goes into the designing of our space telescopes, rovers, and orbiters. NASA often exhibits the best of humanity. Okay, now I’m gushing. This is what happens when I’m allowed at the keyboard unsupervised while on the topic of NASA.

Also, in case you missed it, one last bit of NASA news. Earlier this month, NASA released an application for iOS and the fourth-gen Apple TV. The app includes live streaming NASA TV, a real-time view of the Earth from the International Space Station, as well as on-demand access to over 10,000 NASA videos and more than 15,000 photos, either individually or as a slideshow. It’s a fantastic tool for exploring our solar system from the comfort of your couch. From your Apple TV search for NASA in the App Store. Or, from your iOS device get it from the iTunes App Store.

To view the new Apple Music/NASA short film, head to Apple Music.

Help Send iPads to Barefoot College in India

Fraser Speirs, who helped set up the world’s first whole-school 1:1 iPad program at the Cedars School of Excellence, has launched a campaign to buy and ship iPads to the Barefoot College in India.

The Barefoot College is an organization in India that works with women, offering educational and advocacy programs designed to improve village life in a variety ways. The base is the development of capacity to grow their economies and standards of living through training not only in the use of appropriate technology but with a goal of trainees becoming trainers. In other words, each one teach one. In addition to the development of technological skills areas such as women’s reproductive health, sustainability and general occupational skills are also addressed.

The “Barefoot Enriche Curriculum” is designed to

“Enriche offers comprehensive training in things like basic technological skills, women’s reproductive health, environmental stewardship and occupational skills.

The programme’s founders say it is digital, viral and co-created. These three aspects are the foundation of the programme’s unique impact and success.

  1. Digital: Technological tools are developed for specific use among semi-literate and illiterate learners from various regions of the country.
  2. Viral: Each woman trained becomes a trainer, actively participating in the ongoing knowledge transfer to others.
  3. Co-Created: Enriche is developed and delivered in partnerships with local social enterprises and NGOs.”

By donating to the campaign, you’ll be helping send 100 used iPads, chargers, cables, and battery packs to the Barefoot College. Fraser is looking to raise about $15,000 by the end of August to cover the cost of buying, testing, and shipping. The iPads will help with all matters of education, advocacy, training, communication, etc.

“The Barefoot College is a place where words like inclusion, social justice and equality are not just words. They are a way of life. We have been championing ideas of capacity building within the rural poor community through solutions like water, solar and livelihood development for our entire history.”
MEAGAN FALLONE, CEO BAREFOOT COLLEGE INTERNATIONAL

An iOS Home Screen Long Press Proposal 

Seems like a simple solution?

Just a modest proposal for replacing the current 3D Touch on Home screen app icons found on the newest iPhones: why not an enhanced long touch? The current problem is that 3D Touch only works on the newest iPhones. What about older devices and iPads? Why not remove 3D Touch from the Home screen altogether and replace it with a long touch? Currently the long touch is just mapped to one function: Managing apps. Seems a waste when that function could just be added in at the bottom of the menu. Am I missing something obvious?

Illustration Fun

Just a little something for my niece!

I should say that “illustration” is not something I generally do but it is something I’ve been trying out for fun and I intend to improve. I don’t know that it’s something I would be comfortable offering as a service anytime soon but it’s certainly something I’m enjoying.

Having a bit of fun…

Where the magic happens!

Just been having a bit of fun illustrating a few scenes. Here’s one of the Beardy Guy and his fantastical pup, Cosmo, hanging out on a recent summer day.

Apple’s Spaceship

Popular Science gets a tour of the new Apple Spaceship, Campus 2

Three miles from Apple’s Cupertino, California headquarters, the tech giant is building something as massive as its own global reach: Apple’s Campus 2. The Spaceship, as many have nicknamed it, is over one mile in circumference—that’s wider than the Pentagon. When it’s completed later this year it will house 13,000 employees— including design grandmaster Jony Ive, who helped sculpt the iPhone, and CEO Tim Cook, who helps keep profits in the “billions-with-a-B” territory.

Campus 2 will run entirely on clean energy, powered by renewable sources. But what’s really grabbed our attention are the thousands of panels of curved window panes—the largest pieces of structural glass ever made—that will encase Apple’s mothership. Equally cool are the 60,000 pounds of hollow concrete slabs that allow the building to “breathe,” bolstering its eco-friendly qualities. With so many futuristic features, we wanted to get a closer look. Here’s what we found.

THE NUMBERS

176: Acres the new Campus will occupy
1.23 million: Square footage of glass involved in the project
3,000: Approximate total number of glass panes used
7,000: Weight, in pounds, of the heaviest panes of vertical glass
4,300: Concrete slabs needed for the floor and ceiling
60,000: How many pounds the heaviest concrete slabs weigh
75: Percentage of renewable energy that campus itself will produce during peak daytime hours
16: Megawatts of power produced by rooftop solar panels
5 billion: Total cost, in dollars, this project is reported to approximately cost (Apple declined to comment on an official figure)

Impressive.

How I use Siri

According to Caitlin McGarry, a writer over at Macworld, Siri is seriously behind:

Google previewed its new voice assistant, the generically named Google Assistant, at its I/O developers conference on Wednesday, and while the assistant hasn’t actually launched yet, its features made Siri’s lack of functionality all the more obvious. Apple’s iOS assistant now lags so far behind not only Google, but Amazon’s Alexa, intelligent iOS apps like Hound, and new technology from Siri’s creators, that it’s unclear if Apple has any interest in catching up.

Siri usually reverts to a web search for questions it doesn’t know the answers to, and now I’ve come to expect that if I want anything more than a timer set or the weather forecast, I’ll have to look it up myself.

That’s silly. Linkbait. And here I am linking to it. I’ve not seen what Google previewed in a currently unavailable application but to jump to the conclusion that Siri is suddenly so far behind that Apple’s plans to keep it up-to-date are now in question. Seriously? Where do I wash this muck off.

And the suggestion that Siri is mostly just good for setting timers or getting the forcast only tells me that either Caitlin does not know how to use Siri or that she’s being intentionally dishonest.

I’ll agree that Siri could be better. Of course it could. That can be said about any of the other virtual assistant services currently available. No doubt Amazon has done a fantastic job with Alexa and has moved the bar. But to paint Siri as this useless, abandoned technology is just ridiculous.

As someone who actually uses Siri on a regular basis let me share just a small sampling of my requests. Yes, timers and alarms and the weather. And really, those are quite useful. But as an avid amateur astronomer I also routinely seek out quick facts. When I’m at the telescope I’m using my favorite astronomy app, Sky Safari, which has much of what I need. But there are times when I’m out for a walk and thinking about some aspect of astronomy. I have on occasion put together Keynote presentations for the local library and might be mulling over a few topics or possible content. For example: What is the largest moon of Jupiter? Siri comes back with an answer via Wolfram Alpha (Ganymede). Another: What is the distance to Pluto? Yup, again via Wolfram Alpha (32.41 astronomical units in case your curious). It gets better and better. Siri, when was the Mars Curiosity Rover launched into space? Yup, another answer from Wolfram Alpha:

img_5171.jpgIf I need the time that a planet is going to rise above the horizon because I’ve got friends coming over to spend some time at the telescope? Yup. I can get the time via Wolfram Alpha right in Siri’s search results. Now, to be sure, some questions do bring up web searches, usually with Wikipedia right at the top which is almost always what I want.

But I’m interested in more than astronomy. I have a keen interest in local flora and fauna. That flower over there that I think might be a gray headed coneflower? Or that bird that might be an indigo bunting? I can ask Siri for images and I have them presented right in the results.

Podcasts or music while I’m out for a walk? I can ask for a specific episode of a specific podcast or the most recent and it opens up nicely. I can have specific music played or a shuffle of everything.

What about local errands or day trips? If I’m interested in directions or the open hours of nearby businesses that usually works out. I’m in a small town in rural Missouri and with Yelp as the basis for these searches it can be hit and miss. If I ask “where is the nearest Trader Joes and is it open today?” I get the results with a map and Siri let’s me know the hours for today. I can tap the map for full directions. I’m not likely to drive that far but it’s possible I might drive into a closer town for Panera Bread. Again, I’m presented with the hours and a map which also indicates that they accept Apple Pay. If I ask about movies for that town I get a list of movies with nice movie art as well as times. If I click one I get more details, directions and an option to play the trailer. Maybe I decide to stay in and rent something on iTunes. A request brings up the information, artwork and option to rent or purchase. Maybe get some pizza? The phone number, map and hours all pop up.

I can do this all day long. Sports? I’m not into sports but I’ve played with it a bit just to see what Siri can produce. Excellent results. I grew up following baseball and that’s something I still follow a bit. If I’m curious about my favorite Cardinals player, Yadier Molina I can ask how he’s doing this year and I get a nice report:

img_5172.jpg

Recipes? Easy enough to find via a Siri web search. Of course, that goes for anything at all and I realize that while handy, initiating a web search is likely pretty low on the list of any voice assistant’s skills. I’m not going to suggest that Siri is perfect. If I ask her to make me lunch I get a simple no. If I ask her to water my garden, no again. But you see, those are obviously absurd requests of a virtual assistant. Actually, now that I think about it there might come a time when Siri could water my garden if and when HomeKit and the necessary components are made available but I don’t think that’s happened yet.

The takeaway here is that there is plenty that Siri can do and I suspect that Caitlin knows it. As a writer for Macworld I certainly hope she does. Anyone can activate Siri and ask “What can you do for me” and get a very helpful list that goes far beyond my examples. Sure, we all hope for more and no doubt more is coming. But for now I’ll happily go on using Siri in the ways that I know I can. I’ll even continue learning new ways to use “her” as I try new requests some of which will fail but many of which will helpfully provide information or complete a task I need help with. For that I’ll be grateful to Apple and it’s engineers.

Managing Websites with an iPad

Updating html with Editorial

Updating html with Editorial

One of the tasks I do fairly often that I expected would remain Mac-based is website management, specifically the updating of page content for clients. I’d tried it several times using several different apps starting with my first iPad. But it never seemed to work out. Yes, I could make it work but ultimately it was too many hoops, too much friction. I liked the idea of being able to make an emergency update should I ever be away from my Mac and only have the iPad with me. But that rarely happened. I’m not sure it ever happened.

So, every year or two I’ve made it a point to revisit this particular task and possible use for the iPad. When Panic released the first iteration of Coda for iOS a couple years ago, “Diet Coda” I was excited but it didn’t quite do the trick. Closer but still not there. In recent months as I’ve been leaning more on the iPad in daily use I figured it was time to revisit my search for a sensible workflow for the task. I’m a regular reader of Mac Stories and have always found Federico’s use of the iPad interesting. So I did a quick search there to see if this was something he addressed. He has but not in the way that I found helpful. He manages his one website and does it exclusively from his iPad. I need to manage many sites from at least two devices which means synced local files.

It took awhile but I’ve finally settled into something that works very well on the iPad. On the Mac most of my web work takes place using Panic’s excellent Coda App. I’d hoped to use the newest version of Coda for iOS and I have given it a fair shake but it’s not my tool of choice. Why? Well, I keep my source html files on Dropbox so that I can access them from any device for local editing. Coda for iOS does not offer an option for sourcing files from Dropbox. There is a pane for “local” files and server files. Bummer.

But the solution, for now, is another Panic app. Transmit for iOS. The app has a built in text editor which is far from powerful but offer’s the basic text editing I need to get the job done. Would be great if it included find and replace but it’s not a deal breaker. The big plus is that once I’ve edited a file on the server I can easily use the “Send to” function to save the file to Dropbox. Another function not in Coda.

If I prefer to start with my edits on the “local” side I can begin with Editorial which does allow for opening and saving to Dropbox. I can edit the “local” Dropbox copy and copy/paste the updated text into the file via Transmit. A little clumsy but it works pretty well. Unfortunately Editorial has not been updated to take advantage of iOS 9’s split screen mode. Not a huge deal as it’s fairly easy to just Command+Tab between Editorial/Transmit. Word is that there is a beta and a new version should be coming before too long. At that point I will split screen with Transmit. Open and edit my “local” Dropbox copy with Editorial which does have find and replace as well as syntax highlighting. An additional benefit with this that Editorial autosaves the file to Dropbox.

The two biggest downsides to the iPad-based workflow is that there is no site-wide search and replace. For that I’ll have to login via Coda on the Mac but that’s not something I do all that often. The second is that these workflows are technically only one html file at a time. In Editorial I can have all the site html files in the sidebar during editing. It’s easy enough to jump from one to another as needed like tabs. If there is a hang-up it would be clicking back and forth in Transmit to open a file on the server, then paste, then save, then close. But my usual updates are just two or three files per session so it’s not difficult to manage just not quite as easy as Coda on the Mac.

An alternative would be Textastic which is an excellent text editor on the iPad and has been updated to use split screen and has built in ftp. However, like Coda and Transmit it does not allow for using Dropbox as a “local” file store.

For images I’m using Pixelmator combined with a Workflow for changing the size, format and quality as needed. Just getting started with that and will see if it meets my expectations. So far it seems to.

Getting Caught Up

Nice View

The view from one of my many work areas.

Okay. Going to geek out for a moment. Been far too long since my last post. I’m not always the most consistent of bloggers. What can I say. Life happens. I’d like to say I’ll get more consistent but I can’t be certain. Aside from that, there are plenty of other excellent sites out there covering what I would likely cover in the way of Apple news. Well, regardless, I will continue to share occasional posts about recent projects and reflections.

So, yes, my last post was seven months ago and was just a bit of commentary on Apple’s releases of El Capitan, OS X 10.11, iOS 9 and the iPhone 6S. At the time I was expecting to do a series of projects which fell through. The 2014 rMBP that I purchased with those projects in mind went largely unused for the past 6 months. I did get some use out of it but not enough to continue keeping it. I only purchased it because circumstances at the time seemed to justify it. So, I’ll likely be selling it soon. I’ll continue on with the Mac Mini at my standing desk for much of my design work. The iPad Air 2 and iPhone 6 will continue to serve for anything else. Which brings me to mobile computing with iOS.

My first iOS device was the original iPad which I purchased as soon as it was released in 2010. I used it quite a lot, probably a 50/50 split with my previous laptop, a MacBook Air. My usage remained about the same when I upgraded to the iPad 3, the first with a retina screen. With the iPad Air 2 my usage patterns remained the same. Apple nerds have spent far too much time discussing whether the iPad is something that can be used for “real work”. Along the same lines, the question of whether the iPad should be considered a real “computer”. The answers are obvious. Yes and yes.

The first is, in part, context dependent. The iPad is great for some tasks not others. But this might also be said of a hammer or a bicycle or a boat or any other object. I don’t blend with a toaster and I don’t plant a tree with a screw driver. iOS devices, be they iPads or iPhones, are suited to particular tasks just as Macs are suited for others. I suppose all the discussion stems from the gradient of usage, the overlaps that are possible with the different platforms and form factors. The introduction of the large iPad Pro only made that more interesting.

What I’ve discovered in recent months is that my three primary computers all serve to compliment each other perfectly. It’s that simple. My Mac Mini is used for projects that require InDesign as well as web site management that requires site-wide search and replace which I do with Coda. It also serves as my iTunes/Plex server. Oh, and accounting via iBooks and occasional FileMaker work. My iPhone is for tracking my diet and steps, reading books, checking email, messaging, and a bit of web browsing. Oh, and the rare phone call. My iPad is for browsing the web via RSS or browser, reading books, messaging, phone calls, typing podcast transcripts, writing anything of length, and managing websites.

Some tasks/activities are best handled by two of these together. For example, astronomy sessions are a mix of iPhone and iPad. I use the iPad for recording data into FileMaker and some searching with Sky Safari Pro. I use the iPhone for much of the searching with Sky Safari Pro because it’s small and can be easily attached to the telescope. Much of my graphic design begins with Pages or Graphic (formerly called iDraw) or Pixelmator. In some cases I can complete the task completely on the iPad in other situations I transfer to the Mac to finish. An example would be the logo for Beardy Guy Creative. I did most of that using Graphic on the iPad then exported and finished with Illustrator because I’ve got many more fonts installed on the Mac.

At this point my preferred form factor is probably the iPad. It’s the device I choose to use most often as it strikes a nice balance of portability, flexibility and power. With iOS9 and multi-tasking via split screens, coupled with the extensions released with iOS 8, I find that the iPad is often up to the tasks I ask of it. That I can use it in a stand with an external keyboard or as a tablet is fantastic. The screen as computer form make the iPad the easiest to rearrange into a delightful variety of working arrangements. Of course simplest is holding it in my hands on a couch or chair but when used with a keyboard there is great benefit to being able to put it up high or off to the side or in any kind of position I need to be comfortable. Or, at a desk/table/shelf in a stand of course if I want or need such an arrangement.

One last point concerns the importance of adoption of new features of iOS. Particularly split screen and extensions.

I’m not sure why but I initially didn’t use split screen. I tried it a few times and figured it would be handy but I never made it a habit. In recent months as I began looking for a frictionless podcast transcription workflow I went from an iPhone/MBP/Mac Mini set-up to an all iPad set-up that relied on having Pages and the Apple Podcast app, each in split view and that sealed the deal. After using that for the past 6 weeks and NOW it clicks. Split screen is, without a doubt, the best part of the iOS 9 update for the iPad. Now that it’s become the basis of my transcript process it is finding it’s way into daily use for all sorts of tasks.

Extensions are something I’d dabbled in and put to some use. Initial discovery is so obvious and adds a lot of flexibility to the iOS workflow. And yet, there’s just a bit of complexity and I suspect I’m not not the only one who has taken some time to really work extensions into daily workflows. There’s a depth to the flexibility that is not initially obvious. The more I use them the more natural they seem and it contributes to a sense that the friction of iOS is slowly falling away.