Tag Archives: Productivity

iPad Journal: Setting up a new website

I keep forgetting that the iPad is only meant for watching movies and reading websites! While I did use the Mac today to do a bit of revision on an annual report with InDesign most of my time was spent on the iPad:

  1. Set-up a new website for Revival Trade and Coffee Company. This entailed purchasing domain, configuring account, setting up files on server, creating and editing raw code on html and CSS files using Coda. Image optimization via Workflow. Various file transfers to and from local Mac with Transmit.
  2. Used Transmit to retrieve a pdf from a server then marked it up for review by a client.
  3. Updated a website with new pdf content which was converted to jpg and web optimized.
  4. Converted another pdf to web optimized jpg for client use on social media.

iPad Journal: Workflow improvements!

A new and very helpful feature of Workflow: Convert PDF to Image

A new and very helpful feature of Workflow: Convert PDF to Image

Every Apple nerd knows by now that Apple purchased Workflow a few days ago. The app was updated and within hours an image was all over Twitter. While most people were jumping to the conclusion that Apple was up to no good I was trying to read what was under the bottom red line of the bottom box: "Added support for converting PDFs to images". Here's the image:

I'm not a power user of Workflow but there are a couple of things I'm doing with it. Most important for me is being able to resize an image for sharing on the web and then sending it via email or saving it do DropBox and my iPad file store for my Coda website projects. I wrote a few months ago about creating a nifty Workflow that does all of this and no doubt it saves me time.

Often times though I'm starting with Pages documents or PDF files using the Share Sheet to send to the Graphic app as a go between from PDF to my Workflow for images. Not a big deal but it is an extra step and a couple of extra touches to share from Graphic as an image to my Workflow. But now? Well, now I can send a pdf from an email straight to Workflow. I touch the screen a couple times to set the size and the save location. Done. What was already easy is even easier now. It took me a whopping two minutes to open Workflow and create the new workflow to convert a pdf to image with an option to crop. Thanks to recent additions to Workflow I can then just call up my "Resize and act on image" which is a workflow that calls up other workflows to continue the process offering to work from a file or clipboard then, resizing and then presenting options to email or send via Transmit and/or DropBox.

Lately I've been doing some volunteer work for our local rural library which has entailed a series of posters which I design in Pages and then send out as pdfs for printing and as images for the web. Here again, I can skip the step of sending the pdf to Graphic and just go straight to Workflow.

I don't know what Workflow does to convert from pdf to jpg or what it's doing in the resizing process but I can say that I end up with an image that is on par in quality and file size to what I would get with Photoshop via Save to web. The difference is that with iPad and Workflow I simply tap to guide the process. There is practically no time involved, very little mental effort.

By comparison, on the Mac I'm jumping from Apple Mail to Photoshop to Finder to Transmit or Coda. It's not difficult but it does require more mental effort and more clicking. It's not a huge difference but there is more friction on the Mac largely because the Finder and multiple apps and thus more windows are more complicated to navigate. In short, the "power user" features of the Mac are also what can get in the way.

I suspect that most people that are Mac-based would tell you that it would be easier to do this on a Mac, that using an iPad requires hoops and extra work, extra effort. I've written about this before, I think it's simply a matter of taking the time to become comfortable and familiar with iOS something most long-time Mac users never do.

But wait, am I cheating? I'm comparing one process which is automated in iPad to one which is manual on the Mac. Why not write a script on the Mac? I tried Automator back in the day. It never stuck. Maybe I didn't try hard enough. Maybe this is all very easy to do via Automator? No doubt if I worked through the process manually using the Share Sheet from Mail or Pages to send files to Graphic to then send to Transmit it would be a more comparable process and number of clicks and mental friction. Maybe. But I can say that because I've gotten comfortable with the iOS way of doing things I find the Share Sheet process incredibly easy and one which feels easier than the Mac.

I don't know what the future holds for Workflow but I do know that even if I never use it for anything but this one series of tasks it will have been worth it for me. Now that I have made good use of this one Workflow I'll be paying more attention to other possibilities based on the tasks I need to do.

iPad Journal: Weekly Links

Lots of interesting iPad related news this week. Well, actually, two very notable things.

  1. Apple purchased the Workflow app and the 3 developers of the app will be joining Apple. The app itself will (for now) remain in the App Store but is now free.
  2. Apple released new iPads. Not the updated iPads Pro everyone was expecting. Nope. Even better. They did something no one was expecting: they released a new budget priced iPad simply called iPad.

The news on the Workflow first came via Matthew Panzarino:

Apple has acquired Workflow, a powerful automation tool for iPad and iPhone

Of course, Federico had something to say about it (along with every other Apple nerd I follow on Twitter):

At this stage, it’s not clear what Apple’s plans for Workflow in the long term might be. I have a few theories, but this isn’t the time to speculate. I’ll say this, though: Workflow has been the driving force behind my decision to embrace the iPad as my primary computer. Workflow is a shining example of the power of automation combined with user creativity and its underlying mission has always been clear: to allow anyone to improve how iOS can get things done for them in a better, faster, more flexible way. Workflow is the modern bicycle for the mind. There’s nothing else like it.

Ben Brooks has a few interesting points regarding Wednesday’s acquisition: Apple’s New Workflow.

Like many, Ben speculates about the different ways Apple could go with the app. It’s an unknown at this point and for many like Federico who have made the iPad a primary device the app has become central to their working day. I don’t use the app much but would like to use it more. I have a couple of Workflows that I do use on a semi regular basis and in those cases I really appreciate the app. I’d like to use it more and I can see the potential. Time will tell.

Regarding that second bit of news, a new, cheaper iPad to take the place of the Air 2 in the line-up. I love that the rumors had it all wrong. Not that I doubt that eventually we’ll see updates to the Pro line. In fact, I’m really looking forward to that as I’m planning to add a 12.9″ Pro to my device roster. We’re too far into the cycle to purchase the current 12.9 so I’m waiting. But here’s the thing, I’m not in a hurry. Yes, I’m excited and will buy the first day they are available. But really, this iPad Air 2 is fantastic and is plenty fast for my daily work. I’m looking forward to a bigger screen for multi-tasking. That’s my main driver. But, back to the point of the new iPad. I think it’s fantastic.

I like the new, easier to understand, cleaner naming: iPad Mini, iPad, iPad Pro. And that lower price is an excellent move. It will entice people like my parents who have been holding onto their iPad 4. Just a week ago my mom was here on a visit and pointed out that she was out of storage and asked what she could do. I didn’t realize but her iPad 4 only has 16GB of storage. If it weren’t for that she could go on for another couple of years. She has no complaints about the performance. But now she can no longer save images and videos of her grandkids. Same goes for my dad. I told them last week they could get refurb iPad Air 2s or new ones but that they might want to wait a week. They waited and now they can get the new iPad, with a faster processor, for less. It’s a great upgrade for them. No doubt these iPads will be great for many who are still clinging to older iPads as well as for schools. Jason Snell, waiting for Macworld: Lower the price, expand the market:

But this isn’t a product Apple made to excite people on features. It’s made to compete on price, and Apple competed on price by building a new iPad on the base of the iPad Air, with its cheaper screen, cameras, and other components.

Recently there’s been a lot of talk about how Apple has stood by as Chromebooks have become incredibly successful in the education market. It’s hard not to see the new iPad as Apple’s direct reaction to those challenges. At $329 (actually less than that, due to education discounts), the iPad is at least in the ballpark with Chromebooks, especially nicer touchscreen models.

Over at ASYMCO, Horace has a great post on iPad Opitcs. It’s not about the cameras in the iPad, it’s about the visuals of graphs that seem to depict an iPad in decline which has, of course, been a topic of concern the past couple of years. He argues, as many have, that use of the iPad is not in decline at all but that purchasing reflects a durable product with reported high customer satisfaction and longer replacement cycles:

Taking into account that the iPad has a large, stable, engaged and loyal user base that continues to expand and find new uses the optically bad sales data needs an explanation. The simplest explanation is probably the best: iPads remain in use far longer than phones, and perhaps even longer than some computers.

Anecdotally we can see evidence for this. Few iPads are replaced every two years the way phones are. They are not tied to service contracts or subsidized. They are also less likely to be damaged during usage as phones are dropped and banged-up. iPads are more stationary or carried in protected containers. Phones are in pockets, iPads are in bags.

So iPads are longer-lived products and it’s perfectly reasonable that people who have them keep using them and more people are joining them but slowly. Note also that the decline in sales seems to be flattening out and perhaps might show stabilization.

I completely agree as I see this very thing happening in my own family as evidenced by parents using iPad 4s with 16GB of storage!

Unrelated to new iPads or Workflow, Federico continued his excellent IPad Diaries series this week with: Working with Zip Archives. It’s a very useful post if you’re someone that uses zip files. I don’t very often and when I do it’s usually at the end of an InDesign project when I’m at my Mac preparing to deliver a folder of files so it’s something I take care of via Mac. But it’s nice to know that if the need ever arises I can open a zip archive.

iPad Journal: Writing more with iPad

It was around this time last year that I began my shift toward an iPad centered and preferred workflow. I'd taken on a new gig transcribing podcasts and spent much of March, April and May fine tuning that workflow. It began with a Mac and iPhone using Pages and the Apple Podcast app. After a few weeks I realized I could work faster with just an iPad in split screen mode with Pages and Podcasts. Over the course of around 110 days I churned out 29 transcripts for a podcast that averages about 45 minutes. Of course transcribing is not writing but I was really enjoying the time with an iPad and bluetooth keyboard. Two things happened as a result.

First, I was finally using and understanding the benefit of the split screen feature. Second, I'd started using more keyboard shortcuts. I'd always used the most obvious shortcuts on the Mac: Copy, Paste, Save, Find, and a few others. What I'd not used, surprisingly, were the shortcuts for navigating around a page of text and along with that the selection of text via keyboard. The combination of iPad and external keyboard lends itself to this because there's no trackpad or mouse next to my keyboard. While I wouldn't say that my arms tire when reaching up to the iPad, but it is simply faster to use the keyboard for selecting text. It would be faster than a trackpad on a laptop too but because the trackpad was easy enough I never bothered to learn. Using the option or command keys with the arrow keys (along with shift for selecting) are great time savers. If you're not using the keyboard to navigate text in a document do yourself a favor and give it a try.

In early May as I was working through the transcripts I realized I'd not posted on this blog in seven months. So on May 15 I wrote a short post and set a goal of more frequent posting. Up to that point I'd only posted 22 times in the roughly two years1 that the blog had existed. Not great. In the 10 months since that May 15 post? 55 posts not including this one. That's a nice increase. I also still write semi-regularly on my other blog, Beardy Star Stuff. I've posted there 39 times in the past 14 months. That's a blog I've had going in one form or another since April 2003 with a total of 796 posts. Wowza. That's just shy of 57 posts per year on that blog. That's not too shabby. As I recall I'd actually been keeping a blog starting in 2001 but I forget the name of the system I used2 and I didn't bring those posts with me when I transferred my blog to TypePad.

So, that's 14+ years of blogging most of which was done using Mac laptops from my first iBook to the PowerBook to the MacBook Pro to MacBook Air, using web interfaces or apps such as MarsEdit. Good times.

Now I find myself using the iPad and Ulysses and this feels like the best workflow I've ever had. While the Mac in conjunction with an app or web-based environment always worked well enough I don't think I've ever enjoyed the process as much as I do now. But I have to say just how important Ulysses is in this equation. I'd previously tried several apps for blogging on the iPad and was never satisfied. I'd been hosting on WordPress and Blogger and there were a couple apps that could publish to both, the best of those was Byword but it seemed a bit flakey and was too minimal. The web interface for Blogger was terrible on the iPad but the WordPress app was okay and even the WordPress web interface was tolerable so I moved Beardy Star Stuff from Blogger to WordPress. Having both of my blogs on one platform was much better and for a while I made do with the web interface and WordPress app. It was better. By this time my writing on the Mac had dropped to near zero and I was using it only for graphic design.

It was around this time that many folks were praising the recent release of Ulysses for iOS but I already had too many writing apps and had determined I wouldn't buy anymore unless I had very good reason to. Ulysses looked great but what I really wanted was a better way to publish to WordPress. When Ulysses added WordPress publishing I jumped and it's been fantastic. Ulysses and the iPad are the perfect combination for blogging and for the first time since owning an iPad, it is easy to say that this is the best blogging experience I've ever had.

I don't really consider myself a writer so much as a person that likes to share and the sharing often takes the form of writing just as it often takes the form of photos, videos, and lately, even "paintings". What I'm noticing now is that because there is no friction in this Ulysses/iPad combination I am far more likely to actually write and publish. Not only is there no friction, but I actually enjoy the process. Of course I seek it out when I have ideas brewing but, more interesting, I sometimes find that I've opened Ulysses before I have any particular idea. Rather, I have an urge to write, to start with a blank white page. It is a more basic desire to create for the sake of creating rather than a practical, utilitarian expression of an idea that I've had that I want to share.

This is all to say that over the past few months I've really been enjoying writing and that I'm looking forward to doing more of it in the coming year.

  1. The first was December 31, 2013.
  2. It was some sort of manual, text-based deal.

It depends on what your definition of “Pro” is

For well over a year now the Apple nerdery have been rending their garments and gnashing their teeth over the lack of an updated Mac Pro. They blog it and podcast it till their fingers are numb and their listeners’ ears bleed. The story is that Apple no longer cares about Apple “Pro” users because they’re too busy with watches and iPhones and iPads. It hasn’t been updated since 2013! How are these pros to get anything done? Being forced to work on such old machines is practically like being forced to use a horse drawn carriage or a Mac Color Classic.

Pros need faster machines they repeat over and over and over. No, really. But then today I came across this image in a tweet by Federico Viticci about a new series of interviews being done for Club Mac Stories. Their first guest is developer Steve Troughton-Smith:

And something caught my eye. Steve Troughton-Smith, supposedly a professional who runs Xcode to develop apps is still using a 2012 iMac as his primary machine. 2012. iMac. Obviously somebody needs to talk to Steve. He is either a poser or terribly uninformed about the computer he should be using.

Now, I myself am not real professional either. I’m not a programmer or developer. I’ve not used Final Cut Pro since 2004. I don’t edit audio and didn’t do special effects in the last Star Wars film. My primary machine from 2011 to 2014 was a MacBook Air! Since then I’ve been using a 2012 Mac Mini. How do I get anything done without a Mac Pro updated within the past year? Funny thing, somehow I’ve been able to run everything from Adobe Illustrator to Indesign to Panic’s Coda to Affinity’s new Designer and Photos apps. I’ve done the layout for two community newspapers, ads, billboards, brochures, websites, signs, and product labels with those two non-pro machines.

Okay. Okay. Seriously though. I realize there are plenty of people that can use the power provided by monster machines with 65 GB of ram and the latest, greatest graphics cards. I get that the current Mac Pro IS long in the tooth. It is due for replacement. But folks, really, first world problems.

I’d bet my left testicle that there are many professional users, power users even, of Apple computers of mid-range power be they current or older iMacs, MacBook Airs, or Mac Minis. Get a grip on yourselves Apple nerds. Please.

iPad Journal: Speedy production of posters and social media graphics

I've been doing a bit of volunteer work for our local library lately and we're currently moving towards an April vote on a tax increase to help cover the operating costs of our little network of rural libraries. I was asked to put together a collection of simple posters that would highlight the value of library services to patrons via print and social media. I did most of the work in Pages on the iPad with two exceptions that required a quick edit on the Mac. On the iOS version of Pages,1 rotating elements is not possible and second, the ability to create a shape with a transparency gradient is also missing. Not a big problem, I just saved in iCloud and stepped over to the Mac to rotate the logo on the side of the page and create a white box with a transparency gradient. By the time I was back at the iPad the file was updated with the two changes. This would be my "template" so I made several duplicates and altered each to a specific value that the library wanted to highlight.

I'd used portrait mode on the iPhone camera to capture a series of images that I AirDropped to the iPad. After quick edits to text and the color of the bottom box element they were each given a different image and I was done. I wanted to send each poster version in its own email with two attachments, a jpg for social media sharing and pdf for printing. Easy enough. From Pages I would share as pdf via the Share Sheet to one of my most used apps, Graphic which I used to export as jpg to my camera roll. I'd jump back to Pages and share as pdf again but this time to Mail. Once I had the Mail draft with pdf attached I'd add my image attachment and send. The whole process took about 90 seconds for each email with two attachments.

Smooth sailing.

  1. I've noticed that many of these missing features are available in other iOS apps. There's no reason Apple couldn't add them and bring Pages on iOS closer to Pages on the Mac.

iPad Journal: Getting the most out of Apple Notes

I'm on a new quest in how I use the iPad and it can be best expressed with one word: Simplicity. I've always considered myself a "power" user of Apple tech. Of course this is a relative term but I'll just describe it, in this context, as this: I've always used my Macs with a goal as doing as much as possible with them. I used a seemingly limitless variety of apps and utilities. I tinkered. I installed betas. It was practically a goal to break things so that I could fix them. I enjoyed troubleshooting. But I was also concerned with getting things done.

My early use of the iPad was similar. I jailbroke my first two iPads primarily so I could share the cellular connection to my Mac. I immediately installed any app that might allow me to do my "work" on the iPad. From finance tracking to website updating to blogging to graphic creation to database apps. Of course I'm still curious about the possible solutions apps can provide for the tasks I need to do but I've recently realized that I often have the most success with a more straightforward approach. Just as Spotlight gradually replaced Quicksilver and LaunchBar on my Macs, I'm finding that Apple stock apps such as Notes are often be my best option.

I've used Notes quite a bit over the past few years and no doubt, it began as a fairly simple app. But Apple has nurtured it into an app that is, in its current iteration, really very capable. Interestingly, during the same period, I also tried using Evernote more than a couple times but I never quite settled into it. I could understand why so many people used it given its extensive feature list but it never quite clicked for me. My typical use with Apple Notes was saving text notes and the occasional link. I generally did not need to add attachments (on a Mac I preferred to just put any files such as pdfs or images in the Finder) and didn't need to share or collaborate with anyone. I bumped into it's limitations on occasion but it was never enough to stop me from using it.

The best way I can describe my use of Notes is that it is my catch-all for text and links, often as a sort of shared clipboard between devices with an easy way to share out via Messages, Mail or any number of other apps. One unfortunate limitation, links saved in a note seem to export with any method. Any effort to copy/paste or to use a share sheet to send a saved link and any text in a note, removes the link and only results in the plain text of the article title. Not very helpful and a bummer because this could be useful in a lot of different ways. Almost every other attachment can be shared out along with any text I've added to a note. One limitation of attaching documents such as pdfs, Pages or any other document that might have editable text is that they are not indexed. Not a deal breaker but it would be nice. In my personal use I don't tend to accumulate lots of notes with attachments because I tend to use them for projects rather than long-term storage.

More often than not when I create a new note it is a text capture via a share sheet from another app. Quite a few notes are for projects or clients and they might be something that I just scribble in and delete a couple days later or they might be longer term. In the past I've tried different apps for tracking time on client projects but several months ago I realized I wasn't all that happy with the apps I'd been using for such tracking. I decided it might be easier and simpler to do this tracking with a note and I was right. It's worked out great. I have a "Timecards" note and every project gets tracked there. Each project gets a section and anytime I work I log it with a simple line item: Date Time Description in that section. Simple and efficient. Eventually those line items get entered into an a FileMaker Pro invoice.

I've only had a need to share notes via the collaboration feature on a couple of occasions but it has worked well in those instances. It's a nice feature to have when I need it.

A lot of Apple nerds have been raving lately about Bear. I gave it a try and it is a nice app but it's not for me. Between Apple Notes and Ulysses much of what I do with text is covered. In the past I've also tinkered with Drafts and for awhile I used Byword and Editorial as a part of my gathering and writing process but not lately. While I've not yet deleted those three apps I likely will. I've not used any of them in quite some time and doubt I'll have any need of them in the future. They are superfluous. As I whittle down my folders of apps I am enjoying a certain confidence in the fewer tools that I choose to keep.

iPad Journal: Notes App misconceptions

Over the past year or two there have been quite a few write-ups comparing note taking apps particularly comparisons between Apple Notes (since it's big update with iOS 9) and Evernote and most recently the new app, Bear. Inevitably such write-ups always leave out the newest Apple Notes features that were added in iOS 9 and iOS 10. In fact, I'm often left wondering if the writers of such comparisons actually bothered to really use the updated Notes app at all!

  1. You can lock any note with a password.
  2. All kinds of files can be sent via the share sheet to a note as an attachment. The first that come to mind: Pages, Numbers, Keynote, PDF, audio files, video and images.
  3. PDFs and images can be annotated using the same tool box that allows annotation of such files in the Mail app.
  4. Offline viewing and editing is possible.
  5. While markdown is not possible some formatting is: bold, italics, and underline.
  6. Also, any note can easily be shared as a collaborative note with any user that has an iCloud account.
  7. Notes can be exported as PDFs via the print preview though that option is not immediately obvious-not sure why Apple hides it in the print dialog on iOS devices.
  8. The text, links and attachments within a note can easily be shared via the share sheet.

I'm sure there are others but this is just a quick list I put together in response to the most recent articles I've come across. As a default, free app, Apple notes really is a powerful app with many of the features found in paid services and I suspect it is underutilized by most users. It's the sort of app that often provokes the response: "I didn't know you could do that!" It's an app I use daily and I expect to do a post on how I'm using it soon. In fact, it fits in well with my recent post about doing more with the stock Apple apps when possible as opposed to cluttering up my iPad with third party apps. Stay tuned for that!

iPad Journal: A mess of stuff getting in my way

I’m a geek and so I tend to enjoy tinkering. Back in the day I used (or tried to use) speakable items on my Mac. It never stuck because it just didn’t work very well. But it was fun to play with. Something that did stick was Quicksilver. And Launchbar. And then Spotlight. I switched back and forth between the first two but as Apple’s Spotlight got better I eventually just settled on that. Which is to say I went from the more powerful third party tools to Apple’s simpler option.  Maybe I’m just less of a tinkerer than I used to be because as time goes on I seem to prefer simplicity.

As I’ve experimented with some of Federico’s favorite iOS productivity apps such as Workflow and recently Copied I’ve begun to think that my needs (or my methods) just are not suited to so much complexity. For example, in his recent post about clipboard workflows using the Copied app or his powerful clipboard manager using Workflow, Federico offers many of the details that make him more productive. But I spent the better part of two hours with Copied and just came away frustrated. It may be that it’s just not suited to the way I work or maybe I need to spend more time learning it. Or, just as likely, it may be that I don’t write the kind of content or perform the kinds of tasks that benefit from that kind of app.

One lesson learned from the experience: when evaluating the tools and workflows of others for my purposes, be open but be critical. Will they really enable me to get things done in a better way or will they just end up slowing me down? Are they the right tools for the jobs I need to get done? These are obvious questions to ask but I think often it’s easy to get caught up in the tools and techniques of others. New and shiny is better right? So, my new goal is to find a balance of being open to new tools but not to spend too much time dwelling on it all.

All this cruft can get in the way. I live and work in a tiny house which requires being very deliberate in the choices I make about owning stuff. As often as stuff is useful it is just as likely a burden that gets in my way. Stuff has a way of accumulating and is often kept around even when it’s not all that useful. One reason I love the iPad is that it strikes a beautiful balance of simplicity and power. I don’t want to ruin it with lots of apps and utilities, many of which overlap in what they offer.

Why was I interested in using Copied? I like the idea of gathering links to posts with titles and relevant quotes and having them ready to put into a blog post just as Federico seems to do. But what I’ve discovered is that I find it much easier to just use the share extension to send items to their own sheet in Ulysses. If some of these are meant to be shared together in the same post I can easily use the merge sheets function of Ulysses to consolidate them all into one. Problem solved without the help of any extra utilities and quite possibly with less effort from me.

Another area in which I thought Copied might be useful was in saving groups of text for websites I manage. But here’s the thing. Again, my tool of choice, Coda, already has that covered with the text snippets or clips function. With a tap I get a dropdown list of my snippets and another tap I get the text I want pasted right into my document. Or I can assign a tab trigger for any snippet. These seems a better option than using Copied.

Another third party utility that I recently purchased that seems like it may be more work for less benefit is Launch Center Pro. As with Copied it may well be that I’ve not spent enough time with it to learn the benefits. I get the gist of it. But so much of what it seems to offer I would file as solutions in search of problems. Much of what it offers I can just as easily accomplish with Siri. Shortcuts to apps end up being just as many taps as clicking on the app or asking Siri to open it or using Command-Space to open via spotlight. On the iPhone with 3D Touch most of my regular apps have short cuts built in. It also seems to duplicate Workflow in many ways and I’m still trying to get a handle on Workflow.

My plan going forward is to focus on using each app as it is provided. This isn’t to say I’m not interested in utilities that might add benefit to my workflows. But I will cast a more skeptical eye towards utilities and workflows that seem overly complex in the name of saving me time. If my use of an app or combination of apps results in obvious friction then I’ll see what I can do to reduce it but step one is to ensure that I’m using all of the features of the app as intended.

iPad Journal: Flexible form factor leads to increased productivity

Appreciating (and greatly enjoying) the tablet form factor of the iPad and an external keyboard this morning.

Fact 1: I live in a rural area and expected a package via the USPS. If I wanted this package in my hands I needed to be at the mailbox by the road when the delivery person arrived. If I missed her I’d only have a note letting me know my package was waiting for me in the post office in town.

Fact 2: I normally walk the one mile to the mailbox as a part of my 4 miles a day walking routine. Today we had rain in the forecast.

Fact 3: I am not even a little fancy and do not own a Tesla. But we do have a golf cart for getting around our property. It runs off of batteries. I pretend it is a Tesla.

Fact 4: I knew I might have a wait because I only knew that our postal delivery person normally arrives before 11 am. I went at 8 and took my iPad and keyboard.

Fact 5: With little effort I managed to arrange a comfortable writing situation and got stuff done.