Author: Thord Hedengren

Author, designer, developer, and editor of Switch to iPad, among other things.

It’s iPad mini for me this holiday (#77)

This yearā€™s last full-length newsletter tells the story about how Iā€™m going iPad mini only this holiday season. Thereā€™s a reason for this, obviously, and it isnā€™t that Iā€™ve sold all my iPads, if anyone thought this.

Iā€™m doing a little experiment this holiday season. You see, Iā€™ve left my iPad Pros and their Magic Keyboards at home, and decided to just bring my iPad mini to the cabin. Iā€™m going to call it a cabin, but itā€™s really a small house, thereā€™s a sauna, Wi-Fi, and everything. This is where we go on holidays, and when we want to get out of Stockholm.

Anyway, I left my professional iPads behind. I did this for two reasons:

1. I want to know how far I can get on just the smallest iPad in Appleā€™s lineup.

2. This holiday season, Iā€™m going to try not to work so much, with no agency work planned at all.

Granted, you can get everything done on any iPad, as Iā€™ve talked about before. That doesnā€™t mean itā€™s necessarily easy, especially if youā€™re used to that beautiful 12.9ā€ screen from the M1 iPad Pro.

šŸ“§Ā Switch to iPadĀ #77 is for paid subscribers only. I would be oh so happy if youā€™d consider a subscription. Thank you!

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Issue #77: Going iPad mini only this holiday season šŸŽ…šŸ„‚

šŸ†“ This member post is free for all, thanks to our paying subscribers. Enjoy!

Hi!

Iā€™m doing a little experiment this holiday season. You see, Iā€™ve left my iPad Pros and their Magic Keyboards at home, and decided to just bring my iPad mini to the cabin. Iā€™m going to call it a cabin, but itā€™s really a small house, thereā€™s a sauna, Wi-Fi, and everything. This is where we go on holidays, and when we want to get out of Stockholm.

Anyway, I left my professional iPads behind. I did this for two reasons:

  1. I want to know how far I can get on just the smallest iPad in Appleā€™s lineup.
  2. This holiday season, Iā€™m going to try not to work so much, with no agency work planned at all.

Granted, you can get everything done on any iPad, as Iā€™ve talked about before. That doesnā€™t mean itā€™s necessarily easy, especially if youā€™re used to that beautiful 12.9ā€ screen from the M1 iPad Pro.

ā­ļø Related: The iPad mini review.

So, what do I want to do with my iPad mini the coming couple of weeks? Well, itā€™s mostly consumption, but I do have some things I want to write. Letā€™s dive in.

Continue reading →

Iā€™m back to using Pocket

This is not a review, but rather, a follow-up on Switch to iPad #70, where I wrote about read it later services. There, I mentioned upstart Matter, which has some pretty compelling features, and is, by far, the best read it later app to store Twitter threads. Iā€™ve been using Matter since before #70, and I liked it, except for this:

Whatā€™s worse, Matter is by far the lesser reading experience on an iPad, even the new iPad mini, which is pretty much perfect for reading text on. Itā€™s not that they parse the text bad, itā€™s just not a very readable layout.

Iā€™m confident thisā€™ll change. This layout works perfectly well on an iPhone. Theyā€™ll surely add typographic settings as well, something that both Pocket and Instapaper has, which means you can tailor your reading experience as you see fit. Even Safariā€™s Reader feature has some basic options there, so Iā€™m sure Matter will add it.

Continue reading →

Read the Switch to iPad gift guide (#76)

Itā€™s that time of yeah, and that means figuring out what to give the iPad lovers. Thatā€™s what Switch to iPad #76 is all about.

Have you picked out your Christmas, or whatever it is you celebrate, yet? Iā€™ve mostly done so, surprising myself. If youā€™re in a bind, here are some gift ideas for the iPad lover.

And no, this list wonā€™t contain iPads, Apple Pencils, Magic Keyboards, or any other official accessory. I think thatā€™s been done.

šŸ“§ Switch to iPad #76 is free for all to read. My gift to you, if you will.

For members only ↓ Sign up here →

Issue #76: The Switch to iPad gift guide (2021 edition)

šŸ†“ This member post is free for all, thanks to our paying subscribers. Enjoy!

Hi!

Have you picked out your Christmas, or whatever it is you celebrate, yet? Iā€™ve mostly done so, surprising myself. If youā€™re in a bind, here are some gift ideas for the iPad lover.

And no, this list wonā€™t contain iPads, Apple Pencils, Magic Keyboards, or any other official accessory. I think thatā€™s been done.

Continue reading →

How I wrote a book on my iPad (Switch to iPad #75)

This weekā€™s issue of the Switch to iPad newsletter is close to my heart, and the result of months of writing. You see, I recently wrote, edited, and sent a book to a publisher, using nothing but my iPad, as youā€™d expect from yours truly.

You might not know this, but when Iā€™m not going on and on about the benefits of the iPad as your primary computing platform, or working at my digital agency, I write books. Those books used to be of a technical nature, about things like WordPress and other digital stuff, but I actually write fiction too. If youā€™re interested, you can find short stories by me in two anthologies, Cthulhu Lies Dreaming and Haunted Futures, as well as on some other places. 

I write novels too. If youā€™ve been following me on Twitter this Autumn, you probably noticed me doing some sporadic updates with the #amwriting (and later, #amediting) hashtags, as well as some dedicated hotel writing sessions. Iā€™ve been working on a manuscript, in Swedish, so I wonā€™t be sharing any excerpts, for a publisherā€™s call. Itā€™s done, itā€™s edited, and itā€™s been sent in. Yay me, and all that jazz.

Naturally, this whole thing was done on an iPad, and Iā€™d like to tell you about it.

šŸ†“Ā Switch to iPadĀ #75 is free for all to read, so no subscription needed. Iā€™d very much appreciate it if you considered one anyway, obviously. Thank you!

For members only ↓ Sign up here →

Issue #75: I wrote a book on my iPad

šŸ†“ This member post is free for all, thanks to our paying subscribers. Enjoy!

Hi!

You might not know this, but when Iā€™m not going on and on about the benefits of the iPad as your primary computing platform, or working at my digital agency, I write books. Those books used to be of a technical nature, about things like WordPress and other digital stuff, but I actually write fiction too. If youā€™re interested, you can find short stories by me in two anthologies, Cthulhu Lies Dreaming and Haunted Futures, as well as on some other places.

I write novels too. If youā€™ve been following me on Twitter this Autumn, you probably noticed me doing some sporadic updates with the #amwriting (and later, #amediting) hashtags, as well as some dedicated hotel writing sessions. Iā€™ve been working on a manuscript, in Swedish, so I wonā€™t be sharing any excerpts, for a publisherā€™s call. Itā€™s done, itā€™s edited, and itā€™s been sent in. Yay me, and all that jazz.

Naturally, this whole thing was done on an iPad, and Iā€™d like to tell you about it.

Continue reading →

Yoink ā€“Ā a review

There was a time when iOS and iPadOS was less evolved, and you needed something commonly called file drawer apps to bounce files around. If you wanted to upload an edited image to a web interface, but you had your edited photo in Pixelmator, you were kind of stuck. It was a mess, filled with workarounds and the like, before the Files app we have today, but honestly, afterwards too because even though itā€™s getting better, Files isnā€™t what it should or could be.

So, you installed a file drawer app, and shared (using the share sheet) your files to said app, and hoped that whatever app you wanted to move the file to would support importing it. Iā€™ve written about that in the past, in one of the earliest issues of the Switch to iPad newsletter (please subscribe).

Fast-forward to today, and the Files app will actually do for most people. You can easily get to the most recent files added, which means that downloading and/or saving a file of any kind to Files will make it easy to find. And the Files app has the benefit of being tightly integrated into iPadOS, meaning that itā€™s easy to, say, upload a file in a web interface from the Downloads folder.

Does that mean that thereā€™s no room for file drawer apps anymore?

Oh, no, there definitely is.

Continue reading →

The 2021 App Store Award winners

Every year, Apple announces the App Store Award winners. These arenā€™t necessary the most successful or downloaded apps, but apps that Apple feel stand out.

The 2021 iPad app of the year is LumaFusion, a video editing app that definitely stands out. Itā€™s a great choice, so well done, Apple.

The 2021 iPad game of the year is Marvel Future Revolution. Itā€™s a freemium game that I havenā€™t tried yet, but I guess I should, given the fact that it won this award.

Continue reading →

Notes: Big vs. Small (Switch to iPad #74)

This week’s issue of the Switch to iPad newsletter discusses what iPad sizes work best for note-taking. Note-taking is a topic dear to me, as you probably know by now.

My name is Thord, and Iā€™m taking a ton of notes, as youā€™ve probably noticed by now. For this, I use my iPads, which are, as you probably also know by now, numerous. The past couple of months, Iā€™ve been attending a course, studying Complicated Thingsā„¢ļø, which means Iā€™ve been taking even more notes than usual.

So, which iPad is best for note-taking? Thatā€™s not as easy to answer as youā€™d expect, so thatā€™s what weā€™ll be talking about in this issue.

šŸ“§ Switch to iPad #74 is a paid issue, so you’ll need to be a subscriber to read this one. Do consider signing up, it’s what keeps this site going, after all. Thank you!