Author, designer, developer, and editor of Switch to iPad, among other things.
The Switch to iPad website is a month old today. I published the welcome post on August 3rd, and have been updating the site a couple of times each week. I think the site has found a way to complement the (mostly paid) newsletter, and that the setup makes sense, for now.
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There are plenty of news in iPadOS 15, such as widgets anywhere on the homescreen, just like on the iPhone, and the aforementioned excellent Quick Note feature. But not all new things are big, shiny features that makes for great screenshots. Some are just wonderful settings, such as this one.
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I’m sitting here, looking at the Punkt MP02. It’s a wonderful little thing, a pleasant device to fiddle with, a lovely non-touchscreen, and buttons you want to press. This is a device designed with purpose, with taste, and with a very narrow public.
I love it. I’ve loved it almost all the way through the iPad + dumbphone experiment. The only time I don’t like it is when I need to type more than five words in a row. Man, have we evolved since the T9 days! I’ll never complain of a cramped touchscreen keyboard again.
I even went as far as to try a foldable bluetooth keyboard paired to my MP02. Zagg was kind enough to send me their Tri Fold folding bluetooth keyboard, and I have thoughts about it. I’ll get back to you on that, I did try to carry it for a few days, but it requires a flat surface, and why wouldn’t I use the iPad in such a situation? That said, again, interesting product, more later.
Anyway, here I am, piecing the iPad + dumbphone experience together.
Continue reading →The latest issue of the Switch to iPad newsletter, the sixtieth no less, was just sent to subscribers. It’s all about blogging with the excellent Markdown writing app, Ulysses.
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🆓 This member post is free for all, thanks to our paying subscribers. Enjoy!
Hi there!
You might not know this, but I’ve been working with web design and development since the mid-90s. A lot of that has been WordPress-related (I’ve written a couple of books on that, by the way). If you’re familiar with WordPress, you probably have thoughts on the writing experience in the admin interface. Luckily, there are apps for that, including an official one, that can give you a different, if not better, experience.
I’m writing this in Ulysses, a markdown writing app. It’s where just about all my writing ends up these days, although there are great alternatives, more on that in a future issue. Ulysses supports publishing to several online publishing system, including WordPress. That, for me, is awfully nice because it means I can publish my posts on the Switch to iPad site directly from Ulysses.
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I think we’re closing in on the gist of things for this experiment, which is closing in on two weeks sans iPhone. Can you imagine that, being smartphone-less for two weeks? Is it a hell for you, or a tantalizing notion? I get both angles, as it were.
This experiment was always about finding out what’d happen if I didn’t have my iPhone, but a dumbphone instead. Would the iPad be enough? I think we’ll know for sure soon.
But first, some words on authentication.
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There’s a new feature in iPadOS 15 called Quick Note. It gives you access to Notes in a special view, all over the interface, without actually leaving the app or screen you’re on. I gushed about this in Switch to iPad #52 (which is free to read, so pop over there if you like), and now, running the beta on two different iPads, I’ll confess to be in love with this new feature. However, I’m not using it the way I thought I would.
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It’s been a couple of days, and I think I’ve got things pretty much under control in my iPad + dumbphone experiment. There are some things I’m still struggling with, but overall, this works, the trade-offs are reasonable thus far, I think. Yesterday, after driving to the summer home (that really is an all-year home), I did start to think about iPad sizes, though. I’d like to share those thoughts with you.
Continue reading →The 59th issue of the Switch to iPad newsletter was just sent to subscribers. It’s all about Figma for iPad, something a lot of us has been dreaming of.
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🆓 This member post is free for all, thanks to our paying subscribers. Enjoy!
Hi!
I hope this letter finds you well. I’ve been busy with agency work due to people returning from their vacations en masse this week. It’s always a bit of a chock to the system, having to take meetings, phone calls, and get barraged by notifications from project management systems, after summer. All in hand, it’s just exhausting.
Anyway, getting back to work means firing up the Macs again, for the type of work that just won’t cut it (well enough) on an iPad just yet. One of the tools that’ve forced me to go back to the Mac is Figma, a design app that lives in your browser. It’s gotten really popular the past couple of years, dethroning Sketch for many teams. Despite being a web app and seemingly loading just fine on an iPad, it just doesn’t work with touchscreens, so it’s been one of those Mac-only tasks I have in my day.
Until now, because designers rejoice, Figma for iPad is here!
Well, sort of.
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