Author: Thord Hedengren

Hi there!

Now that iPadOS has pointer support, it might be a good idea to talk a little bit more about that. I’m devoting this issue to the (not so old) question whether you should get a trackpad for your iPad or not. It makes sense to talk about that now, given the upcoming design and development issues that are in the pipeline, as mentioned last week.

My name is Thord D. Hedengren, and I’m typing this on a Magic Keyboard, which means I’ve got a built-in trackpad. If you do too, things are pretty easy for you, because the decision’s already been made. This isn’t my core setup though, I prefer to have my iPad in a stand (or on the wall, as you might recall) and type on a Keychron K2 with a Magic Trackpad 2 as my pointer device.

That’s enough setup porn for now! Let’s get down to business.

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Hey!

Just about everyone has a smartphone these days. It never leaves our side. Since this is a letter about making the switch to iPad, it’s likely that your smartphone of choice is an iPhone.

But do you need one when you’ve got an iPad? That’s what we’re going to talk about today.

My name is Thord D. Hedengren, and my first iPhone was the 3G one. After that, I’ve upgraded on a yearly basis, which of course is downright bonkers from a financial point of view, but I do actually work and write with tech for a living. That’s my excuse at least, what’s yours?

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Hi there!

I’m typing this letter in a writing app called Ulysses, on my iPad of course. I don’t have to use Ulysses for this particular task, I could just as well bang out these words in Notes. It’d work, but it wouldn’t be ideal, although I’m pretty sure copy-pasting the text into the Substack (the service I’m using for Switch to iPad) would work well enough in terms of formatting.

Why am I not using Notes for this?

That, and more related to the stock apps, the apps that come pre-installed on your iPad, is what we’re going to talk about today.

My name is Thord D. Hedengren and I’m a writer. I have every writing app ever known to man, and probably a few more. Well, that’s not entirely true of course, but I have tried a lot of writing apps. I’ve tried a lot of apps overall over the year I’ve been covering tech. We’re talking 90s here, folks. So why talk about the stock apps?

First of all, the stock apps are good, sometimes great even. We all love to download and try new apps, but how many times have you come to realize that The New Shiny wasn’t shiny enough, and gone back to your previous app of choice? That happens to me all the time, I find an app I think I’ll like, and figure I’ll replace part of my workflow with it, then I spend minutes or hours or days, before begrudgingly deleting the bastard in favor or something that was actually working already. It just wasn’t shiny.

Second, the stock apps are deeply integrated into the operating system. You know that the share sheets are going to work, the apps often have at least some sort of Shortcuts support, and if you’re a Siri user, the stock apps will almost always work better than the third-party alternatives.

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Hello!

My name is Thord D. Hedengren, and I’m trying to improve myself, not only by switching to iPad, but also by getting better habits. That’s what this week’s issue of Switch to iPad is all about.

Building good habits is hard work, be it eating right, getting enough exercise, or otherwise doing something regularly that you might not always want to do. The same goes for things you do in fact enjoy doing, but you can’t get yourself to prioritize properly. I’m like that with fiction writing, something I truly want to do, but often don’t because other things take up so much time. That wasn’t always the case, I used to bang out some 2,000 words on a daily basis, but can’t seem to get back into the groove again.

There are always reasons to not do something. You’ve got work, family life, and that TV show that everyone’s raving about. Suddenly you’re too tired, it’s way past your bedtime, and that’s another day when you didn’t do that thing you wanted to.

Well, there’s an app for that.

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Hi there!

I’ve been thinking a lot about widgets since the launch of iPadOS 14. Both Youtube and Twitter are full of people praising the revamped version of them, and the developers are scurrying to update their apps accordingly.

I like the new widgets feature too, especially on my iPhone that runs iOS 14. The iPad is, unfortunately, a different matter.

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Hi,

A lot of the things we do on our iPads involve the web browser, which – for most iPad users – is Safari, sometimes begrudgingly so. After all, Safari isn’t the most used web browser on the Mac, even though it comes pre-installed there, just like on the iPad.

There are alternatives to Safari on the App Store, and that’s what we’re going to talk about today.

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Hi!

Apple held its Time Flies online event yesterday (last night for where I am in the world). They announced two new Apple Watch models (Series 6 and a cheaper SE model), the Apple One package and the upcoming Fitness+ service, a spec bump for the basic iPad model, and a new iPad Air model. No iPhone, which was expected. Apple also announced the launch of their mobile operating systems (iPadOS, iOS, and watchOS – tvOS has yet to arrive) for today, as in you can get it now, no beta required.

So yeah, this issue of Switch to iPad will be a bit different.

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Hey there!

One of my most used features is Spotlight, the system-wide search feature in iPadOS (and on iOS too). It’s just so incredibly useful as an app launcher, as well as for finding, well, just about anything on my iPad. This issue is devoted to Spotlight, and when we’re through, I think you’ll use the feature a lot more too, if you aren’t already.

But first of all, let’s talk basic usage. You can activate the Spotlight feature in two ways. Either you’re on the home screen and pull down slightly with a single finger to reveal the Spotlight search (and blur everything else), or you use a keyboard to trigger it wherever you want, with cmd+space. The latter is obviously more intuitive, and doesn’t force you to the home screen to use Spotlight.

Now that we’ve got that out of the way, let’s talk use cases.

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Hi there!

Ergonomics, that sounds like a pretty boring topic, right? Well, it’s boring until you get back or neck problems, or pain in your elbows and wrists. This is common amongst people working at a desk. Especially so now that most rely on a laptop as our primary work computer.

Working from an iPad can be just as bad, so that’s what we’re going to focus on in this issue.

My name is Thord D. Hedengren, and I don’t have any neck or back problems at all. Well, except what I get from that cheap pillow I have in my summer home, that one always makes me wake up stiff. But at least it isn’t the iPad’s fault, right?

Let’s talk saving our bodies from unnecessary pain, shall we?

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Hi!

We’re taking a wee break from typical productivity related things in this issue, to talk about something that’s quite the opposite, namely gaming. Mobile gaming has gotten huge thanks to iPhone and the App Store, and most games support iPad as well. With controller support having evolved from expensive MFi labeled peripherals, to proper support for Xbox and PlayStation controllers, an iPad might very well be the better choice for some.

My name is Thord D. Hedengren, and I used to make a living playing and writing about games. The first gaming machine I had was actually a computer, the Commodore 64, and after that follows a long line of Nintendo, Sega, Sony, and Microsoft consoles, as well as gaming computers of all kinds.

I clearly think mobile gaming sucks in comparison with that background, right? Well, it certainly is different – at least if you look at it from a distance. But I’m getting ahead of myself. Let’s dive in and see what we’ve got to play with (pun intended).

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