Hi!
This is an automated message since poor Thord is buried under stacks and stacks of boxes. Normal services will resume next week.
Enjoy this week’s member post below, or online.
Packing distractions (and tools)
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I’m in the middle of a move. It’s not far, but the amount of work packing up an apartment is the same, no matter the distance. And I’ve got to tell you, it’s the worst –moving is truly horrible. We’ve been very effective, clearing out stuff we don’t need for weeks. As you’re reading this, we’re getting the keys to the new apartment. The moving van arrives the day after.
Needless to say, I’m exhausted. My thoughts are all jumbled, the days are long and filled with heavy lifting. Winding down is important, so I figured I’d share some app and game recommendations with you all.
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In a surprising, but welcome, a bit of news, Apple has enabled Stage Manager for more than just the M1 iPad models. Specifically, it’s the A12X and 12Z models, which means iPad Pros from 2018 and 2020 that will get Stage Manager when iPadOS 16.1 is released. They won’t, however, support Stage Manager on an external monitor.
Speaking of external monitor support, it appears that Apple is delaying this to actually get iPadOS 16.1 out the door. They’ll be enabling external display support for Stage Manager on M1 iPads in a software update later this year, per a statement to Engadget. This, paired with the just released developer beta of iPadOS 16.1 and the fact that it feels pretty stable even where Stage Manager is concerned, points to an upcoming release pretty soon. I’d expect this to coincide with new iPad Pro models, which may or may not get an actual Apple event, as previously reported.
It seems like Apple came to the same conclusion as I did: Just release iPadOS 16 already. The fact that they got Stage Manager (seemingly) stable, albeit without external monitor support, is just gravy.
Hi!
How are you? Me, I’m down the plain-text rabbit hole yet again. There’s something truly wonderful with a file-format such as txt, something that withstands the test of time. So, that’s what this week’s member post is all about. Read it below, or pop over to the member’s area for more.
Thank you for your support!
The beauty of plain-text
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I’m a big fan of text files. It’s a pure and simple way to keep track of things, and to make sure that they’ll be accessible decades to come. I still have files, now residing in iCloud Drive as well as on backups, that dates from the early 90s. I can read them thanks to them being text files. Sure, there’s been one or another stupid special character that’s messed up things, but that’s generally a fault of the software used to writing said text file back in the day, not the actual file-format. Besides, it’s that character that’s messed up, not the actual file.Â
Let’s talk a little bit about plain-text files, shall we?
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Bloomberg’s Apple analyst Mark Gurman speculates that there might not be another Apple event this year after all. The rumor-mill, to which Gurman frequently contributes, has been pretty adamant that there’d be an October event to announce new Macs and, more importantly for Switch to iPad readers, iPad Pros. With the delay of iPadOS 16, an event seemed even more likely.
That said, Gurman might be on to something here, assuming the iPad Pro upgrades are M2 chips with the current generation’s design. The M2 chips got enough stage-time in Apple’s MacBook Air announcement, so there’s no real news value talking extensively about them. Looking at the state of iPadOS 16.1, it seems unlikely that Apple would want to bang the drum too hard, most likely launching 16.1 with the key feature Stage Manager under a beta moniker.
It’s been a rough couple of months for Apple when it comes to iPad. I hope I’m wrong, and that we’ll get at least a shorter Apple event highlighting iPad (and new Macs, of course), but I wouldn’t be surprised if Gurman is correct on this one.
Updated on September 28th with new Stage Manager details.
The upcoming version of iPadOS, 16.1 (Apple is skipping 16.0, as previously reported), gets widespread support as usual. Apple is very generous with backwards compatibility for their devices, and iPads are no exception. While there is still no announced release date for iPadOS 16.1, we already know which iPad models will support the update.
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Hi!
Are you frustrated by the lack of a proper iPadOS 16 release? It’s still unknown when Apple will, in fact, release iPadOS 16 (or 16.1, to be precise) to the public. Meanwhile our iPhones are getting iOS 16, with all the new fancy bells and whistles.
Well, I have thoughts. Have at it.
Apple should release iPadOS 16
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Work is progressing on iPadOS 16.1, and that’s good, obviously, but I think it was a bad decision to skip iPadOS 16.0. Don’t get me wrong, the state of 16.0 when Apple announced the decision was far from launch-ready.
Which isn’t exactly true, is it? The big pro feature of iPadOS 16, Stage Manager, was where the problem was. This is why our iPads aren’t running iPadOS 16 today, while our iPhones are on iOS 16. It’s Stage Manager’s fault.
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This is a post I really don’t want to write, but alas, here we go. As you know, Stage Manager is the new multitasking feature in iPadOS 16.1, and also supported in the upcoming macOS update. It’s not a mandatory feature just yet, you have to enable it, but it does come with something a lot of professional iPad users have been clamoring for, and that’s proper external display support. Because of this, and the fact that screen-size matters for such a feature, Stage Manager is limited to iPads equipped with the M1 chip (or better). That’s 2021 iPad Pros, and the iPad Air 5.
The state of Stage Manager was what made Apple skip iPadOS 16.0, jumping straight to 16.1. The plan was, clearly, to release iPadOS 16.0 alongside iOS 16.0, which went live last week. And now we’re chugging through 16.1 developer betas, seeing improvements to Stage Manager, and yet, we’re far from done. As in, really far from done.
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There are some things that are just plain weird when it comes to Apple, and what apps they include in iPadOS. The lack of a calculator app, a staple since the very beginning on iOS, is one of those. The other, one could argue, is not having an iPad version of the Weather app. Well, until now, that is.
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I’m a big fan of the default note-taking app, called simply Notes. It’s one of those apps that keeps getting better with each major iPadOS release, and iPadOS 16 (16.1, to be precise) is no different. Granted, this is mostly an incremental update, but I like it nonetheless.
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Hi!
I hope this email finds you well. I’m editing a manuscript at the moment, and I’m doing it on my iPad, obviously. It’s hard work, as you’ll see in the post below. Enjoy!
Editing a manuscript on an iPad
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I’ve written a book. I’ve written several, as it were, and been published in multiple languages. Most of these books, however, has been technical literature of varying difficulty levels, as well as a couple of role-playing game related things. Yeah, I was a nerd growing up, shocker, right?
Anyway, I’ve recently switched to writing fiction in Swedish, and I’ve got a book contracted. I’m delighted, obviously, but as I mentioned in my Focused Work review, it comes at a price: You have to edit the bloody thing.
It should come as no surprise that I wrote the book on an iPad. Naturally, I’ll edit it on one as well, and I’d like to tell you a little bit about how that goes.
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