Category: News

This week’s issue of the Switch to iPad newsletter follows up on the Logitech MX Anywhere 3 review published yesterday.

How are you navigating your iPad? I’m writing this on an 11” iPad Pro, sat in the Magic Keyboard, but that’s not always the case. More often than not, my writing setup consists of the iPad in a stand of some sort, and a bluetooth keyboard and pointing device. That last one is what I’d like to discuss today.

External pointing devices – mouse and trackpads – has worked with iPadOS for quite some time now. It’s something of a universal truth that a trackpad is the better choice, and with good reason. After all, you can recreate every swipe and gesture that you’d do on the iPad screen, on the trackpad’s surface. A mouse doesn’t have that, but they’re still supported. Are they then a reasonable alternative to trackpads?

📧 Switch to iPad #88 is available for paying subscribers now. Subscribe for $5/month, or $50/year. I’m still matching subscriptions with donations to Ukraine – we’re closing in on $1,000, which is both the limit and target, so please help.

It’s Wednesday, and that means that paying subscribers are getting this week’s issue of the paid Switch to iPad newsletter. It starts like this:

I have a confession to make: I seldom use the speakers on any of my iPads. That’s true for my Macs over the years, too. It’s not that they’re bad speakers, any of them. On the contrary, Apple is best in class more often than not. Especially the iPad Pro speakers, with their four-point system, is lauded for being enough for most.

Except, I don’t agree.

So, this will be a letter about iPad speakers, and perhaps help you decide if they matter to you, as you consider a new iPad. Because we’re always considering new iPads, aren’t we?

📧 Yep, it’s all about the speakers in Switch to iPad #87. You need a paid subscription for this, which costs $5/month or $50/year.

Remember, I’m matching all subscriptions in March with a donation to UNICEF, for Ukraine, up to $1,000. We’re several hundreds of dollars in, which is lovely.

Switch to iPad #86 has reached its subscribers. It starts like this:

I hope this letter finds you well, and that you have time to read it. If not, then feel free to save it in your read it later service of choice. Or maybe there’s something in here that you want to refer to in the future, something that you need to keep handy later on.

Where do you save those links?

In the old days, most links to articles and resources you wanted to refer to later ended up in various link-saving services. They weren’t really read it later tools, although they obviously could be. It was more akin to an extended bookmark folder, with tags and the like to keep your links organized. Delicious (originally, del.icio.us, so wonderfully web 1.0) and later Pinboard spring to mind.

I don’t use any of those services today, but I find myself needing to save the link for future reference, still. It’s tempting to just throw them in a read it later service because technically Pocket or Instapaper would work just fine. They have all the features needed, after all, with tagging and highlights, as well as decent search capability. But, to me, that’s not what a read it later app should do. I don’t want my GitHub link failing to load in a reader view, alongside that long exposé from The Atlantic, I want it someplace else.

I’ve been on a quest for some time, and maybe you have to. Let’s see where we’re at, and go from there, shall we?

📧 Switch to iPad #86 is a paid issue, so you need a valid subscription to read it. It’s $5/month, or $50/year, and there’s a free trial as well. Remember, I’m meeting all subscriptions with a donation to benefit the victims of the war in Ukraine, up to $1,000. Full details are here.