Apple published a nice video showing how to use a trackpad or mouse with your iPad. You don’t have to buy Apple’s $300 keyboard to make this work. You can attach an existing G2 Apple Magic Trackpad or any BlueTooth mouse to try this out. If you use your iPad for productivity-related work (particularly with an attached keyboard), this is a game-changer.
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“The Magic Keyboard offers a lovely, backlit deck that holds its own against the 16” MacBook Pro and the new MacBook Air for best portable keyboards. The key travel is excellent — in between the two laptops in my opinion — and the feel is tight, responsive and precise. This is a first class typing experience, full stop. ”
In summary, it sounds like Apple made the right design decisions. Weight and stability over lightness and the wobblies. Still, this new very heavy keyboard makes a 12.9” iPad with an attached keyboard about the same weight as a MacBook Air.
Now that Apple seems to be pushing down on the gas to make the iPad a legitimate laptop replacement, they need to add a second camera along the side (so it is on top when in landscape attached to this keyboard).
I ordered one for my 12.9” iPad Pro, and it’s on the way. I’ve been using the big iPad a lot since being housebound and I can’t wait to gives it a spin.
BetterTouchTool takes a Mac’s input devices and turns them into automation triggers. It can transform the Touch Bar into a customized set of tools and make a Trackpad or Mouse much more powerful. This week on Mac Power Users, Stephen and I dive into this utility and talk about what it can do.
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Recently Jazz at Lincoln Center did an entire concert tribute to the music of Miles Davis. The musicians really bring a lot of life to Mile’s music, and the commentary throughout the concert gives you all sorts of insight. It’s all good, but I particularly like the second song, “Boplicity”. That melody is one of those that I find impossible to listen to without smiling.
Apple’s opened up pre-orders on that interesting new iPad keyboard. I’ve pre-ordered the big one and I’m looking forward to trying it out.
This is actually yesterday’s news, but the rumored iPhone SE update is now for sale. It seems like a pretty good phone for 400 bucks. With prior iterations of the iPhone SE, the story was always about it being the smaller phone (it used to use the iPhone 5 body). While the new one is smaller than some the iPhone 11, it’s not that much smaller. Now I’d call it the economy iPhone more than the small iPhone.
Mike and I continue the overload series with a look at emotional overload on the latest episode of Focused. We consider the value of introspection, share some fun distractions, and discuss being ok with not being productive.
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Just a few weeks ago Apple announced the ability for developers to bundle Mac apps along with their iPhone and iPad apps. You might remember this was a sticking point with last year’s Catalyst release where developers were required to charge for the Mac versions of their apps.
There was a paid version of Catalyst-based GoodNotes on the Mac App Store, but yesterday they became one of the first developers to take advantage of the new ability to bundle their Mac app for free. Because of App Store mechanics, this required releasing a new version of the Mac app. So if you bought it previously, download the bundle Mac version now. That’s the only one that will continue to get updates.
As a daily user of this app, I appreciate GoodNotes getting on this early, but I’m also not surprised. GoodNotes is one of the best note-taking apps available and it comes as no surprise that its developers are on the ball.
Mark Gurman and Debbie Wu at Bloomberg now report a new design for the iPhone is in the works that takes cues from the current iPad Pro with flat, stainless steel sides and flat screens. When the new iPad Pro design premiered in 2018, a lot of us thought that the iPhone would soon follow. It seemed obvious that the iPad Pro design was the way to go but, at the same time, I’m not actually in the business of making hundreds of millions of iPhones every year and it’s probably a little complicated.
Regardless, I hope this is true. I’ve been using that iPad Pro for a few years now and its design still delights me. My favorite iPhone design thus far was the iPhone 4, which is very reminiscent of this look and I’d like to see it come back to the iPhone.
Dr. David MacDonald is a musician and professor with a unique way of using the iPad, Apple TV, and GoodNotes together to engage and equip his students. Listen to our conversation on this week’s episode of Mac Power Users.
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