I wrote about moving to more of an iPad only life last year. I wasn’t sure how that would go, overall, especially as things eventually would return to leaving the house. That post was when I still had a laptop.
Since then, I’ve moved to the M1-powered iPad Pro, sold my MacBook Air, and have zero regrets.
In addition to reading the news, watching videos on the planet, my two main professional uses are conferences and writing. So let’s dive into those.
Conferences.
My biggest concern was conferences. In 2020 events were online and I didn’t need to stand at a podium and present. Something that was easy peasy on a laptop. At the end of 2021 one of my conferences was hybrid, and I was gonna have to present from my iPad.
Big positive. Managing a hybrid event. One thing the iPad rocked at, was keeping my streamyard studio in my hand all day. I could open the browser, see the live stream, flip a banner on or off, push an announcement to the screens, etc. That was freeing. I could be on the move, and still managing the online portion of the event.
Big Negative. Presenting. Keynote for the iPad is …. Not awesome. It’s hard to use, the limitations of iPad OS make grabbing images and content and getting into Keynote an exercise in frustration. Sadly I don’t see Apple fixing this. Their ‘business’ suite of apps has slid more and more towards beginners (On the Mac and the iPad). Finding a better way to present is on my list for 2022 events. Thankfully I’m not on stage THAT often.
Also Bad. The projector/iPad relationship. I don’t know what the issue is here. During my closing remarks, the iPad would just lose connection to the projector and fall out of presenter mode. It was annoying, to say the least. I tried more than one dongle. No idea if it was THOSE projectors, that version of iPadOS, or some combo therein.
Writing.
Writing on the iPad hasn’t changed much in the last two years. Scrivener is still not very good on it, but is good enough (The dev team’s motto, I assume). I’ve been playing more and more with Dabble, but it’s…. so so, mostly around how iPadOS with a keyboard is wonky. Likely also some weirdness since it’s a web app vs. native swift.
I’ve written books on the decks of riverboats in Egypt, on trains, in tents in Tanzania, on beaches, in airplanes, and most importantly to me, breweries.
I’m trying out Logitech’s keyboard solution (I don’t know why, but I have a Super Strong anti Bluetooth vibe on accessories for the iPad), since I wanted a case for the iPad when not with a keyboard. It’s not perfect (review forthcoming).
Hopes for the future.
My hope is that with the addition of the M1 (likely some M1X or M2 in the near future), Apple will take a serious swing at making iPadOS not “iOS with split-screen”.
