Federico Viticci's Overview of iOS 9

As every Apple nerd on the planet is more than aware of, today was the big WWDC 2015 Keynote. Loads of interesting things were announced, including OS X El Capitan (I'm still not sure about that name, but moving on…) and watchOS 2.

As a full-time iOS user though, the announcement of iOS 9—particularly the iPad productivity enhancements coming with it—were easily of most interest to me. I would explain more about these new features myself, but Federico Viticci already has it completely covered.

He sums it up nicely in the “iPad and Multitasking” section:

As someone who uses the iPad as his primary computer, the productivity and multitasking features announced today seem spectacular. The iPad was at an inflection point — still failing to convince some tech circles of the benefits of a tablet — and the changes coming with iOS 9 are a reassuring sign of Apple's commitment to the uniqueness of the device. With Slide Over and Split View, Apple isn't trading off the inherent simplicity of the one-app-at-a-time model for more complexity: they're adding an option for those who, like me, want to work with an iPad and do more at once.

I love that Apple is acknowledging how great the iPad can be as a primary device. Hopefully more 3rd-party developers take note and stop treating the iPad like a second citizen.¹

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1. I'm looking at you, Squarespace. Managing pages and site design is still a joke on iPad. How about a full-on iOS app for such things? I still don't understand why something like that doesn't exist and yet Portfolio and Note do. ↩

Federico Viticci's Review of the iPad Air 2

Federico's review of the iPad Air 2 is far more than a breakdown of its specs and features. It's a credo for why the iPad has become his primary computing device.

“The iPad’s screen and body are glued together physically and conceptually. [...] as a computer [it] truly disappears in your hands, feeling like a display that you grab and touch and swipe and throw away when you’re done.

[...]

Three years ago, when I was stuck in a hospital bed and I wanted to continue my work, I started using the iPad out of curiosity, challenging myself to get more done on iOS in spite of its limitations and differences from OS X. Today, some of those limitations still remain, but the iPad and new versions of iOS have solved most of my problems in new and unexpected ways.

The iPad is the best thing that happened to my professional life.”

Like Federico, the iPad—mine is the 4th-gen model—is my primary device. In fact, I don't even own a traditional computer anymore (unless you count my wife's Windows 7 laptop, which I avoid using at all costs).

I'm in a better position than most to find any holes in Federico's argument, but I can't disagree with a single word of his review, or more importantly his philosophy concerning the iPad. It truly is an incredibly versatile device. Most shortcomings with it I've ever come across have been due to lack of developer interest, but even that problem is getting less and less prevalent by the year.

Just to give an example, here are some of the apps that help me get my writing work done:

• I write in Editorial, with a bevy of workflows and TextExpander snippets that make my life at least 10x easier.
• I publish in Squarespace Blog.
• I capture ideas in Drafts and often move my more long-term personal notes over to Simplenote.
• As I come across interesting links in Twitter and RSS, I save them in Instapaper and archive the best stuff in Pinboard (which I often access using Pinner).
• My teammates and I at Tools & Toys and The Sweet Setup use Slack and Basecamp to communicate and stay on top of upcoming projects.
• I use a mixture of apps for managing blog photos: VSCO Cam for editing, Pixelmator for creating and/or combining images, Reduce for resizing images to appropriate widths and file sizes (with EXIF Wizard Pro to double-check EXIF data), and Droplr for hosting Spark Journal images.

And this list is just the tip of the iceberg. The iPad has limitations, sure, but those are more and more becoming edge cases. Nearly all my needs are covered by the iPad, and I have almost no desire for anything more.

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Further reading: Josh Ginter's review + gorgeous photos of the iPad Air 2 on Tools & Toys.

Big Morning in My Little Corner of the Web

I woke up to all sorts of good news today:

• Dropbox increased my Pro storage from 100 GB to 1 TB.
• Quotebook, one of my favorite iOS apps, has updated to version 3. I was on the beta and loved watching the developers' thoughtfulness and attention to detail as the app came together. [iTunes link]
• My friend Federico Viticci and his girlfriend Sylvia Gatta have released Perspective Icons 2, a lovely set of 100 icons for OmniFocus 2. Introductory price of $10.
• The guys at Studio Neat have redesigned their website (it's gorgeous) and made their Neat Ice Kit available for everyone to purchase now that the Kickstarter backers have been taken care of.
• Smile have announced that they've created a custom iOS 8 keyboard for TextExpander Touch that will allow you to expand snippets within any app. Now I won't have to rely on iOS' own built-in keyboard shortcuts anymore, as helpful as they've been to me.

There's probably even more I'm forgetting but man, this is one of those days when it's awesome to be a nerd.