But then I made the mistake of lending my Magic Keyboard to Jessica in the middle of last year, and I never got it back.

So rather than picking up a new Magic Keyboard, I took the opportunity to pick up a Smart Folio keyboard, even though every time I had tried one in a store, I basically hated it.

Over time, I did get used to the strange feel of the keys. And not having to think about battery life or Bluetooth connection issues was nice. Overall, I never ended up loving that set up, but it got the job done.I knew whenever I moved on to another iPad I’d need to go keyboard shopping again.

Enter 2020, with its new line of iPads and a new Magic Keyboard made specifically for iPad. I knew immediately I would want to try this new keyboard and integrated trackpad out.

The new keyboard arrived via FedEx yesterday. So here are my initial impressions. Keep in mind that I have the iPad Pro 11-inch, so the corresponding keyboard is the smaller version:

• Wow, this thing is heavy. Seriously heavy. It needs to be heavy. I get that. Any lighter, and it would likely topple over under the weight of the iPad itself. But it makes the Magic Keyboard into an accessory I’ll lug around specifically when I want to write (as I am now) rather than one I carry with me most of the time.
• The weight also makes it slightly less advantageous to head out of the house with my iPad instead of my laptop. This smaller combo of 11-inch iPad and keyboard is still lighter than my MacBook Pro 13-inch, but not by much.
• The keys feel really good. I still think the new scissor switches have more travel than I would like, but I get that most people prefer the extra travel. So I’m okay with it. At least the keys are very sturdy. None of that sponginess from the old desktop Magic Keyboards. And precise.
• I love the backlight. Typing in the dark on an iPad is no longer a problem.
• I would like if there were a bit more of an angle of view. It’s way nicer than the old Smart Keyboard folio in terms of adjustability. But I’m a tall person. Being able to tilt back even further would be nice. (Maybe it wasn’t possible, due to it toppling over?)
• Connecting and disconnecting is a breeze. The magnets are that perfect balance of strong enough to not disconnect accidentally, vs easy enough to disconnect with one hand. I don’t think I have to worry about the iPad falling off as much as I thought I would.
• Typing on my lap is better than I thought it would be. Better than the Keyboard Folio, for sure.
• Opening with the iPad inside the case is a bit awkward, as the heavy side is on top instead of bottom. But closing the case is very nice. I’ve found I can push down in one motion to a certain point, and the iPad will come to a full close on its own. And I like that it clearly “snaps” shut.
• The keys are not full-sized, of course, so I still find myself, as I always have on iPad keyboards, typing with three fingers and thumb on each hand, rather than using both pinkies. I’ve gotten used to it by now, but I’m never going to be quite as fast on an iPad keyboard as I can be on my laptop. If I moved to the 13-inch iPad, this would not be an issue, of course.
• Speaking of larger iPads, typing on this as I am now, I can totally see Apple making a 15-inch iPad Pro. It would give them more room for a larger trackpad and better palm rests. And an even bigger screen would make for an even better drawing tablet. I’d be shocked if that doesn’t happen in the next few years.
• Now that I’m over the concept of having trackpad support on iPad, I have to say the implementation is pretty darn good. I always found having to reach up to the screen while using iPad in keyboard mode awkward. It’s amazing how fast you get used to using a trackpad on iOS. It feels way more natural than I would have expected. Having a trackpad that’s so small is weird, given how big trackpads have gotten on MacBooks lately. But it’s a very handy thing to have around.
• The super-dark grey is a very nice color. I picked up a Smart Folio (the keyboard-less version) in the new Cactus color, which is a nice lighter green color. It looks really cool with the Space Gray iPad. But this sleek all-dark look on the keyboard is also very nice.
• The rubbery material of the outer shell soaks up finger grease like nobody’s business. It’s going to be hard to keep this thing clean.
• I haven’t noticed any keyboard-shaped grease stains on my screen yet, from being toted around while closed in a bag. But this is my first full day. I suspect that will happen eventually.
• The USB charge-through port is a cool idea. But given reports of how slow charging is in that configuration, I figure I’ll stick with mostly charging via the iPad’s main port. I generally don’t use other USB accessories with my iPad, anyway.
• Not being able to flip the keyboard around back and use the iPad as a touch device while still connected is a bit of a bummer. But given how heavy it would be to hold and use standing up, I don’t think I would have left the keyboard connected for this purpose much, anyway.

Overall, I’m pretty happy with this keyboard. It’s not as nice as my laptop keyboard, of course, but it blows my Smart Keyboard folio out of the water. And the old Magic Keyboard/Canopy combo, frankly. This is as good as typing out long blog posts on an iPad has ever been. I look forward to using it more.

I was all set to go on a weeklong trip out of the country just one day after the new iPads became available. It was as if Apple knew I was leaving town and rushed it out on a Wednesday instead of the usual Friday.

Now that I’m back, some initial thoughts, in no particular order:

• I went with the 11-inch model. As I’ve said in the past, this is purely a personal decision. There is no right answer to which iPad size is best. I’ve owned literally every size iPad screen Apple has ever offered. For me, last year’s 10.5-inch (now stretched to 11) is the one. As a bonus, it still fits inside my Waterfield Designs AirCaddy travel case. The 12.9, despite being smaller this year thanks to shrunken bezels, is still a bit large to fit into my current carrying case lineup. But I totally get why others want the larger screen. I still think Apple will make an even bigger iPad eventually.
• This is the best-looking iPad to date. I probably should have gone with silver this time around, since it still has the black bezel. But I ordered the Space Gray out of habit. No regrets. But now I’m craving a matching Space Gray Magic Keyboard.
• I went with 256 GB. I will eventually want more storage, but for now, I can load up quite a bit of media while traveling without filling the device. I don’t sync music to it, since I always have my iPhone handy for music listening. Once I start Photoshopping next year I may wish I had more storage, but I’ll cross that bridge with my next iPad.
• Once again I went with cellular. I can’t recommend this enough. T-mobile offers me 5 GB of data that I can use over a span of 6 months for only $10. No commitment. No recurring fees. Use it until I run out. Buy more as needed. If someone offered me this on my Watch, I’d actually pay for data on my Watch. Most of the time, I’m on WiFi. For those few times I’m not, though, having cellular kicks the ever living crap out of trying to tether, draining my phone battery, and so on.
• I love the new Pencil. It’s smaller. The magnet is clever and way more convenient for charging. I never lost the cap on my old Pencil, but I certainly came close a few times. Glad to see it gone. I will still likely use the Pencil less often than I should.^[1]
• I wish Apple made a Smart Cover for this new iPad. Instead they went with a two-sided folio. Not for me.
• I never get the Smart Keyboard with my iPads. I hate the feel of those keys about as much as many developers seem to hate the new generation of MacBook Pro keyboards. To each their own.
• The squared-off sides: Oh man, do I love the way the sides of this new iPad feel. Some people call it “retro” to the iPhone 4 or 5. Fine. As far as I’m concerned, squared off sides are better. The tapering gives the illusion of a thinner device, but once you’ve reached peak thinness, there are many advantages to a squared off edge. (Pencil charging, for one.) I can’t wait until the iPhones go back to squared off edges.^[2] I think this is the future, not the past.
• Face ID: I was right to be scared of the camera being on the “short” portrait side of the device. Whenever I’m holding the iPad in Landscape (just about 100% of the time) my thumb is covering the camera. I tend to hold the device in my left hand and use my right to “swipe up” to unlock. But because I’ve always wanted the home button on that right side as well, I tend to hold the device with the camera on the left side. (Apple clearly figures this as the “normal” landscape orientation as well, since they set the pencil charging magnet along the top edge when you hold it this way. That means despite taking a hand off the device to unlock, it’s always the “wrong” hand for me. Thus, I get the dreaded “Camera covered” message about 70% of the time when I am unlocking.^[3] As I wrote earlier, this could be completely avoided if the camera were on one of the longer landscape sides of the device. But who knows? Maybe there’s some engineering reason that couldn’t be done. Suffice it to say, this is my only true complaint about this new iPad. It’s annoying as hell, in fact. But I will learn to swipe to unlock with my left hand, hold the device with the camera on the right (which will put my Pencil under the device), or just reposition my thumbs somehow. I’ll get over it.
• The home indicator. My friend Alec Pulianas pointed this out, and he’s absolutely right: There’s really no need for a permanent home indicator on this iPad. The behavior has not changed for swiping up since iOS 11 last year. People have had a year to “figure out” how to go home with the iPhone X. Sure, turn the indicator on for the first few days for new customers, but it should disappear after that. The graphic only gets in the way for most apps. I hope Apple is considering this UI affordance a temporary thing.
• It’s taking longer than it should for some apps to be updated to support the new screen aspect ratio. I’m not talking about indie apps made by developers who are working their butts off. I’m talking about Netflix (Took almost a week.) HBO. (Still not updated as of this writing.) Apps with large teams who, let’s be honest, had more than a year to prepare for the removal of the home button. Watching letter boxed video inside a pillar boxed app is far from ideal.
• I didn’t think much of the switch to USB-C at first, but the benefits are slowly sinking in. I’m charging my nearly dead iPhone as I write this with my iPad. Sounds silly, but in a pinch, it’s turning out to be a very handy feature. I doubt I’ll be connecting to an external screen anytime soon. But I’m glad that’s now available to video editors, etc. Eventually, I have to think the Files app will get external drive support, which will be awesome. More accessories will work with either Mac or iPad. I think this is one of those changes that will take some time to sort out but eventually will be a “how did we ever live without that?” type of thing. Not sure if it makes sense for iPhone, but I’d be happy to see that happen as well. I wouldn’t be surprised or disappointed either way.
• Being able to travel with just my laptop charger and give it double duty for charging iPad as well is quite nice. I will probably never need a second charger for this iPad.
• Speed: I’ve never thought any iPad I’ve owned is slow. Then again, why not push the state of the art forward? I’m happy these iPads are getting faster, support more storage and RAM, and are generally kicking the ass of laptops the world over. This is what Apple does. I know some have suggested the RAM is overkill, but when I think of apps like Final Cut Pro X, Logic, and other “pro” apps people complain about not existing for iPad, the one thing those apps need that current iPads don’t have yet is tons of RAM. (Have you ever loaded a set of virtual instruments into Main Stage?) I say bring on more and more speed and RAM until it becomes physically impossible to add more. Here’s the thing: an iPad is in no way a “lesser” device from a hardware standpoint. Which means it doesn’t need to be any lesser from a software standpoint, either.
• Speaking of software: Yes, iOS needs more iPad-only features. Apple is still paying for the mistake of encouraging “Universal” apps for iPad back in the day. I wrote about all that years ago, so I won’t go into it again. I do think starting simple with iPhone’s OS and getting more complex over time was the right move. It’s taking longer than any of us would like, but I’m optimistic about iOS 13 next June. Will they fork iOS into an iPadOS eventually? Maybe. Not sure it’s necessary, though. Just keep adding iPad specific features where appropriate, and share with iPhone when that makes sense. I don’t think maintaining yet another full operating system is going to be a net gain.
• More on software: Apps. Pro apps. Whatever that means. They exist. More will exist. All I can say is when they come, be willing to pay for them. And for my friends making those apps: be willing to charge for them. I’ll be using Photoshop on my iPad a year from now. I can’t imagine XD won’t follow soon after. At that point, I’ll be able to do almost all my design work on iPad. If you have design apps now that are Mac only and you don’t have an iOS road map, you’re as good as dead to me in a few years.^[4] How long before I can say the same for most of my development work?^[5] And once apps like Photoshop appear, look for the gaps in the surrounding ecosystem. I’d love to see Adobe bring something akin to its plugin architecture to iPad. That may take some cooperation from Apple, but it could spark an entirely new market for third parties on iOS. The future is looking bright.
• And that brings me to my final point. iPad has been my favorite Apple device for a long time now. This new edition only strengthens my feeling. I am newly inspired to write apps for this machine. I want to use it more than I already do. It doesn’t have to replace my laptop. It needs to expand my current concept of how and where I use computing devices. And that’s been steadily happening since the first iPad was released in 2010.

Congrats to the entire team who worked on these new iPads. They are truly remarkable.

Okay: Crazy designer ideas time. Bear with me. This is not a prediction of what may or may not happen at tomorrow’s Apple event. Just a thought that’s been rattling in my brain for the past few months.

Have an iPad handy? Great. If not, use your imagination.

Pick up the iPad and hold it as you normally would in landscape orientation. Where are your hands? If you’re anything like me, one of your thumbs is roughly on top of the home button, and the other one is just about covering the selfie camera. Hands are basically in the middle of the device, in other words.

Now, hold the iPad in portrait mode. Where are your hands? Chances are, your hands are towards the bottom of the device, not the middle. Your thumbs are not covering the center of either long side of the device.

Is it me, or is this an argument for Apple putting the Face ID sensor array on one of the longer, landscape sides of the device?

Now, there may be some perfectly logistical, engineering reason why the selfie cam/sensor array needs to stay on the short side of the device. This is why I’m not making any predictions here. But if it isn’t physically difficult or impossible to put the array on the longer side, I think Apple would and should put it there. Otherwise, forget whether or not Face ID can work in landscape or portrait. We may have to take one hand off the device every time we need to authenticate when we are holding in landscape, anyway. Which would not be ideal.

Ever since the 10.5-inch iPad Pro was released, with it’s slightly longer aspect ratio, I’ve used my iPad in portrait mode approximately 0% of the time. It’s just awkward to hold that iPad in portrait, because of its elongated geometry. Positioning the sensor array at the “top” of that orientation makes no sense from a design standpoint, as it optimizes for an edge case, rather than what I’m guessing is “normal” use for most people. (Again, assuming that engineering challenges don’t make this a moot argument.)

On the other hand, if the sensor array were on one of the long edges of the device, Face ID would work just fine in either orientation for most people, as your hands would never be covering the array regardless of how you hold it.

Just a thought. I’m sure I’ll be proven wrong tomorrow. But I couldn’t let this thought go without at least documenting it.

I fought the notion of a mechanical keyboard for my iPad for years. Part of the reason was every keyboard designed for a tablet I’ve tried (including Apple’s own Smart Keyboard) is just not good. Small keys. Crappy feel. I’ve never been able to type a sentence on any of them without immediately concluding that they were terrible compared to the on-screen keyboard, let alone my MacBook Pro keyboard.

But the bigger reason I’ve always been opposed to external iPad keyboards is I just fundamentally believe a tablet is a superior form factor to a laptop—for the subset of tasks I do most often on my iPad.^[1] And combining touching a screen with typing on a keyboard is, as Phil Schiller has suggested, ergonomically ill-advised.

So why, then, am I typing this with a mechanical keyboard on my iPad? Well, because I discovered that for prolonged periods of typing, where I want to do nothing else but type thousands of words for a blog post, a combination of Apple’s Magic Keyboard and iOS can actually be a better choice than my MacBook Pro.

Don’t get me wrong; I still believe strongly that for most uses, an iPad is a much better device when held in my hands than it will ever be when I put it into my Canopy and connect the Magic Keyboard. But that doesn’t mean a mechanical keyboard doesn’t come in handy for the very specific use of long-form writing.

Why use an iPad when you could just use your Mac?

For years, I asked myself this exact question, and I answered it simply by using my Mac. After all, typing long-form on a Mac is a great experience. But there are a few things that give writing on iPad a slight advantage.

First, there’s something to be said for a truly “distraction-free” experience. I use Ulysses in full-screen mode on my MacBook Pro, but even then, it’s way too easy to switch over to Twitterrific, Slack, or any other number of apps. I know it’s almost as easy to do the same on iPad, but for whatever reason, I don’t. I mostly stay focused on my writing, with only the occasional diversion when I need a break.

A Mac can be set up to run apps full-screen, but iPad does that by default.

My very aggressive approach to turning off notifications for just about everything on my iPad probably has an effect here as well. But I don’t really have that option on my Mac, because I often need those notifications while I’m doing my day-to-day work.

I suppose I could easily designate a second Mac to be a dedicated writing machine and get mostly the same effect. But a Mac you use only for writing is a bit like a shotgun you use only to kill flies. It’s way more machine than you need for the job at hand.

Besides, I get a lot more uses out of my iPad than just writing. Most of these involve performance on stage, or other tasks that are similarly in need of a distraction-free setup. Using the same device for writing makes perfect sense.

The second big advantage is battery life. I never give a second thought to battery life when I’m writing with my iPad. The same can’t be said of any laptop. And the more I use my iPad to write instead of my Mac, the more battery life my Mac will have for Photoshop, Logic, Xcode, and all the other things I can’t currently do on iPad.

Third, apps like Ulysses are just as good on iPad as they are on macOS. There’s no sense of using a “watered-down” version at all. Ulysses for iPad is as feature-rich as its macOS counterpart. And just as easy to use.

Finally, portability. When I want to head out to a coffee shop and just do some writing and nothing else, my iPad is always going to be lighter, even with the extra keyboard added, than my MacBook pro, as light as that is. It’s the difference between lugging around a larger bag like my AirPorter and just throwing my Muzetto over my shoulder, too.

Also, a number of cafes here in New York have a strict “No laptops” policy on weekends or at certain hours of the day. They have no such restrictions on iPads however, as silly as that sounds.^[2]

Why the Canopy/Magic Keyboard?

I chose the Canopy from Studio Neat, combined with Apple’s Magic Keyboard, which is the same keyboard Apple includes with the iMac. There were a number of advantages in this setup for me compared to Apple’s Smart Keyboard, or any other iPad-specific solution I researched.

• The Magic Keyboard just plain feels better. It’s not nearly as nice for me as my new MacBook Pro keyboard, which I love. The keys on the Magic Keyboard overall have a spongy and inaccurate feel in comparison. But the keys and layout are full-sized, which is a huge advantage over the Smart Keyboard (at least the one for the 10.5-inch iPad, which is what I have.) And they don’t feel like whatever it is those Smart Keyboard keys feel like.^[3]
• The Canopy folds into a nice compact package that fits into my bag with no issues, and yet is easy to leave behind when I don’t need it. I have a Smart Cover for my iPad, which I use occasionally to prop up the iPad to watch videos and such when I’m not typing, and to add an extra level of protection to my screen. I can keep the Smart Cover connected to the back of my iPad while using it in the Canopy.^[4] And I still get screen protection when I don’t want to bring the keyboard along with me. The Smart Keyboard, because it is a combined screen cover/keyboard, leaves you with the extra weight of a keyboard at all times. Unless you want to swap between a Smart Keyboard and Smart Cover.
• The Canopy is easier to open and close, at least for me, than the Smart Keyboard. And when closed it provides a nice layer of protection to my Magic Keyboard.
• Because the Magic Keyboard is a regular Bluetooth keyboard, I have the option of using it with other devices, such as my iPhone, or even my MacBook Pro, if I want to.
• As new iPads get released, assuming they continue to have Bluetooth, I can keep using the same keyboard. I could go back to the 12.9-inch for my next iPad, for instance, and not have to replace my keyboard. The Canopy accommodates any sized iPad, since it’s designed around the Magic Keyboard, not the iPad.
• Being able to pick my iPad up out of the Canopy very easily and then place it back down allows me to switch between typing and more touch-based user interface operations much more easily. If I want to check Twitter, or navigate around in the Music, app, etc. I just pick up the iPad, work it as I normally would in my hands, then put it back down when I’m ready to start typing again.
• A Canopy and a Magic Keyboard combined costs less than the Smart Keyboard.

There are, of course, some downsides to this setup versus Apple’s Smart Keyboard.

• Battery—the Smart Keyboard uses the Smart Connector to get its power directly from the iPad. So you don’t have to worry about charging a separate battery for the keyboard itself. In practice, this has turned out to be mostly a non-issue, though, as I find the Magic Keyboard’s battery lasts months. So I just about never have to worry about running out of charge. I just set a reminder to recharge every five weeks or so (even though I don’t necessarily need it) just to be sure the keyboard always has some juice.
• Bluetooth connection. Because it doesn’t connect to the Smart Connector, the Magic Keyboard needs to reconnect to the iPad. 90% of the time, I flip the on switch, tap the spacebar, and a few seconds later I’m connected. Sometimes it takes a little more effort to get it to connect. Not a big problem at all, really. But definitely not as nice as the Smart Keyboard’s instant connection.

Overall, I’m very happy with my choice to move most of my long-form typing to iPad. And I’m very pleased with the Canopy/Magic Keyboard combination. I resisted the notion of attaching a keyboard to an iPad for too long. I stand by my original opinion that for many, many tasks, iPad is much better as a slab of glass with no mechanical keyboard. Thus I still have no interest whatsoever in an iPad with an integrated, always-connected hardware keyboard for my own uses. I also have no desire to see iOS and macOS merge completely into some sort of combined touch/pointer Frankenstein.

However, designating my iPad as my main blogging device by optionally attaching a Magic Keyboard on occasion will help me fulfill one of my goals for 2018, which is to spend more time in iOS and to get even more use out of my iPad.

A previously undocumented requirement asks for a passcode in a very particular set of circumstances: When the iPhone or iPad hasn’t been unlocked with its passcode in the previous six days, and Touch ID hasn’t been used to unlock it within the last eight hours. It’s a rolling timeout, so each time Touch ID unlocks a device, a new eight-hour timer starts to tick down until the passcode is required. If you wondered why you were being seemingly randomly prompted for your passcode (or more complicated password), this is likely the reason.

(via Glen Fleishman for Macworld)

Makes sense that I seldom bump into this on my iPhone, since I only sleep about six hours most nights. But I’ve often wondered why my iPads, which I don’t necessarily pick up first thing in the morning, need a passcode so often. I assumed it was a bug.

Bringing Fin to the big screen was easier than I thought it would be. Certainly easier than developing for Mac, and probably even easier than Apple Watch in many ways.

I still think the Apple TV app market is going to be a tough place to make a whole lot of money short term, but I do find myself thinking quite a bit about the long term potential of this new platform.

In any case, I figured it was worth the effort just to wrap my head around a new device. Three weeks of spare hours here and there to get myself familiar with the HIG, the UI challenges, etc. was well worth the effort, as far as I’m concerned. And now I get to see if any of my users find the TV app useful, or if I pick up any new attention as a result of being there.

How often do people need a giant countdown clock in their living rooms? I don’t know. But as with all of the iOS devices, I tend to try and see the possibilities for professionals and prosumers. And there’s where I think an app like Fin can be rather beneficial.

Music and video studios, live events, classrooms — there are all sorts of places where having a big screen showing the time remaining in a session would be very helpful. In fact, I think there are all sorts of possibilities to provide other benefits in those environments as well. And those are the places I want to spend more time thinking about, rather than the living room, which is likely to be crowded and dominated by giant names like HBO and Netflix for a long time.

How much does a basic HD TV go for these days? A couple hundred bucks? Add an Apple TV at another $150, and you have a pretty cheap solution for all sorts of things in professional environments. The question is, will people start picking up Apple TVs for these purposes, or do the apps need to be there first? Time will tell.

Meanwhile I think the UI for Fin translates well to the big screen and remote. The app isn’t quite fully featured yet, but it does the main job of keeping you on schedule quite well. I plan to enhance it as users start giving me some feedback.

If you’re a Fin user and you have a new Apple TV, the app should show up in your purchased tab. If you buy it on your TV, you’ll get the iOS version as well. Give it a try and let me know what you think.

While everyone else in the community is still losing its mind over the battery bump, I thought I’d offer a change of pace and criticize something a little more concerning about Apple’s recent endeavors. It didn’t take much effort to find something less controversial, at least.

Let’s take, for instance, the experience of watching iTunes Extras material on an iPad.

iTunes Extras are like DVD bonus features for the movies you buy on iTunes. Some movies only offer an alternate commentary track. Others get quite elaborate, with tons of deleted scenes, interviews, mini-features, the whole nine yards. I’m a big fan of the concept. I am a huge nerd, after all.

A few years ago, you could only watch this bonus stuff on your Mac, which was stupid. Then in 2014 Apple gave iOS the ability to view them again, which was welcome news indeed. Why would I want to watch several hours of video content on my Mac instead of my TV or iPad? Seemed like a no brainer, so I was glad Apple was going to correct this silly omission.

So what’s the problem, Joe? Apple gave you what you wanted, right?

I’ll just make a bulleted list, to keep it simple:

• iTunes Extras are streaming only. Can’t download them to the iPad. So, no broadband Internet connection at the time you want to watch, no Extras. You can forget about queuing those 90 hours of Hobbit Appendices for your flight to New Zealand, even though you ponied up the extra cash for a 128GB iPad.[1]
• Where do I find the Extras? There’s no Extras button on the main movie launch screen. First hit play on the movie, then, if you happen to have an Internet connection, and you happen to notice before the controls fade away, there will be a button for Bonus Features on the bottom of the screen below the playback controls. It’s as if Apple is afraid you might actually want to watch this stuff.
• Enter the Extras, use the menu system, hit play on one of videos. About two minutes in, it’ll pause, as the connection struggles to keep up. This will happen several times while you’re watching no matter how good your broadband is. All part of the experience.
• Pause the Extra, put the iPad to sleep. You’ve now lost your place. You’ll have to start the entire process over and guess where you were in the video you were watching, if you can remember which one you were watching, that is.
• Tap on a notification to jump to another app really quickly. You’ve now lost your place. See above.
• This one is my favorite: Rotate the iPad so that you change orientation.[2] You guessed it, you’ve now lost your place. The video will switch over to the main feature movie and play that. Because that makes perfect sense.
• Pause the Extra and hit the home button. It’s okay. You can say it. You’ve lost your place yet again. Only it gets even more interesting. Now, the audio of the main movie feature will begin to play, in the background. Ironically it’ll start where you left off the last time you watched the actual movie, just as an extra kick in the nuts. Open up the video app, and sure enough, the main feature movie is now playing. Hit pause, go do whatever you wanted to do, then come back and start all over again.
• Try scrubbing through the Extra you were watching, and the experience makes the old AppleTV scrubbing seem fluid by comparison. Slide to 8:42, the playhead will jump to 6:23 for no reason. Try to push it back to 8:42, it’ll jump to 11:47. Push it back again, let it jump to 5:50. At this point you’ll just watch it again from the beginning until you get back to where you left off.

I suppose all of this is better than having no ability to watch the Extras at all on mobile, but not by much. After all, if you have a perfect Internet connection, and you want to watch the Extras all in one shot without pausing or getting interrupted for any reason, then it’s just peachy, as long as you don’t mind the occasional pause for the connection to catch up. I’m sure this is how it was tested before being approved for release.

These are not hard bugs to find. They have been present for a while. Either no one is watching iTunes Extras content on their iPads except me, or Apple considers it a super low priority. Which is fine. But it is an embarrassment. Much more so than an ugly iPhone case, at any rate.

1. I went back to 64GB on my iPad Air 2 for this reason alone. Unfortunately, with the Pro, the only option, if you want the broadband necessary to watch iTunes Extras, is to also get 128GB of storage that you won’t be able to use to store those Extras.  ↩
2. This is something that happens unintentionally sometimes, like, you know, if you happen to be watching in bed and forgot to lock orientation as you change positions. That’s only happened to me about six thousand times so far, so it’s no big deal.  ↩

It was all the way back at WWDC 2014 that my friend Hans vershooten suggested what eventually became the marquis feature of x2y 4.0: Percentages.

x2y has always been able to calculate x or y dimensions for you automatically. It would be nice, Hans suggested, if it could also tell you the percentage difference between the original image and the new one. So if you want, for instance, a rectangle that’s exactly 245% of the original, x2y should be able to calculate both the x and y dimensions for that.

And now it does. (Sorry it took so long, Hans.)

Other new features in this update include 3DTouch shortcuts on the home screen, for devices such as the iPhone 6s and 6s Plus. You can jump straight to a particular aspect ratio with one gesture. To customize which aspects end up in the shortcuts, simply put them at the top of your customizable common aspects list.

Also new in this update, two new color themes. I have fun changing up the look of x2y on occasion, so I wanted to add a few more options. Also, all themes are now unlocked by default, so no more hunting around looking for ways to get all the themes to unlock.

I’m a bit surprised that years after this app was first released, I still find myself using x2y several times a week. This was my first app, and I never imagined that I could take it so far. Once again, I can say with confidence that I’ve spent more time thinking about aspect ratio calculators than anyone else on iOS.

x2y an invaluable tool for any designer or developer who needs to resize images often, particularly in code. You can download it on the App Store here.

Setlists 2.0 finally hits the App Store today. It’s a huge update that involved not only tons of under-the-hood improvements to take advantage of Apple’s latest iOS technologies, but also the addition of a large number of our most requested new features. To say it was a massive undertaking is an understatement. The team really outdid themselves on this one.

I can’t wait to use it on stage during the next few Airplane Mode gigs.

The most interesting aspect of this update for most of my readers, I’m guessing, is the change we’re making to our pricing strategy. For years, Setlists has always been a paid-up-front, “premium” app at $9.99 USD. This time around, though, we’ve decided to experiment with making the app free to download, with a single in-app purchase to unlock the app’s full potential.[1]

Will this make Setlists a better business for us? We’ve looked at a lot of other apps that have similar strategies, and we’ve tried to avoid the pitfalls others have warned us about—but time will tell what the results of our experiment will be.

One interesting way to look at this switch is that our marketing no longer has the burden of making the sale. Our web site, our screenshots, whatever press we get, whatever ads we buy—all of that now only needs to convince people to download and try the app. Still not an easy task, but it’s easier than asking them to fork over money for an app they’ve never used.

The app itself now has to make the sale. And that sits better with me. I’d rather be judged by the app than the ads we place for the app or how pretty our screenshots are. Whatever the downsides of freemium (and there are many) that one change is certainly a good thing.

We’re confident once musicians try Setlists, a large number of them will find it suits their needs. So much so that we made the price to unlock $14.99 rather than $9.99. This might not be a “free trial” officially, but as with a free trial, our buyers aren’t being forced to take as great a risk, and thus we can charge accordingly.

In any event, everyone at Bombing Brain is looking forward to much smaller, incremental updates for a long while after this.

1. I know, we’re late to the freemium party, but we’re still not at all convinced that freemium is right for every app out there.  ↩

Facing slowing growth for the first time since the iPad’s 2010 debut, Apple is working on several significant software and hardware updates to reinvigorate the tablet over the next year. Apple is developing a dual-app viewing mode, 12-inch iPads codenamed “J98″ and “J99,” as well as support for multi-user logins, according to sources briefed on the plans.

(via 9to5Mac)

Last year, with Universal Storyboards, Apple pushed iPad into being more iPhone-like. (Why build a true custom experience for your iPad app when you can just “stretch” your iPhone app to the full screen of the iPad?) The notion was that more iPhone-only developers would build universal apps if Apple made the process a bit easier. The result was a lot more universal apps, most of which are not better in any substantial way on iPad.

This year, it looks like dual-app viewing and multiple-account support will push iPad in a more Mac-like direction. “If we let people multitask, we’ll get fewer complaints that iPad isn’t a power user’s tool.” Well, yeah, but it’s still going to be an inferior experience to multitasking on a Mac, no matter what Apple does on that front.

I wish Apple would just let iPad be iPad.

At Bombing Brain, we’ve made a not-insignificant amount of money over the past five years developing tools for people who realize that iPad is simply better than a laptop or a phone at very specific, targeted tasks. If Apple would help drive the development of iPad to make it better at those things, I think the product could finally reach its full potential.

As long as we keep ping-ponging between iPhone and Mac, iPad will continue to be stuck in between them, never quite better than one or the other.

I’m not saying multiple account support and dual-app viewing would be a bad thing. They sound like good additions, if done right. But I do hope that Apple has a lot more in store for iPad this year than just making it a little more like using a Mac.

Apple takes the lofty route for iPad « Observatory: “But — while this spot can be seen as uplifting and inspirational, it can also be seen as incredibly pretentious. One must admit, it’s a bit of intellectual overkill for those who just want to do their email, surf and shop — which probably covers most of the tablet-buying public.”

(Via Ken Segall.)

That, in a nutshell, is exactly Apple’s problem with the iPad. People think it’s an email, surf, and shop machine. If it continues to be just that, the iPad is never going to meet Apple’s expectations. Thus, the “loftier” ad approach of the Verses series.

People raved about the Misunderstood iPhone commercial over Christmas, but I actually think these spots are much more important to Apple’s long-term future. Thanks to Apple’s misguided driving of the App Store into Crazy Eddie’s Discount Bonanza, people are losing sight of just how powerful a tablet can be. They clamor for a “bigger” iPhone, because they figure that would do just about everything they do on their iPads well enough to no longer need an iPad. And that’s certainly not good for Apple.

Sure, the message is lofty, and maybe it only appeals to Apple’s current customers. But those customers aren’t getting as much out of their iPads as they deserve. Sometimes you need to start with a lofty message to reaffirm your core values. Sometimes you have to remind people that you’re trying to improve people’s lives.

If Apple wants to continue selling iPads, it needs to carve out a space where the iPad is seen as essential to the things we want to create, not just a luxury toy for watching movies on a plane.

Marco.org: “But searching for ‘teleprompter’ in the App Store today brings up about 40 other iPad teleprompter apps. About a third of them are free, and almost none are anywhere near Teleprompt+’s $14.99 price, with most paid alternatives around $3–5. And that’s just for iPad — the iPhone app market is much larger and even more competitive in most app categories.”

(via. marco.org)

Marco had some interesting comments regarding my post from earlier today. I think this quote above is where we’re not seeing eye to eye. He’s assuming that I’m competing with $3-$5 Teleprompter apps. I’m not. The people who want a low-priced, casual teleprompter app for iPad are far fewer than the professionals who need them as part of their studio setup. We’re not only outselling all of those competitors every day in revenue, but also in number of downloads, by a pretty wide margin. What most of those low-cost competitors have learned is that they can’t keep up with us on so little money per sale. We can barely do it at $15, trying to feed three people.

If you look at our page on iTunes, and check out the “Customers Also Bought” section, you’ll see that there are few other teleprompters listed. Most people aren’t even bothering to check out the cheap alternatives before buying our app.

If you look closely at the bulk of those 40ish other competitors, you’ll note that the majority of them haven’t been updated in several months or years. Trying to compete on low price, in this one niche market, is proving to be a poor strategy.

Yes, I understand we’re in a niche. But it’s a profitable niche. And it’s a niche where free with IAP makes little sense at the moment. And there are dozens of other niches just like it.

None of the $3-$5 apps offer the features our users need, because those features take serious time and investment to create. You can’t create that functionality when you’re making $3 per sale.

Of course, there’s no reason someone couldn’t come along and create a free-to-download, $15 IAP teleprompter. But my point is that as long as that app is listed as “free” the pros who tend to buy our app will likely ignore it, or at least be severely turned off by it. And any casual users it does attract will immediately balk at the high $15 IAP, and write us a one-star review while they’re at it. So in our case, I don’t see free with IAP working out, at least not until the stigma of IAP being a scam is eradicated in the minds of small business owners.

Now, at the end of his post, where he says this:

“There are a lot of developers making a lot of iOS apps, and competition is fierce. It’s unwise to assume that any profitable niche is safe from being undercut by free alternatives.”

I completely agree. I certainly don’t expect this one app to continue to grow indefinitely forever. We’re looking into many different strategies for future products. All I’m suggesting is that there are still a lot of ways to make money on the Store. Offering one of them as the “only” way, or saying one pricing strategy is completely “dead” is overstating it a bit.

I didn’t appreciate this when I was beta testing OmniPresence (because the beta was Mac-only and didn’t involve the iPad) but The Omni Group has really done something amazing with this new synching software. In essence, they’ve married the best of Dropbox and iCloud, and they’ve given it away for any developer to use.

The Problem with Dropbox

Dropbox is no question a rock-solid solution for synching files. And it’s about as simple as a synching solution can get on the Mac. Create a folder. Put anything you want in that folder. Everything in that folder is available everywhere. Perfect, right?

Well, it’s perfect on the Mac, but when you then move over to accessing your files with your iPad, things get a little clunky. And not just because of Apple’s restrictions about sharing data between apps. I actually believe in what Apple is trying to do with removing the file system on the iPad. No matter how much we nerds scream about it, the file system is probably the biggest barrier average users have to learning to use a Mac. There is an elegant simplicity to opening an app on an iPad and seeing only the files that app understands and nothing else. Using a solution like Dropbox on the iPad always feels like a step backwards, no matter how you slice it. Navigating folder structures just feels wrong. It’s simply not native to the platform.

The Problem with iCloud

iCloud, at the same time, is much better on the iPad than it is on OS X. It was created with the removal of the Finder in mind. That’s fine on the iPad, but we expect and want to use the Finder on our Macs. We get frustrated when we can’t simply see a folder with all our files in it on the Mac. Where did my shared files go? How to I share them with anyone else? iCloud is downright confusing and extremely limiting on the Mac.

The Solution

What OmniPresence manages to do is behave like Dropbox on the Mac and iCloud on the iPad. And that’s just brilliant. On your Mac, set up a folder, just like you would for Dropbox, drop anything you want in there, and it syncs. Move it around, make subfolders, whatever. But then open any OmniPresence-enabled app on your iPad, and you see just the files pertaining to that app in your document list. Make changes on either device, and the file gets auto-updated, just like with iCloud, even while open. Even if you create subfolders on the Mac, the documents all show up in your list natively on the iPad without having to drill down anywhere. And you’re not copying the file from your Dropbox app into the iPad app, making changes, and then manually syncing back; all changes are synched back in seconds automatically.

As if this weren’t cool enough, Omni then takes it another two steps by 1) allowing you to sync to your own server instead of Omni’s and 2) releasing the synch software as open source, so anyone can do whatever they want with it. This removes any ambiguity about security or monetization motivations. Don’t trust Dropbox or Omni with your files? Fine, just set it up and run it on your own server.

This may all sound like a commercial for The Omni Group, but I’m just stunned they’ve managed to pull this off so cleanly. I hope a lot of other app developers realize what an opportunity this is and start embedding this functionality into their apps.

I know the trend lately is to suggest that Apple is not moving fast enough. That it should be releasing brand-new groundbreaking products every year or two. That iOS needs a complete design overhaul so it won’t be so “boring.” Where’s the Apple TV? Where’s the iWatch? And so on.

Down with Skeuomorphism! Flat Design FTW!

Forget all that. What Apple really needs to do is slow the hell down.

The Mac was released in 1984. The iPod in 2001. The iPhone in 2007. The iPad in 2010. Sure, the revolutionary new products are coming faster now than they used to, but is that a good thing?[1]

Apple has introduced some incredibly cool technology over the past several years that hasn’t come close to reaching its potential. FaceTime, Passbook, iBooks Author, iCloud—just to name a few—were all so promising when they were introduced. But most of them have failed to be completely successful, not because they aren’t great ideas, but because Apple isn’t doing a whole lot to either improve or evangelize them.

If the pattern used to be “release, then iterate, iterate, iterate,” it seems like Apple is not giving itself enough time for the “iterate” part of that process. It’s being pressured to move on to the next thing. And that leaves us with a lot of half-baked products and a ton of unrealized potential.

Let’s take a look at some of these in more detail.

FaceTime

The first time you use FaceTime to talk to your family members from across the globe is a pretty magical experience. We’ve all seen the commercials and gotten teary-eyed. Anyone who has used FaceTime can see the value in making free long-distance video calls, right? But what’s holding FaceTime back from wider adoption?

When Jobs introduced FaceTime, he said that it would eventually be an open standard, that anyone could use the same technology and thus it wouldn’t matter if your kids or wife or whoever also had an iPhone or iPad. You could call people on Android, Windows, etc. What happened to that? Did the standard get rejected? Did Apple ever bother submitting it?

And why is FaceTime still a one-on-one conversation? I can do a video iChat with three people over AIM, for crying out loud. And I can’t share my screen during a FaceTime call, either. The Mac app hasn’t been updated since it was in beta, really. And the carriers are only now opening up and letting us use it over our cellular data plans. Considering how long FaceTime has been around, it’s stunningly similar to what it was at launch.

Update: Rene Ritchie from iMore has informed me that Apple is in the midst of a lawsuit involving FaceTime, and that may have had a strong effect on Apple’s ability to improve the technology, and to open source it. That certainly would explain the lack of progress there. Thanks for the tip!

Passbook

The four times I’ve used Passbook were some of the most delightful retail experiences I’ve had. Who wouldn’t love the idea of never having to worry about losing paper tickets or waiting in line at Will Call again? Every time I buy tickets to a movie, concert, or comedy show, I scan the confirmation email, hoping to see a Passbook link. And more often than not, I’m left disappointed.

I’d be using Passbook a lot more, except few companies seem to be adopting it. This one is a real head scratcher, as from what I can tell the technology isn’t difficult to implement. It appears as if Apple actually got the hard part right, but no one at Apple is selling it enough. I know that Passbook is relatively new, but is anyone out there pushing companies to try it? Does Apple even have Evangelists anymore?

It would help if Apple Retail at least adopted Passbook for Apple Gift Cards and in-store pickups. Talk about eating your own dogfood.

Update 2: @hmk on App.net pointed out that last November, Apple did start allowing online Apple Gift Cards to be transferred into Passbook. The physical cards you buy in Apple Stores and other retail locations are still not transferrable, however.

iBooks Author

Phil Schiller said Apple wanted to reinvent the textbook with iBooks Author. And what have we gotten since? Is Apple taking this book revolution seriously anymore? Maybe it is, but it’s hard to tell when Apple has been basically silent about it ever since, minus one update that didn’t address most authors’ needs.

Maybe footnotes would be a good start.

iCloud

Lots of stories lately about how Apple is blowing it with iCloud, so I don’t need to belabor the point here. Everyone seems to agree that contact, calendar, and preference syncing is mostly okay, though not perfect. But the real issue is more complex data sync, which is both broken and next to impossible to implement.

iCloud needs developer adoption, and right now the top developers are telling everyone to stay away from it. This is a huge problem for Apple. I know the tendency for Apple is to think of users first, then Apple, then the devs, but this is one case where putting the dev first is actually going to help Apple and the users more. If Core Data sync is truly unfixable, replace it with something better under the hood. Keep calling it iCloud, because no one outside the developer community will know you changed anything. They’ll just be happy it started working.

Conclusion

Behind every one of these products is a brilliant idea. This is not a Ping situation, where Apple saw it had made a mistake and quickly cut it loose. Every one of these and many more could easily become world-changing, competition-killing features with the right amount of polish and some proselytizing. But Apple can’t do that if it starts to adopt a more Google-like “throw it all up against the wall and see what sticks” attitude. This would be harmful not only to the users who get burnt as their favorite new technologies die on the vine, but also to Apple itself as people start to lose their faith that everything new Apple does is golden. It’s also destructive to the talent within Apple who come up with these things. You can’t retain talented people if you abandon the projects they work so hard to deliver.

When the iPhone was first released, and it didn’t have cut, copy, and paste, I wasn’t worried. I wasn’t worried there were no third-party apps. I knew that would all happen eventually. I want to be just as sure about Apple’s newer products.

Even on the hardware side, we’re just scratching the surface of iPad adoption. There are far more people who don’t own a tablet than who do. It’s clear that tablets are destined to become the primary computing device for most people; but not if Apple is already putting all its attention on wrist computers and not addressing the shortcomings that make the iPad impractical for average users’ needs. The current iPads are awesome, but they’re not done. There’s plenty more to improve.

If Apple took the year and worked on half of its existing prodcuts rather than trying to introduce new ones, they’d be doing themselves and us a much bigger favor. If they spent the year fixing the unbelievably sloppy bugs that still exist in iOS and Mountain Lion (I’m talking boneheadedly simple things like drag and drop on the Mac), rather than bringing five new half-baked apps like Podcasts to the platform, our phones and our laptops would be better at surprising and delighting us.[2]

I’ve loved jabbing Adobe for its many flaws over the years, but when they took a step back with Photoshop CS6 and spent the majority of the release fixing all the teeny little annoyances we were complaining about for decades rather than peppering it with a thousand useless new features, you could feel the collective joy from the user base. We were thrilled that Adobe was finally fixing most of the broken stuff. Apple would be wise to take some time to do something similar with iOS and OS X. All those little irritations add up, and every new product you introduce that doesn’t get more love later is yet another breeding ground for discontent.

Maybe that’s not sexy enough to gather all the right headlines. Maybe new features in iWork for the first time in seveal years won’t keep Wall Street or the idiot analysts happy. Maybe the competition is too fierce to afford the time to slow down and get some perspective rather than plowing forward at breakneck speed. (I seriously doubt it.) But all this rushing, all this spreading of resources too thin is starting to show. Allowing pressure from others to set the pace of innovation at Apple would be a very costly mistake.

1. Personally, I think the iPad was released a few years earlier than it should have been. Jobs wasn’t going to be around much longer, so it made sense that he wanted to see it out in the real world before he passed, but the more I use my iPad mini, the more convinced I am that the mini would have been what Apple released as the first iPad if it had waited a few more years to refine the product to its usual standards.  ↩
2. The release of the new and improved Podcasts app actually gave me hope. Most of the press only cared about the killing of skeuomorphism, but the more significant UI changes and new features in Podcasts demonstrated that Apple knew exactly what was wrong with the app and how best to fix it. If Podcasts is an indication of where iOS is going in general, then I’m not worried. Let’s hope we’ll see more of this sort of methodical polish in the near future.  ↩

In-app purchase in spotlight again as boy racks up £1,000 iPad bill: “Eight-year-old Theo Rowland-Fry’s parents thought nothing of letting him play a ‘Simpsons’ game on the family iPad — until a recent bank statement showed charges of almost £1,000, that is.”

(Via Apple Insider.)

Here’s my question: Why do kids games with in-app-purchase even exist? Why are parents downloading these games at all? “Freemium” games for kids should have zero downloads. As should kids games with ads.

Blame Apple if you want, but personally I think parents should reconsider how they fund their kids’ entertainment. $5 up front for a game sure seems like a bargain next to $1,000 in-app-purchase bill. It never pays to be cheap.

Oh, and learn to use Parental Controls, for crying out loud.

And, yes, shame on these big corporate jerks trying to take advantage of the young. You’re not innocent in this, either.