It is the ultimate horror for every parent that their own child becomes seriously ill. No family in the world should suffer such a fate. That’s why I would like to support the fundraising campaign of the podcast network Relay FM for the St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. Children with cancer from all over the world are treated there free of charge. In addition, St. Jude has been researching better cures for decades. I can hardly think of anything more worthy of support.
Relay FM has been doing these fundraisers for several years now and you can be sure that the money goes directly to St. Jude – one of the founders of Relay FM, Stephen Hackett, was born in Memphis and lives there with his family. Also, his oldest son was treated there. Through this sub campaign, I would like to help reach a larger audience and thus raise more money for this incredibly important cause. Thank you for every contribution!
Obsidian is primarily a text-based tool for me. I only use images occasionally, and I’ve also outsourced my PDFs to DevonThink. I take the approach that it often makes sense to use specialized tools and not do everything with one app, even if that’s potentially possible. Drawings and diagrams are a bit different. I need them relatively rarely anyway because I work very text-based. However, I’m currently trying to get into the habit of using drawings a bit more because I believe that complex topics can be understood much better that way.
And that brings us to the topic of visual note-taking. The champion in the Obsidian scene in this respect is certainly Zsolt Viczian, whose plug-ins Excalidraw and Excalibrain I have mentioned here several times. Excalidraw, in particular, is constantly under development and is an impressive tool. I would go so far as to say that Excalidraw is one of the five best plug-ins for Obsidian overall.
As I said before, I rarely create drawings and the like. However, I am interested in handwritten notes, as evidenced by my many articles about GoodNotes here on the blog (1, 2, 3). Unfortunately, I can’t work with GoodNotes in Obsidian. Excalidraw would be the obvious solution here. And to some extent, I have already used it in the past. However, you can see that Excalidraw is not primarily made for handwriting. It works, but the delay between pen movement and the appearance of the strokes on the screen is a bit too long for my taste. This makes writing feel sluggish.
Scribble Helper is a game-changer
This leads me to Scribble Helper, which is a game-changer! Zsolt has built his plugin system (scripts) for Excalidraw that extends its functionality. One of these scripts is the so-called Scribble Helper. If you activate it, a small input field opens in which you can use Apple’s system-wide feature Scribble. This allows you to handwrite in normal text input fields with the Apple Pencil, and the system converts the handwriting into typed text. I love this feature, and thanks to Zsolt and Scribble Helper, it is now available in Excalidraw. It’s true that Scribble also works like this in Obsidian itself, but then you miss out on the great features of Excalidraw.
Installing Scribble Helper is quite simple. First, you should make sure that Excalidraw is updated to the latest version. To do this, open the settings in Obsidian on the iPad, tap on Community Plugins, and then tap on Check for Updates. Once that’s done, a new Excalidraw drawing can be opened. There, you have to look to the top right at the gear icon. If you tap on it, the Scripts Store will open. Then scroll for a while (and admire the many other great scripts or install them right away), and tap on Scribble Helper. The script is now installed.
After that, you can click on the Obsidian icon in the upper right corner of Excalidraw drawings to open the Actions menu. At the bottom, under the heading Downloaded, you will find the just-installed Scribble Helper. The Scribble Helper itself is divided into two parts. At the top is the input field, where you type the text. Typing is also possible, and then you can still use the formatting options. These are in the lower part of the window. There, you can change the text color and set that you can easily open Scribble Helper with a double-tap of the Apple Pencil. I find that very handy. You can also insert line breaks, spaces, links to notes, and delete text.
I still need to play around with the new feature a bit more, but I have the impression that Excalidraw together with *Scribble Helper* could be a real replacement for GoodNotes. Especially the ability to combine handwriting, drawings, machine text and images seems extremely appealing.
Looking for a great source to get an overview of Markdown editors? Hermann Rotermund’s recent article „Workflow mit Markdown“ over on weisses-rauschen.info provides you with an extensive overview. Whether you’re new to Markdown or just not sure which editor to use, this article is highly recommended. It provides an in-depth overview of several Markdown editors, making it easier to choose the right one for your needs.
The article covers various Markdown editors, including Typora, Bear, Ulysses, and iA Writer, highlighting their key features and pros and cons. It also touches on some essential Markdown syntax and provides tips on how to optimize your workflow.
If you’re looking to get started with Markdown or are curious about which editor to use, Rotermund’s article is an excellent resource to check out. Unfortunately, the article is written in German, but in times of real-time browser-integrated translation functionality this should be not a huge issue.
One of the biggest problems with digital work for me is that the spatial dimension is not represented, or at least not sufficiently. I have the problem that I can’t think very well in the abstract. I have to see things, arrange them and, above all, write them down in order to achieve insights. And it doesn’t help at all if I have folders upon folders on my hard drive (or in the cloud for that matter), ALL OF WHICH I DON’T SEE. I can’t get a sense of dimensions, relations, relationships. The only thing I can do is click through and remember what to expect where. Now not only do I have the problem of not being able to think abstractly very well, I also don’t have a very good memory. This circumstance was also the starting point many years ago, why I began to deal with to-do apps and digital productivity in general. I simply had the feeling that things kept falling through the cracks. And that’s exactly how I feel with big digital projects, like the university research project I’m working for as a research assistant or my PhD. I just need the feeling of knowing where things are. So my absolute horror would be having to rely only on search. I need strategies to make my knowledge **visible**. This need is also evident in my Obsidian configuration: I don’t (mostly) think much of minimalism or buttons that are automatically hidden. I want buttons, info panels, and click targets.
What to do?
To solve this problem, I don’t have THE ONE solution. It always sounds nice when you pretend in blogposts and Youtube videos that you have found the perfect system that covers all conceivable cases, but it is almost never like that in reality. Reality is messy and you have to live with that. The solution is therefore to have different tools in your arsenal and then use the most appropriate one in each case. In the following, I will therefore give an overview of all the visual tools that make working in Obsidian easier for me.
Graph Views
The first is the Graph or Graph View. This is what Obsidian always advertises and it might be one of the first things you see when you start using Obsidian. And that doesn’t surprise me at all, because the graph just looks pretty nice, especially if you have a lot of notes in your Vault. The graph maps all the notes and connections between them. And then when you see so many nice points, all connected, it just looks very much like work and productivity. So in that sense, the graph is very valuable: you can better appreciate how much work you’ve already done in Obsidian. However, the value of the graph is quickly exhausted. At least, I have not been able to get any benefit beyond that from the graph.
My Graph View – Isn’t it nice?
The Local Graph does a little better. This is a subset of the overall graph that only shows the currently open note and notes associated with it. In addition, you can set it to show further levels of notes as well. This would mean that if I have a note about studying paperless that is linked to the note Productivity, notes that are linked to the note Productivity will also be displayed. This can be quite helpful for generating ideas. Especially with complex topics like my PhD, I sometimes open the Local Graph to see which thematically related topics I still have notes on.
Kanban Boards
The next option I like to use are Kanban boards. I don’t have to write much about this, because I already wrote an article about it. However, I use Kanban boards less to map hierarchies or relationships between notes, but rather to track processes. After all, that’s what they were designed for.
Overall, I have two use cases: First, in my role as a social scientist, I conduct interviews all the time, and a Kanban board is a great way to keep track of which people I’ve already researched, contacted, interviewed, or analyzed. On the other hand, I have a weekly plan in which I note central tasks of the current week, separated by weekdays. This is not a to-do list, but rather a high-level plan to keep track of the most important goals of the week. Although this does not have anything to do with making knowledge visually tangible in the narrow sense, it still serves the purpose of making what I do mentally comprehensible to me in a different way.
Excalibrain
Excalibrain is the second plugin from the incredibly talented Zsolt Viczian, who also develops the Obsidian Excalidraw plugin. This makes him probably one of the most influential figures in the Obsidian community and he also always has exciting thoughts that he shares on his Youtube channel.
Excalibrain in action
Excalibrain is a plugin to put notes in a self-definable hierarchical order. So parent notes can have children, children can have siblings and generally all notes can have friends. For example, one could imagine a case where I write a note dealing with the cloven-hoofed species (parent note) and then other notes dealing with sheep, camels, and hippos (children). A friend note would possibly be one about a different animal species. And these hierarchies are then mapped visually by Excalibrain, which often helps me a lot to keep track of complex relationships.
Excalibrain can do a lot more, but Zsolt can explain that better than I can.
Hubs
Hubs or Maps of Content are central entry points into my Vault. Each of my large projects (or areas of responsibility) has such a hub, where I gather everything possible that has to do with the project. These are usually links to documents outside of Obsidian, central notes of the project, which then branch out further, and also always a section where I note tasks in the project. Hubs are essential anchors for me to not feel hopelessly lost and certainly the notes I open most often.
Canvas
Last but not least, a feature that I’m just starting to use more intensively: The canvas feature that was introduced in Obsidian a few months ago. Canvases in Obsidian are, in my opinion, very well implemented, because you can combine all sorts of things: Notes, images, maps. You can even work directly in the notes and don’t have to open them first. This is of course super practical and in my eyes extremely well suited if you want to keep track of a large project. I currently use it as a general overview for the research project in which I am a research assistant and have arranged all research aspects. This gives me an overall picture of the research process and I can always put individual aspects into perspective. For me, canvasses are a more visual and playful form of the hub.
An anonymized view of the canvas I created for the research project I work for
Tools for visual thinking
There are many ways in Obsidian to work with information visually and for me that is an essential part of the process. Sometimes I want to keep track of things, sometimes I want to clarify hierarchies, and sometimes I’m trying to stimulate thinking. Therefore, there is no one solution that covers everything. But when I put it all together I have a fantastic tool box for my thinking.
Recently, I wrote about the applications I use for my daily work. Today, I want to follow up with a short post that focuses on the subset of my work: the apps and services I use to write my blog articles. My workbench looks like this: Obsidian, tools to improve style, upload, and publish. What does that mean in detail?
Planning and Thinking
I write all of my texts in Obsidian, as it is a fantastic tool. However, what might be more interesting is how I collect and manage my article ideas and track articles through to publication. To accomplish this, I use Marcus Olsson’s Projects Plugin in conjunction with the Metadata Menu Plugin. The two together allow me to work in the way that database-centric apps like Notion or Craft can.
Projects is a plugin to manage notes belonging to a project or context in different ways. You can configure multiple views and vary them by project, which I find particularly ingenious. For my posts on go-paperless.net, I created four views: a table that lists all posts and ideas that are not yet published, a Kanban board (which is more of a proof of concept), a calendar view where I can see when the next article is planned, and another table where I only see the posts that I have already published. This setup makes my work much easier as I always have all potential and already published articles in view. Of course, you could also use Projects in a completely different way. Especially the Gallery View is perfect to program an overview with movies you want to watch or books you want to read. The possibilities are endless.
Another small plugin that completes my work in Obsidian is Metadata Menu. MM allows me to assign a file class to a note, which I have defined beforehand. This way, the note ‚inherits‘ YAML fields, including possible values. MM also adds a small icon next to the note title, which opens a dialog box that allows me to manipulate the YAML data directly without having to open the note. In conjunction with Projects, this gives me an item database that I can add to or change in no time.
Revision
The draft text is ready, but there’s still a long way to go before the final text appears on the blog. That’s probably the most important lesson you can teach less experienced writers: a really good text only becomes that good because it was revised many times. Nobody writes perfect texts on the first try. In my case, there is also the fact that I am not a native English speaker. I think I have improved my English quite a bit over the years, but it will never be as good as my mother tongue, German.
So in a first step, I check the text with LanguageTool Pro to avoid unnecessary mistakes or inconsistencies in the style. Then I use DeepL, probably the best translator currently available, to refine the text. I mainly use DeepL for identifying false friends and finding better phrasing. Working with DeepL also helps me to improve my English because I see that it is possible to formulate a certain sentence more beautifully than I did myself.
After the revision process is complete, the text is ready to be uploaded. I also use ChatGPT to refine the text even further. AI-supported writing will become the absolute standard in the near future, and I believe it is essential to embrace this technology.
Publishing
The text is written, and now it has to go on the blog. I use MarsEdit for the text upload because I dislike WordPress. MarsEdit allows me to create the post and format it before the upload is done. In WordPress, I only need to add some tags and perform some SEO. By the way, MarsEdit is also part of Setapp*, the app subscription service I’ve used and loved for years.
In conclusion, I sincerely hope that this overview serves as a helpful and inspiring resource for fellow writers. Writing is not a mystical or mysterious activity, but rather a skill that involves various steps and tools. So, enjoy the process of writing and let your creativity flow!
Links marked with an asterisk * are affiliate links. With a purchase I profit by a small commission without the product becoming more expensive for you. Thus, it is a wonderful way to support my work.
I began this blog as a resource for digital productivity in the knowledge sector, particularly for students and researchers. My inspiration for starting it came from my own experiences as a graduate student, as well as my admiration for individuals like David Sparks and the broader productivity blogosphere. Initially, I intended to write for a broad audience, regardless of the operating system they use. However, over time, my focus has shifted.
There have been three main developments that have led to this change:
My initial goal of writing for a broad audience often conflicted with my own personal setup, as I am an avid Apple user and have limited knowledge or interest in the Windows and Linux worlds.
I wanted to reach a wider audience, which prompted me to switch to writing in English in the past year.
I am interested in widening my focus and writing about topics that connect digital productivity with other aspects of life. As a social scientist, these other areas of interest greatly influence and enrich my perspective on productivity and digital tools.
As a result of these developments:
I have already switched to writing in English.
I will no longer try to accommodate Windows and Linux users, as I can only confidently write about products, apps, and services that I use on a daily basis.
This blog will likely become more personal as I write about topics that interest me and intersect with digital productivity and other aspects of my life.
I hope that you will continue to follow my journey and find value in these slight readjustments. Your support is greatly appreciated.
Cortex by Myke Hurley and CGP Grey is one of my favorite podcasts and I eagerly look forward to each episode. Every year, in the penultimate episode of the year, they talk about the most important apps and services they currently use. And then, the always worth reading Mere Civilian also recently wrote an article under that theme. Last year, I actually wanted to do the same, but then didn’t for reasons I don’t remember. This year, however, the time has come. Which apps do I use every day? What has changed in the last year? And where do I see potential for new apps in my life? Let’s go!
I see two trends in my app usage over the past year: on the one hand, I’ve returned to a few core apps that form the absolute backbone of my workflow. On the other hand, there was some real movement for the first time in a while. I discovered a few new apps that absolutely have the potential to be more than just brief love affairs. But one after the other.
Note: I have been a very satisfied customer of Setapp for several years. Setapp is probably already a household name to many, but I’ll explain it briefly anyway. Setapp is basically an app subscription where you pay $9.99 a month and get access to a huge range of high quality apps. Examples are BetterTouchTool, Bartender, MarginNote, or Ulysses. I want to write another longer article on this as well. For now, it suffices to say that I mark apps I get through Setapp with a star in this post. If you feel like supporting me for my work and trying out Setapp, feel free to register via my link: Register for Setapp. I will then receive a small commission. Thank you very much!
Browser
For 11 1/2 months, the browser category was clearly in the first column: Apple’s default browser Safari was set. And why not? It’s a damn good browser. It’s integrated with the operating system, consumes few resources, is optimized for security and has recently added tab groups. So you can store certain websites in a group and preserve them for later. Especially when you work in different contexts, this is quite practical. Everything is fine, you might think.
But then I got a mail from the Browser Company. This is the company behind Arc, a new browser based on Chrome. I had put myself on the waiting list for the beta a few weeks before, and now the time had come. And I have to say that I really like Arc. It’s definitely a browser for power users. Very keyboard oriented. Many good ideas. I particularily like that you can create so called Easels which basically are web canvasses to collect all kinds of website snippets in one place. Here you can see my Easel/collection for some of the books I’d like to read in 2023:
It would lead too far, if I would explain all this here. For that I would simply refer to the page of Arc itself. Arc is certainly not for everyone, but if you like to try a new app, you should give Arc a chance. I have an invitation code here that works five times. So if you are fast enough, you can start right away: https://arc.net/gift/e560c538. All codes have already been used, sorry! There are five new codes, woohoo: https://arc.net/gift/cc0eb3fe.
E-Mails
Here I went the opposite way. I started the year with Mailmate, at least on the Mac. Mailmate is a damn good, very classic mail app that gets to the essentials, but does it very well. The problem is that it’s developed by a single indie developer, and the update pace isn’t terribly fast. Still, I was quite pleased. With the latest versions of macOS and iOS, however, Apple has done quite a bit for its own app Mail, including a much better search and a send-later feature. These innovations brought me back to Apple Mail, simply because it’s easier to use the same app on all platforms.
Writing and Thinking
Obsidian. I don’t need to say much more than that. My love for Obsidian should be known if you look around a bit on the blog here. I use Obsidian for all my work. I take notes, write texts, think in Obsidian. Both for my work as a research assistant, as a PhD student and also for the blog. I hope to write a post this year explaining my Obsidian configuration. The last update on this was quite a while ago and even though much has stayed the same, some things have changed. One important detail is that this year I moved to making Obsidian my task manager. I abandoned OmniFocus for it, as I wrote about in this article. My experiments with alternative task managers were very short-lived and eventually I ended up with Obsidian here as well. I’ll hopefully write an article about that soon as well.
File Management
Again, there is a simple answer and that is DevonThink. I have described the reasons in this post: My newfound love for DevonThink.
Literature Management
Nothing works without Zotero. Everything that is scientific literature ends up there. My library is organized in folders, so it’s very traditional. However, I have moved away from storing the PDFs in Zotero as well. They are now all in Devonthink. There, I copy the item link and add it to the respective entry in Zotero (right click on the entry > Add Attachment > Attach Link to URI) and I have a hyperlink to the file in Devonthink. I like this better because Devonthink is where my files are for me. Other applications like Zotero only use this resource by linking to it. Easy linkability is the key here.
Reading
I have to differentiate here. I use different apps depending on the use case. For a long time now, I no longer get my news via social media, but via RSS subscriptions. My app of choice for a long time was Reeder, but for about half a year now it’s been NetNewsWire. The reason is that I like NetNewsWire’s simple design very much and especially the RSS engine behind it is extremely good. I have subscribed to quite a few feeds and yet the updating is extremely fast.
But that is only for receiving articles. I rarely actually read texts in NetNewsWire. Generally, I send articles I want to read to my read-later app. That was Matter for a long time. A few weeks ago, however, I finally got into the beta of Readwise Reader and here I feel I’ve arrived completely. I’ve been using Readwise (the web service) for a long time and I can’t imagine my workflow without it, because Readwise keeps everything together in the background, as you can read here: Readwise – My new Information Hub?. The Reader is a fantastic addition to my workflow, especially because it allows me to read and mark web articles. The highlights then go via Readwise directly into my Obsidian Vault. It couldn’t be easier. If you want to have a trial month, you can do so via my referral link. This will give you and me a free month.
But then there is the not inconsiderable amount of literature that I am reading for my PhD or for work. If it’s just to get a quick impression of the usefulness of a text, I just do that with PDF Expert. I still have an old license and don’t pay any subscription fees. That’s also quite enough for me and I’ll use the app until it falls apart. But when it comes to really getting through text and making it usable for my own work, MarginNote is the app of choice. MarginNote allows me in a fairly unique way to read multiple documents, mark them up, and rearrange parts of them so that I build up a tapestry of knowledge that I can then use again for my own writing. This is something that classic PDF readers can’t do, but that I need for scientific work. This is another topic I hope to cover in the coming year. For a long time I used LiquidText for this purpose, but recently I was no longer in agreement with the direction of development and MarginNote simply fits better overall.
For literature that I simply read for recreation, I use either the Kindle app or Apple’s own Books app. Depending on where I bought the book.
Grab Bag
Hookmark*
First and foremost here is Hookmark, which until recently was just called Hook. Hookmark is a little helper, but it is very useful for me, because you can link any files with it. Most often I use it for mails. I open a mail, invoke Hookmark and copy a Markdown link to this mail. I then paste the link into a project note in Obsidian, for example, and can quickly and easily access that mail again. It’s the same principle as with the links in Zotero to files in DevonThink. I’m all about speed and simplicity. Of course, I could just search for the mail, but it’s much more convenient to click on a link in a note.
Transloader*
I couldn’t live without Transloader anymore. With Transloader I can open a link on my iPhone or iPad and send it to my Mac. There the link opens automatically the next time I log into my MacBook. I find that incredibly handy because I’m always thinking of things while I’m on the go or I’m searching for something on DuckDuckGo and want to take a closer look at it later. Of course, I could use DevonThink for that, or even a Readlater app. But somehow it’s all too cumbersome for me, and knowing that I’ll just see it again automatically when I sit down at my Mac is fantastic.
Timery
I’ve already written about Timery here and nothing has changed since then. The app is fantastic and has only gotten better with the latest update. Now there is also an app for the Apple Watch, which is very handy when you don’t have a device at hand, but a timer is still running.
Mela
Last but not least, an app that has nothing to do with productivity, but is all the more important for my well-being: Mela. Mela is a recipe app from Silvio Rizzi, the developer of Reeder. I love this app because it is simply a perfectly formed piece of software. You pay once and then you can import all sorts of recipes from various sources, categorize them and customize them with ease. Plus there is a special cooking mode that customizes the interface and many other conveniences. I love to cook and Mela is just the right companion for that.
The tools fit
I feel like I’m in a good place when it comes to apps. Over the years, I’ve been eliminating more and more construction sites in my workflow. Obsidian has certainly played the biggest part in that. In fact, the last major gap was the question of which read-later app I use. Here the answer seems to be found with Readwise Reader. I was only surprised to switch to Arc and thus a new browser. At least for now. We’ll see if this switch becomes permanent, or if I go back to Safari sooner or later. In any case, I’m looking forward to working with my tools again in 2023, because one thing is clear anyway: You have to do the work yourself, no matter how good the tools are.
How to set up focus modes on iPhone, iPad, and Mac
(This guide has been developed for macOS. The process on iPad and iPhone, however, is just about the same, so the guide should be easily applicable to all of Apple’s devices. If I have overlooked something, please [tell me](mailto:[email protected]).
Open the Settings app
Go to Focus
Tap on Add Focus.
There, you have a couple of pre-configured filters, as well as the possibility to add a custom one. For getting to know the feature, you want to make sure to click/tap *Custom*.
There, you have to enter a name for your new focus mode, choose a color, and a glyph.
When you click *Okay*, you’ll be presented with the actual configuration screen. This screen is split up into three sections: Notifications, Schedule, and Focus Filters.
Let’s get started with Notifications. Here, you can decide which people, and what apps, are allowed to send you notifications when a particular focus mode is active. For people, you can either allow certain people, or silence them. The second section then deals with calls. The first setting allows you to determine whether everyone, only people you put on the allow list one step above, favorites, or contacts can call you in this focus mode. The second setting will let you set whether a second call from the same caller will come through, even if they are not in the defined group, or not.
Moving on to Schedule. Here, you can set time-, location, or app-based triggers on when to activate a certain focus mode. I, for one, have my reading focus mode to be activated whenever I open one of my reading apps. More on that later on.
Focus Filters are a really nice, and potentially powerful addition to Focus. It basically gives app developers the possibility to tie in the Focus feature so that you can configure what a certain app shows you whenever you turn on a focus mode. For example, you could (de)activate your work mailbox when you are in your leisure focus mode, or vice versa. Currently, not that many developers take advantage of this feature, but I am quite optimistic that this will change in the future.
If you ever want to delete one of your modes, you can do so at the very bottom of each focus mode. Back in the main menu, you can adjust two further settings: The first of them being if you intend to share focus modes across all of your Apple devices. What that means is that if you create a focus mode on your iPhone, it will also show up on your iPad, or Mac, respectively. However, it also means that focus modes will be activated across all of your devices, once you do it on one of them. If you don’t like that behavior, just turn it off. The last setting lets you customize, whether other people can see that you have notifications silenced, or not. I am not sure about how many apps this really support. iMessage does for sure. Other people won’t be able to see the name of your focus mode or anything else, just that you have notifications silenced. This can be set on a per-focus basis.
Optional (on iPhone, and iPad): Customize Screens. On your iPhone, you can choose between three screens to customize: your iPhone’s lock screen, the home screen pages that should be displayed, and (if you own one) an Apple Watch watch face.
Some screenshots to illustrate the process
What focus modes do I use?
I am a heavy focus user, so it should come at no surprise that I configured quite a lot: seven to be precise (not counting good, old *Do Not Disturb*): Driving, Fitness, Reading, Sleep, Travel, Weekend, and Work. *Driving* is automatically configured by Apple, as it is a system feature. It does nothing fancy, except turning off all notifications while driving. All the other modes are custom-made, and to give you a better idea of what they entail, I’ll summarize them in the table below:
Focus Mode
Notifications
Lock Screen Style + Widgets
No. of Home Screens + which apps
Watch Face
Schedule
Focus Filters
Fitness
Spouse + Workout-related apps
Green Color Gradient / Activity Rings, Step Count
1, only Workout-related apps
no change
Every time when I start a workout on Apple Watch
–
Reading
Spouse + Find My
Orange Color Gradient / no widgets
1, only reading apps
same face, different colors
Every time, I open a reading app like Kindle, or Apple Books
Noir: Set Sepia Theme
Sleep
None
Black / no widgets
1, only Sleep-related apps like Clock, Dark Noise, or Books
1, only Travel-related apps like Flighty, Maps, Wallet, ticket apps
no change
Manually
–
Weekend
No limits
Photo Rotation / no widgets
no change
no change
Weekends from 6:30 am to 11:00 pm
–
Work
Spouse + a couple of work-related apps
Weather style / Calendar widget, shortcut to Obsidian Inbox
no change
Solar Dial Watch Face
Weekdays from 7:00 am to 3:00 pm
–
I hope this short article helps you to use Apple’s Focus Mode feature, which has become significantly better with the most recent OS updates. They are already pretty useful, and will most likely become even more so with future iterations of iOS/macOS.
Last Tuesday Apple updated its iPad lineup. In addition to the entry-level iPad, which is now in its 10th generation, the two iPad Pros were also updated. But anyone who now thinks that this presents the iPad product category in a good light is mistaken. On the contrary: Apple makes strange decisions that confuse users and simply do not make sense. Furthermore, models are neglected, which raises many questions.
Little love for the pros
Let’s start with the update for the iPad Pros, which are still available in the 11″ and 12.9″ sizes. Here, the few rumors that existed in the run-up were even undercut. Among other things, it had been speculated that the Pro line could get a kind of Magsafe connector, possibly at the back of the iPads. That turned out to be hot air. Instead, basically only the processor was changed: from M1 it went up one iteration to M2. However, the processor was already so good before that the vast majority of users never even scratched the surface of its full capabilities – let alone got into real trouble due to performance limitations. Thus, it is of course a nice update, but not a reason that would necessarily justify a new purchase. And then there is the tiresome topic of display technology. In the last iteration, the big 12.9 iPad Pro got a mini-LED display, which which should lead to way better color quality and brightness levels. The small sibling stayed with the old regular LED technology. Now, of course, it was expected that Apple would use the refresh as a chance to establish parity here. Fiddlesticks! Even after the „update“, the small iPad Pro still has the old display technology. This is really incomprehensible and not acceptable.
An entry-level iPad that is simply too expensive
After I have dealt with my great disappointment about the lack of updates for the Pros, I want to turn to nicer things. The standard iPad, which is now on the market in its tenth version, has received an update that deserves the name.
First of all, there are the externals. The iPad 10 now has the same design as all other current iPads. That means flattened edges, a narrower display border, and no more home button. Instead, there is now Touch ID in the frame, as we already know from the iPad Air. The new colors are also striking: Where there was only Space Grey and Silver before, there are now Silver, Yellow, Pink and Blue. This is great and absolutely welcome, because the iPad 10 no longer looks like a relic from a bygone era. Especially because the inner workings have also been modernized. The iPad 10 now has the A14 Bionic processor and the camera has 12, instead of 8, megapixels, the Lighting connector has been replaced by USB-C and there is a 5G option. All in all, it is a well-rounded device.
Apple did not stop there, however, and also gave the iPad 10 a brand-new keyboard that should make many mobile work enthusiasts happy. This keyboard has just about everything you could want in an iPad keyboard. It is modular, so you can also just use the back as a cover. At the same time, it has nice keys, a row of function keys (!), a trackpad, and a kickstand in the back to prop up the iPad. Personally, I would not have expected Apple to launch such a product.
So all is well with the iPad 10? Not at all. Unfortunately. Considering that this is supposed to be Apple’s entry-level iPad, one question comes to mind: Who is actually going to pay this? A quick calculation: I’m a student in my first semester and am looking for a device for the lecture hall and the library. I primarily want to read lecture notes and edit PDFs. The iPad 10 should be perfect for that. Actually, I would like to take the model with 256GB, but then still decide for the one with 64GB. Only Wifi, no cellular. But it would have to be an Apple Pencil and the new Magic Keyboard Folio keyboard. That adds up to an incredible $ 797. If you try to buy the same combo in the European Union, things get even worse. Way worse. The final price tag will show € 997! Three euros more and the sound barrier of one thousand euros would be broken. That’s insane! If you want an Apple entry-level iPad with pen and keyboard, you’ll pay almost 1,000€. Which pupil, which student, which occasional user is willing (or able) to spend so much money? This is where Apple should urgently act. In my eyes, it should be possible to get a package of iPad, pen and keyboard for around 500-600€. We are currently miles away from that. I haven’t even mentioned that the iPad 10 only supports the first-generation Apple Pencil – despite the new design. So you don’t even get the latest technology, but an accessory that was introduced in 2015.
Outlook: What would a compelling iPad lineup look like?
This problem is further exacerbated by the fact that the entire lineup doesn’t make sense. Why the iPad Air still exists, for example, is a big mystery. Of course, the Air does a few things better than the iPad 10. The display, for example, is much better, so there are not two opinions. Overall, however, you have to look for the differences with a magnifying glass, as a look at Apple’s comparison page shows.
And on the other side, the new Magic Keyboard Folio keyboard is only available for the iPad 10. Why, Apple?
iPads have not become bad products overnight. On the contrary, iPads are fantastic tablets that can be enjoyed for years. But the product lineup makes no sense and is confusing. The Pros haven’t gotten significant updates in a long time, the Air is pretty much, well, up in the air, and the supposedly entry-level iPad is too expensive for the purpose. If I could wish for something, that would be a true entry-level iPad for well under €500, an iPad in the middle (e.g. the Air) that is clearly different from the cheapest iPad, and preferably up to three Pro iPads that are then available in different sizes (e.g. 11, 13 and 15 inches). Add to that a simple, inexpensive keyboard and one that costs more but comes with significantly more features, as well as the Apple Pencil, of course. That would be a comprehensible and yet differentiated lineup.
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