WWDC 2019 Keynote Impressions

June 11, 2019
2 min read

Most people jot down some notes about keynote overall and then write or talk about each release in more detail. I’ve went my own way, first going through impressions for each OS – tvOS, watchOS, iOS, macOS, iPadOS and also for Mac Pro.

Now I want give my overall impressions about presentation. I mostly agree with Marco – Apple started listening again. And the reason is pretty simple on it’s surface – iPhone sales. Although thanks to increasing prices for a couple of years revenue from the iPhone didn’t fall, but unit sales plateaued. So now Apple has to sell iPhones more aggressively and give more attention to all other products in the lineup.

This was noticeable in every announcement, it wasn’t apologizing per se, but it felt like Apple was overcompensating. There were ver big changes that got at most one sentence mention during the Keynote and a lot of them were just a text on the slide with “everything else that’s new”. 

There was something for everyone, be it developers, users, professionals. We’ve got new OS, new hardware and new frameworks. We’ve even got the trailer for TV show. All of this in just 2 hours. The pace was unbelievable. Presenters were very proud of the product, just look at the display demonstration. 

I like how passionate, knowledgeable and funny Craig Federighi is. I’ve seen some of the first of his presentations and it’s not even close. It’s a very big growth in presentation skills. This year the biggest joke was about iTunes and with Craig delivering it – it landed perfectly. 

Overall, this was very strong keynote, one of the best in recent years actually. And this gives hope that Apple is able to make products and also improvements to those products afterwards, even if those aren’t iPhone.

WWDC 2019 Keynote Impressions – iPadOS

June 10, 2019
5 min read

Earlier in my impressions of the iOS, I’ve mentioned how when presenting it there was almost nothing said about the iPad, all of the features were mentioned in the context of the iPhone and it was very pronounced. You could definitely see, that it’s intentional, that’s because this year iPad got itself a new, dedicated OS. 

Is this marketing? Yes, of course, iPadOS is still the same iOS just with some feature specifically designed for the iPad, but that always was the case you don’t have always present dock on the iPhone and multitasking is limited to the iPad. Why change the name? For a couple of years we’ve started to realize that Apple improved iPad software only every other version of iOS. Versions 9 and 11 were just such versions. Heavily focused on the improvements for the tablet. But wouldn’t it be great, if iPad got improved every year, like all the other systems? That is the hope of this marketing move. 

With iPad getting it’s own OS it will be much harder to ignore it during the next WWDC. As someone who is more and more leaning toward this future of computing, I like the change and hope that our collective desires will come true. 

With all of this introductions, there was actually a lot of news this year for the iPad.

Let’s start with the improvements from iOS – PS4 and Xbox One controllers support. On my recent trip, I’ve got just iPad Pro with me to watch movies, import photos from the camera, read and play. I can see how I would throw in my DualShock to the bag to play games. With Apple Arcade and some good games for the iPad that would be very interesting. 

Some time ago Apple decided that you don’t need split keyboard on the iPad Pro. I could see with heavy marketing of iPad Pro coupled with Smart Keyboard Folio you would think that it’s not necessary. But sometimes you just use iPad naked and in those moments new small iPhone keyboard underneath the finger is an amazing addition.

Another feature that I love is importing directly into the Lightroom. USB drive and flash support is also nice, but direct import of photos to the Adobe software is amazing. Right now it’s clunky as hell. You have to import photos from camera, then import them to Lightroom and delete photos from the Camera Roll. There is a Shortcut for that, but it never works for me – photos are imported as JPG and not RAW.

Desktop class browser and download manager in Safari – this one grants finally. Although, as I understand, it’s mostly limited to Apple sending information to the website that it’s Mac Safari and by hand improving how the most popular websites work. Time will tell how well it will work and how scalable it will be.

Another feature that only can be judged in use – new gestures. There are now three finger gestures for cut, copy, paste and undo and redo. Also moving the pointer is similar to drag and drop. That on the very first try the presenter couldn’t do it, doesn’t give much confidence. Those gestures could be great and get into your muscle memory or totally forgettable and you will only see them in “Top 5 iPad features you’ve never known” articles.

Some great additions to the Apple Pencil. First, the latency was reduced from 20ms to 9ms. Right now it feels pretty instantaneous, I don’t know how much better will this feel, but it must be good. Second, PencilKit API – now apps that don’t rely on Pencil input as a business model (drawing or note taking apps), can implement similar features as Apple has in Apple Notes.

You can also, with a Apple Pencil gesture, capture and entire web page and annotate it. This is something you’ve had to download utilities on the Mac to do, and it’s built in.

Probably for the first time since the introduction, Apple made some changes to the Springboard. Now there are more icons on the screen and when you rotate the iPad they stay at the same place, finally. Second – you can pin widgets to the main screen, which makes home screen much more dense and rich with information.

Some welcome improvements to the multitasking. You can now have multiple windows of the same app opened, either side-by-side or in split view with some other apps. You can easily find all the windows of the same app with App Expose, which looked easy to use and nice. 

Also, making slide-over, eventually a little iPhone, where you can go through the couple of iPhone sized apps sounds as a big improvement to me. I often though about this idea when using slide-over.

This is the first year of the new iPadOS and it feels like pretty strong one. A lot of new features and improvements make for a release I’m probably most waiting for. All of this could even make me install beta on my iPad this summer, that’s how excited I am.

iPad Pro (2018) – The Hardware Story

February 13, 2019
7 min read

The one and only iPad I’ve had before, was the original iPad Mini and I loved it. But quickly phones started to get bigger, laptops thinner and I’ve always used Kindle for reading. So more and more it felt like there was no need for another device in my life and I’ve given that iPad away. 

When Apple presented the new iPad Pro’s I didn’t think much of them. But after seeing those in person and reading all the stories of photographers editing on this thing, I’ve started to look more closely, as I’m getting more and more into photography. One day I’ve decided to get one myself, but I couldn’t decide on the size. I’ve re-listened to all the podcasts that were discussing new iPads, I’ve watched a lot of YouTube videos (and I mean A LOT), but still couldn’t decide which one was right for me. Whenever I went to the store and played with both – I appreciated the screen real-estate of the 12.9”, but also I loved how light the 11” was – you could hold it with one hand. 

Multitasking was also a consideration, as it’s so much better on the 12.9” and for photo editing – the bigger the screen the better. While I was trying to decide between the two sizes, I’ve ordered both of them at one of the local retailers, as they are not that common in Latvia and the wait for them could have reached 3 weeks. I thought the faith would decide – I would buy whichever came first. So one day I got two messages saying that both my orders were ready – so much for the faith. I’ve went again to the store to play with both sizes to decide, with no luck, until I though about what Casey said in a reply to me – “I wanted as portable as a Pro could get”. So I chose the 11”, and decided to cancel the order for the 12.9”. 

Few minutes later I found out there was a mistake and 11” wasn’t ready yet, so here it is – the faith did decide for me. And boy the faith was right.

First things first, I thought the 11” would be better using in one hand, but until now I didn’t have a chance to use it this way as it’s still too big and not intended for that type of use.

Second, the screen is gorgeous. I mean, it’s probably the best screen I own, even though it’s not OLED. I know this is not bezel-less screen, but it feels pretty close. 

It’s surprising how thin and light the device is. The screen is almost as big as the one on my MacBook Pro and there are all internals inside it, considering this – it weights almost nothing.

Magnets – there are a lot of them and it shows. Popping the iPad into the Smart Keyboard Folio is effortless and surprisingly taking it off is easy too.

Pencil

Fortunately, there was one new Apple Pencil at the store, so I had it from day one and I’m sure this is an essential accessory for the iPad Pro. It’s so much better with the Pencil – one could argue it should come with the iPad. Even going through the interface, it gives the feeling of replacing the mouse or trackpad. I like it for editing photos as it gives a bit more of a precision. 

The way it charges and connects to the iPad is great. I can’t even imagine that it wasn’t like that before. This is so intuitive and simple, how could Apple ship a worse product before?

I’m not much of an artist, even in my childhood I didn’t like drawing, so I can’t say how good it is at that, but writing something in Apple Notes or Notability is amazing. It feels so close to the pen and paper (of course not texture wise, but just the feeling of it).

Smart Keyboard Folio

As we live in the 3rd world country, Apple products get to us a bit later than to the rest of the world (9 months later in case of AirPods). So I’ve tried to find Smart Keyboard Folio with no luck. Everyone just smiled and said – try again in a month or two. Luck had it, we were traveling to the Bangkok which coincidentally has the Apple Store. Fortunately for me there was one with US layout and so I’ve got myself the official Apple keyboard.

Having this keyboard is totally an improvement. I can now prop the device to watch videos. Typing on this thing is fast. I love the travel and the sound this keyboard makes. The “lapability” is good too. In fact, I’ve written this review on my iPad Pro sitting on the sofa with the tablet on my knees. Just two available angles don’t bother me too much. Sure it would be better to have more choices, but these two angles work for me.

The one disappointment I‘ve had – the keys are not backlit. It’s not a huge issue, as I don’t look at the keyboard while typing, but it sure would be nice to have.

Also, as a lot of people mentioned – it is dull. There is even no Apple logo on the back. It’s just grey peace of plastic. Now I need to find some stickers to cover it.

USB-C

Surprisingly it’s 2019 and this is my first device with USB-C, so now I need to buy a lot of new accessories, like upgrading the charger to more powerful one. Right now, while traveling, I have to bring different cables for iPad, iPhone, Apple Watch, photo camera and power banks. Will have to do some thinking and consolidation of cables and power bricks. The other problem – as we were traveling, we wanted to watch some TV shows on the plane, so I had to buy USB-C to headphone jack dongle. I’ve found a cheap one online from third party and it didn’t work. So I had to buy the official one. 

Also, although my camera can transfer photos via Wi-Fi, it can’t do it for the RAW images, so I’ve had to buy USB-C card reader. This all adds up and iPad Pro becomes more and more expensive over time.

Camera and FaceID

Actually, I don’t have anything to tell about the back camera of the iPad, as I have never even launched it, but I wanted to mention the FaceID. It’s much better then on the iPhone. It works in every orientation, it’s very fast. The animation when you cover it is such a nice touch. Also using iPad with FaceID is so nice, I wish MacBook had one. You don’t think about authentication, you just look at the screen and everything happens like it was intended.

As was discussed a lot, right now the one thing holding iPad Pro back is iOS, that’s why I decided to write the review of just a hardware. I love this device. It’s powerful, it’s beautiful, it’s comfortable, it’s all I wanted and even some more, but I wish I could say the same about the software, we are not there yet. There a lot of hype for iOS 13 and I do hope Apple will deliver.