Having given up on a keyboard case, I felt adrift in subpar options for an iPad stand and case. I admit, it is not that hard to get something decent; most people would just buy an Apple Smart Cover (or a decent knockoff) and be done with it. I, however, wanted something very specific, something I had in my old iPad Air 2 case, which is apparently rare: a kickstand.

The reason is that the kickstand made my iPad feel rock solid. It never moved or wobbled on a table. It never fell down because the folded up case collapsed beneath it. It felt real and solid, like a high quality tool rather than a fragile slice of glass and metal.

The Logitech Create keyboard case (which I didn’t like) had a kickstand, but nothing else I could find at the Apple Store or on Amazon did. Apple’s Smart Cover seemed expensive and far worse as a stand than what I had for my old iPad. There was a charging stand, the Logi Base, that looked like a good, sturdy platform, but was overpriced, had a number of unfavorable user reviews, and was not a case at all, so it was an incomplete solution. I basically didn’t want to spend so much on either case or stand, but after lots of thinking and comparison shopping, I bit the bullet and bought them both. I am very happy I did.

An extravagance, but a nice one

The Logi Base, once you get over the initial cost of it, is unexpectedly great. It’s a stand that charges the iPad through the Smart Connector. Unlike a folded-up Smart Cover, it is rock solid. It basically sticks to the desk, and provides the iPad a secure backing. You can bang the screen with your fingers and it would not move. That, for me, is key. A wobbly iPad feels like a toy. A secure one feels like the future of computing.

Docking and undocking are simple: a strong magnet helps keep everything in place. Charging through the Smart Connector works just fine. Numerous product reviewers complained that charging is slow and doesn’t support fast charging. Perhaps that is true, but charging is fast enough to keep up with battery use, and then some, which is all I actually need.

The final thing that delights me about the Base is that it actually gives me a place for the Pencil. It has a tiny amount of ledge space in front of the iPad that is just big enough for the Pencil to rest on its side. There is just enough magnetism there (it is near the Smart Connector) to keep the Pencil there rather safely.

Necessary protection

While a stand is nice for desktop use, you still should have something to protect the iPad’s screen sometimes. I bought the Apple Smart Cover for travel, whether around town or around the house. I actually take it off (you have to) and store it in a desk drawer when the iPad Pro is on the Logi stand. I did spend more on it than it is worth to me, but when I ordered it, cheaper third party cases were not widely available yet. I find that I take the Smart Cover off when actually using the iPad, and put it back on when I put the iPad away. That’s different than how I’ve treated every other iPad/case combination I’ve owned, largely due to the difference in size and weight between the 9.7" and 12.9" iPads.

All in all, I am happier using the iPad with no case, and it stays on the Logi Base at my desk most of the time anyway.

I just spent $30 on an annual subscription to Ulysses, my favorite writing app (it is not quite a "text editor") on macOS and iOS. It was a relatively expensive macOS and iOS app for years, and I thought of it as the best buy I ever made on the platform, because I always bought it on steep discount the day it was released, and upgrades have been free ever since. As much as I love it, I have never used it enough, mostly because I spend time programming rather than writing. That may change now, however, because I am paying now a lot more for the privilege to use it. Overall, I decided it is worth my money to continually support the software I love. That said, the much higher cost of Ulysses and other apps I rely on probably means I will be trying and buying far fewer alternatives.

There is a limit on how much I want to pay each year, total, for software. I am not sure what that limit is, however. It is over $100, I guess, based on my spending history. But it's not that much higher than that—and I am a person who loves software. I will have to choose my apps with way more discipline and effort now that many will be an ongoing cost to me. I will be choosing just one text editor for $30 per year, rather than buying the top six of them for $5 apiece and maybe upgrading one or two of them to new versions, for another $5 apiece, after a couple of years.

I hope this arrangement will lead to better software, and more well-supported software, overall. It looks like it will have the side effect of reducing the number of apps on my home screen to an essential, more costly, more sophisticated few. That's not necessarily a bad thing. But it further raises the bar for new indie developers—those without venture backing—who are working on the next new thing.

iPads are great for writing, but if you are a touch typist, you need an external keyboard to have a top-notch experience.

I am a touch typist, and used to be a very fast touch typist as well, until RSI (repetitive stress injury) slowed me down to more reasonable speeds. Due to RSI, and the fact that using an ill-suited keyboard physically hurts, I am very picky about keyboards. I prefer a keyboard that is clicky and gives me a precise feeling when the key is activated. Mushy keyboards, by contrast, are awful for me; my accuracy decreases, and retyping increases. Key spacing basically has to be as close to a full-size key board as possible for me, because my hands cramp up when typing on anything smaller than a standard MacBook keyboard. Travel distance is important, too. Too little throw on a keyboard, such as on the first generation 12" MacBook, makes my fingers hurt.

As I said, I am hard to please when it comes to keyboards.

Smart Connector Keyboards

The iPad Pro comes with a special connector, mostly useful for keyboards, called the Smart Connector. It promises rock solid communication between the iPad and the keyboard, meaning no dropped keypresses, which are my chief complaint about using Bluetooth keyboards. Unfortunately, there are only two keyboards that pair with the Smart Connector on the iPad Pro: Apple's Smart Keyboard and Logitech's Create Backlit Keyboard.

Trying out these two keyboards, however, quickly led to disappointment. The Apple Smart Keyboard just felt awkward to type on. It has very little tactile feedback, and almost no throw. It is floppy enough to be poorly suited for use on the lap (which, admittedly, would be rare). The case it comes attached to is slim, versatile, lightweight (for what it is, not overall), andstylish. But, alas, it is not for me.

The Logitech Create Backlit Keyboard, at first, appears to correct all of the Apple Smart Keyboard’s shortcomings. It has real keys! It has decent key travel! It has a sturdy kickstand case instead of a floppy folding case! While it has real keys, and more features plus a lower price than the Apple Smart Keyboard, typing on one for a while felt awful to me. It started to feel mushy to me. It is also much heavier than the Smart Keyboard. I loved the kickstand, but I wanted something I could remove more easily, because the 12.9" iPad Pro is heavy enough on its own when used handheld.

So, after lots of time trying them out, both Smart Connector keyboards were out of the running for me.

What about Bluetooth keyboards?

While there are hundreds of Bluetooth keyboards you can pair with any iPad, they have a couple drawbacks. The main one for me is dropped keystrokes, due either to flaky Bluetooth connections, low quality components, or the keyboard requiring a keypress to wake from sleep. A secondary one is that they require batteries or recharging of their internal battery periodically, but that period is a few months long. Lastly, Bluetooth pairing can be tricky, especially if you try to use the same keyboard with multiple devices.

After trying out and being disappointed by the typing experience on the Apple and Logitech Smart Connector keyboards, I went back to my favorite keyboard of recent years, the Apple Magic Keyboard. It’s a full-size keyboard, which is comfortable to type on. It has a shallow keyfall distance, but it is not as shallow as the 12" MacBook. Keypresses feel solid and clicky. The battery lasts for months. Build quality is top notch.

I have not had any problems with dropped keystrokes when waking up the Magic Keyboard, but that is likely because my new iPad Pro itself goes to sleep, which is an option I had disabled on my old iPad. Whatever the reason, a single keypress wakes up the iPad Pro and I go on to typing without thinking about it. That’s good enough for me.

So, after an honest effort to upgrade to on of the Smart Connector keyboards, I passed on both of them, and settled for the Apple Magic Keyboard, because it offers the best typing experience for me. I am actually surprised about that, and a little disappointed that I did not like the other two options. Because I went with a detached keyboard, I had to consider different case and stand options, which I will go into in a later post.

Choosing between iPad Pro sizes

There’s a definite trade-off between size and portability when choosing between the two sizes of iPad Pro. The 10.5" version is lighter and more portable—it’s essentially the same as the familiar 9.7" model. The 12.9" version is heavier and has a larger screen, and, unfortunately, has larger bezels as well (it is the same size as the prior 12.9" model).

Smaller

The smaller iPad Pro is nicer to hold in your hands for long periods of time. Even more importantly, if you read books on it in bed, where the screen is only about 12" away from your eyes, as I do, it is easier to read on. Because you can focus on the whole screen at once, you don’t need to move your eyes as much. It is small, but it is perfectly usable for productivity as well as videos and reading.

Larger

The larger iPad Pro is, in my opinion, an even better size for getting work done. The 12.9" screen, when paired with a hardware keyboard, feels like a computer screen for productivity apps. It’s barely smaller than my old 13.3" MacBook. There is plenty of room for multitasking and slide-over. It also feels even better for handwriting and drawing, because the usable screen area is basically the same size as a standard piece of paper (i.e., A4 or Letter size), which feels natural.

Trade-offs

Does the additional size and weight make it less useful as a tablet? In short: yes, but only a little.

The 12.9" iPad Pro (2017 model) weighs about as much as the iPad 4th generation (about 1.5 lbs), so weight is not really a problem for handheld use, at least when held without a case. Apple’s Smart Cover comes off easily, so you could just take it off to read with for long periods of time, and put it back on when you want to protect the screen. Also, the weight is very well balanced, so you can hold it in one hand comfortably despite its size.

As for reading in bed or in an easy chair, the larger model is slightly worse. It’s more natural to read such a large screen at an arm’s length away, rather than perched on your stomach or thereabouts. The large screen has the same DPI as the smaller iPad Pro, so crispness at that distance is not a problem. It’s just too big to focus on the whole thing evenly, unless it’s about as far from your eyes as your laptop screen normally would be. (This is, obviously, a very small problem in the grand scheme of things.)

It's easy to have no trade-offs when you can just have both

One reason behind my purchase of a 12.9" iPad Pro was that I realized that I didn’t necessarily have to give up my old 9.7" iPad Air after doing so. Sure, it might be the smart thing to get back $100 or so by selling it, or it might be nice to give it to someone else in my family, but it is still worth a lot more to me than it is to somebody else. (I admit, it does help that my kids are too young to care about electronic devices.) This decision made it much easier to go for the larger-sized tablet.

So, if you already have a smaller-than-12.9" iPad, like I do? Honestly, if you can get away with it, keep the old iPad around for reading and use the new, larger one for desktop use.

Why did I start a blog in 2017, when nobody reads blogs anymore?

Simple: I want to own my content.

I want to write posts, and to have something that reflects myself and my work on the Internet. Plus, it’s nice when Google Searches for my name turn up something more interesting than my LinkedIn profile.

I care more about writing right now than reaching the largest audience. I’ve found from blogging in the past that people eventually find your best content; you just have to put it out there. So I’m not going to worry about social networking and search engine optimization. I’m just going to write.

When iOS 11 and the new iPad Pro were announced at this year’s WWDC, I was very excited and more than a little confused. I was excited because the hardware looked fantastic, and I knew I was going to buy one. I was confused because iOS 11 made me no longer know what the iPad was for.

Excitement

Long before WWDC 2017, I decided I would use some of the earnings from my iOS app and Mac app (todo.txt task lists, under the name SwiftoDo) to upgrade my iPad Air 2 to the newest model—whatever Apple would release next. I had hopes for a larger-screen, smaller bezel iPad, which ended up being the 10.5" iPad Pro.

Even though the tech press has decried slow iPad sales for years now, I absolutely love the iPad. I use one for music, podcasts, videos, writing, Twitter, web browsing, and reading at least 8 hours every day. (It helps that I work from home.) I love the screen. I love the touch interface. I love driving it with a Bluetooth keyboard. I love how native apps can deliver a superior experience to web pages. I even love developing apps for the platform.

Since I purchased my 2013 MacBook Pro, I have bought three iPads (not counting the Pro model I was considering) and zero MacBook Pros. This year I was not really due for an upgrade, but I use the iPad so much, I decided it was worth it.

Confusion

Despite my general iPad Pro excitement, I was also confused, because iOS 11 looked to me like a computer operating system, rather than a tablet operating system. iOS 11’s new app launching dock, file-oriented architecture, and extensive drag-and-drop support gave me the impression that it made the iPad more like the next generation of Mac, rather than a tablet.

This is important because, to me, and iPad is way more intimate a product than a computer. I read on it at the breakfast table and in bed. I listen to music all day at work, and sometimes just have it display a big clock or the blank text area of a note-taking app. These are things I would never dedicate an entire laptop to. But a tablet is small, low power, and low stress.

I installed a developer beta of iOS 11 on my iPad Air 2 to get an idea of how the new UI worked. I also visited my local Apple Store to look at the 10.5" iPad Pros the day they were released. I actually walked right right past them; the store had replaced all the 9.7" models with 10.5" models, and I could barely tell the difference. After a minute I found the 2017 9.7" iPad (the new budget/consumer model) and a new 2017 10.5" iPad Pro side by side. The difference in size was more slight than I had imagined. The larger size was obviously an improvement over my iPad Air 2 screen, but it didn’t feel like a big enough difference to warrant an upgrade. I was actually a little upset, because I really wanted to upgrade to the newest iPad, but the 10.5" model did not seem much better than the iPad Air 2.

A surprising decision (at least to me)

What dawned on me at the Apple Store was that iOS 11 would make the 12.9" iPad Pro, which I had previously thought was ridiculously oversized, very attractive. With a keyboard, it would be a much better desktop computer than the 10.5" model. Without a keyboard, and indeed without a case, it would light enough to hold while reading in bed, and not really too large for that either. It would have better software and require less maintenance than my MacBook Pro, and would be a lot more fun to use. So I played with one for a while and decided to buy it.

Now I’m writing this blog post on it, and plan to write more about the other hardware I bought to go along with it, and the changes I made to its software. It’s a wonderful device, and is clearly, with iOS 11 on the horizon, the next iteration of the Mac.

Somewhat to my surprise, I have started coding a new text editor for iOS. I usually have no ideas for new apps. This month, however, I suddenly have ideas for a galaxy of related projects, all of which support the concepts I developed and wrote about several years ago in Plaintext Productivity.

My goal is to write an app that is very simple, configurable (by normal people, not JavaScript programmers), and rock solid, which will be useful for me for planning and tracking things at work. In some small way, I wonder if I am working on something that will end up like Drafts or Editorial, only specialized for people who don’t want to configure anything too much. Even if that’s the case, that’s not such a bad thing to create.

First posts are often hopeful paeans to blogging, and promises to post regularly. This isn’t such a post. This blog is a project, or small set of projects, and that is all. Like all things, this stream of thoughts will eventually run its course.

I was inspired to start a new blog by Manton Reece and Daniel Jalkut, who discuss blogging and Apple programming on their excellent podcast “Core Intiution”. I hope to tie it to Micro.blog sometime soon, once that service launches.

So, here it is. There is more to come.