Since buying the iPad Pro, I’ve been looking for a bag for carrying it and some select accessories to meetings. This little Tom Bihn bag is my solution, and I’m pretty happy with it.
Category: Reviews
Review: The iPad Pro is a line in the sand
The iPad Pro is a strange device for someone like me.
I run my business, record and edit my podcasts and do my writing all from a 15-inch MacBook Pro. In the war of work, it’s my weapon of choice.
Even if I could work from an iPad full-time 1 like Federico Viticci, I’m faster and more productive with OS X at my fingertips.
That’s not a slam against the iPad or iOS itself; Apple’s mobile operating system has a seriously impressive set of tools under the hood. While it may make me a dinosaur one day, the Mac is home for me, and has been for a long time.
Review: 4th-generation Apple TV promises revolution; delivers evolution
The future of television is here.
That’s what Apple’s marketing team starts off with on the company’s web page about the new Apple TV, which is now a top-level section on the company’s website. No longer is the Apple TV tucked in with iPods; it’s got a seat at the table with the Mac, iPhone and Apple’s other products.
Clearly, Apple thinks its new TV puck is a winner, but it’s been a long road to get here.
Review: the Magic Keyboard
I’ve used Apple keyboards for as long as I’ve had a Mac. While I never owned one of 2000’s Apple Pro Keyboards when it was new, the keys felt way better to me than the keyboards that shipped with the iMac G3 family of machines. The 108-key keyboard shipped in both black and white, and featured a foot that could adjust the height of the keyboard.
It looked super cool in black with the G4 Cube:
Review: Philips Hue White and Color Ambiance Starter Kit
The Philips Hue White and Color Ambiance Starter Kit is a fun little product.
In short, it’s a set of three LED bulbs and a bridge that allows them to connect to your home network. Once the dead-simple setup is compete, the Hues app allows you to select pre-designed “scenes,” control the lights individually, or even design new scenes based on photographs. Want to re-live your Tahiti experience? Load the photo into the app and you can be back in that magical place.
Notes.app follow-up
Thanks to everyone who sent me feedback about my article on Notes.app. Here’s some stuff I wanted to share more broadly:
- Jason Burk sent me an email pointing to a blog post in which he outlines the workflow he used to move from Evernote to Notes.
- Jason and others also sent me a link to Notes Exporter, a free Mac app that can export your Notes as plain text files. I ran it this morning, and got a pile of .txt files, as promised. The app didn’t do anything with my attachments, but I didn’t expect it to. There is some weird formatting in some of my files, but it’s nothing that couldn’t be cleaned up.
- I got a lot of suggestions for Dropbox iOS text editors. I’ve tried most of them, but a few were new. If I end up back in that space at some point, I’ll have more apps to try.
- I got an email from someone wondering if the font size in Notes.app could be adjusted at the .plist level. I tried that in writing my review, and couldn’t get anything to work. If you have some magic up your sleeves in this area, get in touch.
Notes on Notes.app
I’ve had an on-again, off-again thing with Evernote 1 for years. I like having attachments associated with my notes, but dislike almost everything about the service itself. 2
That said, there’s a lot in Evernote that I don’t use. 3 I don’t have IFTTT routing any content in, and I don’t ever forward emails to the system. I occasionally use the web clipper to save webpages to Evernote, but it’s nowhere near vital to my workflow. 4
iPhone 6S Plus Review
To put it bluntly, the iPhone 6S Plus is the best iPhone I’ve ever owned.
There are models of iPhones that were more fun when new. I shot a ton of video on my 3GS, and of course, the 4 was a breathtaking piece of engineering and design.
Back in the spring, I wrote about switching to the 6 Plus. All the good things about the bigger phone — the display, battery life, camera and more — are just as important to me this time around.
OS X El Capitan Review
OS X El Capitan is here, and to be honest, even as a hardcore Mac user, it’s kind of a sleepy release. That’s not to say there isn’t good stuff in the new version of OS X; there are a lot of nice features here, but its a quiet year.
Between you and me, I’m a little glad about that.
A year ago, OS X Yosemite brought a wide-reaching redesign to the operating system, building on top of the foundations laid by OS X Mavericks just 12 months before that. This year, El Capitan brings a new level of polish to the OS, tweaking some things here and there that needed attention.
6S Plus First Impressions
I’ve enjoyed my iPhone 6 Plus since first realizing #MykeWasRight and trading in my small, junky iPhone 6 for a nicely-sized, amazing iPhone 6 Plus back in the spring.
Like many of you, I pre-ordered a phone a couple of weeks ago, and today it came: a 64GB Space Gray iPhone 6S Plus. There’s a lot I haven’t done with this new phone yet, but I’ll be taking notes for a review. Here are some initial impressions until then:
Review: Three Months of Apple Watch
My 42mm stainless steel Apple Watch shipped at the end of April. In the three months since, I’ve worn it every day. I’ve biked in it, slept in it, taken it to both U.S. coasts and have gotten used to having it in my life.
While we’ve known about Apple Watch’s existence for almost an entire year, and while I have spent lots of time with mine, it’s still a very hard thing to write and talk about, and the reasons for that are complicated.
The Tom Bihn Synapse 19⇢
I’ve got a new backpack, and I’m really digging it.