What Sets the iPad mini Apart

A couple of months ago, I wrote a piece speculating on what the dynamic between the iPhone Duo and the OLED iPad mini would be once both were revealed to the world. Well, we know all about both products now as Apple starts to wrap up a whirlwind of fall product launches, so I thought it would be worth checking in.

Both the iPhone Duo and iPad mini had some unexpected tricks up their sleeves. For the Duo, the big surprise was Apple Pencil support. This marks the first time the accessory has worked with anything other than an iPad, and it further blurs the line that the Duo toes between being an iPhone and a small iPad.

The big question going into the Duo announcement for me was what Apple would do with iOS to adapt it to a folding form factor. Here’s what I wrote in August:

My future with the iPad mini is going to be determined, I think, by the folding iPhone’s software. If it acts like an iPhone with a bigger display, I don’t think that’s going to replace iPadOS for me. But if it’s truly an iPad mini I can fold in half and carry with me everywhere, then that’s the dream of the one-handed tablet brought to its logical end point, and it’ll be a beautiful thing indeed.

Having spent a little over a week using the iPhone Duo, I’m still working to fully wrap my mind around its software, but I think it’s landed closer to my dream of a folding iPad mini than I expected. Most of the time, the iPhone Duo behaves like an iPhone, especially when I’m using its outer screen. But when I unfold it and hold it in portrait mode, it feels almost exactly like using an iPad mini – to the point that I sometimes forget that the device I’m reading, writing, and watching videos on is my phone. It’s a strange and enticing feeling.

I’ll have more to say on the iPhone Duo down the road, but when it comes to replacing my iPad mini for content consumption and shorter writing tasks, the Duo fits the bill perfectly. I was sad to see it go, but this week, I officially passed my iPad mini down to my son, kicking off what I hope to be the next generation of love for tiny tablets.

But my being enamored with the iPhone Duo doesn’t change the fact that the newly announced iPad mini looks incredible. Not only does it adopt OLED screen technology and its many benefits – including an iPad Pro-style thin chassis and expanded screen with smaller bezels around it – but it unlocks a whole new use case for the iPad mini: extended desktop mode. If you connect an iPad mini to an external display, it can use the screen as an extension rather than a mirror. This unlocks the ability to turn Apple’s smallest tablet into a desktop computer with multiple resizable windows, the way we’ve been able to do with the iPad Pro and Air for a few years now.

In a pre-iPhone Duo world, I very well might have gone all in on this iPad mini as my main computer. The idea of a tiny tablet that I can carry anywhere and easily expand into a desktop computer with a display is sickeningly appealing to me. It’s something I’ve wanted for a very long time, and it’s now a reality!

That capability is emblematic of what sets the iPad mini apart from the iPhone Duo. It’s an iPad, and it has all of the features of the iPad lineup, including desktop mode, pro-level apps, and multitasking with multiple resizable windows. Jason Snell put it well in his review of the new iPad mini: “The reason the iPad mini has earned the love and loyalty of a wide array of users is that it’s tiny, portable, and does everything an iPad can do—and that’s a winning combination.” The iPhone Duo, as impressive as it is, can’t currently replicate these iPad-exclusive features.

So even though the iPad mini is no longer a part of my workflow, it still very much has a place in Apple’s lineup and in the use cases of the many people who love it. I’ll be carrying on with my 13” M1 iPad Pro as my computer for now and my iPhone Duo for everything else, but I’m grateful the iPad mini exists and is receiving the substantial update it deserves. I know a lot of miniature tablet fans are going to be very happy with it.

Bear Turns Ten

Today, the team at Shiny Frog are celebrating the ten-year anniversary of the release of their Markdown editor Bear. From the Bear blog:

Back in 2013, three friends who loved Apple and design couldn’t find a notes app they liked, so they built their own. That side project became Bear. It arrived on the App Store in November 2016, and within a year it had been named Mac App of the Year and won an Apple Design Award. This November, the little Bear turns 10. Today it helps millions of people around the world capture their ideas and organize their lives every day, and we’ve felt so much love and support from all of you along the way.

Ten years is a long time for a software product to be around. At the same time, I can’t shake the feeling that Bear has existed a lot longer than that. It’s one of my all-time favorite apps and such an essential part of my workflow that it feels like I’ve been using it forever.

Everything I write happens in Bear, and it’s become my go-to for note-taking, too. Every time I use it, I can feel the love and care that goes into making it, which is why I imagine I’ll still be using it and saying something similar about it in ten more years.

Congratulations to the team for ten years of incredible work. Here’s to many, many more!

Grief, Memory, and Blessing

This piece by Rev. Dr. Robert W. Lee really spoke to me. It’s short, but it’s full of wise, helpful truths for times of mourning. I highly recommend reading the whole thing.

I don’t know what lies ahead in my life or the course it will take. I know there will be moments of great joy and moments of deep grief. Yet through it all I am assured that it’s all grace.

My Beats 360 Experiment

Last week, after months of teasing, Beats announced their new flagship headphones: Beats 360. They feature the company’s best over-ear sound and active noise cancellation ever, as well as interchangeable ear cups and headbands so you can change the color and material of your headphones in just a few seconds. They’re also the company’s first ever water- and sweat-resistant headphones, making them ideal for those who want to wear over-ears while working out.

I was intrigued by the look of the Beats 360 from the moment I first saw them being used by athletes at the World Cup. While breaking out of the traditional Beats design mold, they still carry the company’s iconic aesthetic while incorporating some higher-end touches borrowed from Apple’s AirPods Max. (Beats is an Apple subsidiary and collaborates with the company on audio products.) The various color combinations make space for tons of expression while still offering subtler options for people like me who prefer not to stand out.

The design won me over before the 360s were ever announced, but the technical details really closed the deal for me. While these headphones don’t include Apple’s H2 audio chip, the Beats team did manage to incorporate a lot of the H2’s niceties into Beats 360 – not only for Apple users, but for Android users as well. Regardless of your ecosystem of choice, the headphones feature one-touch pairing with all of your devices via the cloud, automatic switching when you move from one device to the other, and location tracking. This marks the first time a proprietary chip from Beats has included AirPods-style device switching, which is exciting to see.

Between the design, the ecosystem integration, and positive early reviews about the headphones’ sound quality and comfort, I knew I had to try them. Because they’ve been so long in the works, I was able to pick them up locally on release day (unheard of where I live) at Target. I’ve been testing them since last Thursday, pretty much wearing them non-stop as my daily drivers for both regular use and exercise. I wanted to find out if Beats 360 could be the one pair of headphones for every aspect of my life.

There is so much to love about these things. Their design is downright stunning in person. The build quality is the best I’ve ever seen in a Beats product, even better than my beloved Beats Solo Pro from a few years back. The ripstop case with its magnetic seal is a great way to carry them around. Whether I was wearing them on my head or around my neck, the Beats 360 felt like a great accessory to wear. I don’t know what it is about headphones, but wearing them just makes me feel like me; it’s the look I want every day.

Sound quality and active noise cancellation are similarly excellent. Coming from AirPods Pro and Beats Solo 4, the 360s offer a lot more in terms of volume and punch without sacrificing clarity, and the ANC made my noisy workplace feel perfectly peaceful.

My only complaint about the sound is a persistent hiss coming from the speakers anytime the headphones are turned on. Whether I was using noise cancellation, transparency mode, or neither, the white noise was constantly there. When I was listening to music, I didn’t notice it, but it was definitely irritating when I was wearing the headphones simply for ANC. Based on impressions I’ve read from other Beats 360 users on social media, the hiss seems to be a widespread but not universal problem.

When it comes to software, Beats 360 don’t offer as smooth of an experience as I was expecting. They did pair instantly with my phone and other devices (though I did have to re-pair them after a day-one firmware update), but the auto-switching feature is finicky at best. If was listening to a podcast on my phone and started playing a video on my iPad, the headphones would switch over, but they wouldn’t reliably switch back to my iPhone if I started playing the podcast again once the video was over.

Even worse, the headphones would often switch away from a device that was playing audio to one that wasn’t playing anything at all. The 360s also don’t offer a quick option to move back to a device if they switch erroneously, the way AirPods do. I may be spoiled by how good the AirPods’ H2 chip is at handling automatic device switching, but I found the Beats 360 version to be unreliable and thus not all that useful.

The biggest question of all in my testing was comfort. I’ve tried several different noise-cancelling over-ear headphone models from Apple in the past, and each of them gave me splitting headaches due to the clamping force needed to create a good seal. Could Beats 360 break that trend with their unique materials and weight distribution? Kind of.

Beats 360 are certainly the most comfortable noise-cancelling headphones I’ve ever worn. With the Performance Knit (cloth) cushions, the headphones did not give me instant headaches, but the pressure did eventually get to me during longer sessions. I found the UltraPlush (faux leather) cushions less comfortable and more pain-inducing.

I am an outlier when it comes to headphone comfort because I’m particularly sensitive to them for whatever reason. Beats 360 might have crossed the line into comfortable territory for me if I’d given them more time to break in. They were really close.

But as I was considering all of these factors together and whether they added up to the right headphones for me, something happened that instantly shifted my thinking on it all: I put on my AirPods Pro 3.

It had been nearly a week since I used the AirPod because I really wanted to give the Beats 360 a fair try. As soon as I put them in my ears, I remembered all the things I love about them. Their sound quality and noise cancellation, while not quite as good as the 360s, are incredible for their compact size. They’re easy to carry around, they’re so comfortable that I forget I’m wearing them, and they include the very best wireless audio technology Apple has to offer without any tradeoffs.

All my testing revealed that I already had the right product for me. The AirPods Pro are perfect in every way – except for the fact that they aren’t over-ear headphones. Giving up that form factor is hard for me, but I have to go with the product that works the way I need it to, not the one I’d like in an ideal world.

At the end of the day, for my use case, the spectacular design, sound quality, and noise cancellation of the Beats 360 couldn’t outweigh the hissing, auto-switching bugs, and potential comfort issues, especially not when I already have the incredible AirPods Pro 3 at hand. I still think they’re great headphones for wearing to the gym or for those who want more expressivity in their headphones, and I recommend trying them if you’re interested because they do have some great qualities. They just aren’t for me.

I’m glad I experimented with the Beats 360 for a few reasons:

1. I had an awesome time with them, especially taking them out for a run with a great soundtrack.
2. They gave me hope that I might one day be able to wear over-ear headphones comfortably.
3. They affirmed that my current setup (AirPods Pro 3 with the occasional switch to Beats Solo 4) is the right one for me – for now.

My heart will always long for the perfect over-ear headphones, but my ears belong to AirPods Pro. That’s just the way it is. For everyone else, Beats 360 are a great addition to the Beats/extended Apple audio lineup. If you’re in the market for some stylish over-ears, give them a try. And if you’re happy with the setup you’ve got, well, that’s great, too.

Internal Processing

I’ve never been much of a note-taker. Rather than spending meetings and discussions with my head down in a computer recording everything that’s said, I tend to let the information wash over me, trusting my memory to retain what’s important. Aside from specific event and task details, which do get written down in their prospective apps, I keep most things just up in my head.

I’ve also never much for project management. If I have something I need to do, I’ll put it on my task list with a due date, but only at a high level. Breaking items down into sub-tasks just doesn’t jive with how my brain works. I see the task is coming up, I think on it for a while, and then, when the time comes, I do it. This is true for tasks that take five minutes and ones that are long and complex, requiring several days or weeks to complete.

For whatever reason, I have a tendency to keep my processing internal. I absorb information, I let my brain do its thing with it, and then I output whatever needs to be done: work, writing, decisions. The entirety of the middle part happens in my head.

Lately, though, I’ve been trying to externalize more. It started when I switched to Bear for writing and note-taking, forcing myself to let it become a bit of a messy space without any expectations. If I’m thinking about a problem or planning an event, I create a note for it and just jot things down: ideas, issues, questions, things that need to be done. Tiny sub-tasks that would never make their way into Reminders suddenly appear and disappear in my notes as needed. Links, reference images, quotes, half-baked thoughts – they’re all there.

Though the habit is still in its formation stage, I think it’s working. There hasn’t been a huge shift in what I’m able to accomplish, but I do find that there are fewer lingering stray thoughts taking up space in the back of my head. By getting them out, I free up room to process only the most pressing matter at hand until I’m ready to move on to the next thing, pull up my notes for it, and get to work.

As someone who likes structure and tidiness, allowing a bit of messiness into my setup was a challenge at first, but I’m reaping the benefits now. Note-taking works. Who new?

My tendency to internalize is true not just of my relationships with data and devices, but with people as well. If I’m working through an idea or a feeling, my go-to approach is to keep it to myself for as long as possible. It’s not that I’m purposefully withholding anything; I just tend toward silent pondering, I guess.

But I’m trying to be more open with this sort of processing, too. As I’ve been reminded many times by friends and loved ones, I don’t have to carry things alone. People are happy and willing to listen, support, and offer guidance when needed. Like note-taking, expressing emotions can be messy; at the same time, it can be really helpful.

You may have noticed this site becoming more of a “feeling space” lately. That’s been a part of this new approach for me, and I’m grateful to anyone who takes the time to read my ruminations, including you.

Shifting my processing – whether it be for tasks, emotions, ideas, or anything else – outside of myself has been a refreshing change. There will always be a lot happening inside my head, but balancing that internal activity with some external expression is just what I needed.