HidrateSpark Pro Smart Water Bottle

I don’t think that I’ve ever done a proper hardware review before. I’ve never really considered myself qualified for that sort of thing. But recently, I started using a product that I just feel like I have to talk about: the HidrateSpark Pro smart water bottle.

Those of you who keep up with Apple news may have heard of this recently. The company started carrying a version of it in the Apple Store last month, leading to a string of stories and blog posts. It turns out that Apple’s been selling HidrateSpark water bottles for a while now, but I wasn’t aware of the company until this last batch of press. The concept immediately caught my eye.

One thing about me: I drink a lot of water. Since I was a teenager, I’ve always carried a water bottle with me everywhere I go, constantly refilling it every chance I get. Some would call me well-hydrated; others might say I have an issue. Either way, I’m a heavy water bottle user and am constantly on the lookout for my next one.

I’m also a huge nerd, a fact that sort of goes without saying. So a smart water bottle backed by Apple’s stamp of approval is just the sort of thing that appeals to me.

And so it was with only a hint of surprise and a good deal of excitement that I received a generous, unprompted offer from my dad to gift me a HidrateSpark water bottle for my birthday. Mind you, I had never mentioned such a thing to him or anyone else in my family. But I guess when two of my interests align this perfectly, it makes me easy to shop for. Thanks for sponsoring this review, Dad!

Now, I’m the proud owner of my very own HidrateSpark Pro smart water bottle. After spending a few weeks with it, I have thoughts.

First of all, the basics: The HidrateSpark Pro smart water bottle comes in a range of sizes and two different materials, plastic and stainless steel. They cost between $60 and $80 depending on which model you choose. Being the midsize steel version, mine was $70. Here’s everything that came in the box:

• the HidrateSpark Pro smart water bottle (21 oz., black)
• sensor puck
• chug lid
• straw lid and straw
• charging cable
• manual with instructions for setup

Note: This particular version of the water bottle is a special edition only available through the Apple Store that comes with both the chug lid and the straw lid. If you purchase directly from HidrateSpark or from another source, you’ll have to choose one lid type or the other.

You wouldn’t normally expect to need a setup guide for a water bottle, but since this one is smart, it came with a few instructions. I first hand washed the water bottle (since the stainless steel versions aren't dishwasher-safe) then thoroughly dried it as instructed because the smart sensor puck cannot get wet. While the bottle was drying, I plugged in the puck with the included magnetic charging cable and my own USB-A wall adapter to ensure the battery had some charge.

From there, setup was easy. I gently twisted the sensor puck into the bottom of the cup and then pressed the puck’s Bluetooth button to enter pairing mode. Then I opened the HidrateSpark app on my phone, created an account with Sign In with Apple, and paired the water bottle instantly. This setup process is the kind of thing that can leave a bad first impression on users if done poorly, but the HidrateSpark was straightforward and quick to get going.

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Before we even get to the smart stuff, the quality of the bottle itself is really important. When I held mine for the first time, I was struck by how tall it is. I went with the 21-ounce version rather than the new 32-ounce model because I didn’t want to carry around something that was going to stick out or make a statement. I’d say this size is right on the border of statement-making.

The 21-ounce HidrateSpark Pro is quite slender. It’s actually narrower than the 16-ounce tumbler I was using before, which makes it perfect for cupholders. But because of its elaborate lid and the sensor puck on the bottom, the bottle is significantly taller than anything I’m used to. The size has grown on me, but I definitely wasn’t prepared for it at first.

The bottle feels very much like something Apple would sell. It’s sleek, slender, and unassuming. I’d describe the quality of the stainless steel as slightly above standard—certainly better than what you’d get from a stainless steel cup at the grocery store, but maybe not quite premium. The black version has a textured finish that I find grippy and appealing. And the HidrateSpark logo on the front is small enough that I don’t mind it, though opinions may differ on that.

The bottom of the water bottle is made of a grey, semi-opaque ring of hard plastic that the sensor puck screws into. On the bottom of the sensor puck is a layer of rubber that grips the surface the cup is resting on and deadens the sound the bottle makes when you set it down.

As far as build quality, I’m not sure it gets much better than this in a water bottle meant for the mass market. The HidrateSpark is very well-made without going over the top, and it keeps water cold for a very long time (up to 24 hours, according to the marketing material). Because a water bottle is something I carry around everywhere, I expect it to be nice without drawing a ton of attention to itself. I’d say this one accomplishes that well. Like I said, it makes sense that Apple would be willing to associate its stores with this product.

But the HidrateSpark isn’t just a water bottle; it’s a smart water bottle. And the more time I spend using the smart aspects of this product, the more I’m impressed by it.

All of the HidrateSpark Pro’s smarts are built on the sensor puck and its communication with the Hidrate app on your phone via Bluetooth. When you take a drink, the sensor puck measures the change in the weight of your bottle’s contents, uses that to calculate the amount of water you just drank, and sends the information to your phone. The puck also emits a pleasing glow to confirm that it’s logging your data.

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The Hidrate app isn’t perfect, but I think it does its job well. The home page looks like the company’s take on the Apple Fitness app, with a ring that fills throughout the day as you make progress towards your hydration goal. (You can set your own goal or allow the app to calculate one for you based on your height and weight, activity level, and the weather around you.) At the top of the screen, you can scroll through your history week-by-week to see how much of your goal you’ve met over time.

You can also change some of your water bottle’s settings in the app, including the color that it glows. There are several pre-defined options to choose from, or you can purchase a $5 in-app add-on to design your own color scheme. I appreciate the customization options, but I’ve set my bottle to a simple white glow.

The app is also where you set up reminders to make sure you’re getting enough water throughout the day. Reminders come in two forms: notifications on your phone and glowing reminders from the bottle itself. You can customize when and how often you receive reminders so that they don’t become a nuisance, but I do recommend taking advantage of them. The motivation to keep up with your hydration goal is one of the best benefits of using the HidrateSpark Pro over a regular water bottle.

My favorite feature of the Hidrate app, though, is its integration with Apple Health. Once I granted the app permission to access my health data, syncing my water intake was completely seamless. I take a drink, the bottle sends that information to Hidrate app, and the Hidrate app syncs that information to the Health app without me having to even unlock my phone. I’ve even set up a goal in Awesome Habits to keep track of my water intake using the data from Apple Health, and it all works without any manual input on my part.

The fact that this process is completely automatic has impressed me to no end. My biggest barrier when it comes to health tracking is simply remembering to do it. The HidrateSpark Pro removes that barrier completely by handling all the work for me; it couldn’t be more convenient.

Another pain point that this water bottle solves for me: finding it when I accidentally leave it behind somewhere. The app includes a Find My Bottle feature that automatically records the water bottle’s location whenever it gets out of Bluetooth range. This feature is handy and has already helped me track it down a couple of times.

The Hidrate app additionally includes some social features. If you have friends who use the company’s smart water bottles, you can check each other’s progress and keep each other motivated. There are global challenges that allow you to work towards goals alongside the rest of the community. And you can earn trophies for meeting your daily goal, keeping a streak of completions, and saving plastic bottles. It’s completely optional, but I’ve found these features to be a good bit of fun.

I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention that the Hidrate app is also available on the Apple Watch. It’s a quick way to check your progress and log any water you drink that doesn’t get registered automatically, like when you go to a restaurant.

Of course, being a smart device, the HidrateSpark does have to be charged from time to time. The app will send you a notification when the battery gets low and needs to be plugged in. I’ve found that charging the puck for a few hours every week or so seems to do the trick, and the good news is that you can still use the water bottle while the puck is charging. You’ll just have to remember to log that water manually since the smart features won’t be active.

Overall, I’m really happy with my HidrateSpark Pro, but there are couple of changes I’d like to see in a future version. The bottle struggles to get an accurate measurement of my water intake when I’m driving, which I assume is due to either the motion of the car or the inability to sit perfectly flat in my cupholder. Because I commute almost every day, this has led to some bad data that I had to clean up later, so any improvement on that front would be welcome.

I’d also like to have a little more control over scheduling in the app. I appreciate the ability to set my waking hours to avoid reminders while I sleep and the ability to snooze my bottle’s glowing feature for a couple of hours when I have a meeting, but I’d like more fine-grained control over that schedule. For example, I sleep in later on Saturdays than the rest of the week, so I wake up every Saturday to a notification that says I’m way behind on my hydration goal. And though the waking hours setting does prohibit reminders, my bottle still glows in the middle of the night when I get a drink. I’d like the ability to set a schedule for that feature as well, or possibly even to tie it in to my sleeping schedule in the Health app if that’s something third-party developers can access.

Finally, I’d like to see Find My Bottle expanded to include true Apple Find My support. Rather than being limited to the Hidrate app, I’d like to see my water bottle in the Find My app alongside my devices and other items that feature location tracking.

Those minor suggestions aside, I’ve had a phenomenal experience with my HidrateSpark Pro water bottle so far. When I first got it, I thought it would be a silly, fun thing to try. But the more I’ve used it and the more I’ve learned about the company’s history and mission to help people stay healthy through hydration, the more I’ve come to see this as an important technology that a lot of people could benefit from. Staying hydrated is such a key aspect of overall health, and the HidrateSpark Pro does a stellar job of encouraging me to drink enough water while integrating seamlessly into my everyday life.

In fact, I liked mine so much that my wife purchased one for herself. (She bought the 17-ounce version, which is a great size.) And while I don’t rely on the reminders as much because I naturally drink a lot, she’s seen a lot of benefit from them. Since she started using her smart water bottle, she’s met her hydration goal every day!

That’s the power of smart tech. It can motivate us to meet our goals and take better care of ourselves—but only if it’s done right. In the case of the HidrateSpark Pro, I’d say it definitely is. It’s a simple, smart way to track your water intake and ensure that you’re giving your body the hydration that it needs. So if that’s something you care about or would like to improve on, I highly recommend giving this smart water bottle a try. It’s certainly been a positive experience me, and now that I’ve used it, I can’t imagine going without it.

On Turning 30

Yesterday was my 30th birthday. I wasn’t sure how I’d react to waking up and no longer being in my 20s; honestly, I feel about the same. It’s certainly a milestone, but in my eyes, it’s a positive one.

It’s also a great opportunity to reflect on where I’m at 30 years into my time on earth. The past decade has been full of ups, downs, and big changes. I graduated college, moved to Texas for a couple of years, moved back home to work at the church, finished seminary, met the love of my life, married her, built a house, adopted a dog, and crafted a fulfilling existence with my little family.

All of this is to say I’m incredibly thankful for my life and the people in it. I am so blessed to be where I am today. It’s been a great 30 years so far; God willing, here’s to many more.

The Many Benefits of Indie Apps

Over the past few months, I’ve been writing about new apps that have become a part of my daily life. I’m not one to change up my routine offhandedly. It takes a lot to get me to try something different, and even more for me to stick with it. Which is why I’m so impressed with these apps that have embedded themselves into my life and become so important to me.

There’s one characteristic all of these tools have in common that you might have noticed: They’re all indie apps. That means they are created by independent app developers, not big companies. Every app I’ve featured on my site this year has come from developers working on their own to support themselves through the applications they create.

That’s been a purposeful decision on my part. I made a conscious choice a while ago to follow people and websites that feature independent app developers. Sources like MacStories, Indie Dev Monday, and Indie Apps Catalogue are great for discovering new tools by creators I’ve never heard of. And by following indie developers and those who support them on Twitter, I’ve found even more ways to keep up with what’s happening in this space. It’s been so much fun and exposed me to a treasure trove of useful apps.

There are a lot of reasons why I’ve chosen to focus on indie apps when looking for something new, and I’d like to share a few of them.

First of all, indie apps tend to be well and uniquely designed. They aren’t generically built for a bunch of different platforms, and they aren’t designed by committee. Rather, they are crafted by individuals who put a lot of time and intentionality into making them. Not only do they look great; they work really well, too.

There are thousands of apps out there, and you can probably find dozens that accomplish any given task. To find an app that not only does what you want it to do but also connects with you and makes you want to use it, though—that’s something special. And it’s something I’ve found indie apps are especially good at.

Indie developers tend to tackle problems that are personal to them. They create apps that they are passionate about, and their passion translates into a good user experience. I choose to use the apps I do because they feel like they were made for me. They mesh with the way my brain works, and that comes from the way they’re designed.

Indie apps also tend to be good platform citizens, which is very important me. It’s a tad ironic, but I’ve found that the smallest developers with the least resources actually invest the most in making their apps as useful and versatile as possible for their users.

That means they include basic features like share sheet extensions, drag-and-drop, and split screen support on iPads. It also means they offer Shortcuts actions and Home screen widgets so that users can interact with them in the way they prefer. Some even go so far as to create Apple Watch versions (no small feat!), which I find really fun and useful. I take advantage of these platform features more because my favorite apps support them.

Apple offers all kinds of great system options that developers can use to make their apps better and make users love their devices more. I’ve found that indie devs tend to lean into these features, and their apps are better for it.

I’ve also found customization to be a great benefit of using indie apps. Whether it’s changing the screen tint color or adjusting how the app actually works to fit you, these apps give you options and settings—not too many, but just enough—that allow you to make them your own. The same can’t be said of every app.

The pace of updates on indie apps is also just incredible. I’ve started checking my App Store updates tab daily because the apps I love are being constantly refreshed with new features and refinements. If you’re the type of person who likes to use all of the latest OS features as soon as they’re released, your best bet is to invest in indie apps, because their developers are always the first to incorporate those updates. It’s fun to always have something new to try in the apps you love.

Finally, the relationships you can build with the developers of indie apps are just so fulfilling. They’re always so welcome to feedback, and they actually respond to you! Sometimes, your ideas even become inspiration for new features down the line. It’s so much more enjoyable to use software from independent app developers rather than faceless corporations.

It feels good knowing that the money you spend on apps is going to independent developers, too. I’ve found the app subscription model that many indie devs use to be the perfect setup: I pay a reasonable amount every year to support the developer’s work, which allows them to provide for themselves and keep making the app better. Everyone wins, and it feels like I’m directly connected to the people making my favorite tools.

That alone is enough of a reason to support indie developers in my mind. All the other stuff is just a bonus. But taken together, these reasons make indie apps so much more compelling to me than any of the other options out there.

All of my favorite apps are indies, and they make my life so much better. If you haven’t looked into the world of independent developers and their apps lately, I suggest you give them a try. You won’t regret it.

Here are a few of my favorite indie apps to start off your search:

• OpenBudget, a personal finance app from Khan Winter
• Sofa, a downtime organizer by Shawn Hickman
• Structured, a day planner from Leo Mehlig
• Good Sudoku, my favorite puzzle game from Zach Gage
• Awesome Habits, a habit tracker from Michal Tuma
• Slipity, a powerful presentation app from Josiah Oslund
• Everlog, a journaling app from Wessley Roche
• Mela, a recipe manager from Silvio Rizzi
• Play, a YouTube watch later app from Marcos Tanaka

There are so many great indie apps out there. These are just a few to get you started, so be sure to go out and find some for yourself! And if you find something amazing, please don’t hesitate to send it my way. You never know when you might find your next favorite app.

Play

A very unexpected addition to my digital life lately has been Play by Marcos Tanaka. Available on iPhone, iPad, Mac, and Apple TV (🤩), Play is a tool for saving YouTube videos to watch later and syncing your queue across devices. And it is excellent.

When I first heard about Play in the Club MacStories Discord and had the opportunity to beta test it, I assumed it wasn’t for me. I don’t watch a ton of YouTube videos, so the Watch Later playlist built into the service has always served my needs just fine. But a series of events not long after the app’s official release changed my mind.

First, I started using a Safari extension called Vinegar by Zhenyi Tan. Vinegar replaces YouTube’s video player with Apple's built-in video player which, among other things, enables picture-in-picture and background audio playback. Once I found this extension, I stopped watching videos in the YouTube app and started watching in Safari.

So at that point, I was just using the YouTube app to manage my Watch Later queue. That’s when I decided to give Play a second look, and it just so happened that one of the app’s first major additions after its release was the option to open YouTube videos in Safari rather than the YouTube app. This made Play the perfect way to manage my watch later queue and, combined with Vinegar, it gave me a much better YouTube experience than I had with the official app. I'd call this my ideal YouTube-watching setup.

That’s just the tip of the iceberg, though. Since I’ve switched over to using Play, I’ve dug into many of its features and found them to be really helpful. It’s not only a great way to keep track of videos I want to watch, but also videos I’ve already watched in case I want to go back and look at them again.

But before we get too into the weeds, let me break down the basics: At its core, Play is just a list of YouTube videos that you’ve imported. You can import a video by copying its URL and pasting it into the app’s Add Video screen, by dragging a YouTube link from another app into Play, or via the share sheet (my preferred method). When importing a video, the app will save all of its metadata including thumbnail, title, channel, and length. This data is really useful down the line.

So you import videos into your Play queue, but then you want to watch them, right? When you tap on a video in the list, the app will present you with all of its details as well as a button to watch it. Once you’ve watched a video, it no longer shows up in your main video list but still remains in the Watched section in case you want to go back to it later.

You can organize your video library in Play with tags. For example, I watch a lot of tech videos on YouTube, but I also like to check out trailers. By creating one tag for tech videos and another for trailers, I can keep those videos separate from each other when I’m browsing my queue.

My video library in Play.

But videos don’t have to be tagged manually, and that’s where metadata comes in. In Play’s settings, you can create rules to automatically tag videos when you import them, the same way your email app might automatically flag certain messages in your inbox. If I import a video with the word “iPhone” in the title, Play knows to add the tech tag to it. This saves me a ton of work organizing my library.

Auto-tagging rules can be set based on words in a video’s title, the channel a video comes from, or video length. Multiple rules can even be combined, so you can have a separate tag for long cooking videos and another for short videos you can watch quickly. The possibilities are endless, and auto-tagging does a lot of the work for you.

As you can see, Play isn't just about keeping a list of videos to watch. It's a comprehensive tool for importing, organizing, and watching all of your favorite YouTube videos. And it does its job beautifully, but there are some nice extras that make the app even more of a joy to use.

Play’s widgets make it easy to see what’s in your queue from your home screen. It’s fun to have a little stack of video thumbnails that I can tap into anytime. Widgets can show your entire queue or just videos from a particular tag.

The app is endlessly customizable as well. You can change the accent colors of Play’s widgets and the app itself to fit whatever color scheme you prefer. As I mentioned above, you can change where you want your videos to play, whether it be in the YouTube app or in a browser. And you can adjust the way the app handles and displays (or hides) watched videos in your queue. I like apps that I can tweak to work just the way I want them to, and Play is definitely one of those apps.

It's also constantly growing. Even though Play is relatively new, it's received a bunch of updates already, including a whole new user interface on iPhone and iPad that's just stellar. I also really appreciate the addition of an Apple TV app to Play’s offering. Any video is better on the big screen, so it’s nice that you can pull up your queue on the Apple TV and jump right in to watching.

The one thing I’d like to see added to Play is background syncing of my video library. When I import a video via the share sheet, I have to explicitly open the app to ensure my video syncs up to the cloud. (This problem is a little bit easier to deal with thanks to Play's Shortcuts support and this basic shortcut I made to simplify the process.)

But even then, the app doesn't sync in the background on my other devices. This means that widgets on my various devices are often out of sync, so I always have to open Play to make sure I've got the latest data. I can't imagine background syncing is a trivial feature to add, but I think it would be a worthy addition and make Play perfect in my eyes.

I'm really thankful I decided to give Play a try. I don't see myself as a YouTube power user, but even for the relatively few videos I watch, the experience is much nicer thanks to this app. If you like to watch YouTube from time to time but don't have a good system for saving videos for later, I highly recommend checking this one out.

Play is available on the App Store for $2 as a universal purchase for iPhone, iPad, Mac, and Apple TV, with Family Sharing included.

Finding Room In My Life for the Mac Again

How we relate to our technology changes over time. One thing that’s always been in flux for me is the way I divide up my computing life between the traditional Mac platform and the relatively newer world of the iPad. Honestly, that balance has always been a bit murky.

Part of that murkiness may stem from the fact that, unlike many Apple fans, I didn’t have a years-long history with the Mac before being introduced to tablet computing on the iPad. In fact, both platforms came into my life at roughly the same time.

In the spring of 2010, my parents gave me a MacBook Pro as a gift for my high school graduation. (Thanks, Mom and Dad!) Then that summer, I took some of the money generously given by family and friends as graduation gifts and bought the first-generation iPad that was just starting to take the world by storm. The two devices have gone hand-in-hand from the beginning for me.

They’ve fulfilled different roles in my life at different times. Originally, the Mac was my main computer that I carried with me, and the iPad stayed at home for entertainment. At one point, my MacBook’s battery got so bad that it was relegated to a desktop, and I took an iPad mini with me everywhere I went. Still, I did the bulk of my “real work” on the Mac at home.

About five years ago, though, something shifted. I picked up an iPad Pro as a treat for finishing grad school, and it instantly became my favorite device ever. I started writing on it, designing with it, even editing video and audio on it. Katherine and I planned our wedding and the construction of our house with it. I loved that thing, and it got me deeply invested in the iPad platform in a way I never had been on the Mac.

The iPad has been my main computer ever since. And as its presence in my computing life grew, the Mac’s began to shrink.

Over time, I started to view the Mac as a necessary evil in my life, only to be used when I had no other choice. There are a couple of important tasks I do at work that still aren’t possible on an iPad, and so I never stopped using the Mac completely. But as I got more and more accustomed to the iPad platform, I found myself becoming increasingly frustrated when I had to use a Mac. It wasn't as responsive or reliable as my primary computer, and the experience simply wasn't as good.

I didn’t do this on purpose, but eventually, I came to develop very negative feelings towards the Mac and avoided it as much as possible. The iPad was the device for me.

It was honestly easy to justify these feelings a few years ago. We all know the Mac went through a rough patch for a while, and that just happened to coincide with my transition to the iPad. Every stutter, every restart, every beach ball was just another reason for me to move as much of my workflow as possible away from the Mac, and so I did.

I sat by and watched the Mac's Apple Silicon transition from afar. The M1 chip made its way into my life through the 2021 iPad Pro, and it's been fantastic. Even after seeing how good the M1 was, though, I still didn't feel the need to try an Apple Silicon Mac. The iPad was my chosen platform, and the new chips weren’t enough to convince me.

But as more and more people I know transitioned to Apple Silicon Macs and sang their praises, I started to wonder if maybe I wasn't giving the Mac a fair chance. After all, I was comparing an iPad running the newest Apple chip to Intel Macs that were at least a couple of years old. It wasn't an even fight.

I also started to wonder if my negative feelings towards the Mac might inhibit me from staying up on the latest software and trends, especially with all the cool stuff that Shortcuts users are coming up with on the Mac platform. Being on the iPad all these years made me feel like I was on the cutting edge, but suddenly, it felt like I was being left behind.

Maybe FOMO isn't the best reason to make these kinds of decisions, but it played a part in inspiring me to revisit the idea of using a Mac in my personal life for the first time in years. And once I was open to the idea, it made a lot of sense. It’s clear that Apple is invested in the Mac for the long run (something that wasn’t a given just a few years ago), so it’s probably not a platform I should just write off.

So I decided I needed a Mac in my life again. Then I just had to decide which one was right for me.

The answer came during Apple's Peek Performance event last month. After hearing about the incredible power of the Mac Studio and the revelation from John Ternus that the Apple Silicon transition was nearly over, I came to a realization: As mesmerizing as all of these high-end M1 variants are, I don't need anything more robust than the baseline M1 chip. It's plenty powerful enough to handle the tasks I do day-to-day; going for anything more would just be wasteful.

I ended up going with the simplest solution: the iMac. It's got everything I need included in the box. It's a desktop, so I don't have to worry about it going dead if I don't use it for a stretch of time. It's a computer that can be easily shared between myself, my wife, and anyone else who might be in our home and in need of a computer. And the design of the Apple Silicon version is downright stunning.

The iMac was the perfect solution; it just took me the entire Apple Silicon transition to realize it.

Thankfully, getting ahold of one wasn't too difficult since they’ve been in production for nearly a year now. On the same day so many day-one buyers were eagerly unboxing their Mac Studios, I was setting up my very own iMac in my living room, where it's resided for the past month.

I've been impressed by it so far. The design of the iMac feels cutting-edge the way the iPad Pro did back in 2018. Using macOS on Apple Silicon is a much smoother experience than it was on Intel. I'd say it feels a lot like booting up my iPad, and it doesn't hurt that the iMac can run some of my favorite iPad apps, too.

I'm still working out exactly how the iMac is going to fit into my workflow, but I can already tell that it's going to play a much larger role in my daily life than any Mac has in a long time. It really is a joy to use, and though I still prefer the experience of iPadOS for a lot of things, it's undeniable that the iMac is a great device.

Plus, we now live in a world where Apple encourages us to take advantage of both platforms simultaneously. Universal Control couldn’t have come at a more perfect time for me. I love the ability to control both my iMac and iPad Pro with the same keyboard and trackpad, switching seamlessly between the two. It’s the best of both worlds, and it’s made it easy for me to work the way I like.

A couple of years ago, I’m not sure I could have described any Mac as as “great.” That’s more a reflection of my own attitude than the actual products Apple was offering, though the lineup wasn’t in the best shape. But Apple Silicon and the excitement around the transition have opened me up to the possibility that there might actually be room in my life for a Mac again.

The iPad will likely remain my primary computer for a long time to come. I still love it so much. I’m thankful, though, that I can appreciate and take advantage of the power the Mac platform offers as well. It doesn’t have to be either-or; one doesn’t have to be bad for the other to be good. Both are excellent, beneficial, and worth using. I took me a while to realize that truth, but I think my computing life will be better for it.