I love using my iPhone for work, and have edited and published Cult of Mac posts in WordPress from the beach.
This is in a pinch, of course. I most certainly do not use my iPhone as my primary computing device. Most of my work is done on an M1 Mac Studio or iMac.
But the iMac is aging now, and I made the fatal mistake of buying the lowest allocation of unified memory and storage — just 8GB/256GB. Like an idiot, I updated it to the macOS Golden Gate beta, and it’s struggling mightily.
I’d love to replace it with a shiny new 13-inch iPad Pro (I’d get an iPad Air, but the lack of Face ID is a deal-breaker). And the $1,500-and-up price tag is, well, another deal-breaker! That kind of dough is tough to come by at the mo, tbh.
Oh, wait, there’s the new Apple Upgrade plan!
But then there’s the work thing.
I’ve tried several times in the past to use my iPad as my primary work device, without much success. Each time, the iPad could always do almost everything, except one stupid thing that’d trip me up.
Last time, it was some background editing operation in WordPress. It was super-minor, but something I needed to do every day, and eventually my frustration with it made me abandon the whole idea of using my iPad for work.
But this was in the far-off Bronze Age of iPadOS 18 and earlier, before Apple made the iPad’s software much more Mac-like.
As we detail today, Apple continues to tweak the iPad’s operating system in small but meaningful ways. And this latest tweak, detailed by Mr. iPad himself, Ed Hardy, is just what I need.
Now the big problem is concealing my plan from my wife. Maybe she won’t notice? (No chance of that!)
Also in today’s newsletter:
Actually, maybe I should buy a maxed-out Mac mini instead and set up a dozen AI agents to run the Cult of Mac publishing empire while I sleep. Oh, maybe not.
On no! Apple’s plan to buy Chinese memory chips is hitting major hurdles in Washington. If this was just the Trump admin objecting, I’d be more inclined to dismiss it as knee-jerk opposition to all things China, but it’s bipartisan.
🔥 DEAL OF THE DAY: If your kids steal your chargers, as mine do, you need this one from Twelve South with built-in Find My. And 43% off makes it much more affordable. #affiliate
Talking of Ed, I really enjoyed this review he wrote of a goofy iPhone accessory he bought as a joke, but now is totally in love with.
— Leander Kahney, EIC.
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So that’s our approach. Very simple, and we’re really shooting for Museum of Modern Art quality. The way we’re running the company, the product design, the advertising, it all comes down to this: Let’s make it simple. Really simple.
Today’s poll
Do you use an iPad for work?
Results from yesterday’s poll:
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