iPad Pros

Transcript of Interview

Rob Copeland

(2m 12s) Tim Chaten:

Welcome to podcast Rob.

(2m 13s)

Absolutely.

(2m 13s) Rob Copeland:

Thank you. Thanks for having me. I’m glad to be here.

(2m 14s) Tim Chaten:

I’ve been looking forward to doing this for a while now, and it’s glad we could finally find time before the craziness of the holidays start to come upon us here.

(2m 24s) Rob Copeland:

Oh, I know, it’s creeping up very fast.

(2m 28s) Tim Chaten:

So yeah, this episode will be out as everyone’s driving to their families, cross country or whatever, as people do.

(2m 36s)

I’m not sure if that still happens.

(2m 37s)

People driving like 12 hour.

(2m 39s)

I’m sure some people are doing that, so yeah.

(2m 41s) Rob Copeland:

Some people, yes, no.

(2m 42s) Tim Chaten:

I’m not this year, thankfully.

(2m 43s)

So, uh, or, you know, thankfully, unthankfully, it’s, uh, it’s, uh, I’d love to be able to go see my family this year, but, uh, staying home this year.

(2m 52s) Rob Copeland:

Oh, sometimes it’s nice to just stay home.

(2m 54s)

I, yeah, yeah.

(2m 56s)

I’m traveling to go see my son, but that’ll be nice too, so.

(3m 1s) Tim Chaten:

Yes, yes. Well, let’s dive into, I guess, first up, tell me a little bit about who you are and your current iPad setup. What’s that like?

(3m 12s) Rob Copeland:

Okay, my name is Rob Copeland. I am a retired software executive and engineer.

(3m 18s)

These days, I’m a writer, a blogger, a sometimes developer, and a traveler, I guess,

(3m 27s)

which includes photography and that kind of thing. I use an iPad, a 2021 11-inch iPad Pro,

(3m 34s)

that’s the M1 model, cellular, 512 gigs of storage, space gray.

(3m 42s)

With an Apple Pencil and the Apple Magic Keyboard case. And then for my desktop setup,

(3m 47s)

where I also use the iPad, I have an Apple Studio Display and the regular Apple Magic Keyboard,

(3m 56s)

Magic Trackpad. And I’ve got this magnetic stand, it’s a Chargen MagFloat.

(4m 3s)

Yeah, it’s really cool. It works really well. It’s at just the right height to sit next to to the studio display with external.

(4m 3s) Tim Chaten:

Oh yeah, I’ve heard good things about those.

(4m 12s) Rob Copeland:

Display support in stage manager. I’ve been using it in this way a lot more Yeah, almost every day so works great

(4m 19s) Tim Chaten:

No, yeah, at the desk, I love having an iPad. I’ve got the 12 South Hoverbar Duo. I’m not sure what it’s called. Duo, I think. But whatever stand you have, it’s nice to just have it eye level as you’re working on the big display. For me, I use right now as we record, you’re on the iPad and the full screen FaceTime window. But in other instances, I’ll have some other app that’s basically…

(4m 29s) Rob Copeland:

Oh yeah, yeah, I saw that one.

(4m 49s) Tim Chaten:

my full screen out there and then all my other windows on my big external.

(4m 53s) Rob Copeland:

Yeah, yeah, I do. I do something similar. Although for me right now, you’re on my studio display.

(4m 58s)

Oh.

(4m 59s) Tim Chaten:

• Yeah, ’cause you have to have a camera.

(5m)

I don’t have a camera on my external.

(5m 2s)

I’ve got the Sony Enzone M9 PS5 gaming monitor.

(5m 3s) Rob Copeland:

Oh, I see. I see.

(5m 7s) Tim Chaten:

PS5 is also hooked up to this monitor as well as the iPad.

(5m 8s) Rob Copeland:

Oh, that’s cool. Yeah. Yeah. I think it’s interesting for me because

(5m 11s) Tim Chaten:

So, yeah.

(5m 17s) Rob Copeland:

I used to use a Mac all the time, and I never… I tried for a while.

(5m 23s)

To have multiple displays with a Mac, and I just found that distracting.

(5m 28s)

And so I got rid of one of my displays and just went to the single display.

(5m 32s)

But now when I’m using the iPad, it’s totally different.

(5m 35s)

I love having the iPad next to the display, and I use it fairly regularly.

(5m 39s)

And it just… I haven’t really sat down to figure out why is it that in this…

(5m 44s)

In this… With these devices, it’s better. I don’t know.

(5m 49s) Tim Chaten:

Do you touch the iPad versus using the trackpad track padding over to the iPad when you’re on the external?

(5m 56s)

You do okay, so I wasn’t sure yeah, some people like to touch the iPad as they use the external with the keyboard and mouse, but yeah

(5m 57s) Rob Copeland:

I trackpad over to it, yeah, I don’t use touch, yeah.

(6m 6s)

Yeah, no, I suppose if I had a longer cable,

(6m 10s)

maybe I would pull it off the stand occasionally to do something with the pencil,

(6m 14s)

but I don’t have a long enough cable to do that,

(6m 17s)

so maybe I should think about that.

(6m 19s)

Oh.

(6m 19s) Tim Chaten:

Yeah, I’ve got the, whatever, six foot thunderbolt, whatever, three or four cable.

(6m 24s) Rob Copeland:

Yeah, that one is very expensive,

(6m 25s) Tim Chaten:

That was way too expensive, but I’m glad I have.

(6m 29s) Rob Copeland:

but that’s probably what I would do if I were going to do that.

(6m 34s) Tim Chaten:

Yeah, and then I have everything running through a Thunderbolt dock, so if I did get a different iPad or computer, I could just hook up to this one cable and be off and running.

(6m 44s)

And often I’ll plug my iPhone 15 Pro into this cable just to watch, you know, grab a snack and watch movies on the nice fancy monitor down here, just through the iPhone, you know.

(6m 57s)

It’s kind of a weird thing with the USB-C. You just, "Oh, let’s plug this in and watch something on a nice monitor.

(7m 4s)

It would work.

(7m 5s) Rob Copeland:

You know, I haven’t even thought of trying that, but now that you’ve mentioned it, yeah.

(7m 10s) Tim Chaten:

Yeah.

(7m 11s)

The Apple cinema or studio display.

(7m 14s) Rob Copeland:

See now when we’re done here, that’s going to be the first thing I do is I’m going to unplug my iPad and plug my phone in and just see how that works.

(7m 15s) Tim Chaten:

Right.

(7m 17s)

Yeah.

(7m 19s)

So, um, you mentioned you have an Apple pencil.

Apple Pencil

(7m 23s) Tim Chaten:

Does it get much use these days?

(7m 25s)

I have one, but I don’t use it that often.

(7m 29s) Rob Copeland:

You know, it does for me, and when I first bought it, I didn’t know whether it would or not, because I don’t draw. I’m not an artist. But there are two main things that I use it for that it works great for me. The first thing is, I use it, I have two websites. I have just kind of a regular blog, and then I’ve got this, it’s called Rob’s Tech Talk, and I write articles,

(7m 55s)

how-to articles for non-techies on how to use their.

(7m 59s)

Apple devices and I do a lot of screenshots and when I’m marking up screenshots to highlight something or to point to something I just find it way more natural to pull the iPad off the magic keyboard grab the pencil and and do those markups that way and when I’m thinking about articles I want to write I often want to mind map or outline them and there again I use this app called mine node.

(8m 29s)

And I’ve just found that for me, pulling my iPad into my hand and using the pencil to mind map works really well.

(8m 36s)

It just makes me feel like I’m getting my ideas down more easily than just typing in an outline.

(8m 43s) Tim Chaten:

Yeah. So with Mindnode, I have this app. It’s been a while since I’ve used it. My iPod book I wrote a while ago when the iPod died was all sketched out through a massive Mindnode thing that I look at it just like an interweb of just craziness, lots of notes and stuff in there. But I’m trying to think, so the Apple Pencil within Mindnode, are you able to like draw lines between.

(8m 43s) Rob Copeland:

So those two things I do quite often.

(9m 13s) Tim Chaten:

things.

(9m 17s) Rob Copeland:

It’s converting handwriting to text for the nodes.

(9m 21s)

It doesn’t really… I’ve sent them some feedback because I’d like to have it support some of the things you just mentioned. It’d be nice to be able to do some of the annotation and line drawing between nodes, but as far as I’ve seen, it doesn’t really support that. It’s more just I can select things, I can write the text,

(9m 39s)

and that works really well.

(9m 41s) Tim Chaten:

Awesome. So, tell me a bit more about your background. You’re retired now, but what kind of jobs have you had in the past? You mentioned both engineering and programming. And then when in this, did the iPad enter your life into retirement? Or was it you kind of discovered it while you were working?

Rob’s Time at Microsoft

(10m 3s) Rob Copeland:

Well, it entered my life while I was still working. I worked at Microsoft for almost 23 years as an engineering manager, executive, most of the time I was there.

(10m 19s) Tim Chaten:

Is that like managing teams to make sure this project finishes on time, but you also have the background as a developer to kind of help out as well, or…?

(10m 26s) Rob Copeland:

Yeah, yes, it was it was managing the development teams. So half of my time, my first half of my career there, I worked on developer tools, I worked on Visual Basic, Visual Studio, those sort of things. Second half of my career, I worked on Windows. And interestingly, the first part of that I worked on the tablet PC, and ultra mobile PCs. And this was in like 2006, before the iPhone even

(10m 28s) Tim Chaten:

Mm-hmm.

(10m 55s)

Yeah, that was an interesting time. I remember people making the mod book out of Macintoshes to try to… And then Microsoft, of course, was working on this stuff well in advance of all this stuff. It was Bill Gates’ pet project. Bill Gates always, I think, had a fondness for this form factor.

(10m 56s) Rob Copeland:

And… oh yeah.

(11m 9s)

Yes, yes, yes, it was it was really a fascinating time For the tablets, yes, yes, absolutely and Yeah, so that was it was I remember when the first iPhone came out and I got one while I was at Microsoft still of course and of course we were all like wow, this is I mean it was just so beyond the state of the art at the time.

(11m 39s)

We did projects like Ultramobile PCs, where this was before the iPad and any of that,

(11m 50s)

but trying to come up with basically mobile computers that you could carry around with you and were connected and always on.

(11m 59s)

Of course, in those days, at least for us, the hardware wasn’t there, the battery life wasn’t there, the form factors weren’t there.

(12m 7s)

It was fascinating to work on.

(12m 9s)

those sorts of things.

(12m 11s)

And after the tablet PC, I worked on Windows 8, which of course was the first touch, really the first touch version of…

(12m 18s) Tim Chaten:

Yeah, the Metro UI of everything, right? Yeah. Yeah And I had a Windows Phone 7 back in the day some kind of Nokia I actually I had one just kind of play with and I had it activated for a little bit Also, the you know Palm Pre kind of I was just playing around with all sorts of different Devices and the Windows Phone. It was delightful. I kind of wish that kind of survived Yes

(12m 20s) Rob Copeland:

Yes, yes, yes.

(12m 24s)

And so while all of that…

(12m 41s)

Oh, yeah, yeah, me too. I, of course, being there, I had lots of lots of different windows,

(12m 48s)

windows phones. And, and yeah, there were some really, really cool ideas and well implemented ideas, I thought at the time. And that was one of the interesting struggles when we were working on the tablet and PC side of things is these were completely different teams and different approaches at Microsoft. There was the Windows team, there was the phone team, and

(13m 11s)

yeah, trying to get ideas and technology back and forth when you’re in a very large company like that sometimes is challenging. But yeah.

(13m 19s) Tim Chaten:

• Yeah, and I know Apple’s approach is they’re secretive until they’re not, and then the whole company’s kind of like working together on stuff, yeah.

(13m 28s) Rob Copeland:

Yes, yes, that’s what it seems like. And that’s, that’s given them really good results. Yeah. So while all of these things, while I was working on all of these things, you know, that was in say,

(13m 28s) Tim Chaten:

Yeah.

(13m 30s)

Yes.

(13m 41s) Rob Copeland:

2000 2006 to I started working on Windows 8 in 2009. iPad came out in 2010. I got the first iPad,

(13m 47s) Tim Chaten:

Mm-hmm. Yeah.

(13m 52s) Rob Copeland:

of course, I just had to I’ve been, I’ve been kind of a, a believer in this.

(13m 58s)

Mobile first way of doing computing forever. So and I just have to say, I was hooked right away.

(14m 6s)

It was like, this is the device that when when we were working on some of these things that we dreamed about, really, I mean, it was thin, it was light, it lasted all day on a battery,

(14m 16s)

you could do all kinds of things that the touchscreen was so much better than anything that had been out before.

(14m 25s) Tim Chaten:

Zooming in and out on the Maps app in 2010 on the iPad was just like a delightful thing.

(14m 32s) Rob Copeland:

Yes, yes, it was, it was, it was amazing.

(14m 36s)

So, so yeah, I, I was hooked from right away and I’ve had iPads ever since then and, and,

(14m 44s)

and even early on trying to do as much as I could on it because it just felt like the future to me back then.

(14m 52s)

It just, and obviously there were lots of things you couldn’t do in those early days,

(14m 56s)

but I was going to try.

(14m 59s) Tim Chaten:

Yes, definitely. So what have been some of your favorite iPads over the years, I should ask?

(15m) Rob Copeland:

I know.

(15m 2s)

Yeah, yeah

Favorite iPads

(15m 9s) Tim Chaten:

You know, I remember having an iPad mini that I just loved at the time and would have been some of your favorites.

(15m 16s) Rob Copeland:

Yeah, so well, obviously the first one just because it sort of opened the door to all of this.

(15m 20s)

And yeah, I had the first one, the second one, the third one.

(15m 25s)

And then I got a mini. And just like you, I thought, oh, this is this is wonderful,

(15m 31s)

because it was so much lighter. And so I had a couple of minis for a while and used that.

(15m 37s)

That was the only iPad I had. And I thought, this is it. This is all I need.

(15m 38s) Tim Chaten:

Yeah, it’s like oh it fits every screen size. Oh, they just made everything more dense So it fits the same amount of space on there

(15m 47s) Rob Copeland:

• Yes, yes, exactly, exactly.

(15m 49s)

It was just, it seemed so great.

(15m 50s)

And so, yeah, that was one of,

(15m 52s)

those were some of my favorites.

(15m 54s)

And then when the first iPad Pro came out, the 9.7,

(16m 1s)

or well, I guess the first Pro was probably the 12.9.

(16m 3s) Tim Chaten:

12.9. Yep. Yes.

(16m 5s) Rob Copeland:

That was too big for me.

(16m 6s)

So when the 9.7 came out, I got that,

(16m 10s)

and then I thought, okay, now we’re really talking because the extra screen space felt,

(16m 15s)

Even though it was basically–

(16m 17s)

the same, just bigger, with a keyboard that actually could attach to it, and I could carry it around and treat it more like a laptop when I wanted to, that was probably– that was one of my favorite, in that it felt more like a computer in various modes than the other ones felt more like tablets.

(16m 40s) Tim Chaten:

Right, it was more modular because you could just yank off the keyboard and yeah, the 10.5 inch iPad Pros, my favorite home buttoned iPad because the side bezels are so thin,

(16m 41s) Rob Copeland:

Yes.

(16m 50s) Tim Chaten:

they’re thinner than the current iPad Pros, the side bezels.

(16m 54s)

And there’s just a promotion, there’s just a delightful form factor.

(17m) Rob Copeland:

Yes, yes, yes, I had that one too and, and yeah, I loved it.

(17m 5s)

I loved the extra screen real estate and you’re right, the slimmer bezels, it, it all just felt so nice.

(17m 11s)

Yeah.

(17m 13s) Tim Chaten:

So, I guess let’s dive even further back, when did you get into computers?

Your first computers

(17m 22s) Tim Chaten:

Like, what was your first computer?

(17m 24s)

When did you know you wanted to get into programming and, you know, doing all this crazy stuff?

(17m 30s) Rob Copeland:

Well, when I first, let’s see, when I first got into computers, I was in high school.

(17m 37s)

And I think it was high school, we went on a field trip to a to a local college in my town and they had mainframes there.

(17m 46s)

I’d never seen a computer really or used one.

(17m 49s)

And we got to sit and mess around with this computer and, and instantly I was just hooked.

(17m 54s)

I just I wanted to know everything about it.

(17m 56s)

I want to know how it worked.

(17m 57s)

I wanted to know how you–

(18m)

You could do these things, and so I was kind of hooked,

(18m 5s)

but we really didn’t have much money when I was a kid,

(18m 9s)

so we couldn’t afford anything.

(18m 11s)

And there really weren’t computers, really,

(18m 12s)

computers back then.

(18m 13s) Tim Chaten:

Yeah, you’re gonna buy a mainframe and put it in your house.

(18m 15s) Rob Copeland:

Yeah.

(18m 17s)

So the first thing I did was–

(18m 20s)

this was in the era of the Atari 2600 game console.

(18m 25s)

There was a competitor to that called the Magnavox Odyssey 2,

(18m 30s)

and it had this membrane keyboard on it.

(18m 32s)

It looked like kind of a computer,

(18m 33s)

and I thought, “Oh, my God. I got to have that.”

(18m 36s)

So I had a part-time job.

(18m 38s)

I saved and saved, and I bought this thing,

(18m 41s)

and it was a game console, so I, of course, had games,

(18m 44s)

but they had this intro to computer cartridge that you could plug into this thing,

(18m 49s)

and you could write little programs in Assembler.

(18m 52s)

And no way to save them, mind you, so I had to–

(18m 56s)

But I’d sit there and type in these little programs.

(19m)

I’d type them in my head, like, “What are you doing?”

(19m 1s)

But just to learn about how to put things on the screen,

(19m 5s)

that kind of hooked me.

(19m 8s)

And then a few years later, I–

(19m 9s)

my first, I guess, real computer was a Commodore 64.

(19m 13s)

And in those early days,

(19m 16s)

that was kind of a cool computer, I thought.

(19m 18s)

And I did some programming on it.

(19m 21s)

I was in college, so I wrote papers on it.

(19m 24s)

I was–you know, most people–

(19m 26s)

those were the days most people didn’t have computers,

(19m 28s)

So it was kind of a–

(19m 29s) Tim Chaten:

• Right, typewriters were commonplace for writing your papers back then?

(19m 30s) Rob Copeland:

Yes. Yes. Yeah. I had a typewriter. And I was convincing myself, “Oh, now that I bought this, I have to get a printer, of course.” And yes.

(19m 44s) Tim Chaten:

Naturally, yeah.

(19m 47s)

Imagine having a computer alongside a typewriter, it’s like, “Oh, you make one mistake in the typewriter, you gotta start the whole page over.”

(19m 53s) Rob Copeland:

It was it was kind of revolutionary to be able to type everything out ahead of time and then print it, you know, it was Yeah Yeah, so

(19m 59s) Tim Chaten:

Yeah, yeah Well, I’m thinking in modernity Game consoles, you know, you have Sony Nintendo Those are very locked down and then you have the Steam Deck which can boot in and install Windows and boot and all sorts of stuff And that’s kind of I guess similar to your original game console where you could write code on the Steam Deck probably and hack it to do all sorts of computery things versus

(20m 23s) Rob Copeland:

Yeah, yeah Yeah, yeah, it definitely seems yeah, it’s It’s kind of funny how all through the years Those are all computers. Obviously, they just have the different focus and how much how open they are to doing these various different types of things Besides their main focuses has kind of ebbed and flowed I think through the years certainly today’s Consoles like the PlayStation Xbox are very locked down

(20m 53s)

and you as a developer, you as a home hobbyist are not going to sit there and write code on these things.

(20m 58s)

Some people probably do, but most people don’t.

(20m 59s) Tim Chaten:

Most people don’t, um, yeah, PS3 was hackable back in the day, I think people did some crazy stuff on that one, but yeah, generally speaking, not as much.

(21m 8s) Rob Copeland:

Yes. Yes, yes. But yeah, lots of lots of lots of old time computers that led then, you know,

(21m 18s)

since since those early days, I’ve had some form of computer ever since, obviously, it,

(21m 24s)

you know, PCs for the longest time. And then back when I was at Microsoft was when I got my first Mac, I felt sort of like a trader at the time. Yes. Yeah, but I loved it.

(21m 32s) Tim Chaten:

It’s kind of, you know, if I go to work at Microsoft and then get a Mac, yeah.

(21m 36s)

But in that era, or I guess in 2007 onwards,

(21m 38s) Rob Copeland:

Boy, I was just hooked right away.

(21m 43s) Tim Chaten:

you could just install Windows on your Mac, yeah.

(21m 46s)

Bootcamp, yeah.

(21m 46s) Rob Copeland:

You in the first, yes, the first Mac I got was the very first Intel based one.

(21m 51s) Tim Chaten:

Yep.

(21m 53s) Rob Copeland:

It was a MacBook Pro and yeah, bootcamp, I could put windows on it.

(21m 54s) Tim Chaten:

Yeah, that was my first Mac as well,

(21m 57s) Rob Copeland:

And, uh, yeah.

(22m) Tim Chaten:

going in the college at the time.

(22m 2s)

was a

(22m 19s) Rob Copeland:

Oh that would be really cool. Yeah, those are really cool.

(22m 24s) Tim Chaten:

Yeah, so I guess forward-looking,

The Future of Computing

(22m 28s) Tim Chaten:

where do you see computers going from here?

(22m 30s)

We’ve got AI, we’ve got Vision Pro as an idea,

(22m 35s)

tablets will continue to advance,

(22m 40s)

and Apple Silicon is making the laptops even better.

(22m 44s) Rob Copeland:

Oh, yeah, it’s, you know, for all these, all these years, it seems that these inflection points where where people maybe think, wow, computing is at its pinnacle, it’s done, it’s,

(22m 57s)

it’s, it’s the best that it could be. And then something happens and changes everything. And I think we’re definitely in, in a place right now, that’s one of those inflection points and for various reasons, but…

(23m 12s)

Um…

(23m 14s)

To answer your question, where do I think it’ll go, I guess, to me, the word “ambient” comes up a lot in my mind, meaning that it’s, that the computer, the computing, the platforms, the information is just with you, when you need it, where you need it, and we see some of that, of course, people carry their phones with them all the time and their watches are on, but I look at something like Vision Pro and I think, wow, this, uh…

(23m 44s)

is showing, I think, a wonderful vision of where ambient computing will go, and what I mean by that is, uh…

(23m 56s)

Of course, today, it’s this thing that covers your eyes, and…

(23m 59s) Tim Chaten:

Yeah, that form factor is not it. That’s the future of desktop computing. When you’re sitting down being focused, we need the Apple Watch version of Vision Pro. Yeah.

(24m 12s) Rob Copeland:

Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. I mean, I think definitely glasses or something on your face so that you can have your screen wherever you want. And to me, it’s going to be very interesting to see how all of this evolves and how you go from this fully immersive experience that the Vision Pro can give you to something that’s maybe less immersive, but with you all the time. Or do they come up with some sort of method to actually make it be just is immersive only it’s a much.

(24m 42s)

Lighter weight easy to wear all day kind of thing that’ll be interesting to see.

(24m 47s) Tim Chaten:

Yeah, and I could see multiple form factors coexisting. Like you want the fully immersive goggles for your at-home cinema experience versus your on-the-go lighter weight form factor.

(24m 59s)

It seems like once form factors are introduced, they don’t take them away that often.

(25m 4s)

We still have desktop Mac.

(25m 9s) Rob Copeland:

Yeah, that’s actually a really good point.

(25m 10s)

They they don’t they don’t go away that often.

(25m 12s)

We have game consoles.

(25m 13s)

We have handheld gaming.

(25m 15s)

We have, yes, all of these things.

(25m 17s)

And they kind of just work their way into your everyday life and something new comes along and it still fits.

(25m 25s)

Right. And so.

(25m 25s) Tim Chaten:

Mm-hmm. Yeah, you find yeah, I have like so many more computer form factors and I would imagine my what my watch all the game consoles

(25m 28s) Rob Copeland:

Yeah. Yeah.

(25m 34s)

Yeah, exactly.

(25m 37s)

So I kind of think at least.

(25m 39s)

As I’m thinking forward, it’ll be something like that.

(25m 44s)

You mentioned AI and I think that that’s gonna play a big role as well.

(25m 50s)

And we’re in this very interesting place again where it’s this inflection point.

(25m 56s)

There’s all this activity happening.

(25m 58s)

There’s all this news happening.

(26m)

There’s certainly a lot of hype happening.

(26m 4s)

There’s a lot of potential.

(26m 7s)

So it’ll be very–

(26m 9s)

interesting to see how that becomes part of the ambient computing that the future will give us.

(26m 14s)

I think there’s just– there’s so much potential and so many possibilities,

(26m 19s)

and at the same time there are so many concerns and so many issues,

(26m 24s) Tim Chaten:

[laughs]

(26m 24s) Rob Copeland:

and all of this stuff needs to come together and get figured out.

(26m 28s)

And probably in much the same way that the whole industry is today,

(26m 34s)

There will be some that take it in one direction that is…

(26m 39s)

Okay, but maybe not great for privacy and security.

(26m 44s)

And then there’ll be others who go the other way and probably have to do a lot more work and put in a lot more effort to make it be as useful, but privacy first, security first,

(26m 59s) Tim Chaten:

Yeah, it’ll be very, like 10 years from now, I wonder what this world will be like, because it seems like every 10, if you look back 10 years ago, major leaps, and then year to year,

(27m 8s)

it’s like nothing’s happening. Yeah. Yeah, like it’s 2023 and 2013, like, iPad was brand new and like, things have Apple Watch and like, yeah, I can’t imagine life without Apple Watch now.

(27m 10s) Rob Copeland:

Exactly, exactly. And I.

(27m 28s)

Yeah, yeah, me too. I yeah, and it and that’s, that’s another perfect example. You just look at that size. And in today’s world, all that this thing can do, and last all day on the battery. I mean, it’s got a GPS, it’s got a cellular radio, it’s got all these sensors, it knows your heart rate, it, it can remind you of things it can, I mean, it can track your workout it all. It’s just, it’s kind of mind blowing to think this tiny

(27m 53s) Tim Chaten:

Yeah, and that’s less than 10 years. I think that was 2015. And that product line just advanced so rapidly year to year. It was impressive to see. Like, "Oh, we got GPS this year. Oh,

(28m 2s) Rob Copeland:

Yes, yes. Yeah, it’s, it’s, I just, I was, I was recently on a trip and I was overseas.

(28m 4s) Tim Chaten:

we got cellular this year. Oh, we got this."

(28m 14s) Rob Copeland:

So I was in a lot of places I’d never been and I needed walking directions because I did a lot of walking. And I would put the destination in my phone, but I didn’t want to look like a tourist standing there gawking at my phone the whole way. So I used my watch to glance occasionally what’s That’s my next turn.

(28m 25s) Tim Chaten:

Tourist, yep.

(28m 32s) Rob Copeland:

And I couldn’t believe how accurate it was on where my current location is.

(28m 38s)

The screen was big enough to show me enough of the path that I knew, okay, I’m going to be turning left up here.

(28m 44s)

And, I mean, that just seems so amazing.

(28m 48s)

Like you said, ten years ago, if you would have thought, “Oh, I wonder if something like that would happen,”

(28m 53s)

didn’t really seem possible.

(28m 55s)

Um, and so…

(28m 55s) Tim Chaten:

Yeah, we had the e-ink pebbles that were pretty basic as far as functionality

(29m 1s) Rob Copeland:

Yes, yes.

(29m 2s)

Yeah, it’s…

(29m 5s) Tim Chaten:

So focusing on the iPad a bit as this show is about iPads.

(29m 10s)

But I do like to cover the other stuff ’cause it is interesting to me.

(29m 11s) Rob Copeland:

Yes! Oh, definitely.

(29m 16s) Tim Chaten:

So iPad first is kind of,

11 vs 12.9

(29m 20s) Tim Chaten:

your main computer is an iPad Pro 11 inch.

(29m 23s)

And I haven’t had that size in a while.

(29m 25s)

The handheld nature of that size is appealing,

(29m 28s)

but I always like to get the biggest size for whatever reason.

(29m 32s) Rob Copeland:

Yes, yes, I had a tough time deciding I Did I did I and to be honest when I got this one I actually bought both the 11 and the 12.9 Because I knew I could read I could return one Yeah, oh Did you

(29m 32s) Tim Chaten:

[laughs]

(29m 35s)

Yeah, was this… you wanted something more tablet-like.

(29m 50s)

Yeah, I’ve done that before the second generation iPad I had the 10.5 and the 12.9 And I used them side by side on the Logitech charging base stand at work And I love that setup. I was multitasking with two iPads and same screen technology in both and yeah Okay

(30m 7s) Rob Copeland:

Oh, that’s pretty cool. Yeah, I actually knew I was going to return one within my two-week window.

(30m 13s)

I just, I really wanted to put them side by side and do my regular work and tasks and see, okay,

(30m 20s)

is the 12.9 going to give me so much more benefit that it’s worth the trade-off for portability?

(30m 28s) Tim Chaten:

Yeah, is the screen that much better for what I use it for and all that because this is different screen

(30m 31s) Rob Copeland:

Yes. Yes, yes. And I even went on a trip.

(30m 37s)

With the 12.9. So while I had it, so that was kind of nice because I got to see on an airplane,

(30m 42s)

how well does this work? And I loved it. I really did. But in the end, I only wanted one iPad.

(30m 49s)

And I do a lot of reading and other in-hand work with the thing. And the 12.9 just seemed a little too big for that. On the desk, in the Magic Keyboard, it was fantastic. But, so…

(31m 7s)

So I chose the 11.

(31m 10s) Tim Chaten:

And yeah, it’s good to hear that Apple seems to, the rumors are they’ll continue on with 11 and bring OLED to it so the screen will finally be same class as the bigger one and Rumor today, I’ve had many in 2026 sign me up for the OLED model That’s that’s the that was the latest thing I saw today, so I would I would love it if the

(31m 28s) Rob Copeland:

2026? Oh, I didn’t see that. Oh, really? Oh, wow.

(31m 33s)

Oh, yeah, I would. Yeah, I would, too.

(31m 38s)

See if if I have to say that I have thought,

(31m 42s)

oh, maybe if I had the twelve point nine and a mini, then, you know, I get I can I can do both things. But yeah, right now,

(31m 45s) Tim Chaten:

laughs Right? Yeah.

(31m 50s) Rob Copeland:

I do have to say the 11 has been fantastic for me.

(31m 54s)

and now with the external monitor support.

(31m 58s)

When I need more space, it’s perfect because I can plug it in,

(32m) Tim Chaten:

Yeah. Yeah, I’d love to bring the M1 chip to the iPad Mini.

(32m 1s) Rob Copeland:

I get all this, and I can take it away and hold it and read.

(32m 5s)

Yeah. Yeah, that would be great.

(32m 7s) Tim Chaten:

That would be like an amazing computer for just that reason.

(32m 11s)

You could have the handheld and then go full external display mode with it.

(32m 15s)

Yeah. So are there tasks that you still can’t accomplish on iPad quite yet?

What can’t you do on iPad?

(32m 23s) Rob Copeland:

That’s a great question. I guess the word “can’t” is a good word.

(32m 30s) Tim Chaten:

Or prefer not to, yes.

(32m 32s) Rob Copeland:

Yes, so, you know, until recently, I would say there were probably three things that I still did on my Mac.

(32m 41s)

Coding, because I still like to dabble in coding.

(32m 42s) Tim Chaten:

Mm-hmm Yeah

(32m 49s) Rob Copeland:

taxes, for a very specific reason.

(32m 53s)

Because I help some family members with their taxes, and the iPad version of TurboTax is kind of a one-user, one-payment thing, whereas the desktop version, you can do five tax returns with one purchase.

(33m 8s) Tim Chaten:

Oh, that. Okay. Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah.

(33m 10s) Rob Copeland:

And so, yeah, I keep thinking every year, maybe I’ll just use the – I kind of want to use the iPad version to see how it works.

(33m 21s)

And then until recently, another thing.

(33m 23s)

This is a very probably geeky thing, but I play Dungeons and Dragons online with my son and a couple of other guys.

(33m 30s)

And I’ve been using the Mac for that because I like to use my studio display and have the video up of everybody, plus notes, plus everything that’s going on.

(33m 46s)

But now recently, at least for me, the Dungeons and Dragons thing is going to work out fine with the iPad.

(33m 53s)

Because we get external camera support.

(33m 56s)

So now I can use my external display for that.

(33m 59s)

So that’s going to work out great.

(34m 2s)

For coding, for a while after I retired, I was actually working on some apps that I really wanted to develop and ship.

(34m 11s)

And so I was using Apple’s Xcode and you have to have a Mac for that.

(34m 16s)

Last couple of years, though, it’s been more of kind of this hobby where I just want to stay abreast of what’s going on.

(34m 23s)

in the tech world and mostly focused on Apple development.

(34m 28s)

So the Swift Playgrounds app on the iPad has been great for that.

(34m 33s)

So that one, I’m going to push aside.

(34m 37s)

If I ever get back into real, like I really want to develop something, I’ll probably still go back to Xcode.

(34m 42s)

But so honestly, right now, there’s really nothing.

(34m 49s)

I mean, the taxes thing, I’ll probably, yeah, once a year.

(34m 49s) Tim Chaten:

Yeah.

(34m 50s)

Once a year.

(34m 53s) Rob Copeland:

that I’ll probably still do and maybe I’ll switch that, I don’t know, but.

(34m 55s)

So it’s pretty cool that it’s come this far.

(35m) Tim Chaten:

It is, yeah. That’s awesome. And yeah, the coding stuff, it’s just such an interesting thing because Xcode is just this behemoth of an app. And they have this Swift Playgrounds,

(35m 12s)

which I don’t know, in 10 years, does Xcode X or whatever become the new Swift Playgrounds,

(35m 21s)

and they kind of coalesce into this new thing. I don’t know if they’d want it. Do they do a Final And I’ll cut 7, the 10 transition with Xcode.

(35m 30s)

And I’ll cut 7, the 10 transition with Xcode.

(35m 39s) Rob Copeland:

Yeah, I will, too. I will, too. If I were to guess, I would say they wouldn’t take that approach, although I don’t, you know,

(35m 44s) Tim Chaten:

laughs Right.

(35m 47s) Rob Copeland:

but instead maybe they would leave Xcode and then come up with a new thing maybe called Swift code or, you know,

(35m 53s)

some new thing that was Xcode has support for all these legacy technologies, legacy languages,

(36m 1s)

all these things, maybe a clean break and just saying it’s all about Swift. It’s all about Swift UI,

(36m 6s)

but it’s a full development environment.

(36m 9s)

That’d be a great way to go.

(36m 9s) Tim Chaten:

Yeah. Yeah. Do you think it was easier learning how to code back when it was just very new? Everything was new versus now? Seems like there’s so much complexity.

Learning to Code

(36m 23s) Tim Chaten:

Yeah. I download Swift Playgrounds and I dabble with it and go through the lessons and then I get to like build your own app in it and it’s like I’m totally.

(36m 24s) Rob Copeland:

Oh, yes.

(36m 25s)

Yeah, it was definitely easier back then.

(36m 28s)

It was definitely easier back then.

(36m 39s) Tim Chaten:

lost what do I do?

(36m 41s) Rob Copeland:

Yeah, it’s, there’s just, well, like you just said, there’s just so much complexity and so many things. I mean, if you’re going to build a real app, there’s so many considerations,

(36m 52s)

so many things that you have to, beyond just, oh, I’m going to put some stuff on the screen.

(36m 57s)

It’s, you know, is it accessible? Does it connect to the cloud? Is my data safe? I mean,

(37m 1s)

all these things. It’s, there’s a lot to learn. Those lessons, I’ve looked through those lessons and playgrounds and they’re pretty good but I agree.

(37m 11s)

with you they don’t I don’t think they do a very good job teaching you how to write an app they’re more like here’s some concepts yeah yes yeah

(37m 19s) Tim Chaten:

the fundamentals of concepts. Yeah. It’s like, Oh, these functions,

(37m 22s)

this is how functions work. And it’s like, okay, I got all that.

(37m 25s)

But those Bridget’s to the actual,

(37m 27s)

there’s there should be a lesson on there should be some sample apps.

(37m 31s)

Like I don’t know, Apple’s calculator app.

(37m 34s)

Let’s learn how to build Apple’s calculator app with Swift playgrounds.

(37m 37s)

Stuff like that would be kind of.

(37m 38s) Rob Copeland:

Yeah. Yeah, exactly. I think Apple’s starting to do a little bit better here on their own.

(37m 46s)

Like yesterday or the day before, they released a whole bunch of new tutorials called, I think it’s called Programming in Swift. I haven’t had a chance to really dig into it, but it looks like that might be a good start if people wanted to learn. There’s a guy named Paul Hudson who has this website called Hacking.com.

(38m 8s)

He’s been working with Swift, and he has some lessons.

(38m 11s)

He’s got this one called 100 Days of Swift UI that’s free, and it’s 100 days of lessons that start from the very, if you’re a complete beginner and have never programmed before,

(38m 23s)

that’s a really good one to just, because it’s got short, little, you take a step, you take a step.

(38m 28s)

So there are some good resources out there, but even still, it’s a very complex topic.

(38m 35s)

And you see these things online about these books.

(38m 38s)

Yeah.

(38m 47s) Tim Chaten:

Yes, yes, yeah, no, yeah, absolutely.

(38m 55s)

It’s a, yeah, it’s the thing I’ve always been intrigued by, because, you know, let me build something that I can run on my phone.

(39m 2s) Rob Copeland:

Well, yeah, because it’s a very creative, it’s kind of this really cool thing.

(39m 6s)

You can make something of your own.

(39m 9s)

You don’t even need any natural resources, you know, you can just sit down and no glue,

(39m 11s) Tim Chaten:

No, yeah

(39m 13s) Rob Copeland:

no wood or anything like that.

(39m 15s)

You can just create something and it’s so it’s very alluring in that way.

(39m 20s)

But it can also be a very frustrating thing.

(39m 22s) Tim Chaten:

Yes, I was a music composition major and I loved writing music and all that and then I tried to write apps.

(39m 31s)

It’s a wholly different skill set there.

(39m 32s) Rob Copeland:

Yes, definitely. Yeah, definitely.

(39m 35s) Tim Chaten:

Different creative outlet, yes.

Sponsor: Agenda

(39m 39s) Tim Chaten:

This episode is sponsored by Agenda.

(39m 41s)

Agenda, if you haven’t tried it out, is a great note-taking app that really thoughtfully integrates your calendar and reminders into your notes.

(39m 48s)

In this quick break, I want to share how Agenda integrates with a reminder.

(39m 52s)

Reminders app, which if you haven’t used recently, has come a really long way.

(39m 56s)

You’ll hear in the second half of this episode how Rob is all in on the reminders app.

(40m)

And for those who use reminders, there is no better note taking app than Agenda.

(40m 5s)

So first off in the right sliding panel of Agenda, you’ll see a unified timeline of your calendar along with any reminders that have a due date.

(40m 14s)

By clicking on that reminder, you’ll be able to act on that reminder in a few different ways.

(40m 19s)

you can create a new note in whatever project you are in.

(40m 22s)

in the same note.

(40m 49s)

The third option in that sliding panel.

(40m 52s)

is the ability to mark the reminder as complete.

(40m 54s)

You can also hit the quick reschedule option to push the reminder back 5 minutes, 15 minutes, 30 minutes, an hour, or 2 hours.

(41m 2s)

You can also push the reminder for next week or next month.

(41m 5s)

These options are all super handy ways of pushing a reminder back quickly rather than manually going in and changing the time and date.

(41m 14s)

If you do really want to change up a reminder,

(41m 16s)

you can do a full edit of that reminder right inside Agenda.

(41m 20s)

This lets you change the title,

(41m 22s)

due date, and you can even change which reminders list it is saved to.

(41m 26s)

Finally, you can open up that reminder in the Reminders app if you want to view that reminder in the context of the larger list or even edit the reminder beyond what the Agenda app allows for.

(41m 37s)

The final aspect of the integration I want to highlight is that you can simply highlight a line of text in an Agenda note and hit Command-Shift-R on your Magic Keyboard to create a new reminder based off that line of text.

(41m 50s)

and that reminder will be.

(41m 52s)

link to that note you are working on.

(41m 53s)

You can also hit command shift R without any text highlighted to link the entire note to a new reminder.

(41m 59s)

Alternatively, you hit the plus button on the menu bar at the bottom of the screen and select the alarm icon to link the note you are working on to a new reminder.

Writing on iPad

(42m 8s) Tim Chaten:

I’ve not seen many other apps integrate with reminders in this deep and thought-out way.

(42m 13s)

You can tell the developers behind the agenda use reminders and create this app out of a desire for them to be able to utilize reminders

(42m 22s)

in a powerful way.

(42m 23s)

If you haven’t tried agenda out yet, I’d really encourage you to give it a try.

(42m 26s)

Agenda is free to download and use with no obtrusive ads.

(42m 30s)

To unlock the full power of agenda, give agenda premium a shot.

(42m 33s)

One thing that agenda continues to do that I love is their approach to premium features and unlocks.

(42m 39s)

If you ever decide to cancel your agenda premium subscription,

(42m 42s)

you get to keep all of the premium features available to you when you were a subscriber.

(42m 47s)

Or you can opt for their new lifetime unlock,

(42m 50s)

which will unlock the full power of Agenda.

(42m 52s)

on all of your Apple devices with a single one-time purchase.

(42m 55s)

To learn more, go to agenda.com.

(42m 58s)

Download Agenda 18 today for free from the App Store.

(43m 1s)

My thanks again to Agenda for sponsoring this episode of iPad Pros.

(43m 4s)

Learn more at http://www.agenda.com.

(43m 9s)

Writing is a big thing you do on your iPad, to my understanding.

(43m 13s)

You have a couple different, two different sites, and the iPad’s an awesome environment to write.

(43m 18s)

distraction-free if you set up properly just a full

(43m 22s)

screen app with just your text in front of you. So tell me a bit about your writing on the iPad and what that’s like.

(43m 29s) Rob Copeland:

Oh yeah, you’re right. It’s absolutely a great environment for writing because yes, it can be distraction-free, especially now with something like focus modes where you can just go into a writing mode and turn off all the notifications, which is what I do. It’s wonderful.

(43m 47s)

So for me, there’s basically three types of writing I do on my iPad. I journal every day.

(43m 56s)

As you mentioned, I have two websites.

(43m 57s)

I just have a regular.

(43m 59s)

Blog that I I don’t have regular posting schedules, but I have especially recently got more into a pretty often posting on both of these things.

(44m 11s)

So I write and post there and then I have this other site called Tech Talk that I’ve been kind of the the tech support guy for my family for years and years and years.

(44m 22s)

And they told me one time, you know, you should put together a website because you’re so good at helping.

(44m 29s)

All of us, maybe if you wrote this stuff down, we could go back to it and look and I thought, okay, so so this site is more of a how to I just come up with like my most recent post.

(44m 40s)

There is about how to use hide my email and here’s how you set it up.

(44m 44s)

And here’s what it does for you.

(44m 45s)

And here’s why it’s good for you.

(44m 46s)

And it’s just a step-by-step kind of walk through.

(44m 48s) Tim Chaten:

That’s a feature I wish existed when I first got email because it’s too far gone.

(44m 54s)

I’m just on all these lists that I can’t get out of it.

(44m 55s) Rob Copeland:

Yes. Yes, I completely agree. It’s it would have been like from day one with email that would have been the best.

(45m 2s) Tim Chaten:

My daughter is going to have a great experience being able to, from the get-go, have hide my email.

(45m 9s) Rob Copeland:

Yeah, definitely, definitely.

(45m 13s)

And I have dabbled in writing some novels, but that’s kind of an on-again, off-again thing, and right now it’s sort of off-again, but they’re sitting there waiting for me to come back, I guess.

(45m 23s) Tim Chaten:

Yeah.

(45m 24s)

Is Scrivener an app you use for that?

(45m 28s)

Are you Lissy’s or…?

(45m 29s)

Yeah.

(45m 30s) Rob Copeland:

I used to use Scrivener a while ago on the Mac, and then they came out with an iOS version,

(45m 33s) Tim Chaten:

Yep.

(45m 36s) Rob Copeland:

I used that for a little while.

(45m 39s)

I use Ulysses for the website, blogging, and for the novel stuff.

(45m 45s) Tim Chaten:

Yeah. Okay. And do you use Ulysses as the uploading from the app or do you just copy and paste from Ulysses and do it directly on WordPress?

(45m 58s) Rob Copeland:

Well, I upload directly from Ulysses,

(46m 2s)

but I have kind of a different,

(46m 3s)

depending on what I’m doing,

(46m 4s)

if it’s my blogging site,

(46m 7s)

then that’s usually pretty straightforward,

(46m 9s)

and I can upload from Ulysses.

(46m 11s)

It’s kind of nice.

(46m 12s)

Ulysses lets you set the categories and the tags and all of that, and that works really well.

(46m 18s)

The Tech Talk one, on the other hand,

(46m 21s)

where I am writing how-tos,

(46m 24s)

and I have a lot of screenshots involved usually,

(46m 29s)

I will still upload from Ulysses,

(46m 32s)

but Ulysses doesn’t have enough control over the sizing of the images,

(46m 37s)

so I’ll upload, and then I need to go to the WordPress site and go tweak each screenshot with a size and a resolution that I want.

(46m 48s)

Yeah.

(46m 49s) Tim Chaten:

The images do get uploaded from Ulysses though, it does support that, just the size.

(46m 50s) Rob Copeland:

They do, yes.

(46m 54s)

It’s the sizing, and honestly,

(46m 58s)

most of the screenshots I post are iPhone screenshots.

(47m 1s)

I often want them to be side-by-side,

(47m 3s)

so WordPress lets you have columns.

(47m 6s)

Ulysses doesn’t support columns,

(47m 8s)

so I have a keyboard shortcut on my iPad where I can just do angle bracket C,

(47m 14s)

and it inserts the HTML code in Ulysses to make the columns so I can paste my images in there.

(47m 18s) Tim Chaten:

Oh, nice.

(47m 20s)

Yeah.

(47m 20s) Rob Copeland:

So most of it’s automated that way, but yeah.

(47m 23s) Tim Chaten:

And both these sites are WordPress sites?

(47m 25s)

Okay.

(47m 27s)

Do you struggle at all with WordPress and Safari and iPad? Sometimes that website, I just want to throw it out the window.

(47m 34s)

[laughing]

(47m 35s) Rob Copeland:

Yes, and yes, I agree with, yes, I struggle with it sometimes, and yes, I kind of sometimes want to throw it out the window.

(47m 42s)

It’s like, sometimes it just seems to lose itself, and it, and, you know, I’ve, I’ve made an edit or something, and then I, I, oh, yeah, it’s very frustrating sometimes.

(47m 52s) Tim Chaten:

Yeah, and the app is worse, so I mean, yeah.

(47m 53s) Rob Copeland:

Oh, the app is worse.

(47m 56s)

Every time there’s an update for the app, I think, okay, this might be it, and then I’ll load up the app and, you know, the app is fine for checking stats.

(48m 4s) Tim Chaten:

Yeah, mm-hmm Yeah Yeah, if I was a millionaire, I would commission the people behind Rapid Weaver to make a iPad version I’d pay them whatever they ask and Because I missed Rapid Weaver. That’s my favorite website publishing tool back on the Mac when I use that and it was Phenomenal. Yeah

(48m 5s) Rob Copeland:

For checking comments, but yeah, it’s not great for writing and…

(48m 19s)

Oh, that would be great.

(48m 26s)

Yeah, me too. I used that. It was fantastic. Yes.

(48m 29s) Tim Chaten:

And we’re on all these, we have WordPress and all these other, you know, Squarespace and…

(48m 34s)

They’re just, I don’t know, it’s not as good. It’s better for certain reasons, I know, but…

(48m 38s) Rob Copeland:

No. No, I yeah, I love WordPress. But yeah, I yes, there are there’s room for improvement, shall we say? Yes. Yeah.

(48m 45s) Tim Chaten:

It’s a struggle.

(48m 49s)

There is.

(48m 50s)

There is indeed, yeah.

Journaling

(48m 53s) Tim Chaten:

Then journaling is something you’ve gotten into as well.

(48m 55s)

Has this been a habit you’ve had for many years now or is it something you’ve recently gotten into?

(49m 2s) Rob Copeland:

I have tried to have it be a habit for many years, and actually, I just wrote a blog post about this last week, or maybe the week before, so about how I journal now, and I was looking back through it.

(49m 3s) Tim Chaten:

Yeah.

(49m 17s) Rob Copeland:

My very first journal entry was in 1998.

(49m 21s) Tim Chaten:

Okay, yeah.

(49m 21s) Rob Copeland:

And then the next one was in like 2006 or something.

(49m 22s) Tim Chaten:

Right, yeah.

(49m 26s) Rob Copeland:

I mean, it was just, so it’s kind of been this on again, off again thing.

(49m 30s)

late last year.

(49m 32s)

I, for some reason, wanted to make it be a daily habit.

(49m 38s)

I find that when I write down what’s going on in my life, and especially if I’ve got worries or concerns or just things that won’t get out of my head, writing it down and kind of working through it really helps.

(49m 52s)

So I wanted to make it be a habit.

(49m 55s)

And I read this article that suggested journaling first thing in the morning.

(50m) Tim Chaten:

Interesting.

(50m) Rob Copeland:

I’d always done it in the evening.

(50m 1s) Tim Chaten:

Yeah, ’cause I’ve started to do it and it’s the thing I do before going to bed mostly.

(50m 2s) Rob Copeland:

And I thought, yes, then that’s what I used to do, except then I’d be tired and I’d think,

(50m 6s) Tim Chaten:

Yeah.

(50m 7s)

Yeah, some nights I can’t do it ’cause my daughter needs extra attention and it’s just.

(50m 11s) Rob Copeland:

oh, I’m going to skip tonight.

(50m 15s)

Yeah, yeah.

(50m 18s)

Well, so when I did, when I did this, when I decided that I read that article, I thought there’s no way that’s going to work for me, but I thought I’ll try it.

(50m 30s)

And interestingly, it…

(50m 32s)

really has. Since January of this year, I have written in my journal every single day.

(50m 38s)

And that’s the first thing I do. I get up, I make a cup of coffee,

(50m 41s)

and I write in the journal. I don’t look at the news, I don’t look at my email, I just…

(50m 44s) Tim Chaten:

Yeah It’s interesting yeah, I might Let’s play around with that You know waking up a little bit earlier and just starting the day Not trying to rush out the door immediately to work and instead Just take a moment and reflect in

(50m 45s) Rob Copeland:

And that’s stuck. And so that’s been really good.

(50m 58s)

Yes, yes, yeah.

(51m 3s)

Yeah, it’s worked out pretty well.

(51m 4s)

I still occasionally will write in the evenings too, if there’s something that’s on my mind.

(51m 9s)

But then now I don’t feel the pressure to have to do it in the evening, you know.

(51m 14s) Tim Chaten:

And is day one the app you’re using for that?

(51m 16s) Rob Copeland:

No, I used Day One long ago.

(51m 22s)

I’ve used lots of different things.

(51m 23s)

But what I’m using right now is an app called Bear.

(51m 28s) Tim Chaten:

Okay, yep. I’ve used it in the past, yeah.

(51m 28s) Rob Copeland:

I’ve used Apple Notes for years and love it and it’s worked great, but there have been a couple of things that have pushed me to a different app.

(51m 40s)

One is that search.

(51m 43s)

I use Apple Notes for pretty much everything, and I use search a lot, and I kept getting a lot of my journal entries in my search, which, depending on what I was searching for,

(51m 55s)

or may not have been a problem, but I’ve been, was noticing it a lot more.

(51m 58s)

Where I thought, I’ve got to scroll through all of these, these entries.

(52m 2s)

Like if I searched for iPad, you know, I apparently write in my journal a lot about iPads.

(52m 4s) Tim Chaten:

Yeah, right.

(52m 5s)

[laughs]

(52m 7s) Rob Copeland:

So, um, and I have a shortcut that I wrote that, that creates my first journal entry of the day.

(52m 16s)

And it does some formatting and puts the date and the weather and where I am.

(52m 20s)

And I like it to be formatted in a specific way that was always kind of finicky to begin with using notes.

(52m 28s)

And then in iOS 17, for whatever reason, it just completely broke and the formatting wasn’t working.

(52m 34s)

And I thought, all right, so I had Bear installed and I’d used it before just to play around with it.

(52m 40s)

And it’s got great shortcut support.

(52m 42s)

And so that’s just been a couple of months ago.

(52m 44s)

I thought, well, I’ll give it a try.

(52m 46s)

And I like it quite a bit.

(52m 48s)

It’s got a nice, clean interface.

(52m 51s)

And so that’s what I’ve been using.

(52m 53s) Tim Chaten:

Yeah, on my Christmas list this year, I have the Hobonichi five-year journal.

(52m 59s)

This is a company out of Japan.

(53m 1s)

And the concept is you have this pretty large A5 journal.

(53m 7s)

Each page has five days.

(53m 12s)

So you use the first year, you use just the top portion.

(53m 15s)

The next year, you get to see what you wrote the previous year.

(53m 18s)

you know, in your year five, you get to see, you know, four, you know, every year, just

(53m 23s)

kind of reflect on what life was like a year ago and two years ago and three years ago.

(53m 28s)

So it seems like a cool concept. I love fountain pens, so it’ll be a good excuse to use those daily. And in this one, the page next to it is completely blank. So if I have some extra things I want to go off, I can use that extra page next to it to put thoughts there. And then I’ll be capturing that with my iPhone each day and put it in the journal app to to have it in a digital.

(53m 53s)

for him as well. So yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

(53m 54s) Rob Copeland:

that’s a cool way to do it. I will admit that I miss writing the old-fashioned way with a pen.

(54m 2s)

And like you, I love pens and I have a fountain pen that I haven’t used in years. And now you’re making me think, “Wow, I should get that thing out.” And I can’t even…anytime I try to write anymore, it’s just horrible because I don’t write. So I’m out of practice, but…

(54m 16s) Tim Chaten:

Yeah. So, a bit of a tangent. So, in high school, I learned about fountain pens. It’s like,

(54m 25s)

“What are these things?” And it’s like, “Oh, that’s great.” I had horrific handwriting.

(54m 29s)

In middle school and earlier, I was diagnosed with dyslographia, where it’s like a clinically bad handwriting, basically. And then in high school, I got fountain pens. And I picked up up these Spenserian handwriting books in the 1800s and learned how to…

(54m 46s)

write it. I wasn’t interested in writing with crappy ballpoints and once I found a tool that was fun to use I took an interest and have beautiful handwriting now. Amazon sells them still. It starts for Spenserian handwriting. There’s these brownish books. There’s the theory book then there’s like five workbooks.

(54m 59s) Rob Copeland:

Oh, wow, that’s really cool. That is really cool, huh?

(55m 3s)

I’ll have to look into some of that because that does sound

Spencerian Handwriting Books

(55m 16s) Tim Chaten:

And it’s just a lot of fun. It teaches you the principles of that handwriting style and gets you fully up to speed with writing in that way.

(55m 23s)

And yeah, and you know, oh yeah, I just, yeah, I picked up, I was very thrilled by this eBay find,

(55m 24s) Rob Copeland:

I’m definitely going to look at that. I can see another rabbit hole coming in my way with pens.

(55m 34s) Tim Chaten:

a 1920s pen in pristine condition. So a hundred year old pen and it looks brand new. It was like restored, and I’m very excited to start working with, like,

(55m 47s)

with this pen, ’cause, like, it’s just, like,

(55m 50s)

the history behind something that’s, like,

(55m 53s)

just kind of wild, and the disposable pen culture we have now of the dicks you just throw out, you know?

(55m 53s) Rob Copeland:

Oh, yeah.

(55m 54s)

That’s really cool. That’s a great find.

(55m 58s) Tim Chaten:

Yeah.

(55m 59s)

Yeah.

(56m 2s)

Yeah, ’cause normally these things go for double or more.

(56m 5s)

The one I got, it’s, yeah, so it’s a 1920s Schaeffer ring-top fountain pen that’s been completely restored.

(56m 16s)

Iowa, of all places, we used to make pens here in America.

(56m 17s) Rob Copeland:

Oh, wow. That’s cool. Yeah, but still very Very–

(56m 20s) Tim Chaten:

Yeah, but, yeah, it can be an expensive rabbit hole,

(56m 25s)

but, yeah, but, but yeah, journaling,

(56m 31s)

journaling’s a great, journaling’s a great way to just, you know, mental health and just, you know,

(56m 36s)

reflecting and, yeah, and a good excuse to write,

(56m 38s) Rob Copeland:

Yes.

(56m 40s) Tim Chaten:

which, it’s kind of funny, like, we used to write all the time in our culture, like,

(56m 44s)

That was the thing you did as far as I remember.

(56m 46s)

job and now it’s like computers have taken over that task.

(56m 50s) Rob Copeland:

Yes. Yeah, definitely. Definitely. And you make a good point. It’s writing. And this article that I read that talked about journaling in the morning also was talking about how journaling is writing. And if you want to be a writer or you want to do writing, it’s another way to practice that art, practice the craft. And I hadn’t thought about it that way until I read that. And then I go back and look through, sometimes my journal entries

(57m 20s)

are quite short and sometimes they’re quite long. But reading through what I’ve written,

(57m 24s)

I can see that. I can see that, wow, I actually did pay attention to the sentence and how I wanted to express this thought or this feeling. And so it’s a great way to just practice.

(57m 34s) Tim Chaten:

Yeah, I have a just regular notebook now to use until next year, but I find some days it’s like I’m doing a movie review of a movie I watched that night and that’s my journal entry for the day.

(57m 46s)

It’s like stuff like that sometimes.

(57m 48s) Rob Copeland:

Yes, but sometimes it’s kind of fun you go back a few years and and Read through that and think oh it kind of sparks the memory and it’s it’s a good thing

(57m 55s) Tim Chaten:

Yeah. Yeah. So, do you have any thoughts on Apple’s Journal app? Is that something you’ll move to? It sounds like maybe it’s, it sounds like, you know, using Bear, you’ve tried Apple Notes. It seems like simple things may work in Apple’s Journal app is pretty simple.

Apple’s Journal app

(58m 16s) Rob Copeland:

I don’t have it installed, but I’ve read several reviews and watched a couple videos about it, and I think it has potential.

(58m 26s)

I think one of the things that I like about it is that it prompts you with things that you’ve done throughout the day.

(58m 34s)

Whether it’s photos you took, whether it’s music you listened to, places you were, you get a prompt that perhaps will spark something that you’ve done.

(58m 46s)

So I like that idea. It does seem, beyond that, it seems fairly bare bones, which would be fine for me because all I do is I write text.

(58m 56s)

Occasionally I’ll put a photo in, but usually it’s just text.

(59m)

The fact that it’s iPhone only right now, though, kind of bothers me.

(59m 3s) Tim Chaten:

Yeah, one since I’ve had.

(59m 6s)

Yeah, it works for me because I’m just taking a picture of my handwritten journal.

(59m 7s) Rob Copeland:

Yes.

(59m 11s) Tim Chaten:

But, yeah, I wouldn’t want a journal just on the…

(59m 17s) Rob Copeland:

No, no, that’s difficult to do.

(59m 21s)

I was on recently a trip to Europe, and I was gone for a month.

(59m 25s)

It was the first trip I’ve taken where I didn’t take my iPad.

(59m 29s) Tim Chaten:

Mm-hmm.

(59m 29s) Rob Copeland:

I only had my phone, and I wanted to keep up journaling every day, and I did, which was really great, but I had to do it on my phone.

(59m 37s)

And yeah, that’s just not the best experience for longer form things.

(59m 39s) Tim Chaten:

[scoffs]

(59m 47s) Rob Copeland:

So it’ll be interesting to see where they take it.

(59m 50s)

They do have this API for developers, so you can write an app that pulls that same information that they pop up for you.

(59m 59s)

And I was thinking, well, wow, if they made that available through shortcuts, now that would be kind of cool.

(1h 5s)

You could write a shortcut to prompt you for these things and then take the – whether it’s a photo or a location that you choose – and then insert it into your note-taking app of choice.

(1h 17s)

That would be really neat.

(1h 19s)

I don’t know whether that is in the works, obviously, or even if it’s there today, I doubt it, but it’d be cool.

Reading

(1h 25s) Tim Chaten:

So another awesome use of the iPad is reading. Steve Jobs demoed this on the couch in 2010,

(1h 32s)

just laying back, browsing New York Times and Apple, or iBooks at the time.

(1h 38s)

What kind of stuff for, what’s the reading experience like? You’re probably just grabbing the iPad as a tablet and are there’s your go-to apps you have for…

(1h 51s) Rob Copeland:

• Yeah, absolutely, for the longest time for books,

(1h 54s)

I was all in on Apple Books for years and years.

(1h 59s)

But this year, I was doing a lot more reading outside on the patio, it was a lovely summer.

(1h 1m 6s)

And reading outside in bright sunlight on my iPad is just not great.

(1h 1m 12s)

Um…

(1h 1m 13s) Tim Chaten:

They don’t have the iPhone 14 Pro outdoor max brightness thing.

(1h 1m 13s) Rob Copeland:

[sniffles]

(1h 1m 18s) Tim Chaten:

It’d be great if that got there because it is amazing the current iPhones 14 and 15 Pros outside they have sustained max brightness that is just feels like I’m indoors still. It’s wild.

(1h 1m 30s) Rob Copeland:

It’s crazy, yes, it is crazy.

(1h 1m 31s) Tim Chaten:

Yeah. Okay, that makes, yeah, that’s…

(1h 1m 33s) Rob Copeland:

But anyway, I switched, I bought a Kindle, yeah, yeah, and the app on iPad and iPhone is pretty good for Kindle, so that’s, yeah, yeah, I was really bummed when the page curl in Apple Books went away for a version or so until they brought it back, yes, yes, yeah,

(1h 1m 44s) Tim Chaten:

Yeah, no fancy page curling that the Apple Books app had.

(1h 1m 49s)

Yeah, they brought it back.

(1h 1m 56s)

It’s like, there’s enough outrage.

(1h 1m 58s)

Thank, thank, thank, yes, thank you.

(1h 1m 59s) Rob Copeland:

I was really annoyed.

(1h 2m) Tim Chaten:

Get rid of the last bit of whimsy for the Steve Jobs era.

(1h 2m) Rob Copeland:

I thought, “Come on, guys, come on.”

(1h 2m 4s)

Yes, yes.

(1h 2m 8s)

So yeah, for books, these days, I still use Apple Books because I still have a lot of books in the queue to read that I bought on there, but mostly Kindle.

(1h 2m 18s)

I read a lot of blogs, of course, and for that, I use NetNewsWire and have been using that Newswire, oh gosh, since way long ago on just…

(1h 2m 30s)

the Mac before any of the latest stuff.

(1h 2m 31s) Tim Chaten:

Yeah, back when RSS feeds were advertised on websites versus now you have to kind of seek them out and…

(1h 2m 39s) Rob Copeland:

Exactly. Exactly. It’s kind of, I don’t know, I like to believe there’s a resurgence of interest in RSS. And maybe there is with all the weird things that are going on in the social media space. Maybe more people are interested in writing for themselves on their own platforms. So that would be nice. I use Apple News for news. And for social media,

(1h 3m 6s)

I’m only on Mastodon.

(1h 3m 9s)

I’m a native.

(1h 3m 13s) Tim Chaten:

• Yeah, and for email, is Apple Mail your one-stop shop?

Email

(1h 3m 19s) Rob Copeland:

Yeah, Apple Mail is it works pretty well for me. I don’t really have any issues with it.

(1h 3m 25s)

And there’s a couple of I do too. But you know, it, it isn’t the thing I don’t like is that I can’t,

(1h 3m 26s) Tim Chaten:

Yeah, I like the new remind me feature of emails. I do find myself using that.

(1h 3m 37s) Rob Copeland:

I can’t customize it the way that I always would want to. And so but a cool thing about

(1h 3m 46s)

Apple Mail is that you can send…

(1h 3m 49s)

an email to Reminders and so what that’s what I usually do is I’ll go I’ll send if for example if I send somebody an email and ask them for something I’ll go into the sent I’ll take the email put it in Reminders I get a reminder with a link to the email and I can put a date on it so now it’ll pop up and say hey follow up on this that’s that’s a pretty cool feature that I that I use quite a

(1h 4m 15s) Tim Chaten:

Do you Siri to get it in there or do you drag and drop it to get it in? How’s how do?

(1h 4m 20s) Rob Copeland:

I usually, I can either drag and drop it, or if you highlight text in an email, so if you like highlight the header, the heading, or the subject line rather, if you highlight that and then on the pop-up menu just choose share and send it to reminders, it automatically includes a link to the email.

(1h 4m 41s) Tim Chaten:

Whoa, I had no idea that was a thing. Thank you very much. That’s really awesome.

(1h 4m 41s) Rob Copeland:

So yeah, it’s very cool.

(1h 4m 46s)

Yeah, it’s very cool.

(1h 4m 50s)

That is, that’s one thing about Apple, I haven’t tried, I used to use, when I was working,

(1h 4m 56s)

I would use Outlook, and but, yes, yes.

(1h 4m 57s) Tim Chaten:

Mm-hmm, yeah, I’d imagine Microsoft wouldn’t wouldn’t have it any other way

(1h 5m 5s) Rob Copeland:

So yeah, it works pretty well for me.

(1h 5m 7s)

Search, even though it’s supposedly vastly improved, I still don’t find it to be excellent.

(1h 5m 14s) Tim Chaten:

Yeah, that’s the one thing I get yelled at in our household, that I can’t find an email.

(1h 5m 17s)

It’s like, “Apple search, what can I do?” It’s no Gmail as far as the search, yeah.

(1h 5m 20s) Rob Copeland:

Yes, yes, yeah, so, yeah, exactly, exactly.

(1h 5m 25s) Tim Chaten:

Is Reminders your one and only Reminders app,

Task Management

(1h 5m 31s) Tim Chaten:

or do you use a couple for different purposes?

(1h 5m 34s) Rob Copeland:

Note, Reminders is my one and only.

(1h 5m 37s)

And wow, that thing has really come a long way in the last few years.

(1h 5m 42s) Tim Chaten:

It used to be just a simple list app.

(1h 5m 42s) Rob Copeland:

It’s, yes, yeah.

(1h 5m 46s)

And now it’s just fantastic.

(1h 5m 48s)

I use it, I’ve kind of, over the years,

(1h 5m 52s)

I’ve been this sort of productivity system geek,

(1h 5m 56s)

you might say.

(1h 5m 57s)

I’ve been, you know, from early days with day timers and Franklin Covey planners to the Seven Habitats.

(1h 6m 4s)

It’s a highly effective people and getting things done from David Allen.

(1h 6m 8s)

And yeah, even more recently, Tiago Forte’s building a second brain and para method.

(1h 6m 14s)

Like I’ve I love reading all of these things.

(1h 6m 16s)

So I kind of have this sort of amalgam of all those various systems in a very simplified form, and it all works really well with reminders as the as the only thing.

(1h 6m 27s)

So it’s great.

(1h 6m 30s) Tim Chaten:

Yeah, no, it’s a phenomenal app.

(1h 6m 32s)

Like the shared reminders are great.

(1h 6m 35s)

If you have people willing to also use reminders and then the grocery shopping, auto sorting has been just really fantastic.

(1h 6m 42s)

I’m impressed by what it does.

(1h 6m 44s) Rob Copeland:

Oh, me too. Me too. That’s that’s a really cool new thing. Yeah. Yeah, it’s uh, yeah, I’m I’m It’ll be interesting to see where they take it. They keep adding new features that surprised me this, you know I was 17 the sections and then the ability to have columns. I just thought wow. I’m Yeah. Yeah, I’m really surprised. I don’t know why I’m surprised It just didn’t seem like like this huge focus for them for a long time. And now lately it’s it’s they’ve really done a lot more

(1h 6m 57s) Tim Chaten:

Mm-hmm Yes, you can have templates now, yeah

(1h 7m 14s)

Yeah. Yeah, for sure.

Web Browsing

(1h 7m 16s) Tim Chaten:

Web browsing. Is Safari the go-to app?

(1h 7m 20s)

I mean, I don’t see…

(1h 7m 22s)

I know some people use Chrome because they like syncing between Chrome and desktop,

(1h 7m 26s)

but, you know.

(1h 7m 27s) Rob Copeland:

Yeah, no, Safari, Safari is it for me.

(1h 7m 29s)

I do have Chrome installed because on a rare occasion,

(1h 7m 34s)

I will have some issue on some website that won’t behave properly.

(1h 7m 37s)

And Chrome sometimes will it’ll work properly there.

(1h 7m 41s)

But that’s that’s extremely rare. I.

(1h 7m 43s) Tim Chaten:

Which is funny, because it’s all web.

(1h 7m 43s) Rob Copeland:

I know, I know, I know, it’s usually something weird,

(1h 7m 48s)

like it won’t let me log in or some odd thing like that. I.

(1h 7m 52s)

[bird squawking]

(1h 7m 52s) Tim Chaten:

Yeah. Have you started using tab groups or any of the newish Safari features?

(1h 7m 58s) Rob Copeland:

Yeah, I have a little bit, I have a tab group for blogging.

(1h 8m 1s)

So I have my WordPress tabs and things over there.

(1h 8m 4s)

And if I remember to switch to the tab group when I decide to do something,

(1h 8m 8s)

that’s great.

(1h 8m 9s)

A lot of times I’ll just open a new tab and start doing something and then think, okay, now my WordPress is in with everything else.

(1h 8m 16s) Tim Chaten:

Yeah, my tab groups are all, it’s chaos.

(1h 8m 20s)

‘Cause I just have a different tab groups

(1h 8m 24s) Rob Copeland:

Yeah, yeah. I do like the iCloud tabs. There’s a lot of times where I’ll start reading something on my phone and then I can go to the iPad and find the tab that’s already open on my phone and just jump to it. So that’s kind of nice.

(1h 8m 41s) Tim Chaten:

Yeah, I I want them to bring Safari to the watch in some way we have There is one web kit watch app that is phenomenal. So say on the ultra size And it’d be nice if we just had a basic version of synced Safari tabs where you’d just pull up. I don’t know

(1h 9m 1s) Rob Copeland:

Actually, that would be pretty cool.

(1h 9m 3s)

That would be, especially if you’re out and about and it was just that you were looking at that one thing before you left home and you just need to glance at it again.

(1h 9m 9s) Tim Chaten:

Yes, I remember in the early days before we had the web browser app for Apple Watch, I would text myself an iMessage, a link, and then I would load it up in just the messages app.

(1h 9m 22s) Rob Copeland:

Oh, yeah. Hey, workarounds. Yes. Yeah, definitely.

(1h 9m 25s) Tim Chaten:

Because that works.

(1h 9m 26s)

Yeah, it was a bit cumbersome, but I would do that occasionally.

(1h 9m 28s) Rob Copeland:

I will say I’m one of those people that like the compact tabs in Safari,

(1h 9m 36s)

and I know that was quite controversial when it, when they, but I still like them.

(1h 9m 40s)

I’ve left them on and it works for me.

(1h 9m 44s) Tim Chaten:

Yeah, so as you do research for your blog posts, do you compile that in?

Researching

(1h 9m 50s) Tim Chaten:

In like Apple Notes or a Devon think or what kind of apps to use for researching and storing information

(1h 9m 58s) Rob Copeland:

Yeah, I just use Apple Notes for that as well.

(1h 10m 1s)

I’ve got a kind of a folder structure and a tag system to keep track of those things.

(1h 10m 9s)

I have a shortcut that I use that it’s kind of got a dual purpose.

(1h 10m 16s)

It’s in the doc.

(1h 10m 17s)

And so if I’m doing something and I don’t want to get out of what I’m doing, I can just tap the shortcut in my doc and it says, “What blog is this idea for?”

(1h 10m 26s)

And I choose and then I can type.

(1h 10m 28s)

And it just puts it in the right place, but it’ll also accept links from Safari.

(1h 10m 35s)

So if I’m in Safari and here’s something that I want to remember for a post, I can just tap my shortcut and it’ll take the link and put it into a note in the right place again.

(1h 10m 46s)

And that works.

(1h 10m 47s)

That works pretty well.

(1h 10m 48s)

I usually just have one note per blog post that I’m writing with just a bunch of links and a bunch of ideas and notes.

(1h 10m 56s)

I don’t like to have a whole set of notes.

(1h 10m 58s)

related to one thing, so…

(1h 11m)

Um…

(1h 11m 1s) Tim Chaten:

Yeah, Apple Notes, you can do so much in that app. It is… yeah, it’s wild.

(1h 11m 7s) Rob Copeland:

it’s crazy. It’s another one. It’s I know, it’s just, that’s another one where that and reminders, just the last few releases, especially they, they’re really turning those things into real full fledged apps that are not, you know, a lot of times on Apple, default apps, they’re nice apps, but they’re pretty basic. And they’re they’re meant to get the basics done. And then you’ve got all these third parties choose from these these two especially have.

(1h 11m 7s) Tim Chaten:

Let’s scan a document, why not?

(1h 11m 37s) Rob Copeland:

Really turned into full featured apps that are great.

(1h 11m 40s) Tim Chaten:

Yeah, yeah the notes app started as this weird iMap thing and now it’s it’s great

(1h 11m 41s) Rob Copeland:

Yes, yes, yeah, I it’s it’s kind of unfortunate that it still supports that because I’ve had family members that have accidentally gotten their notes stuck into some email accounts,

(1h 11m 58s)

you know, I map as just it’s kind of a mess to try to walk through over the phone with somebody. Let’s fix this.

(1h 12m 3s) Tim Chaten:

Yes. Yeah. And then finance and expense tracking. Are you using a dedicated app meant for this or, you know, numbers or?

Finance and Expense Tracking

(1h 12m 16s) Rob Copeland:

For me, it’s just a Numbers spreadsheet.

(1h 12m 19s)

I download CSV files for various accounts every month and then paste them into my spreadsheet.

(1h 12m 30s)

And that works really well.

(1h 12m 33s)

I’d love to automate this more because it’s a lot of manual steps right now to download.

(1h 12m 39s)

Each account has a different format in their CSV, and so I have to deal with that.

(1h 12m 46s)

I haven’t spent any time trying to automate that yet, but it’s pretty straightforward.

(1h 12m 50s) Tim Chaten:

So once that data is in there, are you graphing it out, cross-linking these CSVs,

(1h 12m 55s)

or is it just having the data all in one place?

(1h 12m 59s) Rob Copeland:

No, I have I’ve got several tabs. So I have a I got a main tab that that Categorizes all of my expenses and there’s a graph and here’s what the budget is and how close we are to the budget and Then I also have a another another tab or sheet or whatever that has categories and

(1h 13m 24s)

The descriptions that come from the various downloads and will match a description to a category so it will a lot of times automatically categorize. So if I download a bunch of credit card transactions, say it’s from Whole Foods,

(1h 13m 38s)

it’ll see that Whole Foods is in the description and just automatically categorize it as groceries. So it does some fancy things but it works,

(1h 13m 49s)

it’s still pretty straightforward.

(1h 13m 54s) Tim Chaten:

It’d be interesting if Apple So with Apple card they do the automatic categorizations, but it would be kind of interesting if They had a more manual way of doing that were let me have five virtual Apple cards and when I’m doing anything food related Let me just tap to pay with that one and if I’m doing anything transportation related gas or whatever Mechanics, let me tap this other one and that’d be an interesting approach. I don’t know if that’d be just

(1h 14m 25s) Rob Copeland:

That is a cool idea because the whole categorization thing is kind of all over the place depending on, I mean, every company has their own way.

(1h 14m 34s)

I mean, I often get things automatically categorized from a credit card company as like baby goods and I don’t have a baby.

(1h 14m 43s) Tim Chaten:

[laughs]

(1h 14m 43s) Rob Copeland:

And it’s from a healthcare provider or something and I just think, oh my gosh, this is so, yeah, if you could tell it, look, use this card and this card is always for these types of transactions, that would be really nice actually.

(1h 14m 55s) Tim Chaten:

Yeah, the Apple card really impressing when I was in Italy. I was looking back at those transactions It gives you the map it gives you the exchange rate what you paid in euros and what it ended up being in USD I was looking at other people my family’s transactions and they don’t give you any that kind of information but Apple’s like this, you know a very very detailed like it’s a great if you’re going internationally a great card just to like have all the information about each transaction and

(1h 15m 7s) Rob Copeland:

Oh, really?

(1h 15m 23s)

Oh, I think that would be awesome. I don’t have an Apple card, but I was also just in Italy.

(1h 15m 29s)

I think we were in Italy at the same time, as it turns out.

(1h 15m 30s) Tim Chaten:

[laughter]

(1h 15m 32s) Rob Copeland:

But coming home and going through the credit cards,

(1h 15m 36s)

some of the transactions are just impossible to even figure out what it was.

(1h 15m 41s) Tim Chaten:

Yes Yeah, no, that’s something they were doing pretty pretty well with that partnership that Goldman doesn’t want to be in anymore So Photo and video editing is next up on the list here. And yeah, this is something I got into big time when my daughter was born You know Okay, got to be the data documents everything so.

(1h 15m 41s) Rob Copeland:

And having that extra information would be so helpful.

(1h 15m 54s)

[laughter]

Photo and Video Editing

(1h 16m 10s) Rob Copeland:

Of course, of course.

(1h 16m 11s) Tim Chaten:

Got the fancy camera and learned all about photo editing and What’s a are you photo editing iPhone photos, or do you have fancy cameras as well or?

(1h 16m 22s) Rob Copeland:

Right now it’s just iPhone photos. I had a fancy camera for years. Loved it, you know, fancy lenses, tripods, all these things. But the last several years all of that stuff is just set in a box and I found that the iPhone is good enough for what I need. So I just recently sold all of that stuff a couple months ago and yeah now it’s all I have is the iPhone so it has to handle at all. And that’s that’s worked out really well.

(1h 16m 50s) Tim Chaten:

Yeah, and then it’s gotten really good, the later iPhones.

(1h 16m 53s)

What’s your current model you’re on now?

(1h 16m 57s)

The regular size, yeah.

(1h 16m 58s) Rob Copeland:

I have a iPhone 15 Pro, the regular size.

(1h 17m 2s) Tim Chaten:

And a 5X lens, it’s a lot of fun.

(1h 17m 2s) Rob Copeland:

Yes.

(1h 17m 3s)

And that was a big, that was a tough choice between the Max and, yeah.

(1h 17m 10s) Tim Chaten:

It is, yeah.

(1h 17m 10s) Rob Copeland:

You have the Max?

(1h 17m 12s)

Yeah.

(1h 17m 13s)

I decided that I’ve always had the smaller one.

(1h 17m 18s)

It fits in my pocket well.

(1h 17m 19s)

And so I thought, well, oh wow, that’s a big change.

(1h 17m 20s) Tim Chaten:

Yeah, I had the Mini and then I went to the 14 Pro Max.

(1h 17m 22s)

That was my, uh, I like either really small or let’s just go all the way.

(1h 17m 24s) Rob Copeland:

[laughs]

(1h 17m 27s) Tim Chaten:

If I’m going to have a Mini, you know.

(1h 17m 29s) Rob Copeland:

• Yeah.

(1h 17m 29s)

But it’s still, even with the 3X camera,

(1h 17m 33s)

I was on this trip, it was a long trip,

(1h 17m 35s)

I took a lot of pictures, and there were very few cases where I thought, oh, I’d love to have a 5X lens over what I had, so it, at least for me,

(1h 17m 43s) Tim Chaten:

Yeah That’s awesome, yeah, are you doing any raw captures, or are you mainly doing the normal stuff?

(1h 17m 44s) Rob Copeland:

it worked out great.

(1h 17m 53s)

You know, it’s mainly the normal stuff. I have the Halide camera app, and when I had my fancy camera, I shot in RAW all the time and would spend a lot of time with edits and all of that afterwards. But maybe I’ve just gotten lazy. I just use regular settings most of the time.

(1h 18m 16s)

I kind of have this desire to get back into doing some RAW and playing around with some of that,

(1h 18m 23s)

I just haven’t.

(1h 18m 24s) Tim Chaten:

Yeah, I mainly do on the 15 Pro I’ve been doing more of the 24 megapixel. That seems like a nice happy medium. And I do occasionally I’ll throw it in the raw mode because it is fun sometimes to do some very artistic things with like my cat has like a flower on her collar and I’ll make it black and white except for the flower and do stuff like that. Like, yeah, so it is fun every now and then but those files are I have some like 120 megabyte photos like it’s wild.

(1h 18m 43s) Rob Copeland:

Oh, yeah, that’s cool.

(1h 18m 45s)

Yeah, yeah, it’s crazy. Yeah, it is. It is. No, no.

(1h 18m 54s) Tim Chaten:

Yeah, so you can’t do that all the time. No. Yeah. Oh, what apps do you use if you do want to touch stuff up photography wise?

(1h 19m 3s)

Yeah, it’s my favorite app out there. Like there’s I’ve used them all. That’s my favorite just the UI and the features.

(1h 19m 4s) Rob Copeland:

Most of the time I use Photomator and I’ll do is it yeah it is it’s it’s wonderful and I usually I don’t do a lot I mean I do some crops exposure highlights and shadows sometimes color adjustments just to try to get the right the right look depending on what I’m doing with it but I know there’s I go I

(1h 19m 34s)

through some of the settings sometimes in Photomator and think I need to spend more time like learning some of these you know the curves and and changing all of these things but I don’t delve into that very often

(1h 19m 44s) Tim Chaten:

Yeah, and their machine learning stuff’s cool like the increased resolution can be cool. Sometimes it’s not useful. Sometimes it’s super useful

(1h 19m 53s) Rob Copeland:

Yes. Yes. I’ve just played with that the other day on something and was pretty impressed with the outcome.

(1h 20m)

And the machine learning that just does the auto… I don’t even remember what they call it. The magic…

(1h 20m 6s) Tim Chaten:

Yeah, it adjusts all the different sliders properly that that’s a really good job Sometimes I change it around a bit, but it gives me a good starting point for sure And video editing file cuts, I believe you’re starting to dabble with Yeah.

(1h 20m 8s) Rob Copeland:

Yes. Yeah. It does.

(1h 20m 13s)

Yeah, yeah. Me too. I’ve been impressed with it a lot. Yeah.

(1h 20m 23s)

I’m starting to, I don’t do a lot of videos, but I kind of want to.

(1h 20m 31s)

And so before this last trip that I took, I was watching some travel videos, just to learn about some of the places I was going to go.

(1h 20m 40s)

And I was paying attention to the video and how they put it together.

(1h 20m 46s)

And I thought, "Wow, instead of just taking photos all the time, I should take some videos so I could weave together kind of an…

(1h 20m 53s)

interesting and so I did take video this time on this trip and I haven’t really gotten to it yet because I’ve only been back about a week or so, but I Yeah, I downloaded Final Cut Pro and I started the tutorials. There’s some tutorials that they include and Haven’t gotten very far yet, but I’d love to spend some time with it and see what I can put together

(1h 21m 15s) Tim Chaten:

• Yeah, no, it’s a cool app.

(1h 21m 17s)

I, like you, I don’t do a lot of video.

(1h 21m 20s)

I would love to find more excuses to do video ’cause it’s a fun thing to do video editing when you have stuff to cut.

(1h 21m 29s) Rob Copeland:

Yeah, yeah, it seems like it. I’ve put together some family videos of we’ll get together with a bunch of extended family, and I’ll take a lot of just still photos and some videos. And those years ago, I would just use iMovie and put the photos in and weave in some of the video and add some music. And that was always kind of fun. It’s pretty limited what you can do. So it’d be be kind of fun to learn more about real photo editing or real.

(1h 21m 58s) Tim Chaten:

Yeah Yeah, once the 12 mini came out I started taking a lot more videos because that’s when H Dolby vision videos came and those just look so good on the phone just with HDR brains everything up. It’s like And then the iPod died a while ago as we all know I Still have the you know good 50 or 60 of them probably somewhere in the house so Yeah, I love that.

(1h 22m 12s) Rob Copeland:

Yeah, yeah, they do. They’re awesome. Yeah.

Music

(1h 22m 14s) Rob Copeland:

Yes.

(1h 22m 20s)

Oh, yeah, me too. I had most of those two, but I don’t have any left.

(1h 22m 28s) Tim Chaten:

Yeah, I collected every generation of every model because it’s funny, iPods, like at least when I was collecting them, they weren’t expensive.

(1h 22m 33s) Rob Copeland:

[laughing]

(1h 22m 45s) Tim Chaten:

Like an iPhone is a good thousand bucks, an iPod, 50 bucks, you know, or less depending on, you know, shuffle, get those for 15 bucks, something like that.

(1h 22m 49s) Rob Copeland:

Yeah, yeah.

(1h 22m 51s)

Yeah, yeah, and still great sound and and yeah, yeah.

(1h 22m 55s) Tim Chaten:

Yeah.

(1h 22m 56s)

Yes.

(1h 22m 58s)

No, yeah.

(1h 22m 58s) Rob Copeland:

Absolutely, absolutely.

(1h 22m 59s) Tim Chaten:

They’re great single purpose devices and I love a good single purpose device like, yeah.

(1h 23m 6s)

But the iPad for me, at least has become a listening device for sure, as well as the iPhone.

(1h 23m 13s)

I use a USPC DAC when I really want to get into the craziness and just sit down and just all I’m doing is listening.

(1h 23m 21s)

Are you doing anything like that or are you just enjoying just the standard out of the

(1h 23m 27s) Rob Copeland:

just the standard out-of-the-box experience.

(1h 23m 30s)

I’ve got AirPods Pro 2,

(1h 23m 34s)

and I have some AirPods Max, both.

(1h 23m 37s)

And they both, to me, sound really good,

(1h 23m 41s)

and for my purposes, are excellent for listening.

(1h 23m 46s)

I use Apple Music and just sit and listen,

(1h 23m 49s)

and those are awesome.

(1h 23m 50s) Tim Chaten:

Yeah, they sound great. And I recently discovered the Star Wars Original Trilogy soundtracks got remastered in Dolby Atmos. And with AirPods Max, that is a cool experience. I would recommend.

(1h 24m) Rob Copeland:

Ah!

(1h 24m 4s) Tim Chaten:

If you’re in the movie soundtracks, that’s a really cool Dolby Atmos space.

(1h 24m 12s) Rob Copeland:

Oh, I’m going to definitely have to try that.

(1h 24m 16s)

I’ve sort of had an interesting experience with Dolby Atmos music.

(1h 24m 23s)

And I don’t know if it’s just me, I recently got the new HomePods, the full-size ones.

(1h 24m 29s)

I have them in a stereo pair.

(1h 24m 31s)

And by default, when I set them up, they had Dolby Atmos turned on.

(1h 24m 35s)

And I was listening to some music and I thought, “This just doesn’t sound great.”

(1h 24m 39s)

I couldn’t figure out what it was.

(1h 24m 42s)

It just didn’t have a lot of volume, it didn’t have a lot of depth.

(1h 24m 45s)

I just thought, “This is really weird.”

(1h 24m 48s)

I went in and turned Dolby Atmos off for those things, and now everything sounds fantastic.

(1h 24m 54s)

And so I started playing around with it, and at least for me, what I found was there are certain songs that sounded fantastic in Atmos, like they were mixed really, really well.

(1h 25m 4s)

And then there were a lot of others that just didn’t.

(1h 25m 8s)

And so for me, I’ve got it turned off right now.

(1h 25m 11s)

I don’t know if we’re in this.

(1h 25m 12s)

This phase where we need to wait until more music is mastered and produced in the correct way to really take advantage of Atmos or what it is.

(1h 25m 24s) Tim Chaten:

Yeah, I think it I think movie soundtracks are great because they’re already mastered for 5.1 anyways So I think that’s the best use of it currently. I think some jazz is well done. But yeah and then another one that Dark side of the moon Pink Floyd That was mastered a long time ago for SACD surround and I think it translates pretty well into the current Apple music mix as well

(1h 25m 30s) Rob Copeland:

Yes.

(1h 25m 30s)

[clears throat]

(1h 25m 51s)

Okay, that would be cool. Oh, did you? Oh, wow. Wow. Oh, that’s awesome. That’s awesome.

(1h 25m 51s) Tim Chaten:

Yeah, I was one of the weirdos

(1h 25m 54s)

high school who had a super audio CD player with a 5.1 mix in my bedroom that my siblings were not impressed with because I would crank that thing.

(1h 26m 5s)

Yeah, so I have a handful of those CDs still and they’re in storage right now.

(1h 26m 14s)

But yeah, amazing.

(1h 26m 17s)

That, yeah, back.

(1h 26m 18s) Rob Copeland:

Oh yeah, I remember when they came out and I just, I thought, “Wow, I need to get one.”

(1h 26m 24s)

I never did, but I wanted to get a play, yes.

(1h 26m 26s) Tim Chaten:

Yes, and a lot of them are hybrid disks where they work as regular CDs if you don’t have an SACD, which is very smart on Sony’s end, but that was like the last hurrah and then we’re just all in the digital right now.

(1h 26m 38s) Rob Copeland:

Yeah, yeah.

(1h 26m 39s) Tim Chaten:

Anything else as far as what you do on iPad that we haven’t really touched on yet? I think we’ve covered much of.

(1h 26m 39s) Rob Copeland:

[laughs]

Anything else?

(1h 26m 51s) Rob Copeland:

I think we have. I mean, it’s really everything. So we’ve covered all the all the main, obviously, there’s all the, you know, I have a, I have a home kit based home, and I use the iPad to mess with that. And but but yeah, those are we covered all the topics. Yeah.

(1h 27m 5s) Tim Chaten:

Yes.

(1h 27m 6s)

Excellent.

(1h 27m 11s)

As far as the general discourse around iPad, how are you fighting that these days?

General online talk about iPad

(1h 27m 19s) Tim Chaten:

We had the golden era where the Macs were all terrible, and now that the Macs stole the iPad chips, everyone seems to think the iPads did it.

(1h 27m 21s) Rob Copeland:

[LAUGH] Yeah, it’s interesting to me, it’s interesting because it seems there’s this,

(1h 27m 28s)

at least lately, a yearly cycle where it’s quiet and people are just happy with what they have.

(1h 27m 36s)

And then for some reason, I don’t know if it’s always around WWDC, but then there’s all of a sudden a spate of articles that come out that talk about how the iPad is a great way to get around the world.

(1h 27m 41s) Tim Chaten:

Yeah, yeah.

(1h 27m 51s) Rob Copeland:

Or the iPad is dead, or the iPad can’t do real work, and just all these things.

(1h 27m 57s)

And I sometimes am amused, I’m sometimes annoyed.

(1h 28m 1s)

I mean, to me, it’s, I don’t quite, well, if I were being totally cynical,

(1h 28m 8s)

I would say, it’s a slow news cycle and so we need clicks.

(1h 28m 11s)

And so let’s make some outrageous, ridiculous headlines so people will click on it, iPad’s dead, or something like that.

(1h 28m 12s) Tim Chaten:

Some link bait, yeah.

(1h 28m 13s)

Yeah, right.

(1h 28m 18s) Rob Copeland:

But I think maybe it’s just more that.

(1h 28m 22s)

We’re in this continuing evolution of computing and and it used to always be PC and Mac and they did everything and that’s all there was and now for the last many years we’ve had this evolution happening with the iPad and more and more people are finding that the iPad is just what they need for everything.

(1h 28m 43s)

It’s it’s it’s plenty and the more features that Apple is added and the more apps that have come out.

(1h 28m 47s)

that’s become a reality for so many more people.

(1h 28m 51s)

Which I think is great, and I’m so excited that Apple continues to invest heavily in the Mac and in the iPad, because they’re both awesome.

(1h 29m 2s)

I love the Mac. I have for a long time.

(1h 29m 4s)

But it’s just odd to me that some people get so worked up about needing to tell you how your computing device is not good enough,

(1h 29m 12s)

even though, for you, it’s plenty good enough.

(1h 29m 16s)

And you know it.

(1h 29m 17s) Tim Chaten:

It’s funny, I think for the longest time it was they were afraid that Mac would be killed by the iPad, which was a fear at one time, but I think those days are long gone.

(1h 29m 24s) Rob Copeland:

Yes. I think so too. And you’re right, actually, I hadn’t even really thought about that. You’re right there for the for a while there, Apple would say things like the iPad is the best expression of the future of computing, which sort of does make you think, you know, maybe and those were the Intel days when Apple had such little control over what was going on in the in in their chips, both GPU and CPU, that you could.

(1h 29m 26s) Tim Chaten:

This is like, yeah.

(1h 29m 51s)

And they had some horrible hardware decisions otherwise with their keyboards and other things, yes.

(1h 29m 55s) Rob Copeland:

Yes, yes, yes, exactly. It seems like maybe.

(1h 29m 58s) Tim Chaten:

They had the aspirational trash can,

(1h 29m 58s) Rob Copeland:

Yes. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. So, you know, lately, they’ve they’ve sort of switched that up to the iPad is our most versatile device. I like that. I like that phrasing. And I think it is and I and I agree with that, and maybe we’ll see less.

(1h 30m) Tim Chaten:

which I kind of want one at some point ’cause they are very cute and it’s like a G4 Cube.

(1h 30m 24s) Rob Copeland:

I doubt it.

(1h 30m 28s) Tim Chaten:

You know, once the Vision Pro comes out, that’ll be a whole nother thing.

(1h 30m 28s) Rob Copeland:

Oh, that’ll be a whole other thing. Yeah, you’re right.

(1h 30m 30s) Tim Chaten:

Yeah.

(1h 30m 31s)

The remove the focus from the iPad, the Vision Pro will be, you can’t.

(1h 30m 32s) Rob Copeland:

Yes. Yeah.

(1h 30m 36s)

Yeah. I don’t know. I look at it and I think, “Wow.”

(1h 30m 40s)

Choice is wonderful. Apple’s giving us choices for the kind of device that works best for us, and they’re investing in both. And there was some recent YouTube video I will.

(1h 30m 54s)

I will.

(1h 30m 56s)

I will.

(1h 30m 58s)

the title was “The iPad is Dead” or something like that.

(1h 31m 1s)

That, you know, it’s kind of implying that Apple isn’t investing in it anymore because there weren’t new iPads this year or something.

(1h 31m 8s)

And I just thought, yeah, but just look at all the things in the last even two years or three years and you’ve, you know, you’ve got things, you’ve got all of this software,

(1h 31m 20s)

which really makes the experience that from Apple and others that have.

(1h 31m 24s)

I mean, changed the game and you’ve got DaVinci Resolve, you’ve got Final Cut Pro, you’ve got Logic, you’ve got Playgrounds, you’ve got all these super powerful apps now.

(1h 31m 33s) Tim Chaten:

In Sage Manager, they cleaned it up where it’s a lot of fun.

(1h 31m 33s) Rob Copeland:

It isn’t, absolutely, you get external monitor, you get stage manager, you’ve got mouse and keyboard, really good mouse and keyboard support.

(1h 31m 42s) Tim Chaten:

Yeah, external webcam.

(1h 31m 43s) Rob Copeland:

It’s just, yeah, oh, exactly.

(1h 31m 46s)

It’s just, yeah.

(1h 31m 47s)

Did it have all of those things on day one?

(1h 31m 49s)

No.

(1h 31m 50s)

period where you couldn’t do a lot of things.

(1h 31m 54s)

Yes, but boy, just to try to imply that it is stagnant or even dead is just kind of crazy.

(1h 32m 2s) Tim Chaten:

• Yeah, the iPad generally is on 18 month cycles for like the mini and the pro and the air.

(1h 32m 10s)

And then the regular one normally is every 12 months,

(1h 32m 13s)

but it kind of feels like last year they did the iPhone 10 thing and here’s the cheap iPad of the future and we’ll release this.

(1h 32m 20s)

And then next year, maybe we’ll rejigger things and have a fresh strategy with everything, hardware wise.

(1h 32m 28s) Rob Copeland:

Yeah, yeah, I hope they do.

(1h 32m 29s)

I hope they kind of clean up the message is a little bit muddy.

(1h 32m 33s)

They have too many,

(1h 32m 35s)

you know, the fact that the old iPad 9,

(1h 32m 39s) Tim Chaten:

• Yeah, the price point thing is just like,

(1h 32m 39s) Rob Copeland:

yes, yeah, it’s confusing.

(1h 32m 40s) Tim Chaten:

they’re trying to get a price point,

(1h 32m 42s)

but they’re struggling with that, I see,

(1h 32m 44s)

but you could eat the margins for a little bit.

(1h 32m 47s) Rob Copeland:

Yes, yes, exactly.

(1h 32m 48s) Tim Chaten:

That’s fine, come on, just eat it, just eat it.

(1h 32m 50s)

Give us a good iPad at a cheap price point for a little bit, yeah.

(1h 32m 50s) Rob Copeland:

Yeah, they can afford it.

(1h 32m 53s) Tim Chaten:

They can, yeah.

(1h 32m 55s)

Yeah, it’s, yeah.

(1h 32m 56s) Rob Copeland:

Yes, yes.

(1h 32m 58s)

[laughs]

Versatility

(1h 32m 59s) Tim Chaten:

And the versatility is something that is really powerful, the iPad.

(1h 33m 3s)

Like right now it’s acting as like a simplified Mac hooks up to this external display.

(1h 33m 10s)

It can be a laptop or a tablet and you know it just morphs into all these form factors.

(1h 33m 19s) Rob Copeland:

Yeah, yeah, it does. It’s kind of amazing to kind of weigh the versatility versus how much power a device has.

(1h 33m 31s)

Since Apple started adding the M chips to the iPad, the power has gone up substantially.

(1h 33m 37s) Tim Chaten:

Yeah.

(1h 33m 38s) Rob Copeland:

Not as much as a Mac, of course, but you kind of mix that with the versatility,

(1h 33m 42s)

and you’ve got a device that really can do, for a lot of people, everything.

(1h 33m 47s)

Even beyond just…

(1h 33m 49s)

The simple tasks that in the past you’d say, “Well, if you’re doing web browsing and email and some notes, then the iPad’s fine, but anything else, you really want a Mac.”

(1h 33m 58s)

And now we’re in a world where, no, actually, the line that differentiates professional high-end just keeps shifting to the right, to the right.

(1h 34m 11s)

And I think that’s great, because you get a device, a versatile device, that isn’t as limiting as…

(1h 34m 19s)

it used to be.

(1h 34m 21s) Tim Chaten:

And if you’re an artist, I mean, Apple Pencil, it’s, I mean, there’s no, no brainer. You’d want an iPad at least as part of your computer regimen. Yeah. And so I guess going, what was your Mac?

(1h 34m 27s) Rob Copeland:

Yes.

(1h 34m 29s)

Yeah, exactly, exactly.

(1h 34m 38s) Tim Chaten:

Were you a laptop guy or desktop?

(1h 34m 42s) Rob Copeland:

I have had, most recently, right now I have an M1 Pro, MacBook Pro, a MacBook Pro with an M1, well with an M1 Max actually in it, which sits on my desk and doesn’t ever get used anymore, so it’s, maybe I shouldn’t have bought that one.

(1h 34m 49s) Tim Chaten:

Okay.

(1h 34m 49s)

Micro Pro.

(1h 34m 51s)

Yep.

(1h 34m 51s)

Yeah.

(1h 34m 54s)

Yeah.

(1h 35m)

[laughs]

(1h 35m 3s) Rob Copeland:

I’ve had laptops for a while, but I also had the 27-inch iMac 5K, I’ve had a Mac Mini,

(1h 35m 12s)

yeah, but right now, my Mac is a MacBook Pro, and yeah.

(1h 35m 15s) Tim Chaten:

Yeah, gotcha, yeah. I kind of wish the Mac Mini and the Mac Studio still had an optical drive slot at the top of that thing. I know why they don’t do it, but it’s such a perfect form factor for that. Probably, yeah. That’d be an interesting add-on option. For $500, you can add a CD drive.

(1h 35m 26s) Rob Copeland:

Oh, that’d be wild. Yeah, it is. There’s probably space for the drive in there. Yeah, yeah.

(1h 35m 38s)

Yes, yeah. Yeah, that’s exactly what it would be.

(1h 35m 43s) Tim Chaten:

knowing apples pricing, you know.

(1h 35m 52s)

Okay, yeah, anything else you want to touch on before we wrap it up?

(1h 35m 55s) Rob Copeland:

Um…

(1h 35m 56s)

No, I really enjoyed being on. As I said, this is my first podcast, so it was a lot of fun.

(1h 36m 4s)

I appreciate you having me, and we got to talk about a lot of really interesting…

(1h 36m 10s) Tim Chaten:

Absolutely. Yeah. Thank you so much for your time. This has been a fun, fun chat and I’m looking forward to sharing this with everybody as they’re doing their drives across country for family. Yes. So where can people follow you online? You mentioned Mastodon earlier

(1h 36m 20s) Rob Copeland:

For Thanksgiving? Yes. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah.

Where can people follow you online?

(1h 36m 25s) Rob Copeland:

Oh, yes. On Mastodon, I am CopeRob, C-O-P-E-R-O-B, @mastodon.social.

(1h 36m 40s)

And my blog is at wordsfromrob.com.

(1h 36m 44s)

And my tech talk for if anyone wants to point family members that are not…

(1h 36m 48s) Tim Chaten:

Excellent. Well, thank you so much, Rob. I really do appreciate your time today.

(1h 36m 50s) Rob Copeland:

super techie is robstechtalk.com.

(1h 36m 56s) Tim Chaten:

Well, that’s my discussion with Rob. My thanks to Rob for his time recording this episode.

(1h 36m 57s) Rob Copeland:

Yeah, thank you, Tim. Appreciate it.

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