I recently upgraded my 10.5" iPad Pro to a 12.9" 2020 iPad Pro. It’s been an adjustment period, and the large device is definitely less portable, but I do like the larger screen, and the more complete on screen keyboard. The ability to better store the Apple Pencil with the iPad is also handy and makes the pencil something I use much more often.

One of the main reasons I decided to go with the big iPad though was that I wanted to get the new Magic Keyboard for it, with it’s good keyboard, backlighting, and ability to “float” the iPad over the keyboard with a fair degree of angle choice.

The keyboard arrived today, and I’m using it to type this right now. It’s pretty good. There’s not as much movement in the arm as I’d thought there would be, but it should be plenty adequate for my needs. I guess we’ll have to see as time goes one.

Now that I have a good keyboard for the iPad I’ll have to try and see just how many things I might be able to do more of on the iPad instead of my desktop. My iPad has been my primary “computing” device for years now, pretty much every since I got one, really, so it would be nice to make it even more so now that I have a decent keyboard and trackpad that I can carry around with it, along with the ability to use a mouse if I want.

I think to start with I’m going to try and blog a little more, to try and learn the workflow better. However, I think I’ll get a lot out of just the day to day stuff I can do easier now. Things like browsing the web, email, spreadsheets, etc. Anything would will be easier with the ability to use a keyboard for input of text.

Back in early 2012 I wrote a post about how I had noticed that I was reading more books since I had bought my iPad. Now a bit more than a year later I thought it might be worth revisiting that and think about what has changed.

Am I Still Using My iPad?

Absolutely. After my work laptop (where I obviously spend many hours a week working) it’s the device that I spend the most time using. All the time I used to spend on my computer reading articles has been translated to the iPad. I’d say I spend at least a couple hours a day using my iPad, often more, especially on weekends. So I’m still reading a lot of web content these days (though probably a little less than when I wrote the previous post) and I’m still doing it on my iPad. It really is an excellent device for that kind of activity.

Am I Still Reading Books on My iPad?

No, but it’s not because I stopped reading ebooks. I decided to get myself a Kindle as I’d been interested in trying one out for some time, and, just as many people before me, I have found it to be an excellent device for reading ebooks. I was happy enough reading books on my iPad but the Kindle is just much more convenient, because:

• It’s small enough to hold comfortably in one hand
• The battery life is much longer than that of a tablet so you don’t need to think about charging it much. I can go about a month between charging and thinking about doing it again, which is great.
• I used the Kindle reader app on my iPad but it didn’t have the store aspect build into it. The Kindle does, which makes it that little bit more convenient when I want to download another book.
• Being a standalone device I can sit down and read without feeling the itch to switch to another app and do something. That wasn’t ever really a big problem for me but there are so many thing besides reading a book that I could be doing, so it’s nice to have a reading environment with just a little bit less temptation to do something else.

Reading In General

My book reading goal for 2012 was eight books, which isn’t a lot but it was more than I had been getting through in previous years. I ended up going well over on that goal. I started reading 21 novels or short stories and completed 17, of which two were short stories. I may never get around to finishing some of the books I started and didn’t finish because they just didn’t hold my attention.

In the last post I thought that the two main reasons why I was reading more with my iPad around were because it was convient and because I thought it was cool. I they both still hold up, though the coolness has now shifted to my Kindle since that is where all my book reading happens. Convenience is always an important factor, but idea that something is just plain neat is always a good motivator and I’m still finding that to be the case even after having a Kindle for over a year now.

The advantages and disadvantages that I mentioned in may last post still stand, and nothing has really changed there. Amazon does have some kind of lending facility in place now for customers who have a Prime membership, but as far as I know that isn’t available in Australia. Even if it was I’m not sure I’d get it. For the $70+ dollars a year it would likely cost I could buy a half dozen books and I don’t go through them all that quickly. For those in the US who have Prime for quicker deliveries I guess it’s just a bonus that they can borrow books as well, but I don’t think I’d bother with it simply so that I could borrow in the first place, not unless I was reading a lot more books than I am.

The Future (again)

I see myself continuing to read at about the same pace I am currently, which means I’ll probably still be able to knock off around a dozen books a year. That’s hardly a voracious pace of reading, but it’s a pace that I’ll be happy to be able to achieve. It’s quick enough that I should feel like I’m getting something done and quick enough that I should be able to get to most of the books I think I’d like to read in a somewhat timely fashion.