App Updates, Return to Craft, Rock Paper Pencil Check-In

Intro

Jeff Battersby (0s)

Do I hear dogs barking, Tom?

Tom Anderson (0s)

You do someone's home, yeah.

Tom Anderson (0s)

I don't wanna know about your imperfections, dude, prefer to leave you on a pedestal, so I'll improve, 'cause if I'm finding out you know I'll have to ask you to do the same.

Tom Anderson (5s)

So the security detail is at full attention here at the compound.

Jeff Battersby (8s)

That's good. Happy to hear that.

Jeff Battersby (11s)

You're at the compound.

Tom Anderson (20s)

Hello, everyone, and welcome to Basic AF, a mostly tech podcast, 95.2% of the time.

Tom Anderson (28s)

I'm Anderson and Jeff Battersby.

Tom Anderson (30s)

you once again. Thanks so much for joining us. Jeff, how are you, sir?

Jeff Battersby (33s)

I am very well, Tom Anderson.

Tom Anderson (36s)

Great. I do like to hear that. Yeah. Yeah. Getting into late summer.

Jeff Battersby (38s)

Yeah, me too.

Jeff Battersby (39s)

I'm, uh, you know, enjoying the last legs of summer.

Tom Anderson (45s)

Yeah. It's been so hot. I'm ready for it to go.

Jeff Battersby (50s)

Yeah, I don't know, man.

Tom Anderson (51s)

And then I'll start complaining that the days are too short. I hate the dark and,

Jeff Battersby (54s)

And you're cold.

Tom Anderson (54s)

you know, never. There's about eight weeks out of the 52 week year that I'm content.

Jeff Battersby (59s)

Great.

Tom Anderson (1m)

Like most of us.

Jeff Battersby (1m 3s)

You're sleeping.

Tom Anderson (1m 4s)

Yep. So we are on episode 42 show notes for this episode can be found at basicafshow.com/42. All right. Let's get in.

Jeff Battersby (1m 13s)

For two or two and just a reminder at the top of the show

Jeff Battersby (1m 19s)

You know subscribe like do all those things in your podcast app

Jeff Battersby (1m 24s)

we are Actually growing we're starting to see a lot of a lot more downloads and we really appreciate that and we'd like more we you know We're avaricious. We want everything I think.

Tom Anderson (1m 30s)

So, to be fully transparent with you, dear listener, if we may, we have a goal of hitting 100 followers in Apple Podcasts.

Help Us Hit 100!

Tom Anderson (1m 46s)

We are currently at 63, so tell your friends, please.

Jeff Battersby (1m 50s)

Yeah, yeah, we would like a hundred plus if you follow us in Apple podcasts or any of those other places, it also pushes us up in the algorithm.

Tom Anderson (1m 52s)

That'd be great.

Jeff Battersby (2m)

It does.

Jeff Battersby (2m 1s)

It's dumb, but yeah, that's the way it goes.

Jeff Battersby (2m 5s)

So yeah, we, and we're starting to get people that we don't know listening to us as opposed to my mother and Tom's few, very few friends.

Tom Anderson (2m 12s)

Yeah, a couple of coworkers I have and a few friends, so yeah, we do appreciate that.

Tom Anderson (2m 18s)

And we like to say this often because we do, and there's a lot of places you can go for this type of content.

Tom Anderson (2m 22s)

And the fact that you'll hang out with us is greatly appreciated because we know there's so many places vying for your attention these days.

Tom Anderson (2m 31s)

So thank you so much.

Tom Anderson (2m 32s)

We appreciate it.

Jeff Battersby (2m 32s)

Yeah, yeah, we do appreciate it.

Tom Anderson (2m 34s)

So this show, we're going to talk about some software, some new software, some old software that is maybe being used by us again.

Tom Anderson (2m 43s)

The Rock Paper Pencil we talked about last year.

Tom Anderson (2m 46s)

We're going to revisit that too.

Tom Anderson (2m 48s)

So, Jeff, why don't you start us off?

Tom Anderson (2m 49s)

You've got a new little utility that you've been using and recommended to me, so I've downloaded it,

Tom Anderson (2m 53s)

but haven't spent a bunch of time with it yet.

NotchNook

Jeff Battersby (2m 55s)

Yeah, so there's a new little app called Notch Nook by a company called IO Cafe. I think it's IO not LO. And it's, I don't know.

Jeff Battersby (3m 9s)

You know, why use lowercase letters when you can use uppercase letters? I don't know. We'll give it to you. Right. And if you look at, oh, it's LO maybe. It's LO Cafe. Low Cafe.

Tom Anderson (3m 13s)

We'll link it. Don't worry about it.

Jeff Battersby (3m 23s)

because if you look at the bottom there.

Jeff Battersby (3m 26s)

If you look at the bottom of their website,

Jeff Battersby (3m 28s)

they're using a different font,

Jeff Battersby (3m 29s)

and I can see what's there.

Jeff Battersby (3m 31s)

Anyway, Notchnook, which is on version 1.2 as we speak,

Jeff Battersby (3m 36s)

from Locafe, is for Macs that have a notch,

Jeff Battersby (3m 45s)

and apparently it also works with Macs that don't have a notch,

Jeff Battersby (3m 48s)

but I haven't played with it in any way like that.

Jeff Battersby (3m 51s)

What this does is enhances the abilities and capabilities of that notch.

Jeff Battersby (3m 56s)

So it puts a little application that sits up around that,

Jeff Battersby (4m)

much like what you find on your phone

Jeff Battersby (4m 4s)

with the, what was the island called, Tom?

Tom Anderson (4m 7s)

The dynamic island

Jeff Battersby (4m 9s)

Correct, it gives you a dynamic island for your,

Tom Anderson (4m 12s)

Which I struggled with last show yeah

Jeff Battersby (4m 14s)

yes, you did, and so did I, just struggle with it now,

Jeff Battersby (4m 16s)

even though you just said it.

Tom Anderson (4m 17s)

Now I'm second-guessing myself if that's even right >> [LAUGH]

Jeff Battersby (4m 20s)

I think it is dynamic island.

Jeff Battersby (4m 22s)

So what it does is it puts a dynamic island up there

Jeff Battersby (4m 26s)

on your Mac, and it's really clever.

Jeff Battersby (4m 28s)

A couple of other nice things about it,

Jeff Battersby (4m 29s)

I mean, it can show media that's playing,

Jeff Battersby (4m 31s)

and you've got the ability to look at what's going on and skip through a song if you want to,

Jeff Battersby (4m 37s)

or see what album you're currently playing,

Jeff Battersby (4m 39s)

just like the dynamic island does on your iPhone.

Jeff Battersby (4m 42s)

If you click it, it shows you more detailed information,

Jeff Battersby (4m 45s)

and you've got the ability, if you want to,

Jeff Battersby (4m 48s)

to be able to rearrange that.

Jeff Battersby (4m 50s)

The other thing that's kind of cool about it is it puts airdrop.

Jeff Battersby (4m 55s)

right there at your fingertips and it puts what's called a file tray there so you can drag files to it and drag files from it.

Jeff Battersby (5m 4s)

You can airdrop items by selecting the airdrop icon and sending things to people.

Jeff Battersby (5m 11s)

Because I'm a sucker, I tweeted this out and got 35% off my, 35% off on the price.

Tom Anderson (5m 17s)

Good for you.

Jeff Battersby (5m 19s)

So I only paid $16 and change for this, it's $25 I paid for it outright rather than do

Jeff Battersby (5m 25s)

a $3 U.S. monthly subscription because good God, why do I want another subscription?

Jeff Battersby (5m 34s)

But it is a, it's a slick little app and even in the time that I just downloaded it, which was maybe a couple of weeks ago, they've done a ton of updating to it.

Jeff Battersby (5m 49s)

So cool app, Locafe has a bunch of other apps on their site as well.

Jeff Battersby (5m 56s)

of things, but this is a, this is a nice use of that notch area kind of making it not feel as useless as it, as it usually is.

Jeff Battersby (6m 7s)

So good stuff, highly recommend it.

Tom Anderson (6m 8s)

And now that this is app, you know, now that this is out,

Tom Anderson (6m 12s)

how long do you think it'll be till it gets Sherlocked?

Jeff Battersby (6m 15s)

I don't know why Apple didn't do it in the first place I'm gonna be be honest you know it should have been it should have been done they should have been done that so

Tom Anderson (6m 17s)

Cause it seems so obvious that that'd be a fun little thing to do,

Tom Anderson (6m 20s)

but I don't know who knows.

Tom Anderson (6m 24s)

Right.

Tom Anderson (6m 26s)

Yeah.

Tom Anderson (6m 31s)

All right.

Tom Anderson (6m 32s)

Yeah.

Tom Anderson (6m 32s)

So I just, I just downloaded that recently and haven't spent a whole lot of time with it, but it does look fun.

Tom Anderson (6m 38s)

Play with it.

Jeff Battersby (7m 1s)

Yeah, it's great.

Jeff Battersby (7m 5s)

I highly recommend it,

Jeff Battersby (7m 6s)

particularly if you have a Mac with a notch.

Jeff Battersby (7m 9s)

It's good stuff, works well.

Tom Anderson (7m 10s)

Yeah, or even if you don't, you can pretend you do.

Jeff Battersby (7m 11s)

You can pretend.

Jeff Battersby (7m 14s)

I pretend that I'm many things.

Tom Anderson (7m 14s)

Like I could put that on.

Tom Anderson (7m 15s)

I'll put that on my Mac mini and I'll have a notch.

Jeff Battersby (7m 17s)

Yes, you will.

Tom Anderson (7m 19s)

Great. OK, so there's one down, what's next?

Jeff Battersby (7m 21s)

One down. So beta testing.

Shareshot

Jeff Battersby (7m 24s)

In TestFlight, there's an app that both Tom and I have been looking at that we like a lot called

Jeff Battersby (7m 31s)

share shot what it does is looks at any screenshots in your from your phone or iPad any screenshots in your in your library so it's only looking at the at the screenshots and it allows you to put lovely little borders or nothing around the outside of it it's a really clever really quick little app that I like a a lot when I'm taking screenshots.

Jeff Battersby (8m 1s)

I want to send that information off to other people we both use on our Mac and I always forget the name of this app

Jeff Battersby (8m 8s)

CleanShot Pro. There we go. I didn't for our clean shot

Jeff Battersby (8m 11s)

which Awesome on the Mac, but there has not been up until now

Jeff Battersby (8m 18s)

with SureShot anything

Jeff Battersby (8m 20s)

that that is like that and this is like that for your

Jeff Battersby (8m 25s)

For your iPhone so or your iPad. So if you're taking a lot of screenshots, do I hear dogs?

Jeff Battersby (8m 31s)

Parking

Tom Anderson (8m 33s)

You do someone's home, yeah, so the security detail is at full attention here at the compound.

Jeff Battersby (8m 38s)

That's good happy to hear that David Krish, I mean, sorry, did I say that out loud?

Tom Anderson (8m 45s)

And the pod closet is really the safety room, the panic room, yeah.

Tom Anderson (8m 51s)

It's really not, I'm staring at my wife's clothes on the rack, but yeah, that's the dogs.

Jeff Battersby (8m 55s)

Is that a thing Tom staring at your wife's clothes [laughter]

Tom Anderson (8m 57s)

No, no, they're right there, I don't have a choice.

Tom Anderson (9m)

choice. I get like space for six shirts and then the rest is her.

Tom Anderson (9m 3s)

She looks good in them so that's fine. For the screenshots for iPhone and watch, previously I have been using for quite a while now Federico Vaticci's Apple Frames which is a shortcut and yeah the dogs are still going crazy so hope you like dogs and it's does a lot of that but it's and he's done a really

Jeff Battersby (9m 6s)

There you go.

Jeff Battersby (9m 19s)

Love your dog.

Jeff Battersby (9m 21s)

Yes.

Tom Anderson (9m 33s)

good job of updating and everything so I've used that but this is just a little bit simpler to be able just to launch the app go in and grab it plus you get some additional features like the the frames the Apple frame shortcut would put it in the device and it looks great and it has transparent background and everything. ShareShot gives you some options for lighting effects and backgrounds and you can pick different watch band colors and things like that so yeah a lot of nice little details in there for that so that one's worth checking out if you share screenshots.

Jeff Battersby (10m 3s)

Yeah, it is. So you do have to be on test flight to get it. It's still in beta. So, correct.

Tom Anderson (10m 3s)

Right, yeah, at least at the time we record this, maybe it'll be out before,

Tom Anderson (10m 7s)

but I'm not sure what the beta schedule is.

Tom Anderson (10m 9s)

So if you're not, just keep an eye out for it.

Tom Anderson (10m 11s)

We'll tell you when it's in the store.

Tom Anderson (10m 12s)

what the beta schedule is.

Tom Anderson (10m 13s)

So if you're not, just keep an eye out for it.

Jeff Battersby (10m 17s)

Yeah, and we may want to

Jeff Battersby (10m 20s)

We may try to get the developer for this on

Jeff Battersby (10m 23s)

Because we like it a lot so maybe in time for that, but yeah, it's a it's really pretty slick

Jeff Battersby (10m 30s)

it has

Jeff Battersby (10m 32s)

By default it has a bunch of frames

Jeff Battersby (10m 36s)

That are built in

Jeff Battersby (10m 38s)

Right now only one for an Apple watch ultra But it has a the orange beige trail loop on there and so it

Jeff Battersby (10m 48s)

So it's really it's a really

Jeff Battersby (10m 52s)

Really good little app and the nice thing about that is is when you've taken a screenshot on

Jeff Battersby (10m 59s)

On a particular device it already knows what device it is and and then shows you the potential frames for that so

Jeff Battersby (11m 7s)

You don't have to choose a frame. It doesn't it doesn't put your

Jeff Battersby (11m 12s)

your iPhone screenshot in a

Jeff Battersby (11m 15s)

Apple watch ultra frame

Jeff Battersby (11m 17s)

You know it's smart enough to know what what device it was taken on and provide the right the right

Jeff Battersby (11m 22s)

Wrapper for it so really

Tom Anderson (11m 24s)

Yeah, yeah, and he's been responsive for suggestions too, which is which is good

Jeff Battersby (11m 30s)

Yeah, so there's one highly recommended

Tom Anderson (11m 31s)

Okay, all right I see next on the list bartender

Bartender

Jeff Battersby (11m 38s)

Was this purchased by someone else read something about that and wasn't in a good way, I don't know that's a fair question

Tom Anderson (11m 46s)

I feel like it was, and I don't want to go on record in saying it was.

Tom Anderson (11m 48s)

So anyway, let's go with what you were going to talk about.

Jeff Battersby (11m 49s)

All right yeah, anyway a bartender is

Tom Anderson (11m 50s)

We'll leave that out because I can't say for sure.

Jeff Battersby (11m 53s)

An app that kind of cleans up. What's in your

Jeff Battersby (11m 57s)

In your menu bar, I've been

Jeff Battersby (12m)

using Bartender now for probably, and I think, Tom, you're the one who recommended it to me,

Jeff Battersby (12m 6s)

for probably about a year. Yeah.

Tom Anderson (12m 6s)

It's been out for a long time.

Jeff Battersby (12m 12s)

It's a great little app. You can customize it in a lot of different ways to be able to basically have it display the information in

Jeff Battersby (12m 30s)

your menu bar the way that you want it to. Hides most everything that you don't need until you click the little bartender icon. And then when you click the little bartender icon,

Jeff Battersby (12m 40s)

it brings it up. I'm looking to see whether or not they were purchased by somebody.

Jeff Battersby (12m 45s)

I don't see any news. I'm sorry. But I'll...

Tom Anderson (12m 47s)

Yeah, well, I seem to yeah, I seem to read it was on Reddit.

Tom Anderson (12m 50s)

People were talking about it.

Tom Anderson (12m 51s)

And it was, it may not be a bad thing that they sold it, but I don't know.

Tom Anderson (12m 54s)

It's, it's Redditors too.

Tom Anderson (12m 56s)

So whatever, let's not give, let's not put too much into that.

Jeff Battersby (12m 57s)

Yeah, there are several, I really like this one a lot.

Tom Anderson (12m 59s)

But, um, but yeah, that one's been around for a long time.

Tom Anderson (13m 3s)

And there's some other ones of those too.

Tom Anderson (13m 4s)

If you don't want to use that one, there's, there's some options for cleaning the old menu bar up.

Tom Anderson (13m 12s)

And particularly if you're on a MacBook with a notch, those tend to run over and it's nice to just.

Jeff Battersby (13m 18s)

Yes, absolutely. So, I highly recommend that app,

Jeff Battersby (13m 22s)

really cleans up the menu bar.

Jeff Battersby (13m 26s)

Oh, somebody did acquire them.

Jeff Battersby (13m 31s)

Okay. That's for another day.

Jeff Battersby (13m 33s)

We can have a conversation about that in the future.

Jeff Battersby (13m 36s)

Yeah. As of June 5th,

Jeff Battersby (13m 40s)

it has been bought by somebody.

Jeff Battersby (13m 44s)

I'm not going to read all this now, but yeah,

Jeff Battersby (13m 45s)

they have been picked up by.

Tom Anderson (13m 46s)

Okay. Yeah. And again, not to say that's good or bad. We don't know anything with some of the discussion was, we'll say slanted and we'll just leave it at that.

Jeff Battersby (13m 48s)

Yeah, okay, well, we'll figure it out later.

Jeff Battersby (13m 55s)

I have not noticed any problems and did not even, nor was I at all aware that it was purchased.

Jeff Battersby (14m 3s)

But so far, you know, at this point in time, still one of my favorite apps.

Jeff Battersby (14m 8s)

So you want to clean up your menu bar?

Jeff Battersby (14m 10s)

I can recommend that.

Jeff Battersby (14m 11s)

Good choices.

Jeff Battersby (14m 14s)

Tom, this one's you.

Tom Anderson (14m 17s)

We have talked at length in various episodes about note-taking apps and the ones that we like.

Back to Craft

Tom Anderson (14m 24s)

Ones we've used, ones we've stopped using, new ones we've started to use, and things that we like, and things like that.

Tom Anderson (14m 30s)

I actually, in my newsletter a few months ago, did a piece, "Three Alternatives to Evernote," which was Apple Notes, Kraft, and Bear.

Tom Anderson (14m 40s)

And that's still up on my website if you want to check it out.

Tom Anderson (14m 43s)

But anyway, I've been using Bear for...

Tom Anderson (14m 47s)

I don't know, the last 10-12 months, I think it's about that long, is my daily note-taking app. It is a wonderful app. It is a pleasure to look at. It is a pleasure to type in and work in. But I might be using Craft a little bit more of late, which I have used before. Like, I used that for a couple of years before I went to Bear, actually. And so, Bear, as I've said, is...

Jeff Battersby (15m 7s)

Really? Why?

Tom Anderson (15m 17s)

It's great. But there are a couple of areas, for me, and again, all of this comes down to user-specific things, like what type of notes you take, what type of things do you like, and everything. So again, this for me. And it is not a slam on Bear whatsoever. I still have the subscription. I'm planning to keep this subscription. And so, the biggest thing, and we've talked about on this show a a few times, too, that when I've got kind of

Tom Anderson (15m 47s)

a big problem or a big idea or project that I'm trying to untangle, I like to sit down with the iPad, get the pencil, write it out, sketch it out, all that kind of thing, right? Do my heavy-duty thinking like that. On the iPad app for Bear, you can do that, and it works okay. The handwriting part works just like you would expect anywhere else, like it's fine. Where it kind of comes up short and falls apart for me is...

Tom Anderson (16m 17s)

in the way that it's implemented in the application. So if you're on the iPad and you have Bear Open and you've got your note there and you go to bring up a sketch, I think is what they call it, you get a tiny little box that shows up in the note that is maybe two-thirds of the width of the note that you're working in.

Tom Anderson (16m 43s)

And so that, you know.

Tom Anderson (16m 48s)

Because if you've got your tags and your note list and then your editor, it's going to be really small.

Tom Anderson (16m 52s)

But if you get rid of some of that stuff,

Tom Anderson (16m 54s)

it gets to be a little bit bigger.

Tom Anderson (16m 55s)

You can drag it down to extend it vertically,

Tom Anderson (16m 57s)

but you can't get it to go full screen.

Tom Anderson (17m)

And also, if your hand kind of drifts off of the writing area, you can inadvertently go back into like typing mode and then you've got to tap the note again and start to write.

Tom Anderson (17m 10s)

And is it awful?

Tom Anderson (17m 12s)

No, it's not awful.

Tom Anderson (17m 13s)

And I don't want to project it that way.

Tom Anderson (17m 15s)

Is it a little?

Tom Anderson (17m 17s)

Limiting I think it is

Tom Anderson (17m 20s)

Because I've got a 12.9 inch iPad and

Tom Anderson (17m 25s)

I get this tiny little space to write in and so that has been grading me a bit

Tom Anderson (17m 33s)

So that's kind of the big thing So by comparison in Apple notes and in craft if you go into a handwriting session

Tom Anderson (17m 40s)

It will take that full screen. So I get the entire

Tom Anderson (17m 45s)

tablet display

Tom Anderson (17m 47s)

to work in.

Tom Anderson (17m 48s)

So that's just probably, you know, twice as much room to work and I don't have to worry about inadvertently tapping out of it because my wrist touches somewhere funny, you know.

Tom Anderson (17m 59s)

But I've also noticed that for one of the things that I use pretty extensively, and I think the reason this is coming up is we're in the busiest time of the year at work.

Tom Anderson (18m 12s)

So it's, it's that beautiful time where summer projects have to be.

Tom Anderson (18m 17s)

their deadlines and then the students are coming back and we've got all that work around that.

Tom Anderson (18m 21s)

And in craft, one of the things that I liked and used quite a bit is the way that you can have sub pages inside of a note, which they call actually documents that aren't really, they don't call them notes, I don't think anymore. But so you'd have a note, it would be ABC project,

Tom Anderson (18m 37s)

and you've got a bunch of text in there to keep kind of the page organized, you can do a sub page.

Tom Anderson (18m 44s)

So you start typing, make this a new page.

Tom Anderson (18m 47s)

And then you get an entirely new canvas to work in that is inside of the main document page.

Tom Anderson (18m 54s)

So it keeps things kind of orderly,

Tom Anderson (18m 56s)

especially for bigger projects where there's lots of things moving around.

Tom Anderson (19m 1s)

And so I've kind of missed that 'cause I've run into that,

Tom Anderson (19m 3s)

like the bare notes just get kind of long.

Tom Anderson (19m 6s)

And it does have the folding, right?

Tom Anderson (19m 8s)

So you can, if you're using headers and everything,

Tom Anderson (19m 10s)

you can kind of shrink some of that down.

Tom Anderson (19m 13s)

But the subpages thing isn't there.

Tom Anderson (19m 17s)

I think Kraft does better with the back linking.

Tom Anderson (19m 21s)

So if you're working in a note and there's another note that you want to reference,

Tom Anderson (19m 25s)

Bear has it, but Kraft will do it to the block level.

Tom Anderson (19m 29s)

So if there is a specific bit of text in a note,

Tom Anderson (19m 33s)

I can even link to that.

Tom Anderson (19m 34s)

Like it doesn't have to be just to a note.

Tom Anderson (19m 36s)

So, you know, again, more of those,

Tom Anderson (19m 37s)

it's just a different philosophy and then, you know,

Tom Anderson (19m 40s)

one's not inherently better than the other and they're just different.

Tom Anderson (19m 44s)

And so I've gone back to it for a bit.

Tom Anderson (19m 48s)

But for that, for those reasons,

Tom Anderson (19m 51s)

primarily the tables are a bit more functional because Bear is a markdown editor.

Tom Anderson (19m 54s)

And so that's the beauty of it,

Tom Anderson (19m 56s)

but that's also some of the limitations, right?

Tom Anderson (19m 58s)

It's markdown and you get what markdown has.

Tom Anderson (20m)

And it's great that it's true to markdown because that has benefits if you want to move things around.

Tom Anderson (20m 6s)

So that's where I'm at and we'll see.

Tom Anderson (20m 11s)

I think I'll probably just coexist with the two.

Jeff Battersby (20m 17s)

Two, two.

Tom Anderson (20m 18s)

Because I never canceled the craft subscription.

Tom Anderson (20m 21s)

Kept it.

Jeff Battersby (20m 21s)

You never did?

Tom Anderson (20m 22s)

No, 'cause it's a few bucks a month and I had stuff in and I exported about half of it out.

Jeff Battersby (20m 24s)

My God.

Tom Anderson (20m 28s)

And to craft's credit, with the text bundles,

Tom Anderson (20m 31s)

it imported in beautifully and it goes the same way.

Tom Anderson (20m 34s)

Bear does that too.

Tom Anderson (20m 35s)

So they interoperate very well.

Tom Anderson (20m 38s)

And so they're good.

Tom Anderson (20m 41s)

So we'll see.

Tom Anderson (20m 41s)

I don't know.

Jeff Battersby (20m 42s)

Okay.

Tom Anderson (20m 42s)

There's to be determined.

Jeff Battersby (20m 45s)

Cool, cool.

Are We Still Using Rock Paper Pencil?

Jeff Battersby (20m 46s)

All right.

Jeff Battersby (20m 47s)

Um, rock paper pencil to recall, um, several months ago now, uh, both Tom and I got a little, it's kind of like a screen protector with a special tip for an Apple pencil, um, that makes it so writing on an iPad is more like writing on paper, uh, thus the name rock paper pencil.

Jeff Battersby (21m 10s)

Um, I have been

Jeff Battersby (21m 12s)

using that, uh, on the regular. In fact, it's kind of amazing, but, you know, I was out in California, uh, earlier, actually late last year, a couple of times. Um, and I'm in the middle of a pretty big writing project. And so as part of that writing project, I would trip off to the library when I was at my mom's house and I would spend a couple of hours there and then I would come back home to the house and whatever I had worked on in the library, I started editing on the

Jeff Battersby (21m 42s)

iPad, because I didn't want to print out as I had done at home, print out 4,000 pages on my mom's inkjet printer and feel responsible for that. And what's really amazing is I, when I started doing that hand editing using rock paper pencil on the iPad, man, it made a huge difference for me. I think I've mentioned before, the slipperiness of the iPad.

Jeff Battersby (22m 12s)

Just the iPad screen with that pencil screen, my handwriting stinks anyway, and that just made it stink worse.

Jeff Battersby (22m 22s)

And just the fact that I have friction between the two, it's made it now that the only way that I edit documents is on the iPad.

Jeff Battersby (22m 32s)

And the upside is I have, instead of a huge stack of paper with all my edited archives,

Jeff Battersby (22m 38s)

I have folders for everything that I'm working on.

Jeff Battersby (22m 42s)

go back and look at what I had done personally.

Jeff Battersby (22m 44s)

So I am all in on rock, paper, pencil.

Jeff Battersby (22m 47s)

I will say that if I'm watching, you know, say a movie or something like that while I'm cooking dinner or doing something of that nature, I peel it off because it is clearer,

Jeff Battersby (22m 59s)

you know, on the screen when that's removed.

Jeff Battersby (23m 1s)

But as far as the day to day, when I'm working on the iPad and I'm using the iPad now more and more for work, probably than I ever have, because it's because of rock, paper, pencil and my ability to.

Tom Anderson (23m 11s)

Oh look at that little detail you slipped in. Yeah look at that.

Jeff Battersby (23m 12s)

right now.

Tom Anderson (23m 18s)

Well we'll have to have Riley back on to talk about working with the iPad to give you some pro tips. We'll get you there don't worry. I see what you did there.

Tom Anderson (23m 37s)

Have you had to replace any of the...

Tom Anderson (23m 41s)

special tips that come with it?

Tom Anderson (23m 42s)

Have you worn any down?

Jeff Battersby (23m 43s)

It's not that I've worn them down, I dropped it once and it made it scratchy, so I did replace that one.

Tom Anderson (23m 46s)

Oh, that's right.

Tom Anderson (23m 47s)

I remember that now.

Tom Anderson (23m 48s)

Yeah.

Tom Anderson (23m 48s)

And it got dented or something.

Tom Anderson (23m 50s)

Yeah.

Tom Anderson (23m 51s)

Because it's a metal tip.

Jeff Battersby (23m 52s)

But other than that, no.

Tom Anderson (23m 52s)

Like, I don't know how you would wear it down.

Tom Anderson (23m 54s)

I guess it's soft metal, but yeah.

Jeff Battersby (23m 56s)

Yeah, no.

Jeff Battersby (23m 57s)

But Tom, tell us about your rock paper pencil experience.

Tom Anderson (24m 2s)

Yep, don't disagree with anything that you said there, that it does make for a really really nice writing experience on the iPad. My wife tried it, she liked it so much we got one for her for the iPad she's using for school and she likes it. I did really like it and here's when I decided to take it off. So when the iPad Pro M4 models with the tandem OLED screens were announced and people

Tom Anderson (24m 32s)

got them and they were talking about how great the screen was and I was like oh man I bet that does look nice. So I'd had that cover on for months and you get kind of used to it and it it's not a terrible effect but it does mute the colors and it's not as sharp. So I took it off just you know because everyone was talking about how great the tandem OLED screens were and they were like yeah Yeah, but the micro-LED screen on the M2s are still-

Jeff Battersby (24m 49s)

Yeah, no, 100%.

Tom Anderson (25m 2s)

really nice too. So I took it off and I was like, "Holy smokes, that's really great."

Jeff Battersby (25m 6s)

So, now what you're telling us is you have an OLED display on your iPad.

Tom Anderson (25m 7s)

So I've left it off. I forgot how nice it looked.

Jeff Battersby (25m 14s)

Yeah, well, whatever.

Tom Anderson (25m 14s)

The poor man's version, yeah. Because I was like, "Whoa." And so I took it off.

Tom Anderson (25m 24s)

The other thing that was a minor irritation, wasn't a big deal for me though, was like,

Tom Anderson (25m 29s)

Use I still was using

Tom Anderson (25m 32s)

gestures like touch a lot with that on and after a while it gets a little smudgy just like the screen does and you'd have to clean it but it was just a another thing and then every once in a while something would get kind of stuck underneath it somehow and like I'd have to peel it back and clean it and then clean that and put it back on and and I tried I did do what you refer to there a little bit you know take it off watch some videos or something and put it back on and I was like I got to be annoying and so I just left it on.

Jeff Battersby (25m 33s)

Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Tom Anderson (26m 3s)

But yeah, that's right.

Tom Anderson (26m 4s)

And again, that's still a nice product,

Tom Anderson (26m 6s)

but I just haven't put it back on because I've gotten used to the vibrancy of.

Jeff Battersby (26m 8s)

Yeah, it's great. I am noticing now that we're talking about this.

Jeff Battersby (26m 13s)

I'm noticing that, uh, it's starting to, the actual, um, cover itself.

Jeff Battersby (26m 21s)

One of the edges is starting to, the little plastic thing starting to peel up.

Jeff Battersby (26m 25s)

So I might be in the market for a new one.

Tom Anderson (26m 26s)

right but I do like that it was magnetic along the edges so it was a little easier to you know you don't have to mess with it too much although you know a little bit of alignment yeah so you know still think it's really nice I just haven't put mine back on and I've yeah I wrote with the pencil for a long time before that I had that so and I've never really struggled with it much

Jeff Battersby (26m 29s)

That's amazing.

Jeff Battersby (26m 32s)

Yeah, no, it, it, the way it works.

Tom Anderson (26m 48s)

so don't yeah yep so that's where I land with that anything else you want yeah you

Jeff Battersby (26m 49s)

fair? That's fair. All right. Well, you can send me yours.

Tom Anderson (26m 56s)

be a backup in case you need it

Jeff Battersby (27m 1s)

I don't think there's anything else.

Jeff Battersby (27m 2s)

I think we've, uh, you know, we've tortured you these last many weeks with kind of long episodes, so I think we can kick this one to the curb and call it a day unless there's something else you want to talk about.

Close

Tom Anderson (27m 17s)

No, nothing pressing. I think we'll look forward to the Apple event

Tom Anderson (27m 22s)

Sometime here in September with the new phones and watches release of the new operating systems. Of course, we'll be going in on that We've got some guests lined up to come on the show too. So lots of good stuff coming up

Jeff Battersby (27m 31s)

Yeah, yeah, excellent, excellent.

Jeff Battersby (27m 34s)

All right, so as a reminder, feedback@basicafshow.com.

Jeff Battersby (27m 37s)

You can email us, like, love, write reviews,

Jeff Battersby (27m 43s)

like actual reviews on, you know, give us many stars and tell us how much you love us or hate us, we don't care.

Jeff Battersby (27m 51s)

You know, just show us that you're paying attention to us,

Jeff Battersby (27m 54s)

please, on any of those, any of those apps.

Jeff Battersby (28m 1s)

And you can message us directly either from the basicafshow.com website or you can get us at the bottom of your favorite podcasting app.

Jeff Battersby (28m 11s)

There's a way to send a text message to us, so feel free to do that as well.

Jeff Battersby (28m 18s)

Show Music, Psychokinetics, and Show Artwork,

Jeff Battersby (28m 22s)

Randall Martin Design, and Tom, I think that's us.

Tom Anderson (28m 26s)

Alright, that is it as always. Thank you so much for being here. Have a great rest of your day rest of your night We'll see you next time

Jeff Battersby (28m 33s)

See ya!

Outro Music (28m 43s)

♪ Like you, that gon' smash my whole world ♪