My Sweet Setup

With regards to hardware I have a very sweet setup. It is primarily iOS based, however there are three instances where I use Macs.

AT&T Gigabyte Internet

Let’s face it I am an internet addict and AT&T Gigabyte internet is feeding my addiction. I use it primarily for productivity. I have little interest in bit torrent or content streaming or gaming. I generally get over 200 Mb/s and I am happy. I am sure I could get more but it is all I need. I only pay 100/month for this. I would gladly pay double that.

I am definitely not dissing gamers or bit torrenters.  There is a lot I intend to learn from gamers and blockchain technology that will benefit and future proof my workflows.

12.9 inch IPad Pro

I primarily use a second generation 12.9 inch iPad Pro and I love it. Of course I have the LTE cellular model for internet anywhere.

There is not a huge advantage to this particular iPad as opposed to other iPad Pros. Any iPad Pro would work fine.  iPad Air 2 doesn’t work with an Apple Pencil so I wouldn’t recommend it.

Magic Keyboard

I have the Smart Keyboard and I use that for my cover but i prefer the Magic Keyboard so that I can orient my device in portrait mode. The typing experience is also better. It charges through lightning and the battery lasts a long time. If I could do it again I would not have spent the money on the Smart Keyboard.

Canopy Keyboard Case

I use the Canopy keyboard case by Studio Neat to hold my iPad in portrait mode. I had to reinforce it with Velcro tape to hold up the big iPad in this orientation.

Apple Pencil

I use this device primarily in ZoomNotes to take notes. I am not much of an artist. I found a wooden magnet case on Etsy that works well.

Apple AirPods

AirPods are the greatest piece of technology innovation in a long time. I use them constantly. The battery lasts for days. I put the Air Pods in a Pod Pocket case and attach that to my keychain so I always have them with me.

CZUR Scanner

I use a CZUR scanner attached to my Mac for ripping texts into pdf files. The device is amazing. It scans two pages at once at a rapid pace using a foot pedal to speed up the process. The images are OCR searchable and great quality. Oh yeah no DRM on the content. I pay for the books so I feel I should be able to have my own digital copy using this scanner. The books are consumed on my iPad.

External Battery

I highly recommend them Mophie Powerstation over the Anker external battery.  I use their XXL model.
Screens VNC

I use Screens VNC app to access my Mac when I want to download a file (usually a Youtube Video) from outside my home to my cloud. Screens is not hardware but it enhances the value of two of my hardware components, my fast internet and my Macs. Downloading videos via iOS doesn’t work very well. Again you dont have to transfer the file from the Mac to the iPad, just download it to the cloud and use the cloud to get it on the iPad remotely.

The Rest

I use an old iMac and it works fine. I use an iPhone 7 an Apple Watch Series 0 and the fourth generation Apple TV every so often but these are all minor players in my workflow. I may never update the Mac, the Apple TV or the watch. I will keep updating the iPhone yearly primarily because I am on the monthly plan. I could see the iPhone eventually replacing the iPad in my workflow.

I can only think of four reasons for using my iMac over my iPad:

• For coding
• For downloading videos from Youtube and elsewhere.
• For scanning books
• For accessing windows apps via Parallels if needed.

In Conclusion

I am sharing the hardware that I use mainly to give a context for future software blog submissions. Almost everything I do is on my iPad. Macs are used primarily for feeding content to my cloud for consumption.

Software is the main component of productivity and is the main focus of this blog.

Two MVPs and One Comeback Player

In this article I will describe two most valuable player apps and one comeback player app. Each app has tons of features that can be learned by reading the manuals and watching screencasts. I will not list these here but rather I will make a point of highlighting each app’s killer feature.

Drafts
The tag line for Drafts is “Where text starts”. I could not describe this MVP app any better. If someone is doing a list of productivity apps online and does not include Drafts, the list is trash.

The app opens up ready to accept text extremely quickly. This is the app’s killer feature.

Once the entry is completed it can be quickly sent to your everything box, stored in Drafts or acted on in an infinite number of ways. One can add, organize and rearrange share options with great ease and power. Below are some examples of ways I use Drafts:

• If I have to call someone and I don’t want my caller ID sent, I created a workflow to prepend *67 to the number and call the number all with one tap.
• I can add text to a specific folder in my everything box with one tap, or to a certain list in Reminders or to etc etc etc.

Basically I can do anything I desire. There is a voluminous library of workflows free for downloading.

The app syncs across all your devices and is amazingly quick and reliable.
Drafts currently is and will always be in ALL of my docks forever.

Notebooks 8
As much as I love Drafts, the most important app I own is Notebooks 8. I cant remember not using Notebooks. It has been around forever. It is my everything box app.

Everything goes in there from urls, to text files to pdf’s to voice files. I don’t really use it to consume information just organize it. It is generally number one on all my share sheets.

Information can be stored in folders. Folders and files can be sorted any way you want not just by date or alphabetically. This is the app’s killer feature.

You can make the root file of Notebooks any folder in Dropbox you want so essentially you can use your Dropbox as if it were partitioned. You can “partition” it as many times as you want.

Notes
Notes is the comeback app in my workflow. Notes was basically discarded in my life for years. For the following reasons that is no longer the case.

• It can be launched from the control center.
• It handles text and photos and “markdown” like formatting easily

The killer feature is that exporting the text plus formatting plus pictures into emails or blog posts or wherever. Other apps like Ulysses and iA Writer 4.0 have trouble with making this simple.

In Conclusion
Anyone serious about iOS productivity can benefit from all the trials and errors I have encountered (and all the money I have spent). Notes is included with your device and is now amazing. Drafts and Notebooks may be the two apps I would add early on to one’s inventory.

Why I am starting an iOS Productivity blog

I am writing an iOS Productivity blog because I feel that I am an expert on iOS productivity and I can’t find this exact information anywhere else.

I spend a lot of time looking for apps and trying to optimize my productivity workflow. I have a healthy app purchasing budget and I use the latest hardware.  Many apps I have purchased I don’t use.  Having purchased them does mean that I have given them a fair shake to make my “best list”.

Apps I would like write short reviews in this blog for include the following apps:

• Notebooks 8
• Voice Dream
• Voice Dream Writer
• ZoomNotes
• Filing Cabinet
• Smart Forms
• MarginNote
• Netsnips
• Just Press Record

All of these apps are under-appreciated in my opinion.

Apps I own (including all the in app purchases) but don’t use because they aren’t the best (for me) include the following:

• OneNote
• Evernote
• GoodNotes
• Ulysses
• iA Writer 4.0
• Mindscope
• MindNode
• LiquidText
• IFTT
• Icloud apps
• SimpleNote
• Scrivener
• RecdUp

I use some of these for some things ie Notability I use to play back podcasts and take notes. I tend to give apps a new try whenever they get a major update. For example I am waiting for iA Writer and Scrivener to come out with new versions and Ulysses will surely have new dazzling features eventually. GoodNotes works great for converting handwriting to text but i don’t need that feature.

Some other apps I could not function without but I don’t intend on reviewing because they are not under-appreciated include the following:

• Drafts
• Fantastical
• Things
• Scanner Pro
• Calcbot
• Tweetbot
• Reddit
• Chronicle
• 1Password
• Apple Notes, Contacts, Photos, Reminders, Files, Mail, Messages, Voice Memos and News

In summary this blog will discuss under-appreciated apps focusing on why I like them and how I use them rather than reading to you all the features on the website.  In addition I will share useful hardware tips as well as sources of content that I recommend.