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.