my iPad Air 11-inch

How often do I use my iPad? Why did I buy it when most of my time is spent in front of a desktop? I don't work out of the office much, but I should.

And here's the reason why.

MY SETUP

This will be totally written on my iPad Air 11-inch with the M3 chip.

Those are the specifications, quite nice. I have the 512 GB version which is overkill based on my past experience. My previous iPad Pro 11-inch had 128 GB and I rarely used 50% of the storage.

Why did I upgrade from my 2020 iPad Pro?

• The battery life was dwindling.
• It was too heavy to carry around with the Magic Keyboard.
• I thought that it was too close to my MacBook Air (a laptop) and I needed something closer to a tablet. Not a laptop, not a phone.
• I dreamt of writing and programming from anywhere, without having to carry my laptop.

CONFUSION ALL AROUND

My old 2020 iPad Pro had a value of over $300 according to Apple, not worth exchanging it. So I handed that down and went shopping. I didn't know what I wanted, but it needed to be significantly different from my MacBook Air - which is stunningly awesome.

First, I took home the iPad Pro 11-inch. Yup, I know, same thing but without a Magic Keyboard. The specifications of the 2025 iPad Pro 11-inch are actually quite incredible. Thinner than the Air, lighter than the Air. Faster than the Air. And Oh, more expensive than the Air. By a lot.

I used that iPad for a day and returned it. It was too close to my old setup which I wasn't using and the cost of getting back to the start line wasn't worth it.

And so I decided perhaps I needed a larger screen. The 13-inch iPad Pro. And so I got that one. No Magic Keyboard also.

But the 2025 iPad Pro 13-inch was even closer to my MacBook Air. Same screen size, but less functional. No keyboard meant that I needed to buy one eventually, but even just handling it around the home, I found it difficult to just pick up, sit anywhere and start working.

So that went back to the Apple store as well. Next up, the iPad Mini with the A7 chip. This is the one that also uses the Apple Pencil. 8.3 inches diagonally. The specifications on this tiny, light, feature-packed device is unimaginable. This is a full computer, more powerful than some older desktops, in the palm of your hand. Capable of running my Sketchbook drawing app easily, as well as smooth, clear, crisp video playback. Using the Apple Pencil with this device is like holding a small notebook. While the glassy screen is not pleasant to write on, that can be fixed by buying a Paper Like screen protector, or changing the nib on the Pencil.

And guess what. After a couple of days, that was also returned. I have a BOOX Note Air 3, 10.3 inches diagonally and a Supernote Nomad which is 7.8 inches diagonally. So it really didn't fit in my workflow. For handwriting, the BOOX and Supernote are light years ahead of Apple's devices. But for Internet content, for programming, for writing with a keyboard, the MacBook Air takes over.

iPad Air M3 11-inch

After some hemming and hawing, I decided on a similar 11 inch iPad, but without the keyboard, and not the Pro. I got the iPad Air M3 version, with a generic case, and then I bought the Logitech Keys to Go 2 portable keyboard. I had the previous iteration of the Keys to Go, which I found not so good for long typing sessions.

And so, as I write this on my iPad Air 11 inch, M3 device, using the Keys to Go, it's still NOT the MacBook Air, but I think I could get used to it.

I'll spend lots of time on this device and see if my workflow improves. For sure the iPad has some advantages over the MacBook such as, portability, the Pencil, drawing apps and video playback.

And I think, just after one page, the typing experience may not suck as much as I originally thought. I've used it to do some programming on my Raspberry Pi which is running Code Server, as well as SSH to a Linux box and also write and debug some scripts. I have some work on PythonAnywhere, and for that, all I need is a browser, and Safari on the iPad works well.

I've heard a lot about iSH and a-Shell, but I don't need to turn this iPad into a Linux device. I have enough of those. And my MacBook Air with the Homebrew framework is as close to Linux as a Mac can get.

Do You Remember...

... the twenty-first night of September?

Literally a BANG! That's how the writing year started. So gung-ho! Much to do and say.

And I hit the blog wall early, in March sometime.

Meanwhile, my paper journal was going strong. Without fail, a page every morning. Almost robotic. Up at 6 AM, write for about 30 minutes. Then off to the bike and treadmill.

I just checked. The 17th of March was my last entry. Almost six months ago. Not even September.

My will to write anything just is vanished. There was lots of stuff to say, but I just didn't have the willpower to write it down. I kept it swimming around my noggin.

READING INSTEAD.

So I took up reading. And my reading life was excellent. A couple of books a month, borrowed from the Toronto Public Library. Mostly mystery books. Ken Follett. David Baldacci. James Patterson. Wayne Dyer and Rick Rubin. And now I'm really into Karin Slaughter. I'll be digesting her murder mysteries for a while.

The James Patterson, David Baldacci series were really good. You can anticipate their writing style. And I hooked onto those two late last year. They pulled me through August 2024 right up into March. 

Waking up. Writing. Exercise. Reading. And Repeat.

That was the prescription and it got too routine. Too fixed. I got nervous when I didn't get on the treadmill, or the elliptical.

Sadly my treadmill gave up early this year. And so I've stripped it down to its bare bones. I'd even bought spare replacement parts for it since the belt was hanging loose.

BIKING

And my motorcycle's been crying for attention too. I sold my Kibo K250, for almost the same price I got it a couple of months before the price dropped. And then sunk 1.25M shillings into a KTM 390 Adventure. Calling it an Adventure is a bit of a stretch. I've already dropped the bike at least three times. And twice in the driveway.

The bike is a joy to ride on the highway, but it's slippery on dirt roads. Must be the stock tyres which I'm getting changed out tomorrow - Monday 8th September. And then I'll try my hand at dirt again. Boldly.

The bike does not like doing groceries. It was built for distance and so later this year, I may have to stretch it out a bit, head over to Namanga on the Kenya/Tanzania border. Perhaps around Mt. Kenya - which I did with the Kibo should be fun. And then, the awesome trip to Mombasa. This time fearlessly on Mombasa Road.

WORK

And then there's work. It there, chugging along with people chugging right along with it. There's been some progress, but there could be more.

If you want something done right, you have to do it yourself. No truer words were ever spoken. Because if I don't initiate programs, then the status quo will slip into the status prehistoric. And I'm not joking.

DRAWING

I have tons of tech now. I can't count the number of headphones, both over-ear, on-ear, closed earbuds, open earbuds, bone conducting earphones. And I have a BOOX Note Air 3 black and white e ink tablet as well as a Supernote e ink tablet. And a shiny new iPad Air 11-inch. The one with the M3 chip inside. This time I did not get the Magic Keyboard which I used very little of when I had the iPad Pro.

But I'm enjoying Adobe Fresco. It may overtake Sketchbook, which has been my sketching buddy for a really long time.

I find that I enjoy concentrated detailed work. This reminds me of nights spent in the university's studio, hashing, drawing details on vellum, inking over pencil for hours. Drawing perspectives accurately. Setting them up, pencilling them in. Finally inking and shading.

Nowadays, I sketch for about five minutes and I'm tired that the drawing isn't even finished yet.

Must be the same with writing. Write, write, write, write and then get lost. Don't know where I started, and don't know where I'll end up.

BACK TO ... READING

The Wayne Dyer books were instructive. I knew, or rather I sensed, the content. Taking control of one's life. Stop being a victim. These are bold statements, but practically meaningless without the experiential component. 

Nobody's really in control of their own lives. There's the law. The police. Your family. Your own body works against you. But the insight in the book Erroneous Zones had to do with how feelings arise from thought. And how thoughts arise from words.

And how we make up our own feelings, separate from what reality is.

Finally, how FEAR is the result of the entire process.

His other book, Pulling Your Own Strings, focused on a similar theme. Being a victim.

The end of all that is fear. Not the fear of being killed, or being maimed, or being hurt. But the fear of ridicule, of condemnation, of being ignored. The fear of being made a nobody. Worse than being hurt physically.

I heard a Maya Angelou's piece on never getting angry or bothered. 

Again, words, but one thing stood out. A simple sentence that applied seems to make a lot of sense.

It's not about ME. It's about THEM.

When someone's being rude, offensive, loud, dismissive, objectionable, obnoxious, angry or whatever. It has nothing to do with me.

Maya Angelou makes a distinction between reacting and responding. When you react, you didn't think. You allowed your fear to take over. When you respond, you waited. Took a breath. Turned the words back to the speaker. And the thought did not develop into a feeling.

LIVING MINUTE BY MINUTE

The summary of all of this apathy, all of this lethargy, the pointlessness of it all, and seemingly endless humdrum of the same thing over and over again, to the point of mindlessness is that each minute needs special attention.

Like running a marathon. I know that thinking about the start line at the beginning of the race is not a useful thought. We're told to concentrate on the next step and get that working.

There are too many things unfinished that need to get done. But the scope of all of them seems too daunting to start any of them. I cannot see where I'm supposed to be going, or how to start. What do I pick up first, and what do I do with it.

Past failures come back to mind. Remember when you tried this, it didn't work. What makes you think it will work this time?

The point is to stop worrying about what will happen. If you stop in the middle, confused, then you stop.

Print the tax papers. Get the broom and start in one corner. Open the page and write a few lines.

Like what I did this morning. Who knows, it may go somewhere.