Comment by _smmt | Hacker News Reader

Comment by _smmt | Hacker News Reader

I use it every single day and it is the only reason I'm able to get anything done. I've taken paper notes my entire life, never referenced them once, I have 10's of notebooks all filled to the brim with unintelligible nonsense. Impossible and exhausting. On the iPad, I can fluidly take notes much quicker due to how fast I can edit, switch colors, erase, etc. And I don't end up with a monster stack of crappy notes. One of my main problems is I get ideas when I'm going to sleep, and so many times I've fumbled because I had the wrong notebook or no light or crap pencil etc. iPad I flick it open, click my shortcut to most recent note, sketch away, put it away.

I use ProCreate, Goodnotes, Concepts (hate the subscription aspect) and Numbers daily. I've done more studying and better work in the past 2 months than I have in my entire life. For the first time I'm able to make meaningful progress in math. For the first time all of my finances and files and emails and communications are sorted and in order, and not only that, but they are pleasurable experiences now too because the UX is great.

When I share ideas with people I can open Quicktime and pipe my iPad output to it and quickly illustrate ideas on the fly, use it as a wireless second monitor, etc.

I see it as a replacement of the traditional assistant, previously secretary. Siri manages my meetings and emails and reminders, and the rest is just for supercharging my note-taking abilities.

I'm not an apple guy at all, I'm a "don't want to spend 1 second on setup/messing with it" guy and don't care about much else. If Google came out with a suite that functioned better I'd switch yesterday. I've tried every note taking system under the sun. I spent 3 months in a basement inhaling org-mode. Nothing stuck. But I will say there was my life before the iPad, and my life after the iPad. It's a brilliant device. It saves me so, so much time.'

There's really not much else to it besides it being a smooth and fast device that makes even the most mundane tasks like logging transactions somewhat fun.

That it works for you is great but I don't understand how it works for you.

For me, I can't input fast on a tablet. Fighting with the on screen keyboard or using the (IMO, crappy magic keyboard) just doesn't compare speed wize to my MBP or MBA. I can open those and just as quickly be taking a note but I'll be done in a 1/10th the time and with zero frustration.

Cut/Copy/Paste just work. If you saw a video how often that doesn't work for me on tablet you'd probably feel like the UX designers should be in prison for all the suffering they've put people through.

I see that you use sketching apps, but you said below "I have horrible chicken scratch.", has iPad changed that?

For my notes, I want to be able to search. I don't actually take many notes though. It mostly add to "todo" lists but not a ton (less than 1 time day)

I've owned 3 iPads, most recently got one last January, with keyboard and pencil, but I probably used it less than 12hrs total. After it sat unused for 6+ months I ended up giving to my mom as an upgrade to her 2015 Air. She loves them but she's not trying to be productive.

Just as another example, when someone messages me, if I'm near one of my computers, I reply on the computer because it has a keyboard. So much faster and less frustrating for me than trying to reply on a touch device.

Adobe Procreate is great on iPad.

Procreate isn’t Adobe just fyi

lmao oops

>For me, I can't input fast on a tablet. Fighting with the on screen keyboard or using the (IMO, crappy magic keyboard) just doesn't compare speed wize to my MBP or MBA. I can open those and just as quickly be taking a note but I'll be done in a 1/10th the time and with zero frustration.

I don't do anything on it that really requires the onscreen keyboard. If I use a keyboard on it, I do it pretty much only through "link mouse and keyboard" which works brilliantly. Because the keyboard sucks, how did it not come with split keyboard?

>I can open those and just as quickly be taking a note but I'll be done in a 1/10th the time and with zero frustration.

Right but text doesn't work for me at all. I get lost in a sea of indentation and end up 100 commits deep in a tool that will "finally indent everything for me correctly!!!" that of course I never use nor release.

>Cut/Copy/Paste just work. If you saw a video how often that doesn't work for me on tablet you'd probably feel like the UX designers should be in prison for all the suffering they've put people through.

I feel you there, luckily copy/paste between my Mac and iPad works perfectly, as I pretty much use it as a glorified note taking device rather than a computer.

>I see that you use sketching apps, but you said below "I have horrible chicken scratch.", has iPad changed that?

Yes. Not with the default screen. What changed it all was a matte screen protector. I find when I am zoomed in and using the right pencil, my natural writing is quicker than paper and much more legible. Maybe if I found the right gel-pen I'd get the same effect on paper?

>For my notes, I want to be able to search. I don't actually take many notes though. It mostly add to "todo" lists but not a ton (less than 1 time day)

What kind of stuff do you search? My notes mainly look like this [0] and I'm in goodnotes 99% of the time. If I need to more "free form" get ideas down I use concepts for its infinite canvas then bring it into goodnotes, or ProCreate.

It truly is just a glorified note taker for me. Paper, but editable. Sits on my work desk most of the time, rarely used standalone so I agree with everything else that's wrong with it. The keyboard is garbage and it sucks as a computing device and theres roughly 100 other things I wish it did better, but it's so good at notes it's the easiest $1k I've ever spent after using my friends for 5 seconds.

[0] https://i.imgur.com/mLdq6mf.jpg (the writing is still quite terrible, so you can imagine what my paper notes look like)

I don’t see anything you listed as requiring an iPad Pro. Most of what you mentioned revolved around note taking, which is a low cpu/gpu/memory task. You could easily do all those things on a iPad Air without stressing the device at all.

The main feature is the bigger version which is the size of an A4 paper.

Yeah you're 100% right, it's just the one I have. I actually like smaller form factors better, I like panning with one finger.

none of this is about the iPad pro, though, right?

or maybe the submitter wasn't specifically asking about the Pro?

I similarly use the iPad for handwritten notes. The 12.9” size is absolutely essential to me, and that’s only available in the Pro.

Do you take your notes in handwriting with the pencil? Do you have them converted to text or do you leave them handwritten?

I do them in handwriting. I never had a problem with the slow process of writing, my problem has always been with editing and manipulating which I can't do on paper. The matte screen protector with the pencil, zoomed in, helps me write super nicely.

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