Tag Archive for: apple

Adding more storage to your MacBook Pro (or other laptops) and what to look out for

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Apple is great but some things are insanely expensive

I’ve never been a huge Apple fan, but I do love their products.
Let me explain.
They just work, and they work great together. For me this is vital because I work mostly on my phone but want a fast and seamless integration with my laptop when needed, I also love to edit my images in Photoshop with the iPad Pro in extended screen mode. In other words especially the last few years, Apple found their way back to the creatives after releasing some horrible horrible laptops.

The M series changed it all for me.
My first M product was my iPad Pro, and in all honesty I still use the M1 12.9 iPad Pro.
It’s great for editing, reading comics and magazines, watching movies, browsing and of course connecting a controller and have some fun with Call of dutch mobile 😀

The M series in the iPad Pro actually made it possible for me to edit video better and faster than on my Dell XPS i9 windows laptop, which in essence blew me away, I never expected a tablet to hands down beat my super expensive laptop that was fully specked out.

At the moment I’m running a M1 Pro 14″ MacBookPro which will be replaced as soon as the M4 pro is released, not because I really need it, but I do find that when screen recording heavily AI driven software I do start to experience the limits of my laptop 😀
For normal use I would not know why to upgrade to be honest.

Although I feel that the MacBookPro’s at the moment give the best bang for the buck, there is one thing that is incredibly expensive when upgrading, and that’s internal storage. My photos and videos are all stored on 2 synology NAS systems but when working on several video projects, music recording etc. the internal drive is even with 1TB a “bit” on the small side. But upgrading is in my opinion way to expensive, so I was looking for a great solution.

Most solutions are based on the SD card slot which doesn’t make sense for me due to the speed hit and also the lack of really large storage. I need at least 4TB extra and also an option to work from that drive, or use it as a scratch drive.

On Amazon or your favourite supplier you can get pouches you can put on the back of your laptop.
I found that they are large enough to hold a small harddrive.
So I bought a 4TB small SSD and that’s where the troubles started.

Watch out and beware

Of course we all know (I hope) that there are different kinds of cables.
There are cables that are just for charging and cables that support USB3/C or ThunderBolt connections.
The USBC connector has many faces so to say.
And the problem is that often we don’t really notice it unless you start testing.

First of all
Don’t ever buy cheap cables.
Most of the cheaper cables will downgrade the speed of your external SSD to a very slow USB2 speed. Which means you think it works but copying files is incredibly slow. These cables are often only meant for charging your phone or tablet. But they do recognise the drive, which will often confuse the user.

Another thing is the shielding.
My first cable I tried was of a good shielded quality, but still my wifi was very unstable, losing connecting all the time and the speed was horrendous, all was great when I disconnected the cable.

At that point I almost gave up, but decided to order an even better shielded cable and finally, no more unstable wifi, no more slow transfer speeds, it just works like a charm 😀

When you order a cable make sure you order a very high quality USBc or TB cable.
Especially make sure the shielding is top notch.
I also highly recommend angled connectors. It’s always better to transport the laptop with the cable disconnected but it happens regularly that we don’t and with the angled connectors it never gave any problems, but to be sure, just take it out of the port.

Now because images say more than words, I made a small video for you.

 

iPadOS my first impressions (mixed)

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As you probably know we are working on a fully laptop less workflow for photography and video based on the iPadPro.
In all honesty I was more than happy with my Huawei M5 tablet and didn’t feel any need to go back to Apple (I sold all my Apple gear a few years ago and are 100% satisfied with my P30Pro, Garmin VivoActive, ChromeCast and Windows Machines) but thanks to the iPad Pro, but mostly the apps, I decided to take the plunge and order an iPad Pro with Pencil 2. So far so good.

When the iPad pro 12.9 was released I was I think one of the first that hit refresh, refresh, refresh to order one, and a day later I could pick it up, the PRO ipad…. wow….. and what a disappointment. No apps that really used the iPad “pro”, it was literally just like the iPad just a blown up iPhone, nothing wrong with the iPad by the way I loved it, but it was a FAR cry from a pro device (what is it with that Pro title anyway, it seems soon I can Pro underwear and Pro socks or something).

So my first experience kind of sucked, Apple promised the heavens and it delivered a slight hell. A totally closed up system without any serious apps. But things have changed, not thanks to Apple (where is Final Cut Pro iPad for example) but thanks to companies like Lumatouch with Lumafusion (which is absolutely mind boggling), Adobe with Lightroom CC and soon Photoshop iPad and of course Affinity Photo. All great apps which are mainly focussed on iOs which I think is a bit of a shame because the Android tablets are very fast too, anyway long story short, when they announced iPadOS my interest was peaked, FINALLY an open file system.

Now why is that important
Try travelling with an iPad a few times and you know.
As long as you have blazingly fast internet… no problem but we recently visited Johannesburg and had to work with a stunning 2MB down and 0.09 up (yep I didn’t make a mistake really 0.09 up) meaning uploading my images to Lightroom CC was impossible, we started uploading 20 images at night and the next morning we hit 25%, Starbucks was my favorite place, but they only offered 5GB a month for free so uploading a vlog was impossible but for photos it was ok. But this shows the incredible limitation of iOS as it is. One could say… “use an external drive” well yeah… and no. You know copying with 100MB/s is ok but thanks to the limitations of the iPad pro I somehow never was able to break the 4MB/s to my harddrive (LaCie CoPilot) although uploading to the iPad worked ok with 20MB/s, connect it to my PC and it broke the 100MB/s with ease. So think about making a backup with 3MB/s of 25GB each day…. you get the idea I think. Add to this that you can’t let the iPad run all night with a harddrive connected because you can’t charge the bloody thing because it only has one port and with a dock the harddrive wasn’t recognized and you know why the iPad Pro with iOS is no pro device at all.

Which is a shame because as mentioned the apps are there. And in all honesty I can 90% of my work with those apps. So the idea of not bringing my laptop during travels is awesome (especially with the Apple pencil).

So what works?
Under iOS everything works, but getting stuff OFF the iPad Pro is a disaster, without fast internet, connect it to your PC for example and images can come off but videos are not seen (WHY) also it’s super frustrating to not be able to just use my downloaded music from talentsy/epidemic in Rush and Lumafusion without making two folders with the same content (come on). But it works if you stick to your workflow.

At one point even batch renaming was “semi” possible, still ridiculous no app or apple supports this and you have to use automator, but hey, it works (semi).

Powerpoint/keynotes work great, every projector and TV we used worked flawlessly, expect at my seminar at B&H we couldn’t get the ipad pro outputting a signal, but that was only once, luckily we had a backup and that one worked (phone and laptop). Shooting tethered wirelessly worked flawlessly with the Camfi (not stable/fast enough with the Sony app) and of course video editing and photo editing is no problem at all, if you can life with the photo apps from Apple (which is a disaster for a pro but ok).

iPadOs
So iPadOS
Ok I didn’t want to install it while travelling and when we arrived back I decided to wait for the final release, but seeing it’s only end of September and it’s now the 14th and I use the iPad pro almost every day I took the chance and installed iPadOS. And lets see at what I think and found out.

  1. External drives
    Yes it works, well semi.
    You have to format your drives in ExFAT, don’t try anything else it won’t work, don’t try to format on the iPad pro… because it doesn’t have an app for that, which I think is ridiculous seeing harddrives come mostly not in ExFat when you buy them, so you still need a computer to format them.
  2. External drive speed
    This is a HUGE disappointment for now, I hoped for a speedy way to copy my files or maybe even work straight from the hard drive, well forget about it. I did a quick calculation based on time and file size and I think the iPad pro tops out at max 25MB/s and this is with an SSD that tops out at 300MB/s on my desktop so it’s not the SSD.
  3. External tumbdrives
    Works although I only tested a few, speed was nothing more than usable
  4. Open file system
    NO WAY….
    This is not what I expected.
    Yes you can use external drives and files (the app to browse etc) but it’s still very iOS (like) for example there is still no way to batch rename files, the files app still doesn’t show you the film roll etc but I have some tips for that
  5. Look and feel
    Now for some people this is the biggest change but in all honesty I don’t really care for it, but I have to say, getting more apps on one page is awesome and well overdue, also the widgets on the home page is cool and of course Dark Mode and a full browing experience and semi multitasking is great, but that isn’t what I hoped for the most, but it’s cool don’t get me wrong.

Some tips for copying
For me the most important thing was getting files on and off and browsing via apps.
Well the most disappointing factor is that NONE of the apps so far use this option, Lumafusion still needs the import folder, Project Rush doesn’t even have the option for a folder or external drive (only cloud etc.) same with almost every other app I tried, BUT that being said this is still the beta so I guess the apps will be updated, if not…. I have to be honest I’ll go back to a laptop because this is just a very cumbersome way to work, that being said I’m almost sure they will update the apps so just wait for the final release and for now ignore that remark 😀

Ok so how do you go to and from the film roll.
Most apps use the film roll from apple for all the files, but how do you get files from the film roll to your harddrive and from your harddrive to the film roll when you don’t see the files/drives?

When you are in Apple’s film roll just select the files and select/copy. Now just leave the film roll and go to files and long press and use Paste. It took me a few minutes to figure this out because I expected actually to have it available a bit more obvious. Going from files to the film roll is a different story…. pffff.
Select the files and use SHARE, now under share use SAVE FILES and voila it saves it into the film roll. So it’s doable but it’s still very iOS like.

Conclusion
I still haven’t test a lot more like mouse support etc. because for me the most important thing is that file system.
So far so “good” I’m ok with how it works (when I figured it out) but I don’t feel like I’m working with an apple product and it hurts me to say this but I really feel Apple lost it’s way, and iPad OS so far shows this very clearly. For me Apple was always simple, easy to understand and very very clear how it works. At the moment (and it’s still in beta) we have a file system that works, but it’s not Apple worthy, it’s not impossible to use it (far from) but it’s more complicated that it needs to be, I only want to say… look at Android. For years I’ve been able to just connect it to my desktop and see all my files and copy back and forth without any limitations, also within Android most apps just let you select files from different locations. If you’re not careful it can become a mess but let’s be honest it’s the same on your desktop.

Apple has an amazing, magical (to speak in keynote words) device with the iPad pro, and I really mean this, it’s a kick ass device with incredible speed and battery life for what it does, yesterday I edited a complete vlog again and after editing, rendering and uploading with almost full brightness it only took a 18% battery hit, my laptop would be almost empty (remember these are 4K vlogs with edits in video and audio) and 10 Minutes vlog only takes 10 Minutes to render, my i9 on premiere pro does it in similar times so that’s just incredible.

What I miss is that Apple sauce. That very easy to understand interface, that interaction between the human and the machine (well you know what I mean), It seems like Apple is going backwards in a fast tempo for user interface but also going forwards in other departments like finally a full browsing experience (although on Chrome you can also ask for the full version of a website, but ok I’ll give them that).

What’s your opinion?
For me I just hope they make the copying to external devices much faster, 25MB/s in 2019 is really not from this time, we need at least 100MB/s and on USB-C that should be more than possible. Also I hope they open up the file system a bit more and make it integrate with the film roll like it should be. Or make the film roll an app like gallery and open up the folder film roll, now it’s really that it’s a fully closed app with all your photos which you can’t rename (still find that weird to the max) and can’t see on the iPad itself.

For now I think the iPad pro is an amazing device and a real game changer, the Apple Pencil 2 is just sick (in a very positive way) and the apps are more than adequate replacements/helpers for the desktop apps, it’s not that I really miss things, even skin retouching is easy with both Lightroom CC and Affinity (and soon Photoshop), but the file system REALLY needs some more work, but at least we now have something. It’s just a shame that a real Pro device is still a bit crippled by Apple that can’t seem to make up it’s mind if it’s fashion brand or a creatives dream company (which it once was).

Looking forward to your opinions.

Mobile workflow iPad (pro) photos and lightroom and small review section

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As you all know we are working on figuring out if the iPad pro can be a full replacement for a laptop. Well let me rephrase that, it will never fully replace a laptop, but let’s say I want to see if for travel we will be able to leave our laptops at home and do everything on an iPad pro.

So what do we do?
Well first off it’s the simple things like Email, browsing, media consumption, reading comics/magazines, playing games while flying etc. and I can say… well as expected no problem at all.

But I also do a lot of video editing, and this was a bit of a challenge on the Android tablet, although there is a good file system (please hurry up with iPad OS Apple) there are no real killer apps for video, of course we have Powerdirector which is pretty awesome but also pretty limited, I could do my videos on it but only if I’m willing to cut corners, which in all honesty is ok for once but certainly not for every video. Project Rush is awesome but only on Samsung phones, so this actually pushed us towards the iPad pro, now I have to add that although I love project Rush, when travelling I need a bit more (seeing I can’t finish projects in Premiere when I don’t bring a laptop) but luckily there is LumaFusion, and oh my… if there ever was a reason to run out and buy an iPad pro it’s LumaFushion, I can’t really express in words how awesome this app is, think about everything you want from a good video editor and LumaFusion has it, and editing with touch…. it’s just awesome.

Ok but today it’s about something else.
And it’s actually about something that will be easier soon, but still I wanted to give you this tip.

The Lightroom CC problem
Lightroom CC is a game changer, let me make that a bit more clear it’s a GAME CHANGER… sorry for shouting, but it really is. The moment Adobe released Lightroom Mobile I was intrigued to see where this would lead, and in all honesty it never went anywhere, it was a total disaster, this might sound harsh but I’m totally honest it was just unusable due to the fact you were very limited to what it would hold picture wise. Lightroom CC changed everything, now you can really work on your files both in the cloud and locally and it’s just a very well thought out application. I still miss some things but I’m pretty sure Adobe will add this to the future releases.

But it’s not all perfectly.
Let me just walk you through the frustration and how I solved it (well pretty much). I’ll give you 3 solutions that will hopefully fit everyone.
Do remember that when iPad OS is released, it will be a LOT easier.

Normal situation
We shoot outside and come home with 300 images.
Downloading the images on the iPad pro is no problem, I use a 512GB version so for small trips this is more than enough to hold all the images, but… when shooting in cities like New York for a week it hardly is enough (I really shoot a lot of images on the streets)


The DJI Copilot is at the moment a must have when you want some serious work done on an iPad (pro)

So my idea was the following
Use the DJI CoPilot to empty the card to let’s say folder “Day 1”
Now import all the photos into Lightroom CC and….. oh wait this is Apple.
First import all the photos into photos, and than import all the photos into Lightroom CC.
Now star/flag the ones I want and delete everything else.
Now edit the files and just leave them on the device in the album “Day 1”

Day 2 comes and we do the same.
Empty the card on the DJI CoPilot.
Import, flag, delete, edit… done.

Well yeah, sounds great right?
When I’m home I just copy all the days with all images from the DJI CoPilot to my desktop.
Now sync up Lightroom CC and choose “Save original + settings” and just copy these OVER the files that are already on the desktop.
Now when you sync everything up in Lightroom Classic it will import all the images and will show you the flagged images including the retouches so you can save them as TIFFs, or just leave them there, whatever fits your workflow.

Sounds great right?
Well yeah it is, it saves you a lot of space on the iPad pro, all your files are save on the external drive and the retouched images are in the cloud, or on the iPad pro when there is no internet to upload, easy peasy awesome….. well not quite.

The Apple issue
When you delete all the images in Lightroom CC that you did not select, it doesn’t delete those images from Photos (film roll). So you have a few options to work around this.

When you don’t shoot a lot of images
Don’t
If you only travel for a weekend or don’t shoot a lot, no problem at all 512GB is a lot of space so you will not have any issues at all.
Just backup everything from the iPad when you’re home and you’re done, and with Lightroom CC you don’t even have to connect anything it just syncs everything.

When you shoot a lot
Creative Cloud storage is not free, and it isn’t much in most cases, for me it’s 100GB sounds like a lot, but if I can fill a 512GB iPad… well do the math (it’s not that hard). So we have to find a way around.

Solution 1 (not perfect)
Import ALL photos into Photos (filmroll)
Now just browse and select everything you like with a hart, this will put it into the favorites folder
Now it’s easier to select all the other images and delete them so only the favorites stay, import only the favorites into Lightroom CC and you’re done.
This is already a very fast workflow and works pretty well. But we want more speed of course.

Solution 2 (pretty cool)
Import ALL photos into Photos (filmroll)
Now download the free app called “Slidebox”
This is a really cool app.
When you open the app you can “tinder through your images”
Swipe left and right to go to the next or back
Swipe UP and you thrash an image, selecting the keepers this way is incredibly fast, and Slidebox saves your trashcan so after your selection process just look in the trashcan before you say “delete all” and you’re all done.
Now import the left over images into Lightroom CC and… voila.

Solution 3 almost perfect, well at least it’s very close
On the road just empty the cards on the DJI Copilot
Now via the browser app from DJI create the folder structure and copy everything where you want it, do remember that renaming is not possible in batch (yet)
Now instead of creating the selection in photos, just import everything into Lightroom CC, but put your tablet/phone on airplane mode (unless you have a steady and fast internet connection).
Make your selections and only keep the images you like (the 5 stars)
Now Lightroom CC only has the selects
Take your device out of airplane mode and let Lightroom CC sync to the cloud
It will now upload all the files that are still in Lightroom CC
When this is done.
You can now safely remove all images from your photos app (remember the full res originals are now in the cloud)
When you’re home copy everything to your Lightroom Classic locations, don’t rename yet
Now sync Lightroom Classic with the cloud
Drag the images to the same locations as the RAW files
And now you can rename everything but keep the edits

This workflow is the fastest and saves you a lot of space on your tablet. The only disadvantage is that first you have to trust the cloud (remember the originals are still on your drive so the worst that can happen is losing the edits) and when you’re without wifi or connection you can edit in Lightroom CC but not in an external program for the simple reason the original files are not on your device, only smart previews, unless of course you set it up that Lightroom CC saves the original files, but that will cost you space.

 

Conclusion Photography workflow
The main problem with all Apple products like iPhone, iPad etc. is that you don’t have a proper file system, when I look at what my Android devices do it’s so much easier to work with larger file amounts, you can just open with an app from every directory where on the iPad I often have to move files from one folder to the other via via (it’s not user friendly and the chance that you make a mistake is huge), however with the announcement of iPadOS this will all change (September), after that update you can just use external drives and work from those and you will have a proper file system, I just hope the apps will also support this…. but I guess productivity apps like LumaFusion and Lightroom will do this without a doubt.

Now when you read the solutions you might think it’s a lot of work… but trust me it isn’t.
IF there is a good file system it will be faster but in all honesty solution 2 is a very fast way to work around this and solution 3 is using all the sync options from the cloud which makes that one actually my favorite, the only thing you have to keep in mind is that you don’t rename your images before the synced images and the ones from the drive are all together in one location.


A keyboard case is a must if you want the iPad to replace a laptop. I’m using the Logitech slim because of the back lit keys.

Conclusion on the iPad pro so far
I get a lot of questions about what I think about the iPad pro so far.
Let me state by saying I’ve always been an Apple fanboy, and although I didn’t own any Apple products anymore I still followed the news and keynotes and it actually really hurts me seeing Apple has lost it’s way to be attractive to creators like me (people that are willing to spend some money but don’t have a money tree in the garden) however with the arrival of iPadOS this might totally change for the iPad line up, especially the Pro line up, let me quickly explain.

Video editing
The limitation is without a doubt that you work with apps instead of full programs, on the other hand…. isn’t an app also a full program?
When I look at for example LumaFusion (coupled with a good filesystem (and this is really key)) I can only say that although it’s an app on a tablet I can do the same things I can do with premiere or Final Cut, ok this is not true… let me say it like this, I can do everything I need. And believe it or not, but editing on the iPad pro is actually faster than on my Dell XPS 9570 i9 with 32GB, yep I hear some people going like “Really Frank, come on be serious”, oh I’m very serious (almost to a point it hurts). I’ve edited a vlog the other day including some H265 drone video material, my normal 4K material I can edit on the Dell without using Proxy (as long as I don’t grade), but H265 drone material…. well it doesn’t every play on the time line on 1/4 resolution, if I don’t use proxy it’s unworkable, and rendering afterwards takes a long time.

On the iPad pro believe it or not, drop it on the time line, grade as much as you want and it’s buttery smooth, I actually didn’t notice a difference between the normal 4K H264 and the Drone 4K H265 material, and that boys and girls, ladies and gentlemen is SERIOUSLY sick and impressive. Rendering same story, 10 minute 4K vlog in the highest quality renders in almost real time, 10 minutes and 5 seconds….. wow. On the Dell this is app the same but again that’s one of the fastest laptops on the market as far as I know.

Photography
When I look at Lightroom CC it’s perfect for mobile workflows, same with Project Rush although at the moment I prefer LumaFusion because it has more options that I need (like speed ramps). Also with Lightroom CC I can’t really say I’m feeling I’m working with a crippled app, and let’s be honest when the whole iPad “pro” started that was what you got, shameless promoted very limited apps that in all honesty couldn’t be take seriously. If you can’t export files in anything else than HD JPGs I really can’t take an app seriously, unless you’re an Instagramer maybe.

I can’t wait for Photoshop to arrive on the iPad Pro, for the time being I’m using Affinity Photo and in all honesty I was blown away by what it could do, but…. also a bit dissapointed about the speed, I tried to create a 21 file panorama from my Mavic Pro 2 (Hasselblad version) and this took a staggering 20+ minutes…. yeah serious, my laptop does it in under a minute in Lightroom Classic. Seeing how fast the iPad pro edits video there must be some bugs in Affinity because this is really slow. On the other hand I’m not a programmer and it could very well be that the limitation here is actually the 4GB internal memory of the iPad pro. Overall Affinity is relatively smooth on the iPad pro even with 60MP files it all goes very well, inpainting (a sort of content aware fill) is sluggish on larger areas and far from what Adobe does with Content Aware Fill but…. for an app on a tablet I take my hat off to Affinity and take a deep bow, this is a pretty good and solid photo editor that actually gives you everything you need to retouch.

Doodling or serious drawing
What can I say.
The new iPad pro (my previous one was a 2015 model) has a much better Apple Pencil experience, mostly because you have a different screen and now there is hardly any space between where you touch the glass and where you draw, now in all honesty I draw ok but not good enough to even notice that, but I can imagine that real artists see this as a huge improvement. Same for the insane 9ms lag….. I already thought the 20ms was insanely fast.

For drawing I highly recommend Adobe of course but also check out Procreate or MediBang Paint, especially when you’re into Manga you will love the last one, but Procreate is for me the allround winner, start drawing with it and I can guarantee you you will be hooked. The Apple pencil and the iPad pro are a dream for people that love to draw (I guess).

What’s missing?
A few things.
Somehow I couldn’t get my Powerpoint presentations to run, I stored them all as odb files (Open Document files) mainly because I want them to work in all situations also when I have to change laptops with someone, but this was apparently a mistake. Everything about 300MB wouldn’t open in both Keynote and Powerpoint. Solution was to open it on the desktop, save as PPTX and import that into Keynote and save and voila… now it all works. I just need to find a good remote to control Keynote.

Filesystem we talked about and that is coming, and I hope that solves my other problem.

With tethering I can use the Sony app, which works like a charm, it’s fast, it’s stable and it does exactly what I need, showing images on the screen when I shot them within a second. And I can also switch to Live View mode so students can see what I see and how I frame a shot. BUT…. there is a huge problem with wireless tethering. Although it works at home, in the studio or out in the open field, don’t ever try it on a tradeshow floor and expect it to go flawless, yes it can work, but most of the time it will be flaky or you have to stand really close to the tablet. With iPadOs and the opening up of that USB-C port I really hope we will soon find a solution to shoot tethered into lightroom CC via USB, that would really be the ultimate solution.

What’s so cool?
Well let’s keep it short ok?
When editing video and photos on my laptop the battery runs down fast and I mean FAST.
On the iPad pro of course the battery runs down faster than when surfing the web but in all honesty I’m stunned by how long the battery actually lasts during heavy loads, if I remember correctly editing the vlog took me about 45 minutes, rendering took me another 10 and I believe I lost about 15-20% of my battery life, that’s insane. This makes it 100% possible to edit on the plane and don’t worry about losing your media consumption tablet when you’re done.


add the amazing Omnicharge to the package and you will “never” run out of juice on location.
See my review here : YouTube review for the Omnicharge

But there is more to that.
When you run on the battery on a laptop you are almost forced to use the on board GPU which is VERY slow compared to the dedicated GPU which you can use when on power. And when you’re running a tablet like the Surface book 2 (without the base) you don’t even have the option to force the dedicated GPU plus the battery will die incredibly fast. Now in a hotel that’s not a big problem, just charge, but on a plane you can often charge a tablet via USB (in almost every seat) but power for a laptop…. well not so easy unless of course you fly business.

And finally…..
Oh my……
As you all know I love playing guitar, and recording yourself is of course possible on Android and on iOS, but writing your own music is a different story. Garageband from Apple is one of those genius programs, you can’t really understand what I mean unless you’re a musician or ever tried Garageband, I can literally find NOTHING on Android that comes even close, and yeah I really tried a lot of apps, nothing compares to Garageband, the autoplay instruments, awesome loops, style drummers…. pffff I get so excited by writing this I want to play and record something, it’s so addictive, and the end result is fully usable.


Garage band alone (coupled with an iRig HD2) would be a reason to invest in an iPad

Of course there will be people that say “just bring a laptop, I can’t understand why you would spend money on a tablet”.
Well I have a very good answer for that (I think).
My laptop that I need for video editing has to be specked out, so it retails for app 2800.00 Euro.
The iPad pro I now use is the 11″ 512GB version and retails for under 1500.00 Euro, including a keyboard case and the Apple Pencil.
Plus when travelling I don’t need to bring : the Dell, the powersupply, my Wacom Tablet, Mouse. Which in all honesty saves me not only a lot of weight but also stuff to carry around and take care off. Add to this that I never worked on my laptop when flying or on a bus, but the iPad you just grab from your bag and you can work on it. It’s a totally different experience.

I will post some more updates when you guys are interested, and feel free to ask me questions about problems I encounter or solutions. I’m having a boat load of fun to be honest figuring everything out, and it’s painfully clear that the iPad pro was NEVER a pro device, but with the filesystem in iPadOs it will be.

 

iPhone x

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Ok so the iPhone x has been released what are your thoughts? Let me share mine.

I’ve been critical to Apple ever since the mbp. Since than my Apple Watch has been switched and even my Macpro and iPad are replaced. The reasons….. very simple.

Where Apple always was first and best it’s now the best in build quality and probably experience but it’s running behind on things that are already available with the competition.

So what are my thoughts.

Don’t worry this will be short.

Love love the iPhone x

Let’s be honest it’s gorgeous it’s amazing and incredible, almost magical (like Apple said) the design is really nice and I like the new camera options although in all honesty you can do the same very quickly in Lightroom mobile or other apps.

Love the depth effect on the front camera

Love wireless charging, although I don’t see me doing this at home. But at Starbucks, airports etc it’s very handy

Face recognition is WOW and I mean WOW. Awesome and magical.

And that’s about it.

I don’t care about animojis. Yeah it’s fun and I would love to use it for fun.

Now in all honesty I was almost planning on not switching to the Samsung note 8. I’m still a bit terrified to do it because I only had ios smart phones. But my experiences with the Samsung tab s2 has been nothing less than good and very positive.

So what did me change my mind…..

Something I never expected to say, the design of Apple iPhone x has a MAJOR flaw and I can’t believe that they did this.

We have all seen the mock ups with the top part where all the cameras are housed. My expectations were that when you watch a video or look at a photo that this part would be totally black. To my horror it isn’t. At first annewiek told me that that would be something I could get used to…… heck no. Never. It’s like a dust particle under my protector. My eyes just drift towards that gaping gap where video or photos are supposed to be…… it’s not the way I would expect a end design team to work. I’m actually quite shocked.

So what next

I’ve been waiting for a new phone because I wanted to do more with video on the phone and IS on the tele is very welcome plus external audio. The note 8 caught my attention to the very bright screen (1200 nits vs 750) which is awesome when flying my drone in the sun. Als the Samsung supports external mics

I love the depth effect but also want raw support and of course being able to alter the effect after taking the shot. Samsung offers this including the option to take both wide and tele shots and altering the effects afterwards.

AR looked awesome but in reality I will never use it. I’m just not a gamer. I shoot and edit photos and video, I consume media, do mail and social media and I love the idea of the spen for video editing. (Love iMovie but with your fingers on the iPhone 7plus was not really handy. With the iPad Pro it’s awesome).

So……

After many many years of Apple iPhones which I absolutely loved it’s now time to say farewell to my beloved iPhone series. And even when you take out the idea of the gap the pricing Is just insane. 999.00 will be 1159 euros in the Netherlands which means the 256gb will probably be 1350. The note 8 retails for 999 plus a free dex station valued at 159.00. Saves me a lot of money.

What will I spend that money on…..

On the Apple TV 😉

Finally 4k and hdr and with Apple TV you know for sure that Netflix and youtube will be supported plus I found a good working remote on android 😉

So what are your ideas?

Don’t get me wrong. I still love the whole Apple feel and mood. And will probably always be an Apple fanboy. Only now without Apple products.

Man it feels weird.

One more thing….

4k 60fps is superb but my other video material is all 4k 25fps so I have to integrate it into that timeline. Also 1080p 240fps is great but I hardly use it for “real” material. But hey that’s me. Your opinion might be totally different.