iPad Advice

[August West]

Hey all, I'm hoping for some collective wisdom from the MRF experience. I'm getting a small unexpected bonus and was planning to grab a new MBP 16. However my partner let me know that she wants a couple bikes for us. I can't disagree, so I've switched my thoughts to grabbing an iPad and hoping for the release of a 15" Mac Air in the near future. I really don't need the power of a MBP anymore, I just don't want to move to a smaller laptop screen.

I had an original iPad, a 3, and an original Air, which I ended up not really using them a lot for work type productivity. Now, they have the pencil, larger screens, and more powerful processors, while I have a different work role. I've moved from architecting and developing to IT Project Management. I'm thinking of trying the iPad again for extensive note-taking, calendaring, and communications (Zoom, Email, and Office 365). The abilities to digitally archive my hand written notes, convert them to PDF for distribution when necessary, and easily carry the iPad about, rather than a laptop are very appealing to me.

Does anyone have any advice, experience, or comments about which iPad/Pencil, and programs would be suitable? In the distant past I've seen people using Notability and Good Note(?). Any info to get me back into the IOS and iPad world is helpful.

[jdc]

Budget?

[cbelt3]

MB air is cheaper than an iPad Pro…

[John B.]

M1-based iPads (Air or Pro) with an added keyboard are going to be in the same price range as a MacBook, so that question becomes “I have either side of $1000 to spend, do I want an iOS device or a MacOS device?”

The only budget-saver iPad is the iPad. Will that do what you want it to do?

I’m not even getting into bike prices (what I ride vs. what some of this forum ride), but say you can save $500 by buying a base iPad instead of a MacBook. How much bike (x2) can you buy?

[August West]

Budget would probably be under/around 750, but really, the value (bang for buck) is the ultimate arbiter. We're shooting for about 1700 - 2k for each bike and I'm having 5k drop out of the sky.

I've chosen against 13-inch laptops before, and I've never taken notes in a meeting with a laptop, I'm a terrible typist and typos/mis-keys just throw me off my game, currently I use paper and pen. The idea of handwriting notes (not typing, I've used bluetooth keyboards with previous iPads) is appealing, and especially appealing is filing. searching, communicating those notes in a digital format. I have an insane number of paper notes around and that needs to improve. I've told myself to immediately transcribe them after the meeting, but that's not really working anymore (if ever).

Thanks for these pointers!!

ETA: I guess I'm really asking, what is the worst to best handwriting experience on an iPad, and if anyone regularly confronts an extensive note-taking experience in a business context.

[jdc]

IHMO, bang for the buck is the base iPad.

If you are after a full time do everything solution, iPP. lamintated 120 mh screen, quad speakers and M1 make it the end all be all.

Im sure the iPA is great. But its no iPP.

For me its about usage... a lot or a little. Pick based on that.

If you can listen to this guy... 15 minutes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aA9wucZqbLg

[Filliam H. Muffman]

Just get one of the MacBooks with the touch screen. :RollingEyesSmiley5: