firelock

The notes ad is accurate. My iPad Pro 10.5 with Apple Pencil, Smart Keyboard, iOS 11, and GoodNotes 4 has transformed the way that I take notes. The built-in document scanning with the Apple Notes app is also a huge help to my note taking. I tend to use the Apple Notes app for note taking that involves mostly typing. And then I use GoodNotes 4 for my handwritten note taking using Apple Pencil. I do a lot of process schematics for work, and I will now sketch those out in GoodNotes first. Being able to sketch out workflows using the stylus as if I was working on paper, but also being able to make changes easily because it is digital, has truly fulfilled the idea of “digital paper” in my case. Once I get the process worked out on my iPad I’ll redraw the diagrams in PowerPoint on my Mac so that they are clean. I find it easier to build the initial diagram on the desktop, but I frequently make changes to the deck using the PowerPoint app on my iPad. I also prefer presenting the deck (using a projector in a conference room) on my iPad because I can use the Apple Pencil to mark up my diagram like John Madden and also add notes to the diagram as people comment and add input.

Capture One is the weapon of choice for professional photographers. Lightroom is used by a certain subset of Pros, mostly those who are not doing high-end work and/or don’t want to pay for yet another photo package when they already have an Adobe subscription. I personally can’t stand Lightroom and prefer to use Bridge to organize our files, add metadata, etc. once we have exported them for retouching out of Capture One.

I recently sold my iPad Pro 9.7 on eBay and bought a 10.5. Extremely happy with the purchase. This screen size is just about perfect. Additional RAM and processor speed is also noticeable. I use a desktop iMac for most of my professional work including Adobe Photoshop (I'm a professional retoucher) and MS Office, but my iPad is my main portable computer now that I use in meetings and when traveling. I am using the Apple Pencil more and more for note taking, sketching diagrams, and markup. Also a big fan of the Smart Keyboard. Beginning to use my iPad more for light retouching and color correction of photos. About my only complaint is that with the smaller side bezels I occasionally have trouble with "thumb rejection" not working as well as Apple claims. In other words if my thumb is resting partly on the screen I sometimes have issues with the multitouch not responding as expected. It actually took me a little while to figure out what was happening. Now if it seems like the touch screen isn't responding like it should I adjust my grip to make sure my thumb is not touching the screen area.

Actually Apple had a similar issue a few years back with the iPad 3. I had got an iPad 3 for work, and when I started it up I noticed immediately that the screen had a distinct yellow tint. Since I work as a photo retoucher I knew right away it was a white point/color balance issue. There is no way to calibrate or adjust an iPad screen the way you can on a Mac and after contacting Apple I was told that this was considered "normal variation" and therefore not eligible for "repair." I researched the problem and it turned out that for that model iPad they had two manufacturers for the screen: Samsung and Sharp. It seems that the iPad software is calibrated for the Samsung displays, and so anyone with a display made by Sharp had a yellow-tint to their screen. I've owned many iPads since then (I'm writing this on an iPad Pro 9.7") and I've never seen this issue since the problem with the iPad 3.

eriamjh said:

I think the article says if Apple doesn't make money doing it, they're gonna stop doing it.  

Maybe be that's why the Mac Pro hasn't been updated?  

IPhones help sell iMacs, not Mac Pros.  

The problem with the Mac Pro sales is that their sales have been cannibalized by sales of high-end iMacs. I've been managing photoretouching and graphic design studios for almost 25 years. For most of that history I bought the highest end Mac that I could in order to work more efficiently. About five years ago it was time to upgrade our old tower Mac Pros and for the first time I said, you know, a high-end iMac will do just fine for the kind of work that we do (mostly Photoshop, InDesign, Illustrator, etc.) and also save us a lot of money and desktop space. If we were doing video production or 3D rendering I would have been able to justify the additional expense for a Mac Pro, and indeed our video team has one of the "trash can" Mac Pros. I also know from talking to other studio directors that this change has happened across the industry. Retouching studios that used to exclusively buy Pro towers are now perfectly content with maxed out iMacs.