Kirkville

If you’re thinking about getting an iPad, the options may seem overwhelming. Do you need a Pro model? What’s the difference between the Air and the “10th generation” model? Or is a mini the best choice for you?

In this article, we’ll help you figure out which iPad you should get, depending on how you plan to use it.

Read the rest of the article on The Mac Security Blog.

The first features of Apple Intelligence are rolling out as part of iOS 18.1, iPadOS 18.1, and macOS Sequoia 15.1. Apple Intelligence is a work in progress, and features will be rolling out in the coming months. Apple will certainly be building on this AI framework in the years to come.

Some of these features will be extremely practical, and the writing tools—which are part of the first salvo of Apple Intelligence features—can be useful to anyone who writes anything. Here’s an overview of how to use Apple Intelligence writing tools.

Read the rest of the article on The Mac Security Blog.

It took Apple more than nine years to recognize that the iPad and iPhone were different enough to warrant separate operating systems. Initially, there were mostly minor feature differences between the two devices, aside from the screen size. But it was only in 2019 that Apple officially forked iOS into two different operating systems. Today, we have iPadOS for iPad, and iOS for iPhone.*

In the five years since that first spilt, improvements to iPadOS have made it a serious contender for a mobile operating system that could replace a laptop for many people, for much (or even all) of their work. Let’s examine the pros and cons of using an iPad instead of a laptop.

Read the rest of the article on The Mac Security Blog.

New writers think that creativity – the moment when they are visited by their muse – is a rare, magical moment. But creatives who have been active for many years know that there’s not that much magic to it; that you can invite that muse in whenever you want. It just takes a bit of work and an understanding of the creative process.

In many cases, what hinders creativity is resistance, a belief that the writer isn’t good enough, that expectations that cannot be met, and other hurdles that writers create for themselves. These four books – actually three books and a deck of cards – can help you nurture that muse, and be more creative to keep your writing project going to the end.

Read the rest of the article on The L&L Blog.

To learn how to use Scrivener for Mac, Windows, and iOS, check out my book Take Control of Scrivener 3.

My main work is writing about Apple products and software, and I have lots of Apple devices. I first bought a Mac in 1991, a PowerBook 100, and have had Apple devices in every product family over the last 30 years.

The only other tech device that I upgrade regularly is Amazon’s Kindle. I read a lot, and about half the books I read are on the Kindle. My first Kindle was in 2009, and I bought it when I was living in France. It was the first Kindle that Amazon shipped internationally. They started selling the Kindle directly in France in 2012 with the Kindle Touch. Since then, I’ve had more than a dozen Kindles, upgrading often – though not always – when new devices are released, then either passing the older Kindles on to someone or selling them on eBay.

Amazon has recently released four new Kindle models, the most they have ever released at one time. The Kindle product family is very tight; they don’t have lots of variants to try to appeal to everyone, but they have devices in different sizes and with different features.

The basic Kindle now costs $110 with ads, or $120 without ads, is “light and compact,” and comes in a new “matcha green” color. It is very compact; it is not as tall as my iPhone 16 Pro Max, and is great for people with good enough eyesight that they can read small fonts. One criticism among Kindle aficionados is that it doesn’t offer a warm light setting, but I suspect that doesn’t bother most people.

Next in line is the Kindle Paperwhite, an evolution of this device first released in 2012, which was the first Kindle with backlighting. This is the device that made the Kindle readable indoors without a light, and probably the one that led to an increase in popularity of the device. At $160 ($170 without ads), this is not a cheap device. (To be fair, the price hasn’t increased much: when I bought the 2012 model, it cost €129, and was probably about $129.) But it’s the one most people should buy. The screen lighting has improved greatly over the years, with the addition of more LEDs and better display technology. Early Paperwhites only had a handful of LEDs, and you could see the lights blooming at the edges of the screen. You can see here a comparison in the lighting of the first Paperwhite and an iPad mini. I returned that Paperwhite and later bought the 2014 model, which was greatly improved.

The Kindle Paperwhite Signature Edition costs $40 more, and adds wireless charging (induction or Qi charging) and an auto-adjustable front light. In my experience with Kindles and other devices, automatically adjustable brightness never works. When using it on Kindles, they suddenly darken or brighten, and I’ve always turned this feature off. The Paperwhite SE also doubles the storage over the base model from 16 GB to 32 GB, but, honestly, unless you have lots of Audible audiobooks on your Kindle, you’ll never use much storage.

One note about brightness. Amazon says that all these devices have 94 nits maximum brightness. I compared my Kindle Oasis – 2019 model – to my iPad Pro, which maxes out at 1,000 nits. The brightest setting on the Oasis matched about 60% of the highest brightness on the iPad Pro. So I’m not sure what 94 nits actually means. It’s true that Kindles don’t need to be bright, because their e-ink displays are reflective, so when reading outdoors you can generally turn the brightness all the way down, saving on battery.

The first truly new Kindle is the Kindle Colorsoft, a color version of the Paperwhite Signature Edition. At $280 (no ad-supported option available), this is the premium Kindle. It adds what Amazon says is a 4,000-color e-ink display (probably actually 4,096 colors) to show book covers, illustrations, and highlights in color. From the initial images and hands-on videos, it’s clear that these are “soft” colors. But I love this idea; the Kindle is drab and gray, and even the white pages look grayish. Apparently – this device doesn’t ship until October 30 – the filter on the display needed to present color dims the brightness and sharpness a bit, and while black and white pages display in 300 psi, color pages only display in 150 dpi. Amazon doesn’t rush the technology on these devices, so this is likely a trial balloon to see how well they function, and how receptive customers are. I feel that this is the first step toward all but the basic Kindle having color.

Finally, there’s an update to the Kindle Scribe, a Kindle for both reading and writing with a stylus. I have a 1st gen Kindle Scribe, and I like it for reading; it’s like a hardcover Kindle, offering a much larger page size. But starting at $400, this is a niche device, and this is a big increase in price on the first model which cost $340. There seem to be a number of refinements since the first model, especially in the display, and it doesn’t ship until December, so first looks haven’t really shown much about how well the device works. My suspicion is that Amazon is going to continue iterating this device even if it’s not a big seller because they see future potential in the market for tablets people can write on. But most Kindle users buy Kindles to read, and, other than for reading textbooks, this is overkill for most people.

There are two other Kindles: the $130 Kindle Kids and the $180 Kindle Paperwhite Kids, which come with a 2-year guarantee that if they break, Amazon will replace them. This is a brilliant idea to help get kids to read more, so parents don’t have to worry too much about the devices getting damaged.

The Kindle is an interesting device. With the razors-and-blades analogy, you’d expect them to be much cheaper; after all, most Kindle buyers spend a lot of money buying books from Amazon. While you’re not locked into Amazon’s ecosystem – you can send other books in ePub format, without DRM, to your Kindle library – it is frictionless. I don’t know why Amazon doesn’t offer a free basic Kindle to Kindle Unlimited subscribers, but I guess they’ve done the math and figured it wouldn’t change how many devices they sell.

Many Kindle users hold onto their devices for a long time, if Internet forum comments are any indication, so getting people to upgrade isn’t easy. Amazon does offer a 20% discount on trade-ins for these new Kindles, along with whatever they offer for the trade-in devices, and runs this offer from time to time. But looking at my options, they would offer me £85 for my 1st gen Kindle Scribe toward the purchase of a new model, which costs £380. It’s true that I’d get 20% off, so that would come to a total of £161, or £219 to upgrade, but I don’t really need to upgrade that device. Note that you’ll get 20% off regardless of how much your old Kindle is worth, so if you have a very old one, trade that in to get the discount. When I bought my Scribe, it was selling at £330; I paid £264 after the discount, and I think I got another £20 for a ten-year old Kindle that my partner had.

Given the time of year these devices were released, it’s unlikely that they’ll be on sale for Black Friday this year. When the first Kindle Scribe was released, in October 2022, it wasn’t discounted until April 2023, and this is likely to be the case for these other new devices. However, they might discount the basic Kindle during sales or on Prime Day.

Setting is a combination of time, place, and environment, enhanced by things like weather and climate, plants and animals, sounds, smells, and more. Setting is what changes a story or novel from a flat tale of actions and dialog to one that gets its inspiration and comes alive.

Setting influences the mood of a story, the way characters interact and develop, and, in many cases, the plot. A romance novel set in the Palace of Versailles is very different from one set in modern-day Chicago. Readers develop their own image of a setting from what they know about real locations, and this is enhanced by what a writer chooses to foreground when describing the setting.

Read the rest of the article on The L&L Blog.

To learn how to use Scrivener for Mac, Windows, and iOS, check out my book Take Control of Scrivener 3.