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mobileexecguide · 7 years ago

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I am very frequently asked about taking hand written notes on an iPad. This is almost always followed by the question of how to convert the notes to text. I find this a perfect example of really needing to rethink the question and really dig into what we’re trying to do.

When I say I want to take notes, what do I really mean? Way back, I used to carry around engineering notebooks and take masses of paper notes. With the laptop revolution those became typed notes. While it did help being able to send notes to someone about a meeting, realistically I had to summarize and rework all of the content to have something worth sending as the raw notes were really meant for me and wouldn’t make sense to anyone else. The single biggest advantage of having digital notes was the ability to search notes for that key topic that I remember we talked about 2 months ago but I don’t remember exactly when or what we decided.

Fast forward to today and it’s the same question. I need to take notes so I recall what was discussed, action items to be tackled and to be able to refer back to past notes (which means being able to find them).

As much as I want to like the variety of note taking apps, their usefulness for writing notes is really minimal. For some reason most virtual notebooks and note taking apps assume you’re interested in ‘sketching’ rather than going to town with free form notes. What I mean by that is that you have to tap a few icons to get into ‘drawing’ mode or write on specific parts of the screen. This is something Apple has just made seemless in their apps. As soon as the Apple Pencil touches the screen in Apple Notes or the iWork apps (Keynote, Pages, Numbers), you’re writing. No mode changing, no remembering if you’re in writing or typing mode. It just works.

Back to that magic requirement of searching notes to find those past nuggets of wisdom — Apple Notes are searchable. Not just the text but the handwritten parts as well. It’s not well highlighted by Apple but the feature is there and it works really well. If you use the search box in notes, you’ll see a list of notes come back with those words in them which includes even those you have written that have no typed text. I’m really hoping that Apple will include a feature in the future to highlight those search results in the notes themselves in future versions as well.

I fully expect Apple will allow for full conversion of notes to typed text at some point in the future given the power of Machine Learning built into iOS. I can only assume it’s not yet recognizing text at the level Apple would have to demand for that feature. I suspect this may be one of the Machine Learning updates we hear about at the Apple developer conference in June.

So back to the primary case of taking notes and then finding them again in the future. I’d highly recommend sticking with the written notes and not trying to convert them to text.

Capturing your writing in Notes is just simple. Tap the button to create a new note and start writing. Tapping the small pencil tip icon at the bottom of the screen will bring up the writing tools. One of the most useful tools is the lasso. Writing is great but sometimes thoughts evolve to the point where you run out of space or want to regroup things. A quick circle of content with the lasso and you can drag it somewhere else in the note. I highly recommend trying it as there is just something so satisfying about touching your writing and moving it around the page. You can even touch the text with one hand to lift it up and then scroll the page with your other hand to get to the spot you want to drop it. Really well done.

Another quick tip — you can touch the pencil to the iPad when you’re on the lock screen and it’ll immediately jump into a blank note for you to start writing into.

If you’re hand writing something other than a note (an email or document for example) I have to ask something else. Why the heck are you doing that? That is exactly what keyboards are for. If you are worried about typing speed, try dictation through Siri as that works well for getting ideas down quickly which you can then go back and clean up any missteps.

If you really have to turn your writing into typed text, there are very few options worth using that don’t require you to write in specific areas of the screen and really break up the experience of a flowing note. One of the few worth using is Nebo. As you write it shows a preview of what it thinks you just wrote. If you like it, a simple tap on your writing converts it. I’ve tested with both printing and cursive and it cleanly converts both. You can also scribble diagrams, tap on them and see them converted to clean shapes and arrows. Like many of the virtual notebooks, Nebo’s organization of notes is lacking and they’re not easy to navigate.

Back to Apple Notes - you can create folders to store your notes in but iOS will only allow one level of hierarchy (all folders are at the top level). One trick to know is that you can create a deeper hierarchy of folders to store your notes in but you can only do it on a Mac. Fire up Notes on the Mac (the one you have connected with the same iCloud account so all of your notes magically appear in both places) and organize your folders there. When you check your iPhone or iPad you’ll then see hierarchical folders. This is another example of something I’m hoping to see cleaned up in iOS 12.

Another killer feature of Notes is the ability to collaborate in real time on shared notes. I use this all the time with both family and co-workers. Building a group packing checklist for a vacation, capturing lists of sites we want to see and anything else we might need is really handy. Sharing is as simple as pressing the share button and then sending the note via iMessage to another Notes user (this does require they have their iCloud account set up). As anyone makes an update to the note, everyone sees the changes in real time. Not necessarily hand writing related but an excellent capability (and yes, you can both write into notes at the same time too).

So — if you’re using an iPad and really looking for a way to convert your hand written notes to text, I’d challenge you to rethink your assumptions and get to the core problem you’re trying to solve. If it’s not something I touched on above, I’d love to hear about other types of challenges to see what options you may have to address them.

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mobileexecguide · 7 years ago

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Mobile Exec Gear 101

To get started on your fully mobile journey, you’ll need to make sure you’re properly equipped. Here’s a look at the mobile tech that I’ve adopted for the fully mobile work style. And yes that picture has a bunch of items in it — most of them stay tucked away in my bag until I need them (so most of the time it’s just the iPad out). I’d be carrying even more if I was toting a laptop (extra adapters, big power supply, etc).

The Core

The core element is of course a 2017 iPad Pro 12.9” (the bigger one). Personally I prefer the larger onscreen keyboard to use when I’m typing and a larger writing surface when taking notes (more on that later). The iPad is a cellular model so that I’ll have connectivity wherever I am. This really becomes critical when not knowing what the wifi capabilities at a client or hotel may be. I’ve found often enough that the cell connection speed is faster than the local wifi to really depend on it. My second screen is the iPhone X. Both of my devices are on the same carrier but I know a number of execs who use two different cell providers in their devices so they have a better chance for coverage all the time.

I often find myself using the iPad and iPhone at the same time. I’ll be using the iPhone for a call or video conference and taking notes on the iPad. I might also be using the iPad plugged into a projector to run a presentation with the iPhone serving as my remote control and speaking notes.

iPad Pro Accessories

The first key add-on for the iPad Pro is the Apple Pencil. While I purchased a Pencil when it was first available, before going fully mobile I primarily typed my notes and didn’t really use it. I tried out taking notes by writing recently and am finding I really enjoy it. Looking way back, I was one of those people who carried hard bound notebooks with graph paper for my note taking (and I’ll admit to having used a fountain pen more than a few times) — I really enjoyed the feel of writing. Using the pencil on the iPad screen is just a joy to write with. No stylus on any other device has ever come close to how it feels. I’m not saying you should switch over to the pencil from typing but if you enjoy or are used to writing your notes, it’s a very smooth transition to using the iPad for that (don’t worry about converting your handwriting to text just yet — that’ll be a future topic).

The next key ingredient is the iPad case. I’ve experimented with keyboard cases (built in clam shell cases with a keyboard like the one from Logitech) but they really added a lot of weight to the iPad and didn’t provide anywhere to keep the pencil handy. I recently discovered a smart case (opening the top turns on the iPad) that has a built in place for the pencil. The case puts the pencil in the right place — on the inside where it’s covered and held secure by the case, not exposed looking like it was tacked on after the fact.

I feel comfortable with the on-screen keyboard but for times when I really want to write a lot more content (like this article) I’ll pull out an Apple Magic Keyboard. I really like that it can be recharged with a lightning cable (simplifying how many different types you need) and it just feels great. On an airplane I can flip the iPad case so it’s standing upright on the tray table and just set the keyboard in my lap. I picked up a hard sided case for the keyboard as well to protect it and make sure it’s not accidentally turning on.

Audio

For airline travel I’ve found the wired Bose QuietComfort 20 noise cancelling headset does a great job of filtering out the background hum of the engines.

When on the ground, my go-to headphones are Apple AirPods. I keep these paired with the iPhone for all of my phone & video conferencing. One trick I’ve found for heavy talk days is to alternate right and left side ear buds so that one is always charging while I’m using the other. I can get 1.5-2 hours of talk time from each charge so I’m often recharging multiple times a day.

If I’m going to be hosting a group call with multiple people around me I’ll fire up the Jabra Speak 710 via Bluetooth to the iPhone. It’s both a speaker and microphone made for group calls. The sound quality is really good and the mic can easily pick up 5-6 people sitting within 5+ feet of the speaker in the middle of the table.

Power

While a normal lightning iPhone/iPad charger will work to charge the iPad, it can take quite a while (especially while using it). A great alternative is an Apple 30watt USB-C charger with a USB-C to lightning cable. That charges the iPad super fast (at least 3x the normal charger).

I also always carry a power strip with multiple 110v outlets and USB plugs so I can power up everything (and share power with others in a meeting space when there aren’t enough plugs in the table). I’ve found the UPWADE travel power strip to be a good solution (although I’m still looking for something that provides a higher output to the USB ports to allow faster device charging).

And don’t leave home without a backup battery with USB ports on it. I carry a 20,000mAh Anker battery with 2 USB ports. It is a little larger but well worth it since it’ll recharge the iPhone 4-6 times or the iPad 1-2 times. For those times when there just isn’t an outlet (at less friendly airports or even on the plane itself) it works well and can easily keep everything running for a whole day if not more. I leave a 1’ USB to lightning cable attached to it so I’m not managing a 3’ long cable hanging around when the battery is right next to my iPad.

Adapters & Dongles

If you’re in an office environment you control where you can AirPlay directly to screens in an office or conference room you won’t have to be as worried about video adapters. One of the unfortunate realities is that most facilities are still equipped with legacy video gear, projectors and screens so you’ll want to make sure you have both a VGA and HDMI lightning adapter.

When traveling I may have a drone with me for capturing aerial photography or video so I often want to get pictures from a Micro SD card into my iPad. For that, I use the Lightning to SD card adapter (with the Micro SD reader card in it). That allows for importing directly into the iPad photo album (yes, I use iCloud for my photo library — it’s worth spending a few $ to get every picture and video you have into a single place — more on that in the future).

Wrapping Up

Those are the highlights of my core mobility setup. It is a regularly evolving set of tools so I’ll definitely share any future worthwhile additions.

Now that we’ve talked about the gear, how do we best put it to use to take advantage of Apple and other cloud services and software to power new ways of working? Stay tuned.

Links to the gear mentioned above:

iPad Pro Smart Case With Pencil Holder

[Note - This case says it’s compatible with Apple iPad 12.9 2017 (model A1670, A1671) and 2015 (model A1) — others were very specific that they don’t work with the 2017 model so read carefully]

Spigen Ultra Hybrid IPhone X Case

Apple Magic Keyboard

Hard case for Apple Magic Keyboard

Jabra Speak 710 UC Bluetooth Speakerphone

Anker PowerCore 20100mAh USB Battery

Pack of 4 1ft Lightning USB cables

UPWADE Travel Power Strip With 4 USB Ports

Bose QuietComfort 20 Noise Cancelling Headphones

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