Linked List: August 25, 2023

Friday, 25 August 2023

Threads Web App Launches 

Started rolling out earlier this week, but by yesterday, I think it was available to everyone. Missing some features from the native iPhone/Android apps (e.g. there’s no access to the chronological “following” feed yet), but quite solid overall — and there are some very nice touches on the features that are present. [Update: Turns out the following feed is there, I just didn’t see it. There’s a toggle button in the lower left of the window. Huzzah.]

MG Siegler has a post comparing the web app vs. the native app on an iPad. Just as with Threads’s older sibling Instagram, the native iOS app only runs with an iPhone screen layout on iPad. The web app (again, just like with Instagram) looks and feels very much like a native app would.

MacOS 14 Sonoma — currently in public beta, set for release this fall — adds built-in support for saving web apps as standalone apps, like the “Add to Home Screen” feature that’s been in iOS since even before the App Store. I’m not running Sonoma yet, but those who are report being pleased with Threads as a web app. Parker Ortolani has a nice tip for making the icon look better, too.

‘Giving Up the iPad-Only Travel Dream’ 

Jason Snell, writing at Six Colors:

In the battle between iPad and Mac, I’m a longtime member of Team Both — I use my Mac most of the day at my desk, but when I write elsewhere in the house or backyard, I switch to an iPad Pro in the Magic Keyboard case. And that iPad (in a regular case) is my primary computing device when I’m not in work mode.

I’m not at all ready to declare the “use iPad to get work done” experiment dead. With the forthcoming release of iPadOS 17, Stage Manager has thrown in a bunch of improvements that suggest the iPad’s progression to more functional status continues, albeit at a pace that’s a bit too slow for my liking.

But here I sit at my mother’s dining room table, typing on a MacBook Air. Something has changed in my approach to travel, and I’m trying to understand just what it is and what it tells me about the trajectory of the iPad as a productivity tool.

I’ve written at length, multiple times, about my decidedly mixed feelings regarding the iPad — most stridently in January 2020, in a piece titled “The iPad Awkwardly Turns 10”. Stage Manager is the biggest change to the iPad interface since I wrote that, and its existence certainly helps on that “power user” front. (And Stage Manager sees some nice improvements in this year’s iPadOS 17.) But for me personally, I continue to find that I’m most productive when I spend my working time in front of my Mac. Gobs of people thrive using their iPads for writing and other creative endeavors. But I know I’m best off, productivity-wise, using my iPad basically as a single-tasking consumption device for long-form reading and video watching.

The reason this topic remains evergreen is that I want to use my iPad more. There’s something ineffable about it. It’s a thrill when I use my iPad to do something that an iPad is actually best at. I honestly think I’d be more productive if I owned no iPad at all, yet I keep trying to find ways to use it more.

So when I travel, it’s never a question whether I’ll pack my MacBook Pro. Even if I don’t plan or want to work during a particular trip, the one-man-show nature of Daring Fireball means I feel that I need to be able to. (I was on a family vacation, preparing to head to dinner, when this news broke 12 years ago yesterday.) The question is whether I even pack my iPad Pro at all, or just go it alone with iPhone and Mac. When I’m packing, I generally wind up tossing the iPad in my bag, thinking I’ll miss it if I don’t. But when I do just leave the iPad at home, I don’t miss it. It’s confounding, though, because I’m going on a trip next week and I bet I’ll take my damn iPad.