641: Catching up with Federico Viticci

Mostly I think this topic has been way over-done with so much of the same stuff repeated. Ugh.

Anyhoo, a few thoughts. Ha, yeah, sorry, long post, I can’t help myself! :laughing:

It’s seemed to me for awhile now that Federico would likely move back to the Mac… or maybe that he should. He obviously loves the iPad but he really pushes hard to make it work for him. I’ve marveled at the workflows he comes up with. I think another thing that happens with well known podcasters/writers/publishers is that they get a reputation, get to be known for certain things and those things become a part of their professional identity and role. That seems like it might be a part of the equation here.

My thinking on the various known iPad enthusiasts going back to the Mac is hey, do what works for you! That said, the iPad Pro and iPadOS are both more capable in 2022 than they were in 2021 and more capable than they were in 2020, 2019, 2018… in other words, the hardware and OS get better every year. I think it’s easy to argue that the strides and changes made to iPadOS are more significant than the more minor iterations brought to macOS which is older and far more mature.

Something that I often see stated (in one way or another) that seems silly is the above sort of thing: “…unless you have very basic work requirements…” My take from that kind of statement is that many people just never learned how to use the advanced features of the iPad. Or, put another way, people coming from the Mac, expecting to use the iPad, didn’t spend the necessary time to get comfortable with it. It’s not the same device there’s no doubt that touch-based multitasking and the multitasking flow is very different.

As someone fluent in iPad multitasking I’ve come to feel that it’s better than the multitasking on the Mac, especially on the M1 iPad with the additional memory available. My “very basic work requirements” include managing 10+ client websites, that’s updating html, CSS, changing existing design elements, creating new designs, creating or editing graphics assets, editing photos, etc. All done from iPad often moving between 2 to 5 apps or more… Textastic for code, Affinity Photo, Affinity Designer, Mail, Messages, Files and/or Slack. And done so fluidly and efficiently without delay or waiting for apps to reload.

Multitasking better than the Mac? I can hear the groans. Yes. On the Mac I’ve got a desktop dedicated to communications: Slack, Mail, Messages. My 27" is divided into 3 windows. Then I’ve got Textastic, Finder and an FTP app on another Desktop and often one of the Affinity Apps on another. Or possibly Safari for reference material. Years ago I would likely have had all these on one Desktop with overlapping windows. I tried that again recently and it takes me more time to find what I want. But, let’s say I’m working in Textastic to edit the html of a page. Or Affinity on a graphic. And then I need to reference an email or an ongoing chat in Messages or Slack. I can Command-Tab to change back and forth. Or I can minimize Textastic to dock or invoke mission control and drag a window to another desktop. Or a combination of things. But I can’t be working on an app (full screen or split screen) and swipe up on the dock and drag additional windows around the way I can on iPad.

On the iPad I can be working in Textastic and split screen with another app and switch apps back and forth so quickly. Add to that having a third app in slide over which I often do. If I need to flip over to, say, the Affinity App I can do that. If I need to reference Mail, Messages or Slack while working on the graphic in Affinity I can swipe, drag the app icon up to the second split or to the slide over. It’s so much more flexible and fluid.

With the Mac I am limited to either overlapping windows all on one screen and/or minimizing to the dock and/or command tabbing. It feels so clumsy. The only time the Mac would be better for me is if I needed 4 or more different app windows open to cross reference at the same time for a task. I never need to see 4 apps at exactly the same time/same screen. For workflows where that many apps are needed, well, I can see how that would be a problem.

I actually kinda worry because selfishly, for me, I find the current multitasking to be nearly perfect for me. Some of what I hear Frederico (and others) suggest I like (the option to snap 3 or maybe 4 apps to a grid), other bits, not so much. His desires for the iPad are pushing it closer and closer to the Mac. I don’t mind greater complexity as long as current options remain relatively intact.

Now, all that said, of course iPadOS is not perfect! There are things to improve and no one will ever be entirely happy. I’ve got a few things I’d like to see improved upon, namely Smart Folders for all the apps: Mail, Contacts, Files. And in general bringing the various included system apps up to the parity with the Mac where it’s possible and makes sense in terms of features.

I’ve spent the past 3 months attempting to use my recently upgraded to M1 Mac Mini and just generally, trying to reacquaint myself with macOS and it’s been okay. But generally speaking, I get more joy out of using the iPad and feel like I get my work done there with less effort and friction.

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For focused work, the iPad is great. I can get reading and writing done there with little distraction (focus mode is more effective on iPadOS) and there are few applications I don’t have access to. For some tasks, like document review, iPad and Apple Pencil are a wonderful combination.

The biggest limitation is the file system, which has been borrowed from the iPhone. The ability to give (not by default!) some applications more wide ranging access to files would be helpful, although if you store them in iCloud that alleviates some of the problem.

I could have added, in reply to @celler too in fairness to the Apple range that my wife, when outside the office, ran a company plus a HOA board from her iPhone alone. So my remarks were a bit unfair really from the point of view of my own experience; as you point out really. It is some credit to her I guess but also to the iPhone with which she seemed to have no problems.

Good point and brings me to one of mine, you do have to consider the time you take learing something. In all honesty I think that was the decision I made with iPad regarding work. I didn’t feel inclined to ‘learn it’ as it were. Also some of my apps are not there. Really amplifies @ismh 's point I think.
The most productive person I know is hardly on computers to this day though and as far as pencils go… well I have gone back to notebooks.
Same points could farily be applied to Mac all round and in fact pretty much what happened when my wife tried to turn her company Mac. The fact that so much of her stuff is now cloud based made a difference but sheer training time was the key factor. Disappointed me and I still think it was the wrong decision… you can’t win 'em all.

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True. But it helps when you run two instances of the Files app side by side

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It’s possible we would have been on mars before Elon made his first million :grinning:.

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Exactly this. You can compare it with moving to Windows or Ubuntu. You can probably do most, or all, of your work on these systems, but it will only work when you are willing to learn how to fully use the OS.

I agree on this point. I find it a plus for the iPad that you don’t have to think about organizing your windows. On the other side, that is how I mostly work on the Mac too and why I don’t want a screen bigger than 16”.

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As a fellow front-end web dev, I respect what you’re able to accomplish here. But I can’t imagine doing our job without Docker (or some other local development virtualization), or Chromium’s element inspector, or a native command line, or a screen big enough to have three text files and a command line open at once (all the time).

Let alone that I couldn’t imagine doing web design in something other than Figma or Sketch. And managing assets and typefaces and… oof. The list goes on.

But seriously, much respect for what you’re doing. You’re a unicorn. A canary in a coal mine. I’m impressed. (You should genuinely write posts about your workflow for Macstories because I’d love to learn more.)

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I suspect my process is far more simple than yours and my sites likely are simple too! Mostly static pages, and most of my usual work is updating content so it’s just a matter of changing out text and images. When I do set-up a new site it’s usually based on an existing, proven template that I use. No Figma, no Sketch, etc. A basic folder structure of html and css files, images, pdfs, etc. So, maybe don’t be too impressed. I’ve been working on the web since 1998 and I suspect I’m just a hold-over from those simpler times. Give me a text editor with built in FTP, web browser, graphic editor (or two) and I’m good to go.

Gotcha. That’s far simpler than my flow is these days. Kinda jealous!

@Denny, I always appreciate your positive take and analysis. This is another great entry. As you know from some past posts you and I’ve interacted on, I love my iPad Pro but feel it falls down for me in some places where it shouldn’t. Still, I 100% agree with your views on many of your points. Chief among them…

First:

There are places where the iPad is equally capable (if not better than the Mac), but people just want to do a thing exactly the way they do it on their Mac and accuse the iPad of not being able to do the thing because it’s not done the same way. When I’ve taken the time to learn to do something the iPad way, I’ve found that it works at least as efficiently as on the Mac. Which leads to my next point…

Second:

I am delighted with multitasking on the iPad and find that I can work quite efficiently with it. I took a few days of forcing myself to learn the features and use them last summer when the new design came out. It has paid great dividends. Yes, it’s different from macOS, but it is not less capable. In fact, the only multitasking problems that I’ve ever experienced have to do with legacy-third-party apps, like Microsoft Word. The multitasking system works and works great on an iPad.

Third:

I agree with this, because like you, I want the iPad to improve but don’t want it to become macOS. I love macOS. But I don’t want iPad to run on iPadOS or for iPadOS to become macOS.

Fifth

Agree

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I totally enjoy the follow up guests, one being Mr Viticci himself. I had to listen twice to take notes!
New indie devs would be cool, but only if they are willing. At least Federico shines the light on those who don’t come up from their computers yet!

The new multitasking announced at WWDC seem like we (@Denny) are going to get what we want. iPadOS seems to be retaining the existing options and adding this new Stage Manager mode, along with true multi-display support. Looks great to me.

Take a look here:

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It certainly opens up the potential for whole new categories of use, especially with the improvements to apps themselves and the unexpected but (seemingly) incredible collaboration features.

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Agreed. This is a very promising suite of updates, IMHO.

Maybe they need to get Federico back on the podcast. :grinning:

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It does appear his timing may have been a little off.

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Yeah, we’ll see. Definitely glad to see the basic interface will still be available for the folks that use the iPad in simpler ways will still have that. Thus far, with each iteration of multi-tasking I’ve followed along and been happy with the changes. I’m not sure how I feel about overlapping windows. That said, I’ve only watched the few minutes of the keynote and haven’t gone to check out the website or really think about what this will mean for my workflows. I’d guess it will make many of those that wanted a more mac like experience very happy though. And I’ll go ahead and guess that a lot will keep complaining saying it doesn’t go far enough. Goal posts will be moved. “You mean I can only extend my iPad to 1 external monitor?? Why not 5???”

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Aside from how the new multitasking and Stage Manager, no doubt that there are so many excellent features coming. The underling change to memory management seems like a big shift. Customizing toolbars on iPad apps will be a welcome change. There’s a LOT to digest. But there’s no doubt that they ticked the most important features on the request lists that have been floating around. Exciting and certainly a BIG day for the iPad Pro.

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This is the biggest update for the iPad Pro ever (Stage Manager is M1 only).

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