Apple’s new Device Continuum: iPhone, iPad, and Mac

With the release of Big Sur, the Mac incorporated the design language of the iPad and iPhone. Also, with iOS 14, the iPad gained the sidebars of the Mac, particularly the triple column layout that was exclusive to the larger iPad for a number of years. Over the years, the iPad has developed into quite the mobile workhorse, being able to run desktop-class applications like Microsoft Office and Adobe Creative Cloud applications that are hand-made to take advantage of the form factor and exclusive features like the touchscreen, rear-facing cameras, and Apple Pencil. By its nature of being an offshoot of the iPhone, the iPad starts off as a unitasker, but for desktop-class applications. I find the experience to be very compelling, especially for focused work like writing, replying to a bunch of emails, reading, games, etc. The Mac is the big multitasker for me. The iPad Pro version of Pages feels like and performs a lot like the Mac version now. Features like tracking changes, printing, collaboration, etc are all on the iPad now. For many tasks like writing the iPad’s singular application focus is perfect. Writing, photo editing, gaming, reading, etc. are all good uses of the more focused iPad and where the larger canvas to work with makes it a superior choice to the iPhone. Using stuff like iCloud and OneDrive for Business for work documents, the cloud allows me to seamlessly jump between devices. For me, the iPad has become the personal Imperial Space shuttle to my Star Destroyer that is a MacBook Pro.

It’s just powerful enough that I feel comfortable taking just it with me to meetings, when I travel for non-work related matters, and when I have to go somewhere on campus. I can Remote Desktop into my management box at work for any SysAdmin tasks and Safari is capable enough that I can manage machines through Jamf, Intune, and modify things in Azure. Applications like Outlook, Teams, OneNote, Word, Excel, and PowerPoint are more than capable enough for most of what I do on the go and seem to be getting new features all the time. My personal data resides in iCloud and I subscribe to Apple One so I can stream my music, podcasts, photos, documents, and more from the cloud so local storage is not the same issue it once was. There is a certain mental load that having like-applications between the Mac and iPad look, feel, and function the same, lessens. I feel like Apple Mail on the iPad is a larger canvas for me to work on the iPad and I can have something side-by-side as I type on my Magic keyboard or in my lap with the larger virtual keyboard. The Mac feels the same as the iPad, but I can have overlapping Windows, machines that I’ve RDP’d into for testing or service and a support Teams call on another monitor. Its great to be doing something on my MacBook Pro like referencing a note that took on my iPhone or iPad in a floating window on the Mac, but then leave my Mac running while I go on-side with my iPhone to take photos and add them to my working note.

My Favorite 3rd Party apps for Cross-Platform

Fantastical

Applications like Fantastical on the Mac now have feature-parity with their iPhone and iPad apps, feeling like I can jump between devices with ease. The iPhone version of Fantastical is simply the menu bar version of the app and the iPad app is simply the windows version of the Mac app. Heck, the Apple Watch apps is incredibly powerful in its own right, displaying my upcoming event or reminder from the iPhone app and then giving me quick access to my entire timeline with calendar events interwoven with reminders.

Bear

Bear is a great application for writing blog posts. I wish it did a better job with Apple Pencil, but for writing Medium posts its probably my favorite minimal writing environment. It syncs over iCloud and keeps everything flowing between your iPhone, iPad, and Mac. Its really built for note-taking, but I find it great for writing

Microsoft Teams

Microsoft Teams is rapidly transforming how people at my college communicate and work. With COVID, people have been working from home and in the office. I’ve been pushing Teams because it does so well on smartphones, tablets, web, Mac, and PC. Its easy to jump between devices for conversations, online meetings, editing documents, and running apps like Microsoft Lists.

Microsoft OneNote

I have been using Microsoft OneNote for a few years now and its a powerful note-taking application. I think the iPhone app could use a little work in terms of quickly creating notes, but the iPad app is a wonderful implementation of it, allowing you to mix hand-written notes, text, images, tables, outlines, videos, etc. I really love the free-flowing nature of OneNote, which mimics a physical notebook, letting you mix note-taking mediums, stack them, and even doodle on top of images/other text. My boss and I use it to share notes.

Outlook

Before you roll your eyes, I mainly use Apple Mail on my Mac, but on my iPad and iPhone I do find myself drawn to Outlook. The application is powerful, has much better search than Apple Mail, and its integration with being able to make Teams Meetings and pull files into/out of OneDrive is handy when you work in an Office365 environment. I’m hoping that they get the Mac app up to snuff soon because I would like to be able to transverse clients across all three platforms. They even have a snazzy Apple Watch app.

Remote Desktop

Microsoft updated the iPad Remote Desktop application to support the Apple Magic Keyboard and trackpad and that’s what really sold me on the Magic Keyboard after that did that. That was the big missing piece for me to do my job on the go with just an iPad. Yeah, its a little cramped and not something I would work to work from for 8x hours a day, but its great when you’re traveling or walking between buildings or jobs and need to make a quick change for whatever reason.

Lightroom

Adobe Lightroom is a great example of an application suite that feels at home on the iPhone, iPad, and Mac with feature parity across all three devices. Its easy now to plug in your DSLR and import your photos into Lightroom and then edit them later on your Mac and then share the same album from your iPhone. I typically use Apple photos for a lot of my basic needs, but if I take photos for a school event and need to process through them quickly and then share them all out with one application, Adobe Lightroom is the app that I reach for most often.

Adobe Premiere Rush

Adobe Premiere Rush is much like Lightroom, if you need to get a video out in a hurry and posted online, its a great application suite that works across iPhone, iPad, and Mac with feature parity as well. Projects syncs over Creative Cloud between devices and you can even publish directly to services like YouTube directly from the iPad instead of having to reach for a Mac. It’s very easy to shot video on an iPhone or iPad and then edit it across any device. I’ve gotten to the point that I use it over iMovie for that reason. The iPad app just feels much more feature complete than iMovie on the iPad, which still kinda feels like a scaled up iPhone app.