The April 2021 Apple Event yesterday knocked it out of the park for me. It’s the first time in a long time that I’ve been excited about new Mac hardware. The 2021 iMac using Apple Silicon is the first new Mac designed around the M1 chipset that Apple is developing in house, and the new design is sleek and reminiscent of the first iMacs in terms of their personality.

I’m so glad to see Apple design brining back some personality into the products (and a lost sense of design and aesthetic that I’ve not seen since the 2000s) and embracing color in new and exciting ways that we haven’t seen since the late 90s when it was all on the line for Apple. The Mac has played it safe over the past decade and has gotten more boring and corporate looking with every new shade of gray released. These new Macs, however, breathe new life into the Mac ecosystem and make me very excited to see what the future holds for the Mac.

The M1 chip is changing the heartbeat of the Mac, making it smarter, faster, and stronger against competition. I’m waiting with eagerness (and eager money) for a 16” MacBook Pro and an iMac or other desktop computer that can support developers and the full power and ports it requires.

My current Mac setup includes a 2016 16” MacBook Pro and 2013 Mac Pro that has seen better days, and the new M1 chips smoke every computer that I currently own in performance and battery life.

Apple’s event yesterday was just plain fun, and I’m glad to see that after one of the most devastating years in recent history. There’s not a single product that Apple announced that I questioned: They’re all fantastic and the teams that designed and developed these products deserve to be applauded.

Besides the iMac, I’m certainly excited about the AirTags and the possibilities it brings for being able to track items, bags, and more. I’m already planning to order a 4-pack of these tags for my computer bag, my Nintendo Switch, keys, and more.

I’m also really excited about the iPad Pro. For those that don’t know, I use an iPad Pro daily as my main computing device when I’m not doing development work. I write the overwhelming majority of articles for TechRepublic.com on there, and I also do some Swift Playground work when I don’t want to sit down at my Mac.

The power and performance that Apple is able to pack into the iPad Pro with the M1 chip is astonishing, and I cannot help but think there’s another motive with bringing 16GB RAM to the iPad Pro and the M1 chip (Hello Xcode for iPad Pro? … hey, one can dream can’t they?).

All in all, the Apple event yesterday was a success from my point of view, and it’s hard to believe that we still have WWDC around the corner, then late summer and fall announcements as well. It’s shaping up to be a packed year for Apple and Apple fans everywhere, and I cannot wait to see what else is released in 2021.

I’ve been using Apple’s Notes app on my macOS and iOS devices for years to synchronize bits of text and things that I think I will need to remember in the future.

My Notes app has blossomed into several hundreds of notes, some of which have no titles, and I really don’t know why I kept some of them around. In the mix is also several important notes that I want to keep and hang on to for future reference. For those notes that had some importance, they received a title and were stored away in folders, but accessing them was more than a little difficult.

Over the past week, I’ve been taking time to clear out old notes that I no longer need, or are no longer relevant; however, this left me wondering if there was some better way to store and surface these important piece of text, snippets of code, and other short form documents in a way that could be easier to find and recognize in the future.

I’ve been hearing a lot about two different tools: Obsidian and Craft. I’ve been using Obsidian and Craft for a little over a week in an attempt to better understand these platforms and to see which can provide me the best solution for what I want to do.

So far, Craft is winning the debate only because it has an iOS app, and the macOS app version isn’t an electron app; however, Obsidian at the same time being an electron app, does have the upside of storing documents in Markdown format at rest. This is good for archival because it means that I can easily retrieve the text at any time in the future regardless of if the app has gone the way of the dodo.

Over the next few weeks, I’m going to be trying to make a decision about which platform I’m going to stick with when it comes to notes, and I’ll keep the blog updated on the solution that I come to choose and the reasons why I choose it.

Do you have any recommendations for note apps or have experience with Obsidian or Craft? I’d love to hear what you’re using and why you’ve chosen it. Drop me a line on Twitter.

We’ve finally bid 2020 goodbye, but the repercussions of 2020 will linger for a bit longer. We’re still masking up, socially distancing, and trying to live and work the best that we can while being safe to both ourselves and our neighbor.

As the new year approached, I do have some wishes, some resolutions, and things that I want to tackle in the new year (albeit, a bit changed since the pandemic started). As with tradition, I’m picking three areas of my life that I want to work, get better at, or just generally improve.

Side projects and learning new development techniques

Over the past several years, my side projects (specifically the apps that I make myself and release on the App Store) have fallen by the wayside. A lot of this was due to the fact that they didn’t receive many downloads and it was difficult to keep releasing updates and new versions of apps when they just don’t get much traction. Another was that after a busy day at work, the last thing that I wanted to do was sit down and work again.

This year, however, I’m looking to release a few new apps to the App Store and also release an update or two to my years-old apps as well.

I feel that my side projects are really where I learn a lot more about my craft than I do sometimes at work, simply because many clients want what’s cheaper and more efficient solutions rather than what’s shiny and new. I’m hoping to really dig into SwiftUI, Combine, and many of the newer iOS APIs that I haven’t yet gotten a chance to do.

Reading

Last year, my reading goal hit an all time low — I was planning on reading about 20 books, but only managed about 7 (we’ll blame Animal Crossing, the PS5 launch, and just being exhausted from everything surrounding the pandemic).

This year, I’m planning on attempting my 20 book goal (follow my progress on GoodReads), and so far have already read one book, and starting on two additional ones. One of my favorite books that I’m starting is one that I received from a friend as a Christmas present, “The Illusion of Life: Disney Animation,” which covers from conception to design to production how Disney animates their movies.

I’m hopeful that I’ll be able to increase this 20 book reading goal as the year progresses, but leaving it here so that I can account for any surprises that may pop up during the year.

Exercise

In 2019, I started exercising religiously with an open goal to just “lose some weight.” By the time 2020 ended, I’d lost 40 pounds through regular exercise and small diet changes. This year, I’m hoping to continue my goal and lose an additional 30 pounds to get to my target weight, then start figuring out ways to maintain that target weight going forward.

It’s amazing how much healthier and better I feel now that I’ve lost weight and continue to exercise. One of the things that launched last year that’s helped a ton in just the past few weeks to kickstart my 2021 exercise goals is Apple Fitness+. This new service has been fantastic since it launched about 3 weeks ago and has shown me various ways to get more out of my treadmill, rowing and strength workouts, but has also opened the door to new exercise routines such as yoga, dance, and more.

I cannot wait to continue using this service into 2021 and seeing what new changes it can bring about as I work towards a healthier me.

Stopping and smelling the roses

It feels like 2020 flew by. It’s like the meme goes: It’s March 230, 2020. I honestly feel like I missed most of last year through just the constant barrage of work, exercise, and sleep routine every day. It felt like nothing much went on outside of those activities. This year, I’m hoping to take some time and just stop and enjoy things — and document them through journaling. Looking back through my camera roll last year, I didn’t document much (in fact, I captured the fewest photos in the past decade ever last year), so I’m hoping to change that going into 2021.

I’m hopeful that 2021 will bring about more normalcy in our world (surely we won’t be fully back to normal any time soon, but small steps are certainly welcomed).

Here’s to 2021 and a Happy New Year.