SlideMagic Blog

During the Windows - Apple battle of the early 2000s, one of Apple’s major arguments always was that things “just worked”. No drivers to install, software was simple and easy to understand. Things did not crash.

Being both a developer and an amateur electronic musician, I am always a bit late to update my computer’s operating system. I recently upgraded to Sequioa and have noticed a constant trickle of small, little glitches. Difficulties switching audio outputs, Facetime phones that keep on ringing after answering a call, weirdness when waking up a laptop with external monitors attached, apps not working. The solution is usually a machine re-boot.

I hope it is my particular machine set up.

SlideMagic has added direct support for Apple Silicon, Apple computers with ‘M” processors. This will make the performance of SlideMagic on modern Apple machines much faster. (Previous version used an on-the-spot translation from Intel to ARM, draining performance).

In the download sections of the web site you will now see 3 buttons: Windows (unchanged), Mac (modern ARM machines), and Mac Intel (older Macs that are still on Intel processors).

The automatic update feature of SlideMagic will not switch you over to the new version. You will have to re-install SlideMagic from the web site. From then on, updates will be for Apple Silicon.

After 4 years, my MacBook died on me during a holiday abroad last week. A flat battery would not recharge again to bring it back to life. I upgraded to a new computer instead of fixing my old one.

I am trying to remember the Macs I went through since 2008:

• Air
• 17” MBP
• 15” MBP
• 27” iMac
• 15” MBP
• And now: 14” MBP

Of these, the iMac is still running in great shape as the living room computer.

Updating a computer used to be a huge deal in the 1990s and 2000s, because you had to get your data across, or worse, recover your data, or even worse: give up on your data. Now, computers have become a disposable tool. Get a new one, quickly install your software, and you are good to go with all data being available and backed up online.

Some thoughts on the 2022 machine:

• Again a laptop. Mobility is important. Even more now than in my previous life as a designer, a critical bug in one of my sites might need patching instantly, no matter the place on earth or time of day.
• I am on continuing my 1 big monitor, laptop as side screen setup. There was a time I would run 2 giant 27” monitors side by side. Just too much stuff: I would use the space to add Twitter feeds, email inboxes and other distractions. It is better to focus. The small screen is my “copy paste” scratch pad.
• I went for the more compact 14” screen. The 16” machine is too bulky. Especially given my monitor setup in the my day to day office. Less heavy, and it fits in antique hotel room safes that have not been updated over the past 20 years.
• I took it easy on the performance upgrades. Some of my earlier machines had custom high end specs. I think it makes more sense to upgrade more frequently. This M1 processor is a huge step in performance for example, easily outperforming a few extra MHz on an i7 CPU.

My main work machine is in repair, which in Israel, means you lose it for at least a week. So I am back to working on old computers: a 2015 iMac, and a 2016 MacBook. And I must say: things are mostly fine on machines that I abandoned more than a year ago.

The 27” screen of the 2015 iMac somehow feels more comfortable than the LG 5K display that I use with my top of the line MacBook Pro. Processing speed for the work I do (writing code and designing slides) is totally fine. Even on the 2016 MacBook (with minimum spec even for 2016), things are fine. And that light weight is actually a real bonus versus the hot, heavy 15” MacBook Pro. It makes me think of future setups: desktop for the bulk of the work, and an “emergency” lower-spec laptop to enable working outside the office if needed.

The only issue I have is running a Windows machine via bootcamp to build the Windows version of SlideMagic. That software is noticeably slower.

If you are not a gamer, or a movie editor at Pixar, computers probably last a lot longer than you think. Come to think of it, most machine replacements were probably due to hard drive crashes. Now with solid state drives, that might happen for less frequently.

Another upside, I now get to test the SlideMagic app thoroughly on smaller screens and lower-spec graphics cards…

Photo by Nicholas Santoianni on Unsplash

A critical feature of any presentation app is the management of screens when presenting for a live audience. The presentation needs to show up on the big screen, and if possible, the presenter windows with the slide count, next slide preview, and timer needs to pop up on the secondary monitor.

Messing with monitors under the stressful time pressure of standing in front of a waiting audience requires serious stress testing. I am now doing this for SlideMagic 2.0. Pulling out monitor cords mid-presentation, sticking them back in, closing windows. I removed many bugs, but there are still a few left (the dual operating system set up is causing some additional challenges).

Soon, I will have ironed them out all. But as a precaution, I might not go as far as PowerPoint or Keynote where the user does not see the presenter and audience windows explicitly. I will leave them visible as non-maximised windows so the user can find them and move them around if Murphy’s Law strikes.

To be continued.

I have been trying electronic pencils for years and years: different 3rd party iPad styli (is that the correct plural?), the previous Apple pencil itself and previous solutions by Wacom. None of these worked good enough for me to get rid of my note book.

I think has changed with the latest Apple pencil that works on a 2018 iPad Pro. The updated pencil solved a few annoyances when compared to the previous one:

• It snaps to your device (but still falls of in your bag)
• When snapped, it charges, no more need to stick it in the iPad connected
• It no longer rolls
• It has a matt finish and feels nicer to work with

The biggest issue though used to be work flow, with 2 poor options:

• Log into your sleeping iPad all the time when you want to jot something though in a meeting
• Keep your notes app running all the time and thereby letting the graphics intensive app drain your iPad battery.

That has been solved by a feature buried in the settings of the Apple Notes app: a simple double tap of the pencil on the screen wakes up the Notes app. The iPad is still locked as a security precaution, you can set the time it takes for the iPad to open a new note instead of displaying the last note you were writing to anyone who taps the screen.

Photo by Kim Gorga on Unsplash

Microsoft is on a roll, and now that I am turning temporarily into a developer, I appreciate them even more with very powerful code editors, and repeated decisions to open source their software (the entire Windows platform engine is going open source), and make other sensible decisions (moving to the Chromium browser rendering engine inside Edge).

The office apps are no exception, and I took some time to play around with PowerPoint on my new iPad.

The app looks and feels fantastic (I have something to aspire to), and all the basic design features work flawlessly. I find it easier to find my way around coming in “cold” then the keynote app for iPad. The small screen encourages you to design simpler slides, and spend less time adding stuff that is not essential to your story.

In 2018, things are still not perfect though. But most shortcomings are to blame on the iPad form factor, not Microsoft:

• Presentation design is a creative process that needs space, a big screen, accurate placing of objects (fingers are less good here than a mouse). An iPad is just not a focussed design interface.
• File management is still cumbersome on an iPad. Finding that deck from last week, opening a spreadsheet side by side, copying an image from the web browser, things that take a second on a computer are not intuitive on an iPad.
• Because of the form factor Microsoft has cut down the features for PowerPoint on iPad. In itself, this is great (I am also focusing the features in my app), but, once the genie is out of the bottle, it is very hard to have the same application on different platforms with different feature sets, especially if you are working with collaborators on different devices. “Please create this bar chart”, is emailed to the analyst working on an iPad in the taxi who then discovers that data charts are not really supported. It also hard to create custom themes and colour schemes.

I upgraded my 9.7” iPad to the new 12.9” version after trying one out. Here are my observations:

• The size and weight of the bigger iPad is now manageable (unlike the first models). It is so light that the programmed weight to size ratio in your head gets confused. Still, this remains a “2 hand” device in most cases. If you need a 1-hand device, this one is not for you.
• The size is the main reason I got it, it enables me to read “magazines” by smaller publishers do not have the resources to invest in proper iPad apps and simply send out a PDF every month. For this purpose it is great. An A4-sized PDF on iPad is now one on one comparable to a paper one, probably even better.
• The best way to get a feel for the screen quality is to go back to your old device that you thought was great. It is not yet as stark as the iPhone 3 to iPhone 4 jump, but it is a huge step up.
• The thing is incredibly fast and snappy
• The pencil is a huge improvement. I tried working with styli and pencils right from the launch of the first iPad, none of them really worked for me. This one snaps against the iPad with magnets (although it will fall of in your bag), has a matt feel, cannot roll away due to a flat side, has a tap function to quickly change pens, and charges on the side of the device rather than sticking out of the connector. Writing and drawing is awesome. The killer question will be how it behaves in an hour meeting: unlocking the device, battery life, both of which were wrong in the previous version. Constantly messing around with buttons and passwords to jot down something, and then leaving your meeting with a drained battery. Face ID should help (hopefully).
• I did not get the keyboard, I still believe that writing long texts can be better done on a proper laptop.
• The iPad is expensive, but you can save on storage if you restrict your movie downloads to those you need on one long haul flight.

This post on AVC describes a common situation: technical problems when setting up a presentation. Different computers and different screens (dimensions, operating systems, resolutions, cables, plugs) make it unpredictable what happens when you connect the 2.

This a particular problem in marathon meetings, where a large number of presenters show up one after the other. It is a time waste for the audience and a concentration breaker for the presenter.

The solution in the post was an interesting one: use Zoom (or another web conferencing service) locally (i.e., standing in the same room). This eliminates the need for hardware connections and allows presenters to line up, solve any technical issues before they are due on stage.

In the absence of such a solution, my recommendation would be to always carry a USB stick with your deck around (in PowerPoint and PDF), just in case. Ultimately portable projectors will be compact and capable enough that everyone who has a high-stakes presentation to pitch will carry one around.

Photo by Jeremy Yap on Unsplash

I am now working with my new MacBook Pro computer set up for 2 weeks. In 2015, I got an iMac because it was the only option to enjoy that huge 5k screen back then. Some observations:

• I am happy to have the option of mobility again. If your work consists of replying to emails, mobile devices are OK to work outside your office, but for design and coding, that is a different story.
• While the LG 5K monitor is less sturdy than the iMac, it is easier to adjust and has a much smaller footprint. The screen quality is exactly the same (it is probably the same hardware panel as the iMac), some might perceive the glossy finish of the iMac to produce deeper black tints.
• Having worked for a number of years on 1 monitor, I rarely switch back to a 2 monitor set up (laptop + monitor). I tend to use that second screen for distractions (email, Twitter), and life is actually better and more productive without these. (I do need those 2 monitors to test my “presenter mode” feature of my app, pulling my hairs out over how hard it still is to coordinate 2 application windows in 2018…)
• The monitors have become so good today that there is no longer the issue of “compromise”: working on the desktop monitor is better because the screen is better. Now there are 2 different work modes with equally good monitor options: laptop screen at close range with trackpad, fixed monitor and mouse at longer range. Both are good.
• There are a number of 13” screens in the family, and I must say I much prefer my 15”.
• People have been bashing the MBP in reviews, but I must say it actually works fine. (Contrary to popular taste, I got the silver one and not space grey for that retro feel).
• USB-C dongle hell is hidden, after some trial and error with USB hubs, I now have my entire office (plus music studio) feed of one single charging/monitor/USB cable, easy connecting and disconnecting in my office.
• I am not using the touch bar that much. The ESC key could as well have been a real key. It is baffling that the volume slider is not present as the default option, but requires an extra click. Touch ID is great.