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Why I Spent $28,402 on Apple Products This Year

2021-05-30 · Tech review, setup or bag tour · Ali · recording, 12:08 · watch on YouTube

Topic: Tools, apps and tech · mode: List of tips or lessons · tags: His own numbers

Ali explains why he swears by Apple products: he uses tech as a tool, and his Apple devices work together. He goes through ten continuity features he uses (Continuity Markup, Apple Notes, AirDrop, Universal Clipboard, Continuity Camera, Instant Hotspot, messages, calls, Sidecar and Handoff) and admits they save only seconds, though he thinks the seconds add up.

What is said

The parts of the video and what is said in each (★ — how much it matters to the video).

00:00:00 — Why he swears by Apple: tech as a tool, products that work together

  • ★★★ Ali says the main reason he loves Apple products is not their design: he uses tech as a tool and just wants products that do the job and help him be productive, creative and learn. — 00:00:00 · Apple
  • ★★ Ali says Apple is not the only company making decent products any more: the Microsoft Surface Laptop is pretty solid, beautifully designed and comes in blue, his favourite colour. — 00:00:41 · Apple
  • ★★★ Ali swears by Apple products and is unlikely to switch soon because the more of them you have, the better they work together as an ecosystem, which makes him more productive and saves him time. — 00:00:41 · Apple
  • ★ Continuity, Ali explains, is Apple's term for how what is available on one Apple device is automatically available on another. — 00:01:10 · Apple

00:01:24 — Continuity Markup, Apple Notes, AirDrop, Universal Clipboard, Continuity Camera, Instant Hotspot, messaging, phone calls, Sidecar and Handoff

  • ★★ Ali is trying to buy a house as an investment and recently had to fill in forms a solicitor sent him. — 00:01:39
  • ★★ With Continuity Markup Ali sent the solicitor's Word document from his MacBook to his iPad, signed it and ticked its boxes by hand with the Apple Pencil, and the changes appeared on the MacBook. — 00:02:08 · iPad, Apple Pencil, MacBook
  • ★★★ Ali has tried Notion, Roam Research, Evernote, Obsidian and OneNote, but for the past few weeks he has mostly used Apple Notes, for continuity features the other note-taking apps lack. — 00:02:37 · Notion, Roam Research, Evernote
  • ★★ Because tapping the Apple Pencil on his locked iPad opens a new Apple Notes note, Ali's iPad acts as a napkin he always has with him for notes and diagrams, synced to his Macs within seconds. — 00:03:07 · iPad, Apple Pencil
  • ★★ When brainstorming video ideas, Ali sketches a quick thumbnail or spider diagram on the iPad, because drawing things visually helps him figure them out, then types proper text on his Mac. — 00:03:07 · iPad
  • ★★ Ali finds the iPad apps GoodNotes and Notability pretty good, but creating a new note in them is too much of a faff, so he defaults to Apple Notes. — 00:03:36 · Notability, iPad
  • ★★ Ali calls AirDrop, wireless file transfer between Apple devices, magical: no other phone maker seems to have done it well. — 00:03:36 · Apple
  • ★★ Ali uses AirDrop mostly to move B-roll filmed on his iPhone to his Mac for editing, without plugging anything in; he also AirDrops photos to friends and screenshots into documents. — 00:04:05 · iPhone
  • ★ Sending photos to friends without AirDrop means WhatsApp, which, Ali says, has a limit of 10 photos and compresses them. — 00:04:05 · WhatsApp
  • ★★ Ali has been testing the Microsoft Surface Laptop, which lacks Universal Clipboard, and realised how much he takes the feature for granted. — 00:04:34
  • ★★ With Universal Clipboard, anything copied on an iPhone, iMac, iPad or MacBook can be pasted on any of the other devices; Ali uses it many times a day, often for online banking. — 00:05:03 · iPad, MacBook, iPhone
  • ★ Ali banks with Monzo, Tide and Revolut, which he calls mobile-only banks without decent web interfaces. — 00:05:03
  • ★★ To pay an invoice, Ali copies the account details or an 18-digit reference from his Mac and pastes it on his iPhone with Universal Clipboard, instead of typing it or emailing it to himself. — 00:05:33 · iPhone
  • ★★ Continuity Camera adds a photo taken with an iPhone or a sketch made on an iPad straight into the document being worked on. — 00:06:02 · iPad, iPhone
  • ★★★ Ali drafts his videos in Apple Notes first; after drafting they go into Notion, which is how he works with the rest of his team. — 00:06:02 · Notion
  • ★ To put a photo of notes from his paper notebook into a video draft, Ali clicks Insert Attachment and Take Photo on his Mac, which opens the iPhone camera, instead of AirDropping the photo. — 00:06:31 · iPhone
  • ★★ On Windows, Ali says, using a phone as a hotspot means turning on Personal Hotspot on the phone, going into the Wi-Fi settings and entering the password the first time, which is a faff. — 00:07:00
  • ★★ With Instant Hotspot, Ali turns on his phone's personal hotspot from his iMac, MacBook or iPad with a single click. — 00:07:30 · iPad, MacBook
  • ★★ What first drew Ali into the Apple ecosystem, about nine years ago, was answering text messages on a Mac or iPad. — 00:07:30 · Apple, iPad
  • ★★ Besides iMessage, Ali thinks Apple recently added ordinary SMS text messages on the Mac, so he can answer people without iPhones and autofill two-factor codes from his Mac. (hedged) — 00:07:59 · Apple, iPhone
  • ★ Calls to an iPhone can be made or answered on the Mac, the Apple Watch or the iPad. — 00:08:28 · Apple, iPad, iPhone, Apple Watch
  • ★★ Punting on the river in Cambridge with his phone stowed away, Ali answered a call from his mother, who was visiting, on his Apple Watch. — 00:08:28 · Apple Watch, Ali Abdaal's mother, Cambridge
  • ★ When his mum calls while he is on the sofa with his iPad, Ali answers the call or FaceTime on the iPad instead of getting up to find his phone. — 00:09:13 · iPad, Ali Abdaal's mother
  • ★★ Ali often calls customer support from his Mac, so he can keep working on the computer while on hold for half an hour. — 00:09:13
  • ★★ Sidecar turns an iPad into a wireless external display for a Mac; Ali rarely uses it at home, where his iMac's screen is big enough, but does at coworking spaces and coffee shops. — 00:09:43 · iPad
  • ★★ Handoff lets you resume what you were doing in an app on another device, for example a Safari tab open on the iMac continued on the iPhone. — 00:10:12 · iPhone
  • ★★★ Ali is writing a book, and part of his drafting is in Apple Pages, because it works well on both Mac and iPad. — 00:10:39 · Apple, iPad
  • ★ For a change of scenery Ali moves from his Mac to the sofa, resumes his book section in Pages on the iPad with Handoff and types on the Apple Magic Keyboard. — 00:10:39 · iPad
  • ★★★ Ali admits the Apple ecosystem's features will not really move the needle for productivity: they shave a few seconds off each interaction. — 00:11:01 · Apple

00:11:12 — The seconds saved add up; Apple products get out of his way

  • ★★★ Ali thinks the few seconds saved add up, and says he is always a fan of trying to be as efficient as possible at everything. — 00:11:30
  • ★★★ Ali buys Apple products because they broadly get out of his way; with Windows, though it is a nice product, he often feels he has to fight the system to do what he wants. — 00:11:30 · Apple

In the description and comments

  • ★★ Ali says he spent $28,402 on Apple products in the past year. — video title · Apple

Threads in this video

Where the stories that moved here went next

Mentioned

Central: Apple · Apple ecosystem · Apple Notes

Also: People: Ali Abdaal's mother

Organizations: Microsoft · Monzo · Revolut · Tide

Concepts: spider diagram

Places: Cambridge

Products: AirDrop · Apple Magic Keyboard · Apple Pages · Apple Pencil · Apple Watch · Continuity · Continuity Camera · Continuity Markup · Evernote · FaceTime · GoodNotes · Google Chrome · Handoff · iMac · iMessage · Instant Hotspot · iPad · iPhone · Leuchtturm1917 notebook · MacBook · Microsoft OneNote · Microsoft Surface Laptop · Microsoft Windows · Microsoft Word · Notability · Notion · Obsidian · Roam Research · Safari · Sidecar · Siri · Universal Clipboard · WhatsApp

Also centred on Apple Notes: My Complete Productivity System · How to Organise your Life - Building a Second Brain · How to Build Your Ultimate Productivity System

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