Hello, welcome to the sixth edition of Type – glad to have you.

After my break at Disneyland and my last newsletter, I decided to honor this as a biweekly newsletter, which is how it’s always displayed in MailChimp and I had just started out sending them weekly.

I want to only share things worth sharing and take the time in between to have the space for it, so this is coming two weeks after the previous and will be every other Sunday from now now.
 

Two Big Apple Weeks

Last week had a slew of Apple announcements, and next week will be the same too. Here are my selected thoughts on the bunch, with further pieces incoming soon:

• New hardware: Last week Apple announced a new iPad Mini, updated iMacs, and new AirPods – I ordered the headphones, don’t need to update my Mac just yet, and will be buying the iPad Mini as a strict two-week trial and for review. My headphones are slowly dying and I’m eager for the better connectivity for editing podcasts, so that’s why I’m replacing the AirPods. But for the iPad Mini, I want to do my first complete review, including deciding whether to actually keep the thing or not, and giving my context as a heavy iPad Pro user too. Plus, that Logitech Crayon looks slick – you can bring it to any iPad and it’ll just connect using proximity, so that will be part of the review as well.
• Qi charging: Since new AirPods will have support for wireless charging, and I’ve never actually invested in a Qi charger for my phone either yet (besides buying one for my mom), so I may consider a few options for my home and office – this one from SnazzyQ including drilling up into your desk to have a hidden charger next to your mouse seems like a fun weekend project.
• Shortcuts release imminent?: Shortcuts 2.2 is likely coming out tomorrow and I have a video coming covering the changes. There’s Notes actions, improved Travel Time information, and lots of critical bug fixes – my whole Shortcuts library was out of sync for a while and is now nicely organized, so I’m thrilled about that.
• Apple Content: Alongside that, Apple is probably releasing a news service, video service, and maybe game service, all rolled into one? I have no idea, but I will be listening along, preparing for Supercomputer immediately after along with guest Rosemary Orchard, and hoping nothing else changes with Shortcuts so I don’t have to re-film anything (although that’d be a good problem).
• WWDC: Apple has officially announced the dates for their developer conference this summer, which is when they cover new changes to their software for the next year. Plus it’s now when many Apple nerds descend on San Jose and hang out for the week, which I’ll definitely be doing. I am excited to spend time with friends, make new ones, and feel out the vibe for what my next year will be covering this type of stuff. I am super excited because many rumors seem to point to a lot of big stuff, so these next three months are a ramp-up period for me making articles, videos, and podcasts. Let’s g!

Two Big Matthew Weeks

On top of what’s going on in my technology world, here’s some of what I’ve been discovering elsewhere since my last email:

• Queer Eye: Just like Seasons 1 and 2 before it a few weeks ago, I binged Queer Eye season 3 in just a few days with my girlfriend. I really enjoy the show and seeing how care and attention can bring so much out of someone who didn’t believe they had it in them. Plus I’ve been blow-drying my hair since and it looks fantastic, so I am picking up a few tips along the way. I do find the way most of their solutions cost a lot of money to be a drag, but it’s still made me cry many times and to be honest I probably needed that a bit.
• MasterClass: I’ve been diving into my new MasterClass subscription the last two weeks after I got the idea from Cortex. As part of what I mentioned early I had felt stuck in terms of making videos, and hearing Martin Scorsese say he doesn’t know about lightning helped me realize just how much I was overthinking some of my production. Learning about writing from Aaron Sorkin and independent filmmaking from Spike Jonze didn’t hurt either – it feels much more complete to learn from people accomplished in their field than googling something and hoping what you learned is correct.
• Handwriting with Nebo: I had heard of [MyScript Nebo](MyScript Nebo by MyScript https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/myscript-nebo/id1119601770?mt=8) before, but for some reason had never really gotten into the app and understood why it was good. Until this week, when I sat down and promptly hand-wrote 2,400 words, all of which I could then copy and paste somewhere else. Sitting down in the morning and hand-writing my thoughts on a topic was incredibly relaxing, felt very natural, and was a satisfying way of using my iPad in a way I haven’t enough. I am definitely going to make this a regular habit, especially if this new iPad Mini sticks as well.
• My Ulysses piece on The Sweet Setup: This Wednesday I published a 4.6k word piece on using Shortcuts and Ulysses together to capture information into your library. I think the format that we used of listing out different sections of the shortcut and how it works in bullets it was nice for digesting how I worked without me using superfluous language. Check out the article for all of the details and get the links to the five Shortcuts I built at the bottom of the page.
• Meeting Two Cats at Two Cats: this past Thursday I had the opportunity to attend the last X-Men comic meet up hosted by Marlin man at two cats comics in San Francisco. Unfortunately the store is closing soon so it was somewhat a last hurrah, and as my first time there I got a couple additions of Saul guy and the first two walking dead comics. I had the pleasure of meeting Merlin’s family, saw listener Dan again, and also met Peter, Matt, and Ben. Plus I got a fun selfie with Merlin and magic movie man Todd Vaziri. 
• Foals: Last Friday I saw Foals at the Fox theater in Oakland, the third time I’ve seen them play live in the past few years. They were one of the first bands that I remember discovering at the Outside Lands festival in San Francisco and really getting into, especially because they have an awesome rock sound that I haven’t really heard in a while – there’s not that many rock bands these days. Their first album is called Holy Fire, their second What Went Down, and their new album is Part 1 Everything Saved Will Not Be Lost – I’ve been listening to both a lot lately.
• Poll: I did a Twitter poll this weekend asking how people used bookmarks on mobile and the results matched my experience – I don’t use them much anymore compared to when I used to be on a desktop most of the day, and it’s weird when I am suddenly like “Oh yeah there’s this convenient way to get to the same webpage often.” Sometimes I feel like I got so deep into power user territory that I forgot some basics that are super handy – time to get out of my head.
• Digital minimalism: On Saturday, I came across Cal Newport‘s newest book Digital Minimalism and have been reading it feverishly. I think there’s a lot of what he said that I’ve heard before and even some areas where I disagree with him, but overall it provides a nice framework for how to think about overuse of screens and how to approach replacing some of that with his definition of solitude and also more conversation over a connection. Even just following some of it so far and embracing the mindset has left me feeling like I found a lot more moments in the day that I had normally slipped by me – so I’m excited to finish reading it.
• Brian King: Yesterday my friend Brian King was gracious enough to visit my house and help me get my office set up for making videos much more regularly. We talked a lot about lighting, camera settings, editing in final cut pro, and he was coming to encourage me because without giving myself anymore excuses not to make videos I have a whole range of ideas for what to make. I already found one since then so I really appreciate the help.

Quick Nerdy Links

Sometimes I just want to share some nerdy stuff, you know?

• Juno notebooks on iOS beta: There’s a cool beta upcoming for a Python application that lets you create Jupyter notebooks, a very common tool in the data analytics industry. It’s great to see more and more deep apps coming to iOS.
• LaText and Dropbox Paper: If you are a person who needs to type out math formulas in your work or anywhere digitally, you’ve probably used LaText. Turns out Dropbox Paper supports it, so you can just type and it’ll format automatically.
• Air Quality Importance: This chart on air quality in a space without open windows and how it affects your brain chemistry really stuck out to me. I’ve been trying to open my windows more often and get fresh air into the house – whenever it seems stale, it probably is, so get the heck out of the environment!

One correction – I felt really bad but in a previous newsletter, iOS had autocorrected my friend Alec’s name to Alex and that was crummy. Sorry Alec.

Anyway, get your smartphones ready for the next version of Shortcuts! I have a whole calendar scheduled of work coming up soon.

And get ready for another YouTube video! Subscribe to my channel below.