The Best Tech for Back to School

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Tom (00:00):
I hate it.
It sucks.
All right, welcome in.
It is another episode of BasicAF.
I am Tom Anderson and I amjoined, as always, by Jeff
Battersby.
Jeff, how are you, sir?

Jeff (00:21):
I've got a mouth full of packs loaded.
Tom, I have been gifted withanother round of COVID.
Hey, winner, winner, winner,winner.
Chicken dinner is exactly right, that's lovid dinner.

Tom (00:33):
Lucky you, jesus.

Jeff (00:35):
My favorite mouth taste.
This is gross, but tastes likeearwax.
Don't ask me how I know that.

Tom (00:41):
Yeah, we're just going to move on past that, and so this
is what Round two.

Jeff (00:47):
Is it round two of COVID?
This is my second time right.
Once I went to the south of ourgreat United States and got it,
and this time someone thatlives in my house brought it
home.

Tom (01:01):
Well, that happens.
Yeah, that is a thing All right.
Well, glad you're uprightanyway.

Jeff (01:07):
I am upright, I seem to be feeling pretty good.
I'm yeah, I'm in good shape.
I am at the end of this.

Tom (01:13):
Well, I tell you you sound better than I did that back in
May when we did the show and Iwas hitting the cough button
like every 13 seconds or so.
That was rough.

Jeff (01:21):
So you sound pretty good, tom, I just want to point out I
sound better than you every week.

Tom (01:24):
Well, this is true.
It's radio, baby, but anyway,you and me both.
That's why we don't do a videoshow, my friend.
So yeah, two old dudes justwe'll just stick to behind the
mic, we don't need the video.
Right, right, maybe some peopledo it, maybe we'll do a live

(01:46):
show eventually for iPhonerelease or something, who knows?

Jeff (01:50):
Why not?
Yeah, well, we both unbox themtogether or something I got mine
.
Did you get yours?

Tom (01:55):
Yep, and before we get started on the show today, I
just want to thank everyone thathas joined us on Apple podcast,
either by following the show,leaving a rating and or review.
We do appreciate that thathelps us out.
So, if you're returning as alistener, thanks again for being
here with us.
If you're new, as we say, we doappreciate you checking us out

(02:18):
and we hope to earn a spot onyour playlist.

Jeff (02:21):
Absolutely true, and we always appreciate input.
People yelling at us is usuallythe best thing and you can get
to us at go ahead.

Tom (02:32):
Tom, let's see Feedback at basicafshowcom.

Jeff (02:37):
Yeah, so do you know, or text messages If you know us,
Google chat text messages TomInstagram messages Hell, it
doesn't matter, we're accessible, baby, we are.
We are, and there's a reminderour brilliant artwork done by
Randall Martin Design who, bythe way, is helping my sister on

(02:58):
a book of poetry right now,laying out that book for her.
So so thank you, Mr RandallMartin.
And that show music, that stuffat the top that makes you want
to bounce a little bit beforeyou get stuck listening to our
disgusting voices is byPsychoKinetics.
So check out PsychoKinetics onwherever it is that you get your

(03:21):
music Spotify, iTunes music youknow the remainder band at the
non-existent music store, TowerRecords.
Exactly the Wiz.

Tom (03:38):
Remember all those places, the Wiz that took you back,
didn't it?

Jeff (03:44):
I could see it, yeah, right, suddenly, suddenly my
mind is like should I pick upthe Elton John or the Billy Joel
?
I can't remember.

Tom (03:51):
Do you have that on a single?

Jeff (03:53):
No.

Tom (03:53):
No, you gotta get the whole thing, of course.

Jeff (03:56):
Stuff, where I'm looking at Elvis Costello sitting up
there and wanting so badly toget it, but not having the guts
at the time to spend my preciouspennies on somebody I didn't
know anything about.
More of the fool me, man.

Tom (04:09):
Yeah, discovery of music is way easier these days oh my
gosh, too easy.
Sometimes I forget what I have.
It can be, yeah, that's so.
As we record today's show, weare in the first week of August,
which means, at least here inthe US, it is the good old BTS,
and we're not talking K-pop,we're talking back to school,
back to school is exactly right,and for some that's going to be

(04:33):
gosh in a week or two.

Jeff (04:35):
For others, I know, it doesn't start until September.
No, my niece in California, Ithink, actually starts in
another week, should be kickingit off, so, which would be like
the 15th of the month.
As New Yorkers, we're not goinguntil September.

Tom (04:53):
Yeah, so sometime in the next month all that will ramp up
and the buses will be back inservice and the kids will bring
the illnesses home and it'll bea good time.
We usually say about the secondweek, you know somebody has
something.
So, yeah, guaranteed.
So you just got a head start atyour household.
You guys started early.

Jeff (05:13):
Right.
I started it here I am.
Yep, good Thanks, jeff.
We appreciate that.
Yeah, good.
Well, let me see if I canbreathe it on you here, tom
Breathe, we've got that nowright, that's a new feature.
Well, yeah, maybe Smell avision that's for subscribers
only.
Yeah, if you want to get that.

Tom (05:30):
Come on back later.
So anyway, with the back schoolseason ramping up, we thought
it'd be an interesting show tokind of, because I know I see a
lot of people asking questionson different socials and I've
had a relative or two and yousee it on Reddit and places like
that where it's like, hey, I'mabout to start university, for

(05:52):
example, you know which iPadshould I get?
Or I'm thinking about thiscombination of MacBook Plus iPad
.
Can I do it with just an iPad,those questions popping up.
So we thought it'd be a timelyepisode if we talked about those
things a bit.

Jeff (06:06):
Absolutely Kit for going back to school.
And yeah, I typically this timeof year start to get a lot of
questions about kids going backto college.
You know, what is it that theyget?
Now, what's interesting, tom,is where you work.
You dish those things out toevery new student, correct?
We do?

Tom (06:23):
Yeah, we've got tech program.
That's been in place.
This will be the 15th year ofthis I know it was nuts- and so
we do a MacBook and iPad andpencil and this year will be the
MacBook Air, the 13 inch modelOf that.
We've done the pro historically, but with the kind of hardware

(06:47):
changes that Apple's done, wherethe pros kind of moved up to
the 14 and 16 inch models, whichare great, don't get me wrong.
But they're just outside of thebudget that we have for what we
do and the 13 inch pro that theystill sell just feels really
long in the tooth.
So we got a couple of testunits, I guess, back in the

(07:07):
spring and passed those aroundand had a few of our folks try
those out and they've beenworking out really well.
So that's what we decided to gowith this year Awesome.

Jeff (07:18):
So the way that we thought we'd talk about this is we just
want to look at, basically, thedifferent levels of student
from elementary school, gradeschool, middle school, high
school, college and kind of whatwe think with regard to those
situations.

(07:38):
I think the big point I wantedto make about saying that your
school, tom, the university thatyou work at gives computers to
people.
In many cases, particularlymiddle schools, elementary
schools, those things theschools themselves are providing
some kind of tools.
So don't hop out and getsomething straight away, or what

(08:01):
you want to do is you want tocheck in with your school first
to see what it is that they'reoffering.
I would say in most gradeschool, middle school situations
, you're going to seeChromebooks.
That's more commonly what it is, sad to say, but you want to
pay attention to what yourschool is doing first.

(08:22):
So don't, don't zoom off andbuy something that you don't
need to buy until it's time tobuy it.
But what we, you know, untilyou determine it's actually
something that you need to forkout the money for Right, and
that's the thing that that wewould recommend right out of the
box is that you want to do thatin the event that you need

(08:43):
something.
That's what we're gonna talkabout now, where you need to,
you know, have some type ofcomputer available for Homework
or anything else that's gonna betaking place.
We want to be able to, to guideyou down that path, and I think
we should start at the bottomof the pile.
Shouldn't we, tom, be thebeginners in education?

(09:05):
Let's do it All right.
So, as noted, probably likelythat your school is gonna be
providing something.
But if you want to have acomputer, either for research,
for your student, at home, it Ido not personally recommend to

(09:25):
anybody that has little kidsthat they have a little laptop
for themselves, you know.
So anything pretty much upthrough like six or seventh
grade my recommendation wouldalways be Something that's
available centrally foreverybody in the house, which
for me would be one of the IMAX.
I think that's a great, a greatchoice for a centrally located

(09:48):
computer that you as a parentthe adults in the house,
hopefully not always Very turnthe ability to To, you know,
oversee, make sure thateverybody's doing what they're
supposed to be doing on it, havesome kind of control over, and
that's going to give your childthe ability to do whatever

(10:09):
research they need to do you tobe able to Look over the
shoulders as they're doing thatand and be able to take care of
it.
I and for my money.
That baseline I'm at, I thinkis perfectly fine for that kind
of situation.
I don't know, tom, you haveyounger children than I do.
Have you usually worked it outwhen you have, when you have a

(10:31):
home computer, or what have youdone with with your kids when
they're younger?

Tom (10:35):
you know and need some guidance and some help and so
the, the son I have that's inhigh school, he does his.
Everything he does he does onhis PC that he Saved up for and
built us this gaming PC.
I mean he does it on that.
My youngest at this point is 12and typically for what he's

(10:59):
doing, he bangs it out on aniPad.
Okay, because it's mostly just,you know, fairly
straightforward, writingassignments and things like that
, and he's got a Google accountthat he uses with that.
That he can can do it and itworks well enough.
If there's anything morestrenuous, he, you know, jumps

(11:19):
on a laptop or something that wehave MacBook, whatever, that he
needs to do some work on yeah,yeah, and it's surprisingly like
a lot of the research and stuff.
He, you know he'll have hisphone up and he'll be watching a
YouTube video that's topical,related to what he's doing, and
kind of looking at that and thenuse the iPad to do his notes or
whatever.

Jeff (11:39):
It is Okay, yeah makes sense and I think in those, in
those particular situations youknow when, I guess it depends on
how many kids in the house Ialways had when my kids were
younger, had three kids thatwere essentially school aged
that Very often they did notneed to do computer work, and

(12:02):
that's maybe because, you know,my kids are a little older than
yours.
There there was very littlethat they were doing, except for
maybe one or two papers a year.
That's changed quite a bit.
There is a lot of work nowthat's being done, particularly
through, you know, covet.
When we had coven the past,where you know that was the way
that that kids were having to dodo work you needed something

(12:24):
pretty robust at home in orderto be able to do that.
I I don't Know that there's anycurrent Mac model that wouldn't
work if you had one in place,though, right, you know we both
love the Mac minis and I'mtalking to you one on one right
now and I have currently forrunning in the house, for doing

(12:48):
a variety of things, but thelikelihood that you're gonna
overpower anything at homeunless, you know, your kids
become a YouTube star Some ofthat nature, you know, starting
to do a lot of editing.
I don't think you need anythingmore than the most basic
computer.

Tom (13:09):
No, I agree.
I think that Mac mini is asleeper for a lot of people.
That, yeah, I don't know what,the how many they sell, but for
the price and the performanceyou get from that and you figure
you get the baseline.
Even even if that's all you gotand you put a you know $200
monitor on it, you're out what750, 800 bucks, yeah, that's it.

(13:33):
And especially if you've got,like an education email address
you can use to buy through the,the education store.
I think the Mac mini starts atwhat?
499 with the education price,something like that.

Jeff (13:45):
It does, and actually you don't even have to have an email
address if you're in elementaryschool.

Tom (13:48):
There you go.

Jeff (13:50):
You just need to, you know , say that you got a kid right
in in school, and so that's atremendous bargain.

Tom (13:57):
I mean for you know, and it's.
The thing is, like you know,apple doesn't really do bargain
bin stuff that's cheap, likecheap, and I mean cheap by
quality, that's jump.
And this that low-end Mac minifor the 499, is not junk, it's.

Jeff (14:13):
It's super good, that's so , again, that's what I'm coming
to you from right now.
I this is my, my studio Mac isa is a Mac mini.
I've got a decent Dell displayon it.
Didn't didn't Put the money upon the one I use every day Good

(14:34):
call.
But that that Mac mini is ismore than solid for down here
it's.
It really is.
A lot of people don't look atit.
It's kind of funny because it'sDon't know my display and I
don't know about you know, therethere are several things that
people Need to think about.
But if you're moving from a PCto a Mac or you want to get into

(14:54):
a Mac At at home, that Mac miniis perfect and you can use your
existing display with it Useyour existing keyboard, for that
matter, and mouse.
So that's the beauty of it.
It's a yeah, like you said,it's bargain basement, but it's
not bargain basement right.
So that's a that's definitelygood choice.
If you need something that'ssouped in, that's there for you,

(15:16):
my recommendation Always be theI Mac.
I think that's a good, a goodhome choice, yep.

Tom (15:22):
Yeah.
So if you need, if you want togo that kind of central
Stationary computer rod, you'vegot a couple of good options
there between the two and itjust really depends.
Like Jeff said there, if youwant it, just the all-in-one,
everything's there.
You don't need to worry about adisplay or anything like that.
You could do the eye, yeah, dothe.
I Mac.
Mac mini is there too.

(15:43):
If you want something that'sportable, I Think MacBook Air is
fantastic, really great system.
I've been using mine that theygave me at work and.
I love the thing it's, it's beensuperb and it's the 13 inch
model.

(16:03):
If you wanted to to pay alittle bit more and maybe get
the the 15 you know, just togive the your, the kids, maybe
yourself, if it's a shared thinga little more real estate to
work with, you know you could dothat and the pricing is
reasonable.
On that too, I think again, asyou mentioned, as we kick things
off here, be sure to check theschool's Recommendations,

(16:25):
especially once you get up intolike higher ed, university level
stuff.
If they're not providingsomething, they will have a
Recommendations, hardwarerecommendations list that you
can check out and that may vary.
It may be just a broad thingthat they put out for across the
whole university but dependingon how big it is, what programs
they have, each program may haveits own unique requirements to,

(16:47):
if it's an engineering programor it's just a general arts and
sciences type thing and kind oftake a look at that and they'll
give you some, some minimumguidelines.
Sometimes they don't do areally good job and we've been
guilty of this a little bit tooof Maintaining those
recommendations so that they'recurrent, like because it's kind

(17:09):
of out of sight, out of mindtype thing.
And so Jeff said there a coupleof minutes ago Pretty much any
modern Apple system that theysell today running the Apple
chips will be fine.
The real thing is just going tobe how demanding will the
applications be that you'll berunning, in terms of how much

(17:30):
RAM you'll want and then alsohow much storage, like if you're
working with.
You know, if you're doing videoStuff you'll need more storage
probably.
But just take those things intoconsideration.

Jeff (17:41):
Yeah, and I would say, you know, if you're specifically on
the liberal arts side which Iwas, you know, I was an English
major the the only thing thatyou'd really need is a MacBook
Air, unless, again, you're doingmusic production or video
production on the side, but mydaughter, who's now starting

(18:07):
just now, starting her secondyear of graduate school, getting
in, you know masters ineducation degree.
She last year picked up theMacBook Air and that she had.
Actually, when she was anundergrad she had one of the
original MacBook Air's and lovedthat and she's now on the new

(18:27):
MacBook Air with the M2 chip andOver the moon about it.
It's a great computer.
For her was a great transitionFrom from the old MacBook Air to
the new one.
I personally use MacBook Air'sfor years.
I just Decided to get one ofthe MacBook Pros.
What?

(18:48):
When I got the one before theone I got stolen.
I got that and was upgradingfrom a MacBook Air when I got
that, so that your old computerwas a jump from a MacBook Air.
Macbook Air's, for my money, forAnybody high school and beyond
it.
Pretty solid choice.

(19:08):
If you're gonna be, as Tom said, in an engineering class or
you're doing heavy programming,those would be the times.
Or video editing or musicediting, those would be the
times.
I'd recommend Jumping up to aMac, a MacBook Pro, which is you

(19:29):
know?
Those are the questions that Iask when.
When some parent comes to meand says, hey, my kids going off
to school, what's the bestcomputer for them to get, my
first question is what is itthat they're going off to school
, for what is it that they'redoing?
What is it that they'restudying and what is it that
they need?
At nine times out of ten, I'mgonna say a MacBook Air.
Occasionally, I'm gonna tellthem you know that you might

(19:51):
want the MacBook Pro.
I rarely tell them that theyneed to upgrade the RAM on these
, that the standards now acrossthe board are are eight gigs and
that integrated RAM is is solid.
There's nothing that you needto concern yourself with in
terms of yeah, it's so fastbecause it's all.

(20:15):
You know it's all on the chip,right.

Tom (20:16):
Yeah, it's super fast, but if it needs to swap out it, it
can be hard to tell.

Jeff (20:21):
Yeah, it's it, and I will tell you that.
You know, I Don't know.
I have not ever, at any pointin time, even with dozens of
programs up and during a workday, I've never run into a
situation where I'm like, oh mygosh, I wish.
I had more RAM right.

Tom (20:40):
Well, remember, I think it was in the last week or two that
I sent you the picture of the.
I was running the MacBook Airand I had the app switcher up
and they were like 15 or 16.
Yeah, app icons on there rightnow showed that to you.
Now that unit has 16 gigs ofRAM.
But the the great thing withthat is, like you know, I don't
notice any Swapping, like if youcheck in activity monitor it's

(21:01):
not even in the red.
So the, the operating systemdoes a really good job of
managing it as well.
But the thing I really likebecause one of the the things
with the MacBook Air is there'sno fans, right, and so something
that I've kind of been justkeeping an eye on here and there
.
It's not a super concern for usbut Just out of curiosity from

(21:23):
being a dork is how, how warmdoes the unit get Running all of
those applications like?
How warm does it get?
And it you can't even tell likeit's it's room temp a little
cooler than that.
Now I am running the Sonomabeta for the last couple of
weeks and you know I told you Icouldn't get those new
screensavers to work initiallyand I did get them to work this

(21:46):
week, did some Preferences,cleanups and stuff and I don't
know, but deleted some stuff,restarted it didn't work and
then magically it worked.
I don't know beta life, butanyhow there was an associated
process with that.
That guy kind of janky there fora bit and the laptop did get a
little bit warm like it wasn'thot, but it was the warmest that

(22:08):
I've noticed it, but a restartcleared that up and it hasn't
come back, so I think it wasjust something big, you know,
related to the beta.
But when was I going with?
That beyond that?
No idea, I don't know.
We're talking about the RAM,right?
Yeah, so I mean in heat 16, Ifyou're crunching hardcore stuff
and you need to run a bunch ofthem and you're doing big data

(22:30):
sets maybe, but it's, you know,there's the thing is it's easy
to get wrapped up in.
Okay well, do I want the 16 gigsof RAM, 256 storage or the 16
512?
And I think the part of thereason it stresses some people
out these days is becausethere's no going back.
It's not what you buy, it,that's what you get.

(22:52):
So if you want a future proofand you've got you know the
money to do and it doesn'tbother you too much, take a step
up if it, if it makes you feelbetter about the decision.
But, like Jeff said, I thinkthe You'll be surprised with
some of the how well some of thebase configs perform.
I think the storage, though.
There I think Apple's still alittle stingy on that.

(23:13):
I Don't think it's as bad asthey hung on to those 16 gig
iPhones as long as they did.

Jeff (23:20):
That was a nightmare, but so yeah, yeah, and when it comes
to, when it comes to hard diskspace, I I would not do less
than 512.
I mean that that's that wouldbe the baseline, baseline for me
.
But one of the things aboutmodern Macs in terms of storage,

(23:42):
if you have which, at the veryleast you have, five gigs is
stupid low amount.
But if you have an icloudaccount and you're using icloud
drive and You're using standard,standard storage locations in
icloud drive, so your desktopand documents are an icloud

(24:02):
drive.
You can have downloads for anicloud drive too.
If you want to, you can turn onfeatures that offload those
files To the server if youhaven't used them recently.
So the space efficiency on Onyour Mac is really good if
you're using the integratedfeatures of the macOS, like like

(24:26):
icloud drive.

Tom (24:29):
So we're gonna dig into that too a little bit more a
little later on.
So we're gonna talk aboutGoogle Drive and stuff too.

Jeff (24:33):
Yeah, yeah, absolutely so, but those things you know, you
don't have to go super crazy onit.
I, I like you, have 16 gigs ofOf RAM pretty much on all my
computers and have been doing aone terabyte drive and I confess
it's way more dry than I need,but I feel safe.

Tom (24:56):
Yeah, room to grow.

Jeff (24:59):
Might be at the end of that.
My growth may be.
You know, I think I'm come tothe age of shrinking.
That was what I'm doing.

Tom (25:08):
Yes, so the part two question of the question that
usually comes up is thinkingabout an iPad.
Do you think I should do that?
What's your take on that?

Jeff (25:18):
Oh man so and.
I have an iPad.
I love the iPad.
I haven't, I, you know, one ofthe again one of the new ones,
because of the thieves it in andout, burger and man.
I I'm trying to think of trulyhow often I do real work.

(25:39):
This is a fault of mine, it'snot because it's not possible to
do that on the iPad, but I dovery little writing on the iPad.
I do a lot of Movie watching orsoccer watching or television
watching on the iPad.
I use it to the stream music.
I don't know that it is anecessary Purchase.

(26:02):
Is it a nice purchase?
Yes, can I use the writingapplication that I use, highland
Pro, on the iPad?
No, but important to note thatpages numbers, keynote,
microsoft Office, which is nowMicrosoft 365, all the Google
apps, all of those are availablefor iPad.

(26:24):
And honestly, if you're not me,which is, I guess to say, a
lame consumer-oriented videowatching Dum-dum, I think an
iPad.
Ipad can be a, you know it's.
It's actually quite, quite agood tool for being able to do

(26:49):
that.
And I would say, particularlyif you're or you're toward some
more artistic endeavors and likeit a lot for editing Photos,
been using Pixelmator, waspixelmator photo for a while and
now it's A photomator on the onthe iPad for editing, editing

(27:15):
images, drawing, which I don'tdo a lot of, but I do do that
phenomenal drawing applications.
So, and I believe you can evendo Swift programming.
I have done some Swiftprogramming.

Tom (27:31):
Right, the Swift playgrounds.

Jeff (27:32):
Yeah, yeah, so it's.
It's my personal experienceprobably doesn't speak to what
somebody could actually be doingwith an iPad.
Yeah, so that's.
I'm personally not a good gauge, but because you know, let's
watch I don't know MoonlightKingdom for the 50th time, or

(27:55):
something.

Tom (27:55):
Yeah, I think.
I think it is a fantasticdevice too, right?
So device one's your Mac ofsome sort, and it's a great
device too.
What we have seen at work is sowe've done iPad and MacBook for
quite a while.

(28:15):
The iPad wasn't doing much andyou'd see it, some students used
it, but it was more.
We were seeing more use youknow, just casually walking
around, like you were talkingabout there for content
consumption and things like that.
Apple Pencil changed all of thatdramatically, and so what we

(28:41):
see now is that the iPad againit's device two right so it's
not their primary device, but wesee so much of it now, like
it's just been night and day,like they're marking up PDFs,
they're marking up PowerPoints,they're doing other types of

(29:03):
random notes.
They use it to record videos,like if they're in the athletic
training and they're doing anassessment.
They'll use the iPad to do thevideo and then ship it over to
the MacBook to do some editingand then submit that as their
project or whatever.
So I think, if you're lookingat it from that standpoint,
great device too.

(29:23):
I feel like it'll be tough ifthat's your primary device.
You know, I read people andthey say they do that and I
think you could do that,particularly once you get up to
the models that work with theMagic Trackpad or Magic Keyboard
.
Not the Magic Trackpad Well, itwould work with that too
technically, but the keyboard'swhat I was referring to there,

(29:45):
and especially the big one,right, the 12.9,.
But still there's some painthere that I think most people
don't want to deal with,especially.
You know I'm in class, I'malready stressed out.
I don't wanna be fidgeting withmy iPad window management or
something goofy like that.
So in terms of buyingrecommendations for that, I

(30:07):
think take a close look atexactly how, if you're the
student, how you want to use it.
If you're the parent, how youthink your student might use it
and I would probably if it'sjust for notes and you know some
Netflix here and there orwhatever get the cheapest one
you can find.
And then whether that's theninth generation, which looks

(30:29):
really old at this point becauseit still has the home button
and that's the one we get atwork, still uses the first-gen
Apple Pencil, which has thatridiculous method of charging,
but you don't have to charge itvery long.
So I mean, no one complainsabout it, it just looks goofy.
They're still great and they're$3.29, I think something like

(30:52):
that a little over 300 bucks forthe base and again you get into
your storage tiers andeverything.
You don't have to worry aboutRAM on those.
But it's how much storage doyou want?
I think you get a coupleoptions and then you can go up
from there if you want to Like.
The iPad 10th generation hasthe more current rounded corners
, designed without the homebutton, Oddly still uses the

(31:13):
first-gen Apple Pencil, whichI've complained to Apple about
and I don't understand why,because you have to use a stupid
adapter even to do it.
But that's what they chose todo.
I'm sure they've got reasonsfor monetary reasons that
they've done that 100%.
Yeah, what do you take thoughtsthere?

Jeff (31:32):
Yeah, so let's go back to what you said about the pencil
and how that made a change foriPads.
I will say and I think this isclinically proven there's
something about the interactionbetween taking notes manually
with your hand and how thatconnects with what it is that

(31:56):
you're doing.
That's different than if youtype those notes.
I've personally found that tobe true and it's a you know,
it's much better thing.
I have had professors and thisis important to know I have had
professors who absolutely refuseto allow you to use any
electronic devices in class.

Tom (32:18):
Thanks you.

Jeff (32:19):
Yeah, you know what, I'm kind of down for it.

Tom (32:22):
I'm not 100% against it.

Jeff (32:24):
Are you really Yep Interesting?
You know I have had professorsthat say, listen, you want to
take notes, that's fine.
Use notebook, use piece ofpaper, don't use a computer.

Tom (32:35):
And they're not wrong.
It sucks because you can't.
It's so again my opinion, butit's.
I can't search it, I can'trearrange the text, I can't do
all of these things becausethey've got some preconceived
notion of how they want me towork.

Jeff (32:51):
Yeah, I think it's more and I'm not.
You know, I've sat at the backof the class and I see what
happens.
You know and not gonna change.
You know?
Yeah, but there are adults inthe class.
You're gonna be dumb students.

Tom (33:03):
You're gonna be past the class or you don't Correct, and
if I've got a paper notebookthere I can doodle on that, I
can pull up my fingernails, allkinds of stuff I could do.
I got yelled at in high schoolfor that once Wait, wait, wait.
But we didn't have iPads thenand I still wasn't paying
attention and got my ballsbusted.
So, yeah, 100% against that.

(33:24):
I think they're doing atremendous disservice to their
students.
Yeah, it's a perceived.
It's like safety by.
Oh shoot, what's the oldobscurity right?

Jeff (33:36):
Oh geez you're talking over my head, pal so it's yeah,
it's ridiculous.

Tom (33:40):
I hate it, can't stand it.

Jeff (33:42):
Yeah, so anyway, you will find that there are some
professors that do that.
So if that is the case, thenyou need to be prepared with a.
You know, find a differentprofessor.
No, don't, because sometimesthose professors kick ass yeah
maybe, maybe not.
Yeah, it depends, depends onthe professor.
It depends on whether or notthey're being doing it just to

(34:04):
be a pin in the neck or they'redoing it because they want you
to you know be engaged in adifferent way they get it.

Tom (34:11):
I guess, I will agree to disagree on that.
We can.
Ain't the first time we've donethat.
No, won't be the last timeeither.
No, no, but that's probablygetting along.
So well, we're adults, we cando that without getting mad at
each other.
Barely barely.

Jeff (34:24):
I do, you know, fume my way out of the studio.
Some shows.
Well you don't have far to walkand I can't reach through the
screen and throw you.

Tom (34:35):
Save that for those in-person shows.
We might do this.

Jeff (34:38):
That's one of the recordings we may do together
yeah, so anyway, all that to saythat you know you need to be
aware of that as well.
But for, as a note-taking tool,you know Apple's Notes app, the
built-in Notes app and I'm kindof jumping ahead the built-in
Notes app does offer greatcapabilities and your iPad is a

(34:58):
great tool, with that ApplePencil, for being able just to
scribble down notes and havethem, you know, be right there
for you on the page and highlyrecommend that.
I'd prefer that to typing notes.
I think that writing notes downfar better, even though I have
hideous handwriting.

Tom (35:18):
Me too.

Jeff (35:19):
No matter whether it's on an iPad or in a notebook.
I have to be very careful tomake sure that I take the time
to write well, which is part ofprobably why I remember the crap
, because you know I'm having totake my time to do it rather
than you know dancing my fingersacross the keyboard.

Tom (35:35):
Yeah, and I think part of that is it's when I really want
to unpack something that I needto think through.
I like to put the iPad down onthe table and get the pencil and
write or sketch it out or youknow whatever right, just to
kind of work through it.
Other times I feel it's tooslow for me.
When I want to get stuff outLike if it's more of just a

(35:55):
brain dump, then I just want totype it out.
Benefit of some of theapplications on the iPad for,
like the note-taking stuff goodnotes notability.
They have a recording functionbuilt in so that you could with
the professor's permission,record the lecture and take your

(36:18):
notes as you're doing that.
What's really nice about thatis the next night, two nights
later, you go back reviewingyour notes or something, and
you've completely lost thecontext around the note that you
took.
You can tap into the recordingand it will take you right back
in the recording timeline whereyou were when you wrote that
note, so you'll hear the sessionto kind of help you reframe it

(36:41):
again, which is really nice.
I know our students like that.
But again, whether or not youshould do that, you should
definitely let the professorknow as a courtesy to say, hey,
is it okay if we do this?
And then it's up to them whatthey want to do.

Jeff (36:53):
Right.
You will find that someprofessors do not want you
recording their classes, correct, right.
But yeah, that's, andNotability has that feature.

Tom (37:01):
I think Is that their other apps.
Yeah, notability has that Goodnotes as added it as well.
Okay, and there might be moreto do, that I wouldn't be
surprised.
But those are the top two thatcome to mind.

Jeff (37:11):
Yep, no, and remember Notability, did that?
There's also man I can'tremember where it is off the top
of my head, but we can maybefind it and put it in the show
notes.
There's actually a physicalnotepad tool that has a recorder
in the pen that does the exactsame thing.
Oh yeah.

Tom (37:27):
Yeah, I remembered that.
I can't remember the name.
But yeah, if we can find it,we'll throw it in the notes.

Jeff (37:31):
Yeah, well, definitely I'll pick it up.
I did a review, I believe, forMacworld on that a couple years
ago and yeah, it great featuredoes the same thing.
Again, it's using paper,believe it or not, and it knows
where it is on the paper thatyou've written something and

(37:52):
it's letting you do the samething Magic technology.
It's pretty cool.
So, yeah, that's another optionas well, down a little side
road, but again, I think thatconnection between handwriting
and your brain good choice.
So that's definitely a greatuse for the iPad in a classroom

(38:13):
environment if you're takingnotes in that way.
Right, I highly recommend.

Tom (38:17):
Okay, and then in terms of keyboards, if you wanted to,
maybe it's a little lighterclass or something, and you
wanted to just take the iPad,maybe, and leave the MacBook
behind, or you forgot to chargethe MacBook.
Whatever the case may be, youhave options for the keyboards,
depending on which iPad modelthat you pick up.
All of them will work with theBluetooth keyboard, so that

(38:39):
really opens up the choices.
From $20, you know, a littlecheap keyboard that's good
enough to bang out a few notesor not to the Apple stuff that
they have.
Which keyboards have you usedtoday?
I?

Jeff (38:54):
have only used the Apple keyboards in, you know, in all
the versions that they've had.
Then I mentioned this before wewent on air.
One of the things that drivesme nuts about those keyboards is
maybe because I'm a lazy typistIs that when you have trackpad
on the Magic Keyboard whateverthe heck it's called, what is it
?
Magic Magic keyboard, yeah,yeah, it doesn't have the same

(39:18):
kind of palm detection that theMac does.
So a Mac, if you're using aMacBook Pro, macbook Air, it can
sense when your palm is on thepalm pad.
You know the palm rest whileyou're typing and it deactivates
the trackpad.
In other words, you don't endup accidentally clicking

(39:40):
somewhere and typing in thewrong place.
That is not the case with theMagic Trackpad.
So I often find myself blindlytyping, you know halfway down
the page and it's like you know,and then you're going through
the trouble of losing your trainof thought or, you know, losing
the direction that you weregoing and riding, moving that

(40:01):
text to where it belongs.
But I do like the feel of thatkeyboard.
Yes, it is a real high qualitykeyboard, backlit if you're
using that particular keyboard,and I do like it for that reason
.
Just that one caveat I reallywish that they had that palm

(40:23):
detection available for that.

Tom (40:25):
Yeah, it's a little heavy.
You know, that's one of thethings I do like about it.
Yes.

Jeff (40:31):
You're right, it weighs a ton.
In fact, if you've everdetached your iPad from that and
just held the iPad, it's likeholy cow, oh, this is light,
yeah, the iPad itself doesn'tweigh anything.
It is definitely that keyboardattachment.
It's good protection for thedevice itself.
You know, I love that they puta hole in it for you know camera

(40:56):
so you can use it, but nobody'sstanding out there with
everything they're hands usingthe camera at least I don't
think they have.

Tom (41:03):
I've done that a couple of times in the house, just real
quick, like if the dogs aredoing something goofy, right
yeah, but the pictures are nevergood.
It's like always delete themanyway.
Now I know some places and Ithink we do this in our AR VR
class they'll use the LiDARstuff and so they will hold it
up for that, but general picturetaking and stuff typically not
too much.
But back to the keyboards for asecond.

(41:23):
I tell you that keyboard Ithink they just call it the
keyboard folio, so it was theone that was well, it's still
out.
But before the Magic Keyboardwas there, you know, you just
prop it up and have some keysand you could type.
Didn't have any trackpad builtinto it or anything, because it
came out before they added thetrackpad or mouse support to

(41:46):
iPadOS.
That is a pretty good keyboard.
Now, it's not the same as theMagic Keyboard, that where it
actually has like kind of, I'llsay, traditional type keys on it
this one had the ones that hadthat.
I forget what that material is.
People kind of made fun of itnot made fun of it, but it was a
funny name and so they werelike, oh, it has such and such,

(42:07):
but had a pretty good feel to itfor what it was.
But the thing I really likedabout it is you could flip that
over and lay the iPad flat andtake your notes without having
to take it out of the keyboardcase.

Jeff (42:23):
Great feature, yeah, and that's a great keyboard.
That was a use, that one, for along time too, yeah.

Tom (42:28):
And I still have that one at the office on my 12, 9, 2018
iPad Pro have there because Ihadn't used it, because I had
been using that with the MagicKeyboard, and so when I took
that one back to the office, Istarted using it again and I was
like man, I kind of missed it,because it's very functional and
that just really like that.
You can just flip it over andlay it flat on the table.

Jeff (42:49):
And nice touch too the keyboard itself.
The keys were very nice, Ithought.

Tom (42:55):
Right.
So if you're not planning to domuch with the built in mouse
slash cursor support and iPad OS, that's an option for you as
well.
Totally agree, all right, apple, care for these things.

Jeff (43:07):
Always, particularly, with iPads, iphones.
No reason not to get it for aniPad and iPhone Right.
Sometimes less inclined to doso with the MacBook Pro.
But now that there'sreplacements, you get
replacements on all of thesethings in the event that there's
some damage to it.
No reason not to get.

Tom (43:29):
Apple care?
Yeah, I would say.
If you're the parents andyou're paying for these things,
just do it.

Jeff (43:34):
Yeah.

Tom (43:35):
Because we see so many cracked screens on iPads,
macbooks, liquid damage.
Nobody spills beer on those,tom.
No, no, not beer, usually wineand stuff.
But, so they say but or I fellasleep and it fell off the bed
onto the floor and it broke thescreen.
So if I'm the parent definitelygoing to do that and it just

(43:59):
yeah just do it, decide foryourself.

Jeff (44:00):
It is a very inexpensive insurance policy.
Yeah, and now they've got it.

Tom (44:04):
You can do the monthly thing if you want to do it that
way, or you can do it all upfront and I think if you do the
monthly thing.

Jeff (44:09):
it'll actually extend beyond the usual two years, or
whatever the plan is, and let'sjust point this out, that if you
are thinking about puttingthese on a credit card, it makes
the absolute most sense to getyourself an Apple card.
You get 3% off the price of thedevice and you get no interest

(44:35):
payments for depending on thedevice, a year or 24 months.
Yep.
So there's, it's free money.
Plus, you're getting 3%discount, essentially in
addition to whatever yourstudent discount is that you're
you're getting because you'rebuying it through there.
Yeah, so little little shoutout for the Apple card.
I highly recommend that you gothat way.

(44:58):
And yeah, you can throw thatall on Apple care too.
Yes, yes, apple care all inthere, all right.

Tom (45:03):
So to close us out on our back to school discussion, let's
talk a little bit more Software, cloud services, backup type
things.
We talked a little bit aboutApple notes.
We talked good notes,notability, icloud, a little bit
.
So for this, jeff, I think it'sit's probably a multi part

(45:29):
consideration.
It's what's the school going toprovide, especially if you're,
you know, k12.
Most of those are Google places.
You're going to give you aGoogle account and you use
Google Drive and that kind ofthing.
Higher ed, you'll probably getthat too, although there I think
there's more Microsoft.
You know Microsoft's made somegood inroads there to where

(45:49):
you're using one drive in yourMicrosoft 365 account and
everything Correct.

Jeff (45:55):
And it's important to note that in most cases, when you go
to school, you're gettingaccess to one of those licenses,
so you do not have to purchaseit right yourself, in most cases
, that that software is beingprovided to you through the
school and so therefore, you canuse that because it's being
provided to you through theschool.
So, again, always want to checkwith your educational

(46:17):
institution to see what it isand they typically are going to
send out, you know, a computepolicy with information on.
You know minimum requirementsand some of those things.
We're gonna have that in there.
So it's just something to beaware of, something that you
wanna be aware of.
I will say that, for the mostpart, if you're doing work on

(46:38):
your own, that either needs tobe saved in word format or
something like that what'scoming free on your Mac pages,
numbers and keynote absolutelyno reason not to use those none
whatsoever.
Again, my daughter, who's ingraduate school, has written
virtually every single one ofher papers in pages.

(46:59):
The nice thing about that isshe can share it with me and I
can proof it, which she stilllikes me to do, just to have a
look at it.
Less and less she had beenalmost 10 years out of school
before she went back to graduateschool, and so initially, when
she was writing papers and kindof wanted to get her legs under

(47:20):
her, she would ask me to look atit.
More or less now it's like ifyou wanna look at it, you can
look at it, but I'm pretty happywith it.

Tom (47:27):
That's the place that she's at.

Jeff (47:29):
So you can use those pages , numbers, keynote all, save out
to the standard Microsoftformats if you need them to.
And obviously everything thatprints in the Mac OS is a PDF.
So you've got the ability tocreate PDFs in any way that you
want to.
So I wouldn't go out and spenda lot of money on anything until

(47:50):
you're absolutely certain thatyou need to spend money on those
things, right?

Tom (47:54):
Yeah, and the stuff the school will provide, whether
that's Google or Microsoft, youknow they may or may not have a
cap on the amount of storagethat your account gets.
Of course you can put as muchof your schoolwork in there as
you want to, as well as you know, up into that cap, if there is
one, I would encourage to dosome method of that, whether

(48:22):
that's through the schoolprovided thing or not.
Personally, the approach that Ilike is to, you know, spend a
couple of bucks, get the 50 gigiCloud plan or the 200, and just
keep it there and just work outof that.
You know, and we've said onthis show before, we've talked,
backups and your cloud services,whether it's iCloud, Google,

(48:45):
OneDrive, whatever it is, aren'tbackups.
Nope, Okay, we'll say thatagain, they're not backups.
But if you've got your work inthat and Jeff dug into this a
good bit when you had yourthings taken a while back it's
not backup.
But if your device gets stolen,which happens if it randomly

(49:05):
craps out, doesn't happen a lot.

Jeff (49:07):
If I have this one, you pull.

Tom (49:08):
You know an update goes weird.
You know something like thatyour stuff's in the cloud and
when you get it back you justsign in and your stuff is there.
You should still have a properbackup.
We need to do a show on thattoo, just like a good backup
show.

Jeff (49:22):
And we'll just say right off out of the box easiest one,
in my opinion, is Backblaze.
Yes, really inexpensive,cloud-based does the track back
up.
While you're set it, forget it,correct, and if you need
something, you'll be able to getit.
I, as you said, tom, when mycomputer got stolen, the only

(49:45):
thing that I had to do was aredownload apps Right, so
everything else was in one formof cloud or another.
So some combination between mylocal Synology Drives and iCloud
and a little bit of Dropbox.
Everything was there, yeah.

Tom (50:05):
And the nice thing about the iCloud approach that is a
little bit different.
Like, say, you know, the schoolprovides you with a Google
Drive and you've got 50 gigs ofstorage or whatever.
That's great and use it.
But the tendency a lot ofpeople have myself included is a
lot of things end up living onthe desktop and the Google
Drive's not going to get that,but your iCloud stuff would.

(50:29):
So it's super cheap.
So I would do a hybrid approachto that.

Jeff (50:33):
Yeah and we can talk backups at a later date.
But yes, 100%.

Tom (50:37):
Yeah, I think software-wise and again, this is not
necessarily a software thing,but have some way to keep track
of you know, stay on top ofthings.
You know something to trackyour assignments, your child's
assignments, whatever the casemay be.
Apple's reminders is goodenough for that.
If you want to heck, just writeit down in a sticky note,

(50:57):
doesn't matter where you do it,but plan to do that.
You'll need a calendar.
Again, apple's is probably goodenough for all that.
Or don't just use the GoogleDrive or not the Google Drive,
the Google Calendar or Outlookon Microsoft I guess that's what
they still call it.

Jeff (51:12):
And oftentimes, depending on what backend God forbid
Blackboard if that's being used.
There's some new ones that areout there now, but a lot of
times there's direct calendarintegration from those as well.
So if a professor assigns or ateacher assigns something, if
you're subscribed to thatcalendar, that shows up in your

(51:33):
calendar as well.
It might be individual stuffyou have a presentation to do or
something like that that youneed to keep track of directly.
But yeah, calendar app is great, or the Reminders app is great.
For that you don't needanything else, and that's kind
of the beauty of it.
Apple has done a really goodjob.
Their built-in applications areexcellent.

Tom (51:56):
Yeah.

Jeff (51:57):
You know they're not half-baked versions of something
.
They are high-quality apps.
They may not have every featurethat you want, so there are, as
Tom noted, other applicationsthat you can look at for taking
notes or doing things like that,if you need something a little
deeper or you need somethingthat works better with the way
your brain works or keeps notes.

(52:17):
But for the most part, what isbuilt into the OS is more than
sufficient for taking care ofall your needs, so you do not
need to spend a dime extra.
I think that's the point,buying a bunch of other
applications and tell, such timeas it is dictated to you by
someone, that you need to putyour fingers on that and it'll

(52:40):
make some purchase Exactly.

Tom (52:41):
Yep, 100% OK.
So we have talked about the Mac, the iPad, keyboards, software,
AppleCare, backup, cloudservices.
I think that's pretty good.
We've done it all, tom we have.
I think we've covered a goodbit.
If you have any questions onany of the stuff we talk today,
do feel free to reach out to usat feedback at basicafshowcom.

(53:06):
Jeff and I both get that.
One of us will reply.
It could be even hey, should Iget 16 gigs or 32?
We'll take those.

Jeff (53:14):
Yeah, we're happy to answer those questions.
Yeah, happy to get in, trulyhappy to ask.

Tom (53:18):
And again, thanks for joining us for this show.
Tell your friends about it.
Right, jeff, we like those.

Jeff (53:25):
Yeah, we want to be liked, followed, subscribed to all
those things that happen in allthose apps.
We are growing and you help usgrow, so feel free to tell us,
tell your friends about us, evenif it's just a laugh at us, we
don't care.

Tom (53:43):
That happens.
That happens to me a lot.

Jeff (53:45):
Plenty of reason to laugh at us.
Sometimes you can laugh with us, but plenty of reasons to laugh
at us.
As a reminder, you can find usboth on the various social media
sites.
I'm at Reyes Point, oneverything that there is.
I don't know what to call thatnew one now X, yeah, something

(54:08):
like that.
I don't know, I'm not callingit that.
You can X at me at.

Tom (54:14):
I don't know what the heck.
Does it even mean?

Jeff (54:15):
It always makes me think of DMX.

Tom (54:17):
So it brings me a little joy in that sense.

Jeff (54:23):
I'm on threads.
I don't check anything outthere.
I'm on Instagram.
I barely check anything outthere.

Tom (54:28):
Oh, I'm glad you mentioned that.
We do have a proper pageaccount whatever you want to
call it on Instagram for theshow.
It's basic AF show, so we're onInstagram threads If you want
to find us there.
We're not on the X, which thatsounded very alternative radio
in the late 90s.
So basicafshowcom is ourwebsite, which basically just

(54:51):
lists out the episodes if youwant to listen there.
But you might as well justsubscribe in the apps, anything
else.

Jeff (54:59):
Podcast artwork by randomart and design Go get you
some Does great work.

Tom (55:03):
Theme music by Psychokinetics and I think, tom
we've done it again, call itquits, all right, and so thanks
again for being here checking usout.
I hope you have a good rest ofyour day, rest of your night,
and we will talk to you nexttime.
See ya, I don't want to knowabout your imperfections, dude,
but for the leave you want topractice, so I'll improve,

(55:25):
because if I'm finding out youknow more than I'm just like you
.
I gon' smash my whole worldLost in illusion, drowning
myself up in the sauce.
Put my glasses on back wherethat move on my watch.
That was cozy.

All Episodes

Episode Transcript

Popular Podcasts

Dateline NBC

24/7 News: The Latest

Therapy Gecko

.css-15opob5{left:0;position:absolute;top:0.8rem;} All Episodes

.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}The Best Tech for Back to School

Episode Transcript

Popular Podcasts

.css-r6mb8g{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:1;overflow:hidden;}Dateline NBC

24/7 News: The Latest

Therapy Gecko

All Episodes

The Best Tech for Back to School

Dateline NBC