In what can be described as feeling like the longest year ever, I am happy that Winter solstice is finally here, marking the day with the least amount of light before the earth’s axis starts tilting back to summer again.

It seems ironic that at the start of the year most people were sick of hearing about Brexit on the news and were wanting something new in the headlines. I guess you should be careful for what you wish for. Interestingly both Brexit and COVID are about to cause a major clusterfuck at the end of the year with no imports or exports into the UK due to COVID and the (oven ready) No Deal with Europe.

It would be hard to believe that 2021 can be any worse.

Unfortunately for most in Scotland we will not be able to see the great conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn tonight, it’s very cloudy, I actually wonder if it was cloudy on the night 400 years ago when they last met like this. I look forward to the videos and photographs tomorrow!

After the year that has been we should take a moment to acknowledge the solstice, knowing that the darkest day eventually leads to the lightest.

Ok, so I was going to write this post after a week but I got caught up with some work and the US election coverage on CNN at the weekend. But here it is, my week with an iPad Air, Magic Keyboard and Pencil 2.

iPad Air - after a great deal of thought on whether to upgrade my iPad Pro to the third generation I decide to go with the new iPad Air, primarily because it has Apple’s latest processor the A14 Bionic with 64 bit architecture and Neural Engine. I chose Space Grey, as I am boring, with wifi & cellular and took the 256GB version to “keep the cost down” to a wallet choking £859. As always I am looking at the cost that I can recoup when I sell it in two years time.

It weighs in at a hefty 460 grams (air?) and has the USB-C connector, 4 speakers and the new Touch ID sensor as well as an induction pad for the pencil (more on that later).

The Touch ID sensor works really well, it is in the new position on the on/off switch at the top right hand of the device (when holding it in portrait), it works exactly like the touch sensor should, quickly recognises the finger print and unlocks. Apple obviously was able slim the surrounding screen bevel around the device by putting the Touch ID in that position. The 10.9 inch screen actually measures out to 10.86 inches once the round corners have been taken into consideration.

The display itself is anti-reflective and anti-finger print, but as with all iPad’s I have used before it, it does reflect and it does pick up fingers prints (not that you would notice when backlight LED screen is on it has 500 nits of brightness).

What can I tell you after a week of use; it is blazing fast, handles all the Microsoft applications that you might use from working at home, easily records & edits 4K video much faster than previous devices and takes impressive night shots using the 12 megapixel (f1.8) back camera. The front camera is still using the 7 megapixel (f2.2) for video conferencing. But you have to ask yourself do you really want your colleagues to see you in full 4K HDR at 9am on a Monday morning? Apparently Apple think not…

I waited for quite a while between selling my second generation iPad Pro for the iPad Air to be released and it was a painful three weeks not having an iPad, it showed me how much I have come to rely on it whether browsing the net in the den or being on the road with it and especially catching up with Netflix or the news, the iPhone doesn’t really fill all the gaps. Without having a MacBook just now (waiting on the Apple Silicon before buying anything Apple desktop/laptop related), the iPad does fill a gap for me. My only gripe is the price, it sits well within iPad Pro territory and I don’t really understand why Apple didn’t upgrade the Pro processor at the same time they released the Air. As my colleagues would say it is just an ‘Apple Tax’, but of course they would still be waiting on their android devices starting in the time that it has taken me to write this 😜.

Magic Keyboard - After having the folio keyboard for my Pro I was eager to get my hands on the new Magic Keyboard and I have to admit it is a great companion for the iPad Air. The keys are exactly what they should be, responsive, lightweight and just enough travel to make it a great typing experience, needless to say this is exactly what I using just now to type this. The Magic Keyboard’s biggest feature over the folio keyboard is the cantilever design which allows you to move the screen to exactly the angle you want it at. The keyboard fixes magnetically to the back of the iPad, and that magnet is so strong you can easily move it without worrying about disconnecting the keyboard. It also features a trackpad, which if I am honest I find crazy useful, almost to the point that I use it more than I use my finger to touch the screen, it also has all the double/triple swipes that you might be used to on you a Mac trackpad. It also has a USB-C port on it for pass through charging, useful if you have a dongle in the iPad (I often have the camera SD card in mine) so you can charge and edit at the same time. The keyboard, like the folio keyboard, also protects the front and rear of the iPad Air. For me, the biggest feature on this keyboard is that it is backlit. It makes life so much easier when typing in the dark, which I do more than you would imagine, so much so that I often cursed the folio keyboard for this missing feature.

For me the keyboard was a must, but it has drawbacks; it is heavy. It more than doubles the weight of the iPad Air. I was surprised in the weight of it but I think the features that are in it are worth the extra grams. Using the keyboard also uses up the battery more quickly as well, hence the USB-C port on it. Ok, £299, that was extremely hard to swallow after the initial expensive of the iPad Air, brutally so.

Apple Pencil 2 - Yes, as if the keyboard wasn’t Apple Tax enough. I had the original Pencil with my iPad Pro and I have to be honest I did not use it as much as I thought I would. Like most first generation Apple products it was well thought out, but improvements to it were quickly identified. With improvements in any Apple product they charge more for it - Apple Pencil 1st generation £89, Apple Pencil 2nd generation £119. So what is the difference? Well the biggest and probably best difference is that it attaches magnetically to the side of the iPad which also recharges using a little inductive charging strip. This to me was ingenious. The 1st generation pencil required taking of the cap, finding the stupid little lightning adapter that was inevitably lost somewhere and then having to stick the pencil into the lightning port of the iPad to charge it up, because you couldn’t find the adapter. Of course once it was charged up you had to recharge the iPad and search for the cap to the pencil which would now be lost as well. Wow, I forgot how much I hated the old pencil compared to the new one.

It has a few other new features, it has a button on it for changing tools quickly, is much more sensitive when writing and has imperceptible lag time. The pencil comes into it’s own when you realise what applications use it to it best, it’s ideal for the adobe suite of applications which is something that attracted me to purchasing it.

Overall - I am enjoying the new iPad Air, it does exactly what it say on the tin and with the majority of it funded by selling my two year old iPad Pro I really can’t complain. You will not get 10 hours of video playback when the keyboard and pencil are attached but then I am never that far away from a charger anyway. I would like to say that I can’t remember the last time I used it for watching ten hours straight of video but I would be lying. If I have anything that I would change is having the cellular version, currently my iPhone has unlimited data and three allow me to use it as a personal hotspot so I don’t really need the cellular version. Currently I have not got a SIM card for the iPad yet. I am not sure if I will.