I have downsized to a GANNET size computer. You see it above, an 11” M4 iPad Pro next to my 13” MacBook Air.
There are several changes to this new design. The M4 chip is Apple’s most powerful, far more than needed by almost all of us, including me. So much so that the Ars Technica review of the new iPad Pros is headed ‘Well, Now You Are Just Showing Off’ addressed to Apple. The new iPad Pros have a new display said by reviewers to be the best display on any consumer device and it is indeed impressive. The new Pros are incredibly thin and light, which is important to me. And I was most tempted by the new keyboard accessory described as exceptional by all the reviews I read. My main computer was once a 12” MacBook with which I was quite happy and I thought if I could type comfortably on that and if this keyboard is as good as claimed, I can type on it. It is and I can.
I have had the new iPad since Tuesday and am writing this post on it, as I have the past two. It is also serving as my e-reader, so is replacing two devices—a 12.9” iPad Pro and an iPad mini. There are a few activities I cannot perform on iPads, so I still have the Air, but now this small device is my main computer.
Setting up the new iPad and transferring data from the old 12.9” iPad Pro took a while. In doing so I was pleased that all my iSailor charts transferred. None of my iNavX charts did. I do not know what iNavX’s current policy is, but the last time I checked they still permitted only two downloads per purchase and you had to buy a different set of charts for iPad and iPhone. I deleted iNavX from the new device and decided to add to my charts in iSailor. I now have complete coverage of the Southern Hemisphere—make of that what you will—on four devices: iPad Pro 12.9”; iPad mini; iPhone 12 Pro; and 11” iPad Pro. Unless war breaks out and nations destroy one another’s GPS satellites, that should be enough, and if they do I have a sextant and know how to use it.
I accept the hazards of sailing small boats across oceans alone, but bored teen-agers ought not to be among them. Good grief!
This morning I finished THE LAST POOL OF DARKNESS, The second volume in Tim Robinson’s wonderful Connemara trilogy. I will start the third, A LITTLE GAELIC KINGDOM, tomorrow, and have already ordered his two books about the Aran Islands. His writing and his books are a very great pleasure.
In the final chapter he offers the possible source of the name of Slackport. “The local origin myth is that some sailors came ashore here once and enquired for the pub; when they learned it is five miles away in Ballyconneely they said, “Well, this is a very slack port!’
And the last words in the book are: ‘two hints that it is time to throw my book away, a paper boat adrift on the unknown waters of other people’s minds, unballasted with summation or conclusion.’
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