Hello, I’m Michael Sliwinski, founder of Nozbe - to-do app for business owners and their teams. I write essays, books, work on projects and I podcast for you using #iPadOnly in #NoOffice as I believe that work is not a place you go to, it’s a thing you do. More…
Recently I got myself the new iPhone 15 Pro and the Apple Watch Ultra 2 and these two devices have one thing in common - Action button which can be configurable. In the beginning I changed its settings on the iPhone to just open the camera and on the watch to start a workout, but after a few days my identity as a productivity guy and founder of Nozbe got the better of me. I decided to tweak this with Siri Shortcuts and create my ultimate “Action Button Shortcut” which you can get here free and adjust to your own liking:
This year I’ve upgraded both of my most mobile devices. Apple Watch got upgraded to the beefy Ultra 2 from a small series 7 and the iPhone went from the cute Mini 13 to the iPhone 15 Pro. Here are all the reasons that finally convinced me to drop the small and powerful Mini for the latest iPhone Pro:
This week is all about the new iOS17 - operating system for our iPhones and iPads! Finally it’s coming to our devices and at last I’ll be able to split my main iCloud ID from my wife. An e-divorce of sorts. Nope, I’m not really breaking up with my wife, I love her too much… but we’ll finally be able to have separate iCloud accounts because since 2012 we’ve been using the same main Apple ID/iCloud account on both of our iPhones. Yes, that wasn’t ideal but it worked for us very well. However, as you can imagine it was also frustrating at times, so here’s what iOS17 offers that finally will help us out:
Two years ago I posted the contents of my backpack and all the tech gear I have there. Until recently that’s how I was carrying all my cables and tech. However recently I re-examined my setup and bought some new pouches and from now on this is how I’m carrying all my gear:
Three years ago I published the details of my iPhone 12 Mini Home Screen and I’ve had basically that same app layout on that Mini, later on the iPhone 13 Pro and then on my new Mini. Only this year I decided to shake things up and reduce the Home Screen to just ONE SCREEN and that’s it:
Last year instead of upgrading from iPhone 13 Pro to 14 Pro, I “upgraded” to iPhone 13 Mini. I just loved the small form factor and the one-handed use of an iPhone. Today, after half a year I’m still happy with my choice and as Apple probably won’t release any new Mini in the future, I might be tempted to keep this phone for a few more years to come. Crazy, right? However, using it every day what blows me away the most is how powerful this small phone really is, and in some aspects it even runs circles around the latest and the greatest Samsung smartphone - the Galaxy 23 Ultra! No kidding, read on:
Before we launched the brand new Nozbe I got myself an old 2016 iPhone SE to be able to test if our app is fast enough for this phone and designed well enough to fit this smallest screen on the iPhone. After a few years as I upgraded my iPhones, I put this old vintage one on the wall of my home office and kept it there. Now that my eldest daughter needed her first phone, I decided to give her this one for starters. However, this iPhone’s battery was really bad. So I did some research and decided to buy a new battery on Amazon for around $20 and change the battery myself. What could possibly go wrong?
My brother, who recently converted back to iPhone from Android, just sent me over this tip and it’s fantastic - if you’re a parent, who has lots of family photos - follow the steps in this article and you’ll thank me later. Thanks to this tip, every hour I see a different photo of one of my three daughters and wife. I love my Lock Screen now! Here’s how to enable it:
Last week I was on short holidays with my family and I rented a car. They upgraded me to a BMW 3 series combi (wagon) which was perfect for my family’s needs. This was a new car and I haven’t driven the newest BMWs lately so I was kind of concerned if I’ll get around to understand their infotainment system. Luckily all I had to figure out was how to connect my iPhone Mini with Bluetooth to the system and I was set, as the car was equipped with wireless CarPlay. Here’s why it was brilliant:
In the end, against my earlier advice I decided to upgrade my trusty three-year-old AirPods Pro to the new model - AirPods Pro 2. For once, some people I trust confirmed this was a worthy upgrade. Secondly, my current AirPods Pro hold only 2 hours of charge after three years of almost daily service. Thirdly, if I use something as much as these every single day, I can completely justify an upgrade after three years, hopefully having them in service for the next three years! Now, apart from the headphones being better, the biggest upgrade is the case. Not only that it has a speaker now which makes it easier to find, but mostly because I can now use virtually any charger to charge it - thanks to the magnets, I can use the MagSafe puck to charge it:
