We now have a set of tools with us which blend typing and handwriting, paper and screen. It’s chaotic but quite effective.
Just in the last couple of days:
– I imported parts of a pitch deck to review, into Notability on the iPad – I screenshotted specific slides and sent them to the app, then commented on the slides using Notability’s excellent support for the Apple Pencil: annotations, circles, colors, sketches. Finally exported to PDF and emailed it.
– Today I reviewed a document sent over WhatsApp by taking notes on a paper notebook while looking at the document on my iPad (iCloud Photo Library syncs pictures pretty much instantly between the iPhone and iPad). I scanned to PDF via CamScanner and replied on the same WhatsApp thread.
– Finally, more conventionally, I’m writing this draft on pen and paper (I still prefer hand-writing first drafts). I’ll then transcribe this on the iPad, editing as I do so, and post it to WordPress from there.
It’s very liberating to be able to use both whatever is at hand OR whatever is the right tool for what you want to do – brainstorm, annotate, draft, edit – knowing that you’ll be able to publish/message whenever you want at the end of the pipe. There are many factors – technically and culturally – that have come together to make this happen. I’m thinking about this and maybe write about it.