On Mixing and Matching Personal Electronic Devices
What is hard to predict is how personal electronic device usage will evolve when your personal mix of electronic devices changes. While my personal experience is with Apple products I would expect similar experiences with Android and other devices.
I have long had a MacBook Pro and an iPhone. After several years I added an iPad Mini.
Initially I got the Mini to augment my Kindle Paperwhite since the user interface for the Apple Kindle readers I find to be superior to the Kindle's for book reading.
Gradually the Mini has taken usage time away from both the MacBook and the iPhone. As expected, I use the iPad Kindle software more than the Kindle itself for book reading. The MacBook is primarily for work (from my home office I write government proposals for a living) and image management (I have used Flickr for more than a decade). The iPhone is portable and goes everywhere.
I find myself using the iPad Mini in the morning a lot to catch up with email and news and then throughout the day for less keyboard-intensive tasks.
I have other devices (an old MacBook Pro on which I have installed Ubuntu Linux for general web usage including management and usage of personal and business Microsoft OneDrive accounts) and a Windows laptop that can run Microsoft Project.
Overall, the Apple devices are my main machines. I'll probably get an Apple Watch eventually and wonder how it will change my usage mix.
Would I like to have a single device that does everything? I don't see how that would be possible but it would simplify keeping everything charged!
I also have a 4K Apple TV device in our living room and have repeatedly experienced the benefits of simplified setup and password sharing across Apple devices.
An additional and vey important consideration is support infrastructure. Having devices that can easily share cloud based resources (e.g., iCloud for backup and image storage, Apple Music for music) is a major plus.
Copyright (c) 2021 by Dennis D. McDonald
