I recently purchased a 256GB SSD 13-inch MacBook Pro with Touch Bar as my latest laptop acquisition — and according to iFixit, there's not much chance I'll be able to upgrade that storage (or much else, really) in the future.

The company has given Apple's latest laptop a repairability score of 1/10, citing glued-in batteries and user-hostile casing; for those keeping score, it's the same score given to the last generation of MacBook Pro, and a few points lower than the last-generation MacBook Air (which netted a 4/10).

Replacement obsolescence

I've replaced many a part in my Mac laptops over the decade and a half I've owned them — a dead battery here, swapping a disk drive for SSD there. As a result, many of those laptops have lasted well beyond their AppleCare coverage point. My dad has an old Wall Street that, until very recently, he still used for email in the living room; I have a 2009-era 15-inch MacBook Pro that's still speeding along with a year-old SSD.

I've loved the thrill of cracking open my laptops and making them better. But it's always come as a bonus to me in my later years of laptop ownership — let's make this thing like new again! — rather than a selling point off the bat.

As Apple makes its computers lighter, thinner, and more power-efficient, it's sacrificing that reparability for greater off-the-bat convenience. My new MacBook Pro feels like a solid slab of aluminum in my hands, much like my iPhone — the engineering is hidden, rather than user-accessible.

But is the trade-off worth it? I go back and forth.

Pros and cons-umers

Removing consumer access to the inner workings of their Macs limits the computer's lifespan: A lithium-ion battery only lasts so many years, and all drives fail eventually. The industry moves forward, and those who can't afford a new laptop every two years can fall behind. It's one thing to pay $700 every two years for a new iPhone; it's quite another to pay upwards of $2000 for a new computer in that same time period.

Offering users the ability to upgrade their RAM and SSDs used to be a way to combat that growing obsolescence — make your old computer a little bit faster, let it work a little bit harder, and you don't need next year's model.

And in a vacuum, I worry about the lack of upgradeability in Apple's new Macs leading to computers being replaced faster. People can only afford so much at purchase time, and the "8GB of RAM is plenty" mentality could lead to unhappy users two years down the line. It also may lead to more electronic waste as people upgrade more frequently, or users being forced to pay more money over time to fix their computers solely through Apple and Apple-authorized resellers.

But here's the thing: Outside the core Mac enthusiast audience, the general population just isn't interested in fixing or upgrading its machines. We have a hard enough time helping our loved ones at Thanksgiving switch to complicated passwords and clearing off their desktop — explaining that you can take apart a computer to make it faster or fix it is often beyond the pale for many users.

Throughout my college and early work years in Apple Retail, many of my friends and customers insisted on trudging through life with broken laptop screens, missing key caps, or ever-slowing hard drives. When I mentioned that such things could be (with a little bit of work) easily fixed, they'd often shrug and say "It's not worth it. I'll upgrade eventually." My own fiancé uses an old MacBook with a completely shattered screen, but doesn't see the point in fixing it.

The laptop of the future

We, the computer enthusiasts, balk at computers without replaceable parts. "What if I need more space? I don't want to pay for Apple's RAM suppliers!" But it goes over the head of an average user. All they see is a computer that works for them — until it doesn't.

So it makes sense to me that Apple would focus its build efforts on sleeker, smarter, more portable machines over repairable machines, and offer recycling programs to keep older Macs from ending up in landfills and give users some monetary value for their old machines. There's another issue to think about here, too: As a computer's inside more and more resembles that of its mobile cousin, part replacement becomes trickier — the last thing Apple (or any company) wants is a customer attempting a battery repair and blowing up their device.

No matter our feelings over expensive SSDs and reparability, the future of the Mac is quite likely non-user replaceable. That doesn't mean we should give up fighting for repairable computers — I quite admire folks like iFixit fighting for a user's right to repair their technology, however complicated it's become to do so. But we need to plan for the future.

When buying a laptop, I now look to the computer I want two or three years from now, not the computer I want now. It's not a perfect solution — and often a very expensive one — but it's the decisions you have to make when it comes to extending the life of your new machine.

The same goes for things SSDs: I purchased a 256GB hard drive in my MacBook Pro because I largely rely on cloud-based services for my laptop use, but you may not — and you need to decide that for yourself.

This tack won't solve issues with glued-in batteries dying just outside the warranty period — that's where fighting for reasonable battery repair rates comes in — but it's at least one possible step in an age where all our devices are becoming more and more compact.

I just placed an order for a 13-inch MacBook Pro. It's the first Pro laptop I've purchased since 2009. For the last year, I've been using the iPad Pro, but before that, my Mac computer of choice — and perhaps my favorite Mac of all time — was the 11-inch MacBook Air.

After 6 years of faithful service, that 11-inch model is now dead, killed by Apple, the 12-inch MacBook, and increasingly thinner MacBook Pros. I'll miss it dearly. To add insult to injury, I don't even have a working model to add to my trove of past computers; my last 11-inch Air was horribly drowned by a spilled water bottle last year, so I have only its lifeless corpse to commemorate my all-time favorite laptop.

The 11-inch MacBook Air was too small of a computer for most everyone I knew; I had many friends who'd outright laugh or baffle at how I could read or type on such a teensy screen. But it was just right for me, especially going from the behemoth of a 15-inch MacBook Pro. Its lightweight and travel-sized body was the perfect fit for my changing lifestyle, especially when I began frequently traveling to tech events and visiting friends across the country.

True, it was often slow and painful to edit video on, and the lack of a Retina display saddened me as the years went on and the other Mac laptops got upgraded one by one. But it was a wonderful computer — a trooper and a good friend — and I'll miss it.

Perhaps the new 13-inch MacBook Pro, with its multitouch Touch Bar and Retina screen, will fill the gaping hole in my heart. The 9.7-inch iPad Pro and Logitech Create keyboard already has, to an extent; lacking a laptop, it's been my new travel computer for the last year, and while it's not a perfect substitute for a Mac, it's a great writing companion. (And it has both a better battery and supports the Apple Pencil, two things my Air certainly lacked.)

And I suppose if I really miss the form-factor, I could consider a 12-inch MacBook, or even look at Apple's refurbished Macs for ultra-low 11-inch deals.

More likely, however, the 11-inch will join my other past computer loves — the hinge-arm iMac, my PowerBook Duo, and the original Bondi iMac — in my memories and Photos library as we move forward into the next era of portable computing.

Enjoy your place in Mac history, old pal. I'll miss you.

Growing up, I considered Apple the computer for creative professionals. My teachers in the film and theater industry used them. My graphic design friends used them. My musician friends had even switched over. And I, of course, used my Mac daily for video, writing, and art projects.

Today, I'm not so sure that's true anymore. That's not to say that the Mac isn't still a great computer and the choice of many creative pros, but Apple no longer appears to have the obsessive focus it once had on the high-end pro market. It's been almost three years since the Mac Pro saw an update, and a year since we saw new iMac models. Final Cut Pro X hasn't seen a proper update since February. And while Photos for Mac is a solid piece of consumer software, it's not full-featured enough for professionals.

The rise of Microsoft as creative pro advocate

So you'll have to forgive me for Microsoft's Surface Studio catching my eye during its release announcement Wednesday morning. Microsoft, long content to let third-party manufacturers take care of its desktop computing software, has made a definitive move into not just the desktop space — but the creative professional space — with its new all-in-one convertible desktop.

Yes, you read that right: I said convertible desktop. The computer may look like an off-brand 5K iMac at first, but the Surface Studio has the the same trick up its sleeve as its tablet brethren — its base hinges to let you transform the monitor into a 4K drawing tablet, replete with Surface Pen and the all-new Surface Dial, which rather looks like the love child of a Griffin PowerMate and Adobe's prototype Ink and Slide device for iPad.

Microsoft made a hard pitch for creative pros at its fall event, hitting both the requisite buzzwords and displaying legitimately intriguing hardware. For the Cintiq crowd, the promise of a 4.5K display that also happens to be a high-powered main computer in its own right — no drivers or cords or extra desk space needed — could be a tempting one, especially given Apple's recent inaction on the Mac side. Of course, that's assuming Microsoft's hardware is as rock-solid as Wacom's Cintiq line, and that creative pros want the buy-in of a Windows computer rather than ponying up $2000 for a Cintiq 22HD and configuring their own Mac or PC system.

I wonder about the first problem, but it's the second that clinches me not actually running to my nearest Microsoft Store and grabbing a Surface Studio: It runs Windows 10. I'll give Microsoft credit — Windows is a much better operating system today than it ever was when I was growing up. But it's just not an operating system I personally enjoy using. Nothing against the company or its software; I just prefer macOS.

Short of iOS magically fusing itself with macOS during tomorrow's Mac event, however, I have many doubts that we'll see a multitouch "creative pro" Mac anytime soon. There are many great arguments against a touch-compatible Mac, which I won't rehash here, but the main one is that macOS simply isn't built with touch input in mind. Contraptions like the rumored Smart Bridge touch bar on the new MacBook Pros may be a fine way to meld parts of touch operating systems into macOS, but a true multitouch Mac may never exist.

Enter the Pencil

But what about a Mac with a Pencil-compatible display? Apple could get around the problems of multitouch on the Mac but still offer a huge feature for creative pros. Unlike 3D Touch on the iPhone, the iPad Pro doesn't have a pressure-sensitive multitouch screen. Instead, the Pencil works by having its pressure technology built inside the pen itself; it then communicates that information to the iPad via software-based APIs.

If Apple were to make a Mac that also offered creative pros a Cintiq-like experience, the company wouldn't have to redesign macOS or develop large-scale multitouch panels; it could instead build a convertible iMac or MacBook Pro with a Pencil-compatible screen. (Heck, non-multitouch displays would also be an extra boon for palm rejection.)

That said, for all the love I'd give such a computer, I doubt Apple's interests are particularly high when it comes to convertibles; the company seems more interested in improving the iPad tablet experience than trying to hybridize its Mac line (or force you to draw at a 90-degree angle, a torture I wish on no one). There are also other alternatives for Apple when it comes to integrating multitouch and the Pencil with the Mac, such as the aforementioned rumored Smart Bridge or third-party second-screen software for iPad Pro like Astropad.

But it's an interesting premise nonetheless — and one I wouldn't have even considered if not for Microsoft's new venture. No matter what you may think of the Microsoft Surface Studio, competition in creative pro hardware is vital for creative professionals; it's how we got tools like the Pencil and iPad Pro in the first place.

Here's hoping Apple's announcements tomorrow give professionals something else to look forward to — even if that something isn't quite a Pencil-compatible iMac.

While the pace of technology can seem sloggish when we're on the third year of similar smartphone designs, it sometimes takes a step back to make you realize just how much has changed. Fifteen years ago, I was in my first year of high school and the web was still considered more of a geeky fascination than mainstream success. It was the age of Neopets and Napster for those of us lucky enough to score fast internet connections and personal computer time, and if you wanted music in your pocket, you either were nerdy enough to have invested in a MiniDisc player, or (more likely) you shoved a Walkman into a bookbag.

That year, I was the first person at my high school to own an iPod. I can't remember why my father was gracious enough to gift me one of the plastic-and-steel music players — my birthday was months away at that point — though I suspect it may have been a result of constant hint-dropping. And, hey: My dad has always been an Apple enthusiast at his core. He may have initially bought the iPod for his own uses, only to have me reconfigure it for my own day-to-day life.

Whatever the reason, that iPod quickly became one of my most prized possessions next to my iBook (also pretty new). I showed it off to anyone and everyone who would listen, proudly proclaiming its superiority over the Walkman and, to a friend's amusement, his paltry 32MB Rio PMP300. (We made a bet on the bus one day about which music player would end up a mainstay in five years which I never collected on — largely because him listening to at least three months of Apple braggadocio and remaining my friend was enough payment.)

As someone who loved music and scored soundtracks in her head, the iPod was a revelation: It made even the most mundane of tasks something special. It proved useful in school, too, letting me rehearse for plays by reading along to MP3s of recorded scripts. And, perhaps most importantly of all, it helped spur a growing interest in consumer technology and gave me my first avenue in educating and helping people with their devices.

I had many Apple devices before the original iPod and have purchased many more since, but it's perhaps telling that its 5GB steel shell remains in a cherished place on my desk, 15 years later. It wasn't just software that made the iPod successful — while dated, its design remains one of my all-time favorites. I'd spin that click-wheel to mitigate stress, or while thinking up something to write, or simply because it was there in my pocket and I wanted something to occupy my hands. Spoiler: It still spins today. It even boots up, though its battery is long past the point of holding more than a few minutes' charge.

But this little white rectangle is responsible for pretty much every pocket-sized product Apple has produced since. Jason Snell said it best in his (now ten year old) five-year-reflection on the iPod for Macworld:

The iPod amplified Apple's brand into the mainstream, giving many users a chance to enter the company's ecosystem for the first time. From there, the "halo effect" took hold — it wasn't hard to love a Mac once you got used to that simple little rectangle. (And for all the flack iTunes rightfully gets now, in the mid-2000s, it and the iPod made adding music blissfully simple, where other products felt clunky and complicated.)

Over the years, the iPod has ceded its position to the iPhone; in 2016, the idea of a device that only does music seems almost ridiculous. ("No GPS? No headphones-as-MP3-player? No step tracker?") But fifteen years ago, that idea was revolutionary enough to help bring about the modern age of portable devices. The iPod rightfully deserves its place on my desk — and in the cabinet of technology history.

This past weekend, I attended the MIT Mystery Hunt, as I have for the last three years. It's a delightfully dastardly puzzle hunt, packing over 100 logic puzzles, math mysteries, cryptic crosswords, Braille and Morse Code-themed madness, and multi-team-member runarounds into just under three days. There's nothing quite like feeling terribly stupid and horribly clever within a matter of hours, and it's a great mental reset for the year to come.

Unfortunately, as you might be able to spot in the above picture, this weekend also saw the return of my 11-inch MacBook Air. After relying almost exclusively on my iPad Pro for two months, I ended up dual-wielding both the Air and the Pro throughout the weekend—all because of Google Drive.

A compatibility mess

Google's productivity apps are a must-use during the Hunt. We use Google's Sheets to collaborate and record puzzle data amongst our teammates, often opening up multiple tabs to try new theories or indexing formulae. But Sheets barely has a functional iPad app, and it's missing necessary puzzle hunt features like being able to quickly copy a function to the rest of the row, or move rows or columns. On the iPad Pro, it's even worse.

Despite receiving several updates in the last few months, Google's apps haven't been updated for Apple's larger tablet. And there's no hope, as there is with Facebook, of using Google's in-theory-HTML5-and-therefore-iPad-compliant website: Google's standard web view on an iPad flat-out punts you to the apps—if the website even correctly detects you have the app installed. I can't count the number of times I've seen the websites try and send me to the App Store to open a spreadsheet, when I clearly have Sheets already available.

Trying to request the desktop version of the website won't work, either: You won't be able to scroll, or tap on anything that requires a double-click, and any link you do manage to make work will send you right back to the mobile environment.

This would be annoying but manageable if Google's apps provided feature parity with the website. Unfortunately, while they have some good points (like multiple account management), they're largely a huge pain point on mobile.

First off, they're split into three different programs: Drive, Docs, and Sheets. Each displays its own unique "Recent" list; Drive supposedly has the canonical list, but tapping anything in that app boots you out to Docs or Sheets. Worse, Sheets can't find anything you may have in Google Drive but haven't yet opened (like a shared folder) until you find and open it in the Drive app.

When I surveyed Twitter, I found dozens of similar complaints and frustrations. Anger with the overly small touch targets. Bouncing between apps. Requiring a live internet connection.

Now, software development is hard, and Google has chosen the roughest of all worlds: developing for multiple platforms and the web. But its apps go from occasionally incovenient to downright impossible on the iPad Pro.

A pro disappointment

Like iPhone-only apps, apps with no iPad Pro support just upscale their current iPad app to the Pro's screen resolution. This means you're essentially using the 9.7-inch iPad's keyboard upscaled to the 12.9-inch Pro's screen. Worse, they're not configured to properly recognize the Smart Connector—so when you attempt to use any keyboard with that attachment, over half the screen is replaced with a big, grey box that would otherwise be a virtual keyboard. (I won't even get into how poorly Sheets parses Smart Connector accessories, which leads to a frustrating, characters-dropped experience for anyone using a physical iPad Pro keyboard.)

On Sheets, which requires you enter in cell information along the bottom bar, this is nigh-insanity. You're reduced to seeing just five rows of information, and trying to move to a different row is an exercise in tapping futility. Nor do Google's apps support iOS 9's new Split Screen view for iPad; you can either use a brief slide-over to check your data, or remain stuck in the single-app past.

While frustrating, I understand Google not having resources to implement Split View just yet. But it's been two months since the iPad Pro's release, and four since its announcement. To not even update the screen resolution on a Pro-level device—where conceivably users might want to edit spreadsheets with some convenience—it just leaves me shaking my head.

If Google had shown no interest in developing for Apple's platforms due to the Android and Chrome rivalry, that would be one thing. But the company has dozens of apps in the App Store right now, many of them well-made. It clearly cares about its online document-editing platform. But not enough, it seems, to take care of iPad Pro users.

It's possible that Google has talent drain where iOS is concerned, and didn't have the resources to devote to a proper update for iPad Pro users in a timely fashion. That's fair: It's a big company focused on a lot of different projects. But why not have the web team focus on an all-around more touch-friendly site for mobile devices, then? That would benefit every ecosystem without the need for massive custom code for each tablet's app.

The fact of the matter is, without a proper implementation of Google Drive for the iPad Pro, users who work in a Google environment are hamstrung when it comes to using a tablet. If I had attempted to use the Pro and the Pro alone this weekend at the Mystery Hunt, I wouldn't have been able to collaborate and solve puzzles at the rate I normally do.

That's a shame, because the Pro is so well-suited to the Hunt's other demands: drawing and tracing, scavenger hunts that require puzzle solves on-the-go (clunky with a laptop), lengthy battery, and a portable internet connection.

Living without the laptop

Outside the insanity of Mystery Hunt, the Pro has become my de-facto laptop computer for almost every task. I'm lucky in that I don't have to use Google Sheets in my day to day job all that often. But when I do have to collaborate in Sheets or Docs, I often end up inputting data in Excel or 1Writer and copying it back when I'm finished. Others aren't nearly so lucky: For many, Google's apps are a nigh-requirement for their jobs.

Without supporting the iPad Pro, Google is—intentionally or otherwise—choking off an avenue for people who want a tablet in lieu of a laptop. The company's half-hearted apps prevent tablet and phone users from collaborating effectively on the go. And, in all honesty, they make me question whether iMore and our Mystery Hunt team might be better off using Excel with Microsoft's collaboration service.

I've used Google Docs for almost seven years. Giving it up seems crazy. But if Google's not willing to be a good citizen on mobile platforms, I'm not really sure I want to keep giving the company my business.

Recently, I've seen comments from friends and strangers alike about their Apple Watch: It's been left on the nightstand, in the drawer, and otherwise ditched from its place on the wrist. I can't say I'm entirely surprised: As much as I love the concept of the watch, it's far from being a perfect accessory.

Siri, which should be the watch's marquee feature, is often slow to wake and respond—largely because it needs your iPhone to do the query processing. You can't see the time unless you wake your watch, to save battery. Notifications and glances can be impenetrable to those who don't know where they're hiding. And while Watch apps are a great idea in theory, 85 percent of them just don't serve a useful purpose on your wrist.

Apple's watchOS 2 helped address some of those pain points, bringing third-party complications, native apps, and more Siri commands, but the company still has a long way to go before the watch is a must-have accessory. Of course, most of the other wearables in this field are struggling with similar issues—useful in some regards, endlessly frustrating in others—so Apple does have some time to reevaluate the watch.

I've stuck with the Apple Watch, however, despite my minor frustrations: The daily benefits it brings me far outweigh the negatives. Nine months in, here are the Apple Watch features I'm still using (and loving) every day.

Third-party complications (and multiple clock faces)

The market for third-party complications is still young—Apple only released watchOS 2 in the fall, after all—but I've already found a few I rely on day-in, day-out. I tend to rock the ugly-but-functional Modular face for most of my complication use, largely because I prefer data over looks in the day-to-day.

When it comes to at-a-glance information, Carrot Weather has a deliciously snarky Apple Watch complication that not only tells you the current weather and any precipitation, but does so in a viciously amusing style: "It's frakking sunny" is just one of the complication's many bon mots.

ETA incorporates the Digital Crown's Time Travel feature and traffic prediction to give you arrival estimates for a frequent location (for me, derby practice) depending on when you leave. The app's had a bit of bugginess lately so I haven't used it as often as I did last fall, but it's still one of the smartest complications I've seen.

Just Press Record is the complication that actually gets the most use, tapping-wise—the small complication is essentially a shortcut to the Just Press Record app, which hooks in to the Apple Watch's microphone to let you record anything in earshot. I need only tap the complication to launch the app; and because Just Press Record takes advantage of Apple's native apps framework, it's speedy. No waiting three seconds for the app to query the iPhone. I've recorded story ideas, song snippets, and on-the-spot interviews with Just Press Record, and all that audio gets automatically synced back to the iPhone and any other devices via iCloud Drive.

The real beauty of the Apple Watch, however, is in how quickly I can change faces. I've got a Modular face for my day-to-day, a Modular face designed specifically for roller derby coaching (replete with stopwatch, activity tracker, timer, and weather chart), and a more refined Utility and Photo face for going out in the evenings.

Ping my iPhone

I don't think I've used any feature more on my Apple Watch than Ping Phone, and it's almost (almost) worth the $350 just to be a glorified alert system. Since moving from my small Boston studio to a much larger suburban house, I frequently leave my iPhone in strange places: the hall closet, on top of the washer, the bathroom's music dock, buried under mail... you get the picture. I'm a bit scatterbrained, and the watch has saved my bacon so many different times by letting me instantly find my iPhone by swiping up for the Settings glance and pressing the Ping Phone button. It's largely responsible for me getting out of my house and on time most days.

Is this a little sad on my part? Maybe. But given all the insanity of daily life, it's a relief to just have a "Find" button so quick at your command. (I only wish it would hook into my Tile and ping my keys, too.)

Exercise tracking

When you work at home, you can very easily get sucked into sitting in front of a screen for eight hours without moving, ignoring your body's cries for nourishment and movement with a dismissing "I just have to finish... this... paragraph."

I've fallen into this neverending work pit many times throughout my career, and though I've tried many an OS X app to force me to get up and just move already, the only thing that has really worked is the watch. It yells at me to stand; it yells at me when I've done nothing but get breakfast and it's 4PM; it yells at me to not break my 20-day move streak just because I want to finish an article before midnight. Who knew I was so persuaded by yelling?

In seriousness, the Apple Watch may over-nag at times, but it keeps me moving and active in a way that BreakTime never could. It's exciting to look back at two weeks of successful move goals and actually feel the difference in my body: I'm not nearly as achey or anxious when I make time to do yoga or a little cardio crosstraining outside of my weekly derby caloric burns.

Notification management

I have notifications highly regulated on my Apple Watch: Very few alerts set off a sound or haptic tap, and only a few more make it to my wrist at all. (You can set all this up in the watch's notification settings.) This means that when I get an alert on my wrist, it's at least important enough to give it a quick glance; if it's actually worth stepping away from whatever I'm doing, I can address it.

This system has allowed me to largely keep my iPhone off the table and out of public gatherings during the last nine months, which I very much appreciate. All the stupid notifications I'd mindlessly check—Instagram, Facebook, non-VIP email, Star Wars Card Trader—none of those make it to my wrist. They're out of sight, out of mind.

Answering calls on my wrist

Though perhaps one of the most gimmicky Apple Watch features (or, at the least, spy-movie-worthy), I've actually found answering phone calls on my wrist to be strangely useful. It lets me quickly triage calls even when I'm doing something else with my hands, or don't have the time to find my phone before the call disconnects. The other day, I answered a call on my wrist while my hands were covered in biscuit dough and chatted with my mother as I made breakfast; sans watch, I would have just let the call go to voicemail.

I'm not advocating for answering calls on your wrist in every situation—they're still not ideal in many environments, and the Apple Watch's speaker is tinny and hard-to-hear in a crowd. Still, at the right time, it's a lovely option.

Siri... when it works

Oh, Siri. This Apple Watch feature is simultaneously a favorite and a frustration—you never know which Siri you're going to get when you press and hold the Digital Crown. I've had days where I barely needed to hold the Digital Crown before Siri was up and transcribing my query. I've also had moments where I'd hold the Digital Crown and start to speak, only to have Siri immediately go from listening to processing.

The Watch still relies heavily on your iPhone to process Siri queries; as a result, the speediness or sluggishness of your voice assistant depends largely on the iPhone (and internet connection) doing the work. Its interaction methods—"Hey Siri" and pressing the Digital Crown—can also be a little buggy unless you know tricks here and there to keep everything working. (My tips: Use "Hey Siri" only on screen wake; if you're using the Digital Crown, press it inward and hold it in until you're finished delivering your query.)

I'm complaining a lot about Siri and the watch in a section supposedly praising Siri, I know. But I only complain because Siri is so darn good when it actually works. The watch's microphone is better at identifying what you want to say than the iPhone—especially if you're in the car, since you aren't routed through your vehicle's Bluetooth speaker—and you can execute a staggering amount of commands. Kitchen timers, workouts, text messages, reminders, tip calculation, calculations, opening apps, enable or disable settings, search, get map information, play music, use HomeKit, get dictionary definitons... the list is large, and expands every time Apple updates watchOS.

I use Siri on the watch constantly in the car—it's many times better than my subpar Bluetooth speakers, and now sends messages more quickly than its iPhone counterpart. I also love using it for controlling HomeKit lights and music, and for starting workouts.

If Apple can reduce its reliance on the iPhone without deeply compromising the Watch's battery life, and make activation a little more reliable, Siri would be the Apple Watch's killer feature. It's pretty good right now—just not quite there yet.

How are you using your Apple Watch?

Any apps you've found that aren't terrible? Glances you love? Let us know in the comments.

The fourth-generation Apple TV has arrived, and all across the world people are busy making room on their console table and tossing their third-generation set-top boxes into disused corners of the room. And rightly so: The new Apple TV is pretty stellar.

I've had 48 hours to play with the latest version of tvOS and third-party apps, and I've pretty much moved my office into my living room in that time. I've downloaded crazy plane-finding apps and virtual art galleries, used my voice to search Hulu, explored the jungles of Rayman Adventures, and rocked out to some Apple Music. And I've written a lot of how-tos.

Unfortunately, I've also had some time to bump up against some of tvOS's rougher 1.0 edges. These aren't deal-breakers for me—there's a lot that the new Apple TV has going for it, and I've really enjoyed my time with it so far. But in the interest of making the couch-potato evenings of myself and many other new Apple TV owners just a bit better, here are some things I wouldn't mind seeing improved upon in subsequent updates.

1. Update the Remote app (or give us back Bluetooth keyboard support)

Apple has made setting up an Apple TV virtually seamless if you have an iOS device around, thanks to Bluetooth connectivity. But after that initial setup process, we're tossed back into the dark ages of remote-typing. The Siri Remote is quite a bit better at typing quickly than its predecessor, but let's face it: It's still a remote. And if you have any sort of complicated password, you're in trouble.

Previous Apple TVs had a solution in the form of the Remote app, which let you use your iPhone's virtual keyboard to enter any text you might need to type. Unfortunately, that app has yet to see an update that supports the fourth-generation Apple TV.

Nor can the new Apple TV connect to a Bluetooth keyboard—it just doesn't show up in the Bluetooth menu—so you are, as of now, completely confined to one-letter-at-a-time text entry.

I don't really need to say it, but I'm going to: Apple, this sucks. It's so easy to set up the Apple TV with an iPhone; why can't there be an option for all password prompts bounce over to a nearby unlocked iOS device? Or, barring that—give us an update to Remote app. Or a Bluetooth keyboard. This is painful.

Some apps, to their credit, have anticipated this nightmare: On launch, they ask you to go to a URL and enter in a specific code, where you can then log in securely and get a 5-digit code to enter into your Apple TV in lieu of a full username and password.

I don't hate this system—and it's a nice way of incorporating multiple-factor authentication—but c'mon, Apple. The Apple TV is so smooth and easy to use in other areas! You can do better.

2. Let us share or link to third-party apps

I'm just going to put this here.

Yeah, app developers can't link to their tvOS apps right now. Nor can you share a link from tvOS to your device. Or share much of anything, really.

This wouldn't be such a problem, except the brand-new tvOS App Store has yet to offer any sort of lists or categories beyond the Featured and Purchased tabs. So if you're looking for new apps, you either have to find it on the Featured tab or you have to manually search for it. (You can get a pseudo alphabetic listing of all the apps on the store currently by searching A-Z, which we did for fun... and exhaustion.)

I'm hoping this will change quickly, because it's just infeasible for app developers. How are you going to direct your current customers to your new app if it's not a Universal purchase with your iOS app? And if you're a new developer, trying to build any sort of awareness without a spot on the Featured screen is going to be next to impossible.

I suppose you could always do it this way...

But seriously. Let's pray this gets fixed, and fast. It's not good for app developers, it's not good for app discovery and exploration, it's not good for tvOS.

3. Give Siri access to Home Sharing and Apple Music

This is less of an immediate problem and more of a niggle, but it's a shame Siri on Apple TV can't currently search your Home Sharing libraries or Apple Music. Its search features are so useful in finding video content that I'd love a version that incorporates Apple Music and Home Sharing, too. I do understand the challenges inherent in indexing Home Sharing: Maintaining privacy is important, but Siri can't search your computer's library if it doesn't know the titles of your home movies or music.

Regardless, rumor has it that Apple Music support is coming early next year; fingers crossed that Home Sharing support arrives along with it.

4. Support multiple Game Center accounts in multiplayer

There are a bunch of great games on the tvOS App Store with in-home multiplayer experiences, but so far there appears to be no way to get Game Center to register multiple gaming accounts when you have friends playing—or even keep multiple accounts in the system if you want to switch from account to account.

Microsoft's Xbox system is a great example of multiplayer gaming done well: You can log in with your gamertag on multiple systems if you have an Xbox Live Gold account, and your friends can log in with their tags, too. It makes it easy to keep track of scores, achievements, and progress even if you're away from home or playing with friends.

On Apple TV, Apple's offered support for multiple Apple IDs purchasing items since the previous generation; it'd be great to see that support trickle down into the Game Center portion of things, too.

5. Let third-party apps use picture-in-picture

Your Apple TV ships with a variety of fantastic content-based apps, including Hulu, Netflix, Showtime, and HBO. But sometimes, you want to multitask—watch ESPN while playing a game, for instance. Currently, though, the Apple TV interface lives inside one app: Exit, and the app content goes with you.

Background picture-in-picture came to the iPad in iOS 9—the technology is there, and the Apple TV doesn't even have to worry about backgrounding power draw the way a mobile device might, since it's constantly connected to a power source.

I'm guessing it's on the roadmap for future tvOS updates, but there just wasn't enough time (or it wasn't a high enough priority) to ship it in 1.0. A bummer, but something I hope to see down the line.

6. Open up access to the Siri Remote's mic

Smule's Sing! is one of the best reinventions of an iOS app I've found for the Apple TV so far: Karaoke on my Apple TV? Sign me up. Unfortunately, you can't use the microphone built into the Siri Remote for anything other than Siri dictation—no apps can access it. As such, if you want to do any sort of mic input in your app, you need to fire up your iPhone and Smule's companion app, or hook up an external microphone to your TV. Bit of a drag.

I suspect the Siri Remote's microphone isn't anything amazing—you're not going to be using it to record video podcasts anytime soon—but it would be another tool in the tvOS toolbox for making cool apps.

What do you want to fix about the Apple TV?

Any annoyances you're frustrated about, or features you love? Let us know below.

[Edited at 9AM ET 11/1/15 to fix an error about background audio. I was under the impression it wasn't available in tvOS 1.0. I was happily wrong.]

At iMore, we recently picked up an Hermès Double Tour for review purposes. The Hermès-branded Apple Watch has a few tidbits exclusive to its design: It's priced for high fashion, has custom engraving on the back of the watch, and comes with a genuine Hermès leather band. To me, though, the really exciting part is its custom clock face.

That's right: The Hermès Apple Watch has a special bit of software in watchOS, giving it the first-ever third-party (though built by Apple) clock face. And not only that: It's customizable, too.

The Hermès clock face

It's understandable why Apple offered Hermès the opportunity to design a custom face that they could implement for the new line: It's another way to distinguish the watch as a special edition item, especially as counterfeit bands start to hit the market. What I wasn't expecting, however, was the amount of customization in the Hermès clock face.

Apple could have let Hermès design a clock face like that of the Solar or Timelapse options: a single selection with no "Customize" option. It would have been a simple and easy way to incorporate the Hermès legacy without any major engineering work on the Apple's part.

Instead, the clock face has three separate customization screens including different typefaces, three settings for numeric detail, and even a small complication below the Hermès logo.

While unique to the Apple Watch, the three typefaces don't look out of place next to Hermès's classic watch line: there's a thin, slight-serif option, a more bubbly Art Deco-style font, and a thin, serif-less design made of straight lines and right angles.

You can also display how many of those numbers you want shown: just the 12; 12, 3, 6, and 9; or the full clock face.

There's also a small complication that can be set to show the date, stopwatch, world clock, or turned off altogether. Sadly, third-party complications aren't compatible with the face, in part, I imagine, due to design.

If you decline to use the Hermès face, you can still get a bit of the designer flair: On faces that offer color complications, there's a custom orange-red "Hermès" color option.

The promise of third-party clock faces

Apple may not offer a public API or store for building and selling clock faces yet, but the entry it built for Hermès shows that it's certainly possible to build complicated third-party clock faces and incorporate them into the system.

I'd initially assumed that Apple simply didn't have the framework in place for third-party developers to build faces with complications, but the Hermès face makes me believe they're further along than I'd thought. At first glance, the designer clock face looks like it's been loosely built using the Utility or Color skeleton, but it has a complication in a completely different spot than any of Apple's circular faces.

Moreover, no stock complication lets you change the font—that's an entirely new detail for the Hermès design.

Now, given the fashion prestige that the design company brings to Apple's smartwatch, I wouldn't be surprised to hear that Apple's developers built whatever Hermès asked for—even if that included new complications. But I can't help but hope that it's also a hint that custom watch faces are possible—and possibly coming in watchOS 3.

Would you use a third-party clock face? What would you want from such a thing? Let me know below.

There's a saddening rumor being bandied about lately in regards to Apple's little-known but much-beloved One to One program: Namely, that the company plans to discontinue it as it continues to tweak and revamp its stores.

If you've never heard of the One to One program, well... I'm bummed, but not surprised. iMore visited One to One last year to help our readers learn more about it. Since its origin, Apple marketed the program exclusively to new Mac owners—a $99 add-on that gave them a year's worth of weekly 30-minute and hour-long tutoring sessions on anything Apple-related they wanted to know.

Most buyers turned it down. Those who didn't got some of the best tutoring, bonding, and Starbucks-fueled experiences Apple had to offer.

Training us, training you

Little-known fact: Before my life incorporated "online writer" into my dossier, I worked for an Apple Store and taught One to One classes. I was one of the few "part-time" Creatives—most trainers were full-time and spent the majority of their work day running personal training sessions and workshops alike.

One to One sessions ran the gamut when it came to topics: I'd clock in at 8:50 and have a "Welcome to Mac" tutorial session at 9 with a brand-new Mac user in their 40s; at 10 I'd be knee-deep in a Final Cut Pro project with a retired gentleman who wanted to reinvent himself as a documentary filmmaker; and by noon I'd be walking a new business owner through making a website with iWeb. (Still a thing in those days. Imagine!)

The pitch for One to One training was broad and all-encompassing: Want to learn basics? Dig deeper into the awesome things your Mac can do for you? Learn a professional program? We can help you do all these things and more.

As trainers, we studied modules and read up on our iLife and Logic apps, of course, but we were more guides and ambassadors than strict teachers. The One to One program was never designed to be a tutorial lecture: Instead, it was highly customized around the person's needs.

That meant, a lot of times, having to discover solutions on the fly. The phrase "Let's find out together" became our mantra: You want to do something potentially scary on your Mac that you've never done before? Don't panic. We can figure this out.

And in doing so, we helped hundreds—if not thousands—of people get comfortable with their Macs. We definitely made our mistakes, and nothing was perfect. But we'd also regularly walk people through features like Time Machine—something the average new Mac owner might never have touched for fear of screwing something up. (Don't even get me started on the number of sessions we did on MobileMe, now iCloud.)

There are a lot of memories that stand out to me from my time teaching. The woman who always came at 9AM on Tuesdays and brought coffees for everyone at the store. The elder gentleman who had hated Macs his whole life, but got hooked after just three One to One sessions. The 21-year old college student who wanted a tour of how Reddit worked after her quick primer on Pages and Numbers. And to date my weirdest retail interaction: A guy who, after dropping in on an iDVD workshop, tried to bribe me $500 to burn a bunch of DVDs for him on one of the store computers, then ran out before I could tell him "Thanks, but no."

The one I always think about, though, was a session that happened at the end of my work day: A one-off that I'd gotten subbed in for at the last second, with a subscriber who usually attended classes in another state. The woman wanted to learn how to hide photos in iPhoto—simple enough.

But although the woman had brought her laptop, she insisted learning how to hide, show, and organize hidden images on one of our store iMacs. We did this for about 20 minutes, and once she felt confident she knew the key commands and menus, she pulled out her laptop and launched iPhoto.

While the program slowly loaded, she revealed that she was grieving: A family member had recently passed away, and she had wanted to learn how to hide photos to temporarily remove those memories until she could once again deal with them. She hadn't wanted to delete them, she said. But she hadn't been sure what else to do.

And so, for the remaining 30 minutes of the session, we scrolled through her old events, hiding photos, talking about everything else. When she got up to leave, she was sad, but smiling.

The times are a-changing

I credit working in Apple's One to One program as one of the primary reasons why I'm in tech writing today. It helped me learn how to troubleshoot and teach through exploration, not lecture. And through it, I developed a system of breaking down the most complicated of terms and features into smart, digestible how-tos—a system I still use in part today.

I called the One to One program "Apple's most important service" when I worked for retail, and I truly believe it: Like the Genius Bar, it personalized the users living and loving their Macs. At its best, the One to One program helped an entire legion of new Mac and iPhone users love and trust their computers, and where to look to troubleshoot.

That program may not make sense for Apple retail anymore. The stores are getting bigger and more crowded, and personalized training was always a harder sell in noisy, rambunctious environments.

Workshops and free-floating Creatives might be a better fit for the new Apple, allowing them to reach more people. I imagine these larger group sessions will still be customized depending on the people who attend, and customers can always come into the store and ask any of the specialists questions.

It won't be the same, though, and I'm sad for all the new Mac owners who may miss out. But they'll hopefully find their solutions in new ways. They'll attend workshops. They can search online (and hopefully find their answers in sites just like ours), or take classes on sites like Lynda. They can bother friends and family. And with luck, they'll still find their solution.

I've been building ebooks for a little under five years now for my various tech-related jobs, and as such, I usually follow the world of ebook-building pretty closely.

So, I was pretty psyched to hear a few weeks ago that the newest iBooks update—found in iOS 8.4—would let you view iBooks Author-created books on your iPhone. Previous to this, iBA-created books had been limited to the iPad and Mac, which made choosing to work in iBooks Author fairly audience-limiting.

But I hadn't been able to open up iBooks Author in the weeks since the June 30 rollout, due to this tiny little thing called Apple Music you probably haven't heard of.

Today, I did. And boy was I surprised to find that not only can iBooks Author create its special Made for iBooks projects, but it now has two ePub templates. Which, yes, create ePub 3 books.

This is huge for ebooks and ePub

Apple has essentially created an ePub 3-compliant WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) editor in iBooks Author. This means that authors can—from start to finish—create gorgeous books with images, captions, video, and custom text, and publish them in the ePub 3 standard, which you can then easily convert to KF8 (the Kindle proprietary format based of ePub 3).

ePub 3 is an open standard created by the Digital Publishing Forum—as such, it's not owned by Apple. You don't have to sell your ePub 3 book on the iBooks Store or tie it exclusively to Apple. (There is a software licensing restriction for Apple's proprietary .ibooks-generated format, but no such restriction exists for the .epub files.)

Combine this with iBooks Author's already-available ePub import, and you can essentially use it for any part of the ePub process. You can edit the ePub in other apps and bring it back into iBooks Author. You can start in InDesign, export, then bring it to iBooks Author for cleanup. Whatever your workflow, iBooks Author now supports it.

I've been asking for a WYSIWYG non-proprietary ebook editor for years, and Vellum has been the only thing to come close. Now, Apple is offering a free tool to anyone to help them create ebooks with no knowledge of HTML, CSS, or complicated nonsense of the ebook industry necessary.

I'm a little excited about this.

Of course, there are limits

Unsurprisingly, iBooks Author's .ibooks-format ebooks still get the majority of the cool gimmickry available in the app; to build an ePub-compatible book, you have to first choose an ePub template.

Keeping with the basic ePub 3 standard, ePub templates remove floating text boxes, charts, shapes, and all widgets beyond the gallery and media boxes. But that's still an incredibly high bar for a WYSIWYG ebooks program: You can add images and captions; video; custom fonts; custom chapter headers; HTML tables (good glory yes!); and more.

The bright big beautiful tomorrow

I need to test the full breadth of iBooks Author's ebook templates more thoroughly, but they're an incredibly promising start.

Thanks to these templates, anyone with a Mac can now create a book for the iBooks Store and beyond, for free, without crazy knowledge. It's an amazing development from Apple's iBooks and iWork team, and I can't wait to play around with iBooks Author when I finally dig out from the Apple Music madness. (Maybe we'll write an Apple Music book! Who knows...)

When I first learned you could transmit taps on the Apple Watch, I immediately started to wonder about its potential as a device for sending Morse code. My grandfather was (and my dad still is) a longtime ham radio operator, and while I never learned Morse to either of their satisfaction, I've always had a fascination with the dots and dashes of years past.

After spending some initial time with it, I'll admit: The Apple Watch isn't a perfect device for communicating in Morse code. The taps you can send are limited to short "dit" buzzes, with no proper way to send the lengthier dash "dah". But I still love the idea of using tap-based communication — and it makes a whole lot more sense to me to try playing with Morse's pre-established taptic language over trying to re-invent the wheel, so to speak.

Why tap at all?

In an age where most people communicate by whipping out a smartphone and sending a text message, it's hard to see the value in a centuries-old communication language. But Morse has advantages when it comes to a more personal device like the Watch: If you can translate the taps on your wrist into language, you don't have to worry about interrupting a meal or conversation to scan text on your wrist.

You'll may have to look to see who sent it, of course, but there's something that feels infinitely more delightful about getting secret messages on your wrist — whether that's an SOS from a friend getting harangued at a party, or hugs and kisses from a loved one.

There's the accessibility angle, as well: it potentially allows the blind, or those with failing eyesight, a way to communicate that doesn't require reading tiny letters on a 1.5-inch screen.

The two-tap "dah" method on the Apple Watch

Since the Watch doesn't offer the ability for a long "dah" tap, I've been experimenting with a quick double-tap in its place — so "A" would be "tap-taptap". I like this option better than my initial tests, which used spaces between the taps as an indication of short and long. (Because you already use spaces to denote different letters and words in Morse, implementing spaces for the taps themselves got confusing, quickly.)

From my experience, tapping letters at the right frequency takes a bit of work to get down consistently — much like learning Morse on a straight key. You also have to take into account the Watch's occasional software lag: If you tap too quickly in succession, the Apple Watch might merge those two presses into one for the receiver.

But after you get the initial sequencing down, it can be a lot of fun. I've also found it helpful to visually separate taps — double-tap dahs at the top of the screen, single-tap dits at the bottom. Your recipient can see where you've tapped if they look at their watch, and it helps correct for any tap parsing errors the Watch might run into.

Three Morse code phrases for the Apple Watch

Learning the Morse alphabet is a little challenging if you're starting from scratch. If you want to play around a bit with taptic language but don't want the hassle of learning the entire thing, here are a few tap sequences you can use with your fellow Apple Watch-wearing friends.

SOS is one of the few publicly well-known Morse patterns, in part due to its simplicity.

S is three short taps: dit-dit-dit, or tap-tap-tap on the Apple Watch O is three long taps: dah dah dah, or taptap taptap taptap

Use this with friends on the Watch to signal boring conversation you want to be rescued from, topics perhaps not best-discussed during a party, or just about anything else.

Heartbeat a little too intimate for your tastes? Let your loved ones know they're in your thoughts with the Morse abbreviation for hugs and kisses, 88.

88: dah dah dah dit-dit dah dah dah dit-dit, or taptap taptap taptap tap-tap taptap taptap taptap tap-tap

Morse's 73 is traditionally used as a conversation sign-off, but you can also use this palindromic pattern as a friendlier version of 88.

73: dah dah dit-dit-dit dit-dit-dit dah dah, or taptap taptap tap-tap-tap tap-tap-tap taptap taptap

Does Morse make sense on the Apple Watch?

I'm having fun playing around with Morse code on the Apple Watch, but I know it's not for everyone. If you decide to experiment (or have been experimenting with Morse in different ways), let me know in the comments or on the forum.

One of the chief reasons I've been so excited for the Apple Watch these past few months is the possibility of using it to properly track my movement and exercise day-to-day. Four nights a week I play roller derby, a full-contact sport on quad roller skates, which has proven... difficult for most health and fitness gadgets to track. Steps aren't tracked nor helpful when you're talking about wheeling around, nor can most devices be worn without fear of them falling off or otherwise being destroyed.

But two weeks in, not only is the Apple Watch giving me proper tracking data for my full-contact sport — it's making me healthier all-around.

The sit-stand curse

I've been playing derby for about two and a half years now. You'd think I'd be pretty fit from four to six days a week of a contact sport, and you're partially right: Between skating and crosstraining, I've achieved a level of physical fitness I never had as a teen.

But these high-intensity activities all happen on evenings and weekends — largely after I've been sitting or standing stationary at my computer, working, for eight to nine hours. You know, as a kid, when they tell you to stretch and warm up along with a good cool down, because it'll make your muscles happy? It's about 1000 percent more important as an adult.

When you work full-time and your practices bump up against the end of your workday, however, you aren't always afforded these luxuries. I can't count the number of times I've gone into a derby practice having rushed from feverishly typing out a transcription of an Apple financial call, or an all-day marathon of iMore coverage — and my body suffers from it. I may be in shape, but my muscles are stiff from being in the same position all day, and that makes me much more prone to stupid injuries — pulls, bad ankle twists, you name it.

I know this is bad for me. And in the past, I've tried to break up my work day with exercises, yoga, stretches, you name it. But I've been unsuccessful building a routine.

Until now. The Watch's focus on activity tracking, standing, and third-party nutrition tracking has allowed me to keep my body lithe and comfortable throughout the day, which makes playing or coaching derby in the evenings feel refreshing.

I've done my fair share of griping about the Watch's stand notifications, but the guilt of having a half-filled Stand ring — especially when I can nail my Move and Exercise targets with derby — has gotten me to really focus on moving around throughout the day. When I get that notification, I do quick yoga, burpees, squats, a run to refill my water or tea; any random exercise that gets me away from my computer.

I thought this would disrupt my workflow, but it's actually kept me more focused and on task: Because I'm moving around so often, I'm not getting stiff or sleepy, which lets me concentrate more clearly on my tasks when I am working. (Great just-now example: I'm writing this story while on a plane, and the Stand notification just went off; usually, I try to stay in my seat as long as possible during a plane ride, but the notification actually got me to get up and stretch my legs rather than keep working in my cramped seat.)

In addition, I've been using a third-party Watch app to track my water intake, which is helping me pay attention to my hydration levels in a much more active way. On the phone, logging has always felt tedious and annoying. Dig out your phone, unlock, find the app, tap the water icon, log your drink. On my Watch, it's three taps: press the Crown, press the app icon, press the water logger. (Two taps, if I use a press-and-hold on the Digital Crown to activate Siri and launch the app from there.)

In doing this, I've learned that I'm a lot more likely to pay attention to nagging notifications — and logging apps — if they're readily accessible. My phone may always be in my pocket, but wrist-wear is a step beyond that: It's convenience and easy accessibility. And, at least for me, it's helpful to have a device so limited in its multitasking that you don't accidentally forget what you're doing and go check Twitter, instead.

Side-note: I love the fact that the only place you see alerts is in the Watch's Notification Center; your apps don't display an unread marker on them they way they do on your iPhone and it's so very peaceful. This way, you only have to see notifications when you want to — they don't constantly demand your attention.

The Watch has also kept me more aware of my exercise needs on non-derby days, encouraging me to walk or go biking to accomplish a mid-day errand in my neighborhood rather than taking my car. I love anything that gives me an excuse to ride my bike more often — especially now that Boston finally has nice weather again — and it's already paid off in me being able to bike up the (monster) hill I live on without looking like an out-of-breath idiot.

$350 watch, meet full-contact sport

Okay, so the Watch is pretty great for my day-to-day exercise needs. But what happens when it meets a full-contact sport?

I'll admit, I was both excited and nervous to try out the Watch on roller skates: Aside from having consistently trackable data about how I'm doing in practices and scrimmages, I've been coaching with my phone for a long time; the idea of being able to run drills without having something gripped tightly in my hand (or shoved in a hoodie pocket) has been a big motivator for my interest in wearable technology.

I also was curious to see how a device largely made of glass would do on a derby track — would I have to wrap it in something? Put it elsewhere on my wrist? Would I be so concerned about its well-being that I'd stop thinking about the game? I've traditionally never worn jewelry on the track, and it was a huge concern.

After two weeks of using it on the track, though, I'm happy to report that it works fantastically both as a coaching device and fitness tracker. The Watch is slender enough that it hides right under my wrist guard; while it's there, the Sport Band keeps it so snug to my body that I don't even notice it. I do wear a sweat band on top of it, to protect the screen from any accidental scratches, but my standard wrist guard gives it almost complete protection from being hit or shattered against other people or the ground. My teammates didn't even realize I was wearing the Watch during practice until I pulled back my wrist guard to time an exercise.

Speaking of time, the stopwatch app is a great asset when coaching, and I use it constantly. I customized a clock face with stopwatch and timer complications specifically for derby, and it's awesome to have that at a moment's notice.

I do wish there was some sort of Notes app for the Watch, though: Currently, I have to stick my practice plans in a text message to myself if I want to be able to access the text on my wrist. A few people have recommended I try Evernote and its Watch app: It's on my list to try at my next practice, but I'm still a little annoyed that Apple didn't ship a version of its Notes app. I'm also hoping that future versions of the Camera app support video recording so that I can start an iPhone recording of a practice from a tripod; right now, the app is limited to taking photographs.

As for activity tracking, I've been pretty impressed with how well the Watch consistently tracks my activity and heart rate when the Workout app is engaged, though the lack of a Skating Sports option makes actual calorie tracking a little difficult. A hard derby practice, on average, should burn 1000-1200 calories; the Watch is currently reporting 700 - 900 when I track it with the Other Workout option. That's not terribly off, but I'd still like to see more exercise options in the app going forward.

Unfortunately, unless you turn off constant heart rate monitoring, the Workout app is a monster on battery life: After moderate use in the morning and a two and a half hour logged practice, I managed to drain my Watch to 30 percent battery by 1PM. It trooped through more moderate use during post-practice beach outing and I got it on a charger around 5PM before it could dip below five percent; an hour on the charger was enough to charge it well enough for the remainder of my day. But be aware: heavy workouts — whether they're on skates or not — will kill your Watch faster than daily meandering.

Even with the attempted battery murder, I love seeing the data the Watch returns after hard workouts like that. When logging on Other, you don't get distance data, but you can see your total time, average heart rate, and calorie split — all of which helps me plan for the remainder of my day. (After Sunday's 947-calorie practice, for example, I used those metrics to get my body the right amount of food so that I didn't crash on my bed by 4PM.)

Going the distance

I can't tell you that the Watch will be perfect for your fitness routine: Everyone has different needs and responds to nagging and tracking differently. But for me, it's absolutely changed how I conduct myself day-to-day, and I can feel the results. I'm faster at practice, I feel more energy throughout the day, and I'm not struck by dehydration headaches or midday exhaustion after early morning practices.

I'm excited to revisit this in a few months, when I have a lot more Activity data to share, but in the meantime: If you have an Apple Watch, let me know in the comments if its fitness reminders are helping you, annoying you, or both. (And if you don't have a Watch yet but have one on order: What are you looking forward to, fitness-wise?)

As I get more comfortable with my Apple Watch during day-to-day activities, I've started to figure out what tasks I like doing on it, along with the ones better suited to a larger screen. What I appreciate most about the Watch is that even as a 1.0 product it knows its limitations — it tackles the stuff it can, and offloads the rest to your iPhone.

Siri, Phone, Messages, and Handoff

When I first read the Apple Watch user guide, I was disappointed to learn that Siri on the Watch was more limited than the same interface on my iPhone: There were certain phrases — like booking tables, for instance — that the smaller device just wasn't equipped to deal with.

Before I got the Watch, I thought this would be disappointing. But I've become grateful for the feature limitations, in a way. I still wish I could book a table — c'mon, there's an Open Table app for the Watch and everything! — but when it comes to other, more complicated queries, I appreciate the Watch's reminders that I should probably be doing this on a more capable device.

The real beauty is that you can pass that query off to your iPhone with Handoff when you swipe up, rather than having to redictate it on the phone. Because of the Watch's superior microphone, I've found myself using it for 99 percent of my Siri queries, then handing off to my iPhone when necessary.

Of course, there are a few things that Siri does independently on the Watch. If you dictate a message or ask to call someone on your wrist, those tasks will happen there — not on your iPhone — though you can always use Handoff to return to your smartphone.

For instance, if I ask the Watch to "Tell Ricky", it opens that person's thread in Messages and asks me whether I'd like to send a dictated message or emoji. If I instead decide I want to reply on my phone, I can swipe up using the Handoff icon on the iPhone's the lock screen and instantly swap over to that messages thread on my larger screen.

The Watch manages notification overload well, too: If you're looking at your phone, it automatically knows you're likely to see an alert on that bigger screen and doesn't need to ping you on your wrist as well. This is a feature I've been wanting on my Macs for ages, and I'm happy to see a variation finally show up in the Watch — it makes me hopeful for the future of continuity on Apple's other devices.

It also has deftly smart handling when it comes to phone calls. When you see a new call come in, you can either answer it directly on your wrist, or use the Digital Crown to scroll down and tap "Answer on iPhone" — do this, and your iPhone will hold the call until you can put your hands on it.

I used "Answer on iPhone" the other day to delay taking a work call while I was grabbing some tea in the kitchen, and it worked fantastically: The other person was briefly placed on hold while I took my tea bag out and headed back to my desk, where I was then was able to answer the call on my phone. (If you've misplaced your iPhone, there's even a Ping button on the Watch's hold screen to make its LED flash and ring so that you can use it to answer the call.)

I've also started calls on my Watch and used Handoff to seamlessly pass that call back to my iPhone. The process, overall, feels much slicker and smoother than Handoff between an iPhone or iPad and Mac. It's speedy, too — in part I'll bet because Watch apps run off your iPhone — and gets you on the right device for your work ASAP.

Exercise-tracking

Continuity plays a big role in helping manage all that health data you're constantly collecting on your Watch, too. Checking your day's progress is easy enough on the Watch, but the screen isn't big enough to for you to properly analyze your progress week-to-week. That's why the companion Activity app on your iPhone exists: It holds all your Activity awards and your data, giving you an easy way to view how you've been doing with your goals.

The Watch keeps me accountable day-to-day. The Activity app makes me accountable week-to-week and month-to-month, and hopefully year-to-year. By seeing my progress at a glance, I'm more inclined to want to keep up the pattern and continue meeting — or exceeding — my set goals. Activity is also a much friendlier app than Apple's gigantic data haven, Health, and I'm more inclined to look at it on a daily basis. (Though, like Rene, I really want leaderboards and social interactivity. Let me brag about my crazy derby workouts!)

The Apple Watch as second screen

The more I use my Watch, the more I realize that it's not so much another device as it is another screen for my ecosystem — a way to get information that's best viewed at a glance, rather than digging through app folders and having the possibility of getting distracted by Twitter.

I've been equating it recently to having a second monitor on your desk for your Mac: It holds the important stuff you want on a second screen, and it can operate independently, but you can bring the stuff you're working on back to your main computer screen in a jiffy. There's something really delightful about being able to send text messages or hold phone conversations entirely on your Watch and still be able to have your iPhone ready to tackle a different task.

You can do a lot on the Watch without your iPhone, but there are some tasks a bigger screen just makes sense for — and the Handoff experience is so seamless, it makes the process comfortable and reassuring to the end-user. I don't know if my mother will ever use Handoff from her phone to her Mac, but it took five minutes before she was playing around with Handoff from Watch to phone when I was in town.

I don't think the Watch is perfect: There are lots of little tasks I'd like to be able to do in version two, and third-party apps are significantly slower than they really should be. But Apple's built a compelling promise here for Handoff and its right device for the right task mantra. I can only hope that the company takes some lessons from its Watch Handoff experience and incorporates them into the Mac OS, too.

Apple's smartwatch is a beautiful piece of hardware, whether you're looking at it in aluminum, steel, or gold. It has some depth to it, like most first-generation products are wont to do, but it carries it off with class — looking more like an original iPhone than a boxy prototype.

And best of all, it's one of few smartwatches to come in different sizes. As someone who had the Moto 360 overflowing atop her wrist, I appreciate that the design team behind the Apple Watch recognizes a key point about watch fittings: They need to be just as comfortable as — if not more than — they are functional.

Fitting like a glove

I desperately wanted a Pebble Watch when its Kickstarter first launched a few years back. I loved the idea of instant notifications and third-party app integration. But I had a problem: The watch simply wouldn't fit me.

My wrists are approximately 147mm around; 51mm across. The original Pebble is 50.8mm. I'd suspected my wrists would be too tiny for the first-generation watch during the Kickstarter and thus, didn't order one. When I finally tried on a friend's Pebble years later, I was right: The Pebble's edges hung off either side of my wrist like a 1980s communicator.

No, it's not a terrible look if you're going for science-fiction cadet or hacker mastermind, but completely impractical for day-to-day wear.

The Moto 360 (and many of the other Android Wear watches) are in a similar boat: The semi-circular smartwatch is 46mm in diameter. Smaller than the Pebble, yes, but its round face makes it look positively gargantuan. I had it on for just five minutes before feeling like one of those cartoon characters shackled to a giant sundial.

That's not to say that the Pebble or the Moto aren't good watches, or that they haven't delighted thousands of other people. But for me — and, I suspect, the many other small-wristed folks in the world — they fell far short.

Here's the thing: As much as I love bleeding-edge technology, I also like being comfortable. I may have ogled the 17-inch PowerBook back in the day, but the weight and dimensions of such a monstrocity weren't worth its power and screen size.

I feel the same way about wearables: If I'm going to keep a device routinely attached on my wrist, it needs to feel and look comfortable as well as functional. If I feel like I'm wearing a fancy weighted handcuff, they blew it.

42mm — almost perfect

Apple surprised me on two fronts when they announced their sizing. Not only were there two sizes — small wrist-owners rejoice at last! — but the largest size was a mere 42mm, smaller than most touchscreen smartwatches on the market.

Now, I'd assumed automatically that I'd go for the 38mm, given my wrist diameter, but then I inadvertently wound up wearing two different 42mm Edition watches during the try-on area at the March Apple event. And it wasn't terrible.

I'd expected to feel the same sort of overweighted sag and have it look clunky on my wrist, but the 42mm's rounded rectangular corners and band definition only made it look a little bulkier than its 38mm cousin. It was nice enough that I even considered it as a pre-order option when weighing my choices.

At the end of the day, I picked the 38mm because not only does it work just as well as the 42mm, but it looks like a watch — not a smartwatch — when sitting on my wrist. If I'm going to wear something every day, it needs to feel natural no matter what else I'm wearing with it: dress, workout clothes, business clothes, loungewear, you name it.

The 42mm, on my wrist, looks a lot less clunky than any other piece of smartwatch tech I've tried — but it still feels more like a piece of technology than a trusted accessory. The 38mm, for me, strikes the perfect balance.

- Buyers guide: 38mm vs. 42mm — Which Apple Watch size should you get?

On Wednesday, I spent a lovely afternoon with my aunt, uncle, and gentleman friend at Fenway Park in Boston to see the Red Sox. (Unfortunately, they ended a two-game winning streak by losing quite definitively 10-5 to the Nationals, but it made my Montreal-born aunt pretty happy.)

But we came close to not making it through the gates, thanks to an iPhone quirk with NFC and Apple Pay.

Apple Pay, NFC, and iPhone mishaps

On your phone, Apple Pay works by automatically detecting a compatible NFC reader and bringing up the payment screen. If the NFC reader isn't actually a payment terminal, you'll still get the screen, but any attempt to pay will provide you with an error: As there's no connection to your banks, you won't be able to authorize with Touch ID.

That keeps your data (and your money) safe, but that automatic screen can cause other issues — as I discovered at the ball park.

I had our game tickets as a PDF on my phone in Dropbox, but when I went to scan them, Apple Pay popped up. The ticket reader also happened to be an NFC terminal. Eeek.

I tried several times to trick my phone into not pulling up Apple Pay — turning on Do Not Disturb and Airplane Mode, trying to dismiss the screen — but no luck. Eventually, the ticket-taker pulled out a hand scanner and was able to process our passes, but for a few moments, I was worried we'd be out of luck without a visit to the ticket office and paper reprints.

The ball park isn't the first interaction I've had with accidental NFC triggers, either. I've been at several restaurants whose pagers have NFC chips within them — get them too close to your phone while you sit and wait for your table, and you'll have an Apple Pay screen waiting for you to dismiss.

This is far from an "end of the world" problem, of course. But it's funny to me that a gesture Apple intended to make paying for things easy — just wave your phone over the terminal! — unintentionally makes other actions more difficult.

Watch what happens

It's also why I'm excited for Apple Pay and ticket scanning on the Watch: To trigger Apple's payment service on the Watch, you have to double-press the side button, then wave your wrist over the NFC device in question.

In part, this is done because there's no way to confirm you want to buy something on the Watch, like the iPhone's Touch ID authentication. But it also avoids NFC misfires, bringing up the Apple Pay screen only when you desire it loaded.

I'm not necessarily saying that the solution here is for the iPhone to have a dedicated Apple Pay button — that seems unnecessary and may clog up Apple's workflow. But would it be too hard to have a "Dismiss" software button in the top right corner, in case Apple Pay is triggered accidentally? Or keep NFC from working when Airplane mode is enabled?

Apple likely has plenty of bigger, more important problems to tackle, but it seems like a simple fix. Until then, I'm going to have to hunt down a printer the next time I head out to a Red Sox game.

Note: I've filed this quirk as a bug with Apple. It can be found at rdar://20570121.

I got to spend just twenty minutes with the new MacBook trackpad on Monday, but it was enough to leave me feeling wowed, impressed, and a little bit disoriented.

Apple's long-in-the-making Force Touch trackpad uses haptic feedback to make your finger feel like it's depressing a button, even though the trackpad itself doesn't move. It's a sheet of glass. It doesn't have a button, it doesn't all depress at once — it does not move at all. But it feels like you're clicking. It feels like your finger is sinking into that immoveable glass and accessing deeper click levels than have ever existed on a trackpad.

Now, think about what Apple could do with that technology on a computer made entirely of glass.

What haptic engines do, in a nutshell

If you're confused by Apple's trackpad sorcery, here's the deal: There's a sheet of glass. Under that sheet of glass are a series of motors that, when you press against the glass, react with different vibrations depending on how hard you're pressing. Press lightly, you may get a light click or no click at all. Press down hard, and you may go through three or four click levels to result in a different action than your traditional single-click.

It feels like you're clicking, but you're not. Your finger is just pressing into stationary glass while the motors send little vibrations to make you feel like you're moving the trackpad downward. It's bizarrely wonderful to interact with, and opens up the door for more "Taptic" (haptic + tapping) feedback on Apple's other product models — the iPhone and iPad, for instance.

A haptic iPad would be incredible for business

I've never loved typing on the iPad: Tapping on glass, though doable, feels inherently stiff and cumbersome. To combat this, smartphone-maker BlackBerry tried a different approach, making the entirety of the BlackBerry Storm screen clickable — but it didn't work out so well in practice.

Apple's not going to make a 7- or 10- or even 13-inch iPad screen clickable. But Force Touch and a pressure-sensitive Taptic engine could make it feel like they're clickable, and that makes all the difference.

Imagine an iPad where, as you type, each key feels like you're pressing it into the screen. Apple could theoretically make a virtual keyboard feel like the sensation of typing on a real keyboard, just with haptic feedback. Let alone other interactions — buttons becoming tappable, new vertical gestures unlocking different kinds of pop-overs and secondary menus, and more.

Artists rejoice

Of course, the haptic feedback is only one part of the puzzle for me: Apple's Force Touch works because not only is the trackpad hooked up to haptics, but it senses pressure. "Pressure-sensitive drawing" is highlighted as a feature on the MacBook page, though it only shows Preview's signature field as an example for the time being.

But in my brief testing with that field, the trackpad is indeed pressure-sensitive. Perhaps not to the level of a Wacom tablet, but it's precise and feels natural — and that's just with a quick test using my fingers. On a trackpad, this is exciting; on an iPad — with, perhaps, accompanying Apple Pen? — this becomes crucial.

The iPad has never had screen-based pressure sensitivity. Apps and styluses that provide it use software trickery to imitate pressure, but it's often variable between apps and inconsistent during the drawing process. The iPad's screen was designed for capacitative touch, not styluses or pressure, and it shows.

But an iPad screen designed specifically for pressure-sensitivity would go a long way in the artistic community — as well as anyone looking to write or annotate. Imagine being able to actually feel the texture of what you're sketching through haptic feedback, and control your line width. On the music side, imagine being able to feel virtual keys on a piano, or physically feel a record scratch. There's a lot of possibility here, and it's incredibly exciting on all fronts.

Will it happen? (And when?)

From the outside, the jump from Taptics in the Watch to MacBook seemed absurdly fast — just six months since the Watch's features were announced. But Apple has been working on this technology for years; the company just hasn't been happy enough with it to include in a shipping product.

That said, I'm still not sure Apple has the Taptic engine working properly in a full iPad screen just yet. It might make more sense to include it in the iPhone first before tackling the larger screen, as The Wall Street Journal rumored on Tuesday.

Even if engineers have figured out the 10- or 13-inch glass screen hardware puzzle to their liking, there's still software to think about: Haptics work because they're programmable, and there's an awful lot of programmable content in iOS. Do all buttons get haptic feedback? Does Force Touch make an appearance for contextual menus? Do developers get access to APIs for the Taptic engine to include their own haptic feedback?

Lots of questions, with few answers: Such is the speculation game. But I have hope. After all, those iPad Pro rumors make a lot more sense when you add in haptic feedback and full pressure-sensitivity in the screen.

As such, it's no surprise the Watch has been on my brain, as well — specifically the Edition model. There's been a lot of speculation on pricing and whether Apple will legitimately charge $10,000 (or more) for the gold models. To compete in the high-end watchmaker's space, that kind of cost isn't out of the question, but I do wonder: Can the company get away with selling a five-figure Apple Watch that's obsolescent in two years?

I should preface this by saying I've never purchased, owned, or been given a piece of jewelry over $5000, and I don't claim to speak for those who regularly seek out $15,000 watches and other jewelry items. But in my mind, when you eliminate the 1 percent of folks who have the capital to buy such a watch for everyday wear, you're left with a very different subsection of customers: those who may not have the money to buy such an item every year, but save for a special present or to pass it down through the family.

Maybe the Edition isn't designed to serve that market: At its core, it is technology, and as a society, we've become accustomed to regifting or recycling iPhone models every year or two for the next greatest thing. Maybe the people buying a five-figure Apple Watch are of a tier where they don't mind dropping that kind of cash every 18 months. Maybe the old Apple Watches get thrown into a bin in a safe in the back of the Apple Store and get shipped off somewhere to be reduced to component parts, the gold melted and reformed for Apple Watch 2.0.

Maybe I'm naive. But the whole concept just rubs me the wrong way.

I understand the justification of replacing an iPhone or a Mac when they've become too slow or outdated for their task — at most, I've spent $2000-$3000 on such a device, and its cost-per-year averages out to something where I don't feel wasteful in replacing the machine.

Watches are different. They're jewelry. They're as much a fashion accessory as they are a device. And watches can have a long lifespan, if treated properly. Watches have people trained in the art of repair, keeping someone's $20,000 timepiece from becoming a useless paperweight.

Once Apple jumps into that price point and that industry, should it expect that users will pay $10,000 again 18-30 months down the line to replace their watch? Does the advent of digital mean we're expected to replace our heirlooms now, rather than pass them down? I really don't know. Maybe the Edition is truly just meant for those who look at $5000 cost-per-year of ownership as no big deal on their bank account. Companies like Vertu have made a living off those customers; why shouldn't Apple?

But I'd like to believe Apple is better than that. If they truly want to command the watch industry, they might take another page from watch-makers: repairability.

I doubt Apple will ever let you take an Edition to a third party repair shop, but if they offered Apple Store-replaceable cores in their Edition watches, that could potentially be a way around the upgrade process. When Apple Watch 2.0 comes out, instead of paying another $10,000 for a brand-new watch, you pay $500-$1000 at an Apple Store, and a Watch Genius replaces the S1 chip with an S2 chip.

For the lower-end Sport and Apple Watch models, it makes sense to upgrade to the newest model and recycle the old. For the Edition, an "update" price point allows you to keep your beautiful piece of jewelry without sacrificing speed or technology.

Unfortunately, I don't know how practical such an idea actually is: Replacing RAM on a computer is one thing; replacing its entire chip is another thing entirely, especially one "encapsulated in resin" during the building process. And then there's the question of screen resolution upgrades and additional sensors: It's a bit hard to "update" those with a quick back-of-house fix. A trade-in program with heavy discounts isn't out of the question, either, though you'd essentially be getting a new watch in lieu of updating your old one.

It's a hard nut to crack. Apple has built their entire industry on devices that — while they last longer than their competition — are designed to eventually be succeeded by better devices. In contrast, I sense technology plays little role in convincing customers to buy a new Rolex for their collection: If you're picking up a second Rolex 18 months after your first, chances are it's for fashion reasons, not new and special timekeeping features, and you're in the vast minority of consumers when doing so.

Apple could solely go after the high-end fashion market, say "These customers have no qualms about paying $15,000 every two years," and be done with it. Or the company could invest in some sort of long-term support for its Edition customers. And even after writing all this, I'm still no closer to figuring out which one the company will pick. The former model favors Apple's traditional business model, just at a much higher income bracket. The latter feels more like an Apple move, to support its customers and give them the best experience possible.

I suppose we'll see in April just what the company decides. Until then, let's chat about it — is Apple going to abandon Edition customers in version 2.0 and expect them to upgrade like everyone else? Or do you think they might come up with some sort of update program?

Though Messages has its quirks, I've been lucky to avoid most of them — I haven't had my message history disappear, nor have random contacts popped in or vanished out of thin air. I've rarely had problems with messages not being received or erroring out.

But I'm not immune to every iMessage problem. And the current bane of my existence is group messages — and the multiple threads they spawn in their wake.

In a perfect world, when you wanted to reach your friends, you'd start a group message and then you'd chat inside that message and only that message. Unfortunately, if your friends are switching between multiple Apple devices, using both phone numbers and email addresses for iMessage, running an older version of iOS, old Android software, or some other quirk that iMessage fails to recognize, it can cause the conversation to split into multiple threads.

The worst part of this is that those conditions I offered up above? Those are only the ones I've personally been able to test, and they're not 100 percent repeatable. You can have an SMS group with Android contacts that won't split into multiple groups. You can have an only-iMessage conversation that splits every time someone says something. Sometimes sending an image will split the conversation. It's unpredictable, and beyond that — frustrating.

Of course, when you involve our green-bubble SMS friends, or international carriers, there are bound to be quirks in the system; after all, Apple can't control how that message data is sent, only how it's received. And if, for whatever reason, a group message you send includes person A, but person A only sees this as a one-on-one conversation between you and them and responds accordingly, Apple can't really fix that.

In my testing and informal Twitter polling, newer versions of Android do appear to avoid the split bug — but I haven't had enough SMS group conversations with Android and iMessage friends to say that for sure. It may well be that group messaging might just be broken for those friends of yours on older, crankier devices.

But even if Apple can't correctly parse or control group messages with old SMS contacts in them, the company should be able to improve the user experience somewhat or at least explain to the end-user why their groups are getting split.

In fact, here's a radical idea: If the same contact has multiple iMessage IDs, or if multiple groups have the exact same contacts inside them, why not reconcile and merge them together before displaying them in the app? In other words, handle all the complexity internally, but present a simple, orderly view to the customer.

This would solve another annoying iMessage issue — accidentally carrying on two conversation windows because you've sent messages to both a user's phone number and their Apple ID. I've done this for solo users, but I also have an absurd number of group conversations between my mother, father, and sister — and every time their contacts are in a different order, it creates a new message record. It'd sure be nice to merge all those multiple conversations together.

If this issue frustrates you like it frustrates me, and you have a developer account, I suggest filing an Apple Bug Report on the subject — ours is #19814094.

• What would you change about Apple's Messages app?
• iOS 9 wish-list: 'Favorite' iMessages

There's been a lot of talk lately about styluses — specifically, an Apple-branded stylus pen that might ship alongside the rumored iPad Pro.

As an artist, frequent note-taker, and all-around scribbler, I've wanted a Wacom-esque pressure-sensitive stylus since the iPad's release. I wrote about iPad styluses time and time again as we saw creative developers try and build around the iPad's hardware limitations. I've looked longingly over at Wacom's half-baked tablet solutions. And I haven't been happy.

Could Apple make an iPad stylus that actually fulfilled my wants — and those of other artists — for a tablet next year? It could. But would it want to? This year, quite possibly.

What the stylus market is

Okay, so here's the thing about styluses: Just like their real-world counterparts — pens — styluses aren't meant to do everything. You wouldn't attempt to pick up a piece of paper with a pen, right? So you're probably not going to open an app with a stylus. (Unless it's very cold and you're wearing gloves. But c'mon, there's a liquid application for that!)

That oft-quoted Steve Jobs Q&A answer on styluses? He's referring to that concept — making styluses for typing or tapping rather than using multitouch gestures. It's all about having the right tool for the right job, and in this case, yes, a stylus for tapping or general interaction seems silly. The gesture has won out.

But there are still plenty of sane reasons to have a digital stylus: Drawing. Handwriting. Drafting. Strumming a virtual instrument. For these use cases, a stylus not only makes sense — it's nigh-essential. Yes, there are many artists who've made their name on how well they can digitally paint on iPads and other tablets, but I'd argue that it's an art style, not a solution for all artistic sketching. It's still difficult to do detailed cartooning or calculated drafting with your finger, or quickly handwrite a note or a title card.

What the stylus market lacks

There are a bunch of third-party manufacturers in the iPad stylus game trying to address these users — Ten One, Adonit, Wacom, LynkTec, FiftyThree, and Studio Neat, to name a few. In just five years, they've made great strides in taking the iPad stylus from so-so spongey finger representation to mostly-accurate fineline faux pressure sensitivity.

But even the best-made styluses are limited in how well they can serve their users, because Apple's screen is simply not designed for a stylus. It never has been. The Multi-Touch sensors look for finger-sized input; it's why early styluses had big, finger-sized rubber nibs.

The smaller nibs you see on styluses today came as a result of low-energy Bluetooth technology and battery-operated styluses; they employed tricks like simulating the electric current of your finger on a small nib to get the stylus to properly register.

It's not an elegant solution. It's why so many third-party styluses have problems with lag and accuracy, and things like palm rejection are often buggily-implemented per-app features. Developers have to build around the iPad's hardware, rather than working in concert with it.

But Apple has the potential to change this.

The case for an Apple stylus

If Apple were to build a creative stylus for the iPad, the company would need to reinvent its proprietary Multi-Touch screen to incorporate a pen-type input. It could do so in a wide variety of ways, most too technical to get into here. And doing so would not only open up potential for a stylus, but for new and different kinds of inputs on the iPad screen.

Assuming Apple let third-party developers have hooks into these sensors — InkKit, maybe? — drafters and architects could have a digital compass. Paintbrush-style styluses could individually map each bristle-point to the software it interacted with.

Adding these kinds of sensors would put incredible potential into both developers' and the user's hands. But would enough people buy such an item for it to be worth Apple's time? That's the real question. Solely targeting the creative pro industry isn't much more than a "hobby" market, by Apple's standards — millions of artists might buy a stylus, but when your potential sales pool is in the billions, that looks a lot like chump change.

So why might Apple want to build a stylus now, in 2015? I've got two thoughts: new markets and new technology.

When it comes to bigger markets, I tend to agree with folks like Neil Cybart, who believes that Apple could very successfully market styluses or other like input devices to Fortune 500 companies. Take into account signing, writing, scribbling, and and whiteboard-marking, and there's a lot many businesses currently do on paper that Apple could bring over to the iPad with the proper apps and physical tools.

But, as I lamented earlier in the week, even the most precise Apple stylus is still going to feel more foreign to write on than the ease of a yellow-pad or Post-It note.

That is, unless Apple has figured out a way to make writing with a stylus feel more like writing on paper. The company could use the work it's put into haptic technology on an iPad pen or screen to make interactions feel less sterile. Or the pen could be a double-whammy: incorporating something along the lines of Wacom's Inkling technology to let you sketch on real paper and have it instantly digitized on the iPad's screen, in addition to operating as a traditional stylus.

Heck, it could even be working on something entirely new and different.

The proposed larger screen size of the iPad Pro might be a better building ground for Apple's stylus tech, as well. Adding new sensors and options to an already-packed Multi-Touch screen — all while keeping the device thinner than a pencil — might have been too much of a challenge on the 10-inch iPad. On a 13-inch iPad, engineers might finally have the breathing room.

Wait and see time

I've heard this iPad stylus rumor bandied about for almost five years now, so even with backup from fairly reputable sources, I can't say definitively that we'll see production this year. But boy, am I crossing my fingers that it does.

And whether it happens or not, I can guarantee that 2015 will be the year I do another massive iPad stylus roundup — I have about 35 on my desk right now. I may not be able to promise an Apple stylus, but I can certainly promise an article on the best styluses third-party manufacturers have to offer. Soon. Sooooon.

This past weekend, I participated in the MIT Mystery Hunt, a delightfully zany three-day puzzle competition that asks its hunters to solve all manner of crosswords, ciphers, logic puzzles, rebuses, and more. Though my team expressly goes in with little interest in winning the hunt, it's a great time with good people, and provokes crazy questions as "How do you index into two Gilbert and Sullivan songs with different lyrics?"

It also made me keenly aware that, gadget geek though I am, I still love writing things down on paper.

The tasks we can and cannot do on computers

There are many, many things a computer is good for during a puzzle hunt. Quick calculations. Collaborating with friends. Translating morse code. Looking up obscure ocean creatures.

But when it comes to certain tasks, it's hard to deny wanting tangible objects to write in and move around. This year, we had to use a map of five levels of a text adventure game to create 3D letters that spelled words; we could have built this using some form of 3D modeling software, sure, but instead we used post-it notes.

I don't think it's just about not having the right software — it's 2015. In most cases nowadays, the software we want or need for a given task is freely available and easily downloadable.

There's just something about real tangibility. It's being able to move something around in your hands, twisting it and examining it from different angles and scratching it out. It's messy, and not always the easiest way. But it satisfies this weird itch for physical interactions that even the iPad can't always hit.

I love my iPad, and I really tried to make it my default "scratch paper" this hunt. But I couldn't do it for more than six hours. It's in part because the iPad still has trouble making handwriting not look terrible, even with a good third-party stylus — though perhaps an Apple stylus and digitizer could improve such things in future generations.

But when it comes down to it: as flexible as the iPad is when software is involved, its hard, flat, unchanging glass. And glass is difficult to tangibly interact with beyond taps and pinches. It's a lot closer to our natural interactions than a mouse or keyboard input, to be sure, but there's still something slightly removed, slightly alien about the whole thing.

The scratch paper computer

The funny thing is, even if tablet computing improves to the point where we're seeing haptic feedback and motion-tracked gestures, I don't even know if I want to give up my post-its and notebooks.

Software can imitate them, and even hardware might get to the point where a tablet computer feels more like a sketchbook than a pane of glass. But is it the right tool for the job, even if it's ostensibly the smartest one?

In theory, I would love to be able to just carry around an iPad and stylus and sketch and write whenever the mood strikes me. No art supplies, no pens, no erasers or messy tools! In practice, though, I miss the mess. I like the tangibility. I like being able to move index cards around on a blackboard rather than inside a digital program.

It's a weird struggle I've been bandying about this weekend, during a hunt that celebrates both sides of this argument: loving technology, but still having a strong connection to tangible tools.

How do you folks feel about pen and paper versus iPads and Macs 100 ? Are there tasks you still insist on using paper goods for, even though a computer may be faster or more efficient? Let's chat in the comments.

Someone gave me a cold for CES this year — how nice of them! — so I've been getting up obnoxiously early this week. Today, I thought I'd use some of that time to muse on Tuesday's Retina MacBook Air rumor from 9to5Mac. Senior editor Mark Gurman's source purports that the next MacBook Air will merge the 11- and 13-inch models into a single ultrathin 12-inch model with — get this — a single lonely USB-C port.

Now, before I go any further, I'm going to note that Gurman wrote and mocked up the machine based on an internal prototype, so it's entirely possible that Apple's next MacBook Air will look nothing like this. But if it did, well... it'd sure be an interesting in-between for folks who don't want to work on an iPad, huh?

The current MacBook Air is doing too much

First off: I hate the idea of a one-port 12-inch MacBook Air. I rely on my 11-inch Air's portability, and I love that it can do just about anything I need — write, edit a movie, fix a photo, you name it. It's slightly slower than my iMac, sure, but it's so conveniently portable that it's my favorite machine to take on trips.

But here's the thing: Most people don't buy a small laptop for it to be a powerhouse. They just want a small laptop. And increasingly, Apple's Air-series has inched closer and closer power-wise to the MacBook Pros, while the Pros have dramatically reduced their weight and thickness. The major differences between the Air and Pro right now are battery life, graphics, and Retina display — and none of those items have anything to do with the original marketing for "Air."

I love my power-stuffed 11-inch. I wouldn't want anything else. But I'm also willing to accept that I'm in the minority, and I'm breaking Apple's product lines.

Reimagining the MacBook Air as the lightest laptop ever

So here's my crazy thought for the morning: What if this is Apple's way to distinguish the Air from the Pro, once and for all? With the 11-inch Air's footprint, a slightly higher-resolution display, and almost no ports, the Air could once again become the lightest machine in Apple's lineup (and probably on the market).

If Apple could get it as light or lighter than an iPad Air, it becomes an alternate option for business travelers looking to take a work machine on the go without having to weigh themselves down or make do on iOS. (That's not saying iOS isn't great for some pros, but I know plenty of people who still drag huge laptops on trips because they don't feel like they can accomplish what they need on a tablet.)

Gurman's mockup, to me, feels like an iPad or iPhone-style device. Two ports — a headphone jack and an all-access cable for charging, accessories, and the like. Wireless Bluetooth LE connections for other accessories. Incredible battery life — 12 to 14 hours — which takes away the need for a laptop to be tethered to a MagSafe or any other kind of wall connection. And light and thin as can be.

But because it's a Mac, it can do what a Mac can do. It runs OS X. And when you're not on the go, it can dock to a monitor — say, a Retina 27-inch Cinema Display — that offers all the ports you'd find on an iMac. Something tells me that'd be a pretty compelling machine for a lot of business and air travelers.

Air pros and cons

There's a lot enticing about such a machine to me, honestly. I love the idea of an ultralight machine, amazing battery life, and docking to an iMac screen. But I do a lot of processor-intensive work, and I suspect Apple really doesn't want those people buying the Air line; they'd rather we go the MacBook Pro route. A machine like this could redefine the line between Air and Pro, and separate its users once and for all.

Only the company knows for sure, and I'm sure they're bound to do a lot more tweaking before any variation of the next-generation Air goes to market. In the meantime, we'll just have to wait and see.

Greetings and happy December 29, iMore! The major winter holidays have mostly passed us by, and hopefully you've survived — and dare I hope, enjoyed — the family get-togethers, the excess food, and terrible party games.

Some of you are undoubtedly back at work today, while others are still enjoying the last fragments of a winter vacation. Me, I'm somewhere in-between. Clearly, I'm at work today (well, that, or robo-Serenity has gotten much better at writing columns in the last two weeks) but I'm doing so from my parents' new house, sitting on the couch in front of our Christmas tree.

It's a nice view — much comfier than my office back in Massachusetts. But staring at that tree today got me thinking. We're venturing ever closer to 2015, and 2014's technology has brought us ever closer to the ideal "home of the future". But I'm not sure if we're there yet.

Moving day

My folks recently moved, and have been using that as an excuse to update a lot of the technology in their lives. There's a new television in the living room, new wiring in the new house's walls, and, yes, new connected home accessories.

Some of these things — like the Smart TV and their new Nest — were items my folks had already picked out for their house. Others I introduced during pre-Christmas unpacking and furnishing. We couldn't find our old light timer while setting up the Christmas tree this year, so I had my dad pick up a WeMo switch instead.

My mother, at first very wary of the WeMo, has grown to love it, and takes ridiculous enjoyment from being able to snap the Christmas lights off and on from across the house. (Okay, I do too. Remote controlled anything is fun!)

But at what point does this connected home stuff become gadgetry at the expense of actual practicality? I like the Nest; being able to make the house warmer before I get out of bed is kind of spectacular, and it's nice not to have to crawl behind our 9 foot Christmas tree to turn those lights on or off.

I mentioned my folks' new connected-home obsession during a visit with my former boss (and new Six Colors head honcho) Jason Snell yesterday. Jason's a smart guy, and also one who's been living with a variety of iOS-controlled gadgets for awhile now. He had a couple of very legitimate frustrations about the space as it currently exists, which got me to thinking.

For one, all these different manufacturers can't really talk to each other — at least, not currently. Apple's HomeKit in theory promises to solve a lot of these problems and connect the Internet of Physical Things together, but it hasn't happened yet. Until it does, we're controlling our smart home with one, five, ten, fifteen different apps. They may not be as hard to find as remotes for your television, but I'm still awfully looking forward to some sort of universal connector. (Perhaps the next-generation Apple TV could serve as such a hub; there's certainly plenty of groundwork there, given that it's a device that can be plugged in 24/7 with little power draw.)

There's also the convenience factor. Yes, I love being able to turn off the Christmas tree from afar or adjust the sound on the Sonos Playbar from the next room because it's too loud, but does Internet-connectivity really make sense for every appliance? General room lighting, for example: Is it really more convenient to find your iPhone, turn it on, find the app in question, find the button for lights, and tap it versus walking over to the light switch on the wall and turning it off?

The future connected home

Maybe this is where Siri and HomeKit come in. I could see a teensy combination voice-receiver/sensor in every room — a less expensive, less weird version of Amazon's Echo, perhaps — that let you adjust lights, cookware, your thermostat, the works by speaking a few catchphrases. Or maybe we'll soon already have it, and it will be worn on our wrists rather than in our room corners.

That said... given examples from The Jetsons, 30 Rock, and our own recent experience with "Hey Siri", I'm not sure it's really the best idea to let voice activation run wild. Perhaps if it's done very well — if Apple's engineers can figure out how to key differences between a catchphrase spoken in regular speech and one spoken directly to Siri. (And if the microphone can understand the difference between "microwave" and "make an egg".)

Until we see some sort of unification, the connected home ends up being more like a piecemeal gadgetry collection than a magic abode — there are bits that work well individually; there are bits that seem utterly half-baked; and then there are bits that don't make sense at all. (Smart trash cans? I get why they're helpful for cities, but in the home, it just seems like an excuse for a silly nag notification.)

Even though we're not there yet, however, we're closer than ever before. I think a lot about the last room in Walt Disney's Carousel of Progress, a strange 1994-era time capsule of what life in the 2000s could look like. We've got a lot of that pseudo-futuristic technology in our lives already. VR headsets are on their way. Wirelessly sending video from one screen to another has been a thing for years. Smart lights are now in the spotlight. And yes, we even have our share of voice-activated goofups.

No, the reality may not quite be where we want it to be. But the dream of the connected home is bright, and I'm sure I'll see untold more teases and prototypes at CES next week — which just so happens to be held in the year 2015. 2015! It seems crazy we've come this far.

And hey, if nothing else, I was promised hoverboards.