Use an iPad with Apple Pencil for taking handwritten notes, not just a laptop for typing.
The Infinite Notebook That Remembers Everything
Typing your notes in class is efficient, but it’s like trying to draw a diagram with a keyboard; you miss the visual, creative connection. An iPad with an Apple Pencil is the infinite, magical notebook. You can write, draw, and sketch just like on paper, but you’re not limited by the page. You can change colors, move paragraphs around, and your notes are instantly searchable. It’s the perfect marriage of the creative freedom of handwriting and the powerful organizational tools of the digital world, helping you to remember more and create better study guides.
Stop carrying around heavy textbooks. Do buy or rent digital versions on the Books app instead.
The Library That Weighs Nothing
Your backpack in college can feel like you’re carrying a bag of bricks, with heavy textbooks for every class. Buying or renting digital textbooks is like trading that bag of bricks for a single, feather-light library card. The Books app can hold every single textbook you need for the entire semester, right on your iPad or Mac. Not only are they weightless, but they are also searchable, you can highlight passages without ruining the book, and you can carry your entire library with you everywhere you go.
Stop manually transcribing your lectures. Do use a voice recording app and a transcription service instead.
The Personal Stenographer Who Never Misses a Word
Trying to type every single word a professor says is a frantic, impossible task. You’re so focused on typing that you miss the actual concepts. A better way is to use the Voice Memos app to record the lecture, which is like having a perfect audio recording of the event. Then, you can use an automated transcription service. It’s like hiring a professional stenographer who can take that audio and turn it into a fully searchable, written document. This frees your mind to listen, learn, and ask questions in class.
The #1 secret for a successful presentation is using your iPhone as a remote to control your Keynote slides on a Mac.
The Secret Command Center in the Palm of Your Hand
Giving a presentation while tethered to your laptop is like being a ship’s captain who can’t leave the steering wheel. Using your iPhone as a remote is the secret that sets you free. With the Keynote app, your phone becomes a discreet command center. You can see your current slide, a preview of your next slide, and even your private speaker notes, all in the palm of your hand. You can advance your slides with a simple tap, allowing you to walk the stage, engage with your audience, and deliver a confident, dynamic performance.
I’m just going to say it: A MacBook Air is the perfect laptop for the vast majority of students.
The All-Purpose Tool for Your Academic Toolbox
The world of laptops can be a confusing wall of options. But for the vast majority of students, the MacBook Air is the perfect, all-purpose multi-tool. It’s like a Swiss Army knife that is incredibly thin and light, so you’ll barely notice it in your backpack. Its battery will last through a full day of classes, and its engine is more than powerful enough to handle the everyday student tasks of writing papers, creating presentations, and browsing the web. It is the simple, reliable, and powerful choice for academic success.
The reason your group projects are a mess is because you’re not using collaborative tools like shared notes, documents, and Freeform boards.
The One Blueprint vs. a Dozen Conflicting Sketches
A group project managed through email and separate files is like a construction crew where every builder is working from their own, slightly different blueprint. It’s a recipe for chaos. The collaborative tools in the Apple ecosystem are like unrolling one single, magical master blueprint on the table. With a shared document or a Freeform board, everyone can see and contribute to the same plan in real-time, ensuring that the entire team is always on the same page and building the same project together.
If you’re still using a separate calculator for your science classes, you’re not using the powerful scientific calculator on the iPhone (in landscape mode) or a dedicated app.
The Supercomputer Hiding in Your Pocket
Carrying around a separate, physical calculator for your math and science classes is like carrying a separate, pocket-sized abacus. You have a far more powerful tool already in your pocket. The built-in iPhone calculator is a simple, four-function tool in portrait mode. But if you turn your phone sideways, it magically transforms into a full-featured scientific calculator. For even more power, a dedicated calculator app from the App Store can turn your device into a professional-grade graphing calculator, ready for any equation.
The biggest lie you’ve told is that you need a powerful MacBook Pro for college; the Air is more than capable for most majors.
The Race Car vs. The Reliable Sedan for Your Daily Commute
A MacBook Pro is a high-performance race car, built for the extreme demands of professional video editing or 3D rendering. For the daily commute of a college student—writing papers, attending lectures, and watching videos—that level of power is often expensive overkill. The MacBook Air is the sleek, efficient, and reliable sedan. It’s more than fast enough to handle every turn on the academic road, and its lighter weight and lower cost make it the smarter, more practical choice for the journey.
I wish I knew about the student discount on Apple products and services when I was in college.
The Secret Coupon You Forgot to Use at Checkout
Buying a new laptop for college can be a major expense. I wish I had known that Apple has a special, secret coupon waiting for every single student. Through their education pricing program, students can get a significant discount on new Macs and iPads, and often a bonus gift card as well. They also offer cheaper subscription rates for services like Apple Music. It’s a simple, easy-to-use discount that can save you hundreds of dollars, but you have to know to ask for it.
99% of students make this one mistake: not backing up their work to iCloud Drive before a deadline.
The Term Paper Written on a Single, Fragile Piece of Paper
You’ve spent weeks working on a major term paper, and it’s saved only on your laptop. This is the digital equivalent of writing your masterpiece on a single, fragile piece of paper that is sitting next to a glass of water. A single accident—a spilled coffee, a stolen laptop—could be catastrophic. The simple, non-negotiable habit of saving your work in a folder that is synced with iCloud Drive is like having a magical, fireproof copy of that paper instantly stored in a secure, off-site vault. It’s the ultimate safety net.
This one small habit of using a citation manager like Zotero or EndNote with Pages will save you hours on your research papers.
The Personal Librarian for Your Bibliography
Manually creating a bibliography for a research paper is one of the most tedious and error-prone tasks in all of academia. A citation manager is your personal, professional librarian for that task. As you do your research, you can save all of your sources to this digital librarian. Then, as you write your paper in Pages, you can just ask the librarian to insert a perfectly formatted citation. At the end, you can ask for a complete, alphabetized bibliography in the exact style you need. It turns hours of painful work into a few simple clicks.
Use Sidecar to turn your iPad into a second display for your MacBook in your dorm room, not just struggling with a single small screen.
The Pop-Up Extension for Your Cramped Digital Desk
A dorm room desk is small, and a single laptop screen can feel incredibly cramped when you’re trying to write a paper and look at your research at the same time. Sidecar is the magical, pop-up extension for that digital desk. With a single click, you can turn your iPad into a wireless, second monitor for your Mac. You can put your research on the iPad screen while you write on your MacBook, instantly doubling your workspace and transforming a frustrating, window-juggling workflow into a spacious and productive one.
Stop losing your research papers. Do organize them in the Files app with a clear folder structure.
The Messy Pile of Books vs. The Organized Library Shelf
Downloading all your research papers and articles into one single “Downloads” folder is like throwing all your library books into one giant, messy pile on the floor. It’s a recipe for chaos and lost information. The Files app is your personal library. The simple act of creating a clear folder structure—perhaps one main folder for the semester, with sub-folders for each class—is like organizing those books onto neat, clearly labeled shelves. It’s the foundational step for a stress-free and productive research process.
Stop being distracted by your phone in class. Do use a “School” Focus mode to only allow notifications from important apps.
The Doorman Who Protects Your Attention
Bringing your phone to a lecture can be like trying to study in the middle of a noisy party. A “School” Focus mode is like hiring a strict but smart doorman for your brain. You can give the doorman a very specific guest list: “Do not let any notifications from social media or games through. Only allow messages from my study group and alerts from my calendar.” It’s a powerful way to create a sanctuary of focus, ensuring that your most important tool for learning doesn’t become your biggest distraction.
The #1 hack for studying on the go is downloading your notes and textbooks for offline access on your iPad.
The Backpack You Pack Before You Leave the House
You’re on the bus or in a coffee shop with spotty Wi-Fi, and you can’t access your cloud-based notes or your digital textbook. This is like leaving the house without packing your backpack. Most modern apps, including Files, Books, and note-taking apps, have a feature to make your files available offline. This is the act of packing your digital backpack before you go. It ensures that all of your essential study materials are physically with you, on your device, ready to be accessed instantly, no internet connection required.
I’m just going to say it: The ability to AirDrop a project to your classmate in seconds is a huge advantage in a collaborative environment.
The Instant, Secure Teleporter for Your Files
Trying to email a large presentation file to a classmate can be a slow and clumsy process. It might get stuck in their spam filter or be too big to send. AirDrop is the instant, secure teleporter for your digital life. It’s like being able to tap your classmate on the shoulder and have a high-resolution video file or a 50-page PDF instantly and magically materialize on their device. In a fast-paced, collaborative school environment, this ability to share work frictionlessly is a real and significant superpower.
The reason your code is not working is because you’re not using a powerful code editor like VS Code on your Mac.
The Master Mechanic’s Toolbox vs. a Simple Wrench
Trying to write computer code in a basic text editor is like trying to build a complex engine with only a single, simple wrench. A powerful, modern code editor like VS Code is the master mechanic’s full, professional toolbox. It has tools that can intelligently autocomplete your sentences, tools that can spot your mistakes in real-time, and tools that can help you debug a complex problem. It’s the essential piece of software that can turn a frustrating, error-prone process into an efficient and enjoyable one.
If you’re a medical student, you should be using specialized anatomy apps on the iPad to visualize the human body in 3D.
The 2D Textbook vs. The Living, Breathing Model
Learning anatomy from a flat, 2D textbook is like trying to understand an engine by looking at a single photograph. Specialized anatomy apps on the iPad are like having a living, breathing, three-dimensional model of the human body right on your desk. You can rotate it, peel back layers of muscle to see the bones beneath, and watch the heart beat in real-time. It’s an incredibly powerful and intuitive way to transform a complex, abstract subject into a tangible and understandable visual experience.
The biggest lie you’ve been told is that you can’t be a serious professional and use Apple products; they are staples in many creative and business fields.
The Beautiful Tool That’s Also a Powerhouse
There is an outdated stereotype that Apple products are just beautiful, easy-to-use “toys” and that “real” work gets done on clunky, corporate PCs. This is like saying a beautifully designed, high-performance sports car can’t be a real race car. The reality is that Macs and iPads are staples in the most demanding professional fields, from graphic design and film editing to scientific research and software development. They are the powerful, reliable, and often preferred tools for millions of serious professionals around the world.
I wish I knew about the power of using my iPad as a digital whiteboard for tutoring and presentations over Zoom.
The Shared Piece of Paper for a Remote Conversation
Trying to explain a complex math problem over a video call can be incredibly difficult. It’s like trying to teach someone to draw over the phone. I wish I had known that my iPad could be the shared piece of paper for that conversation. By sharing my iPad’s screen on a Zoom call, I could open a note-taking app and use my Apple Pencil to create a live, digital whiteboard. I could sketch out diagrams and solve equations in real-time, turning a confusing verbal explanation into a clear, collaborative, and visual lesson.
99% of professionals make this one mistake: not using their Apple Watch to discreetly check important notifications during a meeting.
The Silent, Secret Messenger on Your Wrist
When you’re in an important meeting, pulling out your phone to check a notification is the ultimate sign of disrespect. It’s like having a loud, distracting conversation in the middle of a presentation. The Apple Watch is your silent, secret messenger. A gentle, haptic tap on your wrist lets you know that a message has arrived. A quick, subtle glance can tell you if it’s a critical, time-sensitive alert from your boss or just an unimportant social media notification. It’s the ultimate tool for staying connected without being disrespectful.
This one small action of setting up a professional email signature in the Mail app on all your devices will make you look more polished.
The Professional Business Card Attached to Every Letter
Sending a business email without a signature is like sending a professional letter without a letterhead. Setting up a clean, professional email signature is like getting a set of beautifully designed, official business cards. The small, one-time action of creating a signature with your name, title, and contact information in the Mail app’s settings instantly makes every single email you send look more polished, credible, and professional. And thanks to iCloud, that signature will sync to all your devices.
Use your iPhone’s camera to scan and sign documents on the go, not waiting until you get back to the office.
The Pocket-Sized Scanner and Pen
The old way of signing a document was a clumsy, multi-step process. The built-in scanner in your iPhone’s Notes or Files app is like having a high-quality office scanner in your pocket. It can create a perfect, crisp PDF of a document in seconds. And the Markup tool is the magic pen that lets you sign that document with your finger. This powerful combination turns your phone into a mobile office, allowing you to sign and return an urgent contract from a coffee shop, no printer or scanner required.
Stop trying to do complex video editing on your phone. Do use Final Cut Pro on a Mac for a professional workflow.
The Hobbyist’s Workshop vs. The Professional Factory
Editing a video on your phone with iMovie is like having a wonderful, well-equipped workshop in your garage. You can build beautiful, handcrafted projects. Final Cut Pro on a Mac is the full-scale, professional factory. It’s designed for handling massive, complex projects with an efficiency and a level of precise control that a smaller workshop can’t match. For a professional who needs to work with multiple camera angles, advanced color grading, and a deadline, the factory is the only place to be.
Stop struggling with spreadsheets on a small screen. Do use Numbers on a Mac with an external monitor for a better experience.
The Tiny Blueprint vs. The Architect’s Drafting Table
Trying to work with a large, complex spreadsheet on a small laptop screen is like an architect trying to design a skyscraper on a single, tiny blueprint. You are constantly scrolling and zooming, and you can never see the whole picture at once. Plugging your Mac into a large, external monitor is like unrolling that blueprint onto a massive, well-lit drafting table. The extra screen real estate allows you to see all of your data at once, transforming a cramped and frustrating task into a spacious and productive one.
The #1 secret for a successful business trip is having all your tickets, reservations, and boarding passes in your Wallet app.
The Master Key for Your Entire Journey
A business trip can be a stressful juggle of different papers, apps, and confirmation numbers. The Wallet app is the single, digital master key for your entire journey. It’s the one place where you can keep your airline boarding pass, your hotel reservation, your train ticket, and even your corporate credit card. Because it’s location and time-aware, the right ticket will automatically appear on your lock screen at the right time. It’s the secret to a smooth, organized, and stress-free travel experience.
I’m just going to say it: An iPad with a keyboard case is a better travel companion for many professionals than a traditional laptop.
The Lightweight Sports Car vs. The Heavy SUV
A traditional laptop is like a powerful but heavy and cumbersome SUV. An iPad with a smart keyboard case is a sleek, lightweight, and incredibly versatile sports car. It’s lighter to carry through the airport, its battery lasts all day, and its cellular connection means you’re always online. For the common professional travel tasks of answering emails, attending video calls, and giving presentations, the nimble and efficient sports car is often a much more enjoyable and practical ride.
The reason your client presentations are not engaging is because you’re not using the interactive features of Keynote.
The Lecture vs. The Conversation
A standard, static presentation is a lecture. You talk, and your client listens (or pretends to). But Keynote allows you to create an interactive conversation. You can embed a poll that your audience can vote on with their phones. You can create a “choose your own adventure” style presentation with interactive links that let your client guide the conversation. These features turn your audience from passive spectators into active participants, making your message more memorable, engaging, and persuasive.
If you’re a musician, you should be using Logic Pro on a Mac for professional music production.
The World-Class Recording Studio in Your Bedroom
GarageBand is the fantastic rehearsal space where you can learn your craft and record great demos. Logic Pro is the full-fledged, world-class professional recording studio. It’s the same room that Grammy-winning artists and film composers use to create their masterpieces. It has a massive collection of virtual instruments, a professional mixing board with every effect you can imagine, and the powerful editing tools needed to turn a simple idea into a polished, radio-ready hit. It’s the industry-standard software for a reason.
The biggest lie you’ve been told is that Apple devices are not secure enough for enterprise use; their security features are top-notch.
The Designer Bank That’s Also a Fortress
There’s an old myth that Apple devices, because they are so beautifully designed and easy to use, are not serious enough for the high-security needs of a big company. This is like thinking a beautifully designed, modern bank can’t also be an impenetrable fortress. In reality, Apple’s hardware and software are built with powerful, industry-leading security features at their core, from the hardware-based Secure Enclave to the powerful encryption of FileVault. It is a platform that offers both a beautiful lobby and a world-class vault.
I wish I knew about the ability to use my HomePod for conference calls for crystal-clear audio.
The Boardroom Speakerphone in Your Home Office
For years, I took important conference calls using the tinny, echoey speakerphone on my iPhone. It was like trying to have a board meeting over a cheap walkie-talkie. I wish I had known that my HomePod is a professional-grade, boardroom speakerphone in disguise. You can seamlessly transfer a call from your iPhone to the HomePod, and it will use its array of advanced microphones to pick up your voice with incredible clarity, while its high-fidelity speaker makes the other person sound like they’re in the room with you.
99% of students make this one mistake: not using the “Do Not Disturb” feature while studying.
The “Cone of Silence” for Your Brain
Trying to study while your phone is buzzing with a constant stream of notifications is like trying to read a book in the middle of a loud, crowded party. It’s impossible. “Do Not Disturb” (or a custom “Study” Focus mode) is the magical “cone of silence” for your brain. It’s the simple, powerful act of telling your digital world, “I am busy. Do not interrupt me unless it is an absolute emergency.” It is the single most important and most underutilized tool for deep, focused, and productive study sessions.
This one small habit of using the Reminders app to set deadlines for your assignments will keep you on track.
Your Personal Project Manager Who Never Forgets
A semester can feel like a long time, making it easy to forget about that big paper that’s due in two months. The small habit of, at the beginning of the semester, putting every single one of your major deadlines into the Reminders app is like hiring a personal project manager for your academic life. You can set alerts for a week before, a day before, and the morning it’s due. It’s an external brain that will keep you on track and prevent that last-minute, caffeine-fueled panic.
Use the built-in dictionary and thesaurus on your Mac to improve your writing, not just a web search.
The Resident English Professor on Your Computer
When you’re writing a paper and you’re not sure about a word, the instinct is to open a web browser and get lost in a sea of search results. But your Mac has a brilliant, resident English professor living inside it. By simply right-clicking on any word and choosing “Look Up,” or by using a three-finger tap, you can get an instant, pop-up window with a comprehensive dictionary definition and a full thesaurus. It’s the fastest and most focused way to elevate your vocabulary and improve your writing.
Stop losing your flashcards. Do use a flashcard app on your iPhone to study anywhere.
The Infinite Deck of Cards in Your Pocket
Studying for a big exam with a giant, rubber-banded stack of paper flashcards is a clumsy and inefficient process. They get lost, they get out of order, and you can’t carry them everywhere. A flashcard app on your iPhone is like having an infinite, magical deck of cards in your pocket. You can create as many decks as you need, you can include images, and the app can use smart algorithms to show you the cards you’re struggling with more often. It’s the ultimate, portable, and intelligent study tool.
Stop struggling to read PDFs on your laptop. Do use an iPad with Apple Pencil to mark them up and take notes.
The Printed Article vs. The Digital Document
Trying to read and take notes on a dense, academic PDF on a laptop screen is a frustrating experience of scrolling and switching between windows. An iPad with an Apple Pencil is the device that finally makes a digital document feel as natural and intuitive as a printed article. You can hold it in a comfortable reading position, and you can use the Pencil to highlight, underline, and write your notes directly in the margins, just as you would on paper. It’s the ultimate tool for active, engaged reading.
The #1 hack for a more organized research process is using Safari’s Tab Groups for different topics.
The Separate Research Desks for Your Different Papers
When you’re working on multiple research papers at once, your browser can become a chaotic mess of dozens of unrelated tabs. Safari’s Tab Groups are like having separate, dedicated research desks for each of your projects. You can have a “History Paper” desk with all your primary source tabs, and a “Biology Lab” desk with all your journal article tabs. It’s a simple, powerful way to keep your research organized, focused, and free from the mental clutter of a hundred open tabs.
I’m just going to say it: The portability and battery life of Apple’s laptops make them ideal for the life of a student.
The Power Plant That Fits in Your Backpack
The life of a student is a nomadic one. You move from the library to the classroom to the coffee shop. A heavy laptop with a short battery life is like being a factory that is chained to the wall. The modern MacBook is like a powerful, self-contained, and portable power plant. Its incredible battery life means you can confidently leave your charging brick at home, and its lightweight design means you can carry it all day without a second thought. It’s the hardware that is perfectly designed for the freedom and mobility of student life.
The reason you’re falling behind in class is because you’re not using a calendar to map out your entire semester.
The Map for Your Academic Journey
Starting a new semester without a plan is like setting off on a long, cross-country road trip without a map. You’re just driving blind, and you’re bound to get lost. The simple, powerful act of taking your syllabus for each class and putting every major exam, paper, and project deadline into your calendar is the act of creating that map. It gives you a bird’s-eye view of your entire journey, allowing you to anticipate the busy periods and stay on the right road to success.
If you’re a design student, you should be using the Adobe Creative Cloud apps on a Mac and iPad for a seamless workflow.
The Shared Workshop for Your Creative Projects
A design student’s life is a constant flow of ideas from sketches to final products. The Adobe Creative Cloud apps on Apple’s hardware are like a single, seamless workshop for that entire process. You can start a sketch in Fresco on your iPad with the Apple Pencil, then seamlessly send it to your Mac to work on it in Photoshop with a big screen and a precise mouse, and then lay it out in InDesign. It’s a fluid, powerful, and industry-standard workflow that allows your ideas to move effortlessly between your different tools.
The biggest lie you’ve been told is that you need a Windows PC for a business degree; Numbers and Pages are perfectly capable of handling business tasks.
The Different Brands of the Same Tool
There is an old, outdated myth that to do “serious” business work, you must use Microsoft Excel and Word. This is like thinking that to be a “serious” carpenter, you must use a specific brand of hammer. The reality is that Apple’s Numbers and Pages are powerful, professional-grade tools that can perform all the essential functions a business student needs, from creating financial models to writing professional reports. And, they can both seamlessly import and export Microsoft Office files, making collaboration a breeze.
I wish I knew about the accessibility features, like “Speak Screen,” to have my textbooks read to me.
The Personal Audiobook Reader for Any Text
Staring at a dense textbook for hours on end can be exhausting for your eyes. I wish I had known that my iPhone has a personal, robotic audiobook reader built right in. The “Speak Screen” feature in Accessibility is like hiring a narrator for your digital life. With a simple two-finger swipe down from the top of the screen, your iPhone will read the entire text of any article, note, or even a digital textbook out loud to you. It’s an incredible tool for studying on the go or for just giving your eyes a much-needed rest.
99% of professionals make this one mistake: not customizing their notification settings to separate work and personal life.
The One Mailbox for Your Office and Your Home
If you use your personal phone for work, it can feel like your office is following you everywhere. This is because you have one single, chaotic mailbox for both your professional and your personal life. The mistake is not taking the time to be your own mail sorter. By customizing your notification settings—perhaps by setting your work email to only show a banner, and your personal messages to make a sound—you can create a clear, auditory separation between your two worlds, bringing a sense of order and balance back to your life.
This one small action of using AirPlay to present from your iPad or iPhone in a meeting will make you look tech-savvy and prepared.
The Invisible Cord That Makes You a Magician
Fumbling with cables and adapters at the beginning of a presentation is the ultimate amateur move. It makes you look unprepared. If the conference room has an Apple TV, AirPlay is your secret weapon. The small action of wirelessly and instantly mirroring your iPad’s screen to the big television is like being a magician. It’s a seamless, impressive, and incredibly professional way to start a meeting, and it will instantly establish you as the most tech-savvy and prepared person in the room.
Use the Business Chat feature in Messages to communicate with companies, not just calling their support line.
The Text Message Conversation with Your Airline
Sitting on hold, listening to terrible music, is one of the most frustrating customer service experiences. Business Chat is the modern, civilized alternative. It’s like being able to have a normal, asynchronous text message conversation with your airline, your bank, or your hotel. You can send a message, put your phone down, and get a notification when they reply. It’s a calmer, more efficient, and often much more pleasant way to handle customer service issues, and it’s all built right into the Messages app you already use.
Stop manually entering your business expenses. Do use a scanning app on your iPhone to digitize your receipts.
The Paper Monster vs. The Digital Accountant
A business trip can leave you with a wallet stuffed full of a chaotic mess of paper receipts. Manually typing these into a spreadsheet is a painful chore. A modern receipt-scanning app is like having a tiny, digital accountant in your pocket. You can just take a picture of a receipt, and the app will use artificial intelligence to read the vendor, the date, and the amount, and then organize it all for you. It’s the powerful tool that can slay the paper monster of expense reports.
Stop trying to remember all your clients’ contact information. Do use the Contacts app with detailed notes for each person.
Your Brain vs. Your External Brain
Trying to keep all the important details about your clients—their assistant’s name, their kids’ names, the project you last discussed—in your own head is an impossible task. Your brain is for having ideas, not for being a database. The “Notes” field in the Contacts app is the perfect place to build your external brain. Before or after every meeting, you can take 30 seconds to jot down a few key details. Over time, you will build a powerful, personal CRM that will make you seem like you have a photographic memory.
The #1 secret for a more efficient commute is checking the transit directions and real-time updates in Apple Maps.
The All-Knowing Guide to Your City’s Veins
Navigating a city’s public transit system can feel like trying to understand a complex circulatory system. Apple Maps is your all-knowing guide to those veins. It doesn’t just show you the subway map; it gives you live, real-time departure information so you know exactly when the next train is coming. It will guide you to the right entrance of the station and even tell you which part of the train to board for the quickest exit. It’s the ultimate tool for navigating your city like a local.
I’m just going to say it: The combination of an iPhone for communication, an iPad for meetings, and a Mac for heavy lifting is the ultimate professional toolkit.
The Carpenter, The Architect, and The Foreman
A true professional doesn’t use a single tool for every job. The ultimate modern professional toolkit is a trio of specialized devices that work in perfect harmony. The iPhone is the carpenter on the job site, handling all the real-time communication and quick tasks. The iPad is the architect, perfect for presenting blueprints and taking notes in client meetings. And the Mac is the foreman back at the office, the powerhouse computer that can handle the heavy, complex, and detailed work. Together, they are an unstoppable team.
The reason your work-life balance is off is because you’re not setting up a “Work” Focus mode that silences personal notifications during the day.
The Open Office in Your Brain
If you’re constantly being bombarded by personal texts and social media notifications while you’re trying to work, it’s like trying to do your job in the middle of a loud, chaotic open-plan office where your family and friends can just walk in at any time. A “Work” Focus mode is the high-tech, soundproof door for your brain. You can set it so that from 9 to 5, only your boss and your work apps are allowed to knock. It creates the mental space and deep focus you need to do your best work.
If you’re a photographer, you should be using a Mac with a color-accurate display for editing your photos.
The Tuned Piano for Your Visual Masterpiece
A professional musician would never compose a symphony on an out-of-tune piano. As a photographer, your display is your piano, and color is your music. The displays on Apple’s Macs, particularly the MacBook Pro and the Pro Display XDR, are renowned for their incredible color accuracy. They are the perfectly tuned grand pianos of the visual world. Using one ensures that the colors you are seeing and editing are the true, objective colors, which is the absolute, non-negotiable foundation for any professional-grade photo editing.
The biggest lie you’ve been told is that you need to be a creative to benefit from an iPad; it’s a powerful tool for consumption, productivity, and learning for everyone.
The Swiss Army Knife, Not Just the Paintbrush
The iPad is so good as a creative tool that it often gets stereotyped as being only a paintbrush for artists. This is a huge misunderstanding. The iPad is the ultimate digital Swiss Army knife. It is a beautiful, portable movie screen. It is a powerful, lightweight laptop for answering emails. It is the best digital book and magazine you’ve ever read. It is an incredible educational tool for learning a new language. The paintbrush is just one of its many, many brilliant attachments.
I wish I knew about the ability to create custom email signatures for my different email accounts in the Mail app.
The Different Hats You Wear in Your Digital Life
Many of us have more than one email address because we wear different hats in our lives. You have your professional hat, your personal hat, and maybe your side-hustle hat. I wish I had known that the Mail app lets you create a unique, custom-designed business card for each of those hats. You can have a formal signature with your job title for your work account, and a simple, friendly sign-off for your personal account. It’s a simple feature that helps you present the right identity in the right context.
99% of students make this one mistake: not taking advantage of the free educational apps available on the App Store.
The Free Library You’re Not Visiting
The App Store is a giant, digital city. Many students spend all their time in the arcade and the movie theater. But that city also has a massive, world-class public library, and 99% of students never even walk in the door. The App Store is filled with an incredible number of free, powerful educational apps, from the mind-blowing 3D anatomy models of BioDigital Human to the brilliant, interactive coding lessons of Swift Playgrounds. These are powerful, free tools that can make learning more engaging and effective.
This one small habit of using the “Share” sheet to save interesting articles to your Reading List for later will make you more informed.
The Intellectual Piggy Bank
Throughout the day, you stumble upon interesting, important articles that you just don’t have time to read. The small but powerful habit of using the “Share” button to save these articles to your Safari Reading List is like putting intellectual coins in a piggy bank. It’s a dedicated, distraction-free home for all the things you want to read “later.” Then, when you have a spare 15 minutes, you can open your piggy bank and enrich your mind, ensuring that your curiosity is never lost to the relentless forward march of your timeline.
Use your Apple Watch to set timers and reminders while you’re in the lab or workshop, not pulling out your phone.
The Hands-Free Assistant for Your Hands-On Work
When you’re a student or a professional working in a science lab, a kitchen, or a workshop, your hands are often busy or dirty. Pulling out your phone to set a timer is both inconvenient and messy. The Apple Watch is your perfect, hands-free lab assistant. You can just say, “Hey Siri, set a timer for 15 minutes,” without ever touching a thing. It’s a simple, powerful feature that allows you to stay focused on your physical task while your digital assistant keeps track of the time for you.
Stop writing your papers in a distracting environment. Do use a writing app with a focus mode on your Mac.
The Soundproof Writing Studio
Trying to write a serious paper in a standard word processor is like trying to write a novel in the middle of a busy office, with toolbars and notifications constantly vying for your attention. A dedicated writing app with a “focus mode” is like stepping into a serene, soundproof, minimalist writing studio. With a single click, all the distracting interface elements can melt away, leaving you with nothing but a clean, blank page and your own thoughts. It’s the ultimate environment for deep, focused, and productive writing.
Stop losing your great ideas. Do use the Quick Note feature to capture them instantly on your iPad or Mac.
The Sticky Note That’s Always in Your Hand
Brilliant ideas are like butterflies; they are beautiful, and they can fly away in an instant. Fumbling to open your full notes app is like trying to find your butterfly net after the butterfly is already gone. The Quick Note feature is like having that net always in your hand. On an iPad or a Mac, with a simple swipe or a key press, you can instantly summon a small, floating sticky note, no matter what you’re doing. It’s the fastest and most frictionless way to capture a fleeting thought before it disappears forever.
The #1 hack for a more productive study session is using the Pomodoro technique with a timer app on your Apple Watch.
The Personal Trainer for Your Attention Span
The Pomodoro Technique—working in focused 25-minute sprints with short breaks—is like interval training for your brain. It’s a proven way to increase focus and prevent burnout. Your Apple Watch is the perfect, non-distracting personal trainer for this workout. You can set a 25-minute timer and leave your phone in another room. The gentle, haptic tap on your wrist will let you know when it’s time to take a break. It’s the simple, powerful hack that can bring structure and discipline to your study sessions.
I’m just going to say it: The long-term value and resale value of Apple products make them a smart investment for students.
The Car That Holds Its Value
Buying a new laptop can be a big upfront cost for a student. A cheap, plastic PC laptop is like a brand new, budget car; it loses a huge chunk of its value the moment you drive it off the lot. An Apple product is like a well-built, classic car. Because of its premium build quality and long-lasting software support, it holds its value remarkably well. So while the initial investment might be higher, the total cost of ownership is often lower, because you are left with a valuable asset to resell at the end of your four years.
The reason you’re not getting that job is because your resume, created in a basic text editor, looks unprofessional; use the templates in Pages instead.
The Hand-Drawn Sign vs. The Professionally Printed Brochure
Submitting a resume that you wrote in a basic text editor is like trying to advertise your professional services with a simple, hand-drawn sign. It makes you look amateurish. The resume templates in Pages are like a set of beautiful, professionally designed and printed brochures. They are created by professional graphic designers to be clean, modern, and easy to read. Using one is the simplest and most effective way to ensure that your first impression is not just about your qualifications, but also about your professionalism and attention to detail.
If you’re a developer, you should be using a Mac with Xcode for the best experience developing apps for the Apple ecosystem.
The Official, Custom-Built Workshop for the Master Craftsman
You can, technically, try to build an iOS app on another platform, but it’s like a master craftsman trying to build a beautiful piece of furniture with a set of ill-fitting, third-party tools. A Mac with Xcode is the official, custom-built, and perfectly integrated workshop, designed by the same people who designed the furniture you’re trying to build. It has all the specialized, powerful, and perfectly calibrated tools you need to design, build, and test your app in the most efficient and seamless way possible.
The biggest lie you’ve been told is that you can’t be a power user on a Mac; the command line and powerful apps offer endless possibilities.
The Elegant House with a High-Tech Workshop in the Basement
Because a Mac is so beautiful and easy to use, there’s a myth that it’s not for “power users.” This is like thinking that a beautiful, elegant house can’t also have a high-tech, industrial-grade workshop hidden in the basement. Beneath the simple, user-friendly surface of a Mac lies a powerful, UNIX-based command line and a thriving ecosystem of incredibly deep, professional-grade software. It is a machine that offers both a simple, elegant living experience and an infinitely customizable, powerful engine for those who want it.
I wish I knew that I could use my iPhone to record high-quality audio for my video projects.
The Professional Microphone Hiding in Your Pocket
I used to think that to get good audio for my videos, I needed to buy an expensive, external microphone. I wish I had known that I already had a fantastic one in my pocket. The microphones in the modern iPhone are surprisingly high-quality. For interviews or voice-overs, you can simply place your iPhone, running the Voice Memos app, just out of the camera’s frame. It’s a free, simple, and incredibly effective way to capture clean, crisp, and professional-sounding audio without any extra gear.
99% of professionals make this one mistake: not using a dedicated password manager for their work accounts, separate from their personal ones.
The One Keyring for Your House and Your Office
Using one single password manager for your personal and professional lives is like carrying one giant, jumbled keyring with the keys to your house, your car, your office, and your confidential client files all mixed together. It’s a security and organizational nightmare. The professional move is to have two separate keyrings. Use iCloud Keychain for your personal life, and a dedicated, enterprise-grade password manager for your work. This creates a clear, secure separation that protects both you and your company.
This one small action of setting up text replacements for your work email and address will save you a surprising amount of time.
The Magical, Self-Writing Pen
There are certain phrases you type over and over again every single day at work: your email address, your office phone number, a common reply to a client. The small action of setting up a text replacement for these is like enchanting your keyboard with a self-writing pen. You can set it so that when you type “sig,” it automatically expands into your full, professional email signature. It’s a tiny, one-time setup that will save you thousands of keystrokes and hours of repetitive work over the course of a year.
Use your iPad to sign and return contracts without ever printing them, not dealing with the hassle of scanners and fax machines.
The Instant, Paperless Courier Service
The old ritual of printing a contract, signing it, scanning it, and then emailing it back is a clumsy, time-wasting dance. Your iPad is the instant, paperless courier service that can do that entire job in 30 seconds. You can open the PDF contract from your email, use your Apple Pencil to sign it with a real, legally binding signature, and then instantly share the signed document back to the sender. It’s a faster, more professional, and more environmentally friendly way to do business.
Stop struggling to see your presentation notes. Do use the presenter display in Keynote to see your slides and notes on your MacBook while the audience sees only the slides.
The Teleprompter That Only You Can See
Giving a presentation while trying to sneak a glance at your paper notes is a recipe for a disconnected and unprofessional delivery. The presenter display in Keynote is like having a secret, invisible teleprompter that only you can see. When you’re connected to a projector, your MacBook’s screen will show you your current slide, a preview of your next slide, a timer, and your full, private speaker notes, while your audience sees only the beautiful, full-screen slide. It’s the secret to a confident, smooth, and perfectly timed presentation.
Stop being late for your online classes. Do set alerts for your calendar events to go off 5 minutes before they start.
The Personal Assistant Who Taps You on the Shoulder
In the world of online classes, there’s no bell to tell you when to go to your next room. It’s easy to lose track of time and show up late. When you put your classes in your digital calendar, you’re not just creating a schedule; you’re hiring a personal assistant. The simple act of setting the alert to “5 minutes before” is like telling that assistant to come and tap you on the shoulder a few minutes before your next meeting. It’s the reliable, automatic nudge that will ensure you’re always on time.
The #1 secret for a more successful online course experience is creating a dedicated and organized digital workspace with your Apple devices.
The Clean, Well-Lit Desk vs. The Chaotic, Messy Room
Trying to succeed in an online course with a disorganized digital life is like trying to study in a chaotic, messy, and distracting room. The #1 secret to success is to use your devices to create a dedicated, digital workspace. This means creating a specific folder structure for your class files, setting up a “Study” Focus mode to block distractions, and using a calendar to manage your deadlines. It’s the act of building a clean, well-lit, and organized desk for your mind.
I’m just going to say it: The iPad is the best device for reading and annotating academic papers and journals.
The Printed Page, but Better
Academic papers are dense, complex, and require active engagement. Reading them on a laptop is a clumsy, uncomfortable experience. The iPad is the perfect bridge between the physical and the digital. It’s light enough to hold comfortably like a magazine, and the high-resolution screen is beautiful to read on. But with the Apple Pencil, it becomes better than paper. You can highlight, write notes in the margins, and search your own handwriting, turning a passive reading experience into an active, productive, and paperless one.
The reason your notes are hard to study from is because they are not organized; use a note-taking app that allows for structure and hierarchy.
The Pile of Scraps vs. The Well-Written Outline
Taking notes as one long, continuous stream of text is like writing all your ideas down on a hundred separate, unconnected scraps of paper. It’s impossible to study from. A modern note-taking app is like a powerful outlining tool. It allows you to create a clear structure, with main headings, sub-points, and indented details. This simple act of organizing your thoughts into a logical hierarchy as you take your notes will transform a chaotic pile of scraps into a powerful and effective study guide.
If you’re a journalist, you should be using the Voice Memos app to record interviews and the transcription features to quickly get a written record.
The Reporter’s Notebook with a Built-in Stenographer
A journalist’s most important tool is the interview. The Voice Memos app is the perfect, high-quality digital recorder that is always in your pocket. But its hidden superpower is the automatic transcription feature. After you’ve recorded an interview, it will use artificial intelligence to create a written, time-stamped transcript of the entire conversation. It’s like a reporter’s notebook that comes with its own built-in, high-speed stenographer, saving you hours of tedious, manual transcription work and letting you find that perfect quote instantly.
The biggest lie you’ve been told is that you need a gaming PC to be a gamer; the Apple Arcade and the growing number of AAA games on the Mac are changing that.
The Exclusive Club That’s Finally Opening Its Doors
For years, the world of “serious” gaming was an exclusive club, and a powerful Windows PC was the only way to get a membership. This is no longer true. The club is finally opening its doors. Apple Arcade offers a massive library of incredible, console-quality games for a low monthly price. And with Apple’s new powerful chips, major, blockbuster “AAA” games that were once PC-exclusive are now coming to the Mac. The revolution is happening, and the Mac is quickly becoming a fantastic place to be a gamer.
I wish I knew that I could use my Apple Watch’s walkie-talkie feature for quick communication with colleagues in the office.
The Instant, Private Line to Your Teammate
Emailing a coworker who sits in the next office to ask a quick question is like sending a formal, handwritten letter to your neighbor. The Walkie-Talkie app on the Apple Watch is the instant, private, and fun alternative. With a single press of a button, you can have a quick, real-time voice conversation with a trusted colleague. It’s perfect for those “Do you have a second?” questions that don’t need a formal paper trail. It’s a faster and more personal way to stay connected with your immediate team.
99% of students make this one mistake: not turning off their phone’s notifications during a lecture.
The Constant Tapping on Your Shoulder in a Quiet Theater
Leaving your phone’s notifications on during a lecture is like going to a fascinating movie but allowing a friend to constantly tap you on the shoulder to show you funny pictures. Every single buzz or ding is a tiny, but powerful, interruption that shatters your concentration and pulls you out of the learning experience. The simple, non-negotiable act of silencing your phone or enabling a “Class” Focus mode is the basic price of admission for a focused and respectful academic experience.
This one small habit of organizing your school files by class and semester will save you from a lot of stress at the end of the term.
The Well-Organized Filing Cabinet vs. The Panic-Inducing Pile
The end of a semester is a stressful time. If all of your digital files are in one giant, chaotic “Downloads” folder, it’s like trying to find a specific receipt in a room-sized pile of papers. The small but powerful habit of, at the start of the semester, creating a clear folder structure—a main folder for the term, with sub-folders for each class—is like setting up a pristine, well-organized filing cabinet. It turns that end-of-semester panic into a calm and efficient search for exactly what you need.
Use the split-screen view on your iPad or Mac to have your research and your paper open at the same time, not constantly switching between windows.
The Two-Page Spread of a Book
Writing a research paper while constantly switching back and forth between your writing app and your source material is like trying to read a book where you have to constantly flip to the back to see the pictures. The split-screen view is the beautiful, two-page spread. It allows you to have your research article open on the left side of the screen and your blank page open on the right. It’s a more natural, focused, and efficient way to work, allowing you to see both your inspiration and your creation at the same time.
Stop trying to do everything on one device. Do use the best device for the task at hand: iPhone for communication, iPad for reading and note-taking, Mac for writing and research.
The Master Carpenter with a Full Toolbox
A master carpenter would never try to build a house with only a hammer. They have a full toolbox, and they know the right tool for the right job. A modern student or professional should think the same way. The iPhone is the perfect hammer for quick, on-the-go communication. The iPad is the versatile saw and measuring tape for reading, annotating, and sketching. And the Mac is the heavy-duty power drill and workbench for the serious, focused work of writing and research. Using the right tool makes the job easier and the result better.
Stop worrying about losing your work. Do enable auto-save and version history in Pages and Numbers.
The Magical Document That Saves Itself and Remembers Everything
The fear of a computer crash wiping out hours of your unsaved work is a relic of a bygone era. The modern iWork apps are like magical, self-aware documents. The “Auto-Save” feature means that your document is constantly saving itself in the background, every few seconds. You don’t even need a “Save” button. And “Version History” is its perfect memory. You can go back in time and see what your document looked like an hour ago or even last Tuesday, ensuring that a creative spark or a deleted paragraph is never truly lost.
The #1 hack for a more productive commute is listening to educational podcasts or audiobooks on your iPhone.
The University on Wheels
Your daily commute can feel like a boring, wasted chunk of your life. But with your iPhone, it can be transformed into your own personal, mobile university. Instead of just listening to the same old songs, you can use that time to listen to a fascinating lecture on history, learn a new language with a podcast, or “read” a classic novel with an audiobook. It’s the ultimate life hack that can turn a tedious necessity into one of the most productive and enriching parts of your day.
I’m just going to say it: For creative professionals, the combination of Apple hardware and software is unmatched.
The Perfectly Integrated Art Studio
A creative professional’s tools need to be powerful, reliable, and seamless. The Apple ecosystem is like a perfectly integrated, custom-built art studio. The beautiful, color-accurate screen of the Mac is the main canvas. The powerful, intuitive software like Final Cut Pro and Logic Pro are the best brushes and instruments. And the iPad with the Apple Pencil is the perfect, portable sketchbook for capturing ideas. It’s the one ecosystem where the hardware and the software are designed by the same artist, and it results in a creative workflow of unparalleled harmony.
The reason your business trips are so stressful is because you’re not using apps like TripIt that integrate with your calendar and email.
The Personal Travel Agent in Your Pocket
A business trip can be a chaotic mess of flight confirmations, hotel bookings, and rental car numbers, all scattered across your email inbox. An app like TripIt is the personal travel agent who lives in your pocket. You can simply forward all your confirmation emails to it, and it will automatically read them and build a single, beautiful, chronological master itinerary for your entire trip. It then syncs this with your calendar, turning a stressful, disorganized mess into a calm and coherent plan.
If you’re an architect or designer, you should be using the powerful CAD and 3D modeling apps available on the iPad and Mac.
The Blueprint and the Clay Model, Reimagined
An architect used to need a giant drafting table for their blueprints and a workshop for their physical models. The modern iPad and Mac are the digital reinvention of that entire studio. Powerful CAD apps allow you to create incredibly precise, detailed blueprints on your Mac. And with an iPad and Apple Pencil, you can use 3D modeling apps to sculpt and shape your building like a piece of digital clay, and even use augmented reality to place your virtual model on a real-world table. It’s a powerful, portable, and revolutionary new workflow.
The biggest lie you’ve been told is that you need to be an expert to use the pro apps; Apple’s apps are known for their user-friendly design.
The Professional Kitchen That’s Also Easy to Clean
The “Pro” label on apps like Final Cut Pro and Logic Pro can be intimidating. It makes them sound like they are only for the elite. But this is the biggest lie. While these apps have an incredible depth of power, they are also designed with Apple’s signature focus on user-friendliness. It’s like a professional kitchen that is also incredibly intuitive and easy to clean. A beginner can walk in and start making a beautiful meal on day one, while a master chef has all the advanced tools they need to create a masterpiece.
I wish I knew about the powerful data recovery tools available for Mac in case of a hard drive failure.
The Paramedic for Your Digital Life
The moment your Mac’s hard drive fails and you realize your backup is out of date is a moment of pure, gut-wrenching panic. It feels like your entire digital life has died. I wish I had known that there are powerful, professional-grade data recovery tools that can act as the paramedics for that life. Software like Disk Drill can often perform deep scans on a failing drive and recover files that you thought were lost forever. It’s not a guarantee, but it’s the powerful emergency procedure that can sometimes pull your data back from the brink.
99% of professionals make this one mistake: not locking their computer when they step away from their desk.
Leaving the Door to Your Office Wide Open
Your work computer is your professional office. It contains confidential client information, private company data, and your own personal work. Walking away from your desk for even 30 seconds without locking the screen is the equivalent of leaving the door to your office wide open in a busy building. The simple, reflexive habit of hitting “Control-Command-Q” every single time you stand up is the most fundamental and non-negotiable rule of professional digital security.
This one small action of setting up a separate user account on your Mac for your kids will keep your work files safe.
The Kid’s Playroom vs. Your Home Office
Letting your kids play games on your user account on your Mac is like letting them play with their toys in the middle of your home office. It’s only a matter of time before they accidentally spill juice on an important document or draw on your blueprints. The small, simple action of creating a separate, non-administrator user account for them is like building a dedicated, soundproof playroom. They can have their own space, their own apps, and their own settings, and your important work will remain safe and untouched in your locked office.
Use your iPhone’s Portrait mode to take professional-looking headshots for your LinkedIn profile, not a blurry selfie.
The Professional Photography Studio in Your Pocket
Your LinkedIn profile picture is your digital first impression. A blurry, poorly-lit selfie taken at arm’s length is like showing up to a job interview in a wrinkled t-shirt. The Portrait mode on your iPhone is a powerful, professional photography studio that you have in your pocket. By using its advanced software to create a beautifully blurred background and studio-quality lighting effects, you can create a clean, polished, and professional-looking headshot that will make you look like a serious and credible candidate.
Stop being overwhelmed by your tasks. Do use a project management app that syncs across all your devices.
The Master Blueprint for Your Workload
Trying to manage a complex project with a simple to-do list is like trying to build a skyscraper with a single, hand-drawn sketch. You will quickly become overwhelmed and lose track of the details. A proper project management app is the master blueprint for your professional life. It allows you to break down large projects into smaller tasks, assign deadlines, and see how everything fits together. And because it syncs across all your devices, that master blueprint is always in your pocket, always up-to-date.
Stop struggling to collaborate with your team. Do use a shared iCloud Drive folder for all your project files.
The Central Work Table for Your Entire Team
Emailing different versions of a file back and forth is a recipe for confusion and wasted time. It’s like every member of your team is working from a different, slightly outdated copy of the plans. A shared iCloud Drive folder is the central, communal work table for your entire team. When you put a file on that table, everyone can see it, and everyone can access the single, most up-to-date version. It’s the simple, seamless way to ensure that your entire team is always working from the same page.
The #1 secret for a more focused writing session is using a minimalist writing app that removes all distractions.
The Soundproof Booth for Your Thoughts
Writing in a standard word processor is like trying to write a novel in the middle of a busy newsroom, with a dozen different toolbars and notifications all shouting for your attention. A minimalist writing app is a soundproof, sensory deprivation booth for your thoughts. With a single click, all the distracting interface elements melt away, leaving you with nothing but a clean, blank page. It’s the ultimate environment for deep, focused, and immersive writing, allowing your best ideas to come to the surface without interruption.
I’m just going to say it: The investment in the Apple ecosystem pays for itself in productivity and ease of use for students and professionals.
The High-Quality Tools That Make the Job Easier
You can, technically, build a house with a set of cheap, low-quality tools. But it will be a frustrating, inefficient, and painful process. Investing in a set of high-quality, perfectly integrated tools makes the job smoother, faster, and more enjoyable. The Apple ecosystem is that set of high-quality tools. While the upfront investment might be higher, the time you save from the seamless integration, the frustration you avoid from the user-friendly design, and the power you gain from the cohesive workflow is a return on investment that pays for itself over and over again.
The reason you’re not making progress on your thesis is because you’re not breaking it down into smaller, manageable tasks in a to-do list app.
Eating an Elephant, One Bite at a Time
A thesis or a dissertation can feel like an impossibly large and overwhelming task. It’s like being told you have to eat an entire elephant. Staring at the whole elephant is paralyzing. The only way to do it is to break it down into a thousand small, manageable bites. A to-do list app is the tool that lets you do that. You can create a project for each chapter and then break that down into tiny, achievable tasks: “Find three sources,” “Write the first paragraph.” It turns an impossible mountain into a series of small, climbable hills.
If you’re a real estate agent, you should be using your iPad to present listings and sign contracts with clients on the spot.
The Mobile Office for Your Real Estate Business
A real estate agent’s office is wherever their clients are. An iPad is the ultimate, portable office for that job. You can use it to present beautiful, high-resolution photos of a property in a way a laptop can’t. You can bring up a map to show them the neighborhood. And most powerfully, when they are ready to make an offer, you can have them sign the contract right there on the screen with an Apple Pencil. It’s the tool that can turn a “Let me think about it” into a “deal closed,” right on the spot.
The biggest lie you’ve been told is that you need to choose between a tablet and a laptop; with an iPad and Magic Keyboard, you can have the best of both worlds.
The Shape-Shifting Super-Car
The old debate was “tablet or laptop?” as if you had to choose between a fun, weekend sports car and a practical, daily-driver sedan. The modern iPad with a Magic Keyboard is the magical, shape-shifting super-car that can be both. When you want to relax and watch a movie, you can detach it and have a beautiful, lightweight tablet. When you need to get serious work done, you can snap on the keyboard and have a powerful, productive laptop. It’s the one device that can perfectly adapt to every part of your life.
I wish I knew that I could use my Apple TV for presentations in a conference room with just a Wi-Fi connection.
The Wireless Projector in My Pocket
For years, I would start my presentations by fumbling with a bag full of clumsy adapters, trying to find the right one for the conference room’s projector. It was a stressful and unprofessional way to begin. I wish I had known that if the room has an Apple TV, my iPhone or iPad is a powerful, wireless projector. With a single tap of the AirPlay button, my screen is instantly and beautifully mirrored on the big screen, no cables required. It’s the secret to a smooth, confident, and technologically impressive start to any meeting.
99% of students make this one mistake: not taking advantage of their university’s free software offerings, like Microsoft Office, which can still be used on a Mac.
The Free, Professional-Grade Tools You’re Not Using
Many students assume that to do their schoolwork, they have to buy their own software. This is a huge mistake. Your university is like a guild that provides its members with a set of free, professional-grade tools. Most universities offer a free license for Microsoft Office 365, which includes Word, Excel, and PowerPoint, all of which run perfectly on a Mac. Before you spend a single dollar on software, you must check your school’s IT website. The powerful, industry-standard tools you need are often waiting for you, completely free of charge.
This one small habit of ending your workday by organizing your digital files will make starting the next day so much easier.
The Chef Who Cleans His Kitchen at the End of the Night
A professional chef would never end their shift by just walking out of a messy, chaotic kitchen. They always clean and organize their station so that they can start fresh the next day. The small but powerful habit of taking the last five minutes of your workday to do the same for your digital kitchen—clearing your desktop, organizing your downloads folder, and closing unnecessary tabs—is a professional move. It allows you to end your day with a sense of closure and to start the next morning with a clean, focused, and productive workspace.
Use your Apple devices to create a seamless workflow between your office, your home, and your commute, not having separate and disconnected systems.
The One River That Flows Through Your Entire Day
Many people’s digital lives are like a series of separate, disconnected ponds. The work you do in the “office” pond stays there, and you have to start over when you get to the “home” pond. The Apple ecosystem is designed to be one single, powerful river that flows through your entire day. You can start a document on your Mac at the office, continue editing it on your iPad on the train, and make a final change on your iPhone from your couch. It’s a seamless, uninterrupted flow of productivity.