Apple Really Messed Up the iPad Pro Launch

Did You Know? The most common litter produced by nine-banded armadillos is identical quadruplets. Geek Trivia Van Gogh’s Famous Painting “The Starry Night” Captured What Scientific Phenomenon In Action? Atmospheric Defraction → Solar Refractivity → Temperature Inversion → Turbulence → Advertisement Download How to Control Windows 10: The Settings Guide The control panel, one of the most important interfaces in Windows, is being slowly retired. In its place, Microsoft has introduced a successor, a process that began in Windows 8 and continues in Windows 10 with the new Settings app. Download this eBook and get started learning about Windows 10 settings today! Click here to download Want to Change Your Email Preferences? At some point in the past you subscribed to the How-To Geek newsletter, but if you'd like to change the frequency or unsubscribe, you can do so by clicking the button. Change my Subscription (or unsubscribe) Today's How-To Geek Articles By popular request, we're including a quick list of the daily articles at the top of the daily email as well as the regular format near the bottom. How to Change the Type of Numbers Used in a Numbered List in Word How to Change Your WiFi Network’s Name and Password How can There be Used Space on an ‘Empty’ and Freshly Formatted Flash Drive? How to Fix Text Forwarding on Your iPad or Mac (if it isn’t Working) How to Use Caps Lock on Your iPhone and iPad What’s New in Windows 10’s First Big Update (Which Arrives Today) How to Pin Folders, Websites, Settings, Notes, and More to the Start Menu on Windows 10 Thoughts from the Geek This is a daily column written by Lowell Heddings, the founder and owner of How-To Geek. If you prefer, you can read this column in a web browser instead. Apple Really Messed Up the iPad Pro Launch I ordered the iPad Pro a few hours after they started accepting orders, and when I went to check out I noticed a huge problem — the iPad Pro itself was actually available on launch day… but the Smart Keyboard and Pencil won’t ship for 3-4 weeks. That’s completely ridiculous. The entire point of the iPad Pro is that it’s a tablet that supposedly can replace your PC — just like Microsoft’s Surface Pro. The biggest selling points are the keyboard that actually connects directly to the iPad so you don’t get annoying lag like Bluetooth keyboards have, and the Pencil that is supposed to be a huge step forward in stylus technology. But I don’t get to try any of that. For 3-4 weeks. It’s not like we’ll ever get a review unit from Apple here at HTG (and especially not after I write this). Sure, I get to use a giant iPad, but without the accessories, it’s just that — a giant iPad. I’ve already got an iPad Air 2 that doesn’t get used all that much, and this is just a bigger, faster version of that. Luckily there’s an alternative, the Logitech keyboard case, which is due to arrive in the morning. But that doesn’t excuse Apple for failing to coordinate things so that you can get the accessories at the same time as the computer, especially when those accessories are such a huge part of the appeal of the device in the first place. So, How’s the iPad Pro? It’s huge. It’s fast. And without the accessories, it’s nothing but a bigger faster iPad. And most apps are not yet updated to work with all the multi-tasking features, much less the big screen. Sure, apps that aren’t updated still work, but they look stretched out and blurry. I’m sure in a month or two, there will be a lot of apps that fully support it, we’ll finally have the accessories that actually make the iPad Pro interesting, and it will all be fine. For artists and anybody that likes to sketch things out, the Pencil will be a big step forward, and the keyboard will enable (some) people to really use it as a desktop replacement. But for now, you’re probably better off waiting a little longer to bother getting one. Update: The Logitech keyboard case is quite nice, has real keys and there’s almost no lag when entering text. It’s probably your best bet if you want an iPad Pro right now. Previous Thoughts You Might Have Missed: Tuesday: Microsoft is Trying Really Hard to Shoot Themselves in the Foot Monday: The Best Upgrade for Your Surface Pro 3 is the SP4 Keyboard Saturday: First Impressions of the Apple TV: Lots of Entering Passwords Using the Remote Friday: Soon, Windows 10 Will Be Automatically Pushed Through Windows Update Monday: The Emperor Has No Clothes and Nobody Cares Geek Comic Today's Tech Term URN A URN (short for Uniform Resource Name) is an Internet resource with a persistent, static name that will remain valid even if the data associated with it is moved to a different location (unlike URLs if the data associated with them is moved). What We're Reading This section contains what we're reading from around the web, along with commentary from our editors. Think of it like your daily digest of the most interesting things online. Hospital Gear Could Save Your Life Or Hack Your Identity It's way too easy to hack everything. In the last few years, almost everything has been hacked, including banking, insurance, retail, and even the US government. Why couldn't a hospital get hacked? [Bloomberg] Gmail Will Soon Warn Users When Emails Arrive Over Unencrypted Connections This is a good development in the trend of securing the basic channels of communication that we all use every day. It's important. [TechCrunch] Cable companies cut ads because of Netflix As somebody who watches TV once in a while, I haven't seen any evidence of this. Or maybe they are just telling people that they are showing less ads. [Business Insider] Pay or we'll knock your site offline—DDoS-for-ransom attacks surge The old school threat of brute force beat downs by distributed Internet attacks is back and this time criminals are using the threat of it to extort ransom money from high profile sites [ArsTechnica] How a tiny game that should have failed grossed $800,000 An interesting look behind the scenes of indie game development, how the profit pie gets divided up, (and how long it takes to cook that pie). [Polygon] You don't need eight straight hours of sleep. You need three extra hours in the day. Sleep prior to the industrial revolution looked a lot different; historical documents and current sleep experiments paint a different picture of the necessity of the eight-hour-snooze [Slate] Family Gives in to Dark Side, Builds Giant Death Star on Top of Home You might be excited about the new Star Wars movie (but you're nowhere near as excited as this guy and his family). [Motherboard] How to Change the Type of Numbers Used in a Numbered List in Word By default, Word uses Arabic numbers (1, 2, 3, etc.) when you create numbered lists. However, you can change the numbers to a different type or to letters. The character after the number or letter can also be changed. Read This Article → How to Change Your WiFi Network’s Name and Password Your Wi-Fi router comes with a default network name and password, and both are often printed on the router itself. But you can change the name and password to anything you want in just a few clicks. Read This Article → How can There be Used Space on an ‘Empty’ and Freshly Formatted Flash Drive? When you delete everything from a flash drive and reformat it, you would think it should ‘display’ as completely empty when checked, but that may not always be the case. With that in mind, today’s SuperUser Q&A post has the answer to a confused reader’s question. Read This Article → How to Fix Text Forwarding on Your iPad or Mac (if it isn’t Working) We previously described how to set up text forwarding from your iPhone to iPad or Mac. It’s a great feature, though we later realized it might not work as expected. Luckily, there’s a quick fix you can employ to get it up and running properly. Read This Article → How to Use Caps Lock on Your iPhone and iPad You just got your new iPhone after switching from Android and you want to type something in all caps. How do you use caps lock in iOS 9? We'll tell you how to type all caps and also how to enable and disable the caps lock feature. Read This Article → What’s New in Windows 10’s First Big Update (Which Arrives Today) The first big update to Windows 10, which should be arriving today via Windows Update, fixes a lot of problems with Windows 10. Microsoft is streamlining activation, restoring colored window title bars, integrating Skype, and improving the Edge browser. But they’ve also added advertisements to the Start menu. Read This Article → How to Pin Folders, Websites, Settings, Notes, and More to the Start Menu on Windows 10 Windows 10’s Start menu — or Start screen, in tablet mode — allows you to “pin” more than just apps. You can pin folders, websites, settings shortcuts, email folder, notes, and contacts. Read This Article → Advertisement Download Introduction to Windows 10 Security (a $24.95 value) FREE for a limited time An 87 page, fully updated guide to understanding security in Windows 10. Click here to download