Today, Federico published Beyond the Tablet: Seven Years of iPad as My Main Computer, a comprehensive evaluation of the advantages and shortcomings he’s experienced using an iPad as his primary computer. Weighing in at around 50,000 words, Beyond the Tablet rivals Federico’s annual iOS reviews in scope and depth of coverage. As a result, it felt appropriate to release the same sort of extras for this story that we’ve provided for iOS reviews.

eBook

You won’t want to miss the opening animation of the web version of Federico’s story, but if you’re a Club MacStories member and want to read his story at your leisure in Apple’s Books app, you can do that too. As with past iOS reviews, we have produced an eBook version of Beyond the Tablet. The eBook has been carefully created from all the same content you’ll find in the MacStories.net version, including every image and video, with the bonus that you can take advantage of Books’ table of contents, bookmarking, highlighting, annotating, and other features too.

The eBook version of Beyond the Tablet is available exclusively as a free download for Club MacStories members from the member Downloads page.

If you haven’t considered becoming a Club MacStories member before, now is a great time to do so to take advantage of the exclusive Beyond the Tablet perks. In addition, Club MacStories offers exclusive content delivered every week including:

• MacStories Weekly, a newsletter that is sent every Friday and is packed full of our favorite apps, themed collections, tips, automation, answers to reader questions, featured Home screens, interviews, and much more.
• The Monthly Log, a monthly newsletter that includes long-form and behind-the-scenes stories.
• Access to giveaways, discounts, and other treats like a special members-only podcast called MacStories Unplugged and ebook versions of Federico’s annual iOS review.
• The full archive of over 200 issues of MacStories Weekly and the Monthly Log.

AppStories

For episode 112 of AppStories, Federico and I look back at Federico’s process for writing Beyond the Tablet, including the apps and workflows that helped him write an iOS review-length story in a fraction of the time past reviews have taken. We also explore some of the topics covered by the story and the big-picture lessons that can be drawn from the current state of the iPad as a computing device. We also interviewed Brian King, who created the opening animation for Beyond the Tablet as well as the 3D-rendered images you’ll find at the beginning of each section of the story.

You can listen to the episode here and subscribe using the links below:

Making Of Essays

Finally, Club MacStories members are in for a treat this Friday. The next issue of MacStories Weekly will include not one but two ‘making of’ essays about Beyond the Tablet. The first will be from Federico, who will go in-depth on his ever-evolving workflows for producing long-form stories. The second story will be from Brian King and go in-depth on how he used Cinema 4D to produce the opening animation for Beyond the Tablet, along with the 3D-rendered images for each section of the story. As usual, MacStories Weekly will arrive in Club MacStories members’ email inboxes this Friday.

It’s been a busy spring for the MacStories team, especially Federico, and it’s always fun and exciting to share that hard work with MacStories readers and Club members. We hope you enjoy Beyond the Tablet and the extras we’ve created. In addition to thought-provoking analysis of the iPad’s place in computing, Federico’s story and the extras are full of ideas, strategies, and tips for working on the iPad, which we hope will inspire your own use of the iPad.