The essentials, the nice-to-have, and the absolutely mandatory iPad: what writers need to know when travelling and trying not to write.

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Note Air2 Plus written review: https://appleinsider.com/articles/23/04/14/note-air2-plus-review-costly-but-very-desirable-e-ink-tablet
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Guide to external drives on iPad: https://appleinsider.com/articles/20/10/02/how-to-connect-external-storage-to-your-ipad-in-ios-14
Crucial 2TB external SSD: https://amzn.to/3NfOMFh (Amazon US), https://amzn.to/3CAybar (Amazon UK)
“She Said” script: https://awards.universalpictures.com/she-said/screenplay/She_Said.pdf

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SCRIPT:
NOTES
SCRIPT
Hello, I’m William Gallagher and this is 58keys which, as ever, is for writers like you and me who use and who write on Macs, iPhones and iPads, and for just this once, it’s also a holiday special. √ 001 CRUISE SHOTS
Look, I am on a month-long cruise, which is very nice for me. Well, I rarely go away and I’ve never been on holiday for longer than a week, so it’s nice but very strange. When I became a writer, I ticked the box on the form that said vocation, not vacation.
Okay. I’ve been practicing that joke.
Here’s the thing, though. It’s a month. That is a long time to be away and it’s got to mean that I’ve had to find out things that could be useful for you or me whenever we go away anywhere, for any amount of time. Things such as battery power on iPhones – look at my face, I’ve got history there – and travel adaptors, essentials such as using your phone outside of your own country, nice things – 002 LOW BATTERY WARNING?
– actually, let’s try this so you can just watch any bit that sounds like it might help you. First up, essentials – phones overseas, travel adaptors, things like that.
Then Nice to Have – such as AirTags – and then basically a last part where I will bow down in front of my iPad, the single best device for travellers ever. X I003 PAD
STING
Right then, essentials, and the first essential is that I thank 58keys viewer and Patron, Stuart Bilverstone, because he recommended Airalo. This is how I was able to stride around Tokyo using Apple Maps and not spending more on my phone bill than on this cruise. √ 004 AIRALO ICON
I get twitchy about using iPhone data overseas because a long time ago I was returning a hire car in France and got lost. Had to use Apple Maps for just a few minutes to sort out where I was heading, and the resulting phone bill was horrendous. √ 005 APPLE MAPS SHOWING ROUTE TO CHARLES DE GAULLE AIRPORT
After that, the European Union made it so that carriers couldn’t do that, the EU made it so that as a UK citizen I could go through France again, Germany, really Europe-wide, and not face these painful charges. But speaking of pain, Brexit. The gift that keeps on taking. Before the UK left the EU, phone companies swore up and down that nothing would change just because they’d be allowed to raise prices. Everything would stay the same. Would it bollocks.
But that’s where Airalo comes in. It sells eSIMs.
What I knew was that newish iPhones could have an extra, electronic SIM “card” as well as the physical SIM that gives your phone its number and so on. Knew it, read about it, I may even have written something about it coming once, but never used or thought of it until Stuart pointed me to Airalo. √ 006 APPLE ESIM PRESENTATION?
Get the free Airalo app, then when you’re on wifi in another country, go through the app and buy a local eSIM. √ 007 BROLL OF ACTIVATING ESIM (BLUR OUT DETAILS)
I did find this fiddly, but the app steps you through first installing the local eSIM and then secondly switching off the data use in your iPhone’s regular SIM.
So for the period the eSIM runs, and for the amount of data you buy, everything your iPhone does online goes through that local eSIM – or Wi-Fi. In either case, or rather neither case, is it using data through your own carrier.
You can’t make calls through this eSIM, not at present, it is solely for data use. And it’s hard to know how much data you’re going to use. I spent $4.50 and bought 1GB of data that would time out in seven days. As it happens, I then spent another $4.50 later on another 1GB, and over about a week in different parts of Japan, I used something like 1.4GB in total. That was mostly a few hours of Apple Maps use, general online work –
– I think the thing is that I’m struggling to say what I used the data for because I didn’t have to think about it. That’s what having an Airalo local eSIM gave me, it was peace of mind knowing that this expensive holiday was not going to be followed by an expensive phone bill.
STING
Still on essentials, pack the right cables, would you? The right cables and the right adaptors. √ 008 CABLES
I spent a ridiculous amount of time research adaptors before the trip and I wanted one adaptor that would let me plug devices in when I was in Tokyo, when I will be in Alaska, when I will be in Canada. I found this, a One World adaptor and was very smug. √ 009 ONEWORLD PLUG
Except.
Japan uses two types of mains plugs and this adaptor supports the most common one. Which turned out to be the least common one in all the places I’ve been so far.
But each of those places did include at least one socket that did fit what this adaptor can do, so I was back to feeling quite smug. √ 009 ONEWORLD PLUG WITH PRONGS OUT
Until. √ 010 PLUG IN USB-C
I did not pack a lot of plugs because I knew I was powering USB devices and, look, the OneWorld adaptor has USB sockets. That’s a single USB-C one at the end, and a pile of USB-A ones. I was sorted. √ CAN’T FIT WALL SOCKET
But.
SHOW FITTING
What can you do? I found a 7-11 in Hokkaido that had a simple USB-C adaptor.
STING
Nice To Have.
Your iPhone comes with a Translate app, which can do this. Tap the app’s camera button, point at some text, tap to take a shot and after a moment, you can see a translation. √ 011 BROLL OF TRANSLATE APP FROM JAPAN
Translate is free, it’s on your iPhone, it works well, and I had completely forgotten about its very existence. Until after I’d shown off an alternative which feels a bit long-winded now, but might be useful to you.
I was in The Core restaurant in Tokyo, quite near Apple Ginza, and in this restaurant, you had to order via their website. All was going well, until you had to make a choice and – not unreasonably – the choice was written in Japanese. Like it would be. √ 012 THE CORE (GOOGLE STREETVIEW?)
But, aha. This is a website. Take a screengrab, and now you don’t have a site, you have an image. Which means you can select text in the image, copy it, take it over to translate dot google dot com.
Either way, Google or Apple Translate, it’s still just a translation. I love, utterly love what Cervantes said about this: “translation,” he said, “is like looking at the back of a tapestry.” And a reason I extra love it is that I presume he said it first in Spanish. X 013 ON SCREEN: es como mirar el reverso de un tapiz
STING
Anyway. Also nice to have and easy to get, are AirTags. You know what they do, you know what bad people do with them, but having an AirTag in your luggage is a relief. √ 014 AirTags. Selection of Left Behind shots
Also a relief, to me, though, is this. I told you I get twitchy over the cost of using my iPhone overseas. That seems entirely reasonable to me, but unfortunately toward the end of any time I am away from my office, I also twitch a bit about whether all of my gear will still be there when I get home.
Or I did, until I installed this. I installed security cameras – actually, I did it during the pandemic lockdown which seems daft, but it distracted me for a time. I’ve a mains-powered camera in my office, and couple of battery-powered ones elsewhere. And yes, I did have to remember to charge those up before I left. √ 015 BROLL SECURITY CAMERA ON IPHONE
But it means that now, whenever the internet signal is good enough — that’s key — I can check to see all’s fine at home. Plus I will get alerts when someone comes to the door.
I’m using Eufy cameras and that company has been greatly criticised lately. I’ll find a link and include it in the description. √ 015b EUFY CAMERA EXTERNAL (FROM WEBSITE IF NECESSARY); REMEMBER LINK
But more fun is the one last Nice Thing to Have
And I think it is going to be Nice to Have afterwards, after the holiday. Apple Maps Guides.
When we started looking around Tokyo, I started either Dropping a Pin in Apple Maps, or tapping on a location’s icon. Then in either case, I added the result to a guide and over the course of the holiday, I got to build up this map of where we’d been. √ 016 IPAD VIDEO OF APPLE MAPS GUIDES FOR THE TRIP

I am surprised how much I like that.
And actually, for the last thing I want to talk with you about, I am also surprised at just how very much this trip has made me like my iPad.
STING
I’m being unfair here because I didn’t use my aircraft’s inflight entertainment at all, I just saw films playing on other people’s screens. Maybe when you do use it, when you are face-on to the screen, it looks better. But it definitely does not look brilliant and listening over the teeny wired headphones they give you, I’m not convinced they actually work, they always sound so bad. √ 017? IPAD PLAYING MISSION IMPOSSIBLE ON AIRCRAFT
Whereas I had noise-cancelling AirPods Pro and I used those to listen as I watched films and TV on my iPad Pro in utter glorious brilliance.
These are all in the TV app on iPad. Shrinking and Shmigadoon! – I adore Schmigadoon! – are Apple TV+ shows and Mission: Impossible there is a film I bought years ago in the iTunes Store. Before I left the UK, I downloaded a bunch of shows to watch.
Actually, Mission: Impossible wasn’t one of them. I’d apparently downloaded it long ago, possibly even just to see how downloading works, because it was a surprise to see it there. But I ended up watching it on the flight, so I was very happy.
Intentionally or not, you need to download videos before you leave. And as well as these shows I could use the TV app for, I have accrued countless DVDs over the years, including a startling number that I hadn’t got around to watching yet.
So I used this.
This is a 1TB external SSD. I plugged it into my office Mac, dragged over every ripped DVD video I fancied, chucked it in my bag.
Only certain iPads can use external drives. Right now the ship’s wifi is startlingly poor so I’m not able to confirm the details I think I know, so let me leave this to the description below. I do know for certain that the latest iPad Pro and slightly older ones, like mine, can do it, and I know that it needs the iPad Pro to have a USB-C connector. What I’m unsure about right at this moment is whether the latest iPad Air can do it too. I know older iPads have Lightning connectors and you can get a Lightning to USB-C adaptor, but that’s starting to get complicated. X 018 EXTERNAL DRIVE PLUGGED INTO IPAD
Anyway. It works with my iPad Pro. And we have a lot of sea days in a row coming up so I plan to pop this drive into my iPad, and catch up on anything I like. X 019 VLC PLAYING DOCTOR WHO
STING
I should say, I also popped dozens of screenplays onto that drive and so I had a lot of reading to do too. But just for completeness, let me briefly show you this. While you will never take my iPad out of my hands, I’ve been reviewing this Note Air2 e-ink tablet and so far on this holiday, I’ve read two novels on it, and am into a third. √ 020 NOTE AIR2 WITH “SHE SAID” ON IT

If you don’t already know it, think of it as a Kindle Scribe that works. I was sent it to review for AppleInsider dot com rather than 58keys so I’ll pop a link to that article in the description.
That’s it for this edition of 58keys. Thank you for watching and for keeping me company on a sea day. It is possible that I will now go off to explore the ship’s gym.
It’s possible.
Take care of yourself, write more — more than I have this week at least – and I’ll see you soon.