Editing The Pen Addict 414/transcript (section)

== Canalea Pen Company Praise ==


'''Brad Dowdy:''' So here's the highest praise I can give the Canalea Pen Co. And this really goes for any pen in my collection. So we all get to the point where, in my case, I get about 10 pens inked up, and that starts to be too many, right? I have five or six inked up pens is my good place. So you start to get up to that 10 or 12 number, and I look at all the pens that I have inked up and say, okay, I haven't been using this one in a while. Should I ink it up? Or I want to, you know, there's another pen I want to ink up. Do I want to replace this one? So I just did this, I don't know, about a week or two ago. I was like, I've been using this Canalea Kona Cherry for a while, and I should rotate it out and use something else. So, and along with like, you know, three or four other pens that I wanted to clean out. And you pick up that pen, and like, I unscrewed the cap, and I was like, oh, yeah, this is filled with the orange ink, you know, the Robert Oster fire on fire that I make, and it's just like this good combination, and I'm writing with it, you know. It's like, I'm saying goodbye for now, because we're going to clean it out and store it away. And then I was like, nope, I just put the cap back on it and put it back in the case. Like, that's, like, nope, we're just going to keep it for now. So that's how that, that's how that works. And that's how I know, like, I have a good pen on my hands when, like, that's, when I, my intent is to rotate it out and use other pens, and then I actually don't. And that, the Kona Cherry's fallen into that category for me recently. It's kind of funny. All right, Myke, I am very interested on this next topic, because I'm very, let's go, I'm a novice at this next topic, and it's really, it's pen addict adjacent topic. It's digital planners. And we're only talking about this because of a screenshot you sent me of the Sumkin digital planner. We're going to, I'll elaborate on Sumkin and all this stuff, but I want to know what you sent me and why you sent me that and why you found it so amazing.

'''Myke Hurley:''' So yesterday, I think we're eating lunch and Adina turns to me and she's like, oh, I like the look of this Sumkin digital planner.

'''Myke Hurley:''' But, like, I'm not sure, like, if I would want to use it or it might be too complex for me to get into. We'll get into what that means in a little bit. So I, but I noticed something on the page and, like, I just had to say, like, can you just give me your phone a second? Because I saw some advertising copy that I kind of couldn't believe. So this is on their main page right now. It's not actually linked anywhere. So I can't link it for prosperity. So I'm actually going to include a screenshot of what I'm talking about in the show notes. And so they are making a digital planner, which ideally works best with an iPad and an Apple pencil. So in their hype for this, they have a picture of the Dita Rams transistor radio. Then they have an iPod next to it. And that's what caught my eye. I was like, are they saying this works on an iPod? So I read it and it says, copy says, we're in good company. 1960s. Dita Rams designs the T3 transistor radio for Braun. 2000s. Johnny Ive designs the iPod for Apple. 2020s. Theodore Soomkin designs the digital one task weekly planner for Soomkin. Get over yourself, Soomkin. Jeez. Get over yourselves. Oh, come on. You've changed the world, Soomkin. Congratulations.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Come on. This is something I would totally write for Knock, right? Like, we, it's like, you know, some comment about the Lamy 2000 and the Rotring 600 and the Knock Brasstown, blah, blah.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Like, if they are being serious, which I really hope that they're not, like, this is so egregious.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' There's no way there. There's no way they're being serious. I don't know, Brad. I really don't know. It's got to be somewhat tongue-in-cheek, right?

'''Myke Hurley:''' I genuinely hope so. Like, but like, there's nothing else about this page suggests that they're making any jokes.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I agree. I agree. But you can't read that and not think it's kind of egregious and hilarious. So, yeah, I, there's, there has to be some tongue-in-cheek with that.

'''Myke Hurley:''' But anyway, this is an interesting product for a variety of reasons. One of them, okay, so there's two things that, that, that interest me the most about this. One, that Soomkin is a paper planning, planner company, right? They build their company around offering paper products. And a really dang good one at the, in my opinion. Yeah, fantastic. Right? Like, I have bought multiple Soomkin products as gifts because they look so good. They're designed so nicely. Not to Adita Ram's level, but, you know, nice. And because frankly, the thing, no, I'm not going to get into it. Like, I can't, I can't do this all day. So, you know, it's, it, it's interesting that they've made this decision. But the other thing that is interesting to me is the price points and the multiple price points that they have. So there are four products you can buy. There is the trial version, which is a weekly planner. The weekly planner basic version. Then the tailored version. And then the tailored plus. And it starts from one euro to 55 euro to 200 euro to 500 euro. And I'm a little bit confused about the price points.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' So there's a lot to be confused.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I just want to say, Brad, the, the, that copy about the Dieter Ram's and Johnny Ive. It's also in the product descriptions for these notebooks. So they believe, they believe it.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Right? They're in. They're in. So this is not the first paper company to make digital products. Right? Moleskine is very famous for this. They do not have this type of thing, but they create their own apps, which are just really, really good. We're very well respected among the digital community. And there are digital companies that will make calendars like this. Digital calendars that you download and use in various apps. Let's just say, you know, on an iPad, even though they're, you know, can probably be used on many, many tablets and platforms and styles, I'm assuming. So I have more questions and answers about this in that I'm wondering how this works, period. So I went and bought the, the one euro trial. Right? We'll get, we'll get back to the price points because that's one of the prime topics I want to cover. So I bought the one euro trial last night. When Myke, Myke sent me this, I was just crying, laughing at Myke, Myke losing his mind over this. Then I was like, well, I want to try this product just to see what it is. And I'll take the, the one euro and buy the, buy the week. And the kicker is, which is not very clear. It's only on like one of the project pages. Like this is primarily designed to use with GoodNotes, which is an iOS and Mac app, a very, very good and popular one. So people who, you know, other digital companies who build types of calendar apps, journal apps, to-do list apps will make files that you can import into GoodNotes and use within them. Am I saying that somewhat accurately, Myke?

'''Myke Hurley:''' There are lots of apps. So GoodNotes is one. Notability is another one that I like. Honestly, like you could use this in, in Apple Notes. You could put it in and just draw on it with the, the, the pencil stuff that's in Apple Notes. Like there are lots of different applications on iOS that this will work with. I'm sure it will work with many applications or Windows if you have a Surface product with the pen. And, but they have chosen one where they know it works with this one. They haven't tested it widely.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' But at its core, it's a PDF file.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yes.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' And you can open that PDF file and essentially write on it, right? Like you're, you're made to use like your Apple Pencil, for example. Open this file, go to the date and then write your notes on there. Okay. So that's, that's the basic idea here. And the, I guess here's my biggest question. And it's just like a usability question. There's guidelines on these pages. And we're going to talk specifically about the pages contained within in just a second. But there's guidelines, but there's no restrictions on where you write. Is that correct? So let's say you have a monthly calendar in front of you and you see dates one through 30 in blocks. It's just like you would see a typical calendar. So I could go up to, you know, June 1st and write podcast with Myke. Correct. Right. And I, but there's nothing, there's no restrictions to how I write in that block. Is, is that the best way to put it? Right. It's not like individual lines. It's like a block, even though there might be dots or grids or lines to guide you, air quotes. There's no true guides for your pencil. There's not like a field, I guess is the way I'm working. It's just like if it was pen and paper. It's a flat file you're writing on top of. Yeah.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Like, you know, like nothing stopping you on a paper notebook either. Right. Right. Right. But like people, you know, some people I think would consider it differently if it's digital. They think, oh, like this is a digital product. It's not. It's basically just a digital piece of paper. And your Apple Pencil is a digital writing implement. So everything that you would do if you had pen and paper, you would do here too. So if you took your pen and you put it in the bottom right corner and drew a line up to the top left corner, you would draw a line across the entire page. Yes. Right.