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Off-topic, but it's an interesting choice to pluralize "iPads Pro", especially in a sentence where it could easily be singular ("The iPad Pro outperforms MacBooks computationally"). After all, there aren't different tech specs on the different iPads Pro (of the same generation). They just differ in screen size, IIRC.
i think the most lacking features are related to pencil interactions ( which still can't be used to enter text in iOS text fields easily), but i feel it's really slowly getting there
>By 1994 almost all graphic designers and illustrators were using computers for work. The iPad is a great device but, it isn't essential to anything or anyone. If tomorrow there where no iPads anymore, we would all just get on with our lives.
That's because it's a consumption device, despite the heroic efforts of some people to prove otherwise. If I want to reply to an email I'll walk upstairs to my real computer rather than attempt to do it on our iPad. As Joey Hess said[1] "If it doesn't have a keyboard, I feel that my thoughts are being forced out through a straw." [1] https://usesthis.com/interviews/joey.hess/
For me the problem of the iPad is that it's merely inconsistently better at a slew of entertainment/consumption based activities but for everything else it's worse than any decent laptop. As even consumption-based workflows may involve intermediate bursts of typing, and just to extend the iPad's range into more uses I am tempted to have a keyboard -- but then it almost nears the inconvenience of carrying a laptop.
IMO to be revolutionary the iPad should convince you not to buy a laptop, or it should be as light as the kindle so that you would consider reading it Star Trek style for 20-30 minutes per day, as even the iPad mini is a bit weighty. Right now with the focus on iPad Pro and Air I think Apple is going toward the former.
The iPhone had competition below it, from feature phones and Blackberrys. But there was nothing above it. Similarly, the Mac was launched into a very nascent market, where there were competitors (PCs), but it wasn't facing competition from above and below in the same way the iPad was.
Perhaps the iPad would have done better and grown faster if it had been made by a company that wasn't worried about cannibalizing iPhone or Mac sales. But surely part of the reason the iPad has been as successful as it has is that it runs the same apps as iPhones and has attracted devs who might not have otherwise been interested.
Why does everything have to be revolutionary? Pretty much everybody I know who has an iPad love using their device. It's a wonderful tool for media and web consumption, it just works for that use case very, very well. It can be used effortlessly, for multiple hours a day. Does it really have to do more?
Personally I just don't use split-screen apps on the iPad, but I'm not the least inconvenienced by the feature being around, behind some strange gestures I don't really bothered to learn.
This is a very good take on the subject. I love the iPad, I use it all the time. It's an unbelievably good piece of hardware with a number of really good software applications. It is a surprisingly good thinking and note-taking tool, it's the best tool (period) for reading datasheets (or any large PDF documents), it is a great music workstation if you connect a MIDI keyboard and/or an external USB audio interface. Bu…
>By 1994 almost all graphic designers and illustrators were using computers for work. The iPad is a great device but, it isn't essential to anything or anyone. If tomorrow there where no iPads anymore, we would all just get on with our lives.
That's because it's a consumption device, despite the heroic efforts of some people to prove otherwise. If I want to reply to an email I'll walk upstairs to my real computer rather than attempt to do it on our iPad. As Joey Hess said[1] "If it doesn't have a keyboard, I feel that my thoughts are being forced out through a straw." [1] https://usesthis.com/interviews/joey.hess/
Text selection is the most broken thing to me on an ipad. It makes any kind of editing pretty much unusable. Great device to browse the web from my bathtub and watch movies on a plane, but haven’t found any other usage.