Machine for the Future: iPad Experience in 2020
In these trying times people are trying new things or getting back to the old ones, and I am following suit and returning to blogging. I will try to post a couple of pieces around technology, design, film and music that I had in my head for some time, but I would like to begin with the small piece that I wanted to do in some form since last year, when I first got my hands on the 2018 version of the iPad Pro. Ever since I have bought it last year, I have been using it more and more as my main personal computing device, and in this story I wanted to explain why others might find this device more compelling than traditional laptops for most of everyday uses, and what issues it should solve to move even further. For the most part the things I will be talking about apply to most of the other iPads as well, such as the 2020 version of the iPad Pro which came out last week.
As an avid technology follower and especially as the person who is interested in Apple, I have been excited to get my hands on the third-generation iPad Pro when it was first introduced at WWDC 2018. It had an all new industrial design which eliminated the large bezels and the long staple of all iOS devices, the circular home button, in favour of larger screen-to-body ratio and the Face ID sensor, which was introduced in the iPhone X. The iPad Pro looked (and still looks) like a gadget from an 80’s sci-fi movie — it only lacks a smart and human-like personal assistant (sorry, Siri). The reviews of the devices were overwhelmingly positive, however there were two main gripes with this particular model — software and price.
At the time, iPad Pro was running iOS 12, which, while a good and stable, was not a very capable operating system. The multitasking paradigm was confusing, the file management was non-existent — you could not even connect a USB-drive to the device! And there was a multitude of other issues that made a pitch of a “new generation computer” quite hard to bite — the public got especially salty when Apple was asking them what the computer even is. The iPad was very capable in terms of hardware, but the hardware was powerless without capable software behind it. All of that made the initial asking price of €699 quite a big one — and that price did not include the Smart Keyboard and Apple Pencil, which were quite expensive as well. But hey, it’s a shiny new thing and I got my hands on a bonus, so what you’ve got to do?
Of course, it wasn’t only that. First of all, I was an original iPad mini user back in 2012–2013 and loved that device for reading, watching movies and occasional writing — and while iPad Pro was much, much more expensive, at the worst it could do those things, and do them well. But I have been especially curious to try and use the iPad as the main device for my personal needs, and see how much less I would be dependent on the PC for most of day-to-day tasks — doing bills and keeping a budget, communicating with friends and family, working on occasional visual or audio project or two. I have seen some successful cases of such transitions, in the real life and online, with the most prominent one being Federico Viticci from MacStories, who basically turned an “iPad-first lifestyle” into his occupation, and made it sound quite convincing over the years. And finally, there were some spells and rumors of where Apple was headed with the iPad, and while this should never be the only reason to purchase something, it was a good enough reason to give it a go.
In the first couple of months the device, which at the time I was using without any accessories, did feel like a luxury vessel for binging shows on Netflix and browsing Reddit and Twitter — the experience was much more enjoyable and personal than on a laptop, but outside the consumption realm the iPad did not work all too well. The apps were there, but text input for longer periods of time was tiresome on the touchscreen device, and I could not translate my muscle memory for some apps like Excel into the touchscreen world. I should’ve stuck with the iPad Air, probably.
But in the fall of 2019 Apple has unveiled the iPadOS — a fork of iOS 13 which brought many of the advanced features to company’s tablet platform. All of a sudden, the browser transformed from a crippled mobile version into a full-on desktop experience, which enabled most of the sites (like banking ones) to load properly. The new OS brought a download manager, an updated file browsing app, improvements to the internal automation system called Shortcuts, a support for USB keys.
This new OS and the purchase of a Smart Keyboard accessory brought a new perspective into the iPad. The system supports most of the keyboard shortcuts from its elder sibling, macOS, so the flow of using most of the apps improved significantly, allowing me to perform almost all my daily personal tasks on one device. These days I mostly use the iPad for watching videos from every imaginable streaming platform, for writing blog posts like this one or some short stories and for communicating with my friends and relatives over Zoom, FaceTime or Skype. The mobile nature of the device gives me the freedom to use in various situations — as a laptop when I’m outside (back when this was possible!), as a kitchen counter device whenever I’m cooking, and as a writing station with external keyboard when I’m sitting at my desk in the home office. Battery life on the device is sufficient for multiple days of light use — and the standby time on the iPad is far better than on the laptop that I have currently. I wish I got the version that supports cellular connectivity — and I think that everyone who wants to get an iPad should opt for that option too, as it greatly improve the on-the-go experience.
The quality of most apps is also a key contributor to what makes iPad stand out in comparison with regular laptops — App Store is a thriving community with great, hand-crafted applications that sometimes become synonymous with their use cases. I cannot imagine browsing Reddit without Apollo, looking at Twitter with something else rather than Tweetbot, or writing text without Ulysses. Some of these apps exist on the Mac, but not all of them, and in most cases they are better maintained and updated on iOS anyway.
Now, even with the developments that happened with the platform over the last year, I feel I need to address the “Pro” aspect of the device. Yes, it is faster than most of the computers that are currently on sale in terms of raw benchmarks, and yes, the apps are amazing, but the iPad is not as professional as one could hope by now. Applications such as Photoshop or Excel are getting more and more complex, but are still far away from their PC counterparts — and every single “Pro” app that is made by Apple (Logic, Final Cut Pro, Xcode) is not present on iOS as of yet. That is a big stumble block for a lot of professional users — but, most likely, even a regular person will probably find one or two edge cases that the iPad in its current form will not be able to suffice. It may be something trivial as using the apps that are not allowed in the App Store or syncing some devices that require special software, or something else — and the more cases are being closed with each system update, the more irritating is to have some quibbles left.
And yet, after using the iPad for a long period of time, I am very hopeful of where this platform is going. Software improvements and an increased variety of accessories support start to show the versatility of the device, its hybrid nature — a direction that Apple set for its tablet during its last couple of years. Microsoft is doing the same with the Surface line of devices, but from a slightly different angle, by adapting a legacy operating system to the new context. iPad, on the other hand, is a touch-first device that over the years morphed to include support for other contexts, such as keyboard and trackpad use — the latter of those was introduced recently with iOS 13.4. In the absolute majority of situations, the device can seamlessly move from being used by touch by itself to the keyboard and mouse operation while on a stand that turns the device into a miniature iMac.
This is what makes me really excited to use this device on the daily basis. It feels incredibly modern, bleedingly so. The iPad takes the touch interface paradigms we have been learning for more than a decade, since the original iPhone in 2007, and applies them to more and more everyday uses. When those conventions do not work, it is not afraid to fall back on the older and more precise controls of keyboard and mouse, which gives the best of both worlds. And while there is still a lot of work ahead, right now iPad Pro (and other iPads too) is a very capable device for both consuming content and getting some personal work done. Apple is in the unique position where it can enhance the iPad vision without any big push or deadline from the market — and based on company’s previous record, I am excited and eager to see how this vision will be developed in the next couple of years.
