I have been an iPad owner for a decade. The iPad 2 was my first iPad, but certainly not the last. I’ve upgraded to new models since then, more than once, but only when I thought it made sense. First of all, I only upgrade to a newer model when performance degrades too much (more on that later) – or in those rare instances where a substantial paradigm shift happens: obsoletion of 32-bit processors, switching from standard iPad to iPad Pro, etc.
In this article, I’ll review the main reasons why I prefer using iPads for so many tasks which used to be delegated to a PC or Mac before the iPad launched all those years ago.
So, if your primary device (”the daily driver”) is a laptop of some kind and you also use a recent premium smartphone, you might wonder what the appeal is: why add an iPad to the mix? Well, if that setup works out for you and the iPad is not something you need – I’m happy to hear you have a working setup. For me, though, the value in owning an iPad is all about having instant access to various useful internet services and apps, readily available at my fingertips in a portable device supported by a rich ecosystem of first- and third-party software alike.
The iPad is useful to me personally because it’s convenient and always on in stand-by mode, ready to serve. It offers everything I need in one integrated package: a screen much larger than what a regular smartphone provides, touchscreen input for easy navigation without extra peripherals wired up, wi-fi (and even cellular options), long battery life and a lot of the apps on the App Store are of high quality.
I am yet to find a device category to replace it (and I have no intention to do that).
When laptops ruled the livingroom
Before the iPad existed, some people used laptops on their tables or on their laps while sitting in a sofa. It served as a computer during the day and a media file playback machine late in the evening, wired up with video cables to the livingroom TV. Once Apple TVs and Chromecasts became popular, laptops went back to being computers, full time. Meanwhile, tablet devices are entirely silent and can easily rest flat on a table surface or be put away in the sofa if there’s room for it.
While 9.7 inch screens have served me well for a decade, I recently thought long and hard about going bigger next time. And so, my most recent purchase of an iPad was the M1 iPad Pro, 11 inch model. I wasn’t sure at first: will it turn out too bulky? Actually, no. Apple found a design that just works. The decision to buy the 11-inch model was the right one to make.
The iPad is also part of an ecosystem, as often is the case for Apple-centric electronic gadget owners: I use a Mac for things like programming or managing a lot of files at once in bulk. Even more so if I need to work with the command-line – something which unfortunately feels very unnatural and clunky for me from an iPad, regardless if I use a wireless hardware keyboard or not.
Even though iPads can indeed be used for doing programming, editing video and other computer-minded tasks, I look at what needs to be done and choose either the Mac or the tablet – whichever device I am most experienced in using for a specific task. I try to be practical in this process.
I look forward to getting another iPad in the future as well, but I aim for long upgrade cycles. I use computers and tablets for as long as they are useful to me. The Apple chips inside the units usually keep performing well for multiple years, as long as the software is optimized and quality-assured. However, Apple does not advertise a ”guaranteed updates” roadmap of OS support ahead of time. All we can do is look a long way backwards at their track records and extrapolate those numbers to try determine when a device will be considered obsolete in the future. Usually I find my iPads last between 4–5 years these days. From what I have been able to tell, Pro models are supported for even longer than that.
Maybe foldable Macs will debut eventually and change the way I view laptops and portable computing, but until then I’m going to continue defaulting to the iPad as my primary device.
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