Living with iPad

It’s been a few months of iPad Pro life now (in fact, nearly a year), and I find myself every day agreeing with what Drew Coffman said over on extratextuals:

Since the day it came out, the iPad Pro has positively changed the way I use technology. Although I spend the majority of my waking hours interacting with screens, I do not necessarily enjoy computers in the traditional sense. I dislike wires, yet I’m constantly surrounded by them. I can’t stand clutter, but I’ve never managed to escape it on the screen of my Mac, ending up having files upon files and folders upon folders not only on the Desktop but in Documents, Downloads, and elsewhere.

I work for a living in Solidworks on a company provided Windows machine connected to a wired keyboard, a wired mouse, and an old VGA wired monitor. It’s ugly, it feels outdated, and often just seems to get in the way of what I want to do. It’s not simple the way iPad Pro is. I find when I’m at home (and frankly anytime there’s something for work I can actually accomplish on my iPad) I now work on my iPad because it just feels more productive and more clutter free. And apps just feel better designed on iPad. They’re more user friendly and simple or intuitive in a way that desktop software never really has been.

Coffman continues:

Due to a multitude of issues just like those, it’s an understatement to say I have always preferred iOS to any other platform. With its software and hardware providing solutions to those niggling issues of mine, the iPad Pro is in many ways my dream computer. I never worry about charging it, aside from plugging it in nightly alongside my phone. The interface means that clutter is always hidden but any app or file is only a quick search away. The device is so lightweight that I can pick it up (along with the Smart Keyboard) and take a walk across town without giving it a second thought. It’s been my constant companion each morning as I sit at coffee shops to write, equally utilized each evening for reading, and has proven to be more than formidable during work hours

There’s a lot of great points in that paragraph. But I definitely want to highlight and agree with the fact that iPad Pro feels like my dream computer right now (I’m willing to accept that things will likely change in the future).

While I do still think about charging my iPad, it has way better battery life than my work laptop (try an hour of idle battery life on a good day) and even my MacBook Air (which now gets 10–11 hours in its age). So I almost never bring a charging adapter for my iPad with me. It can also be recharged with USB battery packs, which is incredibly convenient (yes, I know USB-C computers like the Chromebook Pixel and 2015, 2016 MacBook can do this too, but my point remains).

Relating to the charging point is the idea of ultra-portability that Coffman covers. In a way that even ultraportable laptops have never given me, the iPad Pro feels like a truly take anywhere, work anywhere device. It’s so lightweight that I don’t think about taking it along when I go places, where even my MacBook Air usually gets the boot for being to heavy. And an almost always with you computer is really powerful and freeing.

Another note from Coffman:

I don’t always write with a keyboard, though, preferring the focus that comes with holding a pen to paper. Though I try to always keep a notebook on my person, Notability, paired with the Apple Pencil, provides a shockingly similar experience, one I find myself using more and more every day.

One thing that I’ve noticed with iPad Pro is that I do really love handwriting notes using Apple Pencil in Notability and Apple Notes. It feels natural and simple in a way that keyboards have always sort of felt robotic and inhuman. I even ditched my physical notebook for notes, because digitized notes are so much more usable anyway, and the experience was so good. But I also love the Smart Keyboard. And the onscreen keyboard is surprisingly brilliant, often making me wonder if the Smart Keyboard was actually worth the investment. I could type (and do type) on this machine all day.

Lastly from Coffman:

The thing that excites me more than anything is that the iPad Pro is such a young platform. Even with its flaws, I’m still enjoying it more than any other computer I’ve ever used. There’s plenty of room for the iPad (and iOS in general) to grow — but I’m no longer using today’s technology while dreaming of tomorrow’s. I’m more than happy with what exists in the present.

This is the most important point, I think, because it appeals to the iPad haters and doubters that are rampant in the tech sphere right now. Yes, there are problems with iPad as a main computing machine (the system only being built to handle one document at a time for moving, sharing, etc is particularly annoying, and we as of now are still missing some of the current killer desktop apps [Solidworks, Sketch, and full Photoshop to name a few] just to site a few examples). But it will get better; this is only generation one. And most importantly, this is the first time when most people will be able to use iPad full time and not have to spend the whole time wishing for a better experience.

Something that I mostly haven’t worried about on iPad Pro, but that I’ve seen a lot of spilled digital ink about is the lack of a traditional file system with a Finder on iOS. I really like the take that Ben Brooks had over on his website:

Cling to your file systems all you want, sing the song that next year is the year of Linux. Mac OS X and Windows have already lost. Likewise iOS won’t be around forever, but I’m going to keep up with the change.

It’s the decade of iOS — it took me until more than half way through to realize it is all.

When I look at what people are clinging to on OS X, I see a group clinging to the very things which make computing more complex. We always give way to ease of use. Cars used to be more simple, and easier to fix, but harder to own and operate. Today cars are very complex, most people can’t work on them, but to operate and own a car is almost trivial.

This is the same shift we are needing to make with operating systems. Eschewing the idea that we need to be able to touch and edit every file, or we need a terminal for the OS. Instead we need something which is overly complex under the hood, so it may be trivial to operate for everyone else

In working with quote on quote normals, or people unlike us who simply don’t care about technology in the obsessive way we do, file systems are confusing and complex. iOS has a smart way of handling files that works for those people. It’s just confusing to those of us who spend forever carefully curating our file directories. It’s quite liberating not having to worry about file systems anymore. The only thing I still wish for is file tagging for more efficient searching. But again, iPad will only continue to get better.

I truly believe Apple is right when they said that iPad Pro is where personal computing is going.