Jean-Louis Gassée takes on the topic of the iPad as a computer replacement in this excellent writeup for Monday Note. It’s a thoughtful read, touching on a number of different aspects of the iPad as a replacement for the Mac.
One particular point that resonates for me:
The iPad Pro’s Smart Keyboard is ingenious but lacks a trackpad. To Be Sure™, there is the iPad’s touch screen, but ergonomists know how a real trackpad is preferable to constantly raising one’s hand to the screen.
If the iPad Pro is used one-handed, typing is slowed. If it is placed on its stand to make typing easier, the touchscreen becomes harder to use, nowhere near as rock steady as the MacBook or MacBook Pro.
Is that divide intentional, to prevent cannibalization of Mac sales?
Apple’s iPad stylus, the Pencil, is an improvement on Microsoft’s in one regard: It doesn’t need an AAAA battery; it can be recharged directly from the iPad or with a gender-changing adapter to a standard Lightning/USB cable. But the tiny adapter is soon lost, and the Pencil rolls away far too easily. Microsoft’s stylus contains a magnet and conveniently sticks to the side of the Surface tablet.
These design misses seem obvious.
iOS is “growing windows”, a more visible file system and, in a soon to be available version, will provide easier access to documents on a Mac Desktop or Documents folder. We’ve yet to see if these improvements help Mac users actually create more on their iPads, or if they merely make life more pleasant for those fortunate enough to commute between the two devices.
Will the next generation of iPads cross the chasm and offer the interface power and usability of the Mac? Will the next generation of MacBook Pros grow closer to the iPad? What if the iPad added a keyboard case with the ability to attach a trackpad and mouse? What if the next MacBook Pro had a touchscreen and could split like the Surface? Will the Mac ever run iOS apps? Or, perhaps, iOS itself?
As is, my iPad and Mac live different lives, with the common thread of email and web browsing. My created documents almost always live on my Mac. Clearly, that is changing for other folks, as they do professional design work on their iPad Pros and create and edit music there as well.
The root of the tree is still the Mac, though. That shows no sign of changing. Why? You can create a Mac app on a Mac. To create an iOS app, you have to turn to the Mac as well.
I don’t get it. You add a keyboard and a stylus and you negate all the advantages of a hand-held device, then you handicap it with an OS that was designed from the ground up to be simple and to use touch. From my perspective an iPad is a superb device for consuming, but pretty crappy for creating. If you want a keyboard get a Macbook, with a significantly more sophisticated, mature and flexible OS. No matter how much Apple may want it to be, an iPad is NOT a Mac, nor does it need to be.
why would you even ask that? it’s a dumb question because Apple execs have specifically addressed this question and consideration numerous times. if you don’t know the answer, I have to seriously question what sort of Apple writer you are.
nor is it trying to be a Mac – a point you painfully miss. an iPad is a car, a Mac is a truck. most of the time we don’t need trucks, we need cars. but as Schiller said, when you do need the Mac it’s there and they hope you buy one of those too.
your tired “consumption only!” trope is weak. as an office worker emails and reviewing/editing spreadsheets are a big part of my day, which iPad is fine at. I also create videos for family. most of comments on websites are written on an iPad, become content for you, and are consumed by whatever you use. there’s a piece today about Stranger Things poster illustrations being drawn on an iPad Pro, so it’s definitely useful for artists too.
“an iPad is a superb device for consuming, but pretty crappy for creating”
http://www.loopinsight.com/2016/08/08/stranger-things-poster-artwork-created-on-ipad-pro/
iOS Finder and iOS Preview and I’m in.
“The root of the tree is still the Mac, though. That shows no sign of changing. Why? You can create a Mac app on a Mac. To create an iOS app, you have to turn to the Mac as well.”
A lot of what you said makes sense, but then there’s this. Dave, you should know better. In 1984 the root of the Mac was the Lisa. How long did that last?
Presumably, a full featured Xcode for iPad isn’t coming out this year. But it might be next year.
“My use-case is universal.™”
Also, I believe adding a mouse to iOS would be just as disruptive to it — and not in the good sense of the word people are throwing around now — as adding multitouch gestures to the Mac screen would be. But without the benefits.
Short of basic touch support, I can’t imagine bothering adding that to my applications. Mind you, that might be (almost) enough.
Until the smart keyboard adds a trackpad, the iPad is utterly useless for spreadsheet creation. Just add touch sensitivity to all the key tops so I can lightly drag my fingers over them to navigate the screen. Reaching out to touch the screen is more effort than a trackpad (or virtual one like I described).
The iPad is fine for creation unless the app requires a trackpad (like Excel). Too, Microsoft is still offering up a crippled tablet version of Excel.
I use my iPad for Excel…with a mouse. Not jailbroken.
Honestly, while I’m not an Excel user I find it hard to believe that Microsoft’s Mac/iOS division shipped an utterly useless application.
For spreadsheet creation, it’s frustrating as hell. For viewing and minor edits of existing spreadsheets, there’s some utility. For power users — forget it.
“but ergonomists know how a real trackpad is preferable to constantly raising one’s hand to the screen.”
I use my iPad 2 in a ZAGGFolio and with my elbow sitting on my desk it is very comfortable to touch the screen as needed. My arm would be in the same position with my hand lifted to use a trackpad. You don’t lift your entire arm to use the touchscreen, you simply use your elbow as a swivel and raise your hand just a bit more, it’s easy and comfortable (and it works while sitting on a couch as well). Of course there’s less movement needed for a trackpad, but then there’s also the headache of translating trackpad movements to the screen. I find it much easier and quicker to just touch the screen.
Ah, that makes sense. Though now that’s defining content creation pretty narrowly. Entering information into a spreadsheet is at least data collection. Building the formula in spreadsheets seems more application creation.
But whatever. I have no problem with the idea that it’d be easier with a mouse/trackpad. 🙂
Man, I cannot imagine running an IDE like XCode on an iPad screen, even the 12″ pro.
You can either have a mouse pointer on the screen or touch. Trying to support both simultaneously is an inelegant mess. Microsoft specializes in inelegant messes, so if you want one go get a Surface.
From my perspective an iPad is a superb device for consuming, but pretty crappy for creating.
…depends on what you’re creating. I had to come up with a pretty big document for work. the pro w/ keyboard attached was pretty much all I needed to get the words on paper.. went back to desktop for editing and formatting.
I surprised myself after a couple days of of the keyboard cover, i was roughly as fast/accurate as i am on a laptop(which is a little lower still than a real desktop keyboard).
If you can do most of your creating w/o a mouse an ipad pro is fine
And, to keep comparing the Surface and iPad (I don’t have a Pro, but this aspect is not Pro-specific): The iPad always wakes from sleep, instantly.
The Surface is terrible about it, even after copious updates and “fixes” from Microsoft.
It’s a really nice piece of hardware in and of itself – but even with MS writing the drivers and owning the OS and making the hardware they still can’t make it reliably wake up when you open the case.
It makes me rather unhappy to have spent as much as I did on it … but I also refuse to buy a laptop without a touch screen, so as much as I like the MacBooks (and happily use an iMac), I’m not buying an Apple laptop anytime soon.
I’m with you on iOS Preview. PDF handling on iOS is a mish-mash at best. The default application for PDF’s is .. iBooks, WTF?! And there is nothing at all to handle *png, *gif, *.jpg, etc.
Almost all the third party products in this area are garbage, and the fact that there is literally an OCEAN of them in the App store points to the need for a standard app like Preview to handle it all.
I hope iOS never gets a finder though. Its not only not necessary, the Finder in macOS is probably the worst designed, funkiest, most flaw-ridden piece of kit in the whole OS and pretty much always has been too.
This is a hilarious comment because Excel is a spreadsheet application. If there is any type or category of application that LITERALLY never needs a mouse or a trackpad, it’s a spreadsheet application.
Remember, spreadsheets were “king” in the days before trackpad was invented, before the mouse was invented, and before the graphical user interface was invented too.
Days, I’m thinking you never experienced perhaps.
ikr? I used a keyboard on my iPad back in 2011 through the USB to 30pin connector. No extra software needed.
Please extend “trackpad” to include a mouse. Regardless, the tablet experience w/Excel is awful. Try it. And yes, I remember Multiplan, Lotus, etc. The fact is, the Excel wants to utilize touch on iPad and with the constant toggling between the keyboard and touch, not to mention the on-screen 10 key, it’s a terrible experience.
FACT: I haven’t met ONE person who uses Excel on iPad for anything but the simplest of edits.
I disagree with your analogy. An iPad is more like a scooter, while a Mac is more like a car. A scooter is fine on sunny warm days but for year-round, day to day use, you need a car.
By the time you add a keyboard you’re already working with the weight and size of a Macbook, with the added benefit of a mature, flexible OS. I love using by iPad. I use it almost as much as my Macs, but whenever I try to create anything with it, using Pages, Mail, Safari or anything else I am always banging against a dumbed down version of the application or the lack of flexibility and customizability of the OS. I’d really love an iPad running MacOS instead of iOS.
Honestly, adding more screen space doesn’t really do a good job of fixing Xcode’s UI. It makes it tolerable, but it needs something else. Multitouch gestures could be what it needs.