Yesterday we posted Matt Gemmell’s take on this iPad Pro-bashing Twitter thread from The Outline’s Joshua Topolsky:
https://twitter.com/joshuatopolsky/status/879512768206053376
Another take, this from John Gruber:
I agree with almost every single word in Topolsky’s thread — but I also think he’s completely wrong.
And:
People like me and Topolsky — and millions of others — are the reason why Apple continues to work on MacOS and make new MacBook hardware. I can say without hesitation that the iPad Pro is not the work device for me. I can also say without hesitation that the iPad Pro with a Smart Keyboard is the work device for millions of other people.
Couldn’t agree more. I live in both worlds, with half my time spent in iOS and half in macOS. I would not want to lose either, but I don’t yet see a clean way to combine them into a unified product.
To me, iOS is clean and simple, sophisticated without being clumsy, heavy, or onerous, a perfect information consumption device.
The Mac is like strapping on a power suit, one designed to let me create all sorts of content and customize my experience with powerful software and hardware add-ons, and with an interface as complex and macro-laden as I want to make it.
I like them both, appreciate having them both, find it easy to move between the two worlds. And if the day comes where iOS does everything I need for both worlds, I’ll gladly go there.
All of you guys make your living using computers to do stuff that requires upper tiers apps and services. The vast majority of the rest of us – with normal day jobs, hobbies, interests other than tech – don’t require all that complexity. The iPad, and IOS, are infinitely more usable and satisfying to most of us, while legacy systems – desktop and laptop computers – have much higher learning curves, complex ways of doing things, costs – initial and ongoing – and are frustrating and cumbersome to use.
If you lived in the real world, day to day, maybe you’d understand. My struggle used to be between Android and IOS. The new iPads Pro and IOS 11 and Android’s lack of quality tablets have resolved my struggle.
71 year old retired physician.
If I had to have a single device it would be a MacBook Pro running Mac OS. I do think the iPad Pro is a spectacular device and I have one and love it. But, I simply can’t do many of the things I do on my Mac on the iPad. It’s less about power, more about using a mouse vs multi-touch and the awkwardness of text editing in iOS. I touch type and like a hardware keyboard but again, using that same hardware keyboard with an iPad I find awkward by comparison.
And, most of us who are Mac-first types have been using the Mac for a long enough time so that the tool has fallen into the background; we take it for granted as we do our work. For a new user, of course the iPad is the way to go, very shallow learning curve and now with plenty of power.
Topolsky suffers from the same disease as many tech pundits: he is always perpetually confusing capability and utility.
Laptops have capacity that the ipad lacks (and vice versa, but never mind). But this fact is utterly irrelevant to the question of whether or not an ipad can do the jobs that one uses a laptop to do or not.
A motor scooter lacks many of the capacities of a car. It can’t carry nearly as much cargo, it lacks airbags, it can’t go as fast. However, for certain commutes, either one will get you to work and back home each day. For certain commutes, deciding which one you’re going to use becomes a matter of personal preference and finances rather than capability.
If an ipad can get the job done properly, you can use it to do the job, even if it is less capable by certain metrics than a laptop that can also get the job done properly. It all depends on what you need to do.
Deriding an ipad for its lack of capability is utterly irrelevant to getting the job done. If both devices can get your jobs done, then deciding what you wish to use is a matter of personal preference, finance, comfort, and familiarity, and it has nothing whatsoever to do with whether or not one device can do an arbitrary list of things the other can’t.
Going through this Josh guys tweets it is obvious he is full of himself and can not think outside his own little world. Just because he hates the iPad and sees no use for it doesn’t mean it is worthless. My wife has 100% replaced her laptop with an iPad Pro and she absolutely loves it. She is able to do things with it that she could not do with a laptop. Things like walking a warehouse taking notes and inventories with the Pencil. No way to do this with a laptop easily. So again, people like Josh are clueless outside their own world. But really I think his biggest problem is he likes to hear himself talk (or tweet in this instance).
I want Apple’s Pro apps on the iPad Pro. To me this is a missed opportunity to really show off the iPad’s power.
*I know this isn’t necessarily the best place to put this, but I’m doing it anyway.
Use whatever you like in whichever way you choose. No one can tell where the cash came from when the drawer gets counted.
You had me until “real world,” where you did almost exactly what you seemed to accuse “you guys” of doing in your first paragraph.
And “you guys” encompasses a lot of different sorts of computer work that doesn’t require “upper tier” stuff, as you umbrella it.
so many folks just don’t look beyond their desk. Not everyone needs a laptop, not everyone needs a computer at all. take my grandfather. He wants to check email, “text”, look at photos of his grandkids and great grandkids, pay his bills online, play a few games and watch some movies with the occasional FaceTime. he can do all of that just fine with a plain old iPad Air and an Apple TV.
i don’t necessarily want Apple’s Pro apps on the iPad Pro but a scaled down version with perhaps a controller mode for the computer version could be good. Same with things like Adobe’s Creative Suite