There are apologists who will insist you can do real work on an iPad—if you get the iPad Pro, and the keyboard case.
Which ends up being about as expensive and about the same size as a MacBook Air. And for any work that requires any sort of interface density, or complete access to the file system, or fast I/O, or…I’d way rather have a Mac.
I was a pretty staunch opponent of the iPad for a very long time. Tablets were clearly a consumption device, and I've always disliked Apple's penchant for proprietary connectors.
However, things have shifted enough that on the artistic/creative front, the iPad is actually a really nice thing to have. When the iPad Air 4 (I think? The iPad ecosystem has terrible nomenclature) came out, it not only had a USB-C connector, but worked with the Apple Pencil 2. I did something I thought I'd never do - I bought an iPad.
There are music & synthesizer apps that only make sense on a tablet, and they can talk with other music apps on the iPad pretty seamlessly too these days. And with the Apple Pencil 2, it's like a magic art pad. I've been sketching and drawing and 'painting' like I haven't done in 20 years.
And I can charge it with the same cable that charges my Pixel 6, my work-issued Macbook pro, or my wife's Thinkpad's power supply.
It certainly took long enough, but I no longer think that iPads are pure consumption devices.
Now... would I try to use it the way I use a laptop? Oh, hell no.
> I was a pretty staunch opponent of the iPad for a very long time. Tablets were clearly a consumption device
I have no doubt that the iPad is great at the things you list in your post, and I wish I had any skills that would justify buying an Apple Pencil.
However, I don't understand why Apple and we on HN are so focused on making the iPad "more" than a consumption device. What's wrong with consumption?
If I were to buy another iPad, it'd be for reading PDFs (terrible on e-book readers), for listening to podcasts and audiobooks, or to let my children play an educational game sometimes. But Apple keeps investing in productivity features while their Books app seems moribund at times (widget please?), their Podcasts app is an ongoing disaster, and they still don't have a read-only guest mode for children or friends. iPadOS has gotten so "pro" that buying an iPad for grandparents is not the no-brainer it used to be, either.
For all the derision that iPads get for being couch potato devices, I wish they were better at being that.
>However, I don't understand why Apple and we on HN are so focused on making the iPad "more" than a consumption device. What's wrong with consumption?
A big part of what interested me about computers was the ability to get in there and do stuff with them. Whether that was from the perspective of software - cracking open a hex editor, or learning to write code, make music, edit photos, etc. etc., or from a hardware perspective. Having standard connections that allow for modular changes to my computer, whether that meant dropping in a Firewire card to take advantage of professional audio and video equipment, swapping in SSDs as they become more affordable, upgrading RAM, changing out power supplies, and so on - all accessible with a Phillips head screwdriver. Lately I've been thinking that it's actually had an influence on the houses I've bought and lived in.
Nothing about the original iPad appealed to me. It was a big iPhone, and I already had an iPhone. Everything that I wanted to do on a bigger screen, I could already do on a bigger screen, whether that was my laptop, my desktop machine, or a television. A lot of my peers bought iPads, only to find them kind of... extra. Not great for watching videos, not as easy on the eyes as an e-ink Kindle, not great for listening to music - okay for browsing the web, until you hit Flash, which was still not uncommon at the time, especially for leisure activities like the kind of games that have become dominant on the iOS platform. For me, when the iPad came out, it was a solution looking for a problem. It wasn't for me. Now it is!
What's funny is, now I almost feel like it's too easy to "create" - there is an unfathomable amount of video content being produced or remixed or stolen & reposted, every single second, to YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, Reddit, you name it. There's amazing stuff coming out of that, for sure, but they're needles in an ever-growing haystack. Wild times.
Human beings are more than vessels for SV douches to make billions they don’t need.
Or in the case of Peter Thiel (hello HN), to make billions to use to go out of their way to make the world a more miserable place.
Computers should empower people. They made them more than they were. The likes of the iPad go out of their way to take a device that someone, nearly everyone on this site, can learn from and grow from, and replace it with one that works hard to prevent you from exercising any brain cells. It says pleasure comes from being a potato, when the people who created it know that the pleasure in their lives can from being active creators.
> Human beings are more than vessels for SV douches to make billions they don’t need.
If I buy an iPad to read PDFs or books, many of which are free, I am hardly making SV douches more money than when I buy a "Pro" device for productivity.
Ironically, the idea that people shouldn't read or listen (consume), and instead just build build build, also strikes me as a very Silicon Valley idea.
I really don't know what it is about the iPad that makes it the target of this discussion. I have never heard anyone say the same things about e-book readers, or headphones that don't come with a mic for content creation.
A consumption device is nothing more than something designed to extract money out of a person.
And no, being productive is not a SV idea. In fact, it’s only recently (in the past 50 or so years) that buying something that doesn’t have a productive purpose is even considered.
But I’m not surprised that SV douches have convinced themselves that they’ve created the concept of being productive.
I would understand that objection if people could only own a single computing device. But us who want the iPad to be a dumb consumption device probably own a proper computer for creation. In fact, having an iPad that is supported by all the big companies (native apps, DRM, ...) makes it easier to use a main operating system that runs none of the SV junk.
From my POV, it is really the opposite. People who want the iPad to be a universal computing device are the problem, because they'd be willing to move to a locked-down platform if only it had Xcode or whatever.
I think even today there are probably a lot more creatives using cheap wacom tablets than iPads and developing music on actual computers. Apple hasn't even bothered getting logic pro on the ipad.
And to your point, the iPad I bought isn't a replacement for my computer. For music, it serves as a playable instrument. On the visual side of things, I draw in Procreate, and then export to PDF, to complete the work in Photoshop. It's not a replacement, but it finally serves well as augmentation. I even bring it along on work trips to function as a 'second monitor' for my Macbook.
I would get on just fine without an iPad, but getting one last year was one of the most satisfying tech purchases I've made in a long time.
I really wish I could get an Apple-flavor Surface. I don't want to buy two devices that are basically identical inside when I just want a laptop with the occasional ability to use it as a tablet to read an article or write some notes.
To be clear, you can absolutely do real work if your work is natively done with a stylus, e.g., illustrating or pen-and-paper math. These are of course uncommon.
As a Logic Pro user, I find the Logic Remote on both the iPad and the iPhone to be an absolute dream to use. Low latency, (mostly) intuitive, clutter-free and customizable interface, and lets you focus on creating music instead of fiddling with the mouse with a guitar in hand.
Point is, I’m using it as a periphery device and it absolutely kicks ass in that regard. I wish they would do more of that.
I like iOS better than macOS. Has pen input. The Pro has TB3, granted 1 port but better than the 2015 MacBook. Most of it's problems are completely artificial limitations placed there by Apple. If they just loosened those I'd pick the iPad every time. It's a more flexible form factor held back by software to avoid cutting into Mac and App Store revenue.
That seems to be a conscious decision on the part of Apple. They also live in the real world, where getting parts is getting harder. So in order to not having to squeeze iPhone and Mac sales they squeezed the iPad ones. We bought our Mum an iPad. Was supposed to be for Christmas but delivery was mid January >4 weeks. Try buying one now: 5-6 weeks.
iPhones you'll get tomorrow. Macs in two weeks. That's an intentional decision.
I think that has more to do with 2020/2021 being unusually good years for the Mac in particular. Computers in general have been selling well due to the pandemic, and the hype surrounding the move to ARM generated a lot of sales. Anecdotally I know a number of people who upgraded laptops earlier than they otherwise would have due to rave reviews of the M1.
