{"id":42727,"date":"2024-04-02T16:07:42","date_gmt":"2024-04-02T20:07:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/?p=42727"},"modified":"2024-04-02T16:07:42","modified_gmt":"2024-04-02T20:07:42","slug":"where-ipad-fits-in","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/2024\/04\/02\/where-ipad-fits-in\/","title":{"rendered":"Where iPad Fits In"},"content":{"rendered":"

Matt Birchler<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Well, nearly 2 months later and it turns out the Vision Pro replaced precisely zero of my iPad use cases, and every day I find myself thinking, “sure would be nice if I had an iPad right now.”<\/p>

[…]<\/p>

The iPad is not a good replacement for a Mac or an iPhone for me, but damn it all if I didn’t enjoy having it around for some situations where neither of those devices were perfect. It’s cliche, but the iPad was the G.O.A.T. for doing stuff on the couch.<\/p>

[…]<\/p>

A Mac that could run on iPad hardware would be a dream for me, but that product doesn’t exist today.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n

Rowan Johnson<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\n

It’s on these occasions that — like Matt — I miss my iPad. In fact, I would be incredibly reluctant to live without one in my life. Yet, the iPad still feels like it’s finding a place as far as work and productivity goes. So which is it? Is it an indispensable tool or is it a toy?<\/p>\n

[…]<\/p>\n

In theory, everything I’ve described above is possible to accomplish on an iPad. But MacOS is simply more reliable and capable. From obvious things, like the variety of software available on the Mac, to less visible things like the way MacOS handles app multitasking, I know that if I take my Mac on a job it will handle whatever gets thrown at it. I simply can’t say that same about my iPad.<\/p>\n

iPadOS has a “death by a thousand cuts” issue, where all of the little things it can’t<\/em> do results in the iPad being unreliable for anything particularly mission critical. On my iPad, if I start uploading a big video file to WeTransfer or Frame.io in Safari, the system will almost certainly boot it from memory before it’s finished the upload unless I keep that Safari tab open in front of me the whole time.<\/p>\n

[…]<\/p>\n

But my iPad can<\/em> be used as a teleprompter with the right accessory for my camera. It can be used for drawing sketches of my tech plans for live streams with an Apple Pencil. It can act as a monitor to allow a presenter to get Q&A questions from Slido, Zoom or Teams during a live stream; far more discretely than a laptop or computer monitor could.<\/p>\n

[…]<\/p>\n

In short, my iPad is a big iPhone, but with more room to breathe.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n

Via Eric Schwarz<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\n

Despite my M2 MacBook Air being an excellent piece of hardware, I don’t love<\/em> macOS in its current state as much as the earlier OS X days. It feels colder, unfriendlier, and in some ways like a bad iOS skin on top of older versions of Mac OS X—it does get used for all the heavy-lifting that is just too cumbersome on iPadOS.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n

Previously:<\/p>\n