Dex

Big hearted fluffdragon...

...fictional ex-90s platformer mascot, nerd, plural, Ξ˜Ξ”.


Masto 🐘
scalie.club/@Dex

As of the time of writing, we're about 8 hours from Apple announcing new iPads - something which they haven't done in a few years.

Rumours are swirling of nicer displays, and significantly higher prices for the high-end models - but also a recurring prediction; that this time will be the time Apple allows for running Mac software on them.

And I hope that's finally true. Because if it isn't, it'd be very hard to be interested in models beyond maybe the Mini.

I love convertible hardware. An old job gave me a Surface Pro 2 as a work device - perfect when the job description occasionally called for going out to branch offices and troubleshooting things on site - and I fell in love with the form factor. Next few personal laptops were Surfaces, until I needed something with a little more oomph for running VMs.

In July 2020, due to the event, I decided to buy the iPad Pro and Magic Keyboard combination - it was the peak of the pandemic, I was watching a lot of videos, it made sense to have a nice screen to watch them on, along with being something ultra portable for when times were better. For a while, I tried to make it work as a general daily driver, the same way I had with those Surfaces.
And I just couldn't.

The iPad can do a lot of things pretty solidly. But the second you try and do something it's not meant for, it hits a brick wall.
The only workaround is generally to connect it to another device.
Eventually, you just start using that other device for things the iPad is meant to be better at too, because it's more convenient to not have to switch.

These days, our iPad has three specific uses:

  1. Watching a friend's Discord stream while we're on the exercise bike.
  2. It's still our travel machine for when we go to places - when work was on their brief return to the office stint, it could still easily fit in even if we had to bring both work laptops.
  3. Occasional scribbles in Procreate or Freeform.

There's no reason for using it for anything else when the Mac is usable for so much more of what we need to do.

But I still long for the portability and flexibility of the hardware without the compromises of the software. The Mac I've actually wanted since the start of the Apple silicon transition is a new version of the no-adjective Macbook with the problems of that machine fixed, to completely replace the iPad for point 2 above.
An iPad with a MacOS escape hatch would be even better at that job - especially if it still also worked with Vision Pro's virtual display for more space when needed.

But of course, this is a rumour that has gone round before. Until it happens, the story of the iPad - the thing every review will say - will always be "incredible hardware that is being held back by its software".
Once they're finally shown to stop crying wolf, that's when I'll possibly care about iPad hardware again.


You must log in to comment.

in reply to @Dex's post: