2018 iPad Pro hands-on: Improving on the world’s best tablet

It's a new design, but the improvements that count are on the inside.

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[mmorales]

Sigh, just shut up and take my money.

 

[mmorales]

The other day I had an experience that struck me. I regularly use and iPad Pro and Macs for doing work.

I was making a set of lecture slides for a physics class, pounding away on my Mac in keynote. Then I wanted to sketch a drawing on a slide, which is a PIA on the Mac so I grabbed my iPad and drew on the slide (iCloud syncing and continuity), then bac to my Mac. I repeated this a few times as I worked through the lecture notes because I had the presentation open on both, then grabbed the iPad and used it to give the lecture (so I could sketch live, and the virtual laser pointer is steadier and allows me to face the class).

The Mac and iPad are good for different things, and I use the tool that is best for the job. As the cloud erases the idea of ‘where’ a file is and continuity erases the idea of it being open in one place, the Mac and iPad become different views into my data.

So is the iPad good for code development? No, it is terrible at that job. But a Mac is terrible for annotating PDFs and sucks on a plane. I think the future is not one computer, but a few, if you have a job with diverse tasks.

Tasks I’ve found that are much better on the Mac:
- Any kind of coding
- Long form writing (better keyboard, and much better ergonomics for typing)
- Data analysis
- File management
- Writing presentations (mostly)
- Mashups (moving graphs/photos/text from one program into a document in another program)

Tasks that are much better on the iPad:
- Annotating pdfs
- Reading articles/manuals/reference books
- Brainstorming or sketching in a free form way (sketching with the pencil)
- Giving presentations
- Working on a plane (fits on economy tray tables, battery life)
- Any kind of art or photo editing (pencil, better screen, better apps for my usage)
- Video meetings

So I can’t tell you the number of times I context switch in a day. And it is totally common for me to have a zoom telecon or a pdf on my iPad, and have it next to my Mac where I’m editing a document or coding or purging email. It is a tool, and because my data is not longer on either the computer or the iPad (its in the cloud), they both become tools with unique strengths.

So is the iPad a Mac replacement? I’m not sure that is the right question. Are there productivity tasks where an iPad is superior to the Mac? Yes. If you have a job where either the Mac (or PC) is better at almost all your tasks or the iPad is better at almost all your tasks, then there is a single computing device for you.

But for many of us, maybe the question should be are there enough tasks where the iPad is superior to the Mac that I should get one? Maybe both (on a slower upgrade cycle) is the right answer? I’d much rather have an iPad than a second monitor on my Mac. The iPad gives me a second monitor with unique capabilities that are important to me.

 

[mmorales]

Gee what a dilemma this Surface Pro user doesn't have!

Actually, I disagree. The Surface Pro is a good laptop and a solid tablet, but not great at either.

A Surface is really designed around the traditional idea that a document lives on one machine, so I’d better make the machine a 2-in-1 so I can interact with the document in two different modes.

But if I can have a document up on my desktop (tons of power, big screen, ergonomic desk) and my iPad (great tablet), for me this is actually better than having a Surface Pro. Neither machine is a compromise.

This way of work is really enabled by the cloud and simultaneous editing (e.g. continuity and the like). The mental model is that document does not live on a machine at all, so I can have two machines working on the same document. Not so two people can work on it simultaneously—that’s a side benefit—but so I can work on it using multiple tool sets.

Now getting the cloud synching and multiple editing to be seamless is hard from a software POV, and there are still rough edges. But, I’d argue that whole idea of a 2-in-1 is predicated on the old idea of a document on a local hard drive. Why have a convertible machine with the inherent compromises if the document lives on the cloud?