I began my march down memory lane by watching the iPad introduction which also happened to be Steve Jobs’ last major product announcement before he passed away. As many know, iPad was the personal touch computer for the rest of us and the iPhone came before it simply due to Apple’s ability to get that to market faster. iPad came before iPhone if you were in a lab in Cupertino in 2004 as a fly on the wall.
My first post about iPad came January 29th 2010. In it I wrote,
My plan is to buy the iPad, try it for a month and if I notice that I’m rarely using the MacBook Air (like less than 30 minutes a day), i’ll scrap it and be iPad only but I need to make sure it really truly fits into my life as a justifiable productivity tool. If I still find myself grabbing the MacBook Air instead of the iPad, I’ll sell the iPad.
I think the device can do what I need, 10x faster than the iPhone but probably 2x slower than my MacBook Air but the portability and convenience of the iPad and investment if lost or stolen is much more valuable despite the slight drop in productivity.
The iPad is still 2X faster than iPhone (when it’s new) and is computationally on par with a MacBook Pro now but as mentioned in my statement above, the portability is worth the slight drop in productivity and this stands true today.
On April 5th, I used an iPad for the first time,
Typing with your thumbs in portrait mode is dumb. This thing was meant to sit on your lap in landscape mode when typing.
I wish it had a camera (front or rear-facing). It’s thick enough that a camera would fit no problem. I don’t know why Apple didn’t include that.
The thing was fast! Everything was instant. I was amazed at just how fast everything was. What an awesome experience.
iPhone apps look like crap. At 1x or 2x, they look bad. I won’t be using any iPhone apps on this thing even though iPad apps are so expensive, I don’t care. It’s just bad. Trust me.
Everything but the camera comment remains true today.
My official iPad review didn’t come until August, which was released April 3rd but I waited until May to purchase:
I think it’s great for kids. It’s great for people who aren’t great with computers. It’s a good casual machine for web research but once you want to tweet out that URL, add it to your blog, add context and attach a photo to that blog post….you’re going to just grab your Mac. Next time you want to make changes to albums you’ve uploaded to Flickr, skype with a friend or write a blog post like I am now, it’s going to be about your Mac. Not iPad.
This also remains true today.
Before I initiate a recap I wanted to link to a few reviews I’ve posted over the years:
- iPad 2 Review (purchased at the Pop-Up Store Apple created during SXSW almost exclusively to sell iPads that went on sale during the festival)
- iPad 3 Review (everyone likes to say this was a great iPad but this was a terrible iPad. It ran hot, had a bad battery life and Apple basically took an iPad 2 and crammed a retina screen into it.
- Some talk about my iPad Air here
- iPad Air 2 Review (which remains my favorite iPad ever even though the iPad Pro 2018 is better in every way)
- iPad Pro Unboxing (never posted a review)
- iPad mini 4 which has been great but it’s only used as a house iPad to control IOT devices
…looks like I never reviews the iPad Pro 2018 even though it’s my favorite iPad ever from a performance & capability standpoint. Actually, before I start a decade-retrospection, the current iPad Pro (released in 2018) is fantastic. It’s gorgeous, the design is amazing, affixed to a Brydge Pro Keyboard, it shines and with an Apple Pencil 2 installed, it is remarkable. I use it on flights, trains, taxi rides and in cafes. I use it in meetings and take it with me as my only computer on week long motorcycle trips where I still need to send out a proper email w/ a real keyboard but don’t have the space to bring a $4,000 MacBook Pro with me. I love the iPad Pro but it’s not my favorite iPad from beauty & emotion. That will always be the iPad Air. The iPad Air was my favorite iPad to pickup and hold, the iPad Pro is too utilitarian and functional to be beautiful.
In fact, this is the favorite photo of an iPad ever and it was simply because I loved (and miss) the iPad Smart Cover that was more minimalist in full grain leather on my iPad 2:
…dang, that was a big pour of whiskey.
Anyway, the iPad hasn’t changed much since 2010. It’s larger, thinner, lighter and 1000x faster with amazing optics, FaceID, pencil support, full keyboard support and applications that do more with a screen than we could imagine but it’s still not a computer. Apple’s “What’s a computer?” Ad is tone-deaf to how limited iPad is. I use mine every day but now more than ever, even though the kind of work I do hasn’t changed much, iPad is still designed into a corner of limited functionality and it has to be that way because it’s the computer for the rest of us, more than the Mac ever was. Anyone can grab iPad, open Safari and use Facebook in a safe environment free of viruses and malware and tracking. They don’t need to plug in a keyboard or sign on to AOL they just tap iPad’s screen and it comes alive. Many will never have to touch the power button as iPad is always there. It’s not instant-on, it’s always on. The design decisions Jony Ive and Steve Jobs (among hundreds of other people in 2007-2010) made has allowed iPad to flourish in its own product category with many copy-cats always falling short BUT…because of what makes iPad great, it’s those very same things that keep iPad too basic for power users.
I’ll always be an iPad user. Apple has me as a customer for life and while the (best) iPad’s price has crept up from $499 to over $2000 (1TB iPad Pro w/ Keyboard & Pencil), it is still stricken by limited functionality as a core of its design principles. I don’t believe that will ever change unless Apple decides to have a true iPad Pro and an iPad. The pro model should have a pro mode where you can do pro things…I’m not talking just split-view I’m talking a major UI shift in how I interact with the tablet. The ability to import 500 photos into light room, tab over to Flickr and prepare the upload, send those photos over to Instagram and Flickr at the same time while listening to music or carrying on a Skype conversation and knowing this entire time that ever app is still open and not on-hold to save battery and resources. If the iPad has 6GB of RAM and a processor as fast as my MacBook Pro, free it to take on MacBook Pro tasks! Give me Final Cut Pro and Logic. Give me Xcode and real Photoshop.
Sigh.
It’s amazing what Apple has done with iPad and while I miss certain models (iPad 2, iPad Air), I love today’s iPad and am still hopeful about the future. I could have skipped a few revisions (iPad 3 and iPad Air 2) but overall, it’s been a great ride. What’s even more insane to me is that I bought iPad 2 months before I left SF forever and moved to New Hampshire. iPad has been a device of my time in New Hampshire while iPhone came of age while I was in SF. That’s pretty cool to think about.