totally agree - the iPad Pro could be a great second coding/programming tool - I'd love to justify buying myself one, but.. I just don't see a use-case if I can't work on it. I don't design stuff, don't really feel like I need a separate browsing device either
I switched from an iPad to a Surface Go 3 running Fedora a while ago and it really transformed my tablet use. I mostly just watched Youtube videos and did some light browsing on my iPad, but never really any serious work. Occcasionally I would ssh into other machines using apps like Blink, but even with the external keyboard the UX just feels ... off. Same for other apps that have IDE-like environments. They work, but they're never really great to use.
I was skeptical about getting a Linux tablet because of the worse battery life and less polished overall experience, but having a desktop Firefox with all add-ons, my text editor of choice, and the ability to open a terminal and run whatever I want really more than makes up for it (Plus GNOME is a pretty good tablet experience out of the box these days as long as you broadly stick to their 'official' apps).
Yep, I've got one and don't use too much. Too big for scrolling, too limited (software) for work. But Apple knows iPad might cannibalize mac and limit it's uses on purpose
> But Apple knows iPad might cannibalize mac and limit it's uses on purpose
Felt the goal was to overtake Mac during the 2015-2019 era, all the real engineering focus was on iPad, the Macs were underpowered and not really fit for purpose.
Why would Apple choose a platform where they don't get 30% of every Creative Cloud sub when they could have had that.
Only reason they backtracked was because Mac sales didn't fall off and the iPad just isn't that good to do real work on.
I believe it's simply more lucrative to keep selling both devices to the same target group, than try to solve the users' problem with a single device.
Everything in Apple is designed to silo off the two product groups.
An "iPad with MacOS" would just shift revenue from the MacOS division to the iPad division, losing a MacOS customer and probably NOT gaining a iPad customer (as he would have purchased an iPad anyway).
Just as much as developing an MacBook convertible is not an issue of user experience but an issue of unnecessary cannibalization of iPad sales...
By that logic, the iPhone wouldn’t have been able to play music as soon as it launched. Yet that was part of the whole pitch: “an iPod, a phone, and an internet communicator”.
> I was never tempted to buy an iPod, but combine the phone and iPod and give me internet access to boot... sold.
Before the iPhone there were already phones which could play music and access the web. I even remember some Motorolas which interacted directly with iTunes. The iPhone didn’t succeed just by smooshing those together.
Either way, that’s neither here nor there, the point is precisely that Apple didn’t shy away from cannibalising their own product.
I don't know how it is relevant what Apple did on other products, especially "pre-iPhone".
The point is that TODAY the PC line and the iPad line of Apple are quite notable silo'ed to very specific usage-patterns.
There is no technical reason for that, but the distinct commercial reason that there is nothing to gain in terms of revenue or profit by combining the two products into one.
They both sell fine and at great margin separately, there is little to gain by building an iPad Pro that is 2000 USD and supports the use-cases of both a 600 USD iPad and a 1600 USD MacBook respectively.
Quite bluntly: You want the iPad to be convenient in a workflow as far as possible, and then SUCK really bad in a way only a fully synchronized Macbook can fix.
This is the same reason behind the Apple Pencil not working on the iPhone. Despite the iPhone approaching sizes of an iPad mini, I can't use the incredibly expensive pencil on an iPhone because according to Apple only the iPad should be used for tablet stuff.
What? The Apple Pencil works because there’s a special digitizer layer on the screen for pencil compatible devices that allows it to work. This isn’t included on the iPhone. Same reason a Samsung S-Pen doesn’t work on devices that don’t support it.
I think the technical reason why the Pencil doesn't work is beside the point here.
Apple is building the hardware, and they decide that the Pencil use-case a iPhone user may have shall not be covered by buying an Apple Pencil, but by buying an iPad (and a Apple Pencil)
The technical reason is important, though. If it was totally free I suspect they’d allow it to function, but it doesn’t… so burdening the 200M iPhones with the additional cost of the pencil hardware is a trade off not worth taking. Just like Samsung not “allowing” S-pen to work on most of the phones since adding the digitizer element would be a silly cost adder, especially for their super cheap phones.
It's a decision of product proposition, and Apple decided that the Pencil use-case shall support iPad sales and not be cannibalized by the iPhone.
They also decided for a while that all their premium iPhones shall have "Force Touch", an entirely unique display technology only for iPhones to sense pressure without the potential of additional accessory sales.
These are all valid decisions. They are not a charity, they operate to maximize the profit they can gain from each customer.
The iPad has the big "issue" of barely needing to be replaced with new models, as most use-cases are consumption-oriented and there are no real disrupting sales-driving requirements for iPad media consumption.
So the Pencil was created to drive the proposition towards Media CREATION, because people would buy a new, more-expensive iPad then and requirements for that segment are constantly increasing (better pencils, lower latency, more-demanding apps).
Also in the past year: iPhone increases focus on Media recording with more-complex video features, iPad is tagging along with demanding Media processing use-cases
Wasn’t that the period when Apple were positioning themselves to get the Macs away from Intel? I’m not sure the goal was to let the iPad overtake as much as it was to get its processors ready to take over from Intel.
> But Apple knows iPad might cannibalize mac and limit it's uses on purpose
Apple isn’t afraid to cannibalise its own products. They did exactly that with the iPhone in regard to the iPod. If someone is going to displace one of your most successful products, it better be yourself with something even more outstanding.
It would have been in Apple’s best (financial) interest to have the iPad cannibalise the Mac because they’d have more control and earn more money from app sales.
For certain groups of people (the majority?) that is reality, as long as you don’t need compilers, IDEs, or virtualization you can do pretty much anything on an iPad.
iPad (any model) with keyboard-cover can be used as a great portable ssh/mosh
terminal (eg with Termius app). I work in Emacs--most functionality is available via terminal.
I've never owned a keyboard cover, but one could bring a TKL or 60% mechanical keyboard for the full typing experience without a laptop - might be a good compromise for some.
Because they don’t run iPadOS? People love all the things the OS can do. They just wish it wouldn’t stop them from doing that one thing in particular that they it to do.
Tantalizingly close to perfection with one glaring flaw is extremely frustrating!
It's the UI. It is designed from the ground up for touch. People who like iPadOS do not like Windows Surface tablets for that exact reason. A desktop UI that's been shoehorned into a tablet is not as good as a purpose-built touch UI.
The two tablet genders: iPad, and Windows Surface. It's a shame no other giant tech company ever created one that has exactly the combination of attributes you asked for.
