Another Apple Finally™: The iPad Toaster-Fridge
by Jean-Louis Gassée
After years of futile attempts to do my everyday work on an iPad, the newly released Magic Keyboard, coupled with a long wished-for trackpad and fresh iPadOS release, has made the task almost pleasant, despite puzzling macOS/iPadOS inconsistencies.
Ever since it first shipped ten years ago, the iPad has been bedeviled by controversy: Is this a toy or a serious computer? Content consumption tablet for tech illiterates, or content creation tool for real pros?
From day one, I liked the iPad’s unique combination of power and simplicity but I was frustrated when I tried to use the beguiling tablet for my everyday work. Year after year, I tried to use the latest iPad and iOS instances to write my weekly Monday Note but couldn’t get into a pleasant and productive workflow. I envied the skill and enthusiasm of adept iPad users who claimed they used Apple’s tablet “for everything”, but to this klutzy — and perhaps too set in his ways — keyboard and mouse pounder, it sounded a bit like the Third Lie of computing: You Can Do It!
Then, at the June 2019 WWDC, Apple introduced iPadOS, an iPad-dedicated version of iOS that promised a multi-window/multi-app user interface afforded by a broad gamut of multitasking gestures. Here, “promised” is the operative word. In reality, as discussed in an October 2019 Monday Note, there was serious iPadOS discoverability trouble. Unlike on the almost self-evident Mac, the iPad’s new gestures were hard to figure out. I heard similar complaints percolating from a certain circular building in Cupertino. In early February, in iPad at 10 — Now What?, I quoted (and strongly agreed with) John Gruber, a well connected and articulate Apple observer [as always, edits and emphasis mine]:
“The iPad at 10 is, to me, a grave disappointment. Not because it’s “bad”, because it’s not bad — it’s great even — but because great though it is in so many ways, overall it has fallen so far short of the grand potential it showed on day one. To reach that potential, Apple needs to recognize they have made profound conceptual mistakes in the iPad user interface, mistakes that need to be scrapped and replaced, not polished and refined. I worry that iPadOS 13 suggests the opposite — that Apple is steering the iPad full speed ahead down a blind alley.”
It seems that Apple was listening. On March 18th, Sr VP of Software Engineering Craig Federighi introduced the iPad Magic Keyboard and trackpad in this YouTube demo. When the first units shipped last month, favorable reviews appeared, especially a very detailed, very positive one from John Gruber that concluded thus:
“As per my usual habit when reviewing iPads and iPad peripherals, I wrote this entire review using the Magic Keyboard. In the past, this has felt like a chore. The lack of trackpad support for precision editing felt like trying to write with a pen while wearing mittens. Now it’s an outright pleasure — a combination I might choose for long-form writing simply because it’s great.
As a physical contraption the iPad Magic Keyboard is utterly brilliant. As a practical device for work, it feels seamlessly natural. The combination of excellent hardware — truly exquisite, from the hinges and magnets to the keyboard and trackpad themselves — and outstanding pointer and gesture support in iPadOS 13.4 make it hard to believe we haven’t been able to convert an iPad into a great laptop for years. This is an altogether new experience with an iPad, but it’s so natural it feels longstanding.”
Other helpful reviews include those by Tech.pinions’ Ben Bajarin, The Verge’s Dieter Bohn, and Six Colors’ Jason Snell.
Encouraged, I decided to try again and started using the Magic Keyboard that landed on my doorsteps late last week. This meant going iPad-only for apps that I use on a daily basis: Mail, Safari, Tweetbot, Feedly, and, of course, Pages to write this very Monday Note.
On the whole, things didn’t go too badly. I needed to learn (or relearn) the iPad features and gestures that drive the “content creation” workflow, but I managed to research and write this piece and get my daily dose of tweets, blog posts, mail, and news in the US and in Europe.
But…
Some third-party apps are not (yet) fully cognizant of the Magic Keyboard and its trackpad. And some Apple apps behave in ways that make me question whether iPadOS and macOS engineers actually work for the same company. I gave up an attempt to list the inconsistencies between macOS and iPadOS versions of Mail, Pages, and Safari — they’re too numerous. Some are minor but annoying, such as the way cursor keys work or the handling of hyperlinks. Others are more perplexing…why does Pages handle paragraph indentation differently in the two Apple OS?
Upon reflection, I come to the conclusion that it doesn’t matter for the medium term. The inconsistencies that really matter, that make the user’s life less enjoyable, will get fixed. Measuring the progress of the hardware and software that shipped in less than a year and extrapolating into the future, we may now — finally™ — agree with Tim Cook’s 2015 statement that the iPad represents “the clearest expression of our vision of the future of personal computing”.
After a decade of iPad evolution, we now have a shape-shifting personal computing device whose personalities range from media consumption, to white collar professional uses, to creating works of art. As a pretend laptop replacement, the current incarnation isn’t as polished as the MacBook Air, but it offers a much richer gamut of uses and interaction modes. I’ll add a special mention for the new iPadOS Smart Cursor, one that really deserves its name.
A few thoughts to end my Pages-on-iPad romp.
With an 11” iPad Pro + Magic Keyboard on my lap, I can’t help but think how much lighter an ARM-based Mac would feel and how long its battery would last. (Five weeks ago, I postulated such Macs wouldn’t happen but it now seems I’ll be proven wrong sometime next year.)
Second, the combination of keyboard + trackpad + touch screen is quite pleasant. Yes, Microsoft has offered the combination for a while, but the touch implementation on the Surface isn’t as natural as it is on the iPad.
Finally, and because I can’t help myself, let’s pause and meditate a moment on past statements from Apple execs who breezily dismissed talk of besmirching the iPad’s pristine purity by grafting a hardware keyboard and trackpad that would give the company’s cherished tablet “laptop-like” capabilities. ‘No way, this would amount to a toaster-fridge contraption!’. We’ll not hold it against them.
— JLG@mondaynote.com
