“This week at an event in Brooklyn, Apple launched a new MacBook Air, a new Mac Mini, and two new iPad Pro[s],” Carolina Milanesi writes for Tech.pinions. “The iPad Pro started to lay the foundation for what Apple calls the ‘future of computing.’ I want to focus on the iPad Pro because to me it is certainly the product with the most fascinating but also the most complex story to tell.”
“The iPad has grown in size, power and brain in particular with the iPad Pro. So much so that the latest additions to the line are, as Apple pointed out, faster than 92 percent of the PC[s] sold over the past year,” Milanesi writes. “This is where Apple believes the iPad Pro is competing. But Apple realizes that this transition is not going to be as simple as the kind of change they introduced with the MacBook Air. This is because with mobility the biggest change in workflow was where you could work not how. Embracing new workflows will take a while.”
“It was fascinating to have people point out to me after the event that the only thing that the iPad Pro is missing now to be a computer is mouse support. This to me is a symptom that shows how these people are not ready to transition all their computing needs to an iPad Pro,” Milanesi writes. “This is why Apple continues to update its Mac line. But also, this is why Mac OS, while remaining a separate OS, will allow for apps to look and feel more like they do on iOS so that workflows could seamlessly go between an iPhone or an iPad to a Mac. The more you will be able to do that the more you will be able to consider an iPad Pro as your main computing device.”
Read more in the full article – recommended – here.
MacDailyNews Take: Apple’s lead and acumen in vertical integration is only increasing!
As for iPad Pro and mouse/trackpad support:
We find that there are many older users longing to make iPad work like a laptop, because that’s what they know.
Take a look at a twelve-year-old who’s only really ever used an iPad for personal computing. It’s an eyeopener. It’s like looking into the future.
The answer isn’t to try to make the iPad into a MacBook. The answer is to provide all the tools possible in iOS for developers to make robust apps that can take advantage of the multi-touch paradigm. — MacDailyNews, May 16, 2017
This is going to be an Ipad Pro and Pencil Christmas..
Love the thing!!! … and it is finally here! Post PC has Arrived 👊👊🙏
But one more thing:
Please give us a better ios file/assett management.. thats one thing still holding it back from being a full blown pro powerhouse!
(Been calling for this for years …. iCloud drive is a very marginal solution)
“file/asset management”
I’ve always wondered what people meant by this and always assumed it, like the mouse thing, was because of familiarity. What kind of feature are you looking for?
What one can do on icloud drive, except locally.
What one can do on a macos with files: organize files as one likes…..put them where u want, group them as u like, sub group them as u like, duplicate as u like, name folders and subfolders and files as u like, move files around as u like..etc
A centralized/core ios folder, file management system/UI Accessible From Every App…… And a Finder equivalent.
I might not go as far as you state but yes what you detail is the area that needs deep thought and improvements. This article and your take are very much th sort of fix ussion needed. The file system introduced on the pros are what I outlined years ago ie to generalise you don’t see it unless you want to within its own environment, but as my present iPad doesn’t support it I can’t really comment upon its implementation. But clearly it only glimpses at what is truly needed to make iPads work seamlessly with Mac OS certainly more flexibility and manual control is required with abilities more akin to Dropbox at the very least for those who need that control whilst not distracting from the experience of those who don’t or when you don’t like as I am using it now. We now have chips that are more than capable of providing what is needed but not the OS quite yet which is frustrating. Especially so because I feel Apple has only go used upon it in recent years when they saw sales plateau and the opposition head into the ‘pro’ dual function workspace. If they had visualised and committed to it earlier and they had patents showing they had considered it, they would likely now have software and the hardware that was further along the line to the seamless integration that so many would find very useful professionally. Most frustratingly add ons for some time have offered parts of that vision that Apple has failed to fully implement itself in ways that could make it all part and parcel of the smooth OS and platform experience we expect. It’s coming but slower than it could have done and doubts still exist accordingly as to how much of that is a cultural view with Apple rather than a technical one.
That doesn’t align with “Pro powerhouse” in my mind. There may be some pros that have VERY strong organizational urges, but very many more are able to work in Pixelmator (and WILL be able to work in Photoshop), creating sub folders within the application’s structure as they do today.
It’s not really unlike how macOS would rather you NOT group all your drawing apps in one sub folder in the Applications folder, and all the apps with blue icons in another sub folder. macOS would also prefer you didn’t dive into an Application’s folder (as apps are just folders with .app at the end) and “tidy things up a bit”.
If you add a mouse (or connect it to an external display!) it is just a computer. I have had a stylus for 20+ years at this point. It’s a cool device, but I fail to see the revolution here. If it ends up being a PC with a different form factor, how exactly is that ‘post PC’, again? It’s also pretty much what Microsoft envisioned, I’m failing to see the innovation, as well.
Well
Smartwatches, smartphones, tablets, desktops…..
They are all computers! In different form factors..
Well, it’s ALREADY a computer, full stop. You don’t need to add anything to it. And, we’ll be sure to stay off your lawn.
Wait.
As John Gruber recently pointed out, Apple argues that it won’t add touchscreen to its laptops because it is not a good experience having to reach up and poke at a vertically-oriented screen. He agrees with Apple, and so do I. But, he then pointed out: when using the iPad with an attached keyboard, you’ve just transformed the iPad into a laptop configuration, so by Apple’s own (valid!) argument, poking at the screen is not a good experience.
In other words, when using an attached keyboard, it would make sense for the iPad to support some kind of indirect screen pointing like a trackpad or mouse. They should AT LEAST enable the kind of insertion/selection point tracking that the iPhone keyboard supports with 3D Touch.
You are about 10 years late to that debate.
Yes I am blocking your ads so stop telling me I am blocking your ads. WE know that. They are intrusive and really a royal pain in the neck. Stop sending me the “we see you are blocking ads” crap. Ya know your site is not all that great anyway. So maybe the answer for me is to just not use your site. So say goodbye to the income you get when I buy some thing referenced by your site. The long and short of it is that you only really care about the ad revenue not about us guys.
When MDN allows ads that are intrusive (top, bottom, Middle of screen) that I need to click on to remove so I can read the content, then complains when we block them is disingenuous.
They have cleaned up intrusive advertising in the past after many user complaints but seem to find another way to put intrusive ads in the site.
Yes, I understand that advertising supports the site but:
1. Some of us (me, for one) love the site enough to pay for ad free experience
2. You don’t need to shove them in our face, especially blocking content then send us a complaint when we block them. Most other sites don’t advertise as obnoxiously.
It’s YOUR problem, not ours, that your customers are blocking ads. Your ad philosophy seems to follow the business complaint: “Our business is great if weren’t for the customers”
Quit blaming us and look for reasonable ad placement solutions.
Any one listening?????????????
The iPad will never replace a regular computer. Until you can open 2 files in the Same Application. For example Pages and Numbers. You need to be able to open two files in Pages in Split Screen. So you can cross reference 2 Or More files in the “Same” Application.
That is not necessarily never.. that could be implemented to at some point.
all apple product are too expensive.
all Apple price whiners are too poor
MDN thinks that iPads are for 12 year olds.
They are. Top ipad app sales are all games and time wasters.
Apple thinks iOS can go head to head against fully capable pcs. Not a success. Education tried ipads and abandoned them. Corporations tried them and abandoned them. A few graphics people sketch on them and corporate meeting rats take notes on them but that’s about it. Ipads suck at file sharing and typing, full stop. The people who love ipads are couch potatoes and retirees and 12 year olds.
That’s true for EVERY platform, except maybe platforms where games and time wasters don’t exist (looking at you Linux). Windows isn’t any less of a platform because most folks use them ONLY to surf the web 🙂
“Corporations tried them and abandoned them.”
Provide a reliable reference. If you can’t, then stfu.
Squidward!
I was waiting for a new iMac 🙁
I just need to figure out a way to batch import multiple bracketed raw files, process them for HDR and tweak in lightroom.
Any photographers out there find a workflow yet? I’d love to just use the iPad pro!
They removed the headphone jack from the iPhone.
They now removed it from the iPad. What? No room? BS.
Real reason…
“The future is wireless”! We are moving you in that direction!
When a device can do both, it helps now AND in the future. This is called herding, and cattle get herded.
I think the future for audio is BETTER wires. With all the computational power of products today, every developer or audio designer could count on millions of devices having a way to generate a high bit rate, multi-channel surround sound experience in high quality multi-speaker headphones.
I agree. I was referring to the narrative being sold.