It’s a neat question, actually. Depends on where in the stack you’re landing with the term “tool.”
Is the tool the device, the app, the feature, or the workflow?
Is the user me? Is it us? Does a device use an app which uses a feature for a particular workflow?
I’m being cheeky, but also sincere. The true answer is that these things are “systems,” in that there is no standalone tool, nor is there a standalone user.
“We use our iPads, and they use us,” as Churchill put it.
As a result, the problem is tool+user. In my cases, I could’ve not listened to the influencers every time I tried to rely on an iPad and then “I” would’ve been the solution. At the same time, as I argued on MPU episode 636, if Apple had a less paternalistic approach to designing iPadOS, many of us would be able to use the iPad to do our most complex work with aplomb. Then the “tool” would’ve been the solution.
See also Latour, human-computer interaction research, design science… I have readings if you want 'em!