+1, could not have put it better myself.
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Just gave away my iPad to my Dad and am down to just my MacBook Air and an iPhone and I couldn’t be happier. Unexpected bonus - My Kindle and Nook eReaders are relevant again!
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I happen to love my iPads. I especially have fun with the Apple Pencil which I can use on my iPad Air 3. There is an amazing amount you can do even on an iPad. It truly boggles my mind.
I was without a Mac for about ten years- not by choice.
I got a new MacBook Air in July and it dawned on me that I didn’t know what I was missing! There is so much done easier on a computer.
But I like all the different formats and capabilities.
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I think the iPad works great for two types of people. The first are those who mostly use computing devices for simple things such as web browsing, messaging, and working in a single document with no need for reference material. The other group are the Federico Viticcis of the world where they work for themselves and part of their job is developing and sharing workflows for people. The time spent beating your head in getting around limitations can still be turned into some work.
The rest of us fall in the middle where we have limitations imposed by external forces where an iPad may not be the best tool. Whether that is app availability/workflows imposed by an employer/industry or the loss in time means loss in work output.
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Apple provides an excellent backup for iPads in the Apple iCloud.
Putting the camera on the “top” when it’s in landscape orientation would be a good differentiator for the Pro iPads.
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I haven’t found the camera position to be that problematic since the release of Center Stage. I do lots of Zoom conferences on my iPad and I think it looks mostly like the camera is centered above my face. It’s not perfect, you can still tell if you really scrutinize it, but (for my purposes) it seems to get the job done satisfactorily.
That’s not to suggest that I would not welcome moving the camera to the long side.
What I’d really love is to be able to have the camera stay on even if I navigate away from Zoom (or other conferencing app). There are plenty of conferences that I’m on where I need to refer to external materials. Maybe allow it to go picture-in-picture, even. That would be awesome.
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With respect, I disagree. According to Apple:
"Your iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch backups only include information and settings stored on your device.
They do not include information already stored in iCloud such as Contacts, Calendars, Bookmarks, Notes, Reminders, Voice Memos4, Messages in iCloud, iCloud Photos, and shared photos.
“On iCloud.com, you can recover files deleted from both iCloud Drive and other apps within the last 30 days, whether you deleted them on iCloud.com or another device that has iCloud Drive turned on.”
If, for example, you accidentally delete your favorite photo, or a very important contact, or anything else stored in iCloud. You only have 30 days to realize that the photo or file is missing, and recover it from iCloud. After that it is gone forever.
Unless you have also synced it to your Mac and backed it up using Backblaze or some other method.
iCloud Backup is a sync service. IMO Apple does their customers a disservice calling it a backup.
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I’ve also found Center Stage to largely solve the problem of the camera being on the left side.
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I was all excited there for a moment until I realized that I need an M1 iPad in order to use Center Stage 
(But of course, a new camera placement would also require an upgrade on my part, so I can’t fault Apple).
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I’ve found Center Stage zooms in too much and follows every move. Always gets commented on by the other person “what’s going on with your camera?”
Really interesting point. Having a good, incremental backup is important for just about everyone who works with information. Is there any backup solution for iPad users with no Mac for a good backup strategy?
I don’t mind iPadOS, but I find for most things a Mac is faster for me. I want to have the ability to have multiple windows open on multiple screens. If I want to focus, I switch to a different desktop and only have what I want open possibly with Fullscreen.
I read @Denny or stuff from Viticci and have some fomo or a slight crisis of confidence in my own computer abilities. But, that is just me. I find working with a Mac easier on my brain, and I can get what I need done without the extra mental cycles.
The iPad kills it as a mobile device(iPad mini 5). It is probably the device where I spend the most time - emails, reddit,youtube videos, Devonthink to Go, anything that needs a pen.
But when I need to really think or write, I reach for the Mac. You can not beat the geography of multiple large screens when trying to layout ideas. With the advent of the M1 MacBook Air and its excellent battery life, I am not looking for a replacement of the original 12.9 iPad.
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Not really. After my Mac mini died I tried a couple of solutions then tried backing up manually. This consisted of dragging files from Google Drive to OneDrive and vice versa. Files that I didn’t want online were copied to an external drive. All my photos automatically sync to both iCloud and Google Drive so they “backup each other” (as long as I check my Recently Deleted folder on a regular basis). I’m a Google Workspace user and schedule regular exports of my mail, contacts, and calendars, etc. So I downloaded and stored these on my external drive.
This worked, but I’m a firm believer in automatic backups so I eventually purchased a base model m1 MacBook Air and once again let Hazel, Arqbackup, and ChronoSync take care of everything for me.
Without a Mac or a PC, an iPad only user’s easiest solution is probably to use both iCloud Photos and Google Photos, and check the Recently Deleted folders in both Photos and Apple Notes frequently. Then copy their files stored on iCloud to an external drive on a regular basis. This way they have a better chance of recovery using iCloud “Backup”.
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I have Macbook 2017 12 inch and 2009ish Macbook on the desk used primarily for backups etc. I’m thinking of getting the iPad mini for Apple Arcade, videos etc. However, my iPhone 6s still works great so I tend to think a big new iPhone might serve just as well as an iPad. I agree with a lot of comments on here that nothing beats the Macbook still for managing files, manipulating graphic files to insert into blog creation especially.
One backup is no backup, especially a ‘backup’ in the cloud with consists of synced data from your device is not a backup. If you delete a local file it will also be deleted in the cloud when synced, apparently there is a recycle bin in iCloud but I tried it and it did not work for me, so I would not rely on that.
iCloud (and other comparable services) are syncing services, not backup services. In my opinion it is no OK that these services seling themselves as a safe backup storage to customers.
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First, a touch-based UI is a very different beast than a pointer-based one. You have to learn to think differently. Stop trying to use touch-based as if it were pointer based UI.
You must learn the gestures. There are a lot more of them than just right and left click and single and double clicks that we had with pointers.
Second, some (many actually) applications are just not designed well for the touch paradigm. All they do is use a finger for a pointer.
Third, some applications that work well in touch UI feel cumbersome when used with a pointer and keys.
I think the world hasn’t really fully sorted out the difference yet. Most users never realize that two totally different paradigms are involved. Switching back and forth is actually an interesting head-trip.
Meanwhile in the interest of sales, the two are being combined in ways that in the long run, might evolve into a successful synthesis or it may not. Evolution will happen. Very few people are enthusiastic about changing paradigms, so that will probably affect how things evolve.
I don’t find text selection on the iPad hard. What I do find is that how well the selection controls behave depends on the application. Still a lot of inconsistencies between apps in both implementation and approach.
Think differently. I know it can be a challenge, but we must.
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I agree wholeheartedly with your comment. (I think some subset of complaints users have is because they are trying to use an iPad like a Mac, but I don’t think most of the issues raised in this thread are in that category.) Like you seem to be, I’m firmly in the “let the iPad be iPad” camp. I was even leery about Apple adding mouse support when people were clamoring for it because I was afraid it would compromise that and be an effort to turn the iPad into a Mac. I, like you, agree that we should expect the iPad to work differently from non-touch-centric operating systems. Turns out, Apple handled pointer support smartly. As a result, I think having pointer functionality on iPad has been great and did not compromise the iPad-as-iPad experience. Pointer support was designed to align perfectly with iPad’s modularity.
This has been my experience, as well. Many of the challenges with using the iPad–from my usage mix–is the result of third-party (not first-party) app failings. User interfaces that haven’t been re-thought for touch efficiency; and user interfaces that seem to re-write basic iPad controls (like text selection) such that they don’t work consistently across the entire ecosystem. My view is that if the cross-platform third-party app developers could step up their game, we would be reading a whole different story about iPad usage and fewer frustrations. I single out cross-platform apps, because most iPad first apps that I have used are great tools that have been designed for efficiency on a touch-centric device.
Many cross-developed apps (certainly not all!) seem to take the view that all they have to do is make their app compile on iPad and bolt on some touch controls, then users will be happy. (And the developer has gets a marketing boost.) Instead, it results in a lost opportunity that makes people frustrated with the app and, ultimately with iPadOS.
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For the most part, I agree; I love using the iPad for things that suit its paradigm (dragging cards across a Trello board, brainstorming in Muse, marking up PDFs, etc). It’s definitely good for more than consumption and I get a lot of value out of it day-to-day.
However, the problem is that the iPad paradigm is still lacking compared to the macOS paradigm for me. Not because it can’t do things the same way, but rather because the way it does things is often less reliable or efficient. For example, the PDF annotation in the Files app does not save my annotations half the time. Text selection isn’t as bothersome as people make it out to be, but is still a pain compared to a precise 3-keypress combo in Vim. Code compilation is messy and often impossible.
I don’t mind switching paradigms; in fact, I’m excited about what the iPad paradigm holds in the future, but I would argue the problem extends beyond users not getting used to touch-based and points to things that the paradigm simply doesn’t do as well.
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You’re speaking my language. If Apple would build in vim controls directly into iPadOS, that would be the best. They’d have to map the ESC key to something that is easier to access on iPad. Maybe that globe key on the magic keyboard! (I’ve been impressed with the vim keybindings Apple added to Xcode.)
Agreed. Refine those things that don’t work within the paradigm or evolve the paradigm in a manner that enables those things to work and yet remains consistent with existing design principles.
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