Ahh, and there we have it. To bring it back around to the original post of this thread!
Perhaps it’s the framing of this that’s wrong - the perspective of the iPad discussion has always been from the perspective of .001% of the human population: tech pundits. Hence, the framing and perspective is far, far too narrow and not representative of the human population that uses a computing device.
Tech pundits and the other tiny subsets of humans that populate these forums and similar tech forums is still a very small percentage of the human population that use “computers” in 2024.
The "computer " of 1999 was commonly understood to be a desktop or laptop. Usually it ran Windows, less frequently Mac OS or Linux or whatever. But that computer ran a “desktop OS”.
Cool. But that all powerful desktop OS was stuck on a desk or in a heavy, clunky laptop that didn’t have a camera, had a small screen, etc. But the framing of “what is a computer” is foundational to that time period, those devices and the operating systems they were based on.
Jump forward 25 years. The pundit centered discussion of the iPad is still stuck in that perspective. As pointed out above, the iPhone is so small that the framing and expectations are different.
But the iPad is just large enough the expectations set it much closer to that of a laptop. From day one Steve Jobs posititioned it as a new category that sat between iPhone and Mac. But from day one he muddied the waters of expectation by selling it with a keyboard dock and demonstrating Pages as a productivity app that could be used.
Pundits and nerds don’t seem to be very good at nuance. It’s on or it’s off, it’s black or it’s white, it’s a success or a failure. I suspect that some of this has to do with the market and headlines. Lots of pundits, lots of podcasters, writers competing with hot takes, etc, there’s not a lot of room for nuance and middle ground. The discussion of hardware is usually positioned as an all or nothing proposition, a never ending competition and the must always be a winner. Hence the whole “Is the new device an old device killer?” or “Can I replace this device with this device?” tropes.
My point is that a slower, more thoughtful, nuanced approach to the discussion of computing technology would be far different from what we have. Instead of bouncing around from rumor to rumor about the next big thing and the latest hot take meme that will drive clicks, we might be having a for more interesting conversation that embraces the future we are living in.
I have a watch that can send a text, answer email, and track my heart rate. I have a phone that can take a night time photo of the Milky Way Galaxy or ID the song of a bird or stream one of millions of songs to a tiny pair of computing devices in my ears. I have an iPad that I can use to edit a video, layout an actual newspaper (remember those?), scan an old document and turn the image into a document of text or scan a paper form and turn it into a functional pdf form. I have a Mac to answer an email, create a presentation or code a new application.
The discussion is far more interesting if we reframe it as a discussion about an ecosystem of niches to be filled. The ways in which billions of humans now use apps and devices is far too complex and interesting to limit in the discussion the way that we have.
