Pro iPads and tech-media groupthink

Thank you for this post! I totally agree that the apple blogosphere is not nearly as grateful for what we get with these devices as they should be. One of the many things I like about MPU is that we get to hear about a variety of workflows from guests and the hosts. Hearing how people use these devices and software is what makes it so great!

A lot of the news podcasts are certainly redundant. Speaking for myself, I find that the non apple parts of those shows are what engage me even when the “content” being discussed is played out. Connected is a great nerdy comedy show, The Talk Show is about tech history as much as it’s about news, Cortex is a workflow show etc. I think the hosts’ chemistry is just as important as the podcast topics they’re discussing.

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This is one of the things that annoyed me the most. That most tech bloggers/podcasters always passed on Affinity apps as non-profesional that are only there to tide the coming of Adobe apps. I’ve been using Affinity app for at least 5 years on both iPad and Mac. I’ve been hearing from younger designers that they like the workflow afforded to them by the iPad. Kids are also enjoying drawing and designing with touch devices such as their phones and iPad. They don’t want it to be a Mac, they just want it to be more powerful (i.e. work with hundreds of layers for a billboard size artwork). They use Procreate, LumaFusion and Affinity apps for their jobs and hobbies. But no, iPad isn’t a serious device because it doesn’t have desktop level Adobe apps. They just keep repeating the same narrative.

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And another thing -

The new M1 doesn’t have less ports than before - it has fewer! fewer!! fewer!!! FEWER!!!

Don’t get me started on “professional” writers who can’t write.

Oh! Too late, I’ve already started

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Don’t get me started on “professional” writers who can’t write.

Don’t get me started on bloggers and podcasters who have never assembled anything longer than a short story who brag about their “writing workflows”. :wink:

(Yes, they do write and it’s all well and good, not disparaging that work; but if you are calling yourself an authority in that domain, you need to have assembled way more complex stuff that you have delivered on a regular basis.)

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And penultimate is the one before ultimate, not more ultimate than ultimate.

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I suppose that would be paraultimate?

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That sounds like something you can fly :grin:

Ultimate Pro?

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Paraultimate would be “Appears to be ultimate but it isn’t really”. Similar to Metaultimate.

But you could have:

Postultimate
Superultimate
Ultraultimate
Ultimaultimate (my personal choice)
Ultimater
Ultimatest
UAOT (Ultimatest Of All Time)*
Ultimate Plus (or Premium, or Enterprise)
Ultimate Platinum (superseded by Ultimate Black)

*N.B. “Of All Time” means “Since my 15th birthday”

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Ultimate + with special offers :joy:

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I’m afraid it’s just symptomatic of the times we live in (and possibly of any time in one way or another). If you are in with the right people, mouth the right platitudes, shout loudly self promoting yourself on twitter for long enough you will get a podcasting or speaking gig eventually. Looking at conference line ups it’s the same sort of issues, the same faces everywhere going from conference to conference.

Nobody is ever invited to shatter norms any more, just amplify them. Universities used to encourage speakers with sometimes abhorrent views to debates, that way their views can be held up to scrutiny, pulled apart and shown for what they are. Now it’s just amplify the accepted group-think/party line or shut up.

I remember reading Foundation Trilogy (Asimov) where society had become so stagnant “historians” just read all the books on a subject and then regurgitated them in more new books. They would never think of visiting the historical sites in question or doing real research, seems like we are heading in the same direction with tech media (and many other things).

Banality is the obvious and inevitable result.

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just read all the books on a subject and then regurgitated them in more new books

The exact definition and use of Progressive Summarization as advised by the Build A Second Brain course… :sweat_smile:

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Maybe the course should be called :Build a copy of someone else’s brain"

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Haha, exactly! “Build a Second-Hand Brain”. :grin:

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“Pre-owned” if you don’t mind.

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I would suggest “pre-loved”, but…let’s be real here. Who actually uses, let alone loves to use, their brain anymore?

I got some spam once advertising a popular…erm…“performance enhancing” pill for males, and they’d added the suffix “professional” to the product name.

I had to Google it. And yup - there are people advertising “_________ professional” for sale. Looks to just be a higher dose.

Now if we’re realistic, the number of people who would ever use such a product in a “professional” capacity (that is, a manner related to their chosen profession) should be next-to-zero, comparatively speaking.

But unfortunately the words “pro” and “professional” have basically come to mean a combination of “more expensive”, “extra features”, or “larger quantity” - with very little regard to whether or not anybody would choose to employ that product for the purposes of doing their profession.

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“Overpriced” is the word that comes to mind when I hear “Pro”.

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@Denny - Great commentary, as always.

@JohnAtl and @webwalrus - I have so many thoughts on the issue of the defining the word “pro.” I do think people are being a little hard on Apple when they suggest that the term pro is essentially a meaningless marketing term. Typically, “professional grade” users who push their computers hard use the pro-grade things and those pro-grade things are certainly more capable in various ways as opposed to the non-pro stuff. The nice problem that Apple has created for itself is that it does not sell sub-par junk. So if you buy a non-pro piece of kit, it will still probably work fine in most professional environments. I use my tricked-out MacBook Pro to the max, but I could survive on my wife’s MacBook Air if I needed to. ‘

On the other hand, I am annoyed at the general vagueness of the use of the term. I expect such vagueness a little from tech companies. It’s the pundits’ use of the term that annoys me. Best I can figure is that when Rene Richie uses the term, he is talking about high-end graphics and music professionals. But I’m never sure.

That all aside, I think that pro has some general meaning/feel to it that buyers understand. For people who do not lurk on MPU, “pro” may be a sort of warning sign that a piece of equipment might be more expensive and more feature-rich than what their needs might be, so they steer clear. For us, it’s sometimes a badge of honor to have the pro- stuff. I think that’s why so many people went crazy with the pricing of the new Mac Pro. It was priced for actual hard-core professionals who are in their bread and butter from this equipment, and the pro-sumer/high-hobbyist camp were disappointed that it was too far out of the price range to justify buying.

By the same token, I generally buy the pro label things because they deliver more of what I need in terms of memory capacity, capabilities, expansion, and whatever else.

I don’t know where this gets us in terms of @Denny’s original theme, but there you have my two cents (hope they are worth that) on the miss use and abuse (or maybe not) of the term pro.

All I know, is that I’m ready for this new 12.9 inch iPad Pro with the liquid retina XDR display and 16GB of RAM. And I am eagerly waiting to see huge software improvements flow out of WWDC this summer.

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When they had the MacBook Pro and the Mac Pro those names made sense to me.

But when they decided that “AirPods Pro” were a thing, I think that’s where I fell off the wagon. I’m not sure what about AirPods Pro makes them “pro” in terms of use cases.

The iPhones “Pro” are another example. Yes, they have a better camera setup - but are these seriously targeted primarily at people who use the cameras as part of their profession? That would be a tiny segment of the market, wouldn’t it?

It feels like Apple has massively contributed to the growing irrelevance of the “Pro” nomenclature.

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