TheOverAnalyzed

Neil Cybart from Above Avalon recently wrote a great article entitled Apple’s Plan for iPad in an iPhone World, in which he outlined how he felt iPad fits into the entirety of the Apple lineup.

He made some very compelling arguments regarding the viability of iPad in today’s consumer technology space.

Some takeaways:

• When iPad came out in 2010, Steve Jobs marketed it as an in-between device that does some things better than both iPhone and the Mac
• Now that the market has matured, and iPad sales seem to be plateauing/declining, it seems that iPad is finding its place in our lives accordingly
• This has made Apple bears nervous
• They shouldn’t be.
• iPad doesn’t have to replace our Macs or our phones to be successful
• It can be more of a companion to the iPhone and Mac and still be successful

That last point is important. When iPad sales began to plateau/decline in the past few quarters, Apple bears have been preaching that Apple Was Doomed™. The change this quarter is that maybe everyone—the pundits, the bears, even Steve—was wrong about the iPad to begin with. That seems to be the writing on the wall. Maybe the market never intended for iPad to replace the Mac (it just appeared that way for a few years after it launched in 2010)

Cybart’s words here are especially fitting:

The iPad is merely a part of the Apple product lineup designed to appeal to lifestyles where a touchscreen ranging from 7 to 12 inches makes sense

Tim Cook made a similar case in last year’s September event:

This is the strongest line-up of products that Apple has ever had. And we believe that each one of these play a very important role. People need different types of technology for the way they live their lives. We all do different things [emphasis mine]

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I struggled for the past couple of years to find a way for iPad to fit into my life. I love the device in and of itself. Every year it gets better.^[1] And every year I am tempted to buy the next model, if I don’t actually buy it.^[2] The problem is, it never worked into my workflows. Most recently, I got an iPad mini 3 to take with me to work. It seemed like a great decision at the time. I could have my iPhone 6 or quick texts and Tweetbot sessions, and then at lunch, or during lulls, I could grab the iPad and consume slash watch things on a bigger screen.^[3] I liked that well enough.

But when I started writing more, the prospect of editing Markdown blocks on the Squarespace mobile app became awfully convoluted. Also, now that my blogging workflow involves writing in MultiMarkdown with Byword, and then converting that to HTML for Squarespace, I really do not want to content create without a keyboard.

But that’s just me.

And that’s okay, I now realize.

As the guys on the most recent episode of Connected concluded, iPad works well for a lot of people, most especially those people for which computers were never a comfortable thing. Consider your parents, or maybe your parents’ parents. Can you imagine them writing an AppleScript that changes the system audio when connecting a secondary display? I can’t. For them the iPad works great.

But I am a nerd.

I grew up comfortable with the concept of a (1) screen; (2) keyboard; and (3) mouse.^[4] iOS, despite everything that makes it magnificent, does not make it easy for me to create content. Maybe it is just how my mind works. When I am writing a new post for this site, I probably have 5-10 Safari tabs open at once, several Byword windows, as well as Tweetbot and Reeder for referencing social things. That makes for a lot of windows to keep track of. iOS’ multitasking simply makes it difficult to quickly switch back and forth between apps, at least for me. And that is an important part of how I write.

So I’m okay not having an iPad right now. I take my 11" MacBook Air to work, and I love it. It beats the 13" MacBook Air I had a couple of years ago in almost all areas , with the notable exception of battery life.^[5] It’s footprint is about the same as an Air 2,^[6] and I can type on it. With a keyboard.^[7]