Rather unexpectedly, my wife got me an eighth-generation iPad as birthday gift. The Space grey, 128 GB, Wi-Fi model. She told me she couldn’t stand my growing frustration as I kept using my old third-generation iPad I bought in 2012. And she knew that, for my needs and personal preferences, an eighth-generation iPad (“iPad 8” from now on) would have been more than enough.

And she was right. Granted, the new iPad Air is cool, and is for now the only iPad featuring two things I really like: the new, more angular design and reduced bezels of the iPad Pro, and the presence of a TouchID sensor. But really, I’m just happy to have a more modern iPad; I’m not overly concerned with looks and specs.

Of course, coming from an 8‑year-old iPad 3, the performance boost and also the experience boost are remarkably noticeable. Upgrading my iPad was never one of my top priorities because I don’t use it for work, I barely do creative things on it, and it certainly is not my primary device. While I’m a tech-savvy person and you could even call me a ‘power user’, when it comes to the iPad I use it just like most regular folks — mainly as a consumption device. I read the news and RSS feeds, write the occasional email, browse the Web, listen to music, watch videos, do some photo editing, take notes, and plonk around on GarageBand. 

For a long time, my trusty iPad 3 was powerful enough to let me do all that, and since upgrading my main Mac and iPhone became a more urgent matter, also upgrading the iPad felt like an unnecessary expense.

However, the overall performance and responsiveness of my iPad 3 have been worsening over time, more and more noticeably, and the user experience so marred by lags, freezes, and unpredictable (though fortunately sporadic) self-reboots, that for certain tasks I actually enjoyed my first-generation iPad more. Yes, as I’ve previously stated when reviewing the iPad 1, despite it being a less powerful machine than the iPad 3 when you compare their tech specs, it still feels quick and responsive under your fingers. iOS 5.1.1 on the iPad 1 feels much more ‘tuned’ and optimised than iOS 9.3.5 on the iPad 3.

When the iPad 3 was new, I remember some pundits criticising it for essentially being a slow dog that used to get too hot when in use. But it wasn’t my experience. The iPad 3 originally came with iOS 5.1, and while iOS 5 and iOS 6 were certainly the two releases where that iPad really shone, I didn’t really notice any slowdowns under iOS 7 and iOS 8 either. But iOS 9, that was a mistake. Sure, it extended the iPad 3’s useful life, but the cost was a performance hit that became more severe as time went by. iOS 9 came out in 2015; maybe Apple didn’t think there would be people using this 2012 iPad for so long, so they didn’t bother optimising it too much (the same can be said for iOS 9 on the iPhone 4S — which I downgraded to iOS 8.4.1 the day after acquiring the phone a couple of years ago).

Anyway, even with all that said, this ‘slow dog’ has remained useful for many years, its performance truly degrading only over the past year or so (To which point, you may ask — well, to the point that simply scrolling down a moderately complex webpage would make the iPad hang). 

What keeps amazing me about this old device, however, is its battery life. After eight years and a half, it still lasts a couple of days on a single charge, with light-medium usage.

But what about the iPad 8? To be honest, I still haven’t had the time to put the new iPad through its paces, since I’ve been swamped with work these past weeks. But I wanted to start with a clean slate, so I didn’t perform a restore from a backup. I just configured it as a new device, and started downloading the apps I’ve been using the most on the iPad 3. And as I said above, the jump in performance is extreme when you’re accustomed to an iPad whose CPU is seven generations older.

The iPad 8 came with iPadOS 14 preinstalled, of course, and I was afraid of feeling a bit lost with regard to gestures and features. Thankfully, the basic, surface-level gesture language is essentially the same as it was on the iPad 3 with iOS 9. But I still maintain that — unless someone tells you, or you gather information by perusing the iPad Guide on Apple’s site or by searching on the Web — many deeper gestures and features remain essentially undiscoverable. I remember staring at the iPad 8’s screen, trying to recall multitasking-related gestures, and I drew a blank. Trying to trigger things by tentatively swiping here and there only brought frustration and frankly made me feel a bit of a newbie. While typing and editing text, I also tried to recall those fancy gestures for Cut, Copy and Paste. Do you remember them, without looking them up in the Guide? I didn’t. Here’s a refresher:

• Cut: Pinch closed with three fingers two times.
• Copy: Pinch closed with three fingers.
• Paste: Pinch open with three fingers.

Intuitive, right? Right? Yeah, didn’t think so.

But anyway, I could make this article very long by listing all the little things that, together, create a bad mix of undiscoverability and friction, but that would just be a waste of everyone’s time, mine included. Because those people who already know my criticisms regarding the increasing complexity of iPadOS, and agree with me, will still agree with me. Those who don’t will just tell me that once I’ve got accustomed to the new layers of complexity in iPadOS, all those gestures that still lie undiscovered will become second nature. 

And to this second group of people I’ll say that maybe they’re right, but before getting accustomed to such gestures I still have to discover them. Now, I am a techie who keeps himself reasonably up-to-date with this stuff, so I know there are gestures and features on my iPad 8 I need to look for and learn — and I’m going to do just that, because I know where to look. A regular person, not so much. And retorting that a regular person probably doesn’t need to learn more sophisticated gestures because they’re likely to use the iPad in an unsophisticated manner is such a bullshit excuse, if you pardon my French. 

iPadOS still needs work to increase discoverability, usability, and reduce friction in many basic-to-intermediate workflows. It’s still an operating system that cannot properly handle its increasing complexity. When you stay on the surface and keep using the iPad as a consumption device, iPadOS is a breeze and is really enjoyable. Once you start digging deeper, once you want to multitask and carry out more complex tasks for longer sessions… that’s when the struggle begins, as you keep wondering why the path to complete certain tasks has to be so convoluted when on the Mac is literally one click and one keyboard shortcut away.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m enjoying my new iPad more than it seems at first glance. I can finally browse the Web and read RSS feeds without hiccups or freezes or the iPad spontaneously rebooting because it didn’t like the Javascript pill a website forced down its throat. I can finally edit photos on the fly, and so on. Whatever app I’m using, everything feels instantaneous. Battery life is outrageously good (I mean, I was given the iPad on 3 November as a very early birthday gift, and since then I only recharged it twice!). And while being only 162 grams lighter than my old iPad 3, it feels much lighter when I handle it. The essence of the iPad experience I felt when getting to know my iPad 3 back in 2012 is still mostly intact. And I’ve decided I’m happy with that.