In a linked-list item called Max Headroom, Nick Heer quotes this bit from TechCrunch’s Matthew Panzarino interview with Greg Joswiak and John Ternus about the new iPad Pro:
One of the stronger answers on the ‘why the aggressive spec bump’ question comes later in our discussion but is worth mentioning in this context. The point, Joswiak says, is to offer headroom. Headroom for users and headroom for developers.
“One of the things that iPad Pro has done as John [Ternus] has talked about is push the envelope. And by pushing the envelope that has created this space for developers to come in and fill it. When we created the very first iPad Pro, there was no Photoshop,” Joswiak notes. “There was no creative apps that could immediately use it. But now there’s so many you can’t count. Because we created that capability, we created that performance — and, by the way sold a fairly massive number of them — which is a pretty good combination for developers to then come in and say, I can take advantage of that. There’s enough customers here and there’s enough performance. I know how to use that. And that’s the same thing we do with each generation. We create more headroom to performance that developers will figure out how to use.
“The customer is in a great spot because they know they’re buying something that’s got some headroom and developers love it.”
Nick then comments:
I buy this argument, particularly as the iPad is the kind of product that should last years. Since the first-generation iPad Pro, iPads have seemed to be built for software and workflows that are two or three years down the road. But the question about the iPad for about that same length of time is less can you? and more would you want to?, and I hope the answer to that comes sooner than a few years out.
I mulled over this bit for a while and have produced a few observations.
1.
I kind of buy that argument too, in the sense that it’s the only possible argument Apple can elaborate at this point. But this headroom Joswiak and Ternus are talking about is getting so ridiculously high that I truly wonder whether the whole thing is starting to lose sense. This is the absolute polar opposite of planned obsolescence. It’s a form of utter future-proofing that, theoretically, begins to transcend the device itself and the user’s needs.
Suppose a car maker comes out with a new electric car with a battery that lasts one month before you need to charge it, and allows you to easily reach speeds of 500 km/h (310 mph). Wonderful, yes? Imagine how fast you could travel, imagine the performance, the efficiency of this car. The problem is, of course, where on earth could you actually drive this car to maximise that performance? There is an (infra)structural issue that has little to do with the car, with the device, itself. The car does indeed have great power and great efficiency, but nowhere to — realistically, practically — demonstrate it.
And suppose that the context, the infrastructure, the applications (= uses) for that car all do get updated years later, so that you can take advantage of specially fast lanes to travel around with that car. Would you buy that car today? Would you keep it for years, use it at maybe 20% of its potential, just waiting for the right opportunity, application, status quo update, to see it truly shine, to finally get what you paid for? I don’t know. I wouldn’t. Especially if it’s a comparatively costly investment.
2.
Let’s focus again on this bit:
“When we created the very first iPad Pro, there was no Photoshop,” Joswiak notes. “There was no creative apps that could immediately use it. But now there’s so many you can’t count. Because we created that capability, we created that performance…”
Nah. When Procreate (and many other creative apps) was first released — 2011, ten years ago! — it could capably run on an iPad 2 and iPad 3. I still have (and use) a bunch of drawing/painting apps on my old iPad 3, and they run fairly smoothly all things considered. I’ve drawn and sketched a lot on that iPad using apps like Paper by Fifty-Three (now Paper by WeTransfer), Bamboo Paper, or Penultimate. Pixelmator for iPad was launched in October 2014, in the iOS 8 era, and one year before the first iPad Pro was introduced. Pixelmator is such a good app that I can use it on one of my iPhone 4S units running iOS 8.4.1.
Apple may have ‘created that capability’, and certainly all high-profile creative apps that are currently available have now the opportunity to introduce features that can take advantage of all this sheer hardware power. But the fact that there was no Photoshop before Apple created the first iPad Pro is not because Photoshop wouldn’t have been possible without the first iPad Pro. Adobe could have released Photoshop for the iPad years before the appearance of an iPad Pro. But they couldn’t be bothered; maybe they thought iOS was still an immature operating system for such an application. Maybe they were too busy focusing their efforts (and their many apps) on traditional computers. I don’t know.
But I don’t think that Apple introducing the first iPad Pro was enough reason to make Adobe go, Yeah, that’s more like it. That’s what we were waiting for. The first iPad Pro came out in September 2015. Photoshop for iOS was introduced in late 2019, if I’m not mistaken. Four years to release an iOS app which, while powerful, still doesn’t have feature parity with Photoshop for Mac or Windows, doesn’t strike me as Adobe scrambling to make it available as soon as the iPad Pro appeared.
Apologies if I’m getting unbearably pedantic here, but I do think that Apple’s narrative here is like You know, the chicken did indeed come before the egg, while I’m rather certain the opposite is true. Creative apps and iOS developers never really waited for Apple; I’ve purchased creative apps for iOS since 2008, and what I’ve noticed is that developers in general, and especially developers of creative apps, have always tried to stay ahead of the curve. And all the iPads I’ve handled in the past ten years have never really struggled when running such creative apps.
3.
I want to belabour one thing I wrote in my first observation above, when I said that the M1 iPad Pro’s hardware capabilities are a form of utter future-proofing that, theoretically, begins to transcend the device itself and the user’s needs. And this ties to Nick Heer’s observation when he says, But the question about the iPad for about that same length of time is less can you? and more would you want to?.
Hardware-wise, an M1 iPad Pro is essentially a Mac with a touch interface. Software-wise, this incredibly powerful iPad is as capable as a 2014 iPad Air 2 (the oldest iPad model that can run iPadOS 14). There is still, in my opinion, a substantial software design gap preventing iPads from being as flexible as they are powerful. Software-wise, iPadOS still lacks flow. Don’t wave Shortcuts in my face as a way of objecting. Shortcuts are a crutch. A good one, no doubt, but a crutch nonetheless. Software automation can do great things for an operating system, but if an operating system comes to depend on it to become usable, then maybe you have to rethink a thing or two.
iPad is still a device that mostly appeals to people who have embraced it as their primary device for a while now. People who have by now got accustomed to its software quirks. People who have patiently built custom workflows to avoid jumping in and out of three apps, tapping and swiping around, just to complete a task that on a Mac takes 2–3 keyboard shortcuts and you don’t even have to move your hands away from the keyboard.
A creative professional who is trying to switch from traditional computers to a device like the iPad Pro is — I believe — more interested in the power of the iPad’s interface rather than the weight its CPU can metaphorically lift. (Not that the latter doesn’t matter, but I think you know what I’m trying to say here). iPad has extreme portability and multi-touch on its side. iPad has Apple Pencil on its side, and the immediacy of letting you draw — sketch — paint on its surface, directly.
All these are real advantages over a computer aided by a graphic tablet. But if these advantages aren’t paired with an operating system and a user interface that give at the very least the same amount of freedom of movement the user is afforded in Mac OS, for example, then things get awkward. Because it’s not just the GPU and CPU power that makes the experience fast and enjoyable, or the device compelling. An important part of the equation is how good, smooth, seamless the interface is. How well it allows interoperation among apps. How well the whole interaction makes the workflow… flow.
The computer mainframes of the 1950s and 1960s had, for the time, amazing computational capabilities, but to operate them, to present them the data to work with and to extract meaningful uses out of their output, you had to put up with abstruse and counterintuitive interfaces. Those were different times, and people really didn’t think of workflows the way we do today. Those were machines to be operated that way, and there were typically multiple people assigned to one specific task. Efficiency was a concerted effort.
But back to the iPad. The paradox now is that the path of least resistance to make iPadOS more usable is to keep borrowing from Mac OS. But the more you make the iPad experience similar to a Mac’s, the more you blur the lines, and you make the iPad become essentially a touch-enabled Mac with a good stylus. You make it less distinctive. You make it just a bit less compelling. Ah, but no, Apple executives say, we don’t intend for the iPad and the Mac to converge. Then I do hope iPadOS is in for a deep redesign, to make the experience truly effortless and reduce this friction I keep noticing whenever I switch from a Mac to an iPad. (I really look forward to the preview we’ll hopefully get at the WWDC.)
It’s not enough to have an impressive chip, RAM and storage space on the hardware side, and just say, Here you are. Now you just need a sprinkle of amazing third-party apps, and you will have an astounding device and experience. Having amazing third-party apps is fantastic, but without the connective tissue of an optimised OS underneath all that, you end up with siloed experiences, lack of interoperability, and fragmented workflows.
Apple is certainly betting on this iPad Pro’s future. I’m interested in seeing how many users are willing to invest and bet on a device that — as Nick observes — seems to be built for software and workflows that are two or three years down the road. I’ll never be able to obtain a meaningful statistic out of this, though, because many will purchase the iPad Pro for ‘the potential’; many will purchase it because it’ll seem a meaningful upgrade to them; many because they can and because they unquestioningly purchase the latest and greatest device with an Apple logo on it. And so forth. As things stand today, Apple is selling a device that promises a lot, and by the time it fully delivers on what it promises today, more years and more iPad iterations will have come and gone, but its hardware power will always be out of reach, maybe for its own OS too. Meanwhile, this ultra-powerful iPad Pro, another chapter of an endless work in progress, becomes a feedback loop of potential and promise, of forward-looking-ness. And Apple will monetise the hell out of it.
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