The iPad after ten years

When I stop and think that the first iPad was announced ten years ago, it just feels unreal. Sadly, however, the next feeling isn’t Look how far it has come, but more like Look how little it has matured. Ten years later, the iPad is certainly not a revolutionary device, and it has been at best a somewhat evolutionary device.

When I had the idea of writing a piece to sum up my observations after ten years of iPad, I checked this blog’s archives first, because I don’t like repeating myself too much. Meanwhile, I got to read a few articles by other writers on the matter and, unsurprisingly, the one I feel closest to is John Gruber’s The iPad Awkwardly Turns 10.

It turns out that what I wanted to say today about the iPad, I already said in May 2019. The whole first part of My kind of tablet (that is, the part from the beginning up to the “21st Century tablet” section) pretty much sums up my views on this great-but-disappointing device.

If you have time, please do read my other articles referenced in My kind of tablet, because they outline in greater detail some other criticisms I have about the iPad and iOS-on-the-iPad:

Faster than its own OS

Tap swipe hold scroll flick drag drop

Trajectories

As for my personal history with the iPad, it’s amazing how, over the years, its trajectory has progressively moved farther away from my interests, and it has become a much less compelling device overall. It’s quite interesting for me to observe how I couldn’t wait to get an iPad in 2012 (when it first shipped with a retina display) and how, about 8 years later, I don’t really feel like upgrading to the latest and the greatest iPad despite my frustrations with the now-sluggish third-generation iPad I enthusiastically purchased in 2012.

Back in January 2010, Steve Jobs started introducing the iPad by talking about a possible new device category wedged between laptops and smartphones:

…And so all of us use laptops and smartphones now. Everybody uses a laptop and/or a smartphone. And a question has arisen lately: is there room for a third category of device in the middle? Something that’s between a laptop and a smartphone? And of course we pondered this question for years as well. The bar is pretty high. In order to really create a new category of devices, those devices are going to have to be far better at doing some key tasks. They’re gonna have to be far better at doing some really important things: better than the laptop, better than the smartphone.

At the time, I remember feeling in full agreement with Jobs, and when the iPad was finally unveiled, I truly believed it was going to be as revolutionary as the iPhone had been. The potential was utterly palpable. Ten years later, here I am, with a sufficiently large and advanced iPhone on one side, and a sufficiently compact and powerful laptop (the 11-inch MacBook Air) on the other. And the combination of these two devices has effectively neutralised any need I might have for an iPad. After ten years, the only area where the iPad has truly become far better than a laptop and far better than a smartphone is art creation. For that, it’s a really astounding tool. But being a tablet, and an Apple tablet at that, it’s also expected to excel at this. While truly revolutionary products typically have a lot of unexpected markers in their DNA.