WWDC’21: Another iPad snub. Or was it?
The iPad historically was always a companion device, despite its intended objective of replacing netbooks. With its more modern methods of multi-touch input over the traditional mouse and keyboard setup, a clear direction was setup for the iPad - it was taking after the iOS styled controlled environment rather than the more open BSD-based macOS.
So, the release of the iPad “Pro” and its subsequent marketing campaigns that indirectly positioned the iPad as a computer “replacement” were met with unsurprisingly heavy bouts of cynicism and dismissed as Apple’s marketing gimmicks. Yet, a growing section of users began to view the iPad as a considerable leg-up in their professional workflows with the release of the redesigned 2018 iPad Pro that pushed the boundaries of iPad’s hardware capabilities.
Despite the power of the A12X chip, the iPad was not exactly as functional as computers that ran Windows at half its price. Naturally, the “tech community” began criticizing Apple for severely limiting its iPad platform by not allowing macOS like functionality to come to the obviously capable iPad. Since then, Apple’s every move with the iPad was heavily scrutinized under what should be considered, a very biased lens - the creative workflows of the YouTube Tech influencers, presenters and content creators. Producing a video, working off a file server and other video production activities are certainly important, but are not necessarily the requirements upon which the iPad is to be judged.
Over the past 3 years, Apple has made significant strides in expanding the capabilities of the iPad platform and extending its functionality to achieve a much better all-in-one portability focused device. The addition of the stylus and its subsequent redesign, changing its I/O ports to match industry standards, bringing in iPad-focused multitasking setup, addition of mouse and keyboard support, a more robust filesystem and file manager, desktop class browsing and so on and so forth.
But this year, the stakes and excitement over iPadOS 15 were sky-high. Multiple factors contributed to this over expectation- recent additions of mouse and keyboard support with iPadOS 14.5, inclusion of the M1 chip and a mini-LED display in the newest iPad Pros, Thunderbolt 4 support and not to miss, rumors from reliable tipsters about the impending overhaul to its capabilities. The underwhelming feature set announced including addition of widgets and App Library to the home-screen, a new way to use notes, some major improvements to multi-tasking and few other changes was akin to a punch to the gut for most aspirants. Features like multiple display support, exhaustive editing apps ported over from macOS and others were notably absent.
The uproar from tech enthusiasts was deafening and countless videos, articles and blogs found their way online ranting about Apple’s supposed under-handed method of forcing consumers to purchase more products from their product lineups to fulfill their usage requirements from one device itself. While it is true Apple is intentionally knee-capping the iPads, the underlying reason isn’t to up-sell Macs. That is an added benefit.
Like in my previous article, everything Apple does boils down to the principle motivator for its every business decision and its ethos as a company - complete control. Apple’s control over iPadOS is far more exhaustive than it is on macOS. The inability of consumers to seek an alternative App Store or the completely spoon-feeding experience that is meant to “simplify” using the iPad are all just extensions of that principle.
However, right now, Apple’s under intense heat for a lot of their business practices. The App Store is facing inquisition on its monopolistic practices in the US Congress and EU. Multiple litigations with high profile companies also stacking up in US federal courts, UK, EU and Australia. And so on.
With the iPad being the market leader in the tablets segment, and Apple’s rather heavy-handed restrictive App Store policies, any further advantage Apple brought to the iPad would have just provided more ammunition for the opposition. If Apple were to bring its Final Cut Pro X to iPads, the lack of competitors like Adobe Premiere Pro and Davinci Resolve would raise a significant PR nightmare and possibly unnecessary questioning from the regulatory and legislative bodies looking into Apple’s monopolistic practices.
Coming to the much appreciated and well renowned M1 chip, it is but the next generation of Apple’s AxxX line of chips rebranded for the laptop. It was a move meant to simplify development for Macs and iPads while also achieving a secondary profit-focused objective to minimize chip production costs by making the same chip to be used in essentially all of the consumer oriented devices in the Mac-lineup and bringing it over to essentially be the A14X for this iteration of the iPad Pro. YouTube channels of MaxTech and Rene Ritchie go into further depth on the reasons behind its inclusion and Apple’s decisions regarding it.
But above all, tech content creators completely miss out on the target demographic Apple’s iPad Pros are seeking to enrapture - business professionals who need a lightweight, touch focused, highly versatile, all-in-one, premium computing device that needs an exhaustive web-browsing and communication experience; preparing documents, presentations and spreadsheets; consuming content, casually gaming and other forms of entertainment; long battery life and efficient portability; and successfully execute basic operations - the same demographic targeted by 2-in-1s like the Surface Pro. And in that, the iPad Pro excels at beyond any doubt.
To those who are still slighted (mostly the tech community) and feel the need to denigrate Apple’s naming scheme for the addition of the suffix Pro, it is now a common industry practice to attribute “Pro” with a better version of the same product, not necessarily one for all professionals. Even the MacBook Pro 13" is not exactly targeted at the traditional professional. It is consumer and prosumer oriented, for those who need more computing needs than the Air is capable of. Besides, many kinds of Pros do use the device - scientists, business professionals, scriptwriters, writers, authors, journalists, editors, artists, designers and even a few video production professionals. Trying to call out Apple for suffixing its product with Pro is nothing but hypocrisy when allowing other tech companies to use the suffix for $200 smartphones.
iPadOS on an iPad Pro, by no means is a setup that is a fully fledged laptop “replacement”. And there’s the rub. Through its infamously vague “What is a computer?” campaign, it is hard to decipher what Apple was trying to convey. My take is that Apple didn’t and isn’t seeking to present it as a laptop replacement. It want it to be a laptop alternative- a touch-focused, heavily curated and controlled, reliable, secure environment that offers just the right amount of everything for the average user and still provides a large library of well-designed, optimized and functional apps for achieving most of the required tasks. Every year, even if the iPadOS improvements are minor, they hugely impact the workflows for the targeted demographic and the ranting tech enthusiasts do not constitute among those targeted.
It is thus time for us to clear the very biased lenses we, as tech fan-boys and fan-girls, look at the iPad with and see it for it truly is- an alternative solution for a very specific demographic that isn’t us… currently. With Apple’s history of up to 7 years of software support, it is more than likely that the features so craved by ranters will make their way to the iPad. It just might take a lot more time and implemented in unconventional or non-traditional ways, which will just further enrage the irate online mob.
WWDC’21, while not a major upgrade for the iPadOS, brought much needed improvements to exiting setups including the ability to have a call in PIP mode while taking notes or using some other apps, a more comprehensive shelves-based multitasking approach and improvements to Safari with the inclusion extensions and etc. The iPad wasn’t snubbed. It just didn’t live up to the over-excitement and hype that was generated about it.
