The iPad Awkwardly Turns 10

"These things will probably sell in the educational market or something."

"Developers will always surprise us, they will come up with use cases for us."

During development Amazon was proving that people wanted E-Book readers. So when it was clear the iPad didn't yet have a coherent story from Apple, iBooks was thrown together at the eleventh hour and then SJ went on the attack against Amazon to push back against the growing Kindle market.

And then Windows 8 happened! People asked Apple (And Tim Cook), will we see touch-screen Macs? And instead Apple trapped itself in a corner by doubling down that the iPad was going to forgo running full macOS because something about people not wanting to touch their laptop screen. So here we are, a product that launched without a vision, and then hamstrung by ego.

It's true that people who love their iPads, LOOOVE their iPads. So it's a nice product. It's definitely well made and I love reading the news on mine. It's a great device to travel with, for sure, yet I agree with Gruber, this thing will never flourish outside of the niche markets its found itself in.

However, the OS running on the machine is bad. Very bad. The multitasking is horrifying. The Files app is unusable (especially if you want to access your files from an FTP server). You have to use your finger to select a textbox on the screen before you can use your physical keyboard. Copy/Paste between apps is a nightmare (mostly because of the really poor multitasking). Sharing your screen via Airplay is useless except for demoes (doesn't match the target monitor resolution, nor transform the iPad into a giant touchpad). It doesn't support multiple icloud/gmail accounts (if you want to share it with your SO). I can use a terminal and SSH to my raspberry pi, but I can't use git, bash, node, python, go or rust on it...

Just let met install MacOs instead, it can't be worse.

PS: even having a console-only ubuntu VM would make me happy at this point.

On the other hand, the iPad can't seem to actually replace those tools. Those pro artists still use a Wacom for their professional corporate work. The problem is less the software, I think, than the limitations the software forces by nature of the hardware. For professional work, you need as big a screen as possible -- Wacoms go up to 32". You also need hotkeys for an efficient workflow. Hunting and tapping through menus on a touchscreen is, by nature, going to be slower then having your left hand ready to hit the undo command at a moment's notice. Sure, it might be possible to plug a big external screen and a full keyboard into your iPad, but at that point, is it really an iPad anymore? What professional artist would bother buying an iPad to act as a desktop computer tower when they could buy an actual desktop computer tower with better specs for cheaper?

So the iPad is about as good as it can possibly be: such a good touchscreen tablet that professional artists love it in all situations where they're willing to sacrifice power and flexibility for the convenience of a fully portable touchscreen tablet. It's not very good at replacing a full professional art setup on a desktop. But should it really aspire to be? In other words, I agree with this article, but disagree with its conclusions. Tablets won't replace laptops not because the iPad isn't a good enough tablet, but because they're simply never going to be the most efficient work machine you can buy.

The worst thing is that the forced over-simplification of the UI features did not make it easier to use for beginners. I can see many people (including myself) struggling. So we have been forced into a "compromise" with all the downside, but none of the upside.

Given how great the hardware is (really, I think this is under-appreciated), I really hope Apple can get out of that thinking rut.

I also think that the slow iPad sales are directly connected to the mediocre OS software.

I know many have written that they have issues with multiple windows on the iPad, but for me it's never been better or easier. My main gripe is keyboard behavior which is very buggy, but not related to how easy/hard it is to make and move apps around the screen.

The fact is that the iPad is only useful because of its software. In my case it'd be useless without Files, Working Copy, Blink, Wireguard, and Screens. Only 1 of those is built-in and still it's a fairly recent addition. And it's the latest version on iOS 13 which is really the version which turbo-charged using many apps together easily. I use these apps to pretty much avoid directly using my "real computers" as much as possible via VMs or remote access via Wireguard.

But, I think we're only seeing the beginning of the iPad. I can relate to the feeling that "we should have more of what we expected by now", but the fact is that designing these power user interfaces, actually redesigning them for touch while making them compatible with existing ones, is very difficult.

A great example for HN is how we develop like we're in the 70s with text terminals and executing commands. Where on the iPad it might make more sense for the terminal to be rich like a REPL where commands/expressions act more like the results of a Shortcut (rich data, not just text) or code might be edited as an AST instead of the text which allows the concept of a "source file" to go away and instead there be a source database. Instead of trying to rebuild the editors we had we build something else designed for testing, iterating, and managing the AST. Dark[1] is a good example of this, but currently focused on the web.

This is all way out there right now, but it makes me think that the iPad is still just getting started.

[1]: https://darklang.com/

And why is the iPad peripheral system such a mess? The released the pencil 2 which is a significant usability improvement and had every indication of replacing the pencil 1, but that was years ago and they keep releasing new pencil 1 only devices, while just calling both of them “Apple Pencil” in many places. If you want a good pencil now, there’s no way to buy a moderately specced machine with it, you have to pay for the pro with more compute power than a high end laptop.

And ipads now have full usb host support, but instead of marketing that as a perk, they kind of pretend it doesn’t exist by calling it the “camera kit” like it only has one specific use.

I actually recently got my first personal iOS (okay, iPadOS) device and this is how I feel about many of the UI features. Touching some side of the screen triggers this or that surprising feature and I'm struggling to undo what I did to get back to the business. Maybe what's needed is good old RTFM, but having heard how easy Apple device are to supposed to be to use, it's kind of unexpected that so much of this stuff is not that discoverable.

- iPad POS are popular in smaller coffee shops and similar outlets

- iPad-based document viewing solutions are used by pilots to replace large bags with manuals for planes that they used to lug around

- iPads are used for meeting room management solutions, information displays for customers and similar purposes where one single application is to be run basically 24/7 on a device with low power and space requirements, but where certain aesthetic requirements to the app as well as the hardware have to be satisfied

Granted, iPads don't hold this space exclusively. But so don't iPhones or Macs hold their respective application spaces exclusively, even though they significantly catalyzed their genesis.

The iPhone had competition below it, from feature phones and Blackberrys. But there was nothing above it. Similarly, the Mac was launched into a very nascent market, where there were competitors (PCs), but it wasn't facing competition from above and below in the same way the iPad was.

Perhaps the iPad would have done better and grown faster if it had been made by a company that wasn't worried about cannibalizing iPhone or Mac sales. But surely part of the reason the iPad has been as successful as it has is that it runs the same apps as iPhones and has attracted devs who might not have otherwise been interested.

The iPad is a great device but, it isn't essential to anything or anyone. If tomorrow there where no iPads anymore, we would all just get on with our lives.

In my opinion the iPad has had a tremendous impact within the general population and (combined with smartphones) got rid of the PC altogether for the average family. And tablets, especially for the elderly, are a true game-changer.

My mother, not a technologist at all (she doesn't even have a cellphone) cannot live without her iPad. Granted that she could do everything with a smartphone, but the bigger screen of an iPad is particularly good for people who have a waning eyesight and, in general, might require a bit of a bigger UI (bigger buttons, etc.).

1. Open app by tapping it.

2. Close it by tapping the physical button. (rip)

That's it. And that's why my grandma can use it. The first and only device she comfortably uses to this day.

People in our (tech) communities tend to overestimate a users ability with technology.

The intuitive way to launch a second app would be to slide in from the right or left with two (three?) fingers, which would expose a compressed view of the springboard in split view. Then you could access all the apps intuitively (by swiping to the next page of apps) and launch the second app in the intuitive click-an-app method. This could even be tiled in a golden-rectangle geometry to expose a third app.

All you're trying to do is repurpose the slide-right slide-left function to expose springboard in a new way, which can be done with a multi-finger gesture.

Just an anecdote. I am a very technical user and I still got confused by the multitasking / slide-over thing. So I just ignore it.

I have a Samsung tablet, the Galaxy Tab S4. As a consumption device, it's great. I read books and newspapers; I watch videos and movies; I play the occasional game. It's great for that. I use my projector way less now, and don't have to struggle with the awkwardness of phones or laptops for those tasks.

Like Gruber, I thought it might do more, so I got it with the keyboard case, and thought about traveling with just that. But I pretty quickly swapped that for a dumb case and just kept traveling with my laptop when I needed to do actual work. A real keyboard and a real trackpad are way more effective for productive work than anything that's going to snap on to a tablet. Conversely, when I'm just aiming to consume something, there's a lot of hardware and OS complexity I just don't need.

I think it's telling here that he doesn't say what sort of revolution he really expects out of the iPad. He doesn't talk about an audience or a use case the iPad could serve if there were specific changes. Instead it's just a grumble about an obscure feature and how his grandmother struggles with it. In my view, tablets have definitely lived up to their potential. It just took us a bit to figure out what that potential really was.

I can understand this from a battery perspective but why not give us an option to let certain apps run in the background, especially when the iPad is plugged in to power.

As an example, if I start a download in Safari, I can’t use a different app until Safari finishes the download. I could use split-screen but who wants to watch a video I split screen.

For me the problem of the iPad is that it's merely inconsistently better at a slew of entertainment/consumption based activities but for everything else it's worse than any decent laptop. As even consumption-based workflows may involve intermediate bursts of typing, and just to extend the iPad's range into more uses I am tempted to have a keyboard -- but then it almost nears the inconvenience of carrying a laptop.

IMO to be revolutionary the iPad should convince you not to buy a laptop, or it should be as light as the kindle so that you would consider reading it Star Trek style for 20-30 minutes per day, as even the iPad mini is a bit weighty. Right now with the focus on iPad Pro and Air I think Apple is going toward the former.

I've been using my MBP less and less ever since. I can cover a good deal of my normal "laptop" activities with the iPad.

- I can put the latest CW DC Superhero show I'm hate-watching on from Plex in picture-in-picture and browse Reddit or Hacker News at the same time - I can use Newsblur to check my RSS feeds, Telegram/Discord/IRCCloud to chat - The battery lasts me all day, from morning to night - I can even use Blink.sh to log in via ssh/mosh to any server to tune some template or adjust script settings

The only time I actually pick up my MBP is when I need to do some Serious Coding with a Big Display (or two).

Even my commutes are more enjoyable with synced Plex media and Netflix downloads, beats looking at a 5" phone screen.

It's really sad, because I love it as a computing device and the missing pieces are totally arbitrary. It could offer the same user experience it offers now while still giving me the tools I need to have it replace my laptops and desktops.

I bought my mom an iPad in 2012 and she is still (!) using it. She loves it. But she has an iMac too, which as far as I can tell she mostly uses to—you guessed it—manage files. Or, at least, that's the only part of her workflow that can't be hosted on the iPad. 8 years later, that's still the case.

iPad generates ~$20B/year in revenue with huge margins. [1]

If iPad was a standalone business, it be the 156th largest company in the world by revenue (Fortune). [2]

How can having a single product where only 155 entire companies are bigger than it, “not live up to its potential”?

[1] https://sixcolors.com/post/2019/10/apple-results-64b-in-reve...

[2] https://fortune.com/fortune500/2019/search/

Jobs' criticisms may have been a bit abrasive at times, but these kinds of problems seem to indicate that nobody is currently filling that important role at Apple.

I've heard people say this before, as if there's no way to use anything but your permanent dock apps in split screen. But if it's not in the Dock, you launch it, and now it's in the dock. That's why the recent items section on the right side exists.

My personal gripe with iOS multitasking is that it's easy to make a second instance of an app by dragging and dropping (such as Safari tabs to split screen), but then it's not as easy to close the second copy when you're done with it. When split screen was a special implementation within Safari, dragging the last tab from one side to the other would automatically collapse that side and bring the remaining one back to full screen. Now it leaves an empty Safari window hanging around.

If you want to close that, you have to make one side or the other full screen, open the app switcher, and swipe the empty one up off the top.

Yesterday the guy fixing the mobile traffic lights was using an iPad to configure them / My gym gets me to change my membership plan using an iPad within a floor standing cabinet.

The biggest disappointment to me is that I can't buy a Macbook that converts into a tablet. I've never owned a tablet, and my wife never replaced her 1st generation iPad, because there's just too much overlap between tablet and phone; and between tablet and laptop.

And, as far as multitasking goes: When I do serious work that requires that kind of multitasking, I need a keyboard and mouse. Furthermore, I'll probably be sitting in a chair, at a desk, with a giant monitor... Multitasking is just an absurd use case for a "tablet." Instead, it shows that "tablet" and "laptop" just need to converge to be the same ^%#$ device.

Windows tablets might suck, but at least you don't have to own two devices!

I think judging the iPad based on changes they make for power users is near pointless in terms of its success.

1) Whether the iPad is revolutionary, and how in this respect it compares to the iPhone and the Mac.

2) iPad’s split-screen UX

The two are not linked in a casual relationship imho. I personally never use split screen on my Mac (and of course on my iPhone), but this has not precluded it from being a device I use almost every waking hour.

So to address the first point, the reason the iPad is not as revolutionary is because being in the middle of the two revolutionary products, it’s shares the pros and cons of both, in a way that negates each other. So the iPad is not small enough to be truly portable, but not big enough to be the perfect work horse. It will never have the same success and impact on the world, no matter its UX.

Off-topic, but it's an interesting choice to pluralize "iPads Pro", especially in a sentence where it could easily be singular ("The iPad Pro outperforms MacBooks computationally"). After all, there aren't different tech specs on the different iPads Pro (of the same generation). They just differ in screen size, IIRC.

Form is function.

Bigger than phone, touched orientated versus keyboard/mouse mac.

That's also whythe physically 'panic' home button was very good.

Personally the most interesting feature of the iPad these days is the pen - a way of physically interacting with the computer that's different.

At the end of the day, the 'user interface' isn't just software it's physical. Whether it be touch, voice, pen, or keyboard.

One of the problems with the more 'advanced' UI features/gestures is that they don't anchor in the physical - you have no idea it existed or why the software responded in that way.

It's not just typing on a touch screen; that's awful, but then I bought a keyboard. But using the Dvorak layout, Scandinavian letters and Japanese input in my daily life makes iPad just not cut it. It's not a flexible device like a PC is. I still haven't been able to type the way I'd want to.

IMHO, the biggest innovation is that an enterprise can purchase one of these interest free for ~$20 / month (no interest) and get a brand new one in 3 years through Apple’s enterprise sales.

Hardware sold as a service. $11B.

I think the focus on multitasking misses the real innovation.

The answer to a lot of this should be "open the Tips app and follow the tutorials," but they don't cover the entire set of possibilities, so a valid criticism would be that the Tips app should be improved.

A tip for people that might not know:

> apps that aren’t in the Dock can’t become the second app in split screen mode.

Not true: on an external keyboard you can execute the same key command you use for Spotlight in macOS: ⌘ + Space, then you can immediately type the name of the app you want, and drag it into multitasking from the results. As Gruber points out with the dual purpose gesture of dragging icons from the dock (either multitasking or removing from dock), there is one here too: if you swipe down in the center of the home screen to activate a search, you can't drag those icons into multitasking. It makes sense because there's no other app open to multitask with, but the gesture is overloaded nonetheless.

A personal bummer lately is that my $150 smart keyboard stopped working, so I'm rocking a Magic Keyboard with it currently at my desk. The Bluetooth connection story isn't perfect, and I don't take it around with me, so when I'm mobile I just have the dead keyboard cover.

The good thing that the article points out is that Apple’s historical business model (4.99 price cap) limited productivity tools by capping the prices that could be charged through the app store. Fair point there. Apple can still breathe life going forward for developers by rebooting the developer ecosystem. 10 years on the tablet has just arrived for productivity. That is still a fraction of iPad consumers. Prosumers are a minority and the only ones demanding landscape view and split screen apps.

I work for an IAM consultancy and the password manager we recommend to our clients and that I use is SAASPASS and one of the reasons is that it supports multitasking, landscape view and split screen. Split screen is great for Authenticator codes and password management. But the masses probably don’t care at all for these features. Although AutoFill has solved some of these UX issues with most apps and websites.

If anyone is interested in an iPad friendly Authenticator and Password Manager see here:

https://saaspass.com/

the multi-tasking, drag&drop, split-screen interface is very complex and confusing even for me, who have been using the iPad for ten years.

I wonder if the trend to confusing designs has something to do with the recent rise of "use case centered" UI design.

My impression is that many graphical designs in the past were designed by coming up with certain fundamental abstractions or metaphors first and then integrating the different functions of the software into it: That way, we got windows and standard widgets which function the same way everywhere, no matter which particular application makes use of them. We also have abstractions like "files" or "desktop icons" that a user can interact with in a consistent way independent of application.

This way of design has pitfalls: You can choose the wrong metaphors and paint yourself into a corner, you can overvalue consistency to the point the UI becomes cumbersome to use or you can find that a new feature doesn't fit into your abstractions and you have to shoehorn it in. However, what this design guarantees is that the user has some basic tools to orient themselves, without needing to consult a manual for everything or remember some random onboarding popup that appeared a week ago when the user had completely other things on their mind.

I feel today, UI design has shifted away from common abstractions to the point it's almost seen as an anti-pattern. Instead, the design process is started with assembling an exhaustive list of "use cases" or "user stories": The app is supposed to enable the user to do the tasks on the list - and only those tasks. Then, every item on the list is passed, one-by-one to the UI team, who add a button, gesture or other affordance to perform exactly that task. Finally, users are watched via telemetry to see if they are using the app as intended and if any additional tasks must be added via the above procedure.

This method of design does have advantages: The most common tasks are easy to access, even if they are, by themselves, complex procedures involving different components (such as "make a photo, color-correct it, upload it to Twitter and refer to it in a tweet").

On the other hand, everything that falls outside ymthe immediate attention of the developers becomes ridiculously hard to do or even impossible: Take the above photo, but zip it, then send it in an email? Sorry, you need an app for that. Take a photo, color-correct it and send it to mastodon? Sorry, not integrated. Etc, etc.

To be honest, I have no idea if modern UI design really is done like this, but it very often feels that way. I really wonder if a return to some well-dosed consistency wouldn't improve a whole lot of things both for casual and power users.

Even commercial crews (CPL, ATPL) are using them, and no longer have to lug around booklets.

For 'redundancy' people often don't use paper, but have multiple electronic devices as well.

There is also another comment buried toward the bottom questioning why everything has to be "revolutionary", which I agree with. I find that the iPad is a cozy fit for most people's personal and professional workflows and the fact that it's Apple keeps everything cohesive. What revolution is it supposed to spark? It is a companion, a bridge, so to speak, between two pieces of equipment that the author has already acknowledges as "revolutionary" on their own.

I'm actually surprised by a lot of HN's failure of imagination — "I can't imagine why you would want an iPad when you could use an xyz", often translating into "I don't believe an iPad could ever become abc".

And yet, against all odds and despite its relative decline in sales, the iPad marches forward, stands strong despite its flaws, and defies the naysayers of 2010 and 2020.

To give my own answer to my question: I prefer optimism over pessimism, myself.

Personally, I really like the split window support but to be honest I had to practice the gestures for opening and closing second windows.

Off topic, but my big complaint about my iPad Pro is that the physical buttons for volume control, etc. are placed differently than my iPhone 11 Pro. This always makes me pause when switching devices because I like to think of my iPhone and iPad to sort-of be the same device as far as apps and most use cases. Apple, place the hardware controls in the same locations. Also, the menu bar on Safari is different on the two devices. I wish Apple would fix that also.

But you can see it start to happen. An iPad is becoming the default point of sale system in a lot of places. My wife works with autistic kids; he doesn't have a computer, he has an iPad so he can go from recording behavioral data to YouTube in a fluid motion.

The iPad stumbled because it was supposed to be a consumer device, and then developers and users realized it filled a niche for a lot of creation tasks, and Apple has been playing catch-up ever since.

From day 1, the iPad was a great format for music making. But it’s fun to look back and remember that back then it didn’t have MIDI, and Audiobus would be some time to follow.

If you have to collect information from a bunch of disparate documents, make comments, and share your collected thoughts, LiquidText is the absolute best.

https://apps.apple.com/us/app/liquidtext/id922765270

> The iPad has been a spectacular success, and to tens of millions it is a beloved part of their daily lives, but it has, to date, fallen short of revolutionary.

Yes, well it has fallen short of revolutionary, probably because it's just a big iphone, (or a laptop without keyboard). There was no new paradigm here.

Obviously I was wrong about it being a stupid idea, and I'm happy to own that. I've built several apps specific to iPad over the years, and I'm going to start another one today.

I _do_ also think that iOS has fallen behind Android in several important ways in the last 2 or 3 years. Not in every way, but things like the Keyboard on iOS drive me crazy. Can't speak for iPad OS. Today will be my first experience with that.

Every household in USA has one ipad or wants to have one. (360million total sold in usa - so 1.1 ipad per person).

360,000,000 ipads x $400 (example average price) = $144B in sales !!!

There is nothing Awkward about that. They crushed it!

ongrats to Apple for making a great product for media consumers!

Why does everything have to be revolutionary? Pretty much everybody I know who has an iPad love using their device. It's a wonderful tool for media and web consumption, it just works for that use case very, very well. It can be used effortlessly, for multiple hours a day. Does it really have to do more?

Personally I just don't use split-screen apps on the iPad, but I'm not the least inconvenienced by the feature being around, behind some strange gestures I don't really bothered to learn.

Settings > General > Multitasking and Dock > Allow Multiple Apps (Off)

> But if I could go back to the pre-split-screen, pre-drag-and-drop interface I would.

I think you can, check your settings.

Rhe next big thing going to be VR/AR/glasses, but have stalled. It might be foldable displays, but I think they'll suffer the same fate as tablets, for the same reasons. Convenience is kimg.

Just make a multitask button in slide up menu or dock, which, when press, would present a user with his own home screen and an overlay titled "Select an app", maybe with slight clarification, "the launched app will be run next to your current app". Maybe not the best solution, but way better than the current one

There’s a lot to criticize about the software, it is actually very easy to criticize the software for not doing the things you want it to do because it seems like it ought to be able to, and there is obviously a better way to do the thing you want to do if Apple would only do X, Y, and Z and stop doing A and B to hold it back.

Here’s where reality gets really boring though: iPads are only tablets, and only of the stuff in your bag, leave on a table or have it permanently docked in some kind of kiosk variety. That lends itself to being a bit better at some applications than others, but there‘a some applications it will always be downright inferior to compared to a laptop or phone. It’s not going to fit in my pocket better than my phone, and it’s not the entire self-contained package that my laptop is, nor does it have the benefit of always being plugged into a wall socket being able to draw essentially unlimited power that my desktop has. I could try to replicate some of the benefits of those devices with some creative planning and a big enough pile of money with some mixed success, but in exchange for not being as good for certain applications, it is absolutely top tier for reading and drawing. It’s all about the trade offs you are willing to make.

If what a tablet is better at is more important to you than what a laptop is better at, and the few things you would prefer to do on a laptop can still be done on a tablet, you might make the tradeoff to spend more money to have both, or you might make the tradeoff to save some money and only have the tablet. Neither is a bad choice to make.

Putting it that way is boring though, and it doesn’t play into the narrative that we’re only going to have one or the other at some far flung point in the future and tablets are the predestined winner of that zero sum game, you know, just like how we only have GUIs these days and positively no one uses what we once called the command-line interface.

In retrospect the above comment is less a direct response to Gruber’s article, and more a response to a broad swath of sentiments expressed here in this thread and across the part of the web that spends too much time talking about Apple. It should be understood as such anyway.

Pros: biometrics / security / immediately usable to check email

Cons: software has started going all SAAS and Apple allowed developers to upgrade and break previous versions to force users on to SAAS versions

My SO is returning to school and wants a tablet for school. She likes her iPhone. Is the iPad ready to be a primary note taking solution? I have seen its note taking app used to great effect but how is external keyboard support? Does anyone use an ipad in uni as their primary input device?

>and apps that aren’t in the Dock can’t become the second app in split screen mode. What sense does that limitation make?

I think that hits the nail on the head. I just couldn't believe that somehow Apple settled on this UI interaction for multitasking.

https://ipadlinux.org/

Instead of iOS, Arch GNU/Linux! It's too bad that even old iPads haven't been figured out enough to bring first-class GNU/Linux support to these machines.

Fast forward to today, iPad Pro has been my primary device for pushing 2 years.

With a keyboard and multi-tasking it’s a far more flexible, collaborative, and portable compute experience compared to my MacBook.

Or if this article hadn't just taught me how to do it. Be right back, about to go multitask on my ipad for the first time...

I mean. Does it really, still? If so, that's horrifying as a technologist and sad.

It is a good part of the ecosystem.

Was it?

I've never personally been interested in tablets, but my perception is that they're not especially popular. Over the last few years, I've rarely seen them being used for anything other than mobile video machines for little kids. A lot of people bought the iPad, but very few people appear to regularly use one.

I'm aware that the iPad extremely useful for some people. I'm just not convinced it's the breakout success this article paints it as. My personal experience and observations show that it is more of a niche product.

I'm enjoying the mental training of learning to scan text for keywords myself, but from time to time this is a feature that I miss ...

How quickly Gruber falls in line with the propaganda machine the moment that official guidance (Airpods Pro) comes out. :D

i think the most lacking features are related to pencil interactions ( which still can't be used to enter text in iOS text fields easily), but i feel it's really slowly getting there

Software is absolutely the strength.

The extraordinary social impact of iPad on education, bringing technology and books to the masses, especially the non technical, education and entertainment to the young (who can use this device even before they can read), the elderly and most importantly the enablement of the disabled are the greatest achievements of the iPad. This is the device of the 2010's.

Focussing on something like multitasking in the OS is really narrow and misses why this device even exists.

Instead they're inventing all sorts of hidden gesture based workarounds.

They're no longer targeting ipad for new users.

I agree that adding apps to multitasking seems to baffle people. But this seems like it can

With the addition of a folio-type keyboard and self-supporting tip-up mode, there's little the device cannot do from a set of basic laptop functionality. And yet it's still a fully-capable touch device.

Where failure enters is in the accessories and peripherals (especially keyboards), and of course, the OS and apps.

At which point I think I'm going to end up re-writing the rant I'd composed nearly three years ago, so I'll just link it:

https://ello.co/dredmorbius/post/lqgtwy_rhsfbdh5cdxb1rq

TL;DR:

1. Standardise form factors so keyboards Just Freaking Fit.

2. Offer a true and robust shell and Linux userland, with filesystem access.

3. Provide real apps with full keyboard support.

4. Uncripple the OS.

I'm looking at PineTab and Purism's tablet offerings with interest.

2-in-1 laptop designs ... might work, though the additional hardware and fragility strike me as large liabilities.

if ipadOS is 50% capable as macOS, the ipad pro would be a dream machine for web developer.

"I wish I could install my own OS/Apps on my iPad to solve the problems I have".

I have literally never wanted multiple windows of the same app on my iPad. But it keeps happening.

I’m a computer guy. I shudder to think what this is like for my grandmother.

The iPad is essentially, at this point, a two-mode device. There is the simple paradigm, screen-as-app mode inherited from the iPhone. Then, for power users, there is the multitasking paradigm with Flyover, Split Screen, Drag & Drop.

The multitasking paradigm is not meant to co-exist with the simple one, and it is not meant to be discoverable. I agree with Gruber that there is work to do here to make it better, but iPad can't drop the simple paradigm, because many people use it that way. So anything more that the iPad offers has to build on top of and integrate with that paradigm.

That is really a huge challenge. It's not often that challenges like that come along. In desktop computing, lots of things are un-intuitive or at least not intuitively discoverable, such as right-clicking for context menus or keyboard shortcuts. We all don't consider them that way because we are so used to them, and we almost never meet someone who hasn't ever had to interact with them the first time.

I'd also argue that the simple paradigm iPhone and iPad offer has made computing more approachable to great swaths of people (not even considering things like cost, etc).

Yes, iPad multitasking is not perfect. But I think they are at least on the right track, and I am thankful they have protected that approachability.

You’re missing the iPad business model. You’re not allowed to do anything (except maybe wash the dishes or get dressed) when the iPad is showing an ad that gets you free something.

True multitasking would break the business model of thousands of sites.