Welcome back everyone i'm here with Macworld's Michael Simon as well as
Computerworld Executive Editor Ken Mingis.
Mike most recently wrote a story for Mac world in which he used the ipad
all day a week to do his job so Mike i know that you've got
a lot of opinions on this and ken i'm sure you also have a lot of opinions on
this because you do often use the ipad for work so mike i
first want to hear from you tell me about your experience would you
recommend it was it good what did you like what did you hate
all right let's go i'm just gonna say that the only hate mail i got about this
article which is where was from ken because he was not he was
not happy with
but um yes so i recently got an ipad pro with the magic keyboard and
the pencil and all the trimmings this was a top of the line unit
one terabyte of storage a cellular connection all that and i
you know i i was excited about it because i do i
use an ipad kind of casually i have an old ipad air
2 and i have an ipad pro from i don't know i want to say maybe maybe
three years ago right before they redesigned it with the um with the slim
bezels and face id and you know i i do like it i i have
issues with it and you know in my setup with android and things like
that it's trickier than it would be but i was i was excited to use this
because my main problem with the ipad as with
lots of other people was the keyboard and the trackpad and the experience and
the multitasking and all that stuff so i was you know i dove in like
literally i said all right i'm closing my mac
which i use eight hours a day for work for everything email and and see a
content management uploading articles everything that i do with
before work i use my mac for which is a macbook it's a 2017
macbook pro so it's not like a top-of-the-line new one like like ken
has hey but you know it it gets the job done
it has the touch bar in it you know it has all the newer macbook things usbc
etc so i closed it and i set up the ipad and
you know so the first couple hours were you know it's tricky because it's
different it's very different the whole experience is not the mac and
i'm not going to criticize that because that's
you know it it should be different i'm not looking to
to emulate the mac on my ipad but even after that intro period when i by
the time i got comfortable with with the with the trackpad and the
keyboard and the app switching and the things that i that i had to do
on a regular basis conclusion first it's not it's just it's it's not
meant to be all right it's not meant to replace a mac
i don't think and i couldn't wait to get back to my
to my mac the the next week and i do still use it i do have it you know right
next to me but to to say that it's
a it's to say that the ipad pro is becoming the mac i think is a
misconception of what the ipad is
and i'll stop and i'll let ken interject for a moment if you'd like to
i'm going to shock and horrify you by saying actually i
kind of agree with you you know and i i will hold up my my ipad pro and my magic
keyboard all of which i love and use um but i you know we were talking about
this just a minute ago that i think in terms of thinking of the the ipad pro
magic keyboard combo as an enterprise device yeah it
certainly is and can be an enterprise device depending on what you're doing
uh but i also you know i've had this combo now for
i don't know a couple two or three months and while i can use it
to do the work that i do and i obviously i do a lot of the same things that
michael does which is you know editing uh stories
posting to our our contents uh management system
uh some light photo work um and also browsing email et cetera et cetera uh it
it can be a replacement but i think that you know even when you go through that
transition period where you're learning relearning i mean we all have a lot of
of muscle memory when it comes to keyboard
shortcuts and cutting and pasting and how to do it most efficiently and
quickly and as somebody who you know is overseeing a
website speed is a big thing for me and i do find that using the ipad
while i can get things done on it that i do on my macbook pro
um it's slower it's clutchier and even you know i've been uh
using it with the the ios 14 beta and i don't see a lot of improvement in terms
of the clutchy thing you know in terms of how you go
about selecting apps switching between apps copying and
pasting between apps uh so you know i think it's really going
to depend on who's using the ipad pro keyboard
combo and what they're doing you know again if
you're a photographer videographer in the field you need some quick access to
you know a quick video editing and then you will need to upload it
uh you know that's that's a good use case for it if you're casually doing
some editing and um you know cutting and pasting
moving things around you can but i find myself you know just as often
or maybe even more often grabbing the macbook pro
if i want to get all that stuff done quickly yeah and so
to speak to the quickness like when i first started like the first day
i was really really slow and i thought you know even though i didn't know the
ipad it's not like i was a stranger to it
but you know like taking my call work workflow and adding it to the ipad it
required okay what am i doing well what am i doing now but even once i got
to the point where i knew what to do it's still like i don't know what it is
about ios and the ipad it's just on my iphone i'm
i'm fast as anything but on the on the ipad
everything seems to take like a like a second or a second and a half
longer which adds up tremendously and it's not so much like
so on the mac i work the way i work and i could see
how if you're like a real pro user you can get to a point where you're just
doing things and you're not even thinking about it
and i i do things very fast but i can see how someone can get
to a place that's even quicker using automation and things like this
or uh automated but on the ipad i can see i don't understand how anyone can
work any faster than what the system allows you which is a it's
enormously frustrating because the chip is crazy fast i mean apps open
before i even blink way faster than the mac things launch
quicker things drag and drop quicker but doing all of that
like the actual process of doing the multitasking the the selection
tech selection was a was a was a big uh nuisance for me
working with photos even working with photoshop which i also do on the on the
on the mac often and i know it well and yes the interface is different but it's
it's more than that it's almost like there's like a a a
like a like a layer of of like glue on top yeah there's friction
in there and then and i think you're right you know the hardware
is actually really amazing and i think certainly bodes well for where apple is
going um with its yes i agree with that the
hardware is incredible mean typing on it was was
i mean just in fact i bought the magic keyboard
and i spent 100 hours on this stupid thing because i love the typing on the
on the ipad keyboard so much going back to my other
third-party keyboard i it just it wasn't good enough so i
bought this thing because i wanted that experience so yeah
the hardware is great the magic keyboard is awesome from a hardware standpoint
from a typing standpoint but using it in in harmony with the ipad
i just had so many issues with it well it feels like you know
um again hardware is okay the software seems to pro
it allows you to do things but there's there's a level of friction there
and this is what you're i think what you're getting to is it there's it just
slows you down and and it's not that the ipad can't
technically do what you wanted to do but the process of converting your
action to what's on the screen which seems very
seamless on a macbook pro or an imac or a desktop machine
is not seamless on the ipad pro uh you know i don't think apple builds this
as a laptop replacement i mean they certainly have never called it out
although so many people have wanted it to be i mean i've been doing it
sometimes they they they don't in the sense that
yes it's it's own separate category but they do make these kind of
tongue-in-cheek like your next computer is not a
computer and they had that ad campaign what's the computer and because
the mom says to the girl uh something about your computer and she uses what's
a computer because you're using an ipad so they do make these these illusions
that the ipad can replace your mac and they do even
in the things that they uh if you look at their website and things the things
that they spotlight it's not the consumption so-called
consumption device that it once was they want you to use it for real-world
professional things not just watching movies and you know coloring
yeah i think that's true but you know i i also think there's this desire to sort
of line this up you know as as surfaces to
a windows machine the ipad pro is to uh you know apple hardware or
apple desktop and i don't think that that you know the
analogy works um you know juliet have you ever had a
chance to use the ipad i just i don't want to leave you out of the
conversation you're just wondering if you've ever ever
had any experience with it no i'm not really a frequent ipad user i mean i
only ever had one a few years ago just sort of like what you said mike just
sort of for watching netflix and youtube and
it was never it was it was a replacement for a laptop because all i needed a
computer for was those things because i was a
student i didn't need a heavy duty machine yet that being said
ken i'm curious you mentioned that you're using the um
ipad 11 os beta how's that been going do you
find that you're do you find that you're able to do
things more efficiently do you find that it helps maybe make the ipad pro more of
an enterprise machine or is it just sort of
same old same old it's it's actually more same old same old because
uh at least so far i mean there there are some changes in ios 14
and i'd kind of hope that it would be more integration between
the you know the the the actions on the keyboard and how the the cursor responds
on the screen uh but i still find myself kind of
getting bogged down and again i've sort of learned to expect
that and to work with it you know it's interesting as we were
just talking i was thinking okay if somebody said to me
for the next year you've got one of two devices you can have your ipad
keyboard or your macbook pro and you know
and i love the ipad keyboard combo but i'd pick the macbook pro any day of the
week because that's where i'm going to get the most
work done most efficiently you know and that's really what it comes
down to when now you know again it depends on use cases though when a
company is looking to outfit its workforce with hardware
um you know laptops and or desktops like an imac
you know will be will be perfectly suited for what some people are doing
if you happen to be a worker your staffers are out in the field
where weight and connectivity are an issue
you know then an ipad might make more sense you can get it with cellular
and you can be almost anywhere and you can at least respond to emails
maybe do presentations from the field shoot some quick video and upload it and
get it back to the main office you know in which case a macbook pro
would not necessarily be the best best option so that goes back to what we
were talking about earlier i think you know
can be an enterprise device absolutely is it the best enterprise device
probably not for most people and a lot of it depends on
what you're going to use it for ios 14 does not at all change the ipad
experience they added some things with the apple pencil which i didn't i don't
i never really was able to acclimate that to my
workflow it's not something that i use maybe down the line i would
but the navigation the multitasking everything is is the same they didn't
really change they didn't not really they didn't change anything maybe that's
coming down the line with the next ipad or something who knows but
um ios 14 doesn't do anything to improve the experience and you know my biggest
issue okay so let's say the i th the the ipad as a mac replacement
sure i'll i'll bite and say that's not the point of it
however you should be able to do the things that you want to do
on the ipad that you want to do on the mac and there are some things that you
just can't for example printing i have an old printer i plugged it into
my ipad and nothing happens nothing i plug it into my chromebook and
i can print i can plug it into wait wait you have a printer you actually plug in
that's the wireless thing now you know well sometimes i need to print this is
this is not one this i don't see any reason why
if you have a usbc port on a device you can install a bunch of um you know
one kilobyte drivers that let it work but apple doesn't do that number two
there's no stock calculator okay yeah i can go down one
uh i i can download one i could use um you know google and you do simple
calculations but why why doesn't it have just a simple
simple calculator so there's there's things about the ipad that apple
is just stubbornly saying no we're this is not what we think it's for
and again i say it's a shame because the hardware is awesome the speed is awesome
the the whole package is is is fantastic and if somebody wanted
to buy one i would never discourage them because
it's it's great but for example the machine that i
used it's like two grand if you or or like 1700 something that if you take it
all together i mean for that money i don't think
you're getting anything better than you are
for a 329 ipad i really don't and that is is it inherently that's
where the problem comes in it's just you know
it's a little bit quicker but the way you use it doesn't necessarily
bear that out and it's a nicer it's nicer hardware and you got face id and
things like this but i think that the ipad pro should have a delineation
between you know what the ipad is and what the
ipad pro is and i mean i just i did i didn't see it
and because you know you add that pro moniker the macbook pro it's faster it
has more ram it has more storage it has a
touch bar it's a better screen you know there are things that make it
pro the ipad pro i just i i was just left
you know frustrated just just just the whole the
whole time yeah i can't argue with that i think
you're a good point yeah and you also do make a good point
mike that when if any sort of you know it department is
considering is possibly considering you know rolling
out ipads to their staff it's not like there's a lot of opportunity
for costing i mean it really doesn't seem that it's a very specific
people would maybe need one yeah i mean you can get an ipad pro for 800 bucks
but you've got to buy something else with it so it's going to end up costing
you over a thousand to get to the point where you need it to be which
at that point you know you might as well just just buy
a macbook air if you don't need the power of a pro or you know however
you you flesh that out it it boils down to
this there are there's nothing that i can do
on the ipad that i can't do on the mac but there's a lot that i can do on the
mac that i can't do on the ipad either as well or at all
and that's what i don't i don't i honestly don't get it like i'm not
asking them to be the same machine the iphone and the ipad
are very different but i can do the same things on both of them
i don't understand why the ipad is in this kind of like no man's
sort of land where it does these things really well
and it does these things and it doesn't do that at all and it's like well why
like what do you want this i don't i i've said it before and i'm i
i'm not sure apple knows what the ipad is
is and is going to be just yet yes it's the best tablet there's no
question about that there's nothing else in it in his class
it's you know if you're if you're doing email and browsing and video and you're
doing the the simple that's simple but the
the regular things the most basic kinds of things you need yeah
basics yeah it's it's fantastic i mean yeah the twi i use the 12.9 inch when
it's it's a little heavy i would probably get the 11 or or
recommend someone get the 11 because you know there's just no reason to get
it it's big it's heavy particularly with the keyboard it's it's
it's substantial but it's a it's a fantastic device
how you know however it it just has these
these just these these annoying limitations
like all right here's a here's an example and you you have the keyboard we
can talk to this the the cursor i knew you were going to
say that yeah it's true and you're right it's a it's a
it's a circle what is it i don't know it doesn't look
like that yeah clearly clearly apple did it to say okay we
can't have an arrow we gotta show it it has to be different
but it's not different for the sake of being anything
other than just different it's not better yeah and it's like i
just just do an arrow no one's no one's gonna bother you no one's gonna
complain about that all right well i feel like we have laid
out a pretty good argument or at least understanding on
when and when not it's appropriate to perhaps use an ipad pro
for your professional um life so thank you both so much for calling and
chatting with me i really appreciate it wait one last word can i just say one
last thing okay okay we gotta get the last word in because i don't
i don't i don't want anyone to misunderstand me i i i want the ipad to
be better that's the last thing i'm going to say
because i think it's it's it's a it's the the form factor the
design the the technology the engineering is
astounding i just i just wanted to be i wanted to
be better and that's it and so mike really gets
the last word i will link his story on macworld below so you
can read even more even more insights opinions from mike
thank you all so much for watching this episode of today in tech if you liked
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and i want to hear from you guys have you used the ipad for work do you like
it or what do you use the ipad for that
makes you think it's a great device or maybe you hate it i don't know
let me know in the comments below thank you all so much for watching once
again and i'll see you next time
you