The iPad, Apple pundits and reality beardyguycreative.com

@Denny Thanks for sharing. I tend to think, as a society, we have shifted to always think of things that we dislike or are not perfect for us as “the worst” or “no good for anyone”. I’m definitely guilty of it at times though I’m trying to be more introspective.

@Denny, thanks for writing this. I love my iPad, and I love my Mac Studio. Each has a use case that suits me just fine.

I am enjoying your series of posts. I miss the old community of Apple nerds. I've had a version of the iPad since its first release in 2010. It was my favourite computer for a while, and I frequently wrote about and "on" it, sometimes positively and sometimes not so positive. Because of the iPad Pro, I no longer wanted a laptop; I have my iPad Pro and Mac - a bicycle and a truck.

@Denny Excellent read that mirrors my opinion with most of the tech blogosphere/punditry in the last few years. And why I have pared down on consumption in those areas.

Started to write a comment on the blog, but it was rambling and long (in the end it might have been as long as your post. Might write something that references your post later, but in my native tongue).

I find the report card strange, since seemingly the grade of someone who eg. hasn't bought a new Mac in 2022 is weighted the same as someone who did? And although Viticci might be a bit cranky for 2022, in general his opinion about iPad as a creation device should carry a bit more weight than someone who just uses it purely for consumption.

And they still clamor for moar pro apps. I assume that Photoshop for iPad isn't on the same level as the Windows or Mac counterparts, but I'm guessing that it does an adequate job in the same way as the rest of Adobe's, Microsoft's and Affinity's suite of apps do.

@teisam Ha! I know what you mean about long comments that become posts! And yeah, it seems that a lot of work goes into the report card but it seems there's so much group think going on due to the sameness of those asked to comment. That clamoring for pro apps gets to me a bit because there really are some fantastic pro apps that are just being ignored. I'd recently posted to Viticci asking why they had not done a review on the Affinity for iPad apps, especially Publisher as it seems a pretty significant release for the iPad. He shrugged it off with "none of us use those apps so we can't review". That's the difference between MacWorld 20 years ago and MacStories in 2023. While they are making a living covering Apple they're falling short as professional level journalists.

@Denny @teisam That’s very disappointing, especially coming from him. If even the biggest Apple devotees won’t take time to try great software, there will always be a bias against the device and what it’s capable of.

@Denny great article and strong points. My one issue that I think bridges between your critique and people like Federico's is this - the iPad Pro's with M1 and M2 are capable of more solely by their compute abilities. It seems to me that Apple doesn't want to or doesn't see the need to utilize that. And that is what frustrates me. I personally don't need Final Cut or Xcode on my Pro, but the machine is undoubtedly capable of running those applications, it is simply constrained by the iPadOS software.

@Denny Excuse the language, but WTF. Pay someone to do it then. They probably have some members who use the Affinity apps more than just casual and probably could do a nice review. But they can't complain about lack of pro apps if they don't review or hardly write about those that exists.

But I'm guessing, when they want more pro apps for the iPad it's probably just Final Cut Pro (and perhaps Logic Pro) they mean.

Basically, most of them (us) are set in our ways, and can hardly be bothered to RTFM.

The discussion now reminds me a bit about the MBA 11. It was a lot of «Can't be used for real work» and similar things. For me on the other hand, it probably is my favorite Mac ever (though the MBA M2 might make a run at it) and I used it a lot for my very real work because size and weight was more important than number of ports and processing power.

@pimoore Exactly. And if it falls outside of his area of expertise then as a well known publisher of iPad related news I would think he would make an effort to find someone to help him cover it. I understand and respect that he might not feel he has the knowledge or expertise to properly cover it. But at the very least they could reach out to Serif to request an interview. It seems to me that a serious publisher would make some sort of effort to cover such an important development.

@Denny This all comes down to having a proverbial axe to grind, I’m afraid. As we’ve witnessed so many times, negativity always seems to garner more attention and, in this case, clicks. I stopped listening to Marco and Viticci’s podcasts for many reasons, one of them being their indifference and negativity toward the iPad. They’ve both beaten the drum many times, to the point where it’s just becoming bashing for the sake of it.

If the iPad truly doesn’t work for them, and they don’t want to try new software, I can respect that. Go with the Mac and they’ll have no issues. But don’t hold the iPad hostage simply because of an unwillingness to see what’s new and exciting on the platform. It literally just got DaVinci Resolve; this is professional level software that’s among the best in the business.

Cc: @ddanielson If your wife is working with video software, my comment about DaVinci Resolve on the iPad might interest her… 😉

@mindofaaronw It's true that the M1 and M2 iPads are very capable computers. And we're now getting powerful third party applications that take advantage of that processing power. In recent months, DaVinci Resolve, a well regarded and professional video editor was released for iPad to join LumaFusion which has been available for years. And Serif released released its 2.0 version of the Affinity suite: Designer, Photo and most importantly, Publisher. Professional level apps for graphic design and publishing. But MacStories has not done a story on any of those apps. Searching on their website turns up zero results. Nor have they been mentioned on the AppStories podcast. Meanwhile MacStories does an apps "Selects" special every year in December to highlight the best apps of the year. At least two of those awards this year were given to music player/utility apps. I know Federico loves music and that's cool, so do I. But they cover apps and do this awards special highlighting 7 apps but don't mention DaVinci Resolve or Affinity?

It's just seems so strange that they would so completely ignore the release of important pro-level applications while complaining that such applications don't exist. It can't be overstated how important these apps are for the iPad. It's really significant and yet... crickets.

@teisam EXACTLY.

@Denny oh for sure I agree with this take of MacStories' lack of coverage. It is an odd choice by them. I think the future is brighter than Federico makes it out to be and his use case is ultra specific like you mentioned in the article!

@khurtwilliams I meant to respond to this the other day! Glad you liked the post and thanks for reading. I'm going to enjoy reading your older posts about it. Reading your review of the 1st iPad in 2010. Good times!