Hi Subscriber First Name,

Some "device" thoughts this week.
When I wrote this post , about conceptual transference between the Mac and iPad ecosystems, it was clear the move to Apple Silicon had rekindled something in me. After years of simply being "necessary", the Mac suddenly seemed exciting again—new, even. But the iPad was still firmly anchored at the centre of my digital world.

This may be about to change.

I'm thinking of getting the M2 Pro variant of the new Mac Mini, to replace my current M1 MacBook Air. It's still hard for me to believe I've been using the cheapest Mac available, without issue, for over two years, but it feels like the time may be right to get an actual desktop computer again. As a side effect, the Air will finally be free to live its true, portable life, wild and untethered.

I still love the iPad: it's the best focused writing tool, the best curl-up on the couch device, etc. But after all these years, I've grown weary of compromises. Because issues that once seemed transitory are now endemic—there are still hoops to jump through, odds and ends that don't quite fit, or work, properly. It all comes down to iPadOS and to software, to certain apps missing features from their desktop counterparts, for instance. But it's hard to blame third-parties when even Apple appears either uninterested, or unsure about the direction it wants to take.

Like many, I saw the move to an M1 processor as a watershed moment: this was the iPad Pro fulfilling its promise, living up to its name. Nothing would prevent it from running anything the Mac could run anymore, and the floodgates would open. Well, we're coming up on the two-year anniversary of that release, and I still can't see a single reason to upgrade.

In The Six Colors Report Card , Federico Viticci wrote the following (emphasis mine):

“The biggest problem for the iPad in 2022 was its software story. I don’t think I need to get into the details of Stage Manager again or how Apple shipped an incoherent, confusing multitasking interface that gets in the way of getting work done more than facilitating it. I’ll say this: I think it’s great that I can now use my iPad Pro with an external display and have a separate set of app windows on it. The problem is everything else: in practical terms, aside from more concurrent windows onscreen, iPadOS 16 doesn’t let me get more things done on a daily basis compared to iPadOS 15. 

I want to continue loving the iPad, but I also need to get my work done and I’m tired of having to rely on supplementing my iPad Pro with a Mac mini to do all the things I need to do. At the moment, the iPad seems to be stuck in this limbo of ‘more than a tablet but not quite a desktop-class computer,’ and I think it’s time for Apple to do some soul-searching and make up its mind. The device is called iPad Pro, but this gray area surely doesn’t help pro users at all.”

Viticci is a diehard iPad user. His comments should be raising all kinds of alarms in Cupertino.

For me, however, the problems run deeper than promise or vision. Here's an iPadOS bug I've been experiencing: the Files app randomly "forgets" my favourites (those folders that can be added for quick access). Multiple times a week. Sometimes I'll even see them vanish from the sidebar right of front of my eyes, powerless. All of them, some of them...there's no discernible pattern. And when they disappear, they're gone across the entire system: share sheets, open dialogs, everything. They eventually come back, just as randomly—usually when I no longer need them. This makes file navigation completely unreliable. Can you imagine macOS acting this way? Temporarily wiping out any organization you've painstakingly set up?

We're over a decade into this experiment, and I just don't understand how this kind of problem can still exist. At this point I wonder if Apple hasn't missed its window of opportunity—I seem to hear a lot of disappointment lately.

Then again, perhaps we're witnessing a settling of sorts, with the Mac reclaiming its natural role, informed by iPadOS on both UI and UX. Both platforms evolving, side by side, and finding their respective niche.

The next WWDC will be interesting.