I will start this out by saying that this is going to entirely depend on how useful Apple Intelligence ends up being as well as a multitude of other factors including the willingness of developers to implement these features (though developers on Apple platforms are usually pretty good about adopting these features, especially with indie developers). That is to say, this could all be a moo point. But this is my blog, I'm going to talk about it anyway.

iPadOS Has An Advantage

The most important thing for iPad is actually how restricted it is. While that can normally be viewed as a drawback, that's actually something that can work in its favor when it comes to adopting Apple Intelligence features.

Native Apps

For starters, iPadOS has a much richer native app ecosystem than macOS does. In macOS there are a lot of apps that are really just web apps that have some sort of "wrapper" on them to make them look like they're running as a normal app. This "wrapper" can usually allow the app to be exposed to more system-level functionality like the menu bar, but we have yet to see whether or not Apple Intelligence is something that this class of app will take advantage of.

Siri's Base Functionality

If we're being honest, Siri is just way more functional on iPad. I don't think it's me, but I don't find myself talking to Siri often on my Mac, a lot of the time I forget it's there. That's going to harm the uptake of such features on the platform.

There are some quirks with macOS as well when it comes to actually using Siri. The biggest one being that, if you don't have a microphone, you're kinda SoL. Now, with type to Siri being available as a part of Apple Intelligence, this has been slightly improved. What's kinda funny is that right when the feature first launched, type to Siri also required that a microphone be attached to the Mac. This was problematic for me, a person whose monitor doesn't have a built-in microphone and who uses a MacBook Air in clamshell mode, which deactivates the onboard mics on the laptop. This functionality has since been fixed and I can type to Siri without any problems now.

The other thing is: I just don't really know what Siri does on a Mac. Granted, this is partly on me, I can take some time to explore this and will as new Siri features roll out, but I just feel like Siri has a more specific identity on iOS and iPadOS. I use it to start timers, I use it to track medications, I use it to check the weather, I use it for all of these different things.

Where I'm Going With This

If someone ends up being a heavy user of Apple Intelligence, I have a feeling it's just going to be more functional on iPadOS than it will be on macOS. Apps like Notion and Gmail which are web-based aren't going to be able to have Apple Intelligence be as integrated into their apps on Mac, but with iPad, they can take way more advantage of the features. This heavy use of Apple Intelligence could get more people to switch away from the Mac, kind of like the people who have a whole ton of shortcuts automations on their iPads.

I've been mostly talking about Siri in this case, but other things like the enhanced indexing in Spotlight and other features are also going to be better utilized in iPadOS than in macOS.

What if Apple Intelligence Sucks

If it all ends up sucking, I think this is all rendered a moo point. It's entirely possible that people won't find the features that helpful. The ones that are out now certainly have all just been "nice to haves" and there hasn't really been a feature I find to be terribly helpful. That's not to say I don't like the features, but they're not things I go out of my way to use all of the time. Even as I look back on the notes I've been taking for this post, I had a much more enthusiastic response to the new notification summaries, but these days they're just kind of helpful at best and at worse completely useless (but usually pretty funny so I let it slide). It's really going to come down to unreleased features and their adoption in third party apps to make or break the platform as a whole, and that adoption is just easier to accomplish in iPadOS.

Wrap-Up

If people just end up not caring about Apple Intelligence, then it's really not going to matter which device takes more advantage of those features. I still believe that there will be a subset of people who are interested in taking advantage of them. Not everyone out there uses shortcuts, but there are people who use the hell out of them. I think that's going to be the case here too. What are your thoughts? Let me know over on Mastodon, Bluesky, or on Threads.