The iPad is honestly one of my favorite devices out there. It’s fun to use and I like how versatile it is. No it’s not going to be anywhere as capable as my M4 Max MacBook Pro and no, it’s not going to be anywhere near as portable as my iPhone 16 Pro Max, but it does have a place in my life and I really wish more developers would take advantage of this middle-ground device.

Now I know I’m one to talk since none of my apps currently support iPad (at least, right now they don’t) but I’m still learning Swift development and I’m working on it.

What Categories of Apps Do I Want

Really I would like more of a lot of different apps, but where I really think iPad shines is for students and general productivity.

On: Students and Computing Power

Now, I know that there are students out there who need more than what an iPad can give, I was one of those students. But know this: I completed not one, but two data science courses from an iPad and I preferred using it over my (at the time) Intel MacBook Pro. I also finished my masters degree (concentrated in business analytics) on an M2 MacBook Air. I’ve run the gamut on what kinds of workloads people run in college and let me say: you don’t need a top spec MacBook Pro to do any of it, especially at a college level. Hell, I even started my own development business using that M2 MacBook Air. But anyway, I digress.

Back on Topic

What I’m getting at here is that an iPad has more than enough power for what people need out of their computers these days and, honestly, most people work almost exclusively from the web. Google Workspace, Notion, Workday, all of these various project management and office applications are all available on the web, perfect for the iPad and I think that a lot of people can really take advantage of that.

But What About Apps?

Yeah so I don’t necessarily mean that they need to be run in a browser, I’m all for having native client-side applications for these tools (much of which exists on iPad already), but I think they can be more. Notion doesn’t support pen input (or drawing blocks of any sort, really) and Notion Calendar doesn’t even have an iPad version of the app. Social media apps like Bluesky and Instagram don’t have iPad counterparts (though Skeets is a very good Bluesky client from the creator of Bluescreen and Flashes that’s available on both iOS and iPadOS and you should definitely check that out…not sponsored).

Examples to Aspire to

There are great apps out there for iPad, too and I think that everyone should aspire to. Ivory is an awesome social media app on iPad, the polish it brings to the platform is amazing. On top of that, Things, Procreate, Reeder (both versions), and Mela are all great examples of what makes a good iPad app.

My Difference

Where I feel like my opinion on iPad differs from the zeitgeist is I actually don’t think iPad needs much improvement in the way of multitasking. Honestly, I like stage manager and I think it works decently enough on larger displays for the iPad. Honestly I think more of the problem is in app support for the scalable windows. iPad apps weren’t originally designed to be responsive like websites are, it’s going to take some time for these apps to reliably be able to scale across the varying window sizes like they do on a Mac, but I think they can get there if developers just do it.

Looking Back

Honestly I’m not one who usually goes and says “I hate the new thing, go back to the old thing” but I do really think Apple had the Home Screen right with iPadOS 13 and 14. I think they should bring back some of those characteristics like pinning the Today View to the first Home Screen and bringing back that more compact App Grid. I think they can accomplish that while also keeping around the current suite of multitasking features. And, if I were really in charge, I would honestly probably disable Stage Manager on the internal displays of iPads and just use it on external monitors (though, I will admit I’m probably in the minority of people who think even the 16” display of a MacBook Pro is a little small).

Closing Thoughts

Honestly I think iPad and iPadOS are in a better spot than most people do. I don’t think it needs to be a Mac. I don’t need it to have Xcode and terminal support (though I actually used Termius a lot on my iPad for SSH when I was interning as a SysAdmin, that’s another great iPad app, honestly). It’s capable of great things and I think it should focus on doing some workflows really well as opposed to doing everything a Mac does, but worse due to form factor constraints. Turning iPads into Macs won’t make them good tablets, it’ll make them shitty netbooks. Find me on Bluesky and Mastodon.

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