Here’s a riddle for you: What costs twice as much, has 7x more compute power and took 5 years to come out but is exactly the same as the other one? Answer: an iPad!

I cannot convey how frustrating this is for someone like me who has compromised so much in terms of productivity just to get to have this device form factor. 5 years ago I wrote this:

Black Friday Super Cuts

I hate myself for not reading it again before buying a new iPad Air.

It seems like I am not the only one who shares the same sentiment. This comprehensive run down by Federico Viticci highlights all the short comings of the iPad as the promised new way of computing by Steve Jobs ever since he unveiled the iPad back in 2010.

Not an iPad Pro Review: Why iPadOS Still Doesn’t Get the Basics Right

I totally agree with him that we do not need a MacOS on an iPad. Nor do I want a touchscreen Mac. Don’t get me wrong, it would be awesome to have an iPad form factor that acts like an iPad when detached from but then magically transforms into a Mac when attached back to the keyboard. That gives me everything I would need from a computing device for both work and media consumption (a.k.a. light work/pretend work 😂). Apple would never do such a thing as it is bad for their business. I imagine that there is some Apple engineer out there that has created this concurrent boot iPadOS/MacOS build and was summarily fired for thinking outside the box. Think different (as long as it makes us money). That should be the real Apple motto. They will come up with excuses like it’s a security issue or that users (who they think are stupid) will get confused,

Apple exec’s response to engineer thinking different

Just as I am writing this blog post using the Jetpack app, I still have to save it first and then move to a real computer to make edits because the iOS app and the web app does not work the same! If we only had a real browser in the iPad maybe it would work the same you reckon?!

I actually waited a couple more weeks before writing the rest of this rant because WWDC was just around the corner. Maybe Apple would finally listen to what people want and what is just so blatantly obvious and provide a new iPadOS that actually leverages on the incredible horsepower and form factor of an iPad. But alas we are treated to more of the same. I can’t even remember a relevant upgrade other than a calculator app. They’re also releasing updates to the notes app which I unfortunately never found a reason to use. Maybe with this new smart script thing it would be worth trying out.

Again, I’m not asking for a lot I think. This device is spec’d and priced to do more than just media consumption and run niche apps. The funny thing is that iPads are not even good at things that iPhones excel at. If you look at apps on the iPhone like facebook and instagram, they’re just blown up versions of the iOS apps on an iPad. This has been going on since forever with no end in sight. And this problem is not just on select social media apps. It’s prevalent on banking apps, media apps, utility apps, even this very app, jetpack, I’m writing this blog post on!

I’m not going to write about what can be done to improve this as people like Federico Viticci have summarized it quite potently for me. But if I was to pick from his list of things that resonate with me the most it would be these:

• A real g*$&%! $@mn browser – so I can actually have a way to access things online that either do not have an official iOS app or the app is just weird
• Windows! – in the early phases of iPads the hardware was not very good yet and allowing multiple apps running would have been a bad experience. I have to commend Apple for that bold decision to only allow 1 app majority of the resources at a time. This was part of their design language ever since the very first iPhone and iPad. That was 15 years ago. Apple silicon has improved so much that this argument no longer holds water. I think the argument still makes sense on iPhone given the smaller form factor. But on a 13 inch iPad? I don’t want it to act like Windows or Mac OS but for the love of all that is good please just give us a better way to have multiple windows at the same time. I would like to have said that Stage Manager is a step in the right direction, except that it is utter garbage. And I say that with so much regret and disappointment.
• File management – I’m sure I’m not the only one on the planet that thinks storing files in folder is unnecessary. There is a files app that even let’s you connect a storage device directly to your apple iOS device but that app is just horrendous. Why can’t I just open files to their appropriate app when I open them? Why does it have to stay within the files app? Why why why?!? iOS insists that files should self contained things inside an app. This is when you open a specific app and do things inside of it, like Lumafusion, it would store all the files you create inside a folder under the Lumafusion space. They try to maintain this paradigm so badly that you wont be able to find these files until you plug it in to an actual computer (not the type that Apple insists is now dead btw).

I can’t wait for Apple’s announcement of what’s next for the iPad. The iPad is the best computing form factor any device has ever had. It is lightweight, power efficient, flexible and very powerful in terms of horsepower. This is the stuff dreams can be made of. If only Apple would allow themselves to admit that they are wrong about the computing paradigm they are trying to shove down people’s throats and let the be computers act like actual computers! Apple! Set the iPad FREE!!!