I guess my posts over the past few weeks may have seemed like a reversal after my rage quitting of the iPad 6 months ago. Since announcing the new version alongside the Magic Keyboard Apple got me interested again, and wondering if I could return. So I guess I should explain myself.

In actual fact I never stopped owning an iPad, I just didn’t want to work on one any longer. Indeed the upgrades to the iPad Pro are unimportant and haven’t changed the iPad much at all. I was interested in the Magic Keyboard though and picked up a 2018 iPad Pro to go with it despite the Magic Keyboard shipping much later. For the majority of this time it has been a consumption device and living alongside my iMac as a sidecar screen or displaying extra info.

In order to see if anything has changed in my thoughts, I went back and pulled the most important statements out of the old post and compared them to my feelings now.

During my time working on the iPad I always needed a Mac around to podcast and edit things properly – you know do real work.

I no longer podcast at all and have sold all of my equipment. So I need a Mac around even less than before. Currently I am working from my home on my work iMac Pro – but going forward I don’t want a desktop around when I hopefully change up my set up as planned. So this point no longer applies to me, but still does to some. The iPad still needs to improve these ‘Pro’ apps to get everything done.

Then iOS13 arrived. I cant point to one specific event or one particular bug, but iOS13 has been like death by a million paper cuts.

Things have improved in this department. Sync of my Apple Notes and random app crashes have moved forward considerably. iOS13 is still not up to scratch in my opinion. Still retaining things like the annoying rotation bug for iPads — but it is not nearly as unreliable as it was. I still have some issues placing my trust in Apple to maintain this, simply because I rely so much on apps and Shortcuts. It takes a while to win this trust back and invest in iOS again, but things look positive.

This is all after spending weeks getting my head around the new multitasking and app pairing because they changed the way the iPad worked AGAIN.

Please don’t change things again Apple. Not having to reach up to the screen when using a keyboard helps dramatically though and this is one of the big improvement that I am really happy about. No more shoulder pain when trying to use it as a laptop.

The iPad lost its way somewhere in the last year or so and become a device that isn’t fit for me any more.

The iPad is still a bit confused to me. Apple are not really sure what they want it to be but I have a feeling things are going to become clearer over the next 6months to a year. As more apps become universal and some of the line moves to ARM things will become easier to work out. I didn’t immediately spring for a 2020 iPad and picked up a 2018 version for a fraction of the price because my confidence is still shaken.

So although I am using an iPad Pro again very little of my opinions has changed. I might be using an iPad again but I am not putting my faith in working on one, yet.