A little over two years ago, I first started experiencing weird happenings. I would grab my laptop, sit on the couch or at my desk ready to write a blog post, and a little while later, I would catch myself answering work emails or updating things on our website. Without realising it, I had stopped writing, if I even started at all, and had begun working full-on when I should have been switched off. At that time, I tried to split things up; it never worked, and I am back to feeling frustrated.

I have one computer for everything. At this point, it’s a 16" M3 MacBook Pro, provided by my company, and for work things, I wouldn’t have it any other way. My hybrid setup means I can work at home from my desk and monitor, I can take it with me to my office, or be just as happy working in a coffee shop. The issues only arise when I want to do some personal things, and my work things are always right in front of my face.

The internal debate on using an iPad for my ‘creative’ work was sparked last time by Josh Ginter, but if I am honest, I don’t want to open that can of worms again. I do have an 11" iPad that very rarely sees any use, and a few iPadOS updates later, it sits in exactly the same place it always has. However, I noted Matt Birchler missing his iPad a few days ago, and he has an important point to consider.

I think the iPad Pro might subconsciously give me unrealistic expectations for how much I need to get out of the iPad.

When you spend as much as a laptop on an iPad Pro with a keyboard and pencil like Apple tells you to, it gives you a lot of false expectations. As a user, you now have to justify all that expense by seeing a return, and the iPad just isn’t up to the job. I can do all the things I need to do with writing and photography on an iPad, but I have to spend my time hacking my way there. Which is fine until Apple breaks something, and I’m back to square one.

Which leads me on to my second point, really. In many ways, my iPhone is my ‘creative computer.’ I write a lot of my blog posts on it, nearly always edit photos on it, and Apple seems to take more care with the OS, so things rarely break. You may consider iPadOS and iOS one and the same; however, there have been many instances where the shortcuts my business relies on have broken on an iPad yet continue to work on iOS.

This feeling of relying on my phone doesn’t fill me with confidence. If you’ve read more than one of my posts, you will know I yearn for a smartphone-free life. Yet, I feel content in the fact that it fulfils an important role in my life—it costs about as much as an iPad Pro, so it should! This post didn’t start off as a way to justify my iPhone. I’ve tried to do that before, but more of an appreciation of the work it does for me. It’s easy to be down on using your smartphone, and you should be aware of it, but users aren’t always scrolling through social media. They just might be doing their work.