The one thing which has been so frustrating lately about iPadOS isn’t how far away the “pro” experience of #Apple#iPadPro is from what you get with a Mac. It’s how close it is. Tantalizingly close. You plug a modern iPad into a display, keyboard, and mouse, and if you squint a bunch and don’t try to accomplish too much all at once, you can kinda sorta see a powerful desktop OS at work. The “death by a thousand paper cuts” is what makes this experience so frustrating.
The word on the street (aka Mark Gurman’s latest reporting) is that Apple will be rolling out an advanced set of multitasking features for iPadOS at #WWDC, including an interface which will “let users resize app windows and offer new ways for users to handle multiple apps at once.” No mention of proper external display support, but it feels like that must be a given if you have a new windowing system.
Look, I’m not trying to replace my Mac. I love my Mac. The M1 Mac mini is an impressive desktop at an affordable price. However, I also want to be able to “KVM switch” myself over to an iPad desktop and enjoy everything about that experience as well. Because there are some tasks I really do prefer to perform in iPadOS vs. macOS. Why can’t I have my cake and eat it too? Hopefully Apple will soon have an affirmative answer to that question when it comes to the iPad.
Even in its nascent state, Universal Control changes everything. Suddenly iPadOS becomes a true extension of #macOS…like many power users I’ve run an #iPadPro on a stand next to my desktop Mac for years, but ergonomically-speaking, switching between the two was a major pain. It became incrementally easier with the Magic Keyboard/Trackpad, but issues remained…not the least of which is transferring files and even bits of in-context data back and forth doesn’t always feel natural and smooth.
With Universal Control, you start to forget you’re running two different devices running two different environments…suddenly you’re just using “AppleOS” everywhere. Heck, I’ve even gone from desktop Mac (M1 Mac mini) to laptop (Intel MBP) as well when I need to do something on one from the other. And yes, you can span all three with nearly zero lag or fiddling—even when using drag ‘n’ drop!
This is without a doubt the biggest quality-of-life improvement #Apple has brought to its ecosystem since cursor support on iPadOS first appeared almost two years ago.
A new app surprise of some kind (Terminal for iPadOS? 😎)
(Honestly Logic and/or MainStage for iPadOS would be pretty sweet. FPC X would be a stretch, but a man can dream…)
I get SO many compliments on this working setup everywhere I go. Somebody just stopped by and took pictures of the stand for future reference (it’s by Lamicall).
Some sort of indication of future notebooks that don’t suck
Dedicated App Store for Watch
tvOS 😜
I was messing around with ZenBrush on my new iPad Pro and this emerged. I apologize in advance to any Chinese calligraphy experts out there…I have no idea what I’m doing! This is supposed to say “Serenity.” Hopefully I didn’t botch it completely. Anyway, ZenBrush is an amazing app. (This is straight out of the device—it’s not actually a canvas hanging up in an art gallery! 😲) #iPadPro#creativity
Got into an amazing state of flow planning the week ahead after a fantastic workout. My brand new iPad Pro setup is certainly another contributing factor. 😁
Happy Sunday everybody!
#iPadPro#minimalism#lifehacks
