| I used to before my Mac Mini burned out. The elephant in the room w/ the expensive new iPad is that the consumer right now is experiencing a reset in their economic expectations (first of all because of the sugar rush of pandemic stimulus ending, secondly because of inflation, third from “polycrisis”). I think brands are catching on right about now. Car companies for instance tried to quit making cars that cost less than $50k, especially if they are electric. The new iPad strikes me as a little like the Apple Vision Pro. People might have spent their stimulus checks on them if they’d come out a few years back but now, no. Sure it does a better job of rending mobile apps in AR floating in your room than the MQ3 but it doesn’t have all the facilities for immersive worlds that the MQ3 does. They just can’t charge 7x what MQ3 costs for something that doesn’t do as much. The hardware is totally capable but Apple can’t or won’t add the software support. Myself I quit carrying a desktop replacement laptop and I use an iPad as my “on the go” computer. As much as the industry tries to keep it a secret (so you’ll spend your money on an overpriced special keyboard) it “just works” to attach a bluetooth keyboard and mouse. If I want to do some serious work I RDP into a powerful Windows computer. (Note one point of this way of working is that tablets are relatively cheap. I don’t feel all that bad if I smash a $40 Fire tablet or even a $300 iPad but I’d feel like I’d need to buy a case for a $2000 tablet, eliminating the sleekness advantage the tablet has.) If Apple wasn’t NERFing the software you could have a great computing experience on an iPad Pro that would justify the cost. Smartphones got established because they could justify a high price with corresponding value: if you add up the cost of all the gadgets an iPhone replaces it is much greater than the cost of the iPhone. Apple’s lost their way. |
When I am at my desk, I use my MacBook. If I am going on a work trip, it will come with me. If I need to stay connected to work when running errands, my iPad Pro/cellular with Logitech’s keyboard combo is usually close by and I can do everything I need to do on it (but I am not a dev). For portability, it’s unmatched for me.