“Promised is the debt“, I said to myself. It’s been a while since I’ve proposed check if I was able to work as a technical editor using only an iPad Pro with a keyboard and a mouse, and the arrival of the new models and the Magic Keyboard made me realize that it was time to try it.
I sold my 2014 MacBook Pro and 2015 iPad Pro with all the accessories and used the money to buy a new 11-inch iPad Pro with the matching Magic Trackpad. I tried to work with him for several days, and I will state my conclusions.
My work as an editor in this house involves several tasks:
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Writing articles like this, of course.
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Commenting, coordinating and organizing tasks constantly with my colleagues, each working from home.
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Post content to social networks such as Facebook or Twitter.
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Periodically review social media and search engine trends.
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See the impact of articles and act accordingly.
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Hold regular meetings by videoconference.
On a Mac, this can all be done with a browser and about 10-12 open tabs. In addition, and for more comfort, I use a Markdown editor (MacDown) and the native Slack client, and I take advantage of a 27-inch screen connected to my Mac mini M1 to be able to see the information of these applications at once and web pages. I’m one of those people who thinks the best thing to do on the desktop is to have a big screen, or multiple screens if you prefer.
The change I made for a week on an iPad brought me, as I expected, very good feelings. The 11-inch model of the iPad Pro is extremely portable, allowing me to work comfortably wherever I want. The weight of my backpack when I had to move has also gone down a lot. And the comfort of the Magic Keyboard to place and remove the iPad offers great versatility.
The change I noticed the most: From Safari tabs to apps in iPadOS
For its part, iPadOS complies with it. What is perhaps more different is the paradigm shift of relying on browser tabs to work on apps: the web tools I frequently refer to go from being pinned in tabs in Safari to separate apps in iPadOS. Without going any further, this article was written with iA Writer.
The result: I have to switch between apps a lot more, which slows me down a bit. I’ve tried switching to viewing the webpage equivalent of these apps (Gmail and Asana, for example), but iPadOS is too insistent that I switch to using the apps and not the webpages. I can uninstall these apps, but the websites keep showing me the app store link in a top bar so I can install it again.
It’s something that, somehow Apple will have to refine in the future. Whether it’s improving iPadOS multitasking or improving Safari and letting the web take on a little more importance in that system. Fortunately, iPadOS has plenty of room to grow from now on, and rumors of iPadOS 16 are encouraging for a resizable window interface.
To publish content on social networks, I also need an image editor (Pixelmator) and a video editor, although in the latter case I was able to replace the latter need thanks to Keynote and its tool for exporting animated slides in video format. Here, the working speed is exactly the same since animating elements in a Keynote presentation is something that can be done comfortably from iPadOS and using my fingers.
Something I have also noticed is that working on the iPad, you focus more. In macOS I have a giant screen on which I can check several things at the same time: mail, Slack messages, social media trends… it’s work, but it forces you to check it more often while you you may not need it and you end up more distracted. It takes more effort to switch between apps on iPadOS, which motivates you to concentrate more and focus on the task at hand. Every iPad article I’ve written, including this one, has been completed ahead of schedule.
The conclusions I draw from this change are quite clear: I have absolutely no regrets about giving up a laptop and I don’t think I’ll own one again.. iPad, iPadOS, and Magic Keyboard are perfect for my needs, both for work and personal play. I’m not defending this for everyone, let it be clear: these are my conclusions and always looking at my needs. Naturally, there will be people who justifiably need a MacBook.
I have co-workers who already rely exclusively on an iPad for work and no longer use a Mac at all. Will I make this change once my Mac mini M1 reaches end of life?
Could, but i’m not going.
The Mac is losing importance, but it’s not disappearing from my life
I will continue to write articles on my Mac for a number of reasons: I get my work done faster (although I have to admit I have a better focus on the iPad), especially the social media part and on the article page. I have a big screen to see more content, and my posture for working several hours a day is healthier at my desk.
In addition, I don’t have to totally lose touch with macOS. I need to write tutorials on this system, and when I train customers with a Mac, I have to follow all the new things that Apple applies to learn them and be able to teach them. I am clear that I will no longer enjoy the full potential of a Mac, but I will continue to be tied to it.
What’s going to change is how I’m going to buy it: until now, the Macs I’ve bought have always been configured to be quite powerful, with the intention that they last me a long time. Now, knowing that an iPad already covers all my needs and that under macOS I only need a browser to function, it is very likely that my next Mac will continue to be an inexpensive basic desktop model now that the M1 chip has proven itself capable of withstanding anything you throw at it.
In other words, I used to buy more expensive and more powerful Mac models as a hobby. Now I’ll only have a Mac out of sheer necessity, so I’ll skimp on its specs and price. The money will be invested in the iPad you want to buy now. And of course, the news of the future of macOS already seems to me more like an anecdote, something that interests me much less than the news that iPadOS can now bring. My interest becomes: what can I do with my iPad in the future?
And who knows: maybe in a few years the trends will be such that it will already depend on an iPad and an external monitor. But it already depends on many other things, and we can only wait.
