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All iPads Has your iPad usage changed since the pandemic?

S

subjonas

macrumors 603
Original poster
Feb 10, 2014
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[I wanted to ask this question in regard to all our Apple devices, but I didn’t know where in the forum I could post such a question, so I just made individual threads for iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch, and AirPods. Though it applies to Macs, Apple TVs, and Homepods too, that’s just too many threads. So feel free to include those in your reply to any of these threads. I guess services could be included as well.]

I’m working from home now and it has affected my device usage a bit.

I have two iPads—a 12.9” iPP for productivity and an iPad mini for casual consumption. They’ve always been my most heavily used devices at home, so the main change now is that I’m using them so much more since I’m always home. One bad thing about that is that I’m running out of battery at least once per day per device. I mostly never needed to worry about charging them before because I’d always keep them charging while I was at work. I may need to look into iPad battery cases so that they can continue to be mobile around the house while charging. Either that or I’ll have to set up more charging cables all around my home, which will be an eye sore.
The other change is the keyboard I use for my 12.9” (2017). I used to use the Smart Keyboard because I carried the iPad around in my bag on a daily basis, and the ASK was the lightest keyboard cover available. What annoyed me about the ASK though was that it was floppy and I couldn’t adjust the angle. Now that I’m not carrying the iPad around anymore, I could stand to have a heavier keyboard, so I got a Brydge which works better all around, though it’s annoying that I have to wake it up pretty often.

How has your iPad usage changed, if at all?
 
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I used to use my 12.9” iPP at work for note taking and meetings but now that I’ve been working at home that need is all but gone. Occasionally I’ll review and mark up a PDF for work on it.

I’m on my mobile workstation most of the day and my iPP is basically my media consumption device now. I’ll occasionally check email on it but otherwise general browsing and media is all I use it for. I often use my logitech kickstand and have the iPP on my desk between my keyboard and monitor with the iPP streaming TV while I work, particularly to watch daily press conferences.
 
I’ve been working from home for the last year already so the pandemic hasn’t changed too much for me. I use my iPad a bit more and my iPhone a bit less.
 
I’ve almost stopped using my iPad at all now that we’re working remote. I used to take it with me to work every day to use while I was at lunch but now that I’m home, I have almost zero use for it.
 
Yes, in May I switched to an iPad Pro 12.9 and in June got the Magic Keyboard, and sold my Mac Mini and iPad Mini 5. I've been using the iPP+MK exclusively for work since then. I worked from home before the pandemic, but now don't even sit at a desk.
 
I am a primary school teacher (doing math this year) and from April to May, my country introduced a circuit breaker (kinda like a soft lockdown) to stem the spread of COVID-19. Schools closed, and we teachers were basically thrown into the home-based-learning fray.

I found myself using my iPad a lot for lesson creation. Be it recording myself solving questions on my iPad via the screen recording function, or creating / editing videos in lumafusion, or uploading them onto our e-learning platform. During breaks, I would be replaying Grimvalor with my trust MFI game controller. Or browsing Macrumours and Reddit via Tapatalk and Apollo and the Smart Keyboard was great for typing.

I did order the magic keyboard, but sent it back because the inability to fold backwards proved to be an immense dealbreaker back in school. I would get a 2nd Smart Keyboard to replace my fraying 2018 ASK.

When conducting live lessons with my students, my iPad would be mirrored to my iMac via the reflector app, which is handy for when I want to annotate on pdf documents with the Apple Pencil.

We are now back in school (have been for a couple of months now), and just celebrated our National Day, and as part of the team organising the celebrations in school, I edited quite a number of videos on my iPad as well. For some reason, pinching to zoom is extremely laggy on my iMac, but so buttery smooth on my iPad Pro, and the Apple Pencil is nice for dragging and dropping files and otherwise just interacting with the UI.

Having my iPad Pro and iMac has basically made my WFH experience a lot more enjoyable compared to if I were forced to use my school-issued windows laptop.
 
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Because I'm not as mobile, I've been on my Mac Mini more...

We had a tropical storm rip through the East Coast and lost power for a couple days. It really made me reconsider if I should exchange my iPP WiFi for a cellular model now. This is one area that the iPad is still king over desktop/laptop counterparts with LTE.
 
Super intriguing hearing all the different situations. Loving all the stories and details.

steelhauler34 said:
Good gracious....how many variants of the same thread are you going to start??
Click to expand...
Four - I said that right in the beginning of the first post, along with the reason why!
 
Used it more for online teacher, though my laptop remains my main productivity device. Got a Logitech Crayon so that I could grade work on it and use it as a virtual whiteboard in my screen recorded lessons.
 
subjonas said:
Super intriguing hearing all the different situations. Loving all the stories and details.


Four - I said that right in the beginning of the first post, along with the reason why!
Click to expand...

Sorry I didn’t open all four or actually read any. Imd going to take a crazy stab in the dark that the overwhelming consensus is yes usage has changed.
 
I probably use it less since lockdown in March as I am more often at my desk so use the desktop, using my phone way more.
 
steelhauler34 said:
Sorry I didn’t open all four or actually read any. Imd going to take a crazy stab in the dark that the overwhelming consensus is yes usage has changed.
Click to expand...
You don’t need to open all four, but you should read at least the first sentence of the first post before you make a critical comment.
The point isn’t to make sweeping guesses, it’s to hear how people’s specific usage has changed. Hearing a lot of widely varying situations that I find interesting.
 
subjonas said:
You don’t need to open all four, but you should read at least the first sentence of the first post before you make a critical comment.
The point isn’t to make sweeping guesses, it’s to hear how people’s specific usage has changed. Hearing a lot of widely varying situations that I find interesting.
Click to expand...

I got the spirit of your post right away but for folks who take things more literally adding “How” to the front of the thread title would have probably avoided some confusion. Not being argumentative, just sayin.
 
muzzy996 said:
I got the spirit of your post right away but for folks who take things more literally adding “How” to the front of the thread title would have probably avoided some confusion. Not being argumentative, just sayin.
Click to expand...
Thanks, that’s possible, but I think “Has your iPad usage changed since the pandemic?” pretty clearly asks the individual. If people want to take it literally without reading the actual post, then they could answer “yes” or “no” with no follow up and that’s fine I guess. In any case, I don’t think the question invites answering for others.
 
Well, it’s not the pandemic that changing my iPad usage. Also already work from home since late 2018.

It’s the announcement of Apple Silicon that made my mind to upgrade my old MacBook Pro to the iPad Pro 2020 with Magic Keyboard.
I’m waiting for the iMac with Apple Silicon, thus avoiding to buy Mac with Intel for now. Of course after the 3rd party software developers also fully support the new processor architecture.
 
I had been contemplating a switch from my iPad Pro 12.9” 2018 1TB to an 11” with the same specs for more portability. Nearer to the start of the pandemic, I ordered an 11” 2020, but ended up returning it. It felt like much the same as what I had, only smaller. I became unsure of the size swap and the change to working from home meant that I had less need for the more portable iPad that I had been wishing for. So the pandemic contributed to me keeping my 12.9” 2018 for longer. I might upgrade to the 11” next release, but this could still be dependent on how much longer I end up working from home.
 
I’ve been using mine a lot more. Browsing, games, videos, FaceTime. I’ve been working remotely as well but since my organization has installed monitoring software on my work laptop I avoid using it for personal stuff.
 
I have actually started using a bit less, as I don't take notes on the iPP anymore for work, but rather write on paper (which is an interesting development that I did not expect...).

Other than that, my iPad usage has stayed the same :)
 
My usage hasn't changed at all. I was considered an "essential" worker when the pandemic began, so I've been working as normal (onsite) throughout the last five months. I am in school, but it was already all online, so that didn't change for me either. At home I use the iPad for my textbooks and as a second screen for my Mac, and occasionally will watch a movie on it when I want to be lazy and lie in bed. At work, I use it for all kinds of tasks, mainly because it's more reliable than our workstations.
 
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