If your iPad 2 could can replace your computer, then you did not need a computer to begin with. The iPad is not more than an Internet appliance and entertainment device.
If your iPad 2 could can replace your computer, then you did not need a computer to begin with. The iPad is not more than an Internet appliance and entertainment device.
[snip].
It also assumes, again, that an iPad and a desktop are fundamentally the same type of thing, differing only in this quantity of 'functionality'. I do not share this assumption.
Someone will say "but obviously a screwdriver with two bits is more functional than a screwdriver with one bit" but this is meaningless without understanding the end user's needs.
I use my iPad more than my MBP, but the iPad isn't able to do everything I need.
I'm the same. Cept I have an air not a pro. The iPad is just easier to just lay around a surf![]()
You can do more types work with a computer than an iPad due to the extra power, software packages etc., just like you can do more work with a screwdriver with multiple bits than a single flat head screw driver. That's just objective fact.
So the original question would have been better phrased something like, "Do you use an iPad as your primary web surfer, or media browser, or social media tool, etc.?"
And you can do more work with an iPad+automobile+circular saw than with an iPad, therefore the former apparatus has more functionality. But who cares about that kind of comparison, since it's ridiculous? So too is the comparison iPad vs. desktop: saying a desktop is 'more functional' than a tablet presumes that they are intended for the same task or circumstance and that the affordances of the desktop are greater. I submit this is not true, since they are not intended for the same tasks or circumstances. Like I already said, it's like asking which of a hammer or a screwdriver is more functional. The recourse to specs misses what the tool is intended for, since those specs will be irrelevant at the point of application. It's why a spatula with a built-in FM radio is not 'more functional' than a spatula - it's just stupid. To be clear, the iPad can increase in functionality, but not simply by aping desktop attributes.
EDIT: Thus, I agree with TheWheelMan completely with his excellent bike/auto analogy (though I'm not sure what he means by 'real computer in the classical sense of the word'.
real computer in the classical sense of the word
Macworld reports on Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak's keynote session at Storage Networking World in California. Wozniak was questioned about how tablets would change the computer industry.
“The tablet is not necessarily for the people in this room,” Wozniak told the audience of enterprise storage engineers. “It’s for the normal people in the world,” Wozniak said.
“I think Steve Jobs had that intention from the day we started Apple, but it was just hard to get there, because we had to go through a lot of steps where you connected to things, and (eventually) computers grew up to where they could do ... normal consumer appliance things,” Wozniak said.
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1131426/
Maybe if I didn't have to plug it into my primary computer all the time to use it.