Nilay’s review completely misses the point of the iPad Pro for a lot of people. He still thinks iPads need to be better laptops than laptops. Not gonna happen. Also, Verge’s idea of an everyday user equals a disinterested tech user that is forcefully nonchalant about technology because it’s not cool to like new stuff and knows nothing about gadgets (because they are now boring) or the existence of a world outside USA. That’s how Verge sees users and they are, quite frankly, annoying with that. Also, if they mention a headphone jack one more time.... I much prefer the enthusiastic reviewers that actually like tech and are not cynical about it.
I feel you're missing the broader message. Apple doesn't just sell products, they sell the idea behind the product. It started with Steve Jobs epiphany about selling products, and that is how they achieve product leadership since his return from NEXT. It's how Apple tells their story in the keynote. It's how they echo that message in the Press for the entire 30 days surrounding a product release. I mean, theres an iPad ad in every magazine, newspaper, and media platform, masquerading as journalism. It's absolutely propaganda, just not the government-revolutionary kind. It's called PR now.
Nilay was commenting on that message, and countering the dreamy illusions that Apple embeds in their messaging, the irrational imagery that our minds absorb.
What he's saying is this:
The computer was an open platform—just functional and open. Because it was open, our societal structure was able to evolve in the 1990's and 2000's. In just 20 years everything started running on computers, and the internet became the spine of modern society. Airlines and banking systems and stock markets and our entire cities, governments, corporations, and utility sector have evolved to run on computers. And our entire economy is run on computers.
Apple is purposefully conflating the idea of computers, with a product they intentionally do not want to open, because then they wouldn't have control, and they couldn't sell it as a premium consumer device. The latter is fine. It's a free, capitalistic country. But Apple is confusing you into thinking they are selling computers, when computers in our society need to be open in order to integrate with one another (on a societal level, not just end to end within the same iOS ecosystem).
Apple won't do that, because they want to make 30% from every app sold, and 30% from every monthly subscription dollar, and Apple wants you to only use Apple Music on their Apple devices, and Apple Pay on their Apple devices. So Apple is playing a psychological game where they want you to feel you have access to infinite computing potential, while simultaneously keeping you from that reality because an open platform is the opposite of Apple's business model.
It's a weird middle ground where you can use the iPad Pro now to run games that Apple makes 30% on, and edit photos on Adobe Photoshop at 30% of whatever Adobe will charge in 2019, and buy things with the fingerprint reader because Apple gets a throw-back from credit card companies.
YES, you can do computery things, but only so far as Apple is able to balance and manage how to continue being the middle man between what you want to do, and what you're willing to pay for.
And so the dream Apple sells, when you watch their many iPad ads, or read their many PR-echoed "journalisms", is a nuanced one. There's layers. And THAT is what Nilah was getting at, but not as direct. And obviously I'm adding my understandings to flesh out the seed that he was conveying.
Like, Apple could make iPad Pro 10x more powerful a platform, but that would require Apple open up iOS and not be able to charge every developer for their software, and not be able to control all the utility developers from making a kick-ass workflow for professionals. It's a closed product. It won't be better than laptops, and that's by design, because Apple hates that they can't make $$$ off of MacBooks as easily as they can iPhone/iPad. Thats' what the Mac App Store was about, back in Jan 2011 when it went live, and it was relatively poorly executed. It just didn't feed their business growth like the iOS App Store did, and sell the hundreds of millions of Macs, like the iOS App Store did iPhones and iPads.
iOS is their second chance at complete, total control, and thats a core reason why iOS 12 isn't as good as MacOS. This iPad thing is going to be a long ride.
