"Holy $#!% - this is incredible!"
These words have come out of my mouth more times today than they have since I first used an iPhone. I am ASTOUNDED at how good this device is and wanted to tell you why.
I am a creative professional who has used Apple products for 30 years. So yes, I'm incredibly biased. Even if, say, the Microsoft Surface were empirically a better product, I would still never buy one. I love Apple, and the iPad Pro is the culmination of all the reasons why.
First and foremost, I feel like Marty McFly just showed up in a flying DeLorean and handed me a device out of its time. In one day, hours really, my entire view of "computers" is shifted into a place I always knew it would go. The iPad Pro is the most immersive, intimate, exciting computer I have ever used. It's just feels right, and I am excited to see where it's going to take me.
I think one of the biggest reasons why I've been so enamored is because I am NOT using a physical keyboard. I have the iPad attached to a regular Smart Cover at its flattened ~30° angle, and I'm using the device the way it wants to be used... By touching it. I simply cannot imagine interacting with this device propped up at a laptop-like angle. It isn't a laptop replacement... It's better. Everything is designed and laid out for a flowing series of on-screen interactions, which after getting used to become second nature and feel quicker and more direct than anything I'd do with a keyboard and mouse.
Of course the biggie is typing, which I am doing right now using the software keyboard, and after only one day I feel like I am just as fast on the software keyboard as I am on my laptop. And rather than cursing the shortfalls of a physical slab of buttons trying to interact with a touch based computer, I'm forced to learn all the needed interface tools and shortcuts that make this device so cool, (my favorite is the two finger pseudo-trackpad to move the cursor anywhere it needs to go... And two finger tap to select the current word, paragraph etc... Science f'ng fiction, baby!)
I had a realization a few weeks ago while watching my 4 year old son deftly navigate our various iOS devices (the only personal computers he's ever spent any real time with) - the coming generation is never going to need the same kind of input devices we've grown up using... Physical mice, keyboards... They aren't needed with a touched based device like this... one that gives you enough room for the screen to be both input and canvas. Any attempt to attach a clumsy physical keyboard to a device like this is a crutch... The magic of this devices is using it like freaking minority report.
Also, the multi tasking in iOS 9 is spot-on, and while I did have moments where I thought about how many windows and things I could have open and running in my view on OS X, when I actually jumped back to my Mac while setting up the pro, I was shocked at the clutter of a half dozen Windows all lying on top of each other and a thousand other notifications, menus and icons crammed absolutely everywhere. There are plenty of multitasking improvements the fledgling iPrOS could benefit from, but the potential to move to iOS as a creative workspace brings with it the promise to start fresh in sparkling clean, distraction free simplicity.
Also, the sound is phenomenal. Because using the iPad in the hands on why I described brings you face to face with the device, the sound utterly floods your awareness... I cannot wait to start creating art on this thing when my pencil arrives in god-knows-how-many-weeks...
The final frontier is of course the apps, but just as the original iPhone and iPad saw a steady process of building the ecosystem one app at a time, we at least have a great foundation to build on with the Pro. I have no doubt that I will be straddling this device and my old MacBook Pro as I currently cannot do without the big app suites I've grown to rely on. It will take time for developers to catch up with our dreams for a device like this, but that's exactly what makes these technologies so exciting.
Be excited people... This is the continuation of something remarkable.
These words have come out of my mouth more times today than they have since I first used an iPhone. I am ASTOUNDED at how good this device is and wanted to tell you why.
I am a creative professional who has used Apple products for 30 years. So yes, I'm incredibly biased. Even if, say, the Microsoft Surface were empirically a better product, I would still never buy one. I love Apple, and the iPad Pro is the culmination of all the reasons why.
First and foremost, I feel like Marty McFly just showed up in a flying DeLorean and handed me a device out of its time. In one day, hours really, my entire view of "computers" is shifted into a place I always knew it would go. The iPad Pro is the most immersive, intimate, exciting computer I have ever used. It's just feels right, and I am excited to see where it's going to take me.
I think one of the biggest reasons why I've been so enamored is because I am NOT using a physical keyboard. I have the iPad attached to a regular Smart Cover at its flattened ~30° angle, and I'm using the device the way it wants to be used... By touching it. I simply cannot imagine interacting with this device propped up at a laptop-like angle. It isn't a laptop replacement... It's better. Everything is designed and laid out for a flowing series of on-screen interactions, which after getting used to become second nature and feel quicker and more direct than anything I'd do with a keyboard and mouse.
Of course the biggie is typing, which I am doing right now using the software keyboard, and after only one day I feel like I am just as fast on the software keyboard as I am on my laptop. And rather than cursing the shortfalls of a physical slab of buttons trying to interact with a touch based computer, I'm forced to learn all the needed interface tools and shortcuts that make this device so cool, (my favorite is the two finger pseudo-trackpad to move the cursor anywhere it needs to go... And two finger tap to select the current word, paragraph etc... Science f'ng fiction, baby!)
I had a realization a few weeks ago while watching my 4 year old son deftly navigate our various iOS devices (the only personal computers he's ever spent any real time with) - the coming generation is never going to need the same kind of input devices we've grown up using... Physical mice, keyboards... They aren't needed with a touched based device like this... one that gives you enough room for the screen to be both input and canvas. Any attempt to attach a clumsy physical keyboard to a device like this is a crutch... The magic of this devices is using it like freaking minority report.
Also, the multi tasking in iOS 9 is spot-on, and while I did have moments where I thought about how many windows and things I could have open and running in my view on OS X, when I actually jumped back to my Mac while setting up the pro, I was shocked at the clutter of a half dozen Windows all lying on top of each other and a thousand other notifications, menus and icons crammed absolutely everywhere. There are plenty of multitasking improvements the fledgling iPrOS could benefit from, but the potential to move to iOS as a creative workspace brings with it the promise to start fresh in sparkling clean, distraction free simplicity.
Also, the sound is phenomenal. Because using the iPad in the hands on why I described brings you face to face with the device, the sound utterly floods your awareness... I cannot wait to start creating art on this thing when my pencil arrives in god-knows-how-many-weeks...
The final frontier is of course the apps, but just as the original iPhone and iPad saw a steady process of building the ecosystem one app at a time, we at least have a great foundation to build on with the Pro. I have no doubt that I will be straddling this device and my old MacBook Pro as I currently cannot do without the big app suites I've grown to rely on. It will take time for developers to catch up with our dreams for a device like this, but that's exactly what makes these technologies so exciting.
Be excited people... This is the continuation of something remarkable.
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