MKBHD's iPadOS 15 Review
Marques as always has a great overview of what’s coming next in iPadOS 15. I recommend you watch the entire thing, but I did take issue with what he said starting here.
They didn’t become a two-trillion dollar company by being bad at business. They’re not going to cannibalize their own products.
I think the opposite, I think Apple would love for the iPad to cannibalize the Mac. I’ve seen other youtubers try (poorly) to make the case for making the iPad into a computer replacement. But where Apple is coming from takes a more nuanced approach. Apple isn’t trying to recreate a computer, with the iPad they are trying to redefine computers.
Steve Jobs said the iPad fit between the iPhone and MacBook. Tim Cook said “We believe that iPad is the perfect expression of the future of personal computing.”. They’ve been trying to remove all the things that make computers difficult to use for people who aren’t Mac Power Users, while at the same time make the overall system more powerful and capable for people to get their work done. With varying degrees of success for each.
There are definitely shortcomings to the system that make it an unlikely candidate for me as a computer programmer to do my job on, I won’t argue that. However, I would argue that it might be possible to rethink how I do my job that might make my personal workflows more flexible and better overall. A workflow built around how a computer works must change when how the computer works changes.
Apple is trying to merge the future and the past, and that’s given us a bit of a jumble with iPadOS. I want them to keep going, I’m looking forward to the future where the only computing device I really need is a single pane of glass. I don’t think Apple needs to worry about cannibalizing Mac sales with the iPad, I think if they could do that they’d love to. That’s what they do, build devices that eat into the old devices sales till the old devices are no longer needed. What they are trying to do with iteratively reimagining the future of computing now needs… more iterations.
As for cannibalizing their own products, Apple has been doing that for years… that’s how they became a two-trillion dollar company.