Back in the day I was a relatively early adopter of the iPad jumping in on the iPad 2 in 2011. At the time the latest and greatest iPhone was the iPhone 4 with its sharp new design and Retina display, but the screen was still fairly small so using a much larger device at the time was a game changer especially for reading and video consumption.
Over the next few years I transitioned to an iPad Mini and eventually sold this around the time of the iPhone 7. This time round I went for the plus size. The iPad mini really struggled with iOS 7 so ended up getting rid and just used the big phone.
For years I didn’t really feel I missed out on much. For years the iPad felt a little lost on me and didn’t really see a huge amount of improvement on the software side until much later on when multitasking started to see some work.
The advent of the newer iPad Pro certainly tempted me but the price always put me off. If I were to get one it would be at the expense of replacing my laptop which I arguably do more work and important stuff on so never really bothered.
Fast forward to the present day and my wife decided to get herself an iPad as she’s reading a lot more and easier on her eyes. After messing around with the modern day iPad OS and seeing the improvements made over the years I decided to pick one up for myself and managed to get a good deal on a refurbished iPad 9th gen with 256gb storage.
So how have I found using an iPad in 2023?
The biggest change I have seen in this time is the explosion of streaming and media apps with most TV channels and services now having a half decent iPad presence so it’s really easy and convenient to keep up with shows on the move or just working around the house.
There are some great apps from the likes of Obsidian, Mona for Mastodon and Carrot Weather
However even after all these years it stills feels like the iPad is left out or an afterthought for many developers. This wasn’t something I expected especially this far into the life of the iPad Pro. Some apps feel like they stop short of realising the potential of the big screen. Maybe I am expecting too much?
This isn’t to say I am disappointed. The iPad has settled well in my routine. I am finding myself keeping up with my news and feeds a lot better and keeping up with shows especially when on the train which is not only much easier on my eyes but it’s also great not wiping out a ton of my phone’s battery before I even make it up to London.
I’m also finding ways to use it in my work day, especially writing notes during meetings or marking up plans I can then expand on when I get to my desk.
Conclusion
For now for me the iPad remains mostly a media consumption and social media device. This might change over time as I find more apps and ways of using it. I’m planning on picking up a Logitech Combo Touch keyboard case and either the Logitech Crayon or Apple Pencil at some point which may change the way I feel.
I think I definitely made the right choice of getting the lower cost model as it’s more than sufficient for my use case currently and means I can keep more money aside to save to replacing my aging laptop. The keyboard case should also help plug the gap until I get my next laptop.
I’d definitely like to see more feature consistency between iPhone and iPad OS for example the Lock Screen changes, it just seems very lazy not to have brought this over at the same time.
What about you? How do you feel about the iPad I’m 2023? Send me a toot on Mastodon I’d love to hear your thoughts