I’ve been traveling a lot this month, capping it off with a trip to my parents’ house, and I’ve been taking my iPad with me everywhere.
It’s been a while since I’ve talked about my experience with the iPads in a while and I wanted to check back in. I’m still using my iPad more than any other device, and I still love it. Everything I’ve said in my review still holds up my daily usage. But even more than ever, what I said in my State of the iPad article has never been more apparent.
Great device for travel
This iPad’s portability has been one of my favorite things about it. The new iPads are so small and light that it can go anywhere, yet it still has a larger screen than my past iPads.
I slip this thing in my bag every where I go. Of course, I could always just use my iPhone when in need, but having the large screen and extra power that the iPad affords can really help.
I’ve never really had a problem busting out my iPad on a flight and watching a movie before. This time, it was nice to have the larger screen.
Connectivity
Before I got my iPad Pro, a friend had gifted me a USB-C to 3.5mm cable. I hadn’t needed them at the time, but I figured that it wouldn’t be too long before USB-C invaded my technology.
I wish that I had checked that the cable worked before I went on the plane though.
Normally, if I was flying alone it wouldn’t have been a problem, but this time I was traveling with my wife. When we fly, we like to download movies onto an iPad and watch the movie together. Unfortunately, Apple hasn’t developed an audio system for
Only, the new iPad Pros don’t have a headphone jack, nor did my USB-C cable work.
I’m still not sure why the cable didn’t work, but audio would continue to come out of the speakers on the iPad. I think this shows part of the limits of the software that the iPad wouldn’t recognize something so simple.
Luckily, my wife had her older iPad Pro with headphone jack with her. She didn’t have any movies downloaded, but we could stream a movie from the airplane. The only problem there was that her iPad was on 2% battery.
So while I knock the iPad a point for not being able to use the headphone dongle, it gets a point for saving the day. I was able to charge her iPad with my iPad using the lightning to USB-C cable I had.
One final on connectivity, you can use a USB to USB-C cable to charge the new iPad Pro. I have a Travel Adapter that I use when traveling that has 3 USB ports and 1 USB-C port and you can use in pretty much any country. It’s been a great little charger. On the trip, I also brought my switch and instead of bringing my iPad’s charger, I just brought the USB-C cable and the Switch’s USB to USB-C cable. I tried both of them charging and they worked. It might be slower, but if you plug it in overnight, you won’t even notice. Plus the iPad battery is so good you won’t even notice.
Software
I really liked showing my pictures on the larger screen, but really, there wasn’t too much new on the new iPads to show my parents. My mom, a former artist, liked the pencil, but she wasn’t blown away by it. She did like the look of the device, but couldn’t think of anything that the iPad did better than her current iPad mini that she’s had for years.
I couldn’t argue with that too much.
When I wasn’t helping to tune-up my parents’ new phones or eating, I was getting to work on some of my creative writing pieces. The iPad is a dream when it comes to the way that I write. It was awesome to flip out the smart keyboard, open Final draft, and just type away.
But I finished my first draft of a piece I’m working on, and I wanted to go back to the planning stages for the next draft.
Normally, I would turn to Scrivener for iOS and start making note cards. If I had my choice, I would probably draft the entire screenplay in Scrivener. It has the ability to write in screenplay format, but there has been a bug in the iOS version that has to do with external keyboards and smart texting that kill a
If I had brought my MacBook with me, it wouldn’t be a problem since Scrivener for macOS is much richer. Or if I had my Mac, I could have used notecards in Final Draft to outline my project.
All of this is to say that the software on iOS is limited. But we already knew that.
I love iOS, I love my iOS devices, and I love working on them. That was the first time that I really wished that I had my MacBook with me though.
The Mac still has those more mature apps on it that just makes working a little bit easier.
Of course, I probably could have found an app somewhere in the app store to help me with what I needed. I ended up just making the most with what I had to get things accomplished and worked on. It just took some workarounds and going between the apps I was using. It wasn’t smooth, it wasn’t the best workflow – it actually took me out of my workflow – but it worked.
Next Year
Apple announced at WWDC last year that they were working to make iOS apps portable to macOS. Right now, the state of the apps they’ve ported over it bad.
That leads me to wonder if we are going to just see more limited apps ported to the mac. Will we see stronger and more refined iOS apps coming to the iPad and iPhone though? If I were a developer, I would love to have a single code base to work from instead of having to fix 2 different apps.
Still, I can’t imagine Apple letting the iPad languish another year. I expect that we’ll see some big things from the software coming. If not, I’m not sure what Apple is expecting the iPad to be.
Wrap up
Honestly, there’s nothing new here. The hardware on the iPad is fantastic still, but the software is limiting the device it could be. I ran into some roadblocks and frustrations over the break, which really put those limited things in front of me.
It also caused me to be happy to go back to my Mac for the first time in a long time.
What about you? Did your travels highlight any issues or features? Let me know in the comments, or hit me up on Twitter or Facebook.
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