Here We Go Again with the iPad (Premium)

I don’t know where I’m going
But I sure know where I’ve been
Hanging on the promises in songs of yesterday
And I’ve made up my mind
I ain’t wasting no more time
Here I go again

— Here I Go Again, Whitesnake

For years, I’ve waited impatiently for Apple to finally do the right thing for the iPad, especially the iPad Pro, and turn this powerful device into the productivity monster it could be. Instead, Apple has chosen to do what Big Tech firms do: It enshittifies the iPad, in this case by limiting the capabilities of iPadOS specifically so that the product family doesn’t compete head-to-head with the Mac.

Why would it do this, you ask? Because Apple is fundamentally a hardware company. And though its almost magically high margins are absolutely a unique strength, its faithful customer base is right up there, too. And those customers have shown an incredible willingness to buy multiple hardware devices. In Apple’s ecosystem, every product is a halo product, leading to further device sales. The iPhone leads to an Apple Watch, AirPods, an iPad, and a Mac.

And, yes, now to Apple software and services as well. But in the most recent quarter, Apple’s hardware devices contributed $98 billion of the company’s $124.3 billion in revenues. That’s 79 percent, barely a one percent difference year-over-year. Apple is hardware. And it’s really good at this business.

Depending on the quarter, the iPad is about the same size of the Mac by revenues, with each experiencing ups and downs based on new product version releases Overall, both are relatively minor contributors–the iPad was about 8.26 percent of Apple’s hardware revenues in the most recent quarter, compared to 9.17 percent for the Mac (7.3 percent/8 percent, respectively, one year ago). But that’s sort of the point. These products are most often just one component of any given customer’s exposure to the Apple ecosystem. We use our iPhones (or whatever phones) all day every day, and more purpose-driven devices like iPads (consumption, mostly) and Macs (productivity, mostly) just don’t demand as much of our time.

? To understand the future, one must understand the past

The iPad, of course, has evolved over the years. When Steve Jobs was still alive and leading Apple, he presented the iPad as the future of computing, a replacement for more complicated PCs and Macs, and the beginning of the so-called post-PC era. He was both right and wrong on that count. We do live in the post-PC era, of course, but it is the smartphone that put us there, almost unilaterally.

But that fact wasn’t obvious in 2010, when Jobs introduced the first iPad. He and Apple knew that the iPhone was a hit by that point, one that would continue to grow and grow as the company expanded availability to more carriers and more countries over time. He was coming off a string of hardware hits that also included the iPod, another product family that expanded and grew before cresting with the iPhone-like iPod touch and then disappearing entirely. The future we have since lived hadn’t yet occurred, and the Jobs-driven Apple of that era was still looking for the next thing. To Jobs, a key player in the creation of our industry, this new kind of PC was it.

(Driving home this point, two days before Jobs unveiled the iPhone, Apple reported “all-time highest revenue and profit” numbers, with 100 percent growth in iPhone sales to 8.7 million units. But Apple also sold 21 million iPods that quarter and 3.36 million Macs, and the iPhone represented 35.6 percent of Apple’s revenues. The Mac contributed 28 percent, and the iPod added 21.5 percent. Apple’s world was changing yet again.)

Jobs bristled when reviewers described the first iPad as being a useful if not essential “consumption” device–a term no one had ever used until that product appeared–in part because he had been careful to position it. He noted that the iPad couldn’t just exist, it had to be better than phones and PCs/Macs at key usage scenarios, listing out web browsing, email, photos, video, music, games, and e-books as the key examples.

Perhaps he should have noticed that those are all, ahem, consumption activities. But he course-corrected with iPad 2, emphasizing “ways to facilitate creation by the user” and that the iPad was “Apple’s third post-PC blockbuster product” (his words, his emphasis). The majority of Apple’s revenues, he said a year later, “come from these post-PC products.”

Today, the majority of Apple’s revenues are more clearly stated as coming from the iPhone. $69 billion of $124.3 billion in the most recent quarter, or about 56 percent, came directly from the iPhone. But if you count Services, which is roughly 100 percent related to the iPhone, that figure is over $95 billion. I feel that some portion of Wearables, Home and Accessories also relies directly on iPhone (Apple Watch, 100 percent). So this figure is really closer to 85 percent. It’s almost certainly higher.

What went wrong? No, that’s the wrong question. This is the richest, most successful company on earth by any measure. Nothing went “wrong.” But what happened? Why didn’t Apple follow through on Jobs’ vision for the future of computing?

? What happened

Simple. Steve Jobs passed away.

Steve Jobs introduced the iPad 2 on March 2, 2011, but he had taken a leave of absence to focus on his health that January, and so his appearance at that event was a surprise. Then, on August 24, 2011, he resigned as Apple’s CEO, naming Tim Cook as his successor. And then he passed away on October 5, 2011. A day earlier, Apple had launched the iPhone 4S with iOS 5 and Siri, and iCloud, the replacement for the woeful Mobile Me. One week later, Apple reported “all-time record Mac and iPad sales,” indicating that Jobs’ post-PC strategy was playing out nicely, resulting in “highest September quarter revenue and earnings ever.”

From there, things went off the rails. Not for Apple as a company, but rather for iPad as a product. Apple released the iPad 3 the following March, but it was inexplicably thicker and heavier than its elegant predecessor. And then Apple shipped the first iPad mini, a product Jobs had refused to even consider, that October. The iPad Air followed a year later, in October 2013, providing customers with a thinner, lighter form factor and Apple with a more expensive and lucrative price-point. The iPad Pro followed in 2015 with a larger 13-inch display that promised “a new generation of advanced apps for everything from productivity, design, illustration, engineering and medical, to education, gaming and entertainment.”

This expansion of the iPad product family might have occurred to some degree under Jobs–we were several years past the simple, four product grid that he outlined right after his return to Apple, and let’s not forget the iPod family exploded with new models over time–but the Tim Cook-led Apple had shifted to a decidedly different strategy than Jobs had pushed.

Consider these developments from 2015.

The iPad Pro Apple launched that October was accompanied by the first Apple Pencil, a “precision input device” that Jobs had explicitly mocked and rejected at the iPhone unveiling, arguing that we all had ten pointing devices on our hands. (“Who wants a stylus?” he asked, rhetorically. “You have to get them, put them away, and you lose them. Yuck! Nobody wants a stylus.”)

The iPad Pro was also accompanied by Apple’s first iPad-specific keyboard, the Smart Keyboard, which also worked as a smart cover for the device in transit. But that Smart Keyboard lacked a touchpad, limiting its usefulness.

As important, Apple had just launched the Apple Watch a month earlier. This was its first major new hardware product spearheaded by Tim Cook, and the first since Steve Jobs had returned to Apple in which he played no role. Jobs famously told Cook before his passing that Cook should “never ask what he [Jobs] would do” and instead “just do what’s right.” At the time, many laughed this off. How on earth would Cook not ask himself that question every time a major decision needed to be made. But looking at what did happen, I’m surprised now to say that it’s clear Cook took this advice to heart.

Cook isn’t a product visionary like Jobs, and he lacks that magical something that enabled Jobs to reach through the mountains of nonsense the rest of tech industry gets caught up in and extract the value from it. Cook is instead a logistics guy, a numbers guy. And he ignored the plans Jobs had for the iPad, relegating it to also-ran status in a company that was centered entirely on the iPhone. The iPad was just one of a growing family of Robins to the iPhone’s Batman. For Apple’s next major hardware announcement, the Apple Watch, Cook shot low, not high. And then he did it again and again, across earbuds, speakers, and other peripherals, all with the same aim. To serve the iPhone and its enormous customer base.

(Cook finally went for it with self-driving cars, which never came to market, and with Vision Pro, which shipped but is so far a dud. One wonders if these defeats simply verified in his mind what he had been doing elsewhere.)

But the iPad did evolve. It just evolved slowly, and much more slowly that I think it would have under Jobs. Apple finally added a touchpad to a new version of the Smart Keyboard in March 2020 alongside software support for that device in iPadOS. 10 years–one decade–after Steve Jobs announced the first iPad, Tim Cook finally got around to delivering a keyboard cover with a touchpad. An innovation Microsoft, of all companies, had first provided to Surface (RT) customers in 2012. You know, the product Cook had described as a “a compromised, confusing product” and like combining a refrigerator and a toaster.

Sigh.

? What should have happened

Recounting history is one thing. But in recent years, I’ve landed on what Apple should have done, could still do, with the iPad. And it could do this without sacrificing Mac revenues or, more to the point, without sacrificing revenues in general. That is, where Cook has clearly protected the Mac against what started out as a much lower-cost replacement in the iPad, the situation is different today.

In 2010, there was one iPad model, and it started at $499. At the time of that announcement, Apple sold 6 types of Macs–Mac Pro, Mac mini, MacBook, MacBook Air, MacBook Pro, and iMac–and had many different models, but the cheapest Mac, an entry-level Mac mini, started at $599, while the cheapest portable Mac, and the one that matters most from a comparative standpoint, was the $999 MacBook. Put simply, Macs were about twice expensive as the iPad.

Today, Apple sells four types of iPads–iPad mini, iPad, iPad Air, and iPad Pro–but there are really dozens of models when you factor in the different screen sizes (two each for iPad Air and Pro) and cellular/Wi-Fi variants. And Apple still sells six types of Macs, across Mac mini, iMac, Mac Studio, Mac Pro, MacBook Air, and MacBook Pro, though here, too, there are many, many more models because of screen sizes (two each on Air and Pro) and the bewildering array of processor/GPU/RAM choices.

There are so many ways to categorize these products–too many, really–but the simplest and, I think, most is to look at the target markets. At a very high level, there are consumer product and then there are pro products. And it is this division that makes a full-featured iPad that can do the work of a Mac make sense. Not just to customers. But to Apple, too.

The customer value is obvious. Who wouldn’t a thin, light, gorgeous device that can do all the work most would need to do, with terrific performance and over 10 hours of battery life? This is a no-brainer.

But for Apple, it is this division between consume and pro that makes a full-featured iPad viable. Yes, a base iPad can be had for as little as $350 (or less, since there are sales, refurbished units, and educational discounts). And yes, a base iPad Air can be had for as little as $999 (with the same caveats). That delta isn’t 2-to-1 as it was in 2010 (roughly), it’s closer to 3-to-1. Why on earth would Apple give its cheapest iPads the capabilities it could provide when doing so would undercut the Mac so obviously?

It wouldn’t. And didn’t. But now it doesn’t have to.

Instead, Apple could simply improve iPadOS to deliver these features only on its most expensive iPads, the iPad Pro line. And maybe the iPad Air, too, since that product is otherwise incredibly expensive for what you get today. It could split off an iPadOS Pro from iPadOS, just as it previously split off iPadOS from iOS. This is obvious from a product planning perspective. But it’s also obvious from a financial perspective.

The least expensive iPad Air costs $599. The least expensive iPad Pro costs $999. But add in the Magic Keyboard that each would need to compete head-on with a $999 MacBook Air, and those prices rise to about $870 and $1298, respectively. But that $999 MacBook Air comes with 256 GB of storage, while the base model Air comes with just 128 GB. So an upgrade to 256 GB of storage adds $200, bringing the total cost of that device to about $1070, more than the MacBook Air. The base iPad Pro ships with 256 GB, but it’s already more expensive than the MacBook Air.

Problem solved.

By relegating Mac-style pro features to the pro-level iPad Air and iPad Pro, Apple can finally push forward on Steve Jobs’ post-PC vision. And it can do so in a way that makes sense to the vision-less, numbers-driven Tim Cook. It can do so without sacrificing revenues. Apple shouldn’t care which you buy as long as the average revenues per customer don’t decline. It’s a win-win. For Apple.

? Sound familiar?

If this all sounds familiar, it’s because I’ve been ringing this bell for years.

In 2022, I argued that Apple was losing the plot on the iPad, in part because there were far too many models, but also because of the confusing array of peripherals, each only compatible with specific iPad models/versions. I made the case above that the iPad absolutely would have gotten more convoluted under Steve Jobs too, because he let that happen with the iPod. But he would never have allowed the confusing, impossible-to-decipher matrix of Apple Pencil and keyboard/cover compatibility issues that occurred under Cook.

In the build-up to WWDC 2024, when Apple infamously introduced Apple Intelligence and then took an entire year to deliver most, but not all, of that promise, I recounted part of the history noted above and bemoaned Apple’s protectionist Mac/iPad strategies under Mr. Cook. A week later, I responded to bizarre calls for Apple to bring macOS to the iPad by pointing out that this completely missed the point of the iPad, a device designed to overcome the complexities and bloat of PCs and Macs. I ended that latter article stating my hope, not for the first time, that Apple would finally do something to “fix” the iPad. It was time, I wrote, to set the iPad free.

That didn’t happen. Instead, Apple refused to set the iPad free. WWDC came, Apple announced Apple Intelligence alongside new versions of iOS, iPadOS, and macOS. What it didn’t announce were any substantive changes to iPadOS that would elevate this system and make it a true post-PC device. “There are no improvements to Stage Manager, which is limited to five stages with no Cmd + Tab access between apps in different stages,” I wrote. No additions to the system’s side-by-side app capabilities. No Mission Control. And so on … nothing addressing that central need, that missing piece of the iPad puzzle, especially in the Pro space.”

How limited is iPadOS today?

You could spend over $3100 today on an iPad Pro with a powerful M4 processor, 2 TB of storage, nano-texture glass, integrated cellular connectivity, an Apple Pencil Pro, and a Smart Keyboard, plus $50 on Apple Final Cut Pro for iPad, use that app to create a 4K video, and then begin rendering the final output. If you switch to any app while that video is rendering, the rendering stops, forcing you to start over again. Why? Because iPad Pro doesn’t support the background services capabilities–fully supported by the hardware–that would allow for that to work. As I’ve argued so many times, that is ridiculous. It’s also artificial and unnecessary.

? Look what you made me do

I also want to put last year in perspective. As is the case so much with me, this one is personal.

Heading into 2024, we knew that PC makers were set to release new Arm-based PCs running Qualcomm’s new Snapdragon X chipset, and while we had good reasons for doubt, all signs pointed to a stunning, come from behind success story. That success story played out as no damaging issues with Snapdragon X emerged and then Microsoft announced that these PCs would be branded as Copilot+ PCs.

Knowing this, I was intrigued when Apple announced new M3-based MacBook Air models in early March 2024. I had a MacBook Pro M1 at home, but it was a base model with just 8 GB of RAM and not ideal. And so I decided I’d get a new M3-based MacBook Air when I got home from Mexico so I could compare it to the coming Snapdragon X (Copilot+ PC) PCs. The MacBook Air M3 was and still is incredible. (My daughter just got an M4 version and says it gets about 18 hours of battery life.) And while the Snapdragon X-based doesn’t quite hit the battery life or performance (or fanless design) of the MacBook Air, those PCs are a historic accomplishment. I immediately ordered a Surface Laptop 7 when Microsoft first announced that PC, and it’s now my favorite PC overall. I’m using it to write this article.

Between the MacBook Air and Surface Laptop, I spent over $4000 on computers last year, and that’s astonishing for all kinds of reasons, not the least of which is that I review laptops for a living and don’t really need to buy PCs that often. But I’m a seeker. And one of the related concerns I had last year was how and whether Apple might improve the iPad. So in the wake of WWDC, I purchased an iPad Air M2 to replace my aging and beaten-up 4th-generation iPad Air. I did this as a compromise of sorts, knowing that I would use this device purely for consumption tasks–there’s that word again–but hoping, stupidly, that I would also work some productivity tasks into the mix.

I immediately regretted this.

I couldn’t afford an iPad Pro–not with those computer purchases weighing on me and taking months to pay down–and I wouldn’t buy one anyway because Apple had kneecapped that otherwise powerful device with the ridiculous limitations in iPadOS. I would have bought a base-model iPad, but that was horribly out-of-date at the time. I considered getting an iPad Mini, too, but it had the same issue: It was horribly out-of-date at that time. And so I went with another Air. But this time I got a 13-inch version, telling myself, hey, you never know. Maybe it will make sense as a simplified laptop, despite the limitations. Besides, my eyes are terrible. Maybe the bigger display will … help. Or something.

This was a huge mistake. (Literally.) It was too expensive for what Apple provided, so not a good value. It’s far too big and heavy. I never once tried to use it like a laptop, even with an external Bluetooth keyboard. And it was kneecapped in another curious way: Though Apple had shipped a new Magic Keyboard for the M4-based iPad Pros at the same time it revved the iPad Air to the M2 version, that keyboard wasn’t compatible with the Air. Apple didn’t ship a similar keyboard for the Air until it released the M3 version this past March. It does work with my M2 Air, but it also costs an astonishing $319 (for the 13-inch version). Thanks, Tim.

To wrap up my experiences with iPad this past year, I struggled with the big, heavy, and unwieldy iPad Air through the end of 2024. During that time, Apple released an overdue iPad mini rev that supports Apple Intelligence in October. But no base iPad refresh. (Since then, it finally released an even more overdue base iPad this past March … that does not support Apple Intelligence. Geesh.) Heading into January, I was looking at three months or more away in Mexico, and even though it wasn’t the right time, I wanted something smaller. I couldn’t see getting a base model iPad, because it was so out-of-date at the time. And so I bought an iPad mini](https://www.thurrott.com/mobile/ipados/315648/so-i-ended-up-getting-an-ipad-mini).

I immediately regretted that, too.

Where the 13-inch iPad Air is too big, heavy, and bulky, the iPad mini is too small. As noted, my eyes are terrible, but it’s not just that. Developers have gone to great lengths to customize their apps for the iPad, which is great. But they’ve not gone to any lengths, for the most part, to customize them for specific iPads. And so the reading apps I use on iPad, especially newspaper apps like The New York Times, offer layouts that are well suited to full-sized iPads, but horrible (for me) on the mini. It’s weird, and terrible, and I need to move past this.

So, yeah. I’ve spent a lot of money in the past year. And the solution, obviously. is to spend more money. When I get home in early May, I intended to get yet another iPad. This time, a more traditional 11-inch version. The base iPad, as noted, doesn’t support Apple Intelligence. The base iPad Air is too expensive. But I could trade in my M2 iPad Air to soften that blow. And my wife, who currently reads in the morning on her phone, has expressed interest in Apple News+ and wants to use the iPad mini for that. So all is well that … ends. Or something.

Except it’s happening again. And now everything is up in the air.

? Here we go again

This morning, Bloomberg analyst and key Apple leaker Mark Gurman published the latest edition of his Power On newsletter. And while this is almost always interesting to me, this one really hit home. Apple, Gurman writes, is preparing “an iPadOS overhaul to make the tablet more like a Mac.” And so I dropped whatever I was writing at the time and read this newsletter carefully. Could it be?

Maybe.

In addition to a cross-device effort to make its various OSes more visually consistent, Apple this year is focusing on improving iPadOS to make it “more like a Mac.” Gurman is among those (idiots, in this case) that wants Apple to simply bring macOS to the iPad. But it looks like Apple will instead do what I’ve been asking for and simply make iPadOS more powerful, allowing the software to catch up to its M-series powerful hardware.

There are so few details, sadly.

“This year’s upgrade will focus on productivity, multitasking, and app window management,” the exact issues I’ve raised in the past.

And that’s it. That’s all he says about this. What the what.

So I find myself, again hoping beyond reason, wondering whether Apple will actually fix the f#$%ing iPad. All these years later, all the slowness and the terribleness and the half-assed steps forward later, maybe, just maybe, it will finally make this right.

Maybe. But this glimmer of hope is enough to make me wonder. When we get home, I’ll hand over the iPad mini to my wife, and power up the iPad Air I already own and see if I can stand to deal with it for a month or so. And then I’ll see what WWDC brings. If an improved iPadOS–a truly improved iPadOS–is truly in the cards.

Which is precisely what I wrote last year. So I guess I’m living in a Groundhog Day-like nightmare in which my logical hopes are consistently dashed on the rocks of Apple’s enshittification. Like countless iPad users, really. And yet hope springs eternal. It shouldn’t. But it does.