It’s time for the iPad and iOS to Grow Up

Over the last few months there have been rumblings that Apple is working on an ARM based Mac, perhaps a laptop. While the thought of macOS running on ARM may captivate some people, my hope is that this is actually an iPad in a laptop form factor.

It’s been 8 years since Apple introduced the iPad. If iOS and the iPad were supposed to be the future of computing, it’s taking a very long time to get to that future. I’ve long felt that Apple should fork iOS and make a version specifically suited for the iPad. Doing this would shed some of its iPhone based limitations and give the platform room to grow.

The most common criticism I hear regarding the iPad is that it’s capable of doing many things, but not everything. Some say that there are too many compromises when they use the iPad, many of them basic things that computers should be able to do easily. They end up choosing a MacBook or PC laptop as their main computer because there isn’t anything they feel it can’t do. There’s still a lot of friction for common computing tasks on the iPad that you wouldn’t think twice about on a MacBook.

There have been a few anecdotes about why Apple hasn’t added a touch screen to the Mac. Namely that macOS would need to be redesigned for touch and that it wouldn’t be very comfortable to use daily. In a CNET interview in 2014, Craig Federighi, Apple senior vice president of software engineering said:

“We don’t think it’s the right interface, honestly,” he said. “Mac is sort of a sit-down experience.”

Federighi added that it’s awkward and uncomfortable to sit at a desk and continuously reach forward to touch a computer screen. It’s not like an iPad or iPhone that you hold in your hands and use in a “very relaxed position.”

So instead of a touch screen Mac, Apple introduced the glass trackpad that allowed multi-touch gestures like scrolling, zooming, rotating and swiping similar to what you could do on iOS natively but without touching the screen. For anyone that uses one of these trackpads daily, these gestures are probably a huge time saver and instinctual.

Federighi continues:

“We’ve really focused on building the best track pads we can, something where it feels like your posture’s relaxed, it’s a comfortable machine to use,” he said. “And, of course, over the years we’ve experimented with all the technology, but we found it just wasn’t good. … We’re not all that interested in building one.”

Not long after this interview, Apple began selling a keyboard case designed for specifically for the iPad Pro. (Yes, iPads have been able to use external bluetooth keyboards forever, but this was the first time Apple made one as a first party accessory.) While this addition made the iPad more “MacBook like”, it also made all of Federighi comments regarding touch screens on Macs seem downright hypocritical. Except he was right.

Using an iPad with an external keyboard is an interesting experience. There are often times where you need to reach up to the screen to accomplish a task because there isn’t a keyboard shortcut or a pointing device to assist you with that task. Dragging and dropping things can be frustrating as you’ll need to take your hand off the keyboard to do it. Selecting large amounts of text and moving it without reaching your hand up to the screen is almost impossible. This is unnecessary friction that could be solved if Apple allowed the iPad to use a trackpad.

A trackpad embedded in an external keyboard would reduce the friction of having to touch the screen constantly. Many people understand how these gestures work as they already use them on screen in iOS and via the trackpad on the MacBook. Apple wouldn’t even need to add a cursor system if the trackpad is limited to the multi-touch gestures and text-cursor control that is already built into macOS and iOS. It would be a definitive “pro” feature for the iPad and an accessory that third-party apps would probably love to take advantage of. It would also let Federighi off the hook for his prior comments.

If you need any proof that this would actually work on iOS, check out “trackpad mode” which debuted in iOS 9. Yep, that feature is already built into iOS for the most part.

Next, iOS for iPad needs a real web browser. iOS ships with Mobile Safari which made sense when iOS only ran on the iPhone. While it works fine on the iPad, it’s limited compared to a desktop browser. Try using any of Google’s G Suite web apps via Safari on the iOS and you’ll find that it’s either very difficult or impossible. Sure Google has native apps to access their services on iOS but often they are slow to get updates. Using these apps from the web should be an option and is the best way to be in feature parity. A full fledged desktop version of Safari with first class capability on the iPad should be a priority.

Finally, the iPad needs to natively support peripherals such as external flash and hard drives. When the Files app arrived with iOS 11, I was hopeful that this capability would be added but it has yet to appear. The ability to view, copy and delete files using external devices would be a huge boon for iOS users. Imagine being able to back up any file on iPad to an external drive or transfer files from a drive to the iPad by simply connecting it. Why Apple hasn’t stepped up to support this is a mystery. While there are third-party apps that may give you this type of functionality, this is basic “What can a computer do 101” stuff that should be built into the OS.

None of these suggestions are impossible for Apple to do, in fact they are low hanging fruit. It’s time for the iPad and iOS to grow up. If Apple is going to tout the iPad as a computer in the same league as a laptop, it should at least be able to do the basics that every computer can do. And while Apple has done a lot of iPad specific changes to iOS over the years, there are more than a few limitations and compromises that could be solved if there was a will to do so. I’m hoping that they’re willing.