Harry McCracken article on the iPad Pro needing Pro Software and my thoughts

 

Harry McCrakken at Fast Company has an article about how the iPad Pro just got way more Pro, but now it needs more Pro Software.

And I wholeheartedly agree. There is no overall user interface, everyone does it differently, and for me at least I don’t see the stability to use it in a work environment. Like Final Cut Pro X apps on iPad are supposed to just save and, but every time I have tried to really use art software on an iPad it crashes and I end up losing not a small amount of work, but most of my work, admittedly the same thing has happened to me with Final Cut pro X and it’s auto save with everything you do, if you are forced to use autodave and on the iPad have no way to backup your save definitively, then it can’t be used in a work environment and feel safe.

Now I hate windows, but I have an old Surface and even though it is far slower and doesn’t have an impressive touch interface, being able to use a full version of Photoshop is far superior to anything on a much more powerful iPad. It is too slow to edit on, but photoshop if far superior.

And while I have tried some editing on the iPad, and it works for simple stuff, it just isn’t pro. Even though an iPad can play back H.265 footage better than any Mac I have ever seen, the software on the iPad is not conducive to the Pro Work that the hardware is capable of. Of course again I kind of feel the same about Final Cut Pro X, it has some amazing high level technology, but it just isn’t put together how it should be or how an experienced editor would want to use it.

And programs just crash on an iPad, there is now way to see the memory used or how it is being taxed. Even the simplest apps like web browser crash and I lose all my tabs all the time.

And since every palm pilot had a way to store the pencil securely within the device, why can’t apple figure this out? The Apple Pencil is only useful if it is charged and attached. Having to keep it safe separately is not ideal.

I love my iPad because of convenience, but I have to say I would rather have a mac equivalent of a Microsoft Surface Book. A laptop with a touchscreen and a graphics card in the keyboard for editing work, but that I can take off and use as a tablet. And now that they both use the same chips this certainly should be possible. That would be ideal, though it would need to add Thunderbolt External GPU support to M1 Macs.

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