No matter how many people use the iPad professionally, we can not seem to put to rest this old saw of pundits: “CAN the iPad be use as a professional tool?! Our resident greater-than-90-degree-angle Colin Blunderbuss investigates!”
Writing for ZDNet, Chris Matyszczyk says “I tried to write this article on an iPad Pro. It didn’t go well.”
This plays out a little bit like “I tried eat a ham sandwich by blending it and sucking it through a straw. It didn’t go well.”
You see, I wanted to believe all the ads that tell me an iPad Pro is actually a computer that’s trimmed itself a little and had a makeover and Botox at the Cupertino Salon.
Whuuuuut are you talllllking aboouuuuut…
Here’s the first problem. I write on my lap.
That, actually, is not your first problem. Your first problem is you bought the wrong keyboard.
Yet try and unfold your iPad Pro official Apple keyboard onto your lap and the screen folds toward you.
Yeah, because it doesn’t have a supportive hinge. The Brydge 12.9-inch keyboard will save you $20 and let you write with your iPad on your lap.
Boom. The Macalope just solved this entire article.
Should Apple sell a keyboard with a firm hinge? Maybe, but that’s not what Matyszczyk is here to talk about. He’s just here to complain that because the Apple keyboard doesn’t fit his ergonomic needs, the iPad is not a professional writing tool.
Now it is time to construct ridiculous scenarios for the iPad to fail at.
I’ve now, therefore, perched it on a coffee table, which means I’m hunched over.
Why are you doing this? “I have now placed the laptop on the floor and am attempting to write while standing in front of it. Now I am being rushed to the hospital. My spine. Oh, God, my spine.”
The keyboard isn’t awful to type on, but the keys feel smaller.
See, this isn’t a review of the iPad as a writing tool, it’s a review of the Apple Smart Keyboard. And he doesn’t like it. But he is somehow stuck with it, possibly because of a curse that was laid upon him by a bog witch. It happens.
The lack of a track pad is painfully noticeable.
Like Matyszczyk, the Macalope is a professional writer (or at least does a reasonable LARP of one), and he adjusted to the lack of a track pad on the iPad pretty quickly. If you don’t want to, that’s OK, no one is forcing you to use an iPad professionally. But that doesn’t mean it can’t be done. Federico Viticci writes very long articles on the iPad. Like, all the time.
Look, my back’s hurting too much. I’m going to have to move.
Right, now I’m at a desk.
Oh, my God, that took forever.
Now, both sides of the keyboard stick up a little.
He does not like this keyboard! It’s a shame there aren’t any others.
…I removed the keyboard, went back to my usual slightly slouchy typing position, and tried to use the built-in keyboard that pops up at the bottom of the screen.
What the actual…
Are you trying to do this all wrong?
I can’t therefore see how an iPad Pro is a computer. Because a computer’s for writing, right?
Chris, millions of people use the iPad every day for writing. They’re just people who aren’t so deliberately obtuse.