The last time I came out of pocket on a new computer was sometime around 2016 when we last replaced the home iMac. The last time I came out of pocket on an iPad was 2012, for my 40th birthday. The last time I came out of pocket on any laptop was a Dell netbook in 2010. The last time I came out of pocket on a Mac laptop was 2000. This says two things: one, the locus of personal computing has shifted substantially to the phone, and two, I’ve been coasting on work’s laptop for a couple of decades now.
Comes now the news that work is going to require a specially secured laptop in the near future, which means mostly moving my personal stuff off of it. So it might be time to consider a personal device yet again. The funny thing is, what do I need a computer for at a personal level? Well, this blog is certainly easier maintained with something that has a physical keyboard, although that could be finessed with Bluetooth (and has been). Reading books, watching movies and doing Zoom calls with friends is certainly a more pleasant experience on a larger device. And at some point, you really do need an actual physical computer to manage the photos and music files, cloud be damned.
Even if I take the plunge on the iPhone 12 – which the new watch makes me feel as though I don’t have to, especially in a world of masks where we aren’t going anywhere worth photographing for a long time – that’s still a 5.4” display. Fine for reading Kindle on the bus, suitable for brief FaceTime at the farmer’s market or grocery store, but not great for leaning back to watch WandaVision or Long Way Up or carrying on a two hour chat with the other side of the world. In fact, the iPad mini – bought at Christmas 2013 with ill-gotten money from an ill-starred training transaction – has sat mostly unused for three years, hasn’t gotten an OS update in two, and was only lately pulled out for use as a Zoom client.
Which is a useful data point. An iPad has been surplus to requirement as a separate device for three years, ever since the coming of the 5.8” iPhone X. But the iPad was most a thing when my default phone screen was a 4” display, and the 4.7” iPhone plus a Kindle Paperwhite has carried me most of the way; video gets watched on the AppleTV or the iMac in the upstairs office. And a non-trivial amount of activity – mostly this blog – transpires periodically on the work laptop. Long form blogging requires a physical keyboard of some sort. But if that’s going away, that would mean a LOT of stuff going away from the work laptop – Notes, Evernote, Safari bookmarks, iCloud Drive – and most of the stuff that happens for convenience on the work laptop is not necessarily more easily done on an iPad than a phone, especially if the iPad isn’t with you.
There’s also the travel factor. In the time of my iPad ownership, I’ve been to London, Japan, Ireland and Patagonia, and I’ve never taken the iPad with me, not once. I mean, I haven’t taken a laptop either, but the principle is the same: you can go abroad for two weeks with only an iPhone and as long as you have a local SIM and a compatible charger, you’re golden. An iPad wouldn’t be a travel device, for the most part; it would be a thin laptop substitute for putting personal stuff on the work machine, and a living room device for evenings and shutdowns. Streaming media apps, IMDB, Zoom – no social media, no work tools, nothing you’d use the phone for because the phone is upstairs on the charger and anything important will ping your wrist anyway.
Originally I was going to say that the iPad isn’t much use if you’re only going to be at home, but if it’s not going anywhere with you, that sort of defeats the purpose as well. Easier to just stash things on the web and get at them with a browser on the work machine for now, for what it’s worth, and use the home computer for the heavy lifting for things that can’t be done on the phone. I guess I’ve sorted it out – for the time being, the next likely Apple purchase is going to be a replacement for the iMac, of all things. As much as I’m intrigued by the thought of a sub-$1000 12″ Apple Silicon laptop – and as much as it would be preferable to an iPad – we have to be able to actually go anywhere for a prolonged period of time to make it worth the investment.