Apple has not destroyed Steve Jobs' vision for iPad

https://victorwynne.com/vision-for-ipad/

by curtblaha • 11 months ago

32 90 11 months ago

I broadly agree with this thesis - I don't think there's a "betrayal" of a vision (and even if there had been, who really cares?) - but I do think Apple's vision has got muddled.

My problem is we're not all talking about the same thing when we talk about "The iPad". Right now, on sale today, there are four iPads to choose from. No, not different colours, or memory sizes - you need to make a choice between the Mini, the Air, the Pro and the regular iPad.

Want a desktop? Cool, you've got the iMac, the Mini, the Studio, and the Pro. Within each of those you have choices on processor, memory, storage and more.

Or maybe you just want a phone. Cool. Want the 16, the 16e, the 16 Pro, or the 15? They're all on the Apple store right now.

None of these have anything on the Watch (Series 10, Ultra 2, SE, Nike or Hermes).

I think it can hard to work out where each device sits in your life, but then there are spectrums and overlaps between them, and this is confusing for the consumer. Should I buy a high-end phone and spend a little less on an iPad and see it as just a bigger screen? Or should I get the last generation phone, splurge on an iPad Pro, and then maybe I don't need as much in the way of a Mac?

When you're selling a lifestyle, you need to be coherent. It used to be the case that Apple was coherent, but this choice is making customers confused.

I'd love to see a paired back offering and have more clarity and delineation. Do that, and this "is an iPad a laptop replacement?" becomes a more redundant question, and this idea of "betrayal" can go away.

throwfaraway4• 11 months ago

I don't see how this is any different from variation/choices in other lifestyle products. Many consumers are sophisticated and appreciate choice.

zerkten• 11 months ago

A problem is that these device variations now overlap. Originally when Apple was selling a lifestyle there was a clear choice between available options. The current options often force you into a decision about buying up which affects typical consumers the most.

I have a 2018 iPad Pro which I use for Lightroom amongst other things. I'd like to replace it with something new as I need OS support long term and it'll be a fine device to use with our bike trainer. The current iPad Air blows it out of the water, except for the screen downgrade.

Do I suck it up and save some money, or go with the latest iPad Pro? There is a lot more thinking involved than there used to be. It's much more challenging for regular consumers because the iPad pricing ceiling has been pushed higher on top of accessory considerations. This pattern repeats across the lines because it's known to generate more revenue.

DanielHB• 11 months ago

I don't understand why companies doing hardware do this, surely it is much more expensive to design so many different devices? It dilutes the brand and makes the supply chain more complicated.

Like how much extra market capture really gets from having 4/5 different versions of the same basic segment?

Like I can see a reason to create several different versions based on screen size and upcharge for memory because that is a rather minor change. But otherwise why make them different at all?

Like if they really wanted to make different screen sizes just iPad 16'', iPad 14'', etc. Why make such a fuss with extra design changes besides that.

Like you said, Apple was the one company that didn't (over)do this, but not anymore.

JumpCrisscross5• 11 months ago

how much extra market capture really gets from having 4/5 different versions of the same basic segment?

Enough, at Apple's scale. The harmonic seems to be upstarts target a niche with a specialised offering and then scale until they can target other niches, perhaps one bigger than the one they initially went after, but all of which muddles the product focus until a paradigm shifts and someone simplifies again.

saynay2• 11 months ago

The confusing choices are deliberate way to exploit psychology of potential buyers into up-selling themselves. The idea is to entice them by the more reasonable base price, but use the uncertainty on if it will really meet their needs to push them up a ladder of upgrades.

Maybe the 16e sounds good at $599. But, it might be a bit underpowered, so maybe you should just upgrade to the 15 at $699. Then it is only $100 more to just go for the 16 (or 15 Plus), so might as well right? But maybe you want a bigger screen or twice the storage, which are both another $100. Then for another $100, you can get the nicer materials or the extra camera, etc for the 16 Pro...

This is a marketing strategy you see in a lot of the phone market, and has proven to be successful at pushing customers into the higher-margin devices.

JumpCrisscross5• 11 months ago

confusing choices are deliberate way to exploit psychology of potential buyers into up-selling themselves

There is a lot of consumer research that suggests the opposite: analysis paralysis delays a purchase past the point where impulsivity might have pushed a customer over the line.

jitl• 11 months ago

And yet is there a device maker with a smaller lineup than Apple’s? Samsung seems to have like a bazillion models in circulation at any given time. Large laptop makers like Lenovo or Dell have a flabbergasting lineup of very overlapping products. At least Microsoft’s lineup is comprehensible.

yunwal• 11 months ago

The confusing choices are deliberate way to exploit psychology of potential buyers into up-selling themselves.

I would argue that this is due to a lack of intention, and that the endless upgrade possibilities actually exhaust potential buyers into opting for cheaper options. I have no way to prove it, but it's quite obvious to me that part of Apple's market power is due to their historically simple and intuitive product lineup, and they were able to get away with being the most expensive, high margin products on the market. The more options they give, the more it starts to feel like a commodity product.

epistasis2• 11 months ago

Could be. But a messy lineup of a bewildering array of products is the result of lazy management, too.

It's far easier to accumulate a wide range of products, without much thought, than it is to accumulate that mess with intention!

ahmeneeroe-v2• 11 months ago

This is a weird way of saying that Apple offers a phone at every price point.

How is it consumer-hostile to offer upgrades at an increased cost?

endemic2• 11 months ago

Yeah, I really loved the clarity of the 2x2 product matrix Apple had immediately after Jobs' return: 2 desktops, 2 laptops, one "consumer" and one "pro." Of course there were configuration variations within those broad categories as well. I realize we don't live in that world anymore, though.

JumpCrisscross5• 11 months ago

return: 2 desktops, 2 laptops, one "consumer" and one "pro”

Isn’t this 2 x 2 x 2?

Almondsetat5• 11 months ago

From Apple's point of view, Apple Vision (Pro) is the ultimate platform. That's why I think they were so convinced in developing it. If VR/AR headsets follow the same transition we had between the first gigantic mobile phones of thw 80s and the pocketable ones of the 2000s, I could seriously see Apple throwing out all their consumer lineup (phone, watch, ipad, macbook) and only have a Vision device. This would solve all the problems regarding different experiences.

esskay• 11 months ago

We're still a long way before it being a viable option to ditch all other devices for. If they could get it working as an AR glasses wirelessly reliant on an iPhone then that would be the thing that makes it go from weird overpriced useless product to an actual useful device.

Getting rid of the phone completely though is a whole other issue and we're nowhere near being able to ship anything with enough computing power and battery capacity into a form factor as light as standard glasses.

The whole chunky VR headset thing - no, that's not taking off as a thing people will wear all day.

gregoriol2• 11 months ago

The Apple Vision solves no problems, like the Apple Watch, they are just toys.

hoherd• 11 months ago

I disagree that the watch is just a toy. If it were, I never would've bought one. The only reason I got an Apple Watch is because Fitbit stopped selling the pendant pedometer, and if I was going to have to wear a watch, it might as well be integrated tightly with my phone.

For me, the Apple Watch is primarily a fitness device. That's almost the only reason I have it. I don't want to wear a watch. I don't load any music, podcasts, or almost any apps on it. I use it to track my activity and compare my daily health with past trends. That's like 95% of what I use it for. I even keep theater mode turned on 24x7 because I almost never look at it to check the time.

I also use it to tell Siri "set a timer" and "turn of the bedroom light... turn off the BEDROOM LIGHT... TURN OFF THE BEDROOM LIGHT."

Almondsetat5• 11 months ago

Whatever you posted this reply with is just a silly worthless toy. No, I will not elaborate

wpm• 11 months ago

You still could t ditch the Mac because it’s the only platform you can develop apps on due to its yucky, “legacy” feature of….letting you run software on it without Apples “approval”. I’m sure it’s true what they say and it’s really about “security” though, not their App Store monopoly.

Even Apple can’t get around that. The Mac sticks around for this very reason: as a dev platform

Almondsetat5• 11 months ago

I specifically said "consumer lineup" and not "professional lineup"

benoau2• 11 months ago

I think they're well on the path of replacing the "legacy" development structure with entirely closed, iOS-only app development since Swift Playgrounds 4:

https://screenrant.com/publish-ios-apps-ipad-swift-playgroun...

To me it feels like a waiting game - most people under 20 have lived their entire lives within "walled gardens" aka "what's a computer". The EU has already failed to break this cycle, if the DOJ can't do better and Apple can derail smaller countries efforts then this restrictive model will become entrenched as normal over the next two decades.

surgical_fire• 11 months ago

I always hope that Apple someday locks down their computers like that.

snowwrestler• 11 months ago

I think people get this idea that Jobs shaped Apple by dumbing things down, which is not true. For example OS X shipped from the beginning with a Unix shell, which is way harder to use than GUI; this is something that Jobs added to the Mac. But it’s hidden in an app and probably most folks will never interact with it at all. It’s like the deep end of a swimming pool: there if you want to do some specialized stuff, but anyone can ignore it and still have a great time in the pool.

The idea of a stylus for drawing on the iPad must have been there from the start because Wacom was already financially successful and a popular Mac accessory. Their Cintiq monitor/drawing tablet predated the iPad by about a decade. Apple’s leadership must have been aware of it.

weego• 11 months ago

I honestly thought the touch bar was introduced into the laptops as 'test' iteration before it leading somewhere, and maybe partly with the ipad pros. For on-the-move prosumer use in music, video, and image editing I can see a lot of use for fully customisable hot buttons, especially combined with the pencil.

As it is, they're in a weird space. It's better to buy an air than the ipad pro + pro keyboard, the price of which is eye-watering. My ipad is now a very expensive screen for watching Tv in bed, and playing the odd bit of roblox to keep endgaged with my kids. I'm not going to bother typing anything on it... it's an absolute chore compared to my phone because of worse ergonomics due to it's size.

As a gateway device for AI... something maybe there's an interesting use case to be discovered but I'm not bullish on the value proposition of them going forward.

mcphage2• 11 months ago

I honestly thought the touch bar was introduced into the laptops as 'test' iteration before it leading somewhere

I think you're right—but for whatever reason, they decided not to go there.

skydhash4• 11 months ago

It still remains a crippled user experience in many ways:

- PDF reader: Preview would be a nice addition to the set of default app, but you have to choose between the very basic viewer tied to Files.app and various viewers with many schemes to get into your wallet.

- Files: I know a lot of apps rely on databases, but we still have to use files every now and then. The Files.app is very clunky for what I consider a solved problem.

- The weird stage manager: Even on a 13" screen, it's hard to manage more than two apps side by side. Why not introduce a simple workspace manager a la GNOME if they user want to save a particular set of windows.

- Profiles: Even browsers are adding them these days as they recognize that people have a faceted life. Instead we have custom notification settings. The ipad is not that personal of a device. It's closer to the Apple TV than my laptop in terms of privacy.

zffr• 11 months ago

Preview was just included in iOS 26

throwaway2902• 11 months ago

Books is much better for PDFs

yoz-y• 11 months ago

they are adding Preview to iOS. I haven’t tried it yet but if it works like on macOS then most file formats should be handled rather well.

Saddest is the removal of slideover, ultimately that’s the only multi-tasking feature I really used in the old iPadOS and it was really quite nice.

scarface_743• 11 months ago

It’s not really a solved problem on any desktop platform. Once you download an app on a desktop, it has complete access to all of your files you have access to in user space.

The Files app itself works just the same to manage files as Windows and Macs assuming you didn’t have multiple windows to work with.

The Files app as method to open and save files with in an app, works like any other file picker with more granular permissions.

The idea that any file storage service is a first class citizen (Dropbox, Google Drive, OneDrive, etc) is definitely a win.

StopDisinfo9102• 11 months ago

It’s not really a solved problem on any desktop platform. Once you download an app on a desktop, it has complete access to all of your files you have access to in user space.

Amusingly, Linux solved that with flatpack.

Applications are installed in their own sandboxed containers and you decide which files they can and can’t access.

The Linux desktop has some very interesting pieces of technology.

Apple could do the same on macOS but that would pierce the veil that their user hostile policies are actually motivated by greed and not security.

moduspol• 11 months ago

Apple added functionality to macOS a few years ago that requires a separate pop-up / permissions dialog when apps try to access various directories the user can otherwise access (like Documents, Downloads, Desktop, other apps' files, etc.).

cm277• 11 months ago

After years with a mini, I jumped to an Air just so I could finally get a proper 'netbook' experience. Don't like Chromebooks, Windows is too complex; there is room for a simplified laptop that is easy to use and update but let's you use proper apps without going all the way to a full laptop with pro tools.

I've started to see this as a generational challenge. I am Gen X, I used to run FreeBSD and Linux, I don't mind the complexity and upkeep of a Windows laptop with all the trimmings (I do mind the complexity of the unixes, sorry). But what about Gen Z who are used to simple, powerful technology with simplified apps and UIs? why would they/should they put up with legacy UX and ways of working?

My guess is that where Microsoft is going with the new Office apps which are just web apps with thicker clients. Simplify, simplify until we can all work with iPads, Windows/ARM or whatever. Makes sense to be honest, although I'll probably keep a Thinkpad around the way old mechanics keep a set of tools in the garage although they will probably never use them again.

skydhash4• 11 months ago

The iPad can work wonder if your workflow suits it. But it's the antithesis of power users. It's very tied to a cloud approach, but when you don't control the cloud backend, nor the app, it's hard to customize your workflow. Which is kinda the first step to mastery.

dogleash• 11 months ago

Gen Z who are used to simple, powerful technology with simplified apps and UIs? why would they/should they put up with legacy UX and ways of working?

I disagree with the premise. The modern UIs are rife with more special cases, hidden gestures and non-transferable knowledge than the old “one mouse button is enough” or even early windows’ ugly but constant model. Gen Z has harder UI, over a superficial simplicity that is really just a constrained interaction space.

The problem for zoomers is now when they use a deep interaction model, the new complexity of UI becomes a frustration multiplier rather than fixed cost.

anonymousiam2• 11 months ago

Additional crippled features:

- Requirement to use ONLY the Apple web renderer (WebKit)

- Why does my iPad Pro take minutes to refresh my email boxes and show new messages, when it's not doing anything else at all? Email on all my other devices is snappy.

- Little or no support for emulation of other platforms.

- No way to turn off participation in the "Find My" BLE mesh network. I'd rather have a choice about whether or not I want to use my battery/network to support their mesh network.

With Apple's announcement about incorporating AI into all their future products, I'm not certain that I will not be buying anything else from them.

kalleboo2• 11 months ago

No way to turn off participation in the "Find My" BLE mesh network

There is a setting to disable participation in the "Find My network" under "Settings > [your name] > Find My > Find My iPhone/iPad > Find My network"

benoau2• 11 months ago

When Jobs introduced the iPad in 2010, he wasn’t trying to freeze technology in amber.

Well it's 15 years later, their rules have only ever voluntarily-changed to carve out more fees for themselves and the software you're not allowed to use appears to be banned "forever".

His vision was a closed ecosystem with massive fees and no competition, even changes to the laws around the world haven't really disrupted this:

One can read books bought elsewhere, just not buy/rent/subscribe from iOS without paying us, which we acknowledge is prohibitive for many things.”

us-merul• 11 months ago

I’ve had an iPad since 2013, and went through the phases of thinking it was awesome to unnecessary. Then I was gifted an iPad Pro last year with the Apple Pencil and everything changed. It’s now my favorite Apple device by far, and exactly for why the author describes; it’s become a digital canvas that enables an input function unavailable anywhere else. If you’re skeptical, you really need to try one out for a brainstorming or creative activity. (Yes, I know that paper still works for this, too.)

speak_plainly• 11 months ago

Steve was aiming at creating “a single piece of glass you can use to read email on the toilet.”

Obviously that goal was achieved but the direction the iPad went in was different than its minimalist and cheap original trajectory.

Adding a stylus and all the ‘Pro’ stuff confused what the iPad originally was, and now it’s more closely aligned with a new form-factor MacBook with a limited OS.

Maybe Steve would have gone a different way, but perhaps all computing devices are destined for the same convergent evolution … a kind of carcinization of form factors and purposes.

skydhash4• 11 months ago

IMO, the Air should be a touch MacBook (Interface kinda like GNOME, hardware like the surface). The iPad should only be the mini (more comfortable for reading and viewing). And then the laptops are the Pro MacBook and a cheaper Macbook (the current Air 14). Maybe that's where macOS is headed?

alberth• 11 months ago

I’m probably alone in this feeling but I don’t see the need to have overlapping windows on such a small device.

https://9to5mac.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/6/2025/06/With-...

PunchyHamster• 11 months ago

I rarely see the need on big stationary PC side, aside from "show the setting window/tool palette"

mitkebes• 11 months ago

I remember when the first iPad was in development, there was a lot of speculation about how Apple would solve the "large touchscreen keyboard" problem. Typing on a large touchscreen was hard, just blowing up a iphone keyboard wouldn't cut it. It'd be too large for thumb typing, but you also couldn't type on it like a physical keyboard, it would be awkward hovering over the touchscreen and you couldn't hold it while you typed.

Tech sites and bloggers talked about how Apple cared too much about the user experience to just release a big keyboard, and how we were about to see a revolutionary new keyboard design. There was speculation about split keyboards, radial keyboards, and more. People weren't sure how Apple was going to fix the keyboard issue, but it was going to be magical.

Finally the actual iPad reveal came, and it was just literally a giant iphone keyboard. Jobs showed how to type on it by balancing the ipad on his knees, and hover hand typing onto it.

Honestly that was the point where my opinion of Apple started to decline, it honestly wasn't even that big of a deal, but it changed them in my eyes from a revolutionary tech company into one that just wanted to appear revolutionary. I've never quite been able to separate that initial disappointment from the iPads, and that disappointment is still the first thing that comes to mind whenever I see one or read an article about them.

giancarlostoro2• 11 months ago

I remember when the first iPad was in development, there was a lot of speculation about how Apple would solve the "large touchscreen keyboard" problem. Typing on a large touchscreen was hard, just blowing up a iphone keyboard wouldn't cut it. It'd be too large for thumb typing, but you also couldn't type on it like a physical keyboard, it would be awkward hovering over the touchscreen and you couldn't hold it while you typed.

I liked how Windows 8 did it on one of my laptops / touch devices, the keyboard would split in half and be on each edge of the screen, so if you truly wanted to type with your thumb, you could.

A lot of people did not like Windows 8, but I had fun with it on devices designed for it.

I do prefer whenever I find my Apple Pen (I have a knock off one from Logitech) that I can just write text over a text field, and the iPad will happily fill it in for me.

hbn3• 11 months ago

iPad OS has a split keyboard you can access by grabbing it with both thumbs and pulling it in half.

But I think I've heard the iPad Pro doesn't have it for some reason?

It seems kinda neglected as a feature anyway cause I've found it frequently covers the input field you're typing in, even in Apple's own apps.

JumpCrisscross5• 11 months ago

it changed them in my eyes from a revolutionary tech company into one that just wanted to appear revolutionary

Doesn't your story imply the opposite? The blown-up keyboard works. It's not revolutionary. But it's also not performatively different in the way those bloggers' keyboard proposals were.

massysett• 11 months ago

Even though you can now make the keyboard a small floating one and use swipe typing?

mcphage2• 11 months ago

Finally the actual iPad reveal came, and it was just literally a giant iphone keyboard. Jobs showed how to type on it by balancing the ipad on his knees, and hover hand typing onto it.
Honestly that was the point where my opinion of Apple started to decline, it honestly wasn't even that big of a deal, but it changed them in my eyes from a revolutionary tech company into one that just wanted to appear revolutionary.

Would a company that merely wanted to appear revolutionary have released some novel (but probably pointless) keyboard design?

seanmcdirmid• 11 months ago

The blown up keyboard worked for as much typing as many do on it. I’m using a virtual keyboard on a 2019 iPad Pro to write this comment in fact.

wzdd• 11 months ago

Weird. I bought the first iPad and loved the big keyboard. I was much faster using it than I was on a phone. Particularly with the magnetic case, I found I could set it up like a physical keyboard and take notes in lectures, but unlike most keyboards it was silent. I made lots of mistakes, but autocorrect fixed most of them.

I don’t really get what the iPad is for either, but you should at least consider that Apple decided that “big keyboard” was the best option.

joeconway• 11 months ago

It has essentially always been possible to split the iPad keyboard or have it be iPhone sized and floating. Both are a good experience

karaterobot• 11 months ago

Jobs, who died in 2011, may very well have had some new or updated opinions himself by now.

WillAdams• 11 months ago

An interesting contrast here is to how the other side handled things --- Windows for Pen Computing elegantly integrated a stylus into a desktop OS, and things progressed with fits and starts, with a marked upthrust with Microsoft's Tablet PC effort on Windows XP, and then Windows 8 --- but since Fall Creators Update, the stylus has been dumbed down to an 11th touch input, and it takes a bit of effort to get it to do anything other than scroll in a web browser (use Firefox and set a specific option to disable this).

If Apple would make an iPhone which supported the Apple Pencil, I'd be inclined to replace my Samsung Galaxy Note 10+, and the pair of an iPad Pro and MacBook w/ an Apple Pencil controlling Sidecar seems workable enough to replace my Wacom One, and presumably the iPad would be portable enough to replace my Samsung Galaxy Book 3 Pro 360 --- but that still leaves my Kindle Scribe....

Steve Jobs promised that killing the Newton would result in devices which would justify that, but I'm still not seeing a Newton replacement from Apple, and the Scribe is about as close as I've gotten (and I wish Amazon would add a smaller model, or better still, engineer a phone case which included an e-ink screen, Kindle functionality, and had a Wacom EMR stylus and which would extend/replace a phone screen (replacing allowing for usage in direct/bright sunlight)).

duxup• 11 months ago

There's a whole series of Apple panic articles out there that I just don't get. I feel like there's these tech news fads and once they start they just have to keep going. Most of them seem to ask wildly empty questions / problems.

I don't think even Steve would expect that after he was gone anyone would do exactly what he wanted many years ago.

gt0• 11 months ago

I find it strange how we talk about "visions" for companies like they are real things. Like when a company has a "mission" or a "vision", do people actually think that's real?

There is no vision other than making money, and I don't mean that as a rail against capitalism, it's just simply how it is. Steve Jobs didn't even let his own kids use iPads, I don't think Steve Jobs felt the iPad had any value other than monetary.

I like the iPad as a device, but there is no "vision" there, there is no overriding view of the future of computing or anything like that. It's a product. A nice product, but there is no vision, from Jobs or anybody else.

Apple has not destroyed Steve Jobs' vision for iPad

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