for whom the new iPhone Duo will be a great fit.
I am not one of them.
Which is not a criticism of the device as much as an admission that iPad, after all these years of trying, has nowhere to live in my ecosystem.
I was a first gen adopter of iPad- our arrived just as my wife and I were leaving for a vacation, and we took them with. They were magical, Star Trek devices that worked as intended. Never had a hiccup, never had a crash.
But it quickly fell out of use.
I tried again of course. iPad 2, etc. Equally impressive machines- and so on.
Couldn’t get one to stick.
Tried again with the iPad mini, which I believe has just passed into the great beyond with today’s announcement. “Surely,” I thought “it has a place in my life.”
Negative again. I still have not, it still works. I play Strategery on it every so often.
Went BIG when the 12.9 inches came out, thought, “Ok, this can replace my laptop.” And I LOVED the device.
Nope. Best use case was as a portable DJ device.
I know why these devices have failed to fit into my workflows- they simply are not what I want to use. Mind you, I was tardy to the iPhone party- I didn’t get an iPhone until version 3 or 4 if I remember correctly. Even now, when the devices just launched version 18, I’m still on version 13. It’s a pretty simple equation.
iPhone= Personal Communication Device
Laptop= Portable Computer at power
Desktop= Where it matters
I am the Desktop generation. More, bigger monitors, RAM, hard drive space. Massive Apps (that you bought and owned, BTW) that could handle anything and everything. I value my ability to visually interface (read: see) with my computer far more than any other attribute.
iPhone is great for email.
Great for texts.
I really do not use it as a phone.
Great as an iPod
I actually considered at one point going phone-less altogether and just using an iPod touch and living on the wifi generosity of my community.
That’s it. Occasionally I use the timer when I water the yard. Maps eats up too much data. A 6.1 inch display is just not gonna cut the mustard, no matter how many pixels you squeeze into it. and honestly, making that 7.6 inches (iPhone Duo) does nothing for it, folding or not.
Laptop is for when I HAVE to be remote. My MacBook is pretty powerful, port access, can run the apps I want with the user interface I am comfortable with. But it’s still a situational device, in place to allow me to work until I get back to the desktop.
That’s where I had thought iPad had the best chance to fit, was in that mobile computing spot. Turns out, I genuinely wanted mobile computing in that spot, because I already had mobile communications in my iPhone.
It is of course a matter of time- the MacBook Neo has started the transition of Apples comm devices A series chips to their computer lineup, I expect that trend to continue as they reach design limitations in the M series chips.
So I will just look lovingly over at my G2 iPad Pro, patiently waiting for me to give it another go.