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Save 20% on the award-winning Audio Hijack with coupon code 6C20AH!By Dan Moren for Macworld
On the heels of new pro apps, where does the iPad go from here?
More than a decade ago, on the heels of the iPad’s announcement, I took to the pages of this very magazine—then still available as a physical object shipped to your home—to describe it as not just a third device, but a third revolution.
And at the time it was: Apple’s attempt to once again remake the idea of personal computing, a thesis it would return to several times in the subsequent years, perhaps most cogently expressed in the “what’s a computer?” ad from 2017.
But in recent years, that future has seemed in jeopardy, as the iPad has entered a kind of holding pattern, like the understudy waiting in the wings that’s never asked to step into the main role. The Mac, which seemed poised on the brink of retirement, not only kept trucking along, but even garnered a late-career resurgence with the transition to Apple Silicon. The iPad’s big break suddenly evaporated.
This past week, Apple once again took a step towards the idea of the iPad as the modern-day computer replacement with its long-awaited announcement of Final Cut Pro and Logic Pro for the platform—but is it too little, too late?