William Gallagher
Ex-Apple executive and longtime Apple commentator Jean-Louis Gassee says the iPad is failing. It's clear that he doesn't know what it's for, but that in no way makes it a dying product.
Jean-Louis Gassee is not afraid to use his long-running Monday Note blog to be controversial about Apple, but usually he's got at least a hint of a valid point. This week, he's phoned it in with what would be wrong if it were the two sentences it should be, and is complete nonsense at the kilo-word length it is.
It's true that iPad sales are lower than they were at the 2014 peak. But Gassee wants to make this point about users not knowing what the iPad is for — and he rewrites history to do it.
In 2010, Steve Jobs, known for his affirmative, ringing positioning statements, hemmed and hawed with eerie prescience:
"iPad has to find its place between the iPhone and the Mac."
Nope.
Disagree with Steve Jobs or not, believe him or not, he did not hem or haw in the slightest. He also didn't say the words in that quote, either, not at the iPad launch.
Instead, Jobs was declarative. He said that a third category of device, "something that's between a laptop and a smartphone," would have to do certain things.
"The bar is pretty high," he said. "In order to really create a new category of devices, those devices are going to have to be far better at doing some key tasks. They're going to have to be far better at doing some really important things. Better than the laptop. Better than the smartphone."
He then gave examples of what people use devices for, such as browsing the web, doing email, reading.
"If there's going to be a third category of device," he continued, "it's going to have to be better at these kinds of tasks than a laptop or a smartphone."
"Otherwise it has no reason for being," he said, with definition. That's not hemming and hawing. This is what a new class of device would have to have, would have to be.
He then mocked some who believed at the time that the now completely dead netbook concept was this third class of device.
"The problem is that netbooks aren't better at anything," Jobs said. "But we think we've got something that is and we'd like to show it to you today for the first time. And we call it the iPad."
There you go. This is what we need, this is what the iPad is, off we go — and Jobs was clear.
It's true that many, possibly including Gassee, would like the iPad to work like a Mac. It's also true that, unlike with Jobs, Tim Cook actually did say the words Gassee attributes to him.
"The iPad is the clearest expression of our vision of the future of personal computing," Cook said. He has continued to maintain that view for years at this point.
And it's true that with the M2 processor the iPad hardware is confusingly more powerful than its own software lets it be. So if Gassee wants to question the line about it being the "clearest expression," that's fine.
It's also obviously fine that he wants to slam Stage Manager on iPad, because as it stands, it isn't great. Yet in an argument that claims no one knows what an iPad is, taking time out to criticize something it has seems to not prove what he wants it to.
Similarly, saying that the iPad has become like the Microsoft Surface isn't wrong, it just isn't addressing the issue at hand.
Instead, bringing up the Surface just reminds you that Microsoft and any other tablet manufacturer on the planet would kill to have sales figures like the iPad.
Christine McKee
AppleInsider Staff
Chip Loder
Malcolm Owen
58 Comments
Smartphones and computers are not iPad either.
Sounds like Gassee is still bitter that Apple didn't want to pay him $275 million for BeOS and opted to give Steve much more for NeXT instead..
I completely disagree that the iPad is failing or that it's not good for much. I use my iPad every day, and that's been true for the 7 different iPad models I've bought since 2010. It's substantially better for reading than my phone or my Mac, whether I'm reading a Kindle book or aggregated news and media via an app like Flipboard. I find it to be capable when I'm away from home as a computer replacement with the Magic Keyboard (obviously workflow needs are highly individual, but this has been my own experience), and it's better for tasks like signing documents when buying/selling a house, signing contracts, etc. It's also earned a spot among my various gaming devices for playing certain types of games. I vastly prefer browsing Reddit or watching YouTube on my iPad than on my phone, and the list goes on and on. It's replaced dedicated cash register hardware for small businesses around the world, and it's versatile enough to replace niche specialized hardware in fields like archaeology. Just because some individuals don't have a place for an iPad within their own specific workflows and personal lives, that hardly qualifies them to declare the device a failure when millions of us use an iPad every day.
I’ll be the first to admit that I originally bought the iPad (and later the iPad Pro) primarily to be a “couch computer,” i.e. to take care of light business like texts and web surfing when not seated at a desk. And it worked great for that.
Then, again with a non-pro iPad, I later wondered if it could handle everything I might want to do while I was away on a trip, and so I put it to the test. And it handled this with ease, leaving me free to enjoy my vacation without having to lug around a MacBook and all the accessories one tends to include with that.
It wasn’t long before I figured out that the iPad — particularly with a keyboard case — was the perfect lightweight computer for seniors and light-duty users of all ages. They want the stuff they have on their iPhone (and maybe Word or Excel), some games, FaceTime/Messages, without having to “learn” an “operating system” or do any maintenance, run an anti-virus, etc. It’s the perfect computer for people who don’t like computers and feel intimidated by them.
While I’m not much of an artist, the Pencil made it possible for people from children to storyboard artists to obtain a very affordable drawing tablet, and now Scribble has made it an ideal tool for traditional-style notetakers. It’s possible now to make a quick-but-slick video on one, making it ideal for students.
With my iPad Pro, I can get all of my routine duties accomplished using a keyboard and trackpad (my favourite combination. I jumped at the Magic Keyboard when I found one refurbished and now I have a very compact office where I can write, draw, edit audio, check finances, read, play games, kill time or be incredibly productive — nearly everywhere. For more hours than my MBP can work these days.
iPads certainly do have some pro-level limitations, but people who dismiss it as “not a real computer,” like apparently Mr. Gasbag (I mean Gasseé) are being patently short-sighted and look ridiculous for saying so. It’s like saying a car is “not a real vehicle” because you own a truck.