The iPad Pro debate

Brooke Crothers, writing for Forbes:

The preponderance of the gripes in reviews from most of the major tech sites is that it falls short as a laptop replacement. Here’s a quick solution (if you’re in the market for an iPad with a real keyboard): move a few feet (if you’re in the Apple Store) to the table with 12-inch Retina MacBook. The tablet-like 2-pound MacBook is about the same weight as the iPad Pro with the Smart Keyboard (iPad Pro is about 1.6 pounds and the Smart Keyboard is about 0.5 pounds). And about the same price: $1,248 for the 128GB cellular iPad Pro and keyboard and $1,299 for the 256GB 12-inch MacBook.

Exactly. I get that Apple is marketing this as a laptop replacement, but even Tim Cook says it’s really about a lot of people who will no longer buy laptops:

“I think if you’re looking at a PC, why would you buy a PC anymore? No really, why would you buy one?”, asks Tim Cook

[…] “Yes, the iPad Pro is a replacement for a notebook or a desktop for many, many people. They will start using it and conclude they no longer need to use anything else, other than their phones,” Cook argues…

It’s not supposed to do things the way laptops do things — if that’s what you want, you get a laptop.

And don’t be shocked when iOS 10 brings in more support for a physical keyboard to navigate around the OS. But for heaven’s sake, expecting a pointer is just silly. If anything, Apple would consider something more along the lines of the TV interface trackpad, but I think even that is pushing it.