Who Really Needs an iPad?

A couple of years ago, I bought a used iPad on eBay. It was a couple hundred dollars, and my plan at the time was to use it as an e-reader. I read a ton (check out my personal blog here) and at the time I was quite sick of doing all my reading on my phone. I thought that the iPad would make a good reader and would maybe help me keep my attention on whatever I was supposed to be reading.

Now, the first thing we should talk about is the whole Apple thing. I’ve talked about how I’m a reformed Apple fanboy and that on mobile I still rock an iPhone. Mostly, I’m still happy with that choice, and I figured that I’d be okay with that choice for my tablet as well. The iPad seems to be the undisputed market leader, so I figured I couldn’t go wrong. The hardware would be good, and the software would be familiar.

Let me just tell you, this was the biggest waste of money ever. And it’s not the iPad’s fault. The device is fine, and the OS is fine. The problem is that I don’t need it. I have it, but 99% of the time I just use my phone. It’s always with me and has the same applications, so I just use that when I want to read or take notes. I don’t have to go find the iPad, make sure it and the Apple Pencil have a charge, and then do whatever it is I set out to do. I just do it.

I think I’ve maybe spent an hour reading on my iPad in the two years I’ve had it. And that hour was actually pretty uncomfortable. I have the 10-inch model, and that thing gets heavy after a while. I know, what a light weight. But it’s true. Even when I first got the tablet, I had immediate regret over not going with the cheaper and lighter iPad Mini. I think I’d have used it more.

Or maybe not.

It’s really not the size that is the main contributing factor to this thing collecting dust. Mostly, it’s that my phone does everything the iPad was going to do for me, and I always have that with me. The iPad can’t really replace my computer in any meaningful way, since it’s not in any way a computer. So what is it good for? And I really think that this is the question that most iPad owners face at one point or another. Artists may be an exception to this, since I can see how good the iPad would be for drawing and other such pursuits. But I’m not an artist. I couldn’t draw my way out of a paper bag. Hell, I couldn’t draw a paper bag.

The question I have is, where do tablets really fit into people’s workflow? Is it portability? And, if it’s that, isn’t a laptop mostly just as portable? Laptops are also more functional since they have a physical keyboard and a trackpad. They also run actual operating systems, unlike the iPad, which remains just a blown-up version of iOS (for the most part).

Is it something else? The iPad Mini seems like it’d make a good kindle-like device, but would I have done the same with that as I did with the larger one? I don’t know, and I’m not going to spend $400 to find out. The rest of the lineup seems so odd to me. Who, outside of artists, actually uses these things as tablets? I’ve seen some Mac users use them as extra monitors, which seems cool, but other than that, what are they for?

I don’t have the answers. I know some people prod me to get an Android tablet so that I can try ROMs and such, but I think I’d have the same problems on the more open platform. I don’t have a use for a tablet, no matter the OS. Maybe this is just me, and others are more into their iPads, but it really does feel like a frivolous product.

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