ipads have a non-insignificant footprint as point of sales systems these days too, so I wouldn't say ipads are _only_ a consumption device. They are also a pretty solid task specific unit for certain specific industries.

They make good head units too.

I guess what OP was trying to say is that their application as creative tools (production vs consumption) is far more limited than the full fledged PC systems that we are used to.

In my experience that has more to do with the artificial limitations devs put into ipad software. Take MPC drum machines for example. iMPC Pro 2 could replace all hardware MPCs if they wanted to but they would cannibalize their hardware if they did that so they made the ipad version a toy instead.

In absolutely no way is this the case. The iPads screen will always be a toy compared to proper AKAI pads. It’s not even velocity-sensitive.

Fair point but it's much further hamstrung than it needs to be and it would be easy to add velocity after the performance.

>> it would be easy to add velocity after

What? In no way, especially for drums.

Just draw it in. I've been doing it for years in daws

Yeah, okay, no, that does not equate to getting the natural response I am putting out while playing. :/

If that were the case, do you think Microsoft and Adobe spent money on development of Office and Photoshop foolishly?

The iPad Pros are credited with stopping the slide of iPad revenues - along with all of the accessories.

Honestly I think companies are (mostly) wasting their money porting desktop software to iPads. There's going to be niches where it makes perfect sense, but Office for the iPad is going to be a waste of money. Home users don't need it, business have laptops and desktop for those things, and Word is a poor note taking app of field work. To be fair I believe that the iPad is a poor note taking platform in general.

For specialized software, tailored to specific fields, with only the interaction elements for particular jobs the iPad can be a much better fit than a laptop. Those jobs however aren't generic enough that off shelf software make a ton of sense.

Doesn't really matter what you personally think, what matters is what companies think, because they have the data to back it up. Is it a waste of money or not? Office for iPad came in 2014 and still being quite actively developed so I think we can conclude the opposite of what you are saying.

Many examples of companies out there wasting $$$$ money for years on dead end projects.

So you think you know better than Microsoft and Adobe? Have you thought that they may know their customer base better than you do?

Unless we can see the numbers we don’t know if Microsoft profits from Office for the iPad. So I could be right for all you know.

Seeing that the only way that Microsoft makes money on Office for iPad is by selling O365 subscriptions -- same as Adobe with Creative Cloud -- having access anywhere is the value add.

Microsoft or Adobe can afford to make a billion dollar mistake.

Why would Microsoft keep developing a product for 7 years if there were no interest?

The Zune was launched in 2006 and discontinued in 2012. Why did that product last 6 years?

I’m not saying Office for iPad is pointless (I use it regularly, so quite the opposite!), but I do think it’s foolish to think an organisation the size of Microsoft’s doesn’t necessarily do things for obvious reasons. Individual incentives do not always lend themselves to data driven objectives.

Apple created the iPod in nine months by cobbling together third party components. The Zune wasn’t exactly a billion dollar investment.

I think it's unlikely that Office for iPad is a billion dollar investment either. It doesn't change that it might not actually generate any direct returns for them.

Loss-making strategies can ultimately be profitable in a broader sense (if it increases the stickiness of the product on it's primary platforms, keeping away competitors, a strategic moat).

I don't think there's any evidence either way to be able to make any assumptions about the level of interest of the product, and whether or not that justifies it's existence.

Not sure about Office, but iPad with Pencil seems popular with creative professionals, so for Adobe not to support it would open up opportunities to other software companies to Innovator's Dilemma them.

For illustration the iPad pro is my go-to production device.

agreed. graphic design - perfect niche for ipads.

Illustration is not graphic design though.

For graphic design (typography work, layout, UI, etc) mouse and keyboard are still the best input devices. Much faster and precise than tapping on a touch screen or using an Apple Pencil.

The main exception is drawing. It essentially replaces touch sensitive Wacoms.

This is unfortunatelly very true - Ipads have the best oen latency from mobile tablet devices & good software ecosystem (Procreate, etc.), likely thanks to overall more $$$ in iOS software development.

There are Android tablets with precise pen support, but especually the cheaper ones don't have that good pen precision (jitter, lag) and also the available drawing software is not as advanced as on the iPad & powerful ossdesktop drawig tools such as Krita or Mypaint are not yet ported to Android.

So in the end I basically had to get the top of the line Android tablet (Galaxy Tab S6) to get something comparable, where the manufacturer dumped so much mone so that some got also to the pen support & it would be working correctly. And so far so good. :)

I always felt the problem for android drawing tablets was that it was a three horse race and the anti-Apple was not Android here but the Surface.

The iPad Pro keyboard is pretty slick for what it is.

Pity it's missing esc and function keys.

Function keys seem like a stretch for the use case it is designed for - being able to type online or in apps while also having a very compact form factor.

Software developers continuing, after all these years, to dismiss any kind of creative work with a computer that isn’t typing, is crazy. I’d take an iPad over a laptop or desktop computer for lots of creative work, if I could only have one device.