For me the iPad has become one of my favorite ways to use applications like ZBrush, Procreate/Clip Studio, Photoshop/Affinity products.

Now I just need to find good texturing and basic modeling applications I can use on the iPad and I could do a lot more from the comfort of my couch or even outside in the spring.

ZBrush especially on the iPad is an impressive feat and is almost a 1:1 port. I don’t have years and years of ZBrush experience so I actually much prefer the iPad ZBrush GUI to the traditional one.

edit: Shoutout to Paperlike screen covers.

The iPad got good for me when I deleted everything but reading and designing/art apps and turned off notifications.

It doesn’t come close to doing all of my computing but it helps me immerse in areas I struggle with on a laptop or desktop.

I realize I’m blessed to be able to split my computing across multiple nice devices.

Notifications show up only on my phone, nothing on the tablet and very few (messaging mostly) on my laptop.

My main use is cooking. I keep the recipes in Obsidian, can enable timers hands free, and because it's a big slate of glass its easy to wipe down when it inevitably gets pasta dough on it.

It could be a great do-everything machine if they let you run macOS on it, but of course they don't want to sell one machine that does everything, they want to sell you an iPad and a MacBook even though they are basically the same hardware plus or minus an integrated keyboard.

I want that experience I seen on some other device at some point... Palm? I forget now.

In tablet mode, iPad OS. Touch being the primary operation. Basically just as we see it now.

In a pseudo desktop mode, macOS, where you get the power of a laptop in a smaller form factor. You can optionally try to use this in touch mode in a pinch but it's not necessarily designed for it.

The win would be seamless switching. Including apps... if I have photoshop open on iPad, dock, convert to Photoshop for Mac. I.e. you "dock" your iPad and it converts to a more Mac-like experience. Undock, you get the iPad experience.

To me, this would be ideal. I don't generally _need_ a laptop for personal use, so this would be a serious boon for me as I use my iPad all the time in the evening for simple consumption, but I also have a MacBook over here that gets used a few times a week, which is a costly device for how little it gets used.

There was the Motorola Atrix that had a dual mode system where you could plug the phone into a keyboard, larger battery, and big screen in a mostly laptop form factor. Never used it myself though because the keyboard module was expensive for at the time.

Ohhh that might have been what I was thinking of! Good memory!

I had one and wish I had the spare money at the time for the laptop portion of the unit but that was college years for me and I wasn't working during the school year just the summer and longer breaks.

That phone is still kicking around my drawers somewhere.

ChromeOS tablets behave like this. Connect a keyboard and the UI switches to desktop mode.

You can kind of get that now with the 360-degree rotation laptops, which are available with Windows or Chrome OS. I haven't used a Windows one, but Chrome OS behaves pretty nicely as a tablet.

The trouble though is, once you get an acceptable laptop keyboard and a corresponding screen, the resulting device seems excessively heavy and bulky when flipped over into the tablet form factor. You probably won't want to hold it up for more than 10 minutes.

I like the idea of one all-in-one device, but it's hard to see a way around these things. The cheesy tiny portable "keyboards" they make for tablets are pretty lame for extended typing, but better keyboards are too heavy for tablets. Meanwhile, I expect a desktop device to have the compute horsepower and RAM that are tough to get in a proper tablet form factor.

Yah, got a m4 ipad with a keyboard addon ... it just doesn't work, its not a computer.

I don't use one for work but I use my iPad Pro with keyboard more than I use my personal laptop for personal use. Web browsing, social media, communications, viewing and editing photos, shopping, planning trips, taking notes, and watching videos.

It is a computer, just a little different.

I use mine to browse the web a bit after work and consume RSS feeds using Feedly - always with the type cover. But for productivity, even with the Office apps, the information density on the screen is too low. Instead, I use my iPad as a thin client to RDP to my desktop computer, running Windows 11.

This is with an iPad Pro 2021.

In hindsight I should have purchased a Surface Pro tablet again, but I was so angry on the constant driver issues and similar problems.

I have an old one that I use daily... to do crossword puzzles.

We also have a newer one, and my kid uses it for much of her free to draw in Procreate. I am not very artistic, but she is, and I am not sure if the difference here is age or artistry.

> I am not sure if the difference here is age or artistry.

It could be the period of life - there are times when we have more space for exploration, and at that time, if we come across art and it "clicks", we might spend hours doing that. At another period, that same activity might seem pointless/not interesting.

This is a meme comment by now.

I've been using an iPad Air (with Paperlike) for the past 4 years for basically running my life at school, and I can't imagine going back to working with actual paper for daily note-taking and homework assignments. It's great for reading whitepapers and marking them up while laying on the couch.

That functionality by itself justifies its existence in my estimation.

Sounds like you have a great use case. I can see how it would have been useful for me as well back when I was at university. Unfortunately, I rarely do any writing on paper any more, although I probably should.

For the same reason I bought the cheapest 10" Android tablet with external memory slot. I don't know what it's like now, but in the past Apple tried very hard to offer entry level models cheap, but for anything usable in terms of storage you had to pay a big premium.

The base is now 64gb which should be plenty for any student. If not, iCloud is very affordable.

Watching shows, playing games, occasional drawing.

Same. Maybe if I had drawing talent, it would be useful.

I have tried to incorporate it into my daily workflow (maybe use it to help with diagramming), but it ends up collecting dust. Or used to watch films in bed.

Using it as a glorified Kindle also doesn’t work well.

Book recommendation: Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain.

Skip the neuro-"science" chapters and do the drawing exercises only. It really works!

I had the same thought and bought it with the Magic Keyboard. I was surprised to find that the iPad Air with the keyboard weighs about the same as a MacBook Air. Now, I mainly use it as an extra display when traveling and for note-taking. The usage as a separate device is minimal since a lot of uses has intersections with a mobile phone.