Middle kid

I’m writing this on an iPad. I have owned it for six years, materially half of the iPad’s existence. The keyboard is beaten to absolute hell. I have written over 500,000 words on it, including two books, six zines, almost all of text, and over 400 newsletters. The S, C, L, N, M, comma, and period keys are missing their text. The right-hand half of the spacebar is worn down. The back of my keyboard is peeling.

And this is the last night that I’m ever going to use any of it. Tomorrow a new iPad arrives, along with a return kit so I can do a trade-in. It arrives alongside a totally different keyboard, because the one I use got discontinued with no real alternative. I am weirdly emotional about this, for what I pray are obvious reasons! The iPad is a terrific reading and writing environment, and the absolute best lap computer on earth. I pray that the new device(s) will serve me well. I enter a flow state on this thing in a way that I never really have before, and it’s brought about one of the finest creative streaks of my life.

At the same time, Apple people love to be mad about the iPad, and for good reason. Any articles to the contrary scream of media-planted it’s-not-so-bad Stockholm syndrome. Go through the aforelinked and you’ll realize that the iPad is pretty awful for professional computing, especially given how monstrously overpowered it always has been. I’m lucky that most of my creative life involves two things: writing plain text, and syncing plain text to other devices. The iPad can do both – without having to resort to Files.app (which is bad) or multitasking (which is worse).

I can use Apple Pencil for drawing & prototyping, and the keyboard for writing, and that’s it. Drawings are great, if you can manage their files after the fact. Processing photos is great, if you can get them into & out of the photo processor. Photo import from my camera chokes if you cmd-tab to any other application for more than a single second. Managing image files is a full-stop nightmare. iWork apps are an underbaked nightmare. Font management is nonexistent. (Do not tell me about system profiles. My knives are sharp.) Also, I’ve used computers for over 4 decades and I still have no idea how external drives work. Also also, I tap the screen and weird things happen as a result of whatever multitasking engine Apple released this week.