Working on the iPad: One Year Later

Federico Viticci reflects on using the iPad as his primary computer; specifically following-up on last year’s article on switching to the iPad Air 2.

Four years ago, I struggled to move from a Mac to an iPad. Today, I only have to open my MacBook once a week. And I wish I didn’t have to.

[…] Being tied to a desktop computer isn’t an option for me. No matter what life has in store for the future, I have to be ready to work from anywhere. I have to consider the possibility that I won’t always be okay, working from the comfort of my living room. That means having a computer that can follow me anywhere, with a screen big enough to type on, and a higher degree of portability than a MacBook. That means using an iPad. That means iOS.

The past 12 months have cemented this vision and raised new questions. But, more importantly, the iPad and iOS 9 have been essential to launching a project I’ve been working on for years.

At this point, I can’t imagine using a computer that isn’t an iPad anymore.

I’ve owned iPads from the very beginning, but usually as a tertiary device, at least when it came to getting real work done. Last year, with the arrival of the iPad Air 2 and iOS 8, I switched to using the iPad as my primary computer. It was shockingly easy. It stripped out layers of complexity and bad design that computer users have had to deal with for decades.

As a writer, the iPad Pro and iOS 9 further cemented iOS as the platform for the vast majority of things I need a computer for. The iPad has a wealth of amazing writing apps, and iPads don’t come bolted to terrible laptop keyboards, so I can use a mechanical keyboard much more pleasantly than I can with a laptop.

In fact, I’ve been working on designing and coding a massive new feature for AfterPad, and I’ve done it entirely on my iPad Pro. I’ll have more to share on that – what, how and why – shortly.