All the little things that add up to make iPadOS productivity a pain

Rumors say a new iPad Pro is coming, which means that Apple is about to do another big campaign for the iPad as a productivity and content creation device.

But while we found in our iPadOS reviews that Apple did a wonderful job with the general changes in the operating system designed to make it friendly to the real job, there are still some minor annoyances or “no, you can” do that ” that sabotage Apple’s intentions.

For that reason, it makes sense to anticipate the next marketing push with a few caveats – especially since Apple is unlikely to announce a major software update for the iPadOS along with the new hardware in March. Significant changes to the operating system are unlikely to be discussed until the company’s developer conference in June, and these updates are unlikely to reach the public until September or October.

Most of these problems are small, but they add up. IPads will not be a true laptop replacement for everyone until most of these problems are resolved.

Webcams and multitasking

It won’t take long in today’s computing use cases to realize this: the iPad’s front camera turns off when you slide away from any apps that are using it, including Zoom. Reviewers mentioned this repeatedly when looking at recent iPads – we included. But 12 iPadOS updates later, it is still a problem.

It is true that some applications show the camera view in a small picture-in-picture window over other applications when you change space. But you don’t always want to see that – screen space is very important on iPads – and not every application does that.

Where third-party apps don’t support picture-in-picture vision, Apple needs to find a way to encourage them to do so. Better yet: allow users to enable background video capture by app in Settings.

Many people are spending a lot of time on video calls today, for obvious reasons. It would be great if Apple’s flagship dedicated computing product did that well.

Audio source management

Obviously, the iPad supports background audio. Apps like Apple Music or Spotify can be played in the background, as can some (but not all) video apps. The problem is that it is very easy for the currently active application to silence what is in the background, because two audio sources generally cannot play at the same time.

So, for example, if you’re watching a Twitch stream in the background, but an autoplay video with audio appears on a web page, the Twitch stream will be stopped. You will have to stop the video on the web and then return to the Twitch app to start it again. And sometimes websites or apps take control of your audio, even if they’re apparently making no sound at the moment.

At a minimum, the iPad should not interrupt the first audio source when it does, or at least resume playback of what was playing in the background once the new audio source is started. But the ideal situation would be a dashboard to manage multiple audio sources at the same time per application, including their levels.

External monitors

When Apple first announced that the iPad Pro would be able to work with external displays via USB-C as part of a general proposal of the Pro as a heavy productivity and content creation device, many users expected something very different than what they did. took.

Yes, you can connect your iPad Pro to an external USB-C monitor. But usually, all it does is mirror the iPad’s screen. It does not give you more space for applications and does not even adopt the aspect ratio of the screen to which you are sending the image.

There are a very small number of applications for iPad, such as iMovie, that allow you to use the external monitor in a slightly different way. But the vast majority do not, making support for external monitors essentially useless on the Apple tablet.

The limitations of the USB-C port

The switch to USB-C from Lightning on recent iPads is welcome, even if it means that some people have to buy some new cables. The ecosystem of USB-C accessories – such as external storage devices, monitors, music production tools and so on – is quite robust compared to what we have at Lightning.

So, we’re not hitting USB-C here. We are tearing down how many USB-C ports there are. The iPad Pro has only one and often doesn’t work well with external USB-C hubs that you would normally use with a Mac. Users complain about constant disconnections and inconsistent behavior. Some hubs just don’t work.

If Apple can’t count on other companies like CalDigit to do this well, and if it really should insist on not adding at least one more port, then it needs to launch its own USB-C dock that is guaranteed to run smoothly with the iPad.

It certainly didn’t help that Apple removed the headset from recent iPads. Part of the advertising around the iPad Pro focused on music production, but good luck on music production when you can’t easily connect an instrument and headphones at the same time.

You will need a dongle, which is expensive and complicated, and many of them do not work well.

Pro application support

A computer is only as good as the applications it can run, of course. And while the iPad has many great apps for content consumption, productivity and creativity, users of popular apps in certain professional contexts face a significant gap between iPadOS and macOS or Windows.

And it’s not just a third party. Apple’s Final Cut, Logic and Xcode are not available on the iPad. There are also not many excellent options from other companies. Yes, Adobe has been working on very robust versions of Photoshop and Illustrator for the iPad, but we haven’t heard a word about Premiere, for example.

And a number of widely used professional applications from other companies are also unavailable. There is no Maya, Blender, Unity, Visual Studio. There is an AutoCAD application, but it is minimally functional compared to the desktop version.

If Apple is going to keep calling the iPad a device for professional content creators, it needs to convince those third parties to launch more functional iPad apps. And at least as important, it needs to adapt its own software to the device.

How likely are we to see these changes?

For years, Apple has moved further away from the idea of ​​more ports, big feature sets, and so on – especially on mobile devices like the iPad. So, in the past, we wouldn’t expect most of these things to actually happen.

However, the world of Apple devices looks noticeably different following reliable reports that the new MacBook Pro laptops later this year will include SD cards or HDMI ports. Apple appears to be changing course to better court sophisticated customers and certain professional use cases. Well, at least as far as the Mac is concerned.

The company has it also acted aggressively in other ways on the iPad, at least in terms of software – just maybe not as fast as everyone would like. It seems plausible to us that multitasking problems (such as those with webcams and audio sources) can be fixed in the future. And at this point, never say never to the iPad versions of Logic or Final Cut.

However, we are less optimistic about the idea of ​​a multiport iPad Pro, and there is not much that Apple can do to attract third parties to make applications more robust for the platform.

Apple is expected to announce a new iPad Pro before the end of March, so we’ll have a hint of what’s coming soon.

List image by Samuel Axon