New iPad Pro lineup shines spotlight on Apple’s vertical integration

“This week at an event in Brooklyn, Apple launched a new MacBook Air, a new Mac Mini, and two new iPad Pro[s],” Carolina Milanesi writes for Tech.pinions. “The iPad Pro started to lay the foundation for what Apple calls the ‘future of computing.’ I want to focus on the iPad Pro because to me it is certainly the product with the most fascinating but also the most complex story to tell.”
“The iPad has grown in size, power and brain in particular with the iPad Pro. So much so that the latest additions to the line are, as Apple pointed out, faster than 92 percent of the PC[s] sold over the past year,” Milanesi writes. “This is where Apple believes the iPad Pro is competing. But Apple realizes that this transition is not going to be as simple as the kind of change they introduced with the MacBook Air. This is because with mobility the biggest change in workflow was where you could work not how. Embracing new workflows will take a while.”
“It was fascinating to have people point out to me after the event that the only thing that the iPad Pro is missing now to be a computer is mouse support. This to me is a symptom that shows how these people are not ready to transition all their computing needs to an iPad Pro,” Milanesi writes. “This is why Apple continues to update its Mac line. But also, this is why Mac OS, while remaining a separate OS, will allow for apps to look and feel more like they do on iOS so that workflows could seamlessly go between an iPhone or an iPad to a Mac. The more you will be able to do that the more you will be able to consider an iPad Pro as your main computing device.”
Read more in the full article – recommended – here.
MacDailyNews Take: Apple’s lead and acumen in vertical integration is only increasing!
As for iPad Pro and mouse/trackpad support:
We find that there are many older users longing to make iPad work like a laptop, because that’s what they know.
Take a look at a twelve-year-old who’s only really ever used an iPad for personal computing. It’s an eyeopener. It’s like looking into the future.
The answer isn’t to try to make the iPad into a MacBook. The answer is to provide all the tools possible in iOS for developers to make robust apps that can take advantage of the multi-touch paradigm. — MacDailyNews, May 16, 2017