The iPad is a wonderful peripheral

The iPad may be the greatest computer peripheral ever made. As a main device for me, though, it’s once again been a spectacular failure.

I recently made yet another attempt at living on the iPad as my main device. It lasted less than a week. Going all-in on the iPad feels so nice and simple and liberating…for a day or two. After that, the constant reminders of its limitations quickly go from minor nuisance to deal-breaking irritation.

I’ve tucked my tail between my legs and scurried back into the arms of my Mac.

For my purposes, a computer needs fast, deep access to clipboard history, universal complex text expansion, reasonable window management, and a much larger screen. iOS can be coerced to do some of these, but doesn’t do any of them as well.

And the elephant in the room? Emacs and Org mode. I cannot seem to detach myself from Org mode. I’ve tried. In fact this latest move to using an iPad was really just another thinly-veiled attempt to leave Org mode behind. And once again the effort failed because Org mode is just too good at too many things.

So the iPad is once again relegated to it’s rightful place as a peripheral device. I love using it for browsing, watching stuff, writing journal entries in Day One, minor photo editing, and drawing. For everything else, I prefer the Mac.