The rumors of a new 2020 iPad Pro are flying fast and furious and everyone is asking what new features that the iPad Pro will get. But the problem is that the biggest new feature that the iPad needs is more of an accessory. It needs the ability to extend it’s desktop to an external monitor.
Group A is a small set of people who are engaged in various content creation endeavors. They need extensive multi-tasking or big processor power and genuinely can’t do that on an iPad. This is to be expected. This is similar to how real photographers aren’t going to take wedding photos with an iPhone. Whereas, more and more people no longer see the need to even own a real camera anymore because they take all of their photos on their iPhone now. But professional photographers will always gripe that they need those large sensors and big lenses to do their work.
Group B is much larger than Group A. Group B is made up of regular people who don’t really do much with MacBooks at all but feel that they still need one for two big reasons. The first reason is that, prior to iOS 13, a lot of websites didn’t work very well with iOS. And secondly, you can’t pair an iPad to a big monitor to extend your desktop.
iOS 13 has effectively solved the iPad’s website problems. If you haven’t tried surfing the web on the iPad’s new iOS 13 Safari yet, you’re in for a treat. All those old websites that you thought don’t work on the iPad, they do now. You no longer need to reach for your laptop to get certain things done.
So the iPad needs only one more thing to reach 80% of the people who think that they still need a MacBook. It needs to be able to extend it’s desktop to an external monitor. Yes, it is possible today to tether an iPad to a large monitor. However, this only works in mirror mode. There’s a big difference.
Mirror mode means that your monitor will only display what is on your iPad screen. You can’t have one application running on your iPad and a second application on your monitor. This defeats the purpose of wanting monitor support in the first place. No multi-tasking is possible.
People often use their laptops like an iPad. They prop them up on their laps while they watch TV. But then when they want to get serious about a project they can walk over to a desk and connect to their 27” monitor and start working on a giant screen. This is the iPads final missing piece. It needs the ability to let the user walk over to a desk and continue working on a large screen.
Now, this is also going to require mouse/cursor support. Because you won’t be able to control applications which aren’t on your iPad without touch control. But this is a secondary feature that if Apple chose, could add at any time. It’s not a deal-breaker.
One of the reasons that I love my iPad Pro and choose to use it over my MacBook Pro is because I can choose whatever keyboard I want to use with it. Or I can choose to remove it completely for ultimate mobility and lightness and use it like a book. I see monitor support as a similar feature in the future. We should be able to add monitors and mice as easily as keyboards. The iPad becomes the central hub which allows for hardware modularity.
The question becomes whether or not Apple would want to allow their MacBook business to be further cannibalized by the iPad? That depends on product line gross margins. A discussion on the gross margin comparison between the iPad and MacBook would be a great subject for a future post. Because the answer to who has higher margins is not as clear as you might think.
Group B is much larger than Group A. Group B is made up of regular people who don’t really do much with MacBooks at all but feel that they still need one for two big reasons. The first reason is that, prior to iOS 13, a lot of websites didn’t work very well with iOS. And secondly, you can’t pair an iPad to a big monitor to extend your desktop.
iOS 13 has effectively solved the iPad’s website problems. If you haven’t tried surfing the web on the iPad’s new iOS 13 Safari yet, you’re in for a treat. All those old websites that you thought don’t work on the iPad, they do now. You no longer need to reach for your laptop to get certain things done.
So the iPad needs only one more thing to reach 80% of the people who think that they still need a MacBook. It needs to be able to extend it’s desktop to an external monitor. Yes, it is possible today to tether an iPad to a large monitor. However, this only works in mirror mode. There’s a big difference.
Mirror mode means that your monitor will only display what is on your iPad screen. You can’t have one application running on your iPad and a second application on your monitor. This defeats the purpose of wanting monitor support in the first place. No multi-tasking is possible.
People often use their laptops like an iPad. They prop them up on their laps while they watch TV. But then when they want to get serious about a project they can walk over to a desk and connect to their 27” monitor and start working on a giant screen. This is the iPads final missing piece. It needs the ability to let the user walk over to a desk and continue working on a large screen.
Now, this is also going to require mouse/cursor support. Because you won’t be able to control applications which aren’t on your iPad without touch control. But this is a secondary feature that if Apple chose, could add at any time. It’s not a deal-breaker.
One of the reasons that I love my iPad Pro and choose to use it over my MacBook Pro is because I can choose whatever keyboard I want to use with it. Or I can choose to remove it completely for ultimate mobility and lightness and use it like a book. I see monitor support as a similar feature in the future. We should be able to add monitors and mice as easily as keyboards. The iPad becomes the central hub which allows for hardware modularity.
The question becomes whether or not Apple would want to allow their MacBook business to be further cannibalized by the iPad? That depends on product line gross margins. A discussion on the gross margin comparison between the iPad and MacBook would be a great subject for a future post. Because the answer to who has higher margins is not as clear as you might think.
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