Anybody who pays attention to online tech websites or YouTube channels quickly gets the idea that these are predominantly Mac users who are antagonistic to the ipad. Never mind that they are a shrinking group which is out of touch with how the general public actually uses their devices, they still have an outsized impact on public perception.
An issue which I’ve been meaning to tackle ever since the 10th generation iPad was released with a landscape camera is this. Who uses an iPad in landscape mode? Apple has correctly kept the iPad as a portrait first device. But even a company famous for designing devices the way that they think they should be, will cave to public pressure. And the online complaining from people who probably don’t even use iPads is relentless with how the iPad should be designed as a landscape first device.
If you hand anyone an iPad and tell them to occupy themselves for a while you’ll quickly see that everyone proceeds to use it in portrait mode. Without fail, this is always the result. It’s not hard to understand why, if you are holding a device in your hands, it’s much more comfortable to hold it with your hands closer together than far apart. Thumb typing is also much easier in portrait mode. It’s next to impossible in landscape mode. Plus, people always find surfing the web visually more appealing with lots of vertical space to minimize scrolling.
An iPad is a portrait first device, not landscape. Of course, the Mac users of the world who are writing about iPads always assume that if you are going to do a video chat, that you would do it with your iPad on a desk like a laptop. The way that they would do it. But that’s not always the case. Using an iPad on a desk to conduct landscape video calls may even a small percentage of how people actually do video calls on an iPad. Unlike a Mac, you can easily walk around with an iPad while in the middle of a call. You could even walk around with your iPad in one hand and a cup of coffee in the other. And who is going to carry their iPad with one hand in landscape mode? No one, they would always do it in portrait mode so that the weight feels more comfortable.
I’m a hard-core iPad Pro user who actually does use my iPad at a desk from time to time. Even more so lately now that I have a big monitor attached to my iPad Kensington StudioDock. But that is a minority of the time. Even when I do use my iPad Pro at a desk, it’s probably in portrait position most of the time. I would never say that Apple should move the camera to the landscape position to accommodate the 15% of the time that I use my iPad in landscape mode.
The beautiful thing about the iPad is that the keyboard is NOT attached to the screen. Meaning that when my iPad is mounted in the Kensington StudioDock, I can swivel it to be portrait or landscape. And I find that the portrait mode is usually superior to landscape mode when I’m doing work. It’s especially great for writing in Microsoft Word. But writing e-mails, creating spreadsheets, or reading text is all better in portrait mode.
My guess is that if you are stuck in a laptop mentality, it never occurs to you that people would prefer portrait mode. Not being able to swivel your screen in portrait mode has solidified your brain into thinking that is how it is meant to be. But for us iPad users, we have no such constraints. Portrait mode is a more efficient mode of browsing and working. It’s too bad that people are so stuck to the laptop paradigm that they haven’t realized that.
If you hand anyone an iPad and tell them to occupy themselves for a while you’ll quickly see that everyone proceeds to use it in portrait mode. Without fail, this is always the result. It’s not hard to understand why, if you are holding a device in your hands, it’s much more comfortable to hold it with your hands closer together than far apart. Thumb typing is also much easier in portrait mode. It’s next to impossible in landscape mode. Plus, people always find surfing the web visually more appealing with lots of vertical space to minimize scrolling.
An iPad is a portrait first device, not landscape. Of course, the Mac users of the world who are writing about iPads always assume that if you are going to do a video chat, that you would do it with your iPad on a desk like a laptop. The way that they would do it. But that’s not always the case. Using an iPad on a desk to conduct landscape video calls may even a small percentage of how people actually do video calls on an iPad. Unlike a Mac, you can easily walk around with an iPad while in the middle of a call. You could even walk around with your iPad in one hand and a cup of coffee in the other. And who is going to carry their iPad with one hand in landscape mode? No one, they would always do it in portrait mode so that the weight feels more comfortable.
I’m a hard-core iPad Pro user who actually does use my iPad at a desk from time to time. Even more so lately now that I have a big monitor attached to my iPad Kensington StudioDock. But that is a minority of the time. Even when I do use my iPad Pro at a desk, it’s probably in portrait position most of the time. I would never say that Apple should move the camera to the landscape position to accommodate the 15% of the time that I use my iPad in landscape mode.
The beautiful thing about the iPad is that the keyboard is NOT attached to the screen. Meaning that when my iPad is mounted in the Kensington StudioDock, I can swivel it to be portrait or landscape. And I find that the portrait mode is usually superior to landscape mode when I’m doing work. It’s especially great for writing in Microsoft Word. But writing e-mails, creating spreadsheets, or reading text is all better in portrait mode.
My guess is that if you are stuck in a laptop mentality, it never occurs to you that people would prefer portrait mode. Not being able to swivel your screen in portrait mode has solidified your brain into thinking that is how it is meant to be. But for us iPad users, we have no such constraints. Portrait mode is a more efficient mode of browsing and working. It’s too bad that people are so stuck to the laptop paradigm that they haven’t realized that.
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