We’ve had lots of talk recently about the blurring of the lines between tablet and laptop by Apple, and rumors of a 16-inch Pad Pro Max. Over at Wired, Craig Grannell argues that this would confuse the product line and provide little value for users. I’m inclined to agree.
The 16in crowd nonetheless bangs on that bigger is always better and appears to divide into two distinct camps. The first includes designers and artists who – perfectly reasonably – love bigger canvases they can directly interact with. But on talking to such people, you quickly realise their dream isn’t a mere 16in, but something closer to an A3 iPad Pro (as in, a 20in model) – or bigger. They’re driven by the idea of a Wacom Cintiq that would have the elegance and simplicity of, well, an iPad. But expand the iPad’s dimensions by too much and it ceases to be portable, meaning you cannot use it to be creative anywhere you please. It stops being a consumption device, thereby eroding its versatility. And it becomes colossally expensive, making the device far less viable. In short, it would no longer be an iPad in any meaningful sense, being too niche to be broadly useful – to the point hardly anyone would buy one.
