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This is a laughably bad post. Boag states the iPad Pro is a death by a thousand cuts, yet only offers three/four weak reasons:

1. It’s not a pro device despite it being called a pro device — he claims he will get to why later, but then calls that point 3.
2. It has no file system. Which isn’t true, it’s just designed differently and one would assume a designer like Boag would understand that.
3. This is an extension of his first point, which is essentially that the software isn’t there. What he really means is the software doesn’t feel pro, but his only example is Keynote. He mentions too that Safari serves only the mobile versions which hasn’t been my experience at all. But either way there is a serve full site button built in — perhaps he should take time to learn how to use an iPad.
4. It’s hard to choose which device. This is the classic “Apple has too many options” argument and has no direct bearing on the iPad Pro.

This whole post is an eyeroller and honestly I thought it might be a joke. I mean his images aren’t even of the iPad Pro, they are just of an iPad — and a fucking iPad 2 at that.

But I don’t want this post to be a rant. I want to see if there is something we can learn from the failure of the iPad Pro, as user experience professionals.

Your post failed to do anything at all. ((I don’t even know why I posted this link, but I assume it is because of how funny the images are that I felt compelled to share it.))

Dries Buytaert on the larger problems of the web today:

But algorithmic oversight is not enough. In numbers by the billions, people are using free and convenient services, often without a clear understanding of how and where their data is being used. Many times, this data is shared and exchanged between services, to the point where people don’t know what’s safe anymore. It’s an unfair trade-off.

Lots of really great thoughts in this post. A true must read post.

Om Malik writing about the future of transportation:

Just as iPhone made us rethink what we should expect from a phone and changed our behavior, a company like Uber is slowly changing our relationship with the car. Much like Tinder, which has changed the perception of what is romance, on-demand mobility is essentially training us for a future where ownership is a luxury.

Some really good thoughts in this post. What struck me the most: pre-iPhone, Motorola, Nokia, and BlackBerry were the kings of the mobile phone industry. Post iPhone it is Apple, HTC, and Samsung (among others). Will the same happen for the car industry?

Does GM, Ford, and others go the way of Nokia and Motorola? It sure seems like they don’t have the business mindset, and technological talent, to succeed.

Marcus Fehn on porting Ulysses to the iPhone:

If you look at the finished product, you may very well think it all looks so self-evident. “How could it ever have been different”, you may ask. And that’s great, because then we’ve done our job right. But again — this is work, people. Hard work.

They have truly done a fantastic job and I can’t wait for everyone to see it.

This seems a lot better than the Bear Grylls “run around naked and do push ups” routine.

Great explanation of security in the light of the FBI v. Apple battle.

Manton Reece on link blogging:

If you’re an RSS client developer, the difference between link posts and full posts should be exposed in the UI.

Man I would love to see some of his proposed changes. I’ve long struggled with this myself.

Last summer my wife was interviewed for documentary about the community of Instagram. She shared a very personal story of hers, and I could not be more proud of her.

Great post and advice.

Jose Pagliery:

Although 97% of Android phones have encryption as an option, less than 35% of them actually got prompted to turn it on when they first activated the phone. Even then, not everybody chooses that extra layer of security.

This is entirely a messaging and opt-in problem. Encryption should be on by default and a user should have to active search to turn it off. There is very little reason not to have it on. Hopefully this starts to change. I’d love to see Apple have FileVault on by default for new users.

The message to users should be clear: secure your phone by keeping this option on.

Christina Warren on the Freewrite(the entire post is a must read if you ask me):

Yup. You know why I think this product really upsets me? I buy everything. Like, seriously. I buy everything. I’m every horrible stereotype you can think of of an early adopter crossed with a label whore. I’m actually the worst type of consumer. But even me — someone who once backed an Instagram digital photo frame — is like, “you know what, I’m good.” Like this is too pretentious, even for me.

The Freewrite is a mechanical keyboard paired with a tiny e-ink screen for “focused” writing. It’s absurd. Even more than the price, $500, is the look of this thing. It is fucking ugly. It’s like what would happen if I decided to take all the toys my kids have and the gadgets I have, and tried to then go into my garage and make this. Actually, I could probably make it a little better.

This is fugly.

I am also getting damned tired of this need by people to have tools made to help them “focus”. Tools which turn of social media sites, or the Internet, or whatever.

Focus is a discipline, not a feature.

Stephen Hackett on the iPad Pro Smart Keyboard Cover:

All that said, if you can get used to reaching up and tapping the screen a good bit, using the Smart Keyboard is a much better experience than I first thought it would be.

I’ve seen this repeated a fair bit recently. The idea that using the Smart Keyboard with an iPad Pro means you are reaching up to the screen a lot. It is, frankly, bullshit.

I’ve been using only an iPad Pro since mid-November 2015 and have not seen this in practice. If you are just casually flipping to the iPad Pro, then yes you will find yourself reaching up a lot and thinking people are crazy.

In reality though, living with the device daily, you don’t tend to reach up much at all. If I’m scrolling, I am doing so with my wrist on the desk and my thumb flicking at the screen. Almost all the tasks I do on my iPad rarely require me to have my arm hovering in the air like a scene from Minority Report.

I was worried that my arms would tire, but it was unfounded. Add in some keyboard shortcuts, and adjusting for the device through time and use, and I find it far less tedious than contorting my hand to work on a trackpad all day long.