I have owned several iPads, and the role of the iPad in my life has changed over the years. With today’s announcement of the new iPad mini, I think it’s time to reevaluate which iPad(s) I need, and potentially start the trade-in process.
Question #1: What do I actually use my iPad for today?
I have an iPad mini. I bought it around the time my kindle kicked the bucket, and my intention was to use it mainly as a reading device. In my mind I thought it’d take it with me on appointments, but in practice I don’t have many of those. It has come with me on every flight since I’ve owned it, and it does a lot of heavy lifting as the main thing I do to keep myself busy while traveling. In that context, I mostly read blog posts through Readwise Reader.
There’s a lot to like about Reader, even though it’s a beta product, but their offline reading experience falls a bit short: images aren’t cached. That might not matter to some people, but ends up being pretty important in the kinds of blog posts I have a tendency to save for later reading.
Because it was intended to be a reading device, I got the 64GB version, which is not enough space to store movies or TV shows for offline watching. Sometimes, especially in hotel rooms, that’d be a nice feature to have. I don’t subscribe to any streaming services, so I need the files to be available on my iPad if I want to watch them.
Finally, it’s a small use case, but the Citadel Colour app is only available on mobile, so despite the fact that I have an iMac on my painting desk, I need an iPad or similar for looking up paint recipes.
Question #2: What do I think I might use my iPad for in the future?
Last weekend I purchased a Kobo Sage for eBooks. I really liked my Kindle, but I no longer shop with Amazon and do not intend to buy a new one. The iPad, it turns out, provides too many distractions and so I rarely read books on it. The Kobo probably won’t arrive for at least another week, but once it does, I intend for it to live in my (not quite yet built) reading nook. It may not come on flights, I haven’t decided.
It’s worth noting that the Kobo solves for a use case I intended the iPad to solve, but for which the iPad ended up being poorly suited: books. There’s nothing wrong with the device, this is entirely a limitation of my attention. Given all the things an iPad can do, I get easily distracted and end up not reading long-form books. I think having a dedicated device that serves this role and has no distractions is key to getting myself to read more. It worked, in fits and spurts, with the Kindle. So the Kobo will do that now.
However, the Kobo doesn’t solve for everything. It doesn’t solve for “read it later” and it doesn’t solve for graphics-heavy formatted PDFs, such as TTRPGs I back on Kickstarter.
Again, I’m thinking out loud here so bear with me.
I’m starting to develop the following rubric:
- Text-focused books designed to be read for enjoyment, entertainment, or education will live on the Kobo.
- Graphics-focused books will live on the iPad.
To be clear, the iPad really does do these things equally well. It’s more about the mental partitioning. I can’t have one device that does both of these things because my squishy brain must be cajoled into doing things that I enjoy doing if the activation energy of doing them is greater than zero.
Question #3: Which iPad?
The million dollar question. Or thousand dollar. Probably.
Really I think there’s two contenders. The 13" iPad Air and the new iPad Mini. For all intents and purposes they are functionally identical except for size.
I do like the size of the iPad Mini I have. It’s easy to carry around. It moves around the house quite a lot. It’s perfect for Reader, and acceptable for TV/Movies. I haven’t tried referencing a TTRPG rulebook on it, and I will before I commit to a decision, but that’s the one thing that I think the larger iPad is likely to excel at.
If, like me, you think “well why not just keep the current iPad Mini” then let me introduce one more variable. As I mentioned earlier, Readwise Reader doesn’t work great in offline mode. So I’m seriously considering getting the cellular-enabled model, which solves for lack of connectivity everywhere except airplanes, and which lets me solve another unrelated problem: kicking the tires on a new wireless provider in a way that doesn’t require committing an existing device.
So now I’m stuck in the worst possible place: compelling arguments between two options and no clear rubric to pick one or the other. The larger iPad seems like it’d be better at looking at PDFs, the smaller iPad seems like it’d be better for read-it-later blog articles. The smaller iPad is great for travel, and travel is the main thing I use my iPad for. The price difference between the two options doesn’t really matter, but it’s too expensive to get both and call it good.
What to do?