iPad as My Primary Computing Device

As of today with the receipt of my 12.9” iPad Pro Gen 3, I am all in on taking Apple up on the proposition that, with the advent of iPadOS 13.1, it can be my primary computer.

I have been experimenting with an older 9.7” iPad Pro with a Smart Keyboard. A lot is possible, but I felt constrained by the screen size. The larger iPad, just by virtue of its size, makes things that were difficult much easier.

I was disappointed to learn that sharing iCloud Drive folders would not make it into iPadOS 13 as I had planned to migrate all my cloud storage to Apple. I will keep my Dropbox account until it expires in January and either shared folders will make it into iCloud Drive or I will move to the storage that comes along with Office 365.

The ability to share folders in Notes made the move from Evernote a no brainer and has already been accomplished. The attempt to move from Office 365 to iWork was a disaster. We have too much invested in learning how to use Office to make the switch worthwhile.

In addition to iPads and iPhones for my wife and me, we will keep a vintage Mac Mini and Thunderbolt Cinema Display running for times when we need a desktop (like de-duping files in cloud storage). When MacOS no longer supports that Mini, we’ll plunk down for an iMac (or whatever they are selling then) and I’ll convert the mini to a Linux server.