Quitting the iPad and trying life without replacing it for a while

I bought my iPad Pro in 2018. Apple products really do last a long time if you use them carefully. I was thinking it was about time to replace it, and the detour began when I reset my current iPad.

Once I reset it, I no longer had a usable iPad at hand. Technically I do have older iPads, but they are not in a state where I can really use them. I do not have an Android tablet either, so I ended up with no active tablet at all.

Strictly speaking, I have a Kindle Oasis, so I do have a Kindle, though I am not sure whether to call that a tablet. But a Kindle device cannot do any of the things I had been doing on the iPad. I cannot watch YouTube, use Twitter, or check Slack. Even more strictly speaking, it does have a browser, so perhaps I could force some of that, but I doubt I will.

So with the tablet gone, the time I had been spending with a tablet became a blank space. I had been thinking that my next purchase would be an iPad mini, but the state of not having one turned out to be interesting, and I wanted to continue it for a while.

Recently, the iPad had been taking up quite a lot of time in my daily life.

I had made a habit of leisurely gathering information and managing tasks on the iPad, and I also checked various videos on YouTube there. On top of that, reading magazines through Kindle Unlimited had become a fairly important part of that time.

If I really want to manage tasks properly, a device with a keyboard is better. But I never felt like attaching a keyboard to the iPad, so that means working on the MacBook. It seems that using the iPad drained my motivation to touch the Mac, and I had gradually drifted away from the MacBook.

It is not that I dislike the MacBook. Especially after recently buying a new MacBook Air, I realized that the MacBook itself has come much closer to the iPad. I was impressed by the control widgets, how quickly various things launch, the battery life, and how fast it wakes from sleep.

In the space that opened up when the iPad disappeared from my life, the MacBook slid in. Some musicians say they always have a guitar with them; this feels like always having a MacBook with me. The best thing about being in that state is that I can use it in the same way as before while also casually doing work on the side.

With an iPad, I completely enter watching mode, but with a MacBook I can stay in a mode that does not go quite that far. I have also started using Kindle for Mac much more often. Right now, if I want to read magazines on a wider color device, the MacBook is the only option I have.

Because of all that, when I feel slightly inclined to try something new or do a little work, the barrier feels lower. I am starting to like using the MacBook Air almost like an iPad.