in the most recent JD Powers survey, the Microsoft Surface edges out the iPad. This is not entirely surprising to me. I’ve been paying a lot attention lately as I go out into the public and work with my iPad about what other devices are in use. As I write these words, I’m at Starbucks with a person using a Microsoft Surface sitting next to me. That’s not unusual. 

This is yet one more data point in my argument that the big problem with iPad is software. If being productive on the iPad is too fiddly, users are going to revert to their MacBook (or Microsoft Surface). WWDC can’t come soon enough.

Today the rumor sites are abuzz with the “delay” of the new iPads. I always find it funny how the press reports something is “delayed” which has never been publicly announced.

Nevertheless, Apple finds itself in that place once again with the rumored 10.5 inch iPad Pro. I’ve not written anything about this new iPad yet but there are many rumors at this point that it’s probably a real thing. This hypothetical iPad gets rid of the bezel and manages to get a 10.5 inch edge-to-edge screen on a 9.7 inch iPad-sized device. I think it’s a great idea.

An edge-to-edge screen makes the standard size iPad all that much more useful for making things in addition to consuming things. It may offer users the best of both worlds with a large screen and portability.

I’ve currently got both sizes of the iPad Pro and find myself using the larger screen for very particular projects–like reading sheet music, editing PDFs, or working on a detailed document in Microsoft Word–while I use the smaller iPad for most of the day-to-day tasks–like managing OmniFocus, answering email, and the like. I’d be curious to see if a 10.5 inch screen is good enough for everything. Either way, if the rumors are right, were not going to hear about this until May or June.

Last month I wrote about the iPad and how I felt, fundamentally, the problem is software. The iPad hardware is plenty powerful. However for people who want to get their work done with an iPad, quite often they run into software-based obstacles that push them back to a Mac or PC.

Apparently, I wasn’t the only person thinking about it. I had a couple long drives the last few days and several of my favorite podcasters are also weighing in on the fate of the iPad. One of the most interesting points was by Myke Hurley who explained last year Apple sold 45 million iPads and 18 million Macs. So last year for every Macintosh Apple sold, almost 3 iPads went out the door. 

I think a significant number of those iPads were sold to people that wanted to get work done on them. I’ve talked to non-geek friends who bought iPads to do work on but, over time, gave up on being productive with their iPad for the reasons I explained in my earlier post. In those cases, the iPad did end up a largely content consumption device but that was not by design as much as it was software limitations.

I think Apple has a big opportunity. The iPad could be an important piece of the future of computing. As things stand, the iPad hardware is awesome and the iPad software is too constrained. The first time an iPad user realizes she has to save 20 email attachments to Dropbox one file at a time, she is going back to her Mac. This is a solvable problem.

The trouble is that the iPad’s role diminishes the longer Apple takes to give the iPad the software power it needs. People will move on as Microsoft ups its own hardware game and the general perception of the iPad further solidifies as something to surf on, not work on. The irony of this is that for years, other lawyers used to make fun of my Macintosh computer as a “toy” computer. Apple already knows how difficult it is to break that particular stereotype.

A few years ago I spent a lot of time banging on about cloud services and how Apple needed to get its act together. Right now I feel the same way about iPad software. There’s so much power in there to unlock. Now’s the time.

Dr. Drang wrote over the weekend:

This is an excellent point and I should have made it in my iPad post last week. iOS 9 was the first time Apple gave features to the iPad that didn’t also go to iPhone. When they made this announcement, I assumed it was only a jumping off point but now it’s been over 18 months with no new iPad power tools. I’m crossing my fingers for better iPad tools at WWDC 2017 in June.

Apple recently announced their quarterly earnings and it turns out the fruit company is doing well. The iPhone sales return to growth, the Mac is doing well, revenue from services is up. The outlier was the iPad. 

The iPad’s sales are down for the 2016 holidays compared to the 2015 holidays. Not surprisingly, the iPad is now the whipping boy (again) for Apple pundits.

A lot of folks are arguing that the reason iPad isn’t selling that well is because it’s built too well. People keep their iPads a long time and don’t feel any burning desire to upgrade. I’ve seen anecdotal evidence of this in my life. I was talking to a physician friend of mine that uses her iPad every day. She’s carrying the first generation iPad Air (which is now nearly four years old) and she still loves it. I asked her why she didn’t upgrade to the iPad Pro and she looked at me like I was crazy. “Why should I? This one works great!”

I don’t view this as a problem. The fact that Apple makes devices of sufficient quality that people can use them for years is a reason why people come to Apple in the first place.

In my mind, the issue is that users are not pushing the iPad harder to do more work for them, which would naturally end up in users wanting to buy newer, faster, and better iPads. Put simply, I think the issue is software.

While iOS 9 made some productivity strides to the iPad operating system, iOS 10 did not. I was hoping we would see an update to iOS 10 sometime after launch that improves productivity on the iPad but now we’re in iOS 10.3 beta, and there are no signs of anything like that coming. June isn’t that far away and I think the next opportunity is iOS 11.

I know this is one of my pet issues and every time I write about it, I get emails explaining that making the iPad more complex would cause more problems than it would solve. I disagree. Consumers have been using the iOS operating system now for 10 years. People generally understand how it works. I believe the smart people at Apple could make the iOS operating system for the iPad more powerful (and a bit more complex) without substantially interfering with consumers that want to keep it simple. Moreover, giving it some more powerful tools (even something as simple as making it easier to select and manipulate multiple objects and files at once) would substantially increase the ability for users to get productive work done with their iPads.

At last year’s iPad Pro event Apple made a big deal about how the iPad is powerful enough to replace a PC laptop. I believe for a lot of people that could be true. But it’s not quite there yet because of the software limitations.

In my informal observations at coffee shops and courthouses, I’m seeing increasing numbers of Microsoft Surface laptop computers. I believe people do want an ultralight computer to help get their work done. I am certain some percentage of those Microsoft customers considered an iPad but for whatever reason chose not use one. I’d even argue that for a lot of those people the iPad was perfectly up to the task of whatever it is they’re doing on that Microsoft computer.

If Apple wants to see an increase in iPad sales, I think the answer is making them more useful and getting the word out. Apple should get serious about adding features to iOS that allows users to be more productive in getting their work done. On top of that, Apple should start demonstrating to the public with some its clever advertising how lots of normal people are getting work done on the iPad. I’m not talking about videos of people taking the iPad deep-sea diving but instead how people use it to make spreadsheets, write documents, and all the other work that most of us do to pay for our shoes.