I’ve had laptops and cellular internet connectivity for 7 years, but I never would have done something like this before. Why?

  • I wouldn’t have been able to easily find a good app to do this without being bombarded with spam in my Google search. (And many of them would be Windows-only.)
  • When I did finally find an app that looked reasonable, I wouldn’t have been able to find any trustworthy reviews, being bombarded instead by more search spam.
  • When I went to buy it, it probably would have cost more.
  • I wouldn’t have trusted it comfortably enough to install it on my computer.
  • It might not even work.
  • If it did work, I’d probably need longer to figure out its learning curve, and navigating wouldn’t be as easy or fast with a keyboard and trackpad.
  • Taking out the laptop in the car, and passing around a laptop to show the final product, would feel much clunkier than using the iPad.

The computing revolution brought on by iOS, the hardware, and the App Store ecosystem is a bigger deal than we realize.

Marco Arment on using an iPad 3-D drawing app to design his mother's kitchen. From his car. On a 1-hour drive.