Harry McCracken nominates the iPad as Gadget of the Decade:
A lot of what keeps me partial to the iPad is the same stuff I liked back in 2011. iPad apps tend to have fresher interfaces and less cruft than ones written for older operating systems, letting me focus more of my attention on the work at hand. I spend less time on the drudgery of maintaining a computer, such as rummaging around for files and performing software updates.
It’s also helped that Apple’s vision of where the iPad should go has largely synced up with mine. With its big screen, potent processor, and Pencil stylus, the current iPad Pro is pretty much the powerful, versatile iPad I was dreaming about nearly a decade ago. And by renaming the iPad version of iOS as iPadOS, Apple has doubled down on its commitment to building features designed with iPad power users in mind, such as iPadOS 13’s desktop-class Safari browser.
Like Steven Sinofsky, who has leaned into iPad to replace his computer, and Federico Viticci, who has chronicled his whole-hearted adoption of iOS as his full-time computing platform, McCracken has been an earnest contributor in documenting what Tim Cook has called Apple’s “clearest expression of our vision of the future of personal computing.” It’s certainly playing a long game, but Apple’s estimation of the iPad as the future of computing seems more accurate than ever.