Comment by alwillis
7 days ago
> If you and your spouse could easily share one around the house for different purposes but still having each of your personal apps and settings, you might not buy two!
I get it, but an iPad starts at $349; often available for less.
At this point, an iPad is no different than a phone—most people wouldn't share a single tablet.
Laptops and desktops that run macOS, Linux, Windows which are multiuser operating systems have largely become single-user devices.
> an iPad starts at $349; often available for less.
It's less about the cost and more about having to have another stupid device to charge, update, and keep track of, when a tablet is not a device that gets used enough by any one person to be worth all that. It would be much more convenient to have a single device on a coffee or end table which all family members could use when they need to do more than you can do on a phone.
> Laptops and desktops that run macOS, Linux, Windows which are multiuser operating systems have largely become single-user devices.
Maybe. Probably 90% of work laptops are single-user, I'm sure. But for home computers, multi-user can be very useful. And it's better than ever to use laptops as dumb terminals, since all most people's stuff is in the cloud. It's not nearly as much trouble to get your secondary user account on a spare laptop in the living room to be useful as it was in the Windows XP days. Just having a browser that's signed into your stuff, plus Messages or Whatsapp, and maybe Slack/Discord/etc. is enough.
> most people wouldn't share a single tablet.
Since iPads have never supported doing so in a sane way, that unfounded assertion is just as likely due to the fact that it's a terrible experience today, since if you share one today, someone else will be accidentally marking your messages as read, you'll be polluting their browser or YouTube history, etc.
It's also the kind of dismissive claim true Apple believers tend to trot out when someone points out a shortcoming: "Nobody wants to use a touchscreen laptop!" "Nobody wants USB-C on an iPhone when Lightning is slightly smaller!" "Nobody needs an HDMI port or SD slot on a MacBook Pro!" "Nobody needs a second port on the 12-inch MacBook!" Most of the above things have come true except the touch laptop, and somehow it hasn't hurt anyone, but the "nobody wants..." crew immediately stops when Apple finally [re-]embraces something