Álvaro Serrano, commenting on Federico Viticci’s recent piece about working on the iPad:

I can’t help but feel a bit frustrated that this narrative — that the iPad is finally ready to replace Macs for the general population — continues to be pushed from certain people in the tech community. I honestly don’t see it in the real world, and iPad sales numbers certainly point towards a very different story.

These people, as well-intentioned as I take them to be, are not average users, and creating the perception that regular users not only can get by with an iPad, but that it will actually be better for them than a traditional computer, strikes me as a dangerous trend.

This narrative that he speaks of is something I’ve been struggling with as well. I use an iPad Air 2 for the vast majority of my computing tasks and I absolutely love it — the idea of using a Mac as my only machine feels archaic to me.

But I fully understand that iOS won’t work for everybody and there’s plenty of specialized software that just isn’t available for iOS. The platform is great for people like myself, Viticci, and many others who have spent months building new workflows for the platform, but for most people that just isn’t possible. For them, the Mac is still a better option.

Occassionally I’ll get questions from friends and family about what computer I would recommend to the them. The overwhelming majority of the time I suggest either an iMac or a MacBook Air. There are instances where I would suggest an iPad instead, though. Like my fiancée’s mother who just needs a web browser and an email client or my niece and nephew who haven’t built habits on desktop computers and might be better suited with a platform that involved direct manipulation — touch. Those situations, however, are not the norm.