A Mindset for Change ⇥ medium.com

Steven Sinofsky switched to using an iPad Pro full-time instead of a laptop, and he’s a convert. But, as he explains, he understands that it’s not for everybody — yet:

Many people have jobs that require specific tools or work products that can’t be done on a tablet. Many are part of corporate cultures that take time, effort, and evidence before they change. My view is that this shift is now in full swing and we will very quickly see a world where many many people can and will be tablet first, or tablet only.

The biggest change that will happen is not with the tablet platform or apps. That change has happened. What needs to happen is the cultural change that will permit the technology change to happen.

I am increasingly able to do various parts of my job on iOS, but the roadblocks to being able to switch are often institutional. In the design world, there will almost always be someone at some point in the chain asking for a layered Photoshop file. There are plenty of web apps that simply don’t work on iOS, too, with no native app available either. I remain hopeful that gaps in the iPad’s role in my job vanish quickly, but there needs to be a radical shift in the developer environment on the iPad for that to happen.

The good news is that professions like mine are not necessarily representative of what most jobs require. As Sinofsky says, email is still the number one productivity tool in almost any information-based industry, and the iPad handles that with aplomb.