Apple spent the fall season revealing some of its most exciting new devices in years — including what looks to be one of the most impressive and consumer-friendly tablets ever to hit the market.
As we noted in our look at the iPad Air 4 when it was released for pre-orders back in October, this new device comes with a thin design, flat edges, and new colors. But it also contains the powerful A14 Bionic processor, making it a robust tablet, even at $599 (far cheaper than most Apple tablets at this stage).
The iPad Air 4 is going to be a very popular item for all kinds of people throughout the holiday season to come, and into 2021 as well. People will use it as a laptop substitute, as a tool for entertainment and productivity, for on-the-go communication, and for all sorts of other purposes. But the iPad Air 4 may ultimately prove to be most useful for creatives.
In a sense, this is a statement that could apply to modern iPads in general. These tablets carry impressive power and capabilities for people pursuing creative jobs or hobbies (which is why so many advertisements in recent years have emphasized visual arts projects on iPads). But the iPad Air 4 may be particularly well suited to people involved in a variety of creative pursuits.
Writing
There’s a strong argument to be made that more people may be pursuing writing today than ever before. This is partially because the internet offers so many opportunities to freelance writers. They can find work contributing to blogs, publish their own content, do contracted work for companies in need of content, and even enter creative writing contests and the like — all from the comfort of their own homes.
These have all been popular pursuits for some time now, and as B2C’s tips for freelance writing businesses points out, they may only become more so. While it is of course unfortunate that so many people have lost jobs in 2020, the change is likely to lead to more people working from home on their own projects. Among them, there are bound to be plenty of newly active creative writers.
Naturally, a writer doesn’t need an iPad Air 4 specifically to work. Virtually any tablet, laptop, or computer can get the job done. At the same time though, the iPad Air 4 is both more affordable than lots of its competition and an absolute pleasure to use.
The display is gorgeous, the touchscreen makes edits and page navigation easy, and the “magic keyboard” — an accessory The Verge described favorably as “what we’ve all been waiting for” — frankly offers a better typing experience than most computers. Plenty of devices today can serve as vessels for creative writers. But the iPad Air 4 is so nice to use that it may actually inspire more (and better!) writing.
Photography
Photography may not quite see the influx we’ll see in the writing business as a result of the pandemic and job losses. However, it is becoming a more popular creative suite at a professional level. Per a ZenBusiness article on starting a photography business, there are just over 200,000 such businesses in the U.S. already.
Furthermore, it was estimated that this industry would generate some $11 billion in revenue for the year 2020. These numbers are higher than many would guess, and speak to just how many people are taking an interest in photography as a serious creative pursuit these days.
Well, as you might have guessed, the iPad Air 4 is an ideal machine for photography — “a photographer’s dream,” as a review at The Phoblographer put it. The outstanding display quality on a slightly larger screen than we’ve seen in some previous tablets, compatibility with editing software, and the touch-up capability of the Apple Pencil 2 — combined with a fairly decent camera in the machine itself — make for a total package. From beginners learning to edit photos to professionals honing their crafts, any creative pursuing photography can appreciate this new iPad.
Graphic Design
Graphic design works well on the iPad Air 4 for many of the same reasons that photography and photo editing do. The device works well with a variety of design programs, the display will showcase any graphic as well as it can possibly be shown off, and the Apple Pencil 2 is as precise and useful a stylus as you can find for a modern tablet.
All of these factors combine to offer graphic designers virtually limitless capability on these devices.
And here too we have a creative pursuit that leads to a fair number of job opportunities. Clash Graphics wrote about graphic design and its usefulness to businesses looking to grow — ultimately conveying that there’s a ton of demand in new and growing businesses today for high-quality design.
It’s quite clear that there can be good money and potentially an entire career in learning and perfecting graphic design.
For all of these hobbies, jobs, and creative pursuits, Apple’s full lineup of modern tablets can get the job done. But the iPad Air 4 offers about as much as any of them, at an extremely reasonable price and within a portable, easy-to-manage design. For these reasons, we’d argue it’s one of the most important devices on the market for creatives in the digital arena.
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