---
title: Requiem for the Desktop
teaser: The iPad is out and it's going to make a huge impact.
tags: ios,design
author: Chad Mazzola
published_on: 2010-04-02
---

If you're reading this, chances are good that you build websites or software for
a living. And if you're reading this today (Friday, April 2, 2010), chances are
also good that this is the last day you'll feel good about doing your job the
way you've been doing it.

Yes, this is about the iPad.

Even though I haven't ordered one yet, I have no trouble believing that the iPad
is as amazing (yes, even magical) as nearly everyone who's touched one so far
claims. It's no great stretch to say that it will fundamentally change
expectations for how computers and applications should look, work, and feel.

Make no mistake: [we're all going to have to run to keep
up](http://twitter.com/dcurtis/status/11445708401).

The iPad and iPhone provide a platform that makes excellent design the standard,
not the exception. The elegance and power of multi-touch technology and the
iPhone OS, matched to restraints on factors such as screen size and browser,
have allowed the creation of applications that fit perfectly in the environment
they inhabit. More and more, websites and applications built specifically for
iPhone OS are overtaking their desktop companions in ease of use and sheer
beauty. Compare the experience of checking the [weather on the
iPad](http://blog.vimov.com/2010/04/weather-hd-coming-for-the-ipad/) to checking
it [in a browser](http://www.weather.com/weather/today/Boston+MA+02108) on your
current computer.

So what will be the fate of "full OS" computing? On the iPad and iPhone, it can
often be hard to tell the difference between an application running natively and
one running inside a browser. This fact brings into sharper focus the
difficulties web designers and developers have been laboring under since the
beginning of the web. We've grown used to using the same bunch of tired fonts;
to debugging on a few platforms and a handful of browsers and still not knowing
exactly how a page will render in the wild; to arguing about where "the fold" is
and whether people will use that weird little plastic thing in their right hand
to go farther down the page. We build sites that are exactly 960 pixels wide
even though we have 30" displays with several thousand more pixels to spare.

Almost anything you can do on a desktop OS, you can do better on an iPad.

Except of course, for building the stuff that will actually run on the iPad.
Sadly, you're going to need to keep your old computer around for that. But will
that soon be the only reason?

Enjoy this weekend, because when you come back to work on Monday morning, some
of us will have had our first taste of the future. And what you're working on
today might not seem so interesting anymore.

One more thing... if reading this has you feeling like you need an iPad for
yourself, then I suggest checking out [Landing Pad](http://landingpad.org), our
iPad app showcase site, a little later today.