Apple is betting big with iPad Pro

Apple’s dismal show of innovation at its own show in San Francisco might have been able to turn a few heads for the rose gold colour option in the not-so-new new iPhones, but was it really able to strike gold with the mighty iPad Pro? Adobe's principal designer thinks not.

The 12.9-inch Apple iPad Pro is the largest in the lineup of Apple tablets and comes with a stylus, called the Apple Pencil, which is being marketed to fuel the imagination and creativity of design professionals.

While it is believable that professional designers prefer using Apple products for creating extraordinary work, but when it comes to ideating the masterpiece, it is often the good old pen and paper that comes handy.

A survey conducted by principal designer at Adobe, Khoi Vinh, reveals that about 64 per cent of designers don’t brainstorm using software and instead stick to the basics, Wired reports.Coming from a graphic and interaction designer, and design director at The New York Times, we might have more than one reason to believe the findings are true.

The study titled, ‘The Tools Designers Are Using Today,’ examines the preferred tools and software designers use during six major creation-related tasks including brainstorming, wireframing, interface design, prototyping, project management, version control, and file management.

While the survey isn’t scientific, Vinh was able to gather 4,000 replies and the results were thought provoking. Building software for designers has now become an active space where more tools are being created from independent developers.

Although designers opt for varied software and tools when it comes to UX design and project management, a major chunk of respondents still believe in the primary tool – pen and paper.

According to Vinh, who has created Adobe CC, the brainstorming tool demoed at the Apple event on the iPad Pro, so many designers prefer the basic tool of pen and paper “suggests that they feel like they have the freedom of being able to very loosely iterate.”

The sheer ease of creating, re-creating ideas, and sharing them on paper is far more as compared to a tablet device.

Apple might have to rethink its idea of marketing its large iPads as the ultimate devices for all things design.