72% of iPad users do not own an iPhone | Hacker News Reader

72% of iPad users do not own an iPhone

fabcapo.com

49 pointssinzone38 comments

I have an iPhone and an iPad and I don't even bother to sync my music to my iPad - why would I when I always have the iPhone with me anyway, and I have Pandora on the iPad as a backup? It just eats up space I could be using for movies and other things more appropriate to the iPad.

Frankly, I also don't bother to sync my iTunes to my work laptop (which is where I spent the most time sitting around) and I notice that people at the office don't seem to any more either, they just use their phones. It's partially because it's not really any easier to listen to music on your computer any more than an iPhone or Android phone.

Feel like there's an assumption here that an iPad is a giant iPhone and I think that's as faulty as considering it a tiny laptop and evaluating it on that basis. Just not the same.

Just FYI: You are able to play music from your iPhone through iTunes without having any music on your laptop.

Just plug it in, but don't sync it (apart from the initial 1-step sync), open the iPhone in the iTunes sidebar, and you should be able to play your music right away including playlists (some authorisation might be needed). Works very well for me.

Thanks, but when I'm at work I use headphones (as I assume most folks do.) It's easiest to just plug them into my iPhone. (I do keep a power cord around for the phone.)

Has the additional side benefit that my play counts stay more accurate.

Nice opportunity for Apple to use the iPad as an entry-point for customers. It worked for the iPod, which I think made a lot of people more comfortable with the idea of using Apple products; and probably prompted many people's first MacBook purchases.

I agree with this. I have a nexus one and an ipad and if apple gets multitasking correctly when I decide to change phone I'll probably go with an iPhone.

What's wrong with their current multitasking solution?

Technically I prefer Apple's approach. Android devices will always, sooner or later, reach a point that you have to manually kill off some apps.

But the app switch interface in iOS is less than desirable, it'll quickly clutter up even if you do not feel the lag, you'd wanna X everything off just so you don't have to scroll to the left 6 times to reach the app you intended for.

I'm always surprised when people do this - I don't see people compulsively clearing out their Recent Items. I wonder if the only people who do this are people who are used to closing apps on a computer to conserve resources.

The app switch list is designed as a convenient way to switch to the most-recently-used apps. If you have to scroll 6 times to find an app, then you're not switching to a MRU app, but a LRU app instead. In that case, finding the app icon in springboard will likely be faster. Clearing the list is a symptom of misusing the feature.

Speak for yourself re Android - I never have to kill off apps in my Nexus One running 2.3.

I don't kill anything either.

What I meant by my original comment is that for me it doesn't work as I'd like. It may be an issue with the apps I use or iOS's way of doing multi-tasking.

I listen to 5by5 podcasts (atomic web browser) and follow the discussions on irc (Colloquy for iPad).

I someone posts a link on the irc and I follow it when I come back to colloquy I don't get any of the messages sent while I wasn't looking...

When I use the AndChat in my Nexus One I can happily go watch a lolcat and when I get back I can read all of the I can haz messages everyone sent while I was looking at the site.

That use case is the one I consider broken in iOS, maybe Apple doesn't care about people who still use irc or maybe it's Colloquy that's broken.

You could do something ala n900.

"What's wrong with their current multitasking solution?"

If everyone codes their apps perfectly, nothing.

On the other hand, if there just happen to be one or two cough apps out there that are coded according to the pre-multitasking way of doing things there are three main problems:

(1) it will consume more battery, because the apps will pound away in their inner loops blissfully unaware (because they're not listening, or didn't handle it correctly).

(2) it removes control from the user, since a mostly crashed app will remain mostly crashed. Under the old scheme you could exit out and then go straight back in, in order to start with a 'clean slate' (sic).

(3) it uses more memory, on devices that are painfully low on memory. Half a gig (actually less for overhead) was okay-ish when you were the only thing running... but when it is being shared it doesn't go very far at all.

(4) off by one errors

2) you can manually close apps. Long-press on them in the multitask bar and click the "x" to close. Next time you go in you will get a clean slate.

3) iOS will shut down LRU'd apps as it runs out of memory. This is a non-issue.

Most of the issues for me around multitasking center around the UI.

(2) You shouldn't have to manage them manually. Also, but orthogonal to that is that the multitask bar blows from a user experience point of view. (Just by way of example, if you do decide that the user should manage memory manually, you should at the very least provide some kind of indication about how much memory/threads/resources each app is currently using, otherwise the user is just shooting blanks in the dark (sic)). You didn't previously (need to do this) under single tasking. For most apps therefore single tasking provided a superior user experience.

The obvious exception is apps that do some kind of notification, e.g. if you wanted to write your own SMS or twitter style client. Given the vast numbers of apps coded for the single tasking paradigm, it would have been better to create some kind of 'opt-in' notification API (a good one, not whatever they had previously).

(3) to an experienced eye the performance degrades as it reaches those limits and starts having to do app level garbage collection. Also, this means that apps need to pay more attention to their own memory management and the low-memory messages they are receiving from the OS. In a perfect world this would have already happened. Given the ... how shall I put it ... journeyman level of experience of most iOS developers this is an utterly unrealistic expectation. This is a big issue.

1) no battery will be consumed by "runaway loops" because it will either be closed or be completely frozen in the background, regardless of the app design and epoch (pre- or post-multitasking)

To perform computations in the background, an iOS app has to be voluntarily coded to do so by using the multitasking API.

(3) half a gig on the iP4 is plenty enough to hold numerous Safari tabs, a huge game like Infinity Blade or Dead Space, and half a dozen random apps (twitter, messages, mail...).

I can confirm that (1) is in fact wrong. I have apps that when I run them and then 'exit' the battery gets chewed noticeably faster.

Half a dozen apps is not very many apps. In fact, it is a ridiculously small number of apps for a device that is "all about the apps".

Which ones? I'm curious, it would be interesting to know about them so as to avoid such buggy bastards who dare to resist to SIGSTOP (or its equivalent).

The task switcher is not a task bar, it's a MRU list. You're better off finding them again on Springboard if they're not in the half-dozen most recent apps range, which is muscle-memory. What do you expect? you can only fit so much on a ~3" screen and make items touchable. Stuffing more icons would make the task switcher end up looking like Springboard anyway, only messy because you'd have to scan through it due to the number of items. Springboard + muscle-memory beats that anytime.

The way iOS handles multitasking is very similar to how Android does it. Why would it be good enough for your Nexus One, but not for an iPhone?

http://www.pcworld.com/article/199891/geek_101_android_and_i...

http://www.pcworld.com/article/199830/apple_ios_4_vs_android...

So you think it's a problem on how specific apps are coded? (please see my comment above).

I've never used Colloquy, so I can't judge its quality. According to its product page, it supports multitasking.

On my iPhone 4 and iPad, I can switch back and forth between my frequently used apps (NetNewsWire, Instapaper, GoodReader, Evernote, Omnifocus, Elements) and they rarely have to relaunch. When I return to an app, everything is how I left it.

Enable Dev mode (by plugging into Xcode) then you can swipe left and right between apps, or push up to see the MRU app list. The swipe left and right makes it feel the apps are running, you're just switching screens. Convenient and fast.

I think this sentiment is right on and that the article cited overemphasizes the importance of syncing and interoperability across devices. This is an important issue for the early adopters who use consumer electronics to their fullest potential, but not for mainstream consumers who use devices as stand-alones and base purchase decisions more on what they are comfortable with and branding than technical features.

That's got to be a tough number to swallow for RIM since they're making the Playbook somewhat dependent on having a BB as well.

I find myself using both devices in very different ways — for example I'll listen to an audio book on my iPhone but read an eBook on my iPad. I realize that both formats are "mobile devices" but in many ways they each feel like their own category in terms of usability. I also notice that I use the iPhone for very quick tasks while I'm standing and on the go (i.e. multitasking) — while the iPad is best if you want to ignore everything else around you.

iPhone is for utilities, iPad for immersion.

Scratching my head how they collected this data. The comScore MobiLens[1] site doesn't seem to be any more forthcoming than the report[2] itself.

Anecdotally I don't know anyone who owns an iPad that doesn't own an iPhone. Not saying they don't exist but it does make the report a little hard to swallow when there is no insight into their research methods.

[1] http://comscore.com/Products_Services/Product_Index/MobiLens

[2] http://www.comscore.com/Press_Events/Press_Releases/2011/4/A...

Children own many iPads and iPod Touch devices. Most of them have cheaper cell phones than iPhones (or no cell phone).

Counter-anecdotally: I know a handful of people who decided that they wanted both an iPhone and an iPad in the last few months, but can only afford one, and go with the iPad.

I am a long time iPhone user who just picked up an iPad 2. I still find myself consistently reaching for my phone when the iPad is just as close by. Possibly habit, but I definitely think these products are very different and don't "need" each other at all. Not something I think I "got" until having them both around and letting my brain decide between them.

I do agree that the devices are not dependent, but I disagree with the first part.

You reach for the iPhone instead of the iPad because the devices are _the same_, and the iPhone is already satisfying whatever task that you're doing.

I had an iPad for the longest time, and couldn't figure out what to do with it. I always had the iPhone with me, and so I was used to using it for all the same tasks as the iPad. Finally, I just gave it to my mom, who uses it around the house and does not own an iPhone

In a way they're very similar, but I think of the situation similarly to my main computer: an 11" laptop with a 27" display that it spends about half the time attached to. Sure, the ultimate would be something that could fit into my pocket but fold out to wall-sized... but until that's available, I'll continue to want devices of varying sizes and levels of portability.

Agreed. I used my iPad a lot before I got a smartphone. After getting an iPhone (which is always in arm's reach), I just don't tend to use the iPad much anymore. Especially since app data doesn't sync between them except stuff on the cloud, so I need to play a game or whatnot on whatever platform I used before.

The author seems to be assuming that all iPad owners have or will soon have a smartphone. I don't know that this is the case: my mom got my grandmother an iPad, but there's no way she needs a smartphone for anything.

Just because you don't need a smartphone doesn't mean you won't get one. Come contract renewal, she'll probably get an Android phone whether she wants to or not (in the U.S., it may take another contract cycle, but here in Europe, everyone is giving out entry-level Android phones from ZTE, Sony Ericsson etc as freephones)

I believe there's a relation between handset price and advanced use. People with cheapo smartphones often don't even realize that they can send emails, browse the web, and use apps with their phone. The vast majority of Nexus S and iPhone owners use at least some of the smartphone features that their device offers.

I mention this because I think GP was talking about people using smartphones, not simply owning one. I know plenty of folks who own Nokia and LG smartphones but have never downloaded an app, visited a website on their phone, or synced their phone to a computer.

My parents are still on voice-only phone plans and not even texting. The mandatory data plans for a smartphone would add $20-30 and there is definitely no interest in that.

I bought an iPad2 the other day, the apple shop girl seemed pretty shocked that I had never owned an apple device before and even more so that I had never used iTunes. I might have showed her my £10 phone but that might have been too much for her.

As far as putting music on the iPad, I am not sure if I will even bother. There are plenty of cheap mp3 players which don't require converting wma files and itunes hastle.

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