Giving up the iPad-only travel dream
sixcolors.com
sixcolors.com
> This is the fundamental difference between the Mac (a platform that basically lets developers and users do anything they want) and the iPad (where if Apple doesn’t specifically allow it, it can’t be done).
Apple (since Lisa/Mac, after Apple II, which had an open architecture) likes appliances and to control the user experience, so the iPad is "more Apple" than Macs are.
Whenever I am waiting at airports, I have to grin at how much stuff people are carrying nowadays: it's not 2, it's 3 full-blown computing devices. First there was the mobile phone (which then just a device to call), then came the laptop, then the mobile phone became a computer with the iPhone and Android, and finally, the iPad appeared to fill a middle position. You'd think depending on the person, they'd travel with EITHER their phone OR their iPad OR their laptop, depending on whether they are private people, non-technical "creatives" or IT/technical/dev folks, but instead, everybody appears to be travelling with ALL THREE devices instead. That's because - as stated in the article - there are known limit, or people are worried that they may need all devices for particular use cases or data kept on them.
At least - thanks to the EU - soon they can all share the same USB-C charger.
I tried working with an iPad (and later iPad Pro) but eventually got back to a Ubuntu Linux laptop (ThinkPad X1 Nano), which at 970 grams is also lighter than my iPad Pro 10".
I can't answer a call or text my family with my laptop while I'm on the go. I can't plug my macbook into a car to use maps or play music. I can't use my macbook on the beach to take a picture of my child playing in the surf. I can't really use my phone to type out anything shorter than a quick text.
(Caveat, for the pedants: yes, I could do all those things, but with terrible inconvenience.)
Chromebooks here too.
https://help.netflix.com/en/node/54816
MacOS is absent, but I'm sure it's not too far off using an Google Chromebook emulator with Google Play Store in UTM if it's a must.
I did consider an emulator in xcode, but that's not quite what I'm after.
Files are so basic...
For instance a phone and a Surface Pro covers 100% of the use cases, there's no gap for a 3rd device. For some this gets down to one device with a Galaxy Fold and DEX.
People might have different preferences and/or be locked in the Apple ecosystem anyway, but we have working products showing things done differently ("think different" was such a good copy)
iPad OS is limited, but it's fine for reading, writing and sketching. It's good to do that on a separate device that is not connected to work stuff. I can bring my iPad in the bedroom because it's just a fancy book.
Windows is also far too needy for this sort of device. I returned my Surface after a day because of updates, notifications, tracking and a complete lack of respect for the user. My iPad is such a calm device by comparison.
Windows is not refined nor optimized for tablet use by any measure, but it actually does the job, instead of showing a cute and extremely refined middle finger half the time.
The breaking point for me was the reader apps, where I'd have a file and just no way to read it, short of taking 10 min on a desktop to somewhat convert it to what the iPad can handle (see below). Since they're also in a pissing match with Amazon, the reading experience is just subpar. What's the point of a simple and elegant interface if I'm still babysitting what's going in there and have to constantly think about work-arounds that also end up clunky and broken ?
> Art and note apps
Adobe suite, ClipStudio etc. are all there, in their actual, professional, full-blown version, and not some compromised "on the go" version. Same for One-note, obsidian etc., there's no lack of them on Windows while it was a fresh market on the iPad.
> ebook reader apps
I think iBooks is the only reader you don't get (is there a web version ? I have no idea).
Granted I buy most of my books on kindle, the in-browser reader works well enough (in the end, I'm full screen turning pages, so makes no difference). I'd argue getting the read the book straight from the page I bought them is pretty great.
I didn't bother with the android subsystem version but it would be an option if there is any limitation on the web part. I also have a bunch of old ebooks and scans from way before there were stores, and of course they were better handled by the windows apps (at some point I was using CloudReader on iOS, and it just disappeared).
Right now it’s inferior not-a-laptop with a touchscreen that you can detach and people still buy it.
For the same reason you carry an "inferior" camera, pda, navigation system, cellphone with very short battery life and undersized movie screen: a smartphone does all that okay-ishly. Or why ultrabooks are vastly more popular than gaming laptops. Convenience and form factor trump "inferior" all the time.
Youtube playback would stop everytime another video starts playing somewhere (additional fun when it's just a video ad that actually had no sound in the first place).
SMB file management is still an afterthought, so you end up needing a plex server dealing with all the complexity the iPad can't deal with.
Browsing is the same, outside of the Safari limitation, extensions are few and tab management a pain in general.
For books and magazine it's kinda the same. It works fine for light use. It becomes frustrating if it's something you actually care about.
In the end, I realized I actually care less about visual polish and more about having complete functionalities, at the price of dealing with Windows and managing a computer instead of an appliance.
This is what made me sell the Surface. I wanted to replace a paper notebook I bring everywhere. What I got was tiny buttons, menus, and a save dialog every time I wanted to close the app. My drawings were not drawings in a sketchbook, but files I had to manually sort and access on a filesystem.
After spending a whole day installing updates and turning off ads and tracking, I couldn't just unwind and doodle. The Surface constantly reminded me that I was operating a computer, not drawing.
> ebooks
The in-browser reader is not a replacement for an offline book reader. This tablet is offline most of the time.
> obsidian
I want to write and doodle, not edit markdown files. Otherwise I'd have no use for a tablet. This tablet replaces a paper notebook.
https://apps.microsoft.com/store/detail/sketchpal/9MVT92NRF5...
Does a pretty good job
Sure, not the most convenient way, but there is no replacing something like pandoc.
> Adobe suite, ClipStudio etc. are all there, in their actual, professional, full-blown version
Speaking of those, does the Pencil still feel somewhat half baked for Apple? The display front panels on iPads aren't "optimized" for pens, like, given rigidity and texturing for front panels. I don't own the iPad kit nor am I a digital artist, but the Pencil as a physical object almost feels like poking acrylic panel with laundry hangars, and most third party feeling among all third party pens. and I didn't understand how they could sell it as a serious thing.
For art apps, Procreate is very good but it's still kinda limited. Windows has the full Photoshop, CSP, Art Rage etc. experiences.
And with WSA you can just grab the Android versions of Kindle or whatever.
And is really respectful of the user to artificially kneecap a device from doing tasks?
but useless as a computer?
I needed to apply for a visa -It can't even handle that simple task!
Like all I had to do, is collaste togesther a few dozen documents (bank statements, utility bills, etc.), merge all them into PDfs and organise pages cronologically. Couldn't even do that.
whats the point of having a great processor in an iPad if it's all wasted.
This is a deal braker for me, handling official documents is a normal thing normal people have to do every day.
Open the PDF (or print the webpage to PDF if needed), tap to insert other PDFs into that one (so assembling / merging the documents).
Drag any pages into the order you want, save the file.
What’s missing?
LOLNO. Many, many people use an iPad as their primary or only nonphone computer.
Sounds like you had a tool chain problem, not an iPad problem.
Yet for all that, I replaced it with a Moto X just 2 years later, and it's the Moto X that I really miss, with its superior voice control and its preference to remain in my pocket, and the little dimple in its wooden back.
I think today's Macbook Air M2 with 360deg hinges, touch and some iPad like UI-mode would be a holy grail for the article author.
Microsoft, for all its qualities, truly does not care about the finer details.
0. 360 MX. This is the least likely. I'm sure Apple has been testing flippable hinges for decades at this point, but even if they could make the best one, they need a marketing reason for users. What's the point in a flippable laptop if you can't use everything when it's flipped like Windows?
1. Running iOS apps. macOS with an ARM chip already runs iOS apps, the problem is that most developers are chickenshit and don't allow people to run their apps on macOS. Apple needs to reverse course and remove the ability to deny running on macOS.
2. Cellular data. By this point, Apple would have done it. There's a valid argument that Apple doesn't want to even entertain negotiations with Qualcomm about how much it would cost them to put modems in their laptops, so I believe our last hope is that the modems currently in development by Apple themselves are someday destined for Apple laptops.
3. Excellent touch response. Every Macbook already has the best touch response in any laptop. Their trackpad is best-in-class. I don't know how Apple could even fail at that.
4. Lidar. What? Why?
0. You bring up some points I fully agree with. Since we’re talking about Apple who can’t do anything mundane, for the hinge let’s just assume they come up with a new tech (maybe a single pivot point and the keyboard spins freely, or a mechanism that detaches it entirely so it can be snapped in flush on the back, or some other solution I can’t imagine yet)
1. Agreed
2. I can’t imagine this would actually stop them if they decided to cannibalize the iPad and build an MX 360
3. Agreed
4. Personally I would probably never use it, but it’s a notable iPad feature and might as well have them all
Obviously the market just isn't there for smaller phones, but I actually think the iPhone 3GS had the best form factor of any phone I've used, and it's smaller screen encouraged information density, which I like.
I say I use an iPhone mini now, and it's true, but only because Apple requires you to use an iPhone with their Watch. I've given up on the phone form factor, and use an Apple Watch with an ear bud and cellular, and keep the phone in drawer most of the time. Actually is was the Moto lineup that got me onto that: they had that short-lived earbud that was marketed as requiring zero screen in order to do all your mobile computing (I never got one though).
You might wonder why one wouldn't just use an Android watch that could do all of it without the bullshit Apple tax across multiple devices. It's for similar reasons for why I didn't end up liking the Galaxy Note, even though it still, to this day, feels like a miracle that they could cram so many features AND so much quality into that device, and that it could legitimately perform in all those categories.
The iPhone mini still feels too big, but at least it's mostly usable with one hand, even if it's not comfortable to do something like pull down the control panel shade on the top right corner with your left hand.
I know I'm just a weirdo though. I thought the Windows Phone UI was brilliant, especially the audio design.
iPad is super handy but I'm not sure a laptop has turn by turn nav, maybe it could via an emulator.
As a programmer with serious mobile experience I fully understand it. But it sound a bit crazy that a powerful and more superior (and open! In both hard and sometimes soft - if with an opensource OS) platform need so _emulate_ an embedded one (mobile, usually at least partially proprietary one) to provide turn-by-turn nav: what appears to be a first-order need of anyone in the modern world.
You can run OSM in navigation mode, I suppose.
I remember the time I was heading south from Syracuse in an area notorious for state police speedtraps when I had pulled alongsides a greyhound and my son had logged into the WiFi on board the bus. The bus driver got pissed at us and got up to 95 mph to shake us. I gave up first but I figured he'd have a lot more to lose from getting a ticket than I would.
However, although the devices might run on ancient stable standard, but that does not mean, that operating system is not playing silly games there. If you had an app that talked to them via serial port, you could throw it away once Microsoft introduced GNSS subsystem.
That said, the point still stands. I did some searching, and Streets and Trips are discontinued. Copilot was bought by Trimble and AFAIK, you can only get the mobile app versions (they still have offline support). I think their truck fleet software will still run on laptops, but are sold as part of a bulk purchase.
I did find MapFactor, which I've never used, as being something that will work on Windows and Linux (via wine) and it provides real-time GPS navigation.
https://www.mapfactor.com/en/products/navigation-software-st...
Quite often they work completely offline, and also cover more information related to topography and driving routes that may not be traditional roads on existing maps. For example, the path to a location in a farmer's field, etc.
I would also say that about 1/3 of people that work primarily from their laptop, and travel a lot (no easy access to a desktop monitor), will probably have an iPad as a second display as well.
On my journey home in a more crowded train I saw half a dozen iPads just from where I was sitting. They are extremely useful devices for train journeys.
Similar to the parent I only ever see iPads in two places, the hands of rich kids in restaurants, and in primary schools.
If you spend a lot of time on public transport, an iPad isn't really that much of a luxury item. It's a really pragmatic choice, and at least in the UK an entry-level or recent secondhand iPad is not much more expensive than the cheapest usable alternative.
Most seats on British trains are not at tables, and while many (by no means all, depends on the operator) have a seatback tray table, it is generally not the right shape for all but the smallest laptop, and the proportions are not such that they work well with convertible PCs that use screen-cover keyboards.
We really get crammed into trains.
An iPad is large enough to read a book or emails even if you are stuck without a seat, the on-screen keyboard is practical enough to write reasonable emails or edit small documents on, watch a film on, etc.
So is a very cost effective way to make use of what might be 2+ hours of every working day.
(Train travel is pretty expensive over any distance, too. An entry level iPad is only about ten times the cost of an ad-hoc journey into London from where I am -- and that's only an hour away.)
So is a very cost effective way to make use of what might be 2+ hours of every working day.
You can either drive it and do nothing but listen to something relatively simple, or sit in a train and read/work/draw/listen/play games/sleep.
(It’s not my commute; I work from home. But I visit clients sometimes; yesterday involved six hours of train/tube travel. I wouldn’t do that every day but I could do it once a week.)
However, 30 miles is significantly under the average US commuting distance. And, unless you live and work near an urban downtown, 30 miles probably doesn't get you to a lot of appropriate professional jobs. I live in an exurb outside a major metro and my (nominal) office is the nearest tech job I could physically commute to and it barely squeezes in under 30 miles.
https://hbr.org/2021/05/that-dreaded-commute-is-actually-goo...
But, yes, other numbers seem to be lower (and are generally more likely to quote commute time rather than distance which is probably more relevant for most people).
But thirty miles in an hour on urban/suburban rail isn't particularly unusual. And this time is time you can use, if you have even a little bit of method about it. I know people who have done all the reading for entire higher education degrees in that period of time.
At any rate, the notion to which you're responding regarding the area of possible commute being 2800 square miles is foolish. You have to go to where the jobs gather, and there are all sorts of complex reasons why they don't distribute evenly across that area that a rational person should not spend time weighing up when they consider whether an iPad might be a useful thing for the train.
In my case, if I made the commute into London on a daily basis, knocking down the distance to this hypothetical US average of 16 miles might save, I think, about a third of the journey time in practice. It would knock off half of the price of a season ticket, which might be useful. But it would add easily 40% to the cost of a house, which is the overriding concern. And even then I'd still buy the iPad for that journey.
People who actually live in London tend to be either very rich or unemployed.
Sincerely, from someone in the third world who has taken UK public transport. You don't.
I don't say this to disparage your message, but hopefully to give some gratitude for the nice things you do have over there.
I found it most amusing how people would get antsy and annoyed when a train was more than 5 minutes late in the UK. For years of me taking South African trains, if there was any delay worth being mad about, it would've been after 2 hours had passed.
And as far as safety is concerned, when every seat is full and there's already very little seat-to-seat distance, the aisle is crammed with people face to back with nothing to hang on to, and the vestibules are all full to the point that people are standing with nothing to support them if the train brakes hard, that is a crammed train. Dangerously so -- indeed, often illegally so.
And this is quite normal, routine and unexceptional at commuter times, and that is not talking about the underground, where it is routine to be packed in to the point that someone's nose is against the window (mine was, yesterday).
I'm sure there are trains elsewhere that are worse. There's nothing I can do about that; it doesn't really change my observation.
(I'm not sure there's a really good point about gratitude here, either, when the people paying for these services where they don't get a seat have to take out substantial loans to afford the annual ticket, whereas you can travel from Cape Town to Johannesburg, with a sleeping car berth, for about 20% more than the amount it costs me to travel an hour into London at off-peak times. But that's a separate point.)
That was the Metra BN line in Chicago when I lived there, at least the rush hour departures at around 5:00pm. I was on a train so full that I could not even fully get into the vestibule, I had to push people in with my body so the door could close behind me. Many times the CTA trains were similarly full.
Generally speaking and especially when compared with trams or buses, mainline trains don't really do "hard" braking, though. Though I concede that the jerk of coming to a full stop with the brakes fully applied (during regular braking drivers and/or the train control system will ease off the brakes before stopping) may be somewhat borderline in terms of keeping your stability.
Also try the Tube in London’s rush hour - more like stuffed in than even crammed in. Full armpit-in-the-face experience.
I've also hung out of Cape Town trains because that's the only way to get on - all doors forced open by commuters so we can get a few more people to work.
That said, I'm going on a few week--mostly recreational--trip in a bit and I'll just take my phone and my iPad. It will be fine for note-taking at the conference I'm attending and I really just want media consumption and a browser on something bigger than my phone for everything else.
An iPad is probably one of my more optional devices but I've gotten almost 10 years out of my current model so it doesn't feel like an unreasonable luxury even if I mostly use it when traveling.
As someone who very much prefers having a physical keyboard, the only workable solution I have found for UK trains is an iPad with the Magic Keyboard, whose cantilever design is relatively shallow, and which provides a firm base for balancing on your legs.
There is no reason this form factor couldn't be achieved with an android tablet, but it feels relatively uncommon. Most keyboard cases I've seen are only really suitable for stable table/desk scenarios.
So cost of an iPad isn't a huge concerns at that point
https://www.thetrainline.com/season-tickets/chelmsford-to-lo...
(Source - worked at Google in Android)
I take the laptop when traveling because who knows what I'll need it for.
Android tablets don’t get any specific APIs or special treatment on Android.
As for the form factor, I do travel with a tablet. More specifically, a 2-in-1 device, with a stylus. An x86 one, though (specifically, Dell Latitude 5290, which has specs like MS Surface, but was 3x cheaper) - because I've learned from experience that iPads and Android tablets are just large phones without the phone call function, and not suitable for any productive use. Meanwhile, my Dell hosts a touchscreen-optimized Windows 10, which hosts a Linux distro, which hosts the actual OS - Emacs.
(I also learned to love the Ribbon. On a 2-in-1, it's very obvious what Microsoft was going for, and why it's a good design - for touchscreens.)
Since then, I've purchased a proper mobile phone, and I transferred my landline home phone over to that SIM card, and it's my main line now. I use my Voice number very rarely.
One of the drawbacks to SIM cards is that you can't really get the phone service mirrored or transferred to a regular computer. Sure, you can "link" the phone if it's nearby, but the service itself stays there.
I've had a number of times where I'd really like to have voice/SMS service on that number available via computer (some people I know are actually creeped out by my having two phone numbers at once), but what can you do.
I haven't traveled since the Before Times anyway, so boarding a plane with devices is the least of my worries.
More for planes than trains though. Most people just read their phone on a train commute.
It’s not a “rich parent” thing, it’s a “this device has actual support from the manufacturer for years” thing. Android tablets are still an afterthought with Samsung the only one bravely attempting to bring large screen support to the OS.
I could similarly just invest in a cheap e-reader device and a physical notepad and it wouldn’t disrupt my studies but I shelled out a little more for a used iPad for the longer than typical device support and because I’m already in the Apple ecosystem.
And as another comment said, iPads are pretty common options here for some people who aren't really power users that essentially want a phone experience, but bigger. I've set up my mom with an iPad + PiHole for home use and she's super happy with it as a video and browsing device that is generally reliable. She does have access to a PC I built as well, but an iPad is much more portable around the house for her (e.g. she needs to follow a recipe while cooking).
That's interesting, for me, any texting (usually via whatsapp or signal) is far, far more convenient on the laptop than on the phone, so far that if I expect a longer response, I'll rather find a place to sit and pull out the laptop than try to type all of it on the phone; and for calling people also videocalls on laptop are more convenient for me than the phone, so again, if it's more than a one-minute conversation, I'll rather put down the phone and call them through the laptop.
But in the US at least, people outside those groups typically don't. I don't think you can (easily) send SMS from a laptop as though it were your phone.
(Yes, it could be argued that the two groups in the first paragraph are actually ONE group, since Apple "texting" is silently-to-the-user shifted to iMessaging, i.e. another app.)
Sure you can--at least with Macs. I do it all the time to both Apple and non-Apple users.
One can do a LOT on Android.
There are days when my phone can do all I need.
But why would you think that?
I don't want to have to pull out my laptop (or even iPad) for phone calls or to check a quick e-mail.
Obviously there are types of real serious work that can only be done on a laptop.
And then I'm bringing the iPad to read books on, which takes up a lot less space than if the books were physical. It's far nicer reading on the iPad than the other devices. It's also far easier to position the way I want on my tray table for a movie.
I have zero complaints. My phone doesn't take space away from anything else, and my laptop+iPad together are slimmer and weigh less than a single laptop did in the pre-Air days. And much less when you consider I no longer bring physical books/magazines.
I used to travel with the first Apple Luggable[0] (and extra lead/acid batteries).
Times have changed.
You make a tradeoff between the extra weight and the convenience of the right tool for the job. None of those devices are all that heavy. It would be very different if they each weighed ten pounds.
I don't want to pull out my iPad or laptop when I need to make a call, or while standing in line.
I don't want to do everything on my phone, I appreciate the larger screen of an tablet or laptop.
When I need to be reachable for work I carry a laptop too -- I'm not allowed to do work on my personal device, but even if I could, I wouldn't, that would mean giving my employer far more control over my personal device than I want to (the same reason I wouldn't use my work laptop for personal use)
I tried to combine both with a Windows tablet, but it was just the worst of both worlds: a slow and needy Windows PC, and a tablet with bad UX, bad apps and poor battery life.
Apple got there by tearing down device barriers. Now …
Carry them all – hardly.
Apple has invested a lot of time and effort into making full continuity across their entire computing ecosystem actually work, which allows the user to pick only one device that is the best poised for the task at hand.
The user can switch devices as they please and carry on on another device from where they left off on the previous one. It is seamless.
Of course, the user can also choose to use all of the devices at the same time if that is what they want or it merely suits them.
Microsoft and Linux ecosystems, however, do not have the same level of completeness and continuity and convenience.
A laptop is a keyboard-oriented device, packing a,lot of computing power. It has the shortest battery life, and requires a desk, or at least a seat, to operate comfortably.
A phone is a handheld device, one which is always on you. It necessarily has a smaller screen, no separate keyboard, and only has a decent battery life because it sleeps most of the time. It can have serious peak performance, but has a hard time sustaining it (ask Ingress players).
An iPad (or another tablet if you feel fancy) is a two-hands device with a good, easy to use touchscreen, and software built around it. It's a natural choice for a graphic artist, for instance. An iPad has a more tolerable onscreen keyboard than a phone. Also its screen is large enough to enjoy movies, etc, so it's a convenient visual media consumption device, more so than a phone. I had laptops with touchscreens; they were fun, but not nearly as handy.
(For the record: I travel with a phone and a Linux laptop.)
A convertible is for sinny days, it has no roof at all, you should use another car on rainy days.
A Smart is a 2 seater for trips to the city, its easy to find parking
And a Hummer is for trips to the countryside, it won't fit into any parking spot in London.
You should buy all three and use the right tool for the job
So why don’t we have a single clothing item that fits every purpose? We had 10 thousands of years to improve on it, yet we use specialized jacket in winter and a swimsuit in the summer for swimming.
Specialization and generalization are fundamental principles we live by, and both can have value, depending on context.
An RV with a bike rack towing a car.
You'd think depending on the person, they'd travel with
EITHER their phone OR their iPad OR their laptop
- The iPad works as a second monitor for a Mac laptop. Great for creative/tech people.
- If people are traveling for work, they are bringing their work laptop which may have corporate lockdown/spyware software installed. Therefore using their work laptop for entertainment might not be possible or optimal. (Not to be crass, but: watching porn in a hotel room is a pretty common use case)
I'd prefer to travel lighter (and I do when possible) but I don't find iPad+Macbook to be an onerous load for a airplane carry-on bag. Although, a smaller person or somebody with an injury or disability might feel differently.
At least - thanks to the EU - soon they can all share the same USB-C charger.
It charges pretty much every single device I own at max power.
You need to be logged into the same Apple ID, which is a huge hassle for everybody who has a different Apple ID for personal and work use.
There’s tonnes of Apple features that break because of this. Apple’s view is that there’s a 1:1 correspondence between Apple IDs and people, and everything they do is designed around that fact.
> At least - thanks to the EU - soon they can all share the same USB-C charger.
I have a MacBook Pro, an iPhone, an Android phone, an Apple Watch, an iPad, and AirPods Pro; so I have fairly demanding charging needs.
I have the MagSafe Duo Charger and a Minix Neo P3 to plug into the wall. I have a lightning cable to plug the Duo Charger into the Minix. From there, the Duo Charger can charge both phones, the watch, and the AirPods. I have a USB-C cable I can use to charge the laptop and the iPad from the Neo P3. Obviously I can’t charge absolutely everything simultaneously, but I never need to because most of the batteries last days and I don’t use all the devices simultaneously anyway.
So all of those devices but I just need a wall charger, a Duo and two cables. The “oh no, everything is so complex because Apple refuses to use USB-C” hand wringing is massively overblown. Does it really matter that my iPhone, my AirPods, and my watch don’t have USB-C when all I do to charge them is put them down on a pad when I’m not using them? Sure, my Android phone has a USB-C port, but I charge my iPhone and my Android phone the same way – by putting them down on a pad. What is the EU forcing Apple to add a USB-C port on the iPhone actually achieving for me if I never use the Lightning port on the current models?
Ugh, yeah. Good point. Never had a company that made me have a separate AppleID so I didn't think of it.
It would, of course, be a non-issue if Apple allowed multiple users on iPad :-/
> The “oh no, everything is so complex because Apple refuses to use USB-C” hand wringing is massively overblown.
Yeah. It exclusively comes from non-Apple owners. They never seem to notice that it's not a big deal for people actually living it.
> once you are planning to carry a keyboard.
Apple sells you a keyboard cover, Samsung does, Microsoft does. They are ridiculously expensive for what they are (buy a few HHKBs), but seem very popular.
> at that point.
That is the point. After adding all that, you would expect your tablet to do all that. Hardware wise it totally could, but it is not "allowed to" unless you put a linux VM on it or something.
So you're right that these categories of devices and capabilities are completely artificially imposed at this point, but the question is, why have an iPad at all?
it already is one, just with an OS that locks down its ability to function as one
why would you expect the OS to do that when it could also give the user the option to use the general computing platform as a general computing platform?
so, why would you expect the OS to do that when it could also give the user the option to use the general computing platform as a general computing platform? Just because of marketing? Just because that's what they've always done? Neither are good answers imho
"At least - thanks to the EU - soon they can all share the same USB-C charger."
The EU is basically the guy that at 5am declares that the sun must soon rise or else. By the time the EU decided on their USB-C dictum, Apple -- a co-inventor and standards participant of USB-C -- had switched their laptops fully to USB-C, their desktops to USB-C, and half their pad line to USB-C, with the rest coming not long after. Most people fully expected the 14 to be USB-C just because it was starting to be silly, and by the 15 it would be ridiculous if they still had lightning.
Apple was already switching. Which is exactly why the EU could go ahead and faced little resistance. The EU deserves zero credit.
And FWIW, the EU in 2010 dictated that all smartphones use micro-USB. Apple provided an adapter as they moved their entire line to lightning, thankfully, as micro-USB was a garbage connector in every way.
And they saw it coming, so doing prep work doesn't show they wanted to change.
A big part of the reason people thought Apple would change is because everyone knew these rules were coming.
Also I don't think micro-USB ever got mandated, and 2010 was before lightning even existed.
And given the pin burnout problems I'm not even sure if micro USB is worse than lightning with USB 2.0
Apple moved their laptops to USB-C in 2015. The iPad started switching in 2018. Thunderbolt 3 & 4, created by Apple and Intel use USB-C.
And yes, the EU dictum before was a voluntary agreement, and Apple provided an adapter and then went from the bad 30-pin to the much better lightning. Which is Apple's resistance to the EU saying "this is it...the eternal connector".
2015 was eight years ago. They were actually pretty early to USB-C, setting it up in a couple years, then they waited another couple years without bringing it to iphone, then another, then another.
The evidence was that they were in no rush at all.
And thunderbolt isn't relevant when their phones are still on USB 2.
> Which is Apple's resistance to the EU saying "this is it...the eternal connector".
That is not what the law says. Stop that.
Given that Apple never included usb-c charger with their iPhone, all Apple had accomplished was creating a bunch of soon to be obsoleted usb-c to lighting cable with this extended timeline
I'm personally not as bothered by the number of devices as much as all the forced redundancy. Like the core devices could have 3 desktop quality processors, 13 microphones, 3 selfie cameras, 2 rear cameras, 2-3 cellular modems, etc.
I'd love a design where the phone is my chip, 5g radio and storage. The camera can be worn as a bodycam (for lifestreaming or personal safety) but also docks to the phone. The phone speakers and mics are a 2nd set of airpods you can cycle in to keep them charged (both sets can be docked at once). The tablet is just a bigger screen with extra battery/storage and the phone docks to that. The watch screen is weaker and monochrome so the battery life is better and it keeps the health functions.
Considering how light the iPad is it’s not a big addition to slip in an ipad in your bag.
Sounds great you just use your thinkpad ubuntu, but what’s the battery life on that compared to iPad?
My experience has been that installing Ubuntu on laptops dramatically reduced its battery life.
It's four now, with the smart watch.
With LTE, the smart watch can conveniently replace the phone a lot of the time. But not ALL of the time, so, again, you'll probably be carrying both.
While many people might work entirely from a tablet, or even a Chromebook, you'll run into so many issues that you're better off carrying a laptop to cover all bases. In a pinch, a watch or tablet can pinch-hit for the device they supplement, but using them as a primary device every day gets old really quick.
But I do want to observe that there is really no such thing as a non-technical creative person, and if there were, they would likely have a laptop, because using an iPad to fully replace a specific workflow on a laptop is, as the article suggests, eventually a more complex challenge than using a laptop. If you have one specific creative application to run that means anything it’s likely to need a traditional desktop/laptop OS scenario, because the iPadOS versions are generally still compromised.
The “non-technical person” is an IT industry trope we should retire. Very few such people really exist; people are just “technical” in ways that IT folk don’t recognise. At best it’s a fiction that IT people use to describe those who have the good sense to not care about the minutiae of computers. But in this day and age, no creative person has the opportunity to know nothing about technology.
> people are just “technical” in ways that IT folk don’t recognise.
yes, perhaps they can work an abacus, or throw a javelin, or arrange Skittles by color. Those are all technical, but they aren't what IT folks mean when they say technical vs non-technical, and are mostly useless technical skills in that context (e.g. if FAANG was looking for "technical person", they likely do not need help arranging Skittles)
The bit about the abacus just underscores what I mean. It's derisive. Consider not using the word "non-technical" until you've grasped this.
the term "non-technical" is used because it is useful (notwithstanding your personal interpretation of it to mean "knows literally nothing about any technology"), so what term do you suggest we IT professionals use which conveys the same information in an equal or shorter length? Consider providing people an alternative they think is better if you personally don't like the language they're using, vs. just feeling upset and complaining.
When I say someone is technical I mean this: I could give them instructions that include the words "open a terminal/command prompt" and they would both know what I mean and not be completely freaked out at the idea. If they are non-technical, then they may use several different devices quite successfully but have only the faintest idea how they work under the hood.
Every industry has to make this distinction: an auto mechanic needs to know whether they're talking to someone who understands cars or someone who just drives them. A plumber needs to know whether they are talking to someone who understands plumbing or just knows how to flush a toilet. They may have different words to describe this distinction, but it's an important distinction for the language to have and the word we've settled on in IT is "technical".
There is certainly a lot you can do with an iPad if you have the right apps (I run full-fledged vim, with plugins, inside a-Shell and code Python, Lua, Janet and Guile inside a-Shell or iSH as required). I also dabble in music (plenty of amazingly cheap synth apps), but most people don’t have the patience to try these things out (and Jason Snell’s audio woes are something that runs deeper).
Mine actually has Android on it and had allowed me to leave my iPad at home for some trips.
My Macbook's MagSafe charging cable already plugs into a USB-C charger, so I already only need one charger (but two cables) for my (Android) phone and (Apple) laptop. But, of course, the bureaucrats know better than the customers and engineers.
Btw, from what I've read, Apple is contemplating removing the charging ports from their iPhones completely and going with wireless charging only. So much for banning everything but USB-C charging ports..
You ahve it backwards - you Must include a USB-C chsrging port. No-one is banning you from having additional ports, the EC comission aren't cretins. And so Macbook already complies, I only charge mine from USB-C.
Myself, I've always seen the iPad as a "media consumption device" (despite the amazing Procreate) and never bothered to try to shoehorn it into another role.
My laptop and desktops will remain my primary devices forever I suspect.
This is a white flag in Apple community parlance, not a plea.
I see it that way too, but I also see some confusion in their product line towards "the top". The iPad mini or even a regular iPad makes for a fantastic media consumption device, the only place any other device has those beat is a Kindle for books but that's another conversation. But when it comes to the iPad Pro, I always had a hard time figuring out what Apple's pitch for it was over a Macbook Air. Apple always pitched how portable the iPad Pro was but it's a hard sell when they have the Macbook Air which is smaller. And it's not even a competition in terms of use cases, iPad limits you in some pretty serious ways while the Air (especially with the new M1 processor) can chew through stuff normally reserved for i7's on a desktop. My brother asked me if he should get himself an iPad Pro for work (he's a real-estate agent). I told him outside of the use case of walking around a house and pulling up home plans or something, the Air is kicking the iPad's ass in every single category.
The Air I have is an M1 machine and it is crazy fast and battery frugal.
Fusion 360 is now built for Apple silicon too! Makes the Air a great travel machine!
Nitpick, but I've been using the same usb-c charger for years. Soon they can all share the same cable.
I have a cheap Android tablet but it never leaves my living room. I don't know what people do with tablets while traveling that they couldn't do with their phone just as easily (at least in a non-professional context). The OP certainly didn't get me any closer to an answer!
Other than that, I don't see much extra value for tablets either.
And yet despite the sheer number of USB-C devices I own at all ends of the cost scale, this has only ever happened to my 2017 Macbook Pro.
And on the male side, Apple dutifully makes up for the claimed robustness of the connector by making some of the worst cables.
> And on the male side, Apple dutifully makes up for the claimed robustness of the by making some of the worst cables.
Hahaha
Assuming I know what you are talking about, yes, their cables suck. The plastic/rubber degrades way faster than other cables, turning yellow and eventually splitting open after just a few years.
I’m loving it. It’s been mainly used for video on this trip. Quick web searches and killing time ready a distant second.
It’s a better size for a plane. I’m lucky in that I always have a gentleman in front of me that can pull 2gs pushing his seat back in a seemingly targeted attempt to snap my laptop screen. Not an issue with the middle device. And it is costs hundreds less than my laptop when the flight attendant spills a coffee on it.
That said, you still need a computer to compute. The mid size device is still for consumption. The article makes the case that it’s getting better, but it isn’t there
An iPad + Apple Pencil is amazing for jotting math or CS problems brainstorming, sketching, messing with music ideas, etc. Also great for reading, watching video content on the go, etc.
A laptop is much better at anything typing intensive or coding related.
[0]: https://www.theverge.com/2022/12/13/23507766/apple-app-store...
Apple doesn't have to imagine every use case for their portable devices; they just have to let developers address them. But they don't; Apple BLOCKS any use case it doesn't imagine. When Apple enabled real apps, a lot us expected all kinds of cool applications that involved the phone talking to other devices. I wanted to write a time-lapse controller for cameras.
But NOPE. Apple locked down (and continues to lock down) the I/O port on iOS devices. This will no doubt continue when they finally slap a "USB" port on the rest of their mobile products. It's "USB" because yeah it'll physically be a USB-C and charge through it, but no way are developers going to have access to it.
Apple even cripples its Bluetooth. And of course there's the lack of a user-accessible file system, and the attendant lack of drag-&-drop file transfer between iOS and computer. I scoff at the arrival of video-editing apps on the iPad, when there's no good way to get gigabytes upon gigabytes of footage onto or off of these things. Not to mention the laughable clumsiness of trying to manipulate tiny controls on a touchscreen with your finger (and hand) blocking your view of what you're trying to work on.
And by the time you're done junking these gimped tablets up with a keyboard and pointing device, you have all of these limitations plus the cost and bulk of a MacBook Air. I'd argue you have more "bulk," in that you have a loose collection of crap that you have to carry around (and charge) instead of a tidy computer.
What Apple should have done is enable the Pencil to work on the (defectively) giant trackpads on its computers. Its failure to do so is baffling and unfortunate.
Good luck with that... I've a very nice dell laptop a client gave me to access their network. It uses USB-C (90W) for charging. Recently I had another dell laptop shipped to me by another client for the same purpose. This one too uses USB-C charger, but a 130W one.
A 130W charger had a broken plug so I attempted to use the 90W charger to charge the 130W laptop. You knew w what happened? It started charging and in under a minute it detected this as a "wrong" charger. It stopped charging and it would not boot with the 90W charger plugged in.
So if we can't use USB-C to swap chargers between two very similar devices made by the same manufacturer, what hope is there for having a truly "universal" charger? Yes, the 130W laptop couldn't possibly pull 130W from the 90W charger, but why couldn't it throttle, the cpu? Set the built in gpu to the igpu mode (yes it has both a igpu and another nVidia one)? Sad.
As for travelling with devices. I have been travelling with a laptop + cellphone forever. Few years ago I bought a little "convertible" laptop. I think it originally run windows 7. I installed Linux on it (with xfce desktop). It is essentially a tablet with a power of a laptop and detachable keyboard. I expected the keyboard interface to fail very quickly, but it hasn't. This way I have the convenience to browse the Web on a tablet, or plug the keyboard in and do actual work.
Still quite sad that I couldn't find a "real" replacement for my Fujitsu Stylistic ST-4110 and its transflective display --- the Samsung Galaxy Book 12 was close (but I had to roll it back to 1703 twice, and it lacked a daylight viewable display --- repeat after me, trying to outbright the sun on a battery-powered device is stupid).
When it was time to replace my GB12 I bought Galaxy Book 3 Pro 360, which unfortunately is too large for my sling bag, and still doesn't have a daylight viewable display, but it has a stylus (which I have to toggle between modes depending on which program I'm using).
I feel like at least some of these can be consolidated and the only reason they're not is because of arbitrary limits. I don't see any reason the ipad can't be more open like a laptop as well as operate as a phone (some android tablets can). You could use the watch as your "notifications and reach me asap" device.
But overall I always end up overpacking just because of being afraid of needing something I don't have.
I do try to buy the lightest and smallest version of every device. The steamdeck is honestly the most unwieldly device I carry around. Everything else fits without a problem in my messenger bag.
My iPad and laptop both have an M1; the laptop has more RAM but they are effectively equally capable on paper. And yet, due to a series of entirely artificial restrictions, my iPad is useless for entire categories of applications. That power sits unavailable for me to ever utilise.
I’m sure the iPad Pro can live up to its name if you’re an artist or designer or maybe even something that involves 3D modelling, but outside of that absolutely not.
It’s a terrible shame because I think there really is value in a computer that fills the space between a phone and a “real” computer. Especially given its modularity (though the obscenely high pricing of Apple’s keyboard cases is another problem).
At this point the thing most holding the iPad back is Apple itself. Anything to do with software development is impossible or involves remotely interfacing with a second computer. The things it does support are tedious and frustrating, like file management (Files.app is hopeless) and multitasking (Stage Manager is a convoluted mess).
What the hell was even the point in splitting iPadOS out if it’s just gonna have the exact same limitations as iOS. I got a good deal on a used iPad Pro but when it comes time to upgrade this thing I’ll just go back to the middle of the road model for a nice, but ultimately unnecessary consumption device.
Apple sees developers and third party software as threats to the user, the only safe thing to do is to lock it all down.
Apple also got addicted to App Store money. Letting you install unapproved software means Apple doesn’t get their cut of not only the sale of the software but also the sale of anything through the software. And Apple wants their rent.
Apple is organizationally incapable of building a good iPad OS. The culture prohibits it and the incentives are misaligned.
I admire the sheer time and resources poured in perfecting the Apple experience, it has been its trademark since original ipods. But the way they set up relation between customer and provider is so unequal and outright disrespectful, I'll never buy their product.
Don't treat me like an incompetent idiot and we can start talking.
Apple has the technical capability to make a Macbook that is separable. The screen comes off and makes an iPad.
It also has the technical capability to make a bi-modal OS.
OSX with a HW toggle switch that allows OSX/iPadOS modes. The switch could be nearly seamless. The unlimited freedom OSX mode is an overlay FS on the iPadOS mode. Change anything you want, run anything you want and when you flip the switch, the OSX apps are frozen to disk, the overlayfs unmounted, and you still have any iPadOS apps running. Flip it back, and the OSX world resumes as it was.
But you can't have this product, because the marketers at Apple know that you would never buy an iPad again if you had this.
1) top heavy, because all the hardware is on the screen portion, so it's difficult to balance and use it on your lap
2) lack of processing power due to the form factor and thermal limitations
3) lack of touch friendly windows apps that can make it truly useful as a tablet
1 probably can't be helped, but 2 and 3 should definitely be better now especially since Apple silicon and iOS exist, if they choose to make something like this...
#2 is subjective and depends on your use-case. I find that for mine (circuit design, PDF markup, email/web, low-requirements mechanical CAD, casual gaming) it's totally fine.
#3 is very real. I don't use the Surface Pro as a pure tablet almost ever. The only exception is if I'm stuck on a plane and there's no room for the keyboard and all I'm doing is reading.
I really wish the keyboard could talk wirelessly back to the tablet so that I could put the keyboard behind the screen and still type on it every now and then when I'm primarily drawing with the computer.
If you have an M-series iPad, you won't need another for years because the user interface and processing power are sufficient.
The only way to change that is introducing more powerful capabilities to the iPad that require faster hardware.
On the flip side, Apple seems to be leaning in hard on subscription services so they can have recurring revenue when you don't get new hardware.
I think I'm going to try laying out my next book using Affinity Publisher - I used the Mac version to lay out the last one so hope I can do the same while finding benefits for doing so with my little paddy.
One other side benefit is that the iPad somehow seems incongruous - with a laptop out in public you're "working" yet with an iPad you're somehow perceptually not.
Plus, iPad coupled with Library Genesis is awesome. Totally awesome. Yeah I'm a terrible libertarian pirate, but it's just incredible. Better than the libraries I've paid a fortune for as part of my education. Heaps better than the annoying tedium of logging in to various publishers and databases and subscriptions via a library website to then use a locked-down epub in a horrible and further locked down DRM e-reader, every one of which I've ever tried is basically an abomination.
Contrast it to a more general computer running macOS or Windows, which does a poorer job at what iPad does best, but it has a much longer tail where the complexity ramps up linearly, compared to the hockey stick of iOS.
Computers seem to be awesome tools for refining ideas yet really bad at facilitating their creation.
There’s also an analogous situation in hip-hop with the very limited SP-1200 and MPC 60 samplers. They don’t do much but what they do, they do well, so it’s up to producers to work to that and try to transcend it. Having an unlimited workspace in the computer to replicate the same doesn’t lead to better hip hop.
So you’re right to invoke metaphysics, because the machines have a kind of ontology, same as the mode of life of the artists using them. It doesn’t have to be a metaphysical quest, but there can be better and more interesting ways of creating on limited tools, particularly if you’ve used them for a long time. Some writers such as Jean Baudrillard stuck with typewriters as a writing tool long after the introduction of the desktop computer (he died in 2007) because he found it was simpler and better, less distracting, more focussed on the word and him. You could invoke the same “omfg you could be pasting in hyperlinks and doing referencing and surfing at the same time you’re just doing it for your own sake!” toward someone like that, but actually it’s not for its own sake, he only needs to think and produce text and it’s the perfect tool for that, the computer is only ever pretending to be a typewriter and comes with a load of noise and headache alongside.
I don't think there's anything fundamentally limiting about the iPad or iPhone computationally. The only limiting factor is the interface. Which if you're trying to cultivate frustration in order to pour it into your album, sure. But mere frustration is better had elsewhere, imo.
I think that staying with the typewriter to write books is entirely different than adopting a curated, sandboxed mobile device as one's medium. Firstly, it was at one point the gold standard for writing. Never the case with touch screens. Secondly, iPhones and iPads are not simpler or less distracting than a typewriter, or even a computer not connected to the internet. playing with the chmod command from 1970 is really not that interesting.
But also I seriously doubt that people will look back on iPhone 5 videos like they do and will do vinyl records, LaserDiscs, or even CDs.
Yeah, my point. Please read my comment before negating it as matter of course.
Beethoven’s ears breaking is a slightly different issue than technological limitations - his technology of ink on paper was still the same. He wasn’t playing each orchestral part one by one when he wrote his symphonies, he just couldn’t hear his main composing instrument any more, but had obviously internalised the skill of hearing it all in his head long before he lost the ability to hear it outside of his head upon playback, sadly.
Nujabes didn’t pioneer lo-fi.
What do you want? I guess you mean he only pioneered good lo-fi that wasn't Grandmaster Flash cringe. How did Niggaz Of Destruction pioneer lo-fi?
You completely skipped over my point about the internet but ok.
Nujabes steals Gigi Masin's "Clouds" totally wholesale for a remix of Five Deez https://youtu.be/Yu_hqMfXIN8
It had even been stolen wholesale before by To Rococo Rot in 1999: https://youtu.be/Dzx7p2HyKik and by Bjork in 2002: https://youtu.be/A-AukyfMTKE
what are you talking about? Five Deez is credited. The song is even called Latitude! LOLLLL. where's the theft? also, I'm surprised that you couldn't find any actual wholesale theft (it's DEFINITELY there, ahem Aruarian Dance https://www.reddit.com/r/Nujabes/comments/3fagps/the_story_o...) because lo-fi as a genre IS ENTIRELY CONSTRUCTED AROUND SAMPLING OTHER PEOPLE, often uncredited, looping it, and making it sound like vinyl on a tube amp or some shit. What did you think lo-fi was? LOL. it's like vaporwave. not like electronic pop rock or rap. So your argument that theft is what prevents someone from having pioneered a genre built on theft is not just absurd, the exact opposite is true. Theft is what make lo-fi lo-fi.
What is your actual argument? That the songs stolen weren't obscure enough to count as authentic lo-fi stealery? Are you some kind of lo-fi hipster that only listens to tracks with the most obscure samples from the 17th century or something?
To Rococo Rot isn't lo-fi nor is that song. Björk isn't lo-fi either. It's electronic. You're not even in the same genre. So how in the fuck could they have pioneered the genre they've never been part of? Or are you off on some idiotic pedantic technicality that nujabes didn't pioneer the genre, the sounds themselves did. OOOOOHHHH. We're all so impressed.
You probably think it's really insightful to blather on about how pop art is derivative because it's remixing the label from a soup can. Ten thousand IQ.
This is lo-fi, from 1991 https://youtu.be/ZWCQQ1ZWi04
Def Leppard is the polar opposite of lo-fi but you think they're lo-fi artists because they have shitty demo tapes? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kU2XiEq5eE4 holy shit. this means that everyone pioneered lo-fi. LOL, bro. get it together. this is embarrassing.
By all means, strictly delimit a made-up genre (based upon the confusion of internet neckbeards) and fix it by definition to ensure you remain correct - musically and musicologically your lo-fi genre and the artists within are replicating music that is sonically and functionally identical to music made a decade or two earlier. And try telling Pete Rock, The Bomb Squad, JayDee, MF Doom, RZA, almost any actual pioneer producers: “Wait you guys are mistaken, Nujabes was the pioneer of lo-fi hip hop, even though he came out years after you guys.” Try even doing the same with DJ Krush even if you want to remain in Japan. And even worse, you’re defending the honour (for some strange reason) of a producer whose music and beats are beyond lame. Keep enjoying your crappy music.
I would love to hear you tell Daniel Boone that he's not a pioneer because some skeleton turned up. LOL.
However, by saving those thoughts to a computer suddenly they are more likely to be tweaked than discarded. I’m not bound to include them they just get sticky and slow down my exploration of novel ideas.
A whiteboard lends itself to constantly erasing things rather than meaningless tweaks. Collaborate with a few people and nobody suggests moving a box you just drew on a whiteboard, but on a computer someone will want to move it around. The capacity itself becomes a distraction.
At least I think that is the point.
“The best camera is the one you have with you” is common photography advice
Whether or not the author is limited by his perception of iPad’s ability is needless hair-splitting.
How does BitTorrent work via the app store by the way? Kappa.
There's thousands of "they"s.
I don't think torrents are at any risk of being taken over by a small number of actors.
I guess some people like to be managed and set strict boundaries, but that's a far cry from creativity. If creativity happens, as it always does, its despite these hard limits
I’ve used a PowerBook / MacBook since about 2002, and even had one with me at the time when I was writing, but nevertheless found the iPad Air a perfect tool for the task at hand. I needed to read and write and create, and it did that brilliantly. When I needed to get more involved and manage heaps of files and format them into a multi-gigabyte publication, yeah of course I switched to doing that on a MacBook, but it remains that I wasn’t hamstrung in creative terms by carrying an iPad around all day, and indeed, more inspired by being able to use a computer more often and more effectively. Some of the images in my book were also taken with the iPad, which the MacBook couldn’t have done. So yeah, some limitations but some new freedoms.
Only if you stipulate that it was never designed to handle text editing, multi-object selection, and a number of other fundamental use cases that apparently no one at Apple bothers to do on their iPads — if they did, they’d either 1. Experiment to find better solutions; or 2. Admit that there is no good touch-based solution for this UX scenario.
That’s actually the definition of a product. To create something for specific use cases. That’s not an Apple problem/issue.
Sure, I could use my Toyota Camry (iPad) to haul lumber - but it’d make more sense to use a truck (MacBook) that was designed for those use cases.
In your analogy, it's like a truck is clothed as a Camry but it really needn't be.
I guess it's the difference between a geek's and generalist's viewpoints.
Now clearly the hardware is different too. But I think the whole “appliance” thing is software.
Maybe refining the argument to: It’s a Camry with the same horsepower as the truck?
Funny thing I was at the hardware store today looking at modern trucks and was laughing to myself that they seem so much more car-like than when Steve Jobs made that comment. They have pretty interiors with cup holders and infotainment centers. And cars these days have horsepower approaching trucks. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Why are people trying to use a tool it wasn’t designed for?
Eg the iPad does not have a built in keyboard. Why are people trying to use it to write long form essays/books when it’s designed default keyboard is on display - and then they get upset at Apple.
And that's without acknowledging the keyboard they sell!
> … computer running macOS …
I would argue that some form factors are better for some use cases, others for other use cases, and we are still figuring out how to best take advantage of each particular form factor.
Despite how popular it seems to be, I think framing it as "it's bad for certain use cases because Apple is evil" is a bit reductionist, and sort of gives up on the power we do have to mold tools to our needs.
You can see it in this short explanation video at the very start. And when he goes into the explanation, the very first thing he says is that the iPads control Ableton.
Side note: I wonder if Adobe ever regrets discontinuing Framemaker for Mac given the resurgence of Apple in the intervening years.
The iPad isn't for multimedia production like podcasting or for connecting niche peripherals to.
But if you just want to write and e-mail and Zoom and read(+annotate) and watch, it's fantastic.
I just use a Bluetooth (Magic) keyboard with mine for writing in coffee shops and it's great. And the Pencil is a godsend for highlighting and annotating PDF's.
gross.
Perhaps I'm spoiled.
Don’t forget that people coded whole programmes on the Sinclair ZX80 and rubber-membrane-keyed ZX Spectrum, which were both abominable, nightmare fuel in fact to those desirous of Cherry keycaps and clicky tactility. The Smart Keyboard is a functional middle ground.
I also wrote the book in Google Docs, and pecked out some of it on my Android smartphone if inspiration struck. The fact that changes instantly sync so seamlessly and unthinkingly between platforms and devices I think is also really brilliant. It’s easy to forget in our quest for computing perfection that ‘good enough’ really is good enough if inspiration strikes. I wrote huge chunks of the book on transport and in public – literally on aeroplanes, trams, sitting on benches outside the library or by the beach. Creating where for the most part people are just consuming or scrolling content in those environments. The iPad and its day-long battery is amazing for this, and I’m not sure that a laptop would have been the same.
But…maybe that wasn't a bad thing?
I feel like the iPad, despite alllll the efforts to seemingly make it a pro device, is an iPhone, but bigger. It's great for messages, browsing Facebook, and watching video, and that's just fine. Because that serves a lot of people's needs, and trying to add in a bunch more stuff just overloads the touch interface paradigm. (Ugh, the number of times I activated the split screen thing when they first introduced multitasking…)
Weirdly enough, I don't think the iPad Pro is more than just the iPad but faster and bigger. There are tons of model-based software restrictions between the different models for what I assume are market segmentation reasons.
Meanwhile, Samsung has had Dex for a few years now, and it works great. It's included on any midrange product and up and it feels like what you would expect from "what happens when I plug my phone/tablet into a USB C dock".
Apple's reveal of their weird multitasking iPad interface was quite humorous to me. It just screams "don't try to do anything professional on here" compared to the existing solutions Samsung have provided for years.
Too bad Qualcom/Samsung/Mediatek can't figure out how to compete with Apple. Dex on an iPad could replace many people's laptops and desktops and compete with Microsoft's Surface series.
> Too bad Qualcom/Samsung/Mediatek can't figure out how to compete with Apple
I'd argue Microsoft did, and they're at their 9th iteration of a decently good product. As do Dell, Huawei, ASUS and the other makers shipping windows tablets. They're definitely there on the "Pro" side.
Samsung also pushed some pretty good devices on the Chromebook side, which I'd argue is a more direct competitor to iPad if it comes to elderly or kids in school where you need a more constrained and touch first experience.
It's kind of frustrating, because I think what's happening here is that the Surface Go line makes a lot of money, and a 11-inch-but-fast thing would probably be popular but have less juicy margins.
On the price, tbh I was only looking at the 13 inch line as that's the standard A4 size, but I get it's not ideal if portability is a priority. At 13 inch a 1000+ price is competitive with the iPad Pro, but for smaller size/prices the Huawei or Dell tablets could be a better value.
It is a lot more convenent to carry an iPad with a magic keyboard than to carry a USB-C dock, keyboard and mouse though.
iPad solves exactly ONE single problem for him: no enough screen space on his phone.
Having fewer malware vectors is a big plus but one still needs to exercise caution.
Now then, I think the problem with the Surface Pro was that it was perfect for that transitional period of time where the iPad made for a very awkward computer. Microsoft gave the Surface Pro USB ports, a slick magnetically attached keyboard, and the OS that let you run practically anything whether or not it made sense to do it on a tablet. Oh and you could draw on it!
The original iPad did NONE OF THAT. However, the current iPad does have a slick magnetic keyboard, a usb-c port, and you can draw on it with the apple pencil. Plus I think there are many more apps developed for iOS than there are for Windows - especially involving tablet use cases.
So I don't think the Surface Pro is really needed anymore. I'm not sure Microsoft is even interested in continuing to make them in the long run (but I may be wrong!)
The other thing - I keep saying this: MS isn't interested in consumers. They just aren't. Their primary interest is selling Office 365, Azure 365, AD hosting, etc to businesses. Windows and almost every other product they make seems to get more love and attention in controlling the users/administering the users/giving sysadmins the keys to control their loyal servants... than anything else... It really shows in the way they produce their products.
From where I'm standing, the iPad is a crappy platform that has no reason to exist. It's a worse Mac. I can maybe see artists using an iPad for the touch screen, but that use case only exists because Apple refuses to give the Mac a touch screen.
Like most modern computing devices (laptops, phones, smart watches, etc) it has crossover functionality with some devices but not in all cases, and in some it is the superior device for varying reasons.
Especially if you're trying to travel light, and you know you need a laptop, I don't understand why you'd pack the iPad as well.
The iPad is a great bridge between the phone and laptop. It's not for everyone, but it's not a huge extra effort or weight to travel with (slides into the laptop bag I'm taking anyway) and it fits my use case. If I was travelling and I forgot it, it also wouldn't be a huge deal and I would use my laptop.
It's also handy as a second monitor when coding (keep a terminal up on it) or to watch a show while sending emails or doing something else on the laptop. Again, not a big deal if I don't have it, but useful if I do.
I've never bought an iPad or found use for the one I was once given as a present, I have seen older people transition from using cheap crappy laptops to iPads with only positive feedback, probably because it's easier for them to use.
It's largely the same UI as their smartphone which they'll be familiar with by now, it's easier to pick up and put down, smaller form factor but not so small that they'd be pinch-zooming frequently as they would on a phone, etc.
Anecdotal but it makes sense. Also marginally easier for a layperson to hold an iPad up and show a partner what they're buying, than a laptop.
Personally, I'm in the industry, and I've been playing with computers for 27 years. I have a phone for reading stuff like this on the go, and a laptop for working on things home or at the office. I have no professional or recreational use for a tablet. I have a laptop and I'm very glad it doesn't have a touchscreen. But I can understand why non-laptop products exist.
Couple of other developers I know have iPads, but they have them in the same way they have an electric toothbrush — they didn't need it, but they bought it anyway. Mostly see them use it for browsing the web or shopping after work. I suppose if your stuff's at the office and you just want to cruise the web, an iPad is lighter than a personal laptop, but I just use my phone /shrug emoji.
Some illustrators I know have iPads but I'm pretty sure they'd survive without them. For actual work they have a proper setup (wacom, magic trackpad), and if you need to sketch something on the fly, pen and paper is still a functional and low-cost solution, as is a phone since you have one already for a dozen other reasons.
Designers don't need an iPad at all, mouse is sufficient.
A Mac with a touch screen would be worse than useless for this, because it still wouldn’t be a tablet form factor, and you need that for the right feel.
So while I too would like to have a touch screen on my MacBook, there’s no way I’d ever use it for drawing the way I use my iPad.
1. I find it extremely useful for one specific thing: chess. I can't effectively play blitz timed games with a mouse, and with a smartphone I get way more off-by-one mistaken taps than with the ipad mini.
2. Almost five years later, my daughter enjoys making animations on it with Scratch Jr.
3. It is a comfy form factor for just plain reading content from the web. When I come across something specific that I'd like to put more than, say, 40 minutes of directed attention to, I sometimes pull up the resource on the ipad and hit the couch. It's a lot easier for me to focus on long form content (especially if it's dense or boring) with the ipad because it isn't my computer. I can't instantly call up other interesting and ongoing tasks with a meticulously programmed hotkey.
Also, touchscreen laptops felt like an upgrade to me until I tried to use one. IMO, the geometry just isn't there. If the screen is close enough to be touched as part of the general workflow, then it's too close for your eyes or else the keyboard itself is too close.
An iPad (or tablet form factor) is excellent for consuming content on the internet, which includes eBooks amongst movies, reels, articles, blogs, news etc.
I've got a paper white and while the browser on it is decent, and you can email yourself PDF's to view on there - it's still a subpar experience for anything that isn't formatted to display as an eBook on an e-ink display.
Don't get me wrong, I love reading on my kindle and it's far easier on the eyes, but it doesn't do what an iPad does in the same way reading a book on the iPad is more tiresome than on a kindle.
Have you tried reading content on the web on the kindle, as the ones I mention above?
That said: a tablet wins out where I need to sit down with the docs of some technical monstrosity for a dedicated hour.
Both of my iPads never leave my home. I am an avid traveller (before the pandemic) and even then I never took my iPad out of my house.
I do travel with my MacBook Pro (with Linux these days), Kindle and a couple of smartphones (I use both iPhone and Android). I don’t see any need in an iPad at all.
- ebooks - web articles - RSS - newspaper - tv series and films
My mother-in-law, for instance, does everything from an iPad. She doesn't own a computer anymore. She does her emails, bills, spreadsheets, printing, reading...etc etc...from her iPad. She has a keyboard she can hook up to it to write long things, and then puts it away when she doesn't need it.
Could I work like this? No. But again, this doesn't mean everyone is like me. It all has to be taken case-by-case. I would suspect that the vast majority of readers to Hacker News can't work like this either, nor could they think of why anyone would want to...so confirmation bias kicks in big time.
What does the tablet add that makes it indispensable for travel? Just the media consumption?
I never used a tablet for an extended amount of time so maybe I’m missing something here.
The iPad is great for media consumption while traveling. e.g. playing some games or watching shows, and it's good enough to do some cramped work in a pinch (sales and business management). Also take notes/sketch with the pencil, read a book/article.
Most of the things I would use the iPad for can be done better with a more dedicated, or more versatile, channel. Like a laptop, or a paper notebook, or a paperback book/kindle etc. But the convenience for me of having it all in the one package is enough to make up for that.
Sounds pretty stupid, but I bought it 5 years ago thinking it was a useless purchase. But it significantly improved my travels.
It’s really great for media consumption because of it.
Even a 13” laptop is a challenge when flying in coach.
It's a shame this form factor isn't so common, and what would be perfect for a vacation would be a Chromebook. It's browser centric which is 98% of vacation related activities.
Like the author, as well as many who have commented, I've long been disappointed in the gap between macOS' support for advanced use cases (which I need), and the iPad's portability (which I like).
I picked up a Surface Go 3. Having an actual desktop OS on a well-built, decently powerful (albeit hot at times) tablet struck the perfect balance for me. Wish I had done it years ago.
If only it wasn’t so frigging slow… it’d be awesome.
The 12" Macbook is a great contender too.
Should have you covered.
I went the 12” MacBook route which can also install Linux.
I just wanted a tablet with good software, and the surface is so close to being that but the Go is a disgrace. Even an instore Go 3 barely handles opening Edge. Edge!
Unfortunately though, as of today, we're really no closer. For some insane reason, most computers that can do mobile broadband cannot do calling or SMS, at least not in any obvious way. The PinePhone Pro offers a potential story, giving you effectively Linux but on a touchscreen, but many of the OS options for it do not handle suspend well enough; and the RK3399S is not exactly about to blow anybody's mind with its performance. And of course, with no keyboard, you'll need to dock it to do any kind of "productivity" work.
With how fast flagship phones are, dockable smartphones that can just provide a full desktop OS experience when plugged in should be commonplace, but they're not. Some vendors have shown off different compelling ideas, but nothing is quite fully baked.
As for the iPad... It's still kind of a toy. I like it for drawing, the Apple Pencil is nice, but I struggle strongly to put it in the same class as a general purpose computer.
Also, one last note. I really regret the iPhone. It was a really important device, because it showed off how to design a mobile device with a capacitive touch screen that was actually nice to use. But I wish not everyone would just chase the iPhone, as there is plenty that could be done in the mobile computer space that would be compelling if everything was not a buttonless, thin slab of touch-sensitive glass.
The ipad pro as great as it is, will not replace a Macbook. Sure it can do similar things, but for professionals who only need one app and email for work or for grandmas that don't need much it certainly can be the only device. But it cannot do everything that a laptop can do and that's why most people need both a (tablet and a computer)
The surface pro devices are on their 9th generation. This is what you want if you want to travel with a tablet only experience that you are able to do laptop stuff with. Sure the tablet experience is miserable but tolerable. The only things mac users are missing is IOS/MacOS. Which I admit is a big miss. Let's be honest, the Mac OS is great it's always been the hardware that has been lacking in other areas. But the surface device is a full blown computer that runs a full desktop OS and can virtualize others. If your workflow allows for a windows device,and if you like learning and trying new stuff, you will most likely enjoy your experience. Otherwise you will be as miserable as a die hard windows user who is angry that CTRL+V is CMD+V. If devtools are the only thing keeping you with macOS then you owe it to yourself to checkout WSL[1] and the new windows terminal app[2].
Edit: I also think the touch screens have gotten more accurate so you'd probably have not that bad of an experience. Using windows with a finger or pen isn't that bad.
I know Android is much better at this, but the default "Files" app in iOS just sucks -- I feel like I have to bounce between three or four apps just to get something simple done.
Has anyone found a reasonable way to manage files on iOS?
Here is a demo video: https://vimeo.com/manage/videos/833395245
I'm building a community, join to Discord https://discord.gg/4m9g7KSaMV
My use case is a long flight where I want to watch a movie on a screen bigger than my phone. For a while, some of the streaming service iOS apps ran on my MBP. In fact, I subscribed to HBO Max partially because their app worked on my MBP. But since their rebrand to Max, it no longer works.
So, for all those reasons, I'd prefer to download content prior to the flight and watch it in-flight.
But there are plenty of cases where I cannot fathom why the developer has opted out. Like, Genshin Impact won't let you play on macOS, because ???
Mojang (= Microsoft) hates the idea of Minecraft Bedrock running on Mac with a burning passion. If you told me they somehow lobbied Apple to add this option to the App Store specifically because of Minecraft, I would have believed it.
Because this is at least the second time they have had a Mac port of Bedrock basically right in their hands, yet actively decided not to release it (the first one being Education Edition, which also runs on the Bedrock engine and is like 90% the same game – and they offer it for macOS, yet never bothered to release normal Minecraft the same way).
The other port might've cost them probably a few days of work (basically an asset swap, because the engine is done). This version (running on M-chips) they could've gotten for free, yet they killed it too.
Makes sense, so why not only offer this for devs who actually do that? Declare that a Mac version of the app already exists and let Apple check.
> they don't want a lot of customers complaining about a lousy UX.
This comes up every time and it's a legitimate concern, but IMO no way it warrants to completely block users from running compatible software on their computers. Call it "Unsupported Mode", spam me with warnings, prevent me from submitting reviews… but never completely block it. That's the asshole approach.
The iPad really does have great battery life on the other hand.
Scroll down to "Chip": https://www.apple.com/ipad-pro/specs/
There might even be some logic to that with each device optimized for it's specific best purpose. It also doesn't hurt that it makes them more money.
IMO they should do a hard turn and make iPadOS it's own thing. Give it the benefits of iOS but with macOS flexibility. Right now, it's essentially a bigger phone.
I'm pretty sure Final Cut Pro would export a video in the background of an 8GB MBA just fine.
I have an iPad Pro 12.9 with the magic keyboard as a device that's not purely for work but honestly, it's been collecting dust and I use it perhaps once a week to read news on the couch. It's pretty much a glorified note taker, a way to browse pictures/videos on a bigger screen, and respond to non-serious emails. For what I'm using, I don't think it's worth the $999+ price point.
But why, though? The author never bothers to justify this. If you acknowledge that your tablet is so anemic that you have to bring your laptop with you, why not save the weight of the tablet and just bring the laptop?
I just don’t think the UX is good enough for their standards. MacOS is poorly suited for touch interactions, and iPadOS is poorly suited for mouse cursor oriented interactions. 2-in-1s are just terrible UX experiences that Apple doesn’t want to be associated with.
Until the m1 is was 100% not possible, now that they are both arm it’s possible but still would require an entirely new device class to do it justice
Microsoft made that possible at least 6 years ago with Surface Book. Why couldn't Apple? (spoiler they could)
https://youtu.be/SdQQ8uvylJ0?si=as1k5R5BhFTZiys_&t=106
And there are other brands too: https://www.ign.com/articles/best-detachable-laptops
Took me 10 seconds to Google. Why do people go to these great lengths to defend giant soulless corporations is beyond me.
Hell, Microsoft has had a tablet offering since 2003 or earlier. It’s hard to do touch and traditional and do justice to both.
ios is arm, macbooks were x86, now is arm. thats why. it is impressive what rosetta 2 does, but it still impacts a significant performance and battery hiut
Now why they didn't make a touch macbook/detachable screen with osx is another question, and likely because there isnt the demand. i was just addressing why you couldn't just smush ios and osx together/run both on the same device
(before anyone jumps in to tell me the simulator is not a full OS: I know. But there was a full toolchain to build for x64, if they’d chosen to Apple could have leveraged it)
sharing the cpu arch makes things easy, case in point at launch m1 ran ios apps.
Again, simulator builds in Xcode are exactly that on x64 devices.
> it would be rosetta2 in reverse
It wouldn’t. Rosetta takes programs compiled for one CPU and runs them on another. But in this scenario apps would be built specifically for x64. Xcode previously had the ability to build multiple architectures in one package (32bit and 64bit), they could totally package ARM and x64 together if they wished to.
Sure, a small number of apps would fall to the wayside. But it’s not like Apple has hesitated to do that before.
What is your perspective based on? I'm not sure it's accurate, especially for productivity/professionals [1]. This matches my personal experience.
[1] https://www.jamf.com/blog/total-cost-of-ownership-mac-versus...
edit: Any comments about the accuracy of this? Or perhaps something to dispute it?
Proof in case, I can plug an android phone into a windows or linux os device and have zero problems yeeting files around and doing stuff off the block with zero input from me for drivers or some fancy app to let me get to the data. I cant do this with an iphone. The most simple act of using a phone as a physical storage device to get something from point a to b....near impossible on apple hardware. Meanwhile its been stock standard functionality for about 15+ years on other devices.
> made all their software offerings over the last 20
What Apple software would people want outside of the Apple ecosystem? Do you have an example? Most of the "niceness" is system wide/cross device integration related, many of which don't have an equivalent in the other OSs to share. For example, try to wirelessly transfer a file, quickly, between any combination of linux and Windows without an active WiFi connection.
The only "substantial" software I can think of, from Apple, is iMovie. My only frequent use is Preview and Keynote. Everything else is either Microsoft (including Office), or third party.
> they walled it off and made mac's about as incompatible and hard to work with for any other device (android,windows,linux) as they possibly could.
Is this also about wired connections? Do you have an example? For me, NFS, VNC, and lots of third party stuff to take care of the rest, the same that I use for PC to PC/linux. I'm not aware of walls for macOS. There's no restrictions for software. I even have third party kernel extensions installed right now.
> plug an android phone into a windows or linux os device
That is obviously intentional, and probably annoying. Although, I can't say I've used wired transfer with a phone in over a decade, including on my Android phone. I have a far less $/Gb USB3 drive to go from computer to computer.
I might be breaking HN guidelines with this comment.
...
https://apps.apple.com/us/developer/microsoft-corporation/id...
:)
bah gawd that’s IrDA’s music!
How about starting with iMessage?
Keynote etc. for Linux would be rather nice.
At one point, I joined a local MUG (Mac Users Group), hoping we could find common cause and support each other in a Windows world. Sadly, that was naive of me.
It's been a long time since I stopped trying to like Android devices, but quite a few years ago I remember Android phones no longer working as a mass storage device you could drag files onto. That was a widely discussed intentional decision by Google and was one of several things that made me decide that Android's talk about freedom, openness and all that was just marketing. You can plug an Android in and drop stuff on it like a thumb drive again now?
I don't think that ever changed, though the vendor can probably turn it off, since they have the source.
On Linux, it can (depends on what you told the phone to present) photos or storage or such. It appears in Nautilus like any other external drive. I usually use it it move the photos off my phone onto my computer.
A damning indictment of the personal computing industry is that Apple nonetheless deliver the best of anyone this front, by a mile, for most users. The whole product category of personal computing devices and operating systems is a real shit-show.
"They've developed utter shite over two decades but only did so because of their impossibly high standards and they care about you, the customer."
Are you referring to extra cloud storage?
edit: A response would be appreciated, so I can understand what's going on with this comment. This is a genuine question. What subscription am I missing out on here?
The cloud subscription just gets you more than the 5Gb of free storage. I use Microsoft OneDrive for extra cloud storage. Handoff, shared clipboard, airdrop, sidecar, and all the other nice stuff works without extra cloud storage. You do need to have an iCloud account.
It's 2023, and you still can't have multiple user accounts on any model of iPad, "Pro" or otherwise. This is a feature you can just take for-granted on virtually any other "computer" too.
https://support.apple.com/en-hk/guide/deployment-education/e...
The feature has existed for years, Apple just won't let you use it because they'd rather sell separate devices to every family member.
For all the talk about environmentalism and their elaborate phone recycling robots, they're not too concerned about the "reduce" part of "reduce, reuse, recycle." Never mind that it's the most important one that you're supposed to do before the others.
EDIT - I'm aware a local users system without a network login system would require a slightly different implementation from schools, but a small 2.8 trillion dollar company like Apple could figure it out if they wanted to
The iPadOS is so broken in basic ways that I can't even.
AdGuard and Hush for ad blocking, both free.
VLC for video, has built in ftp server which makes loading your pirated videos on super easy.
foobar2000 for music. Hands down the best music player, also has ftp support for easily loading all your favorite pirated music.
Bitwarden for password/totp management.
Joplin for notes (free). GoodNotes for pdf/sketchnotes (not free but worth it imho)
I don’t care about the particulars of the hardware that enables such an experience.
I think the latter is a plausible evolution of the iPad Pro.
I happen to agree with them, but I would love to be able to switch between the two. macOS is powerful, but adding touch to it would actually be terrible.
Switching between those modes and input paradigms, while maintaining some level of context would be a really great experience.
They're allowing iPad and iOS apps on the macs, so it doesn't seem so clear cut. Feels more like they don't have a clear incentive to push further when people keep buying both products.
See examples: Control Center, Share Sheet, Notifications, the entirety of the new System Settings app…
I picked up an X13s (the ARM one) for travel. It's not perfect -- one thing I like about iOS is that the airline apps are kind of required for IFE, but, my X13s weighs the same as my iPad Pro with a keyboard and can do much more. Trying to use Google Slides or Docs on the iPad is a poor experience.
The fact that they don’t allow this is absurd. They basically charge $1500 for macOS. I’d probably pay that to let my iPad dual boot if they’d let me!
Either data over the charging port, or low throughput over Bluetooth 5 (when is 6 due?)
https://www.theverge.com/23794761/lenovo-yoga-book-9i-review
It's too heavy to read from.
I initially got the biggest iPad but it was certainly too heavy to hold like a book and read comfortably. I switched to an iPad mini which was perfect for reading everything but PDFs, the problem is I read a lot of PDFs. I currently use an 11” and take the cover off to read with it, I find it to be the right trade off between size and weight for me.
I travel with an Android tablet now — and while they have their own problems they still are far more functional and flexible than iPads. Want to watch a movie that's not on Netflix or Prime? Just find a torrent and open Flud. You can use it as a FTP server, basically anything you need, an Android tablet is perfect for. My iPad is delegated to note taking now with the pencil.
It's also pretty clear that iPads nowadays are the lowest of Apple's priorities.
Settled on the Surface Go, which was the right call and later upgraded to the Go 3 with Intel Core m3 processor. With heavy cpu/gpu use it gets very warm and throttles down so got a USB peltier cooler that keeps performance 100%
My dream is some form of MacOS being released on iPad Pro instead of iOS … not going to happen but would absolutely buy one if it happened.
It does pretty much force me to single-task, often either in a document or a terminal (Blink), which can be a real advantage at times. But so often I'll need to swap between a browser, Slack, Trello, a terminal, etc. that I'll end up with background apps getting killed due to memory pressure or the dreaded "respring" where the base UI completely reloads.
So the iPad now mostly makes a good reader (indoors only though), note-taker, and video watcher. It'd be good as a travel monitor if goddamn Sidecar could work more than 24% of the time.
As I entered into a more senior work role, I refused to put work email or teams on my phone. No device management or malware on my personal device.
Instead, I found out that my company let me use an iPad with email and teams and the management software didn't infect the whole system making it nearly useless, and I could even take screenshots. It's not perfect but let me have a lighter daily carry.
All that said, I can't develop on an iPad. I think if I could get an MBA for on the go meeting type work and a mac studio for delivery, that would be fine. But then we're right back to: I refuse to have any of that stuff on my personal device.
It's a shame. A full desktop OS in iPad form factor is basically a holy grail.
I'd bet that Apple is still shipping 5x-10x as many A-series iPads as M-series iPads.
I'd love to be able to run a more capable OS on an M-series iPad, but not if that means all the rest have a worse experience. Maybe Apple needs to release an iPadOS Pro to go along with the M-series chips?
I still primary use a laptop, but that is because I like the form of it. So I have no actual experience trying to survive with only iOS.
There are many places in the world where the availability of the internet is so spotty and so poor, that trying to use VNC to get work done would not be possible.
The only way to make VNC worse is to have to do it on a $1000 locked down tablet.
There are many, many ways to acquisition that, just because apple won't let you do it doesn't mean it can't be done. Anything that can run linux with the KDE plasma desktop environment will, at very least, feel very familiar to OSX. You might have to seek out some app alternatives if you're doing something specific, but nowadays general desktop computing like you'd do on a laptop is well covered in most distros, and if you're looking for a place to start, Kubuntu is likely your best OOB experience.
Combine that with basically any windows native tablet computer, and you're off to the races. You'll likely have to play with some things to get it how you want it, but the nice thing about linux is you can play with those things.
So yes, the holy grail is here weary traveler.
I think MS got the closest to sort of addressing it with windows 8, but everyone simply defaulted to the desktop mode rather than the touch mode (didn't help that the windows store was/is incredibly poorly done).
This is why devices like the surface pro or other 2 in 1 devices never really seemed to work out. You are either harming the tablet experience or the keyboard experience.
This is really not the case with iPadOS though. It already works quite well with a touchpad and keyboard. The hardware is already there to control a full desktop OS, iPadOS already allows itself to be be controlled as if it’s a desktop OS, and with continuity mode, it’s already possible to control macOS via an iPad.
All of these things already work pretty well, and paint a pretty decent picture of what might be if Apple decided to go further.
Some things just work better on a touchscreen, even when they’re running on macOS. Some things just work better with a mouse and keyboard, even when they’re running on iPadOS.
As long as there’s some way to transition between them, I do really think a best-of-both-worlds option exists, because it’s mostly there already.
A holy grail you've been able to buy for 7 years; Microsoft Surface Book with detatchable screen. High quality hardware, beautiful screen, best touchpad on a Windows laptop I've used, but the removable screen to make it a tablet just ... isn't very useful.
It served as a overspec baby cam monitor for a few months but we had so many issues that the second time I went to reformat it, we replaced it.
I use two (2) applications for productivity: Safari to run web applications and the RDP client for everything else.
I think different. Instead of getting an expensive special-purpose keyboard, I have my choice of any compact Bluetooth keyboard and mouse.
I'm not waiting for Apple to do anything, although I am waiting for the 40th anniversary of Apple's 1984 Superbowl ad. I'm hoping somebody runs a parody of it, because if you don't control your computer, your computer controls you.
How do you find this in practice?
For example, do you have random connection errors, or latency issues?
And have you tried connecting from another country? Or are you always physically close to the main device?
My big computer is behind an ADSL connection where the uplink is pretty slow. If I am changing windows it can take a few seconds for the window to update but once the window is up it is reasonably responsive to type into PyCharm. If I spun up a machine in us-east-2 and used it over a gigabit connection it would be very fast.
Recently my 2013 Mac Mini crapped out and the keyboard fascia of my Alienware laptop delaminated so I swapped in the Alienware for the Mac Mini so I don't really have a laptop I want to travel with. I am not sure what I will get to replace it and when; I've got some desire for a laptop for "hacking" such as connecting to a WiFi CAN bus dongle in my car or to go to an electronics club and program my Arduino. I haven't really decided what it's going to be yet.
The thing is I do most of my software dev on a “gaming PC” I built myself that has a good graphics card. My RSS reader YOShInOn runs when I am awake and as a web app it is super responsive on my tablet. I just drank a coffee at the gas station and I am tapping this out on my iPad right now. It’s really convenient to use this machine even if I do have a moment sometimes when I’m not sure if the window I picked will open and have to suppress the urge to click again (which could make the window go away!)
I just don't get it.
> I just don't get it.
Here I sit far from any WiFi, doing the same on an iPad Pro with the same "real keyboard" backlit magic keyboard with a smaller but just fine touchpad, a charging cord dock port, an inset hinge taking less room on an airline tray table; and of course the 120hz 2732x2048 264ppi touch screen with 1600nits brightness; connected by eSIM to my 4G and 5G carriers of choice but not really caring because I also have 2TB of local SSD built in.
I guess I have a very different approach to travel.
I don't have to be at my mother's dining room table. I don't have to get my Verizon JetPack (I own the top model fast enough to act as backup uplink for a small office in an emergency, but then I'm carrying two things, not one).
I can shed the keyboard and just read my Kindle, or take notes with feel of paper like my Remarkable 2 thanks to having installed the Paperlike™ screen protector while fresh out of the box.
I can present on a second screen, or drag multiple different app windows to a 6K monitor.
I can use it days in a row without having any idea where a power pack is, fast charge it from any 30W USB-C, and slow charge it from, well, anything. Same port works with most any USB-C dock, and any Thunderbolt 3 dock.
Lying in a hotel bed watching Netflix in HDR with speakers is no way to use a laptop. The iPad 12.9 at arm's length -- no awkward keyboard to weigh you down or cramp your style -- is a larger apparent screen size than a 75" TV, and looks better than most of them too.
All the tools most anyone needs are there. Office suite, Affinity suite, VSCode via blink code (same tool for mosh/ssh), Obsidian notes for personal KB, GoodNotes for handwritten ... even Kagi Orion if I need Firefox and Chrome extensions.
Same form factor for travel, same form factor for the boardroom, and more specs than really anyone needs: https://www.apple.com/ipad-pro/specs/
And nobody's offended when you're using it. Nobody says "no laptops please".
Does everything, goes everywhere, all at once.
. . .
> even when my trip combines business and personal, it's no challenge at all to carry two laptops--my own, and the company's, in the same attache
TL;DR: For business or personal, iPad Pro w/ Magic Keyboard is no challenge at all to carry no laptops, in no attache, with no WiFi. And no inspections from TSA.
Most people’s computing life is Office-style docs, emails, browsing, and social media. The iPad is great at doing those things.
If your default mode of computing insists on having a host of windows open that you, after years or decades of experience, can fly through like a hacker god in a movie, then yeah, you may find the experience limiting. That’s when you start wondering if it’s worth the trade offs.
For me personally? Yeah, on short personal trips, I go with the iPad alone. I can do everything I need to do personally with it, and if I need to reach out and do some work tasks, it’s still possible. (Not for nothing, my photo workflow now runs through the iPad first, which further enables no-laptop vacation travel.)
What do I get for making the tradeoff? I carry a far cheaper and lighter device with better battery life, and one which is also better suited to reading or video consumption (IMO) than a full laptop.
Adapting either one to work with the other would only make it worse.
You can already run some iOS apps in MacOS. I'd like a single computer where I can switch between mobile / pencil usage and desktop keyboard / mouse usage.
It works pretty well for things designed for keyboard and pointing device -- one of my main uses is to remote in to a Windows machine.
The main problems with this setup aren't inherent... while the track pad is quite good, the keyboard is passable at best (needs function keys and for the frequently used keys to stop semi-dying).
Pretty quickly you start to naturally switch between touching the screen, typing on the keyboard or using the trackpad, depending on what you're doing and what software you're using.
Now my wife laughs at me when I'm using a regular MacBook and try to swipe or tap the screen.
I'm sure at some point someone at apple has built a prototype and did extensive testing, I'd love to know why was that shut down. And whether it was a business related issue, or a tech/UX related issue.
Some models can even become relatively competent Hackintosh, though macOS lacks proper pen drivers of course.
Samsung has Dex, which is a desktop interface for Android tablets (and phones hooked up to a dock). For a while they experimented with offering a full Ubuntu desktop, but I believe they've stopped that experiment.
Honestly, Apple seems to be the only tablet manufacturer that still tries its hardest to push professional users back to laptops. With the virtualisation support in Android 13+, I wonder how long it'll take before someone brings out the first macOS-on-Samsung-Galaxy app; various people have already run Windows 11 as a proof of concept on Pixel devices so who knows how long it'll take.
She owns a home, and has 2 kids, and as far as I know has no other sources of income other than her illustrations, which are all made on her iPad.
> This is the fundamental difference between the Mac (a platform that basically lets developers and users do anything they want) and the iPad (where if Apple doesn’t specifically allow it, it can’t be done).
The iPad has some really powerful use cases, but only the ones Apple made (like illustration work).
The kids have used it to shoot and edit stop-motion movies, and ‘compose’ music.
As I said, at least one person I know keeps three people (including herself) in a home and fed, in one of the world’s most expensive cities.
But apparently this is only what “Apple allow us to do”.
1. Digital minimalism can be extended to hardware. Buying the most generalist machines for every possible use case is what leads to having all this clunkiness when you travel. Think deeply on your hardware scenario and optimise for that. You might save some money in the process too. E.g. I moved from a desktop + decent dev laptop to just an M1 MBP and a Steam Deck - primarily for portability and battery resilience during power cuts. I've recently also ditched my mech keyboard for a smaller wireless one I can travel with.
2. I do kind of wish we'd get more desktop devices in a tablet form factor - "Bring your own keyboard" sort of thing. I don't even care about having a touch screen.
Instant on, a full and normal keyboard. An i7 with 16 gb of ram is still serviceable for cloud type work (or some local). Perfect for travel, planes, cars, trains, hotels. Easy to remote into a Mac Studio if needed too.
The new iPad keyboard is nice, but there's still a lot more disney magical gesturing than a keyboard alone allows. Touch is slower, and the iPad keyboard is slower to type on than a laptop keyboard. The horsepower the iPad has is great, though. An iPad makes a great second monitor off the 12" Macbook, too.
I bet they means three devices, since I would wager they does not leave theys "more expensive than a Windows-based laptop" iPhone at home.
If you want to one task (eg. take notes, watch a movie, make a sketch) then it is great. Even the files app is good enough now to quickly find some document when you need it.
But it becomes unusable as soon as you switch between tasks.
On the Mac, I can just move some windows to the side, work on a different task, then go back to what I was doing before. My work is waiting for me right where I left it.
Advanced users can even use spaces for switching between tasks.
On iOS, I need to go to every app that I used and try to return to the previous state, at which point I'm so annoyed that I'm switching back to the Mac.
Free to download, developer-tools browser built-in (Inspect Browser), Git and PHP available as an in-app purchase. Glad to answer any questions!
It's true iOS software in general has a ways to match desktop capabilities, but desktops also have a bit of a head-start. We do believe iOS can get there, and hopefully exceed it in some ways.
(And in WebForge's case, we not selling just the Git CLI, but a UI and tool integrated into the rest of the IDE, so you're not /just/ paying for access to FOSS software on iPad. And yes, I know VSCode is free on desktops :) )
Wanna have a phone number or receive SMS on an cellular equiped iPad?
Well, fuck you, that's not allowed.
And yeah, if you have the magic keyboard/trackpad text editing is a lot better - but at that point you might as well just have the full laptop.
I finally settled on an 8inch "proper laptop": the GPD Pocket 3. Linux works like a charm, real keyboard, and powerful. It even replaced my spec'd out 15" Dell Precision (from 2017) because it's so more fun to use.
* administer a dozen HPC clusters
* perform all the digital tasks required of a non-profit board member
* learn/read, communicate, consume media, photo edit and all the other normal life things one does on a computer nowadays
I do all of my personal business on an iMac. The big gap for me was the shell, which is now not an issue with iSH available. There’s literally nothing I cannot do that I need to do that can’t be done on the iPad.
Software development is a much less niche area than podcast recording but one that is equally unsupported on the iPad. I doubt many are itching to swap their dev machines for an iPad, but given the hardware it sure would be nice if I could tinker with stuff on the sofa. But no amount of workarounds or developer ingenuity would enable that because Apple has decreed that I cannot run arbitrary code, or run a local server.
This sounds like an excellent opportunity for someone.
I know people want MacOs, but it’s a workaround that works.
It's amazing how it all works well, even the Docker integration inside VSCode. The main thing that doesn't work as well as locally is searching the source code which is very slow. A work-around would be to search your code separately in Github or whatever service you use.
Anyway, with this setup, I can go away with a clear mind that I have a dev machine available even if I only bring my iPad (with keyboard cover).
Although VSCode is impressive, at the end of the day, I'm an emacser. I went back to: emacs in a terminal over mosh, accessed with Blink Shell on the iPad; or access the same instance over Microsoft Remote Desktop for a desktop experience.
Perhaps after a few hundred of these we could identify a higher level pattern that would “make sense” instead of being frustrating. I feel like there’s some deep philosophical underpinning or monad-like slip-through-your-fingers constraint that is maddening.
I didn’t used to believe this was likely, but now we have the Vision Pro which has an internal and external screen. A combo laptop/tablet would be incredible, and they use the same chip so why not?
Get a Lenovo yoga 7i for $500 (iPad price) and you have a fully capable multi Linux machine (via WSL) which is also a fully featured touchscreen tablet. Uses the same little USB charger as your phone.
https://mgsloan.com/posts/supine-computing/
https://www.piratekingdom.com/blog/my-productivity-couch-set...
Nowadays I seldom pick my aging netbook for travelling, and how things have been going in desktop Linux even less so.
Typing this from my tablet in some island.
Luckily I have an M1 iPad Pro with iOS 15.3.1. Managed to install Oracle Database 19c ARM on Oracle Linux Arm 8.8.
Did everyone clap?
It isn't perfect, but it's made for a more ergonomic computing experience that replaced my need for a second monitor desk setup and while being a bit large can still use it for tablet experiences of reading papers and watching movies.
For them, travel ipads are perfect.
For everyone else, just leave all computers at home, or take the laptop.
And then maybe a keyboard that can convert it into a laptop (extra battery in the k/b, friction hinges to adjust tablet angle, instead of a stand, which doesn't work on an actual lap), etc.
I thought I might be able to do some light development work on it.. No chance.
I don't even know why it has so much storage space. The file system is so poorly designed it's a pain in the ass to transfer anything to it.
Apple missed the boat with the iPad AND with macOS. I use Windows now (Yes, I'm aware of the 'privacy' issues surrounding telemetry, et. al.) and haven't missed the Apple platform one bit. Gaming aside, I haven't lacked for any developer tools when using Visual Studio. For web development, VS Code and WSL2/Docker fit the bill without very many issues.
One of the biggest factor with Apple is the price. While the entry level iPad is competitively priced (550 euros for a 64gb model, or 750 euros for a 256gb model): it's also outdated (running the A14 Bionic SOC). The minute you take a peek at a more current model (iPad Air 64G @ 720 euros or 256G at 920 euros), you are firmly into laptop territory. After all this time, it's still evident that iPad cannot replace a laptop - it is still a companion device. And it's not for lack of hardware. It's because Apple still wants you to buy their laptop and then pair it with an iPad for the "complete" experience. To contrast, my laptop only cost me 900 euros for Ryzen 7 512GB SSD + 16GB RAM. Is it as fast as the M2 chip? Probably not, but you aren't using all that power on the iPad Pro the majority of the time, either.
A benchmark for the 4800U v. M2 chip:
Geekbench 6 (Single core): 1486 (4800U) -> 2536 (M2)
Geekbench 6 (Multi core): 6246 (4800U) -> 9691 (M2)
While the performance of the M2 is impressive - you aren't seeing it the majority of the time.
Another factor I've had to deal with is that Apple insist on their own way of doing things; whether that is better in the end, is still anyone's guess 10 years on. But ever the black sheep: file management; while better these days, is still an issue... lack of certain types of applications, cannot build or install your own applications without a developer ID, and so on. I can't even run emulators on it without a) building it and sideloading it using developer tools (and re-doing the steps every so often to refresh the cert) or b) jailbreaking it.
Anyways, this post went on longer than I anticipated. I know there will be defenders swooping in to proclaim that iPad Pro is the shiznit.
Let's not forget that with a screen, keyboard - my laptop costed me 900 euros 3 years ago. If I were to get an updated version of it, it would cost me 800 euros now. An iPad Pro (512G storage) with M2 and a keyboard to go with it, would cost me 1720 euros. More than _double_. And, for what?
The iPad was conceived as a media consumption device, sitting between a phone and a laptop. Steve Jobs said this at the beginning. You want to browse the web, you want send some emails, you want to watch movies. That’s it. Nothing more.
Save yourself some travel weight. Just pack your Mac. You were already packing it anyway.
Better quality mini-LED display
Better/additional cameras
Touchscreen with pen support
Magnetic charging for the pen
Detachable keyboard
Cellular data option
It’s not really a surprise that the iPad can cost more. Just a shame that the App Store limitations prevent it from being as useful a software platform for many use cases.
It's an appliance. An appliance with mind-boggingly awesome specs - if it were a computer - but it's just that, an appliance closer in spirit to a microwave than to a PC. Treat it as such, and it will be one of the best appliances you'll ever own; but to expect it to be a computer is to set oneself up to be disappointed.
I'm more than happy with it for what it is, but don't mistake it for what it's not.
If that were the case, they’d be making much more money from laptops than from iPads, right?
If they were making just as much money from iPads, though, it would make sense to make the iPad as good as possible. Cannibalizing Mac sales wouldn’t be a big deal.
Per the Six Colors breakdown of Apple’s financial results (https://sixcolors.com/post/2023/08/charts-apple-q3-2023-resu...) Macs and iPads accounted for 8% and 7% of their revenue.
The iPad was conceived as a media consumption device, sitting between a phone and a laptop. Steve Jobs said this at the beginning.
They’ve gone back on plenty of things Steve Jobs said (in many cases, Jobs himself was the one who did it).
I don’t think they have a religious objection to making the iPad useful, as you seem to be saying; I think they think they are making it useful, that the current design (including its limitations) is the best compromise.
RIP Steve.
For me, the iPad is the optional one (not that I would ever not take it). My MacBook is pretty close to being a perfect device for work. iPad is a perfect device for, well, everything else. Done.