Apple Unveils the iPad Pro • Hacker News Board

Re: Apple Unveils the iPad Pro

#661

Post by npunt » Thu, Sep 10, 2015, 2:17 AM UTC

skc wrote: post #321

hunterloftis wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep I loved the idea of the surface; tried to use it to replace my mb air for but ended up returning it because the ecosystem was terrible and the keyboard was annoying.

Huh? It's full windows and yet the ecosystem was terrible? Doesn't compute.

'Full windows' is exactly the reason the ecosystem is terrible. The uniqueness of the Surface hardware is not matched by the software. Thus, besides a few brand-name apps, most ignore touch capability and code for regular Windows to reach a broader audience. Its a perfectly rational response to Microsoft setting the wrong context for an otherwise fine product.

Re: Apple Unveils the iPad Pro

#662

Post by gress » Thu, Sep 10, 2015, 2:18 AM UTC

dmoy wrote: post #613

jamra wrote: post #512

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple strives with the nuances of its hardware. It's not necessarily how innovative and unique the product is, but the strength at which Apple secures the most unique hardware that sets them apart from the competition. Their touch sensors are different than everyone else's in supporting multi strength touches. They have good battery life with larger than HD displays. The device weights 1.5 lbs, which is much lighter…

It is about 14% lighter.

And has a dramatically better display, and all day battery, and no noisy fan.

Re: Apple Unveils the iPad Pro

#663

Post by mrmondo » Thu, Sep 10, 2015, 2:19 AM UTC

I know I'm taking the bate here but it seems to me that this is a product marketed towards artists and is clearly not a stylus for operating the device which was common practise before the iPhone was launched for the reason of mitigating the problems with resistive touch screens that were widely used at the time.

Calling this a stylus seems a bit like calling a paintbrush a chisel, and by that I don't mean that it's better than a chisel I mean that it's a completely different tool.

Re: Apple Unveils the iPad Pro

#664

Post by avn2109 » Thu, Sep 10, 2015, 2:21 AM UTC

jff wrote: post #47

Predicted by a 3 year old comic: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/COenroJWEAAjLoi.jpg:large

On the topic of retrospection: 8 years ago, Jobs himself said, "Nobody wants a stylus." [0] The times they are a changin'.

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4YY3MSaUqMg

Re: Apple Unveils the iPad Pro

#665

Post by m_mueller » Thu, Sep 10, 2015, 2:27 AM UTC

acqq wrote: post #644

m_mueller wrote: post #627

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iPad has always had 4:3. And it's still quite a difference between the two, 3:2 still feels very strange when you hold it in portrait. Holding A4 paper in portrait makes this even more obvious.

You are right, iPads had always 4:3, mea culpa. "The aspect ratio of A4, 1:1.414 is near the average of 1.5 for 2:3 and 1.333 for 3:4. US Letter is 1.294. Still Surface Pro 3 aspect is better than 16:9 (1.78) at least.

Yep. Now add some buttons while viewing an A4 paper. On an iPad they fit nicely next to where you're holding it, on a Surface you either have to put them in an awkward position, shrink the content or have them it popup in some generally non discoverable gesture.

Re: Apple Unveils the iPad Pro

#666

Post by fillskills » Thu, Sep 10, 2015, 2:31 AM UTC

tammer wrote: post #619

fillskills wrote: post #612

Earlier quoted context omitted.

May I ask what kind of development tools are available on the ipad? What is the dev workflow? I am very interested in this and hope this becomes more and more common as tablets evolve to support development. But havent seen anything serious enough yet.

Working Copy[1] is the first app I've seen to come along and really change the situation. A pretty glaring limitation of previous solutions was reliance on SSH for git control. Working Copy provides a great subset of git tools graphically. It's got a great editor, and lets you bounce files into any editor you please to be committed when appropriate. Coda[2] for iOS is also very compelling for a number of tasks, most…

Thanks. These tools are very nice. WorkingCopy looks seriously awesome. Will try it out. Like you mentioned there are lot of limitations on these tools and iOS itself. Would love to see local servers (is that even possible?) or other deployment strategies to test when access to desktop is not possible.

Re: Apple Unveils the iPad Pro

#667

Post by gress » Thu, Sep 10, 2015, 2:33 AM UTC

bad_user wrote: post #601

mythz wrote: post #422

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Apple's primary focus is on UX simplicity and Customers couldn't care less how it's implemented behind the scenes, they just want to get stuff done, find the Word document they were working on or see the Photo or Video they just took. The less Customers have to know about how technology works the happier they are, and the more successful Apple is.

You know, I've heard this argument on customers not caring about this or that oversimplification or about this or that restriction or about customizations or about poor grandmas and so forth. But you know, numbers don't lie. iOS is not the dominant design. And guess what I have on my Android? A file manager, going hand in hand with uTorrent and VLC. And guess how I'm copying music on my phone? It's not through iTunes…

The numbers of android include huge numbers of unusable devices that exist to displace feature phones. Don't kid yourself about what this means.

Re: Apple Unveils the iPad Pro

#668

Post by 2muchcoffeeman » Thu, Sep 10, 2015, 2:40 AM UTC

jcl wrote: post #626

BinaryIdiot wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In all fairness I know many people who love to draw on the Surface and really wanted a more precise pen type of input on the iPad; I think this was a long time coming and really necessary. The keyboard cover thing? Sure I could agree with you on that. I actually think Surface did a better job with it especially with the adjustable kickstand but we'll see when I can actually touch and play with the iPad Pro one.

The stylus is interesting in that it's a total about-face for Apple. So far as I can tell, no Apple store has ever stocked an iPhone- or iPad-compatible stylus -- not the cheap capacitive ones nor even the iPad-exclusive pressure-sensitive Wacom stylus for artists, despite stocking Wacom tablets. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4YY3MSaUqMg

Didn't Jobs publicly bash flash-based music players and then they released the iPod Nano?

Re: Apple Unveils the iPad Pro

#669

Post by numbsafari » Thu, Sep 10, 2015, 2:44 AM UTC

fillskills wrote: post #612

numbsafari wrote: post #571

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, I'm with the other commenter. I would still be using my iPad for development, except for the fact that I found the 9.5" screen to be just too limiting. The other reason was that all the bluetooth keyboards require a separate cable for charging, which I hate. The larger screen and the fact that they keyboard cover is powered by the tablet itself makes this super compelling. Not for my "every day development" mac…

May I ask what kind of development tools are available on the ipad? What is the dev workflow? I am very interested in this and hope this becomes more and more common as tablets evolve to support development. But havent seen anything serious enough yet.

I used Prompt, by Panic.

I basically used the tablet as a terminal to an EC2 instance. vim, tmux, git ...

When I was away from Wifi, it was a good excuse not to think about work.

Re: Apple Unveils the iPad Pro

#670

Post by macspoofing » Thu, Sep 10, 2015, 2:45 AM UTC

Two years ago I tried really hard to use my iPad as my primary workstation (or at least primary outside of the office). It didn't work. No mouse support, no multi-tasking, and very mediocre keyboard support. What they released today doesn't fix any of the above.