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New iPad Air and iPad Mini

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Re: New iPad Air and iPad Mini

#161

Post by jeswin »

svantana wrote: post #67
komali2 wrote: post #32

More and more I get the sense that there is a gap in the market for a device that ticks these boxes: Ultraportable Stylus enabled Fully capable desktop operating system Ports to allow hook-up to external monitor I wanted something like this as a frequently traveling and programming, conference hand written note taking engineer. Then I notice some of the designers in my office experimenting with iPads, Pencils, and Ma…

Interestingly, this new 7" ipad is really good value for money with regards to raw compute. Someone please correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think it's possible to buy a new complete computer scoring 11k on geekbench for under $500. This one is $400, with an efficient fanless design and a nice screen as a bonus. If it could run linux, it could potentially be an interesting server solution. That's a first for apple…

You could buy a Poco F1 for $285 - which does 8.5k on geekbench. The bonus being that it's also a phone and has an open ecosystem (with an official LineageOS port).

Re: New iPad Air and iPad Mini

#162

Post by chrisseaton »

baobrain wrote: post #143
tolmasky wrote: post #30

It is so weird that the iPad Air and iPad mini only support the old Apple Pencil. The iPad mini was my favorite incarnation of the iPad line when it came out, and I was considering getting one again, but I have no interest in needing two different kinds of iPad pencil. Apple keeps creating and extending these arbitrary transition periods. The old Apple Pencil should be in the past. Instead we have an entire other gen…

Keeping the lightning port is what really jumped out at me. Now some iPads are going to have USB C and others are going to have lightning, all under the same umbrella product of the iPad. What is even worse (!) is that the iPhones and iPads still ship with a USB A to lightning cable, meaning even users inside the Apple ecosystem need a USB C/thunderbolt dongle with usb A ports to connect their iPhones/iPads to their…

> to connect their iPhones/iPads to their computers

Why do you need to connect your iPad to your computer? I have never connected mine - everything goes through the cloud or Bluetooth. Are you developing apps on it? That's a pretty niche use-case.

Re: New iPad Air and iPad Mini

#163

Post by Woofles »

jackfrodo wrote: post #3

I'm 24 years old, work in software. Neither I nor any of my friends uses a tablet for work or pleasure. I guess I know a couple of people who have Surface Pro's, but that's about it. I'm wondering if the appeal of these begins when you get older? Seems like a lot of the market for these is people who are 50+, but I'd like to know if any people under 25 are interested in them.

I'm 25 and work in software and I have found it to be a decent (not amazing, but solid) daily driver given you're willing to put up with some annoyances.

I use the app Termius to allow me to SSH into a VPS and my home server and do development. I don't really do web development in my free time so I don't have to worry about the pains of not having a js console. I also develop almost exclusively in vim, so paired with the magic keyboard it's basically a very lightweight laptop.

It's great for Lightroom, with a dongle (everyone's favorite thing) you can connect your camera and upload RAW photos, then edit them with Lightroom and upload to your favorite site.

It's wonderful for Plex/Netflix/Hulu. Offline viewing is amazing, battery life is better than my laptop by far so it lasts long spurts where I can't charge it.

For creatives, there are some amazing digital art apps. My friend hypes up Procreate every time we talk about iPads (he's also 25/software and loves his iPad Pro).

And lastly, it's about $1k cheaper than buying a MacBook Pro (which I had previously). I was able to trade in my 2013 MBP and old iPhone and made the final cost about $300, which is much more palatable than the extra $1k or so I'd need for a machine that doesn't really need that much computing power.

Disclaimer: I do use a MacBook Pro for work (running VMs, development in vim) and it's definitely easier (has JS console, can do development without internet, can use IDEs that don't exist on iPad).

Re: New iPad Air and iPad Mini

#164

Post by Spinfusor »

Wowfunhappy wrote: post #74
komali2 wrote: post #32

More and more I get the sense that there is a gap in the market for a device that ticks these boxes: Ultraportable Stylus enabled Fully capable desktop operating system Ports to allow hook-up to external monitor I wanted something like this as a frequently traveling and programming, conference hand written note taking engineer. Then I notice some of the designers in my office experimenting with iPads, Pencils, and Ma…

The surface pro line has had USB C for a long time, and at the higher end is about as powerful as you can get in 2019 in a machine that size. I hate Windows too but you're not going to see a macOS device like this for obvious reasons (well, Apple can do anything, but I wouldn't count on it). If you don't mind running Linux natively, most Surface models do reasonably well there.

The Surface Pro has never had any USB-C ports.

Microsoft released a Surface Connect adapter only last year, and it has terrible reviews: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/p/surface-connect-to-usb-c-a...

The Surface Go, Surface Book 2, and Surface Studio 2 are the only Surface devices with USB-C ports.

Re: New iPad Air and iPad Mini

#165

Post by vbezhenar »

jackfrodo wrote: post #3

I'm 24 years old, work in software. Neither I nor any of my friends uses a tablet for work or pleasure. I guess I know a couple of people who have Surface Pro's, but that's about it. I'm wondering if the appeal of these begins when you get older? Seems like a lot of the market for these is people who are 50+, but I'd like to know if any people under 25 are interested in them.

I bought iPad 3 in 2013 (I was 25). I liked it a lot and spent almost all entertainment time with it: web, movies, books, games. I even used it for work a little bit (to present design to customer). Unfortunately with iOS 7 release it turned to potato and I never used it since then, except for occasional PDF reading (I'm reading epub from phone, but for PDF big screen is a must). I waited for that announcement and I expected them to update cheap iPad. I would buy it. But I'm not sure about that iPad Air, it costs too much and I probably won't buy it.

Actually funny thing is, it's iPad that led me to Apple ecosystem. I liked iOS a lot and then my old phone broke, so I had to buy new. When I realized, that I can buy iPhone 4S and have the same iOS that I'm using on iPad, it was almost a non-brainer and later I bought Macbook, because it felt pretty natural to keep using Apple product and I wanted to develop iOS apps. I shifted from macOS recently (Apple does not make any computers I would like to buy), but I'm still using iOS on my phone and I like it.

Re: New iPad Air and iPad Mini

#166

Post by komali2 »

beat wrote: post #80
tyleo wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm 26 and the iPad Air and iPad mini do not appeal to me but I own an iPad Pro and I am enamored with it. I use the iPad Pro at my full-time job as a Software Engineer at Microsoft. I get a lot of mileage by taking notes on it in OneNote and preparing/reading documents from the other Office apps. I also use the iPad to listen to music with Spotify (my headphones have trouble connecting to my work PC). Outside of the…

I was very pleased to discover that Visual Studio Code has been ported to ARM64 Chromebooks, and runs just fine on my cheap little Samsung I bought a couple years ago. Along with the unix shell they've recently added to Chromebooks (without needing to go into developer mode), it's not a bad development platform for a lot of things.

Also, you can install Android apps, so if you have a stylus enabled machine, you can use good note taking apps like onenote or squid. Linux sadly still lacks a good handwritten annotation/note taking app (to my knowledge).

Re: New iPad Air and iPad Mini

#167

Post by eeeeeeeeeeeee »

jackfrodo wrote: post #3

I'm 24 years old, work in software. Neither I nor any of my friends uses a tablet for work or pleasure. I guess I know a couple of people who have Surface Pro's, but that's about it. I'm wondering if the appeal of these begins when you get older? Seems like a lot of the market for these is people who are 50+, but I'd like to know if any people under 25 are interested in them.

I think you’re right. I have one but never use it. My dad, however, in his 70s, loves his. He still has a laptop but rarely ever uses it now. The iPad is basically his computer.

Re: New iPad Air and iPad Mini

#168

Post by mattdesl »

chrisseaton wrote: post #162
baobrain wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Keeping the lightning port is what really jumped out at me. Now some iPads are going to have USB C and others are going to have lightning, all under the same umbrella product of the iPad. What is even worse (!) is that the iPhones and iPads still ship with a USB A to lightning cable, meaning even users inside the Apple ecosystem need a USB C/thunderbolt dongle with usb A ports to connect their iPhones/iPads to their…

> to connect their iPhones/iPads to their computers Why do you need to connect your iPad to your computer? I have never connected mine - everything goes through the cloud or Bluetooth. Are you developing apps on it? That's a pretty niche use-case.

Charging, transferring photos and MP3s. Granted many people are using wireless (airdrop, iCloud etc) but not all.

Re: New iPad Air and iPad Mini

#169

Post by hobs »

chrisseaton wrote: post #162
baobrain wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Keeping the lightning port is what really jumped out at me. Now some iPads are going to have USB C and others are going to have lightning, all under the same umbrella product of the iPad. What is even worse (!) is that the iPhones and iPads still ship with a USB A to lightning cable, meaning even users inside the Apple ecosystem need a USB C/thunderbolt dongle with usb A ports to connect their iPhones/iPads to their…

> to connect their iPhones/iPads to their computers Why do you need to connect your iPad to your computer? I have never connected mine - everything goes through the cloud or Bluetooth. Are you developing apps on it? That's a pretty niche use-case.

Because they want to do a manual backup instead of just iCloud?

Because it was initially designed and delivered that way?

Because they like manually managing music and videos? etc

Re: New iPad Air and iPad Mini

#170

Post by Shivetya »

jackfrodo wrote: post #3

I'm 24 years old, work in software. Neither I nor any of my friends uses a tablet for work or pleasure. I guess I know a couple of people who have Surface Pro's, but that's about it. I'm wondering if the appeal of these begins when you get older? Seems like a lot of the market for these is people who are 50+, but I'd like to know if any people under 25 are interested in them.

I gave one to my mother and father to use to manage their email and surfing the web while at home and RV traveling; many parks of wi-fi and there is always McD. They are just the right size to easily portable and big enough with pinch/zoom to make easy reading for even poor eyes.

the logic was it kept them from being stuck in the room with their computers. even laptops seem to find permanent homes but not a tablet. my father even figured out to use his cell phone as a wi-fi hotspot.

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