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iPadOS

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Re: iPadOS

#281

Post by gumby »

ben7799 wrote: post #3

Wow.. you can finally plug in a USB drive/card reader/camera/whatever... That alone actually takes the iPad a long way towards actually being real/Pro/whatever. I sold my first Gen iPad Pro over this stuff. It was just to painful to do a lot of real world stuff that involved files. Maybe today the experience would be a heck of a lot better.

Not arguing with your overall point, but I don't think your use of the term "real world" is appropriate.

Clearly many people are using iPads in the real world for all sorts of things and are satisfied with the results. You mean "laptop/desktop like things" which is a reasonable comparison to make, for the small subset of people who want that kind of functionality. But to say that that stuff is "real world" while other uses cases are not is condescending.

It's like the people who say MacBook pros "aren't really designed with pros in mind". I've written over a hundred thousand lines of code for work on MacBook airs and plain old MacBooks which are just great for my particular work flow. Doesn't mean I'm not a pro, any more than it means that people who need a larger machine to run Xcode etc are more pro, or less pro, than I.

I don't mean to harsh on you but I do think this is an important point.

Re: iPadOS

#282

Post by Spivak »

tenebrisalietum wrote: post #277
crooked-v wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> you can swipe from the bottom-right corner of the screen with the Apple Pencil and it'll take a screenshot of the webpage and open it for marking up I... but... how in the world is anyone ever supposed to know that exists???

It's funny because this was one of the big issues I kept hearing (and agreed with myself) about Windows 8 - all the things that can happen when you hover in the corners and the hideous "charms" bar. I really REALLY wish buttons would come back in style.

The problem with buttons is that they’re visual clutter once you learn the gesture. This is a yet unsolved problem with making an interface discoverable but having it disappear once discovered without having two separate UIs.

Can you imagine if there was a persistent button at the top of your screen that said “Open Notifications?”

Re: iPadOS

#283

Post by koyote »

_bxg1 wrote: post #271
crooked-v wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> you can swipe from the bottom-right corner of the screen with the Apple Pencil and it'll take a screenshot of the webpage and open it for marking up I... but... how in the world is anyone ever supposed to know that exists???

Since re-joining the iOS world last year, I've been amazed at how many (often nifty!) features are the exact opposite of intuitive. I was still discovering new features either on accident or via articles, multiple months into ownership of my iPhone. Once I learned about the features many of them were great, but it's very surprising given Apple's focus on intuitiveness.

I've only occasionally used Apple devices but have always thought them to be rather un-intuitive.

I remember spending a good 10 minutes trying to work out how to eject a CD from a Macbook/iMac until someone explained to me that you simply drag the CD icon from the desktop to the trash can...

Re: iPadOS

#284

Post by SomeOldThrow »

Angostura wrote: post #66
nostromo wrote: post #55

I've tried to use these desktop-inspired features on iPad and they are befuddling. Using two apps at once is beyond confusing. A simple use case, like copying an address from a Safari tab into Gmail via split screen requires so many mysterious, undiscoverable gestures, I doubt almost anyone is doing that. I think Jobs was right that convergence between workstations and mobile devices requires too many sacrifices, at…

But the nice thing about the mysterious gestures is that you really don't need them. If you are a power user you might learn them - otherwise you just keep using it like an old-style iPad - like my wife does. It's sort of the equivalent of righ-click on a Mac.

Actually apple is pretty terrible about the discovery of right click functionality, I’d say that’s an obvious indication they prefer form over function. I wish Apple had gone Bauhaus in the 90s instead.

Re: iPadOS

#285

Post by philo23 »

markstos wrote: post #276
crooked-v wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> you can swipe from the bottom-right corner of the screen with the Apple Pencil and it'll take a screenshot of the webpage and open it for marking up I... but... how in the world is anyone ever supposed to know that exists???

As an occasional iPad user, I find the interface somewhat bewildering, even as a power user of other devices. I want to search to see if an app is installed. I expect an Overview screen that's easily accessible for this like Android, Gnome or Chrome OS, but on iOS I have to swipe left a few times? Weird. I want to switch wireless network I'm connected to. I correctly guess that I can swipe down to make a wireless ico…

You should be able to pull down on any page of the home screen to bring up the app search screen, rather than having to swipe all the way to the left.

You can now also long press the wifi icon (twice) from the control centre in iOS 13 to quickly switch wifi networks without going into the settings app, you can also do the same with the bluetooth icon.

A lot of this stuff is really hard to just discover though if you're not already aware it exists to begin with.

Re: iPadOS

#286

Post by nessus42 »

crooked-v wrote: post #257
0x38B wrote: post #247

I highly recommend reading the MacStories review of iOS and iPadOS 13 [1]. Thirty (!) pages. It's like the manual that Apple forgot. Case in point: you can swipe from the bottom-right corner of the screen with the Apple Pencil and it'll take a screenshot of the webpage and open it for marking up. Extensive coverage of multitasking features, as well. There's definitely a learning curve with all these possibilities - s…

> you can swipe from the bottom-right corner of the screen with the Apple Pencil and it'll take a screenshot of the webpage and open it for marking up I... but... how in the world is anyone ever supposed to know that exists???

> I... but... how in the world is anyone ever supposed to know that exists???

Apple products have been like this for ages. I.e., they present a "simple" interface for the "typical" user, and then they provide "advanced" features for the "power user" that are only accessible via keyboard shortcuts, or what have you. (E.g., doing a screenshot on MacOS is via Command-$.)

Their success in achieving the right balance, however, has been quite mixed IMHO.

How do you find out about the "advanced" features? Via Google or Stack Exchange or reading a book or guide, I suppose.

Re: iPadOS

#287

Post by DerekL »

Abishek_Muthian wrote: post #174
Spivak wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorta, the actual browser chrome is provided by the 3rd party but the underlying rendering and JS engine are required to be the OS provided facilities (i.e. Safari) Apple’s security model is that Apple has to be able to inspect and review all the code you’re app is going to run. There is a special exception for JS provided that you run it though Apple’s interpreter. Browsers are caught in the crossfire of a much broa…

I agree, but apple has made an exception for coding apps to run arbitrary code for some years now. So, it doesn't make any sense for Apple to not allow 3rd party browsers apart from its intention for a walled garden even if it means compromising security for its users.

This was loosened in June 2017. Now apps can can download and run any interpreted code, using any interpreter. It’s not restricted to coding apps or user-written code.

In the developer agreement, the second paragraph of section 3.3.2 gives special permission to programming environments, but that’s for executable code, which won’t work on iOS anyway.

Re: iPadOS

#288

Post by Spivak »

SSLy wrote: post #260
saagarjha wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That doesn't explain why it fails to update Safari via AppStore. Another reason is that it's extra work to decouple the browser with the OS. > Also Apple has been allowing coding apps for years now which can download and run executable code, so it is hard to buy the argument. Not native code.

>Another reason is that it's extra work to decouple the browser with the OS. MS made the exact same argument 15 years ago.

And it’s still true 15 years later. They still haven’t been able to decouple IE for all the random crap that uses it. They’ve shoved the user facing interface into a dark corner hoping everyone forgets about it but it’s still there.

Re: iPadOS

#289

Post by Spivak »

eyo2019 wrote: post #191
saagarjha wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That doesn't explain why it fails to update Safari via AppStore. Another reason is that it's extra work to decouple the browser with the OS. > Also Apple has been allowing coding apps for years now which can download and run executable code, so it is hard to buy the argument. Not native code.

> Another reason is that it's extra work to decouple the browser with the OS. I thought that argument was rejected already in 2001[0]. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft_Cor... . --- (edited to fix link formatting)

There is a bit of nuance here. IE today still isn’t decoupled from Windows. MS has been shoving it into an ever smaller corner of Windows but IE is the OS provided webview for a lot of old crusty applications that needed to render HTML.

What they’re talking about is IE the OS component didn’t mean that IE the user-facing general-purpose browser had to be the default.

Re: iPadOS

#290

Post by xxandroxygen »

SomeOldThrow wrote: post #279
0x38B wrote: post #247

I highly recommend reading the MacStories review of iOS and iPadOS 13 [1]. Thirty (!) pages. It's like the manual that Apple forgot. Case in point: you can swipe from the bottom-right corner of the screen with the Apple Pencil and it'll take a screenshot of the webpage and open it for marking up. Extensive coverage of multitasking features, as well. There's definitely a learning curve with all these possibilities - s…

Are gestures a hard requirement to use the functionality? I already hate their replacing the home button with a gesture that fails 9/10 times to switch apps. Really ruins the ability to use the os for multitasking.

You probably already know this, but you can drag left and right on the “home button” bar, and it switches apps for you!
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