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iPad Pro M1

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Re: iPad Pro M1

#151

Post by Toutouxc »

monkmartinez wrote: post #122
Toutouxc wrote: post #35

A moment of silence for the guys working on the MS Surface devices. There are still reasons to get the Surface instead of an iPad, but the M1 in an iPad sounds like a hit.

No moment of silence needed. I have a iPad Pro 12.9 and its awesome for consuming content and drawing. For everything else there is a real computer. I can't use the iPad to program my Drone, or Run a CNC, or Play steam games, or link to the Oculus, or run VS Code, or use Fusion 360, or Run Linux or Windows VM's. Or, or... or ... I love my iPad, but it is very, very far from a good computer interface right now.

> program my Drone, or Run a CNC, or Play steam games, or link to the Oculus, or run VS Code, or use Fusion 360, or Run Linux or Windows VM's

But you don't have to use (and pay extra for) a Surface for that. I'm not saying the iPad is a computer. I'm saying that iPad is a touch+ink device superior to the Surface (most models of which are kinda mediocre computers IMO).

Re: iPad Pro M1

#152

Post by Spartan-S63 »

binbag wrote: post #131
Spartan-S63 wrote: post #13

It'll be interesting to see if iPadOS 15 steps us any closer to laptop/desktop class usage. The biggest thing holding back iPad from being a real laptop replacement for so many is the software. It's also not as simple as porting macOS to iPad. I get Apple's hesitancy from a usability and a product cannibalization standpoint, but it's time they step things forward.

I'm a surface pro user. Why does Apple not just put macos on the iPad and then it can go head to head for my business? The comment above said it's not as easy as just sticking macos on them. Why? (Obviously the answer could be they simply don't want to take on that market, but technically I don't see the barrier.)

Biggest reason is that macOS is designed as a pointer interface and iPadOS/iOS is designed as a touch interface. You could argue that with the Magic Keyboard and Trackpad, the iPad is well suited for pointer input and I wouldn't disagree. However, macOS with touch as an input option would be atrocious, in my view. Rather than opening the door for touch input on macOS, they should bring iPadOS closer to a desktop-class, touch-first experience.

Re: iPad Pro M1

#153

Post by binbag »

mulmen wrote: post #68
Spartan-S63 wrote: post #13

It'll be interesting to see if iPadOS 15 steps us any closer to laptop/desktop class usage. The biggest thing holding back iPad from being a real laptop replacement for so many is the software. It's also not as simple as porting macOS to iPad. I get Apple's hesitancy from a usability and a product cannibalization standpoint, but it's time they step things forward.

I have zero interest in using a worse laptop. Touch screens are an anti-feature. For decades we have tried as an industry to do touch interfaces on “real” computers and it’s always horrible because it’s not actually a thing worth doing. With M1 Macs being a thing I have no idea what benefits an iPad offers.

Couldn't disagree more. I've used touchscreen laptops and surface for years and if I go back to a non touchscreen portable machine it feels stunted.

Re: iPad Pro M1

#154

Post by masklinn »

SahAssar wrote: post #127
masklinn wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> ipadOS has pointer support Yes, but it does not mandate a pointer. > the preferred way to do pointer interactions on macOS seems to be touchpads (not mice), so the gap is definitely not as large anymore. A touchpad is a pointer device with a similar level of precision and interaction as a mouse. One completely unlike touch.

> A touchpad is a pointer device with a similar level of precision and interaction as a mouse. One completely unlike touch. The main difference is if you aim by using a pointer on the screen or if you aim by touching what you want to interact with. Some things like gestures are basically the same (or could be).

> The main difference is if you aim by using a pointer on the screen or if you aim by touching what you want to interact with.

Yes. That is not a small difference. That is, in fact, a huge difference.

The buttons on my phone are physically larger than those on my laptop's screen, yet they are significantly harder to hit reliably. Manipulating text remains a chore on touch device, except when those touch devices provide a pointer erzats (of which Apple removed a large part of the convenience when they broke selection support with the deprecation of 3D touch).

Re: iPad Pro M1

#155

Post by swiley »

throwawayboise wrote: post #136
swiley wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is something I've been saying: Try cloning and building even a moderate project from github on iSH on the latest iThing with Apple silicon and compare the same on a pinephone with a decade old budget SoC. One will get painfully hot and visibly tick through a large fraction of the battery while not letting you look at anything else or look away from the screen without killing the 10s of minutes long operation whi…

> Try cloning and building even a moderate project from github on iSH on the latest iThing with Apple silicon OK but you are describing something that 99.8% of iThing owners will never do.

sharing and building code is an important aspect of computing and making computers fundamental to people's lives while working to make them difficult to understand is very wrong. They don;t do it partly because it's so unpleasant.

Re: iPad Pro M1

#156

Post by twobitshifter »

DCKing wrote: post #73

The M1 has the necessary hardware to run virtualization. Apple could decide to allow VMWare or Parallels to bring desktop virtualization software to the iPad. You could have an all-in-one device for casual use, note taking, art and media consumption that turns into a capable Linux desktop at will. There's even 16GB RAM options available to make that reasonably comfortable, as well as a port to connect to a dock. But…

Is there a performance penalty with virtualization on the M1?

Re: iPad Pro M1

#157

Post by smasher164 »

andy_ppp wrote: post #135
smasher164 wrote: post #46

To me, it doesn't matter how powerful the iPad is if the software experience is subpar. Multitasking is cumbrous enough that it might as well not exist, multi-display setups can only mirror at a fixed aspect ratio, it lacks multiple user profiles requiring a family to be under a single user, and the few apps that take advantage of the keyboard/trackpad are nowhere similar to their desktop counterparts. Take Excel for…

I can’t speak to these issues, however it would be excellent to have one of these running a full OSX. I’d certainly get one if I had that level of control to develop on it and choose which software I installed without an App Store. As things stand these devices aren’t for us, so judging them on the needs of hacker news user vs more standard consumers isn’t really a fair fight. They are deliberately limited to appeal…

I should mention that my frustration only came out of trying to switch my parents over from an old 32-bit Windows laptop to the iPad. They're already iPhone users and most of their time is either spent in a web browser or in document processing. So I figured that an iPad Pro with a magic keyboard would be perfect for them.

Even still, the level of finesse they have with Excel and productivity software on a desktop OS was just not replicable on the iPad. It pained me to see my Dad work on his spreadsheets on the old laptop again.

The silver lining to this is at least the iPad is good for watching videos and pretty decent at web browsing. They still use the device casually.

Re: iPad Pro M1

#158

Post by kuprel »

Spartan-S63 wrote: post #13

It'll be interesting to see if iPadOS 15 steps us any closer to laptop/desktop class usage. The biggest thing holding back iPad from being a real laptop replacement for so many is the software. It's also not as simple as porting macOS to iPad. I get Apple's hesitancy from a usability and a product cannibalization standpoint, but it's time they step things forward.

Seems like apple could make an Xcode app that runs on the large iPads

Re: iPad Pro M1

#159

Post by ideamotor »

boardwaalk wrote: post #140
smasher164 wrote: post #46

To me, it doesn't matter how powerful the iPad is if the software experience is subpar. Multitasking is cumbrous enough that it might as well not exist, multi-display setups can only mirror at a fixed aspect ratio, it lacks multiple user profiles requiring a family to be under a single user, and the few apps that take advantage of the keyboard/trackpad are nowhere similar to their desktop counterparts. Take Excel for…

Yeah, I saw this announcement and was thinking, “Why do I need more power?” coming from a 2018 iPad Pro. All this power is cool , but, the design of iPadOS is just not conducive to me wanting to get anything done on it. I know that’s ambiguous and hand wavey. Part of it is certainly the multitasking. Part of it is the keyboard. Part of it is no local Unix or build tools or good code editor. Yeah, I can SSH into anoth…

Apple should let users alternate between iOS and macOS on this device. They should also enable touch on the iMac and let users run iOS on that as well.

Re: iPad Pro M1

#160

Post by intergalplan »

randomsearch wrote: post #103
cletus wrote: post #99

And... no Touch ID (unlike the iPad Air) [1][2]. I recently bought the iPad Air after having the iPad Pro and hating Face ID on it. It's bad enough that I have Face ID on my iPhone. I hate it so much. Face ID is such a terrible UX that has caused me to enter my passcode to unlock more times a day than I care to count. Even if you ignore the fact that they don't work with masks, it's still a bad idea. The false negati…

Touch ID doesn’t work for me, doesn’t recognise my fingers most of the time. Die, Touch ID.

Same here, I was really getting sick of re-training the damn thing every time the seasons changed. Drier air and colder? TouchID drops to maybe 10% success. Humid and warm again? Same. Took a shower or thoroughly washed your hands in the last 30 minutes? Or were swimming recently? TouchID doesn't work at all. Warmed your hands in front of a heater for a minute? TouchID's dead for a while. Ugh.

Masks are a problem with FaceID, of course, but otherwise it's a huge improvement, in my experience. I gather some people didn't have the trouble I did with Touch ID, so maybe for them FaceID is worse.

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