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iPad Pro M1

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Re: iPad Pro M1

#271

Post by saagarjha »

twobitshifter wrote: post #156
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?

Usually about 10-25%, I've heard. Depends how often your workflow vmexits.

Re: iPad Pro M1

#272

Post by rchaud »

swiley wrote: post #155
throwawayboise wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 .

Watch a commercial for the iPad. It is not marketed as a computing device, to do CLI programming or spreadsheets on. It's selling points are stuff like Procreate and Lightroom...both 'work' apps but for the 'creative economy'.

That being said, an executive at my company swears by the iPad Pro and he only ever uses it as a remote desktop device to log into his Citrix Windows environment.

Re: iPad Pro M1

#273

Post by theshrike79 »

swiley wrote: post #155
throwawayboise wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 .

I'm a computer nerd at heart, and I've _never_ wanted to pull a repository or compile a project with a phone. Ever.

(Ok, there was this one time with a Nokia N900, but it was just a phase =) )

Re: iPad Pro M1

#274

Post by jshen »

enos_feedler wrote: post #264
jshen wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

ipad's limitations are arbitrary and have no strong reason to exist. I've been an apple fan for years, and bought my first PC in nearly 20 years recently because I shouldn't have to buy two very expensive apple devices (a mac, and an ipad) to cover all of my use cases.

If ipad’s limitations were arbitrary they wouldn’t exist. The product design is shaped by the use cases it optimizes for. This is no different than saying a GPU has arbitrary limitations for running general C++ code. In some sense yes, you could make a single thread c++ compiler target the GPU, but 1) it wouldnt fit the design well and 2) changing the design to make it work well would mess up the original intended us…

That's fair, arbitrary wasn't the right word. They were chosen for the use case of a smart phone, not a general purpose computer. People pretending that they are reasonable for a general purpose computer are missing the boat IMO.

But some things are arbitrary. For example, only allowing one web browser engine is 100% arbitrary (or worse, an abuse of monopoly power).

Re: iPad Pro M1

#275

Post by layer8 »

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.

What I'd like to do is to use a pencil to draw on my 27" monitor when screen-sharing/presenting. That's the one use case for "touch" I'm really missing. You can sort-of simulate it by screen-mirroring, but it's cumbersome.

Re: iPad Pro M1

#276

Post by intergalplan »

filleduchaos wrote: post #246
foldr wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Video and photo editing are common iPad Pro use cases where performance matters.

Haven't you heard? Programming is the only "pro" or performance-intensive thing that exists. I don't even understand why programmers are always so up in arms about devices like the iPad. Why on earth does one want to program on a handheld touchscreen device anyway? I have zero expectations for that, much like I have zero expectations for the laptop I do program on to be a good drawing device.

I don't get the huge blind spot there, either, and it's pervasive on here every time the iPad comes up.

"I can't boot an OpenBSD VM on it so it must only be for watching YouTube, for sheeple consumers, not godlike 'creators' like me".

Meanwhile it's plainly great for all kinds of creation-oriented activities, especially where the real-world meets the digital. The sensors are great. Pencil is great. It's a really good companion-tool for all kinds of real-world work, better than a laptop (though actually iPhones often beat both iPads and "real" computers, in that regard, just because of the form factor) Plus it's got some damn good, often-interactive educational apps, some of which work better on a tablet than they would anywhere else. Much the hell better for several of those things than any laptop running a "real OS for Serious Work".

But no, it's just a Netflix console for drooling morons, because you can't easily HAX0R it to replace the lock screen with a port of DOOM, since if you can't do that then it must not be any use for creating things. Give me a break.

Re: iPad Pro M1

#277

Post by whimsicalism »

intergalplan wrote: post #252
whimsicalism wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why can't it let you just choose which experience you want?

I like it better if 100% of the software on the device operates under the same constraints, so the developer of some app that I really need/want can't decide "no, you need to be in desktop-alike mode for this to run, because I just don't feel like dealing with tablet mode". It's basically the same problem as allowing multiple app stores, in that it'd fragment the experience and leave me having to choose between "do w…

As I wrote the above comment, I was thinking along a similar line of thought re: "no, you need to be in desktop-alike mode for this to run."

I do agree that this is an issue, but I wonder how much of one. I feel like there is quite a bit of inertia behind iOS style "apps" right now that a sizable mass userbase will not use your service if it is a desktop-style interface, because that sort of interface is unfamiliar to them.

Only for very niche apps would you be able to survive on desktop app alone. Many fo those niche uses would be geared towards power-users who are likely more used to a desktop environment.

Re: iPad Pro M1

#278

Post by nimish »

I tried to use an iPad air since the processor is more than adequate for me.

The software experience is trash.

Great for single tasking but just awful for doing two things or more. Facetime inexplicably behaves differently when minimized for example.

Re: iPad Pro M1

#279

Post by wayneftw »

bluescrn wrote: post #213
robertu wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

True. But this is also what I am so exciting about what will be next on iPadOS on WWDC this year, hardware has already over Mac, it’s time to software.

The problem is that nobody has really found a way to bridge the chasm between touchscreen UI design and mouse/keyboard UI design. Attempts to get there tend to dumb down and limit the functionality of the mouse+keyboard experience. I guess the obvious option would be to let Pro users switch an iPad into a 'MacOS mode' with the full desktop interface, mostly relying on an additional keyboard+mouse. But I can't see App…

Windows 10 does it perfectly.

If you haven't used a Windows 10 tablet for any amount of time, I'd suggest trying it out. I've used small and large Windows tablets for many years and have yet to find any big complaints about the UX.

Re: iPad Pro M1

#280

Post by peraspera »

Here are two anecdotes to explain why I'll never buy an Apple computer again, as 'sexy' as they are:

1. My brother has a old iPad (3rd generation). Somehow its battery is still good enough and the screen is in great shape, but the OS hasn't been updated in years. IIRC, Chrome is stuck on version 60 something. I could jailbreak it, but apparently I'd need a Mac to do that.

2. A friend of mine sold me an iMac 2010 for 50 bucks last year, peripherals and all. The hardware was in excellent shape. When November came, Apple stopped maintaining the latest version of the OS I could possibly get. Due to that iMac's finicky graphics card, installing a user-friendly Linux distro such as Ubuntu wasn't trivial. I ended up donating the computer to a repair centre.

So here's a company with no interest in its hardware being of any use a decade after it's released.

Planned obsolescence is bad enough when done to phones, it should never apply to full-on computers.

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