The only thing my iPad has going for it is cellular. If they would put a cellular modem into a Mac laptop I’d be thrilled.
Giving up the iPad-only travel dream
531–540 of 630 posts
Re: Giving up the iPad-only travel dream
#532The key sentence here is: > This is the fundamental difference between the Mac (a platform that basically lets developers and users do anything they want) and the iPad (where if Apple doesn’t specifically allow it, it can’t be done). Apple (since Lisa/Mac, after Apple II, which had an open architecture) likes appliances and to control the user experience, so the iPad is "more Apple" than Macs are. Whenever I am waiti…
Talking about EU I'm patiently waiting for official app side loading and alternative app stores that should come before the 6th of March 2024 [0]
[0]: https://www.theverge.com/2022/12/13/23507766/apple-app-store...
Re: Giving up the iPad-only travel dream
#533Earlier quoted context omitted.
>We really get crammed into trains. Sincerely, from someone in the third world who has taken UK public transport. You don't. I don't say this to disparage your message, but hopefully to give some gratitude for the nice things you do have over there. I found it most amusing how people would get antsy and annoyed when a train was more than 5 minutes late in the UK. For years of me taking South African trains, if there…
People here don't really get upset about trains being even ten minutes late. That's normal. And as far as safety is concerned, when every seat is full and there's already very little seat-to-seat distance, the aisle is crammed with people face to back with nothing to hang on to, and the vestibules are all full to the point that people are standing with nothing to support them if the train brakes hard, that is a cramm…
> when every seat is full and there's already very little seat-to-seat distance, the aisle is crammed with people face to back with nothing to hang on to, and the vestibules are all full to the point that people are standing with nothing to support them if the train brakes hard, that is a crammed train.
That was the Metra BN line in Chicago when I lived there, at least the rush hour departures at around 5:00pm. I was on a train so full that I could not even fully get into the vestibule, I had to push people in with my body so the door could close behind me. Many times the CTA trains were similarly full.
Re: Giving up the iPad-only travel dream
#534Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm not defending Apple here (I'm not an iPad or iPhone user) but why would you expect a tablet to substitute for a general computing platform? My "tablet" is a Boox Nova Air C that runs full Android on an e-ink screen, but I only use it to read books, sketch, and to hand-write notes. I don't let it connect to any website I have to login to, because I don't trust the software. I don't even have a keyboard for it. Onc…
Because a surface does that and so have all tablet pcs since Windows XP times. > once you are planning to carry a keyboard. Apple sells you a keyboard cover, Samsung does, Microsoft does. They are ridiculously expensive for what they are (buy a few HHKBs), but seem very popular. > at that point. That is the point. After adding all that, you would expect your tablet to do all that. Hardware wise it totally could, but…
You should stop supporting Apple or hoping they would change. Lock-down is their approach to everything. Microsoft is behind but following the same direction. GNU/Linux smartphones and tablets do not restrict what you do and run desktop OSes. Connecting a keyboard turns them in full laptops.
Re: Giving up the iPad-only travel dream
#535Earlier quoted context omitted.
Pretty incidental comment, but just had to bite- "At least - thanks to the EU - soon they can all share the same USB-C charger." The EU is basically the guy that at 5am declares that the sun must soon rise or else . By the time the EU decided on their USB-C dictum, Apple -- a co-inventor and standards participant of USB-C -- had switched their laptops fully to USB-C, their desktops to USB-C, and half their pad line t…
Not sure why you're downvoted. Apple led the charge on a fully usb-c ecosystem. There are billions of lightening devices out there, so Apple has been transitioning over multiple years. The charger side went usb-c awhile back. Now most users should have usb-c chargers, and likely a few usb-c cables. When the iPhone changes this year or next, it won't be a big deal. People forget when Apple went from the 30-pin to ligh…
> The charger side went usb-c awhile back. Now most users should have usb-c chargers, and likely a few usb-c cables.
Given that Apple never included usb-c charger with their iPhone, all Apple had accomplished was creating a bunch of soon to be obsoleted usb-c to lighting cable with this extended timeline
Re: Giving up the iPad-only travel dream
#536Earlier quoted context omitted.
> You'd think depending on the person, they'd travel with EITHER their phone OR their iPad OR their laptop, depending on whether they are private people, non-technical "creatives" or IT/technical/dev folks, but instead, everybody appears to be travelling with ALL THREE devices instead I can't answer a call or text my family with my laptop while I'm on the go. I can't plug my macbook into a car to use maps or play mus…
Maybe it's an American thing but I don't think I know a single person who owns or uses an ipad, with the exception of rich parents who use them exclusively to distract children. I certainly don't notice a lot of ipad users in airports or trains.
Canadian here, iPads are really common amongst (uni/college) students as well, from my experience - they make good notetaking/general course work devices. Off the top of my head I think like 40-70% of students in my classes had an iPad.
And as another comment said, iPads are pretty common options here for some people who aren't really power users that essentially want a phone experience, but bigger. I've set up my mom with an iPad + PiHole for home use and she's super happy with it as a video and browsing device that is generally reliable. She does have access to a PC I built as well, but an iPad is much more portable around the house for her (e.g. she needs to follow a recipe while cooking).
Re: Giving up the iPad-only travel dream
#537Earlier quoted context omitted.
The iPad pro is basically this, but just needs to be able to swap when you hook up the Magic Keyboard.
It doesn’t offer macOS. My whole point is that when I have a keyboard I don’t want to be touching a screen, and I want the power and freedom macOS offers to be able to do productive work. I also want iPadOS for other types of interaction, like reading or watching, or drawing.
By 'It just needs to swap' I mean to be able to swap into MacOS (when you hook up the magic keyboard)
Re: Giving up the iPad-only travel dream
#538Earlier quoted context omitted.
Do-it-all devices tend to not really satisfy in anything. I got a Lenovo Yoga that was meant to be “convertible” between laptop and tablet and I never really did use it anywhere near as much as the technically much less powerful iPad Air I bought after.
I keep old Yoga 13 in a drawer. I think it happened still too early for its time - too heavy as tablet, fans, small screen vs form factor, font hinting quite bad in vertical mode, Windows8 clunky interface, battery... I think today's Macbook Air M2 with 360deg hinges, touch and some iPad like UI-mode would be a holy grail for the article author.
A 360 MX Macbook with all the benefits of an iPad (run iOS apps, cellular data, both cameras, excellent touch response, maybe even lidar) would absolutely kill iPad sales, but it would also be the best all-in-one device Apple ever made.
Re: Giving up the iPad-only travel dream
#539Earlier quoted context omitted.
People here don't really get upset about trains being even ten minutes late. That's normal. And as far as safety is concerned, when every seat is full and there's already very little seat-to-seat distance, the aisle is crammed with people face to back with nothing to hang on to, and the vestibules are all full to the point that people are standing with nothing to support them if the train brakes hard, that is a cramm…
Back in the 80s the trains still had guard's vans. When you've stood in the middle of a crammed, unlit, violently shaking box with nothing for anyone to hang on to, a place in the aisle seems like luxury! On the other hand, the intercity seats were more comfortable in those days, the windows opened and you didn't have to wait for the train to stop before you got off.
Yeah. I went to school on the train and did that a couple of dozen times over seven years. Also remember being horrifyingly crammed into the corridor of a former first class carriage.
Re: Giving up the iPad-only travel dream
#540The key sentence here is: > This is the fundamental difference between the Mac (a platform that basically lets developers and users do anything they want) and the iPad (where if Apple doesn’t specifically allow it, it can’t be done). Apple (since Lisa/Mac, after Apple II, which had an open architecture) likes appliances and to control the user experience, so the iPad is "more Apple" than Macs are. Whenever I am waiti…
Yeah, this guy really raises the correct issue, but doesn't quite phrase it as I would: "The beauty of the Mac as a platform is that Apple doesn’t have to think of every use case and doesn’t have to build out every single esoteric detail in order to enable new features"
Apple doesn't have to imagine every use case for their portable devices; they just have to let developers address them. But they don't; Apple BLOCKS any use case it doesn't imagine. When Apple enabled real apps, a lot us expected all kinds of cool applications that involved the phone talking to other devices. I wanted to write a time-lapse controller for cameras.
But NOPE. Apple locked down (and continues to lock down) the I/O port on iOS devices. This will no doubt continue when they finally slap a "USB" port on the rest of their mobile products. It's "USB" because yeah it'll physically be a USB-C and charge through it, but no way are developers going to have access to it.
Apple even cripples its Bluetooth. And of course there's the lack of a user-accessible file system, and the attendant lack of drag-&-drop file transfer between iOS and computer. I scoff at the arrival of video-editing apps on the iPad, when there's no good way to get gigabytes upon gigabytes of footage onto or off of these things. Not to mention the laughable clumsiness of trying to manipulate tiny controls on a touchscreen with your finger (and hand) blocking your view of what you're trying to work on.
And by the time you're done junking these gimped tablets up with a keyboard and pointing device, you have all of these limitations plus the cost and bulk of a MacBook Air. I'd argue you have more "bulk," in that you have a loose collection of crap that you have to carry around (and charge) instead of a tidy computer.
What Apple should have done is enable the Pencil to work on the (defectively) giant trackpads on its computers. Its failure to do so is baffling and unfortunate.