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Bloomberg: "Strong possibility" of M4 debuting on May 7 with new iPad Pro

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Re: Bloomberg: "Strong possibility" of M4 debuting on May 7 with new iPad Pro

#61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same. Don't buy an iPad! For real. It's a ridiculous device. Effectively no more useful than any other cheap tablet. Those tempting hardware features, you won't be able to use them in the end anyway, because of software limitations. You just can't do serious work with the iPad in practice. Trust me, after a short honeymoon period, and another few weeks of frustration, it will end up collecting dust and you will only…

An iPad for drawing vs a cheap tablet for drawing are a mile apart in capability. Maybe for technical work your statement is true, but for artistic work an iPad with Procreate/Dreams is absolutely a viable primary workstation.

Yes, of course if you have a concrete, specific significant use case for the pencil it may be more appealing. But the pre M1 iPad with the pencil did the job as well, for drawing and pure handwriting. Obviously the iPad is marketed to be more than a single purpose device. The processing power is completely wasted. Most people probably won't use the pencil much in the long term.

It's file management, app limitations and interoperability which kill usefulness.

Re: Bloomberg: "Strong possibility" of M4 debuting on May 7 with new iPad Pro

#62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same. Don't buy an iPad! For real. It's a ridiculous device. Effectively no more useful than any other cheap tablet. Those tempting hardware features, you won't be able to use them in the end anyway, because of software limitations. You just can't do serious work with the iPad in practice. Trust me, after a short honeymoon period, and another few weeks of frustration, it will end up collecting dust and you will only…

I love the iPad for its stylus, it’s a great device for brainstorming even with just notes. I wish there was more creative software they took advantage of the form factor however, like a touch/stylus based programming environment.

It is marketed to be more than a drawing device tho. It fails at anything but being a glorified scratchpad. Very narrow usefulness.

I got the first iPad (2016?) with pencil, for 400€, I think. It still does completely fulfill my needs for brainstorming. For anything else, the app ecosystem and locked down system are useless.

Re: Bloomberg: "Strong possibility" of M4 debuting on May 7 with new iPad Pro

#63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe you should try remarkable tablet?

Why would they do that if their current system works?

Lasts much longer after recharge, better for eyes, better canvas for hand writing.

Re: Bloomberg: "Strong possibility" of M4 debuting on May 7 with new iPad Pro

#64
post #19

My bet, Apple begins designing chips specific to each product line. Meaning, - iPad get their own unique chip - MacPro, unique chip - etc And this iPad rumor is just the first Apple Silicon unique product chip.

They already do this with fuses to lock each chip to a specific iBoot, OS, and release[0] set. Changing the configuration of the chip is unnecessary. iPhones, iPads, and Macs use roughly the same balance of compute. The thing that does need to change is how many cores in each compute device, but they already do this with A17 vs. M3 vs. M3 Pro/Max/Ultra. That already segregates the product lines a bit: iPads aren't ge…

The M3 Pro is already a custom chip vs the M3 (base) or M3 Max.

The M3 Pro is the only chip that has 6E cores.

Both the M3 base and M3 Max only have 4E cores.

Re: Bloomberg: "Strong possibility" of M4 debuting on May 7 with new iPad Pro

#65
post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Art professionals usually don't use iPads although I'm sure some do. Most seem to prefer Wacom. Unlike, eg a laptop, portability isn't usually a major professional need for an art workstation.

To the contrary, art professionals use the top-tier iPads professionally more than anyone else, in my experience. You use a Wacom for some things, but the iPad has the gigantic advantage that your image is directly underneath your Pencil. And, of course, that you can take it with you. The iPad isn't a substitute for a workstation. But it's a huge complement -- both for creating things visually, as well as managing/sh…

Wacom makes Centiqs which are very popular pen on screen monitors if you prefer that style, so the iPad doesn't bring much there.

I would say the vast majority of artists do not travel and do not need to draw mid-meeting. Certainly there are exceptions but they are just that, exceptions.

Re: Bloomberg: "Strong possibility" of M4 debuting on May 7 with new iPad Pro

#66
post #23

They need to stop calling these pro devices. They are barely functional for anything beyond casual use and artwork

Pro != “professional” Pro == more capable And the iPad Pro is more capable than any other iPad.

It’s better than the iPad Con

Re: Bloomberg: "Strong possibility" of M4 debuting on May 7 with new iPad Pro

#67

Having an iPad Pro with an M1, I grow increasingly frustrated each year with how incapable my iPad is compared to my Macbook/Linux laptops. iPadOS still feels like iOS with some visual tweaks to the larger screen real estate. It’s absolutely not a laptop killer for a sysadmin or developer (unless your preferred language is Swift). Maybe it’s a laptop killer for creative professionals? I think my iPad is an excellent…

> Maybe it’s a laptop killer for creative professionals?

Nope. I'd argue developers are actually the best served professionals by iPads, simply because a terminal-drive workflow via SSH is at least possible.

I've written about the situation of creative apps not gaining traction on iPads (Procreate being the main exception) https://blog.robenkleene.com/2019/08/07/apples-app-stores-ha...

Re: Bloomberg: "Strong possibility" of M4 debuting on May 7 with new iPad Pro

#68
post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To the contrary, art professionals use the top-tier iPads professionally more than anyone else, in my experience. You use a Wacom for some things, but the iPad has the gigantic advantage that your image is directly underneath your Pencil. And, of course, that you can take it with you. The iPad isn't a substitute for a workstation. But it's a huge complement -- both for creating things visually, as well as managing/sh…

Wacom makes Centiqs which are very popular pen on screen monitors if you prefer that style, so the iPad doesn't bring much there. I would say the vast majority of artists do not travel and do not need to draw mid-meeting. Certainly there are exceptions but they are just that, exceptions.

Centiqs may be great, but I've seen 100 artists using an iPad for every 1 artist I've seen using a Centiq.

I would say the vast majority of artists do have client meetings, whether they're employed full-time or freelance.

And artists need to work on the go just like the rest of us. Whether it's a dad trying to do 30 min of video editing in his car while he waits for daycare to get out, or somebody in the city doing an hour of website design in a cafe while they wait for their next meeting.

I'm baffled by your assertion that artists don't use iPads or shouldn't need them. It's just not the case, if you work with professional artists.

Re: Bloomberg: "Strong possibility" of M4 debuting on May 7 with new iPad Pro

#69

They need to stop calling these pro devices. They are barely functional for anything beyond casual use and artwork

Apple has never used "pro" to mean professional software engineers . It's always been meant for professional artists . Whether graphic artists, music producers, video editors, 3D artists, or what have you. So it's strange to me that you treat "artwork" as an exception. These are very much pro. That they're extremely functional for art is the whole point.

> These are very much pro. That they're extremely functional for art is the whole point.

I'd argue that iPads being great for "art" is false. They have one killer app for one narrow specialized area (Procreate/illustration) but they aren't widely used as a main device professionally outside of that context (they are often used as a satellite device). They have adequate support for hobbyist level video editing/audio production/photography. They have minimal to non-existent support for motion graphics or anything related to 3D. Calling a device like this "extremely functional for art" I don't think is a defensible statement (unless it's specifically scoped to illustration).

I've written about my analysis of creative of apps on iOS devices here https://blog.robenkleene.com/2019/08/07/apples-app-stores-ha...

Re: Bloomberg: "Strong possibility" of M4 debuting on May 7 with new iPad Pro

#70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am a physicists (theory), and about a third of my work is “pencil and paper” calculations (and related notes) on the iPad Pro. I use it professionally ~20 hours per week.

May I ask if they are direct paper to screen transfers, or if there are specific features/apps that add extra value? I do a lot of work in (paper) engineering notebooks, and I'm curious about what improvements your workflow has.

I ~exclusively use ZoomNotes, which is very customizable but is quirky and comes with a steep learning curve.

For me the main benefits of the tablet are:

- Copy/paste/drag. Pretty helpful when you manipulate long expressions, or want to condense a bunch of scratch work.

- Relatedly: easy erase. When I used real paper, pencil was too low contrast, and “erasable pen” never worked well. So I used a real pen and just crossed tons of stuff out; ugly.

- Keep a decade of notes with me wherever I go. (And cloud backed up so I won’t lose them.)

- Infinite zoom and no page boundaries. Seems silly, but it’s really nice to write as big as I want without worrying about running out of room on the page.

- Text search of handwritten notes. Works surprisingly well.

- Easily switch to different colors. 99% of the time I only use 2 or 3, but I find it helpful to visual distinguish the main argument/computation from “side commentary”.

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