Slide Over is one of the best features out there. And it’s as simple as can be. You get what amounts to a mini iPhone available on command. And split screen is not only very useful, I think it’s a fundamentally better multitasking model that the traditional desktop OS for screens under 23” or so. I agree that adding apps to multitasking seems to baffle people. But this seems like it can
Speaking of mini iphone... I have so many iPhone only apps that I wish I could run in the “mini iPhone split” next to whatever else I am doing rather than forcing them to take over the whole screen with an iPhone sized picture in the middle.
That was intentionally. Apple wanted iPhone apps to suck on the iPad to force developers to make an iPad app. If developers can get away with just shipping an iPhone app and still have a decent experience they will.
iPads have complete market dominance in the world of the kiddies. I can't believe how many there are - big iPads in big cases, young children playing with some game or watching YouTube Kids. I don't think it's the market Apple invisioned, but it's a hugely successful one regardless. I think judging the iPad based on changes they make for power users is near pointless in terms of its success.
> iPads have complete market dominance in the world of the kiddies. Hence it can almost be fitting to categorize them as toys.
I use them for real work. Taking notes (the split windows view is awesome for this - notes app in one window and the book in the other), reading, creating illustrations and other artwork, etc. I don't think they are a toy at all. I have a desktop computer and a couple of high end laptops, but I still reach for the ipad most often.
> having heard how easy Apple device are to supposed to be to use That was a rule for very good reason, and it will take some time to erode, but it’s definitely not as true today as it once was. It’s no consolation, but the first iPad - from the era of usable Apple design - was much better. Not in terms of power or weight, of course, but the OS didn’t have all these weird mystery-meat controls, gestures, broken multi…
Is multi-windowing really broken? I've found it incredibly useful for taking notes in the right window while the book/article I am reading in in the left window. It seems to just work for me.
I think it's 'broken' for anyone who doesn’t use it regularly. It’s too undiscoverable, and too easy to invoke accidentally, for the rest of us.
If that were the case, do you think Microsoft and Adobe spent money on development of Office and Photoshop foolishly? The iPad Pros are credited with stopping the slide of iPad revenues - along with all of the accessories.
Honestly I think companies are (mostly) wasting their money porting desktop software to iPads. There's going to be niches where it makes perfect sense, but Office for the iPad is going to be a waste of money. Home users don't need it, business have laptops and desktop for those things, and Word is a poor note taking app of field work. To be fair I believe that the iPad is a poor note taking platform in general. For s…
So you think you know better than Microsoft and Adobe? Have you thought that they may know their customer base better than you do?
Nobody I know bothers with a tablet anymore. Everything they formerly did on the tablet they now do on their phone.
And most of the iPhone users I know have now switched to Android, mostly Samsungs. Myself being a bit of a cheapskate have a motorola moto and I think it's great. Tim Cook is a very lucky man. He earns an eye watering salary, for what?
The iPad has slowly revolutionized personal computing. After the music production apps became available, including Apples own Garageband, the iPad has become a very common sketching tool for musicians. When the Apple pen and the Procreate became available, the iPad pro also became one of the most used tools for painting and sketching. An iPad pro with Apples keyboard, is more useable for most common day users than mo…
> An iPad pro with Apples keyboard, is more useable for most common day users than most windows based laptops. Do you think a young novice user with such an iPad, rather than a windows or mac laptop, would be as likely to develop a more advanced computer skillset? iOS seems easier for common users because it's more regimented, but I wonder if that same trait might leave less room for creative exploration of the machi…
We have a desktop computer, a few laptops, and a few iPads. I've never seen any of my kids (elementary school age up to college age) try to creatively explore the machine itself. I'm a programmer and I've even tried to interest them in programming. Nope. All they are interested in is Facebook, Instagram, and other web pages. If it doesn't take place in a browser windows, they have no interest. But, they aren't even interested in web development! A computer is just a tool. They have no more interest in looking under the hood than they do tearing apart the engine of a car to see how it works. As long as the car gets them from A to Z, that is all that matters. If it breaks, well, that is someone else's job to fix.
Nobody I know bothers with a tablet anymore. Everything they formerly did on the tablet they now do on their phone. And most of the iPhone users I know have now switched to Android, mostly Samsungs. Myself being a bit of a cheapskate have a motorola moto and I think it's great. Tim Cook is a very lucky man. He earns an eye watering salary, for what?
Yeah, it's the opposite for me. I do nearly all of my computing on my iPad, and almost none on my phone. I also switched from Android (I was an early adopter, and originally bought the first G1 when it came out) to iPhone because the longer I used Android the more it felt hacked together.
My biggest annoyance with my iPad is accidentally opening links in a new Safari window. Sometimes that happens when I’m just scrolling and didn’t mean to open the link at all. So now you have multiple Safari windows that are completely undiscoverable. To switch between windows, you have to swipe up slowly and pick the one you want.
I have literally never wanted multiple windows of the same app on my iPad. But it keeps happening.
I’m a computer guy. I shudder to think what this is like for my grandmother.
Text selection is the most broken thing to me on an ipad. It makes any kind of editing pretty much unusable. Great device to browse the web from my bathtub and watch movies on a plane, but haven’t found any other usage.
It is fantastic for creating artwork, if you are artistic.