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Giving up the iPad-only travel dream

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Re: Giving up the iPad-only travel dream

#291

Post by diffeomorphism »

emodendroket wrote: post #270
nradov wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right, but the inability to do serious software development is an arbitrary limit imposed by Apple. The hardware is quite capable, but the vendor has decided that we need to use multiple different devices. It's their platform and they can do what they like with it, but as a customer those artificial limitations rankle.

They’d have to do something more than just throw XCode on it for it to be in any way usable without full on keyboard and mouse, which would cut against what they’re trying to do. So there is some justification beyond just market segmentation.

Why? Having xcode usable just with (their 350€+) keyboard seems perfectly acceptable.

Re: Giving up the iPad-only travel dream

#292

Post by cranium »

I really wanted to use a tablet – either iOS or Android – as a lightweight work device but it was too clumsy and uncomfortable to use. Any time you encounter a new situation, you're not sure you'd be able to solve it within the OS boundaries.

I finally settled on an 8inch "proper laptop": the GPD Pocket 3. Linux works like a charm, real keyboard, and powerful. It even replaced my spec'd out 15" Dell Precision (from 2017) because it's so more fun to use.

Re: Giving up the iPad-only travel dream

#293

Post by kylehotchkiss »

balderdash wrote: post #211

When is the FAA going to let me use my laptop during takeoff and landing - that’s the biggest thing ipad has going for it, that’s an hour+ of unproductive time.

Pretty hard to enter the brace position if required in either takeoff or landing. It’s not just an airplane mode thing

Re: Giving up the iPad-only travel dream

#294

Post by ricardobayes »

nicbou wrote: post #178
makeitdouble wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Parent's point still stands as in a decent ecosystem you'd get down to at most two. For instance a phone and a Surface Pro covers 100% of the use cases, there's no gap for a 3rd device. For some this gets down to one device with a Galaxy Fold and DEX. People might have different preferences and/or be locked in the Apple ecosystem anyway, but we have working products showing things done differently ("think different"…

The iPad is a much better tablet than the Surface. The art and note apps are incomparably better. The ebook reader apps too. iPad OS is limited, but it's fine for reading, writing and sketching. It's good to do that on a separate device that is not connected to work stuff. I can bring my iPad in the bedroom because it's just a fancy book. Windows is also far too needy for this sort of device. I returned my Surface af…

The other competitors have just as much tracking, just windows makes it more transparent to opt in (to some of it), so it's more visible.

Re: Giving up the iPad-only travel dream

#295

Post by thih9 »

Gigachad wrote: post #115
thih9 wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't get why this is still impossible in 2023, with M1 in both macbooks and ipads. I'm sure at some point someone at apple has built a prototype and did extensive testing, I'd love to know why was that shut down. And whether it was a business related issue, or a tech/UX related issue.

My guess is that Apple wants companies to reinvent their programs to work well on a touchscreen, which has largely been happening. If you could just drop macos on the ipad, we wouldn't have things like Procreate. You'd just get told to install desktop photoshop and connect a mouse and keyboard.

This seems plausible to me as one of the reasons. Especially in the context of how windows devices favored mixing desktop and touch concepts.

Re: Giving up the iPad-only travel dream

#296

Post by diffeomorphism »

noduerme wrote: post #254
shreyshnaccount wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And that's my problem with it- if I buy a device and what to do whatever with it, who is the company to specifically stop me from doing that? I'm not asking them to design anything special for me, just allow open access to the device so that the community can build whatever we want

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 it is not "allowed to" unless you put a linux VM on it or something.

Re: Giving up the iPad-only travel dream

#297

Post by emodendroket »

diffeomorphism wrote: post #291
emodendroket wrote: post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They’d have to do something more than just throw XCode on it for it to be in any way usable without full on keyboard and mouse, which would cut against what they’re trying to do. So there is some justification beyond just market segmentation.

Why? Having xcode usable just with (their 350€+) keyboard seems perfectly acceptable.

For the same reason they deliberately made iphone apps look bad -- they want applications designed to work with the device to make it a good experience and not applications designed for something else shoehorned in. I see some real wisdom in this approach considering how poor some of the alternative experiences are. Ultimately why would you buy it if it's just an inferior laptop with a touchscreen that you can detach?

Re: Giving up the iPad-only travel dream

#298

Post by deafpolygon »

After around 10 years with the iPad (since the 1st gen) in some form in my hand, I've given up on it entirely this year - selling my last iPad Pro and not picking up a new one. I haven't missed it. Anything I need to do or look at on the go is satisfied by my iPhone (I am still sporting the 13 non-Pro, which is plenty fast for my needs). For everything else, I have my 3 year old Windows laptop which runs great even to this day. For anything beefier, I can wait until I'm home and use my PC. When I built the PC, it matched the 'new' Mac Pro spec-for-spec and I paid a fraction of the price (only 1500 euros!).

Apple missed the boat with the iPad AND with macOS. I use Windows now (Yes, I'm aware of the 'privacy' issues surrounding telemetry, et. al.) and haven't missed the Apple platform one bit. Gaming aside, I haven't lacked for any developer tools when using Visual Studio. For web development, VS Code and WSL2/Docker fit the bill without very many issues.

One of the biggest factor with Apple is the price. While the entry level iPad is competitively priced (550 euros for a 64gb model, or 750 euros for a 256gb model): it's also outdated (running the A14 Bionic SOC). The minute you take a peek at a more current model (iPad Air 64G @ 720 euros or 256G at 920 euros), you are firmly into laptop territory. After all this time, it's still evident that iPad cannot replace a laptop - it is still a companion device. And it's not for lack of hardware. It's because Apple still wants you to buy their laptop and then pair it with an iPad for the "complete" experience. To contrast, my laptop only cost me 900 euros for Ryzen 7 512GB SSD + 16GB RAM. Is it as fast as the M2 chip? Probably not, but you aren't using all that power on the iPad Pro the majority of the time, either.

A benchmark for the 4800U v. M2 chip:

Geekbench 6 (Single core): 1486 (4800U) -> 2536 (M2)

Geekbench 6 (Multi core): 6246 (4800U) -> 9691 (M2)

While the performance of the M2 is impressive - you aren't seeing it the majority of the time.

Another factor I've had to deal with is that Apple insist on their own way of doing things; whether that is better in the end, is still anyone's guess 10 years on. But ever the black sheep: file management; while better these days, is still an issue... lack of certain types of applications, cannot build or install your own applications without a developer ID, and so on. I can't even run emulators on it without a) building it and sideloading it using developer tools (and re-doing the steps every so often to refresh the cert) or b) jailbreaking it.

Anyways, this post went on longer than I anticipated. I know there will be defenders swooping in to proclaim that iPad Pro is the shiznit.

Let's not forget that with a screen, keyboard - my laptop costed me 900 euros 3 years ago. If I were to get an updated version of it, it would cost me 800 euros now. An iPad Pro (512G storage) with M2 and a keyboard to go with it, would cost me 1720 euros. More than _double_. And, for what?

Re: Giving up the iPad-only travel dream

#299

Post by guidoism »

legends2k wrote: post #203
tiffanyh wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> ”Like all things Apple, iPad is great if you only use it for the exact, limited use cases it was designed for.” That’s actually the definition of a product. To create something for specific use cases. That’s not an Apple problem/issue. Sure, I could use my Toyota Camry (iPad) to haul lumber - but it’d make more sense to use a truck (MacBook) that was designed for those use cases.

Totally respect this viewpoint. I think the parent comment is about the shame of having a powerful device that could be programmed but is locked down only because the manufacturer thought so: an iPad can do a lot more but isn't allowed to just for it to appear as an appliance. In your analogy, it's like a truck is clothed as a Camry but it really needn't be. I guess it's the difference between a geek's and generalist…

Hmm, maybe…? I think there’s a difference in people who are thinking the power and abilities and differences come from the hardware and those who think it’s the software.

Now clearly the hardware is different too. But I think the whole “appliance” thing is software.

Maybe refining the argument to: It’s a Camry with the same horsepower as the truck?

Funny thing I was at the hardware store today looking at modern trucks and was laughing to myself that they seem so much more car-like than when Steve Jobs made that comment. They have pretty interiors with cup holders and infotainment centers. And cars these days have horsepower approaching trucks. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Re: Giving up the iPad-only travel dream

#300

Post by nortonham »

madeofpalk wrote: post #85
gizajob wrote: post #80

I wrote a 160,000 word book this year on an iPad Air with smart keyboard (I find how the pro keyboard doesn't fold all the way back to allow holding the iPad landscape too big of an annoyance to buy one). I think it's a brilliant device, and while limited, does do some things better than the Mac - annotating PDFs and ebooks with the Pencil being one of them. Also nice to hold a document one is working on in landscape…

Like all things Apple, iPad is great if you only use it for the exact, limited use cases it was designed for. The moment you start to be beyond that slightly it completely falls apart. Contrast it to a more general computer running macOS or Windows, which does a poorer job at what iPad does best, but it has a much longer tail where the complexity ramps up linearly, compared to the hockey stick of iOS.

what else do you want to do with your tablet?
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