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The iPad Awkwardly Turns 10

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Re: The iPad Awkwardly Turns 10

#301

Post by slantyyz »

_red wrote: post #294
slantyyz wrote: post #285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I get that designers hate skeuomorphism, I tend to think there are still significant benefits to it with seniors. With my dad in particular, if the icons were literally photos (as opposed to "graphically designed" icons) of real world objects he was familiar with, I think it would help... a little. He doesn't seem to process abstractions very well. For example, a shadowed head in a contacts icon has absolutely…

For the life of me, I can't understand how neither IOS nor Android offers some type of "Simple UI" setting. It should only consist of 4 Icons: Call, Email, Text, Web It is a crazily under-served market.

There are launchers for Android, but they don't work perfectly.

For me, the only icons I would need is "Call", "Answer" and "Silent". Of course, that begs the question, why not use a "feature phone", but their UIs are muddled and overdesigned these days too.

Re: The iPad Awkwardly Turns 10

#302

Post by pier25 »

dangus wrote: post #254
gwbas1c wrote: post #247

> The iPad at 10 is, to me, a grave disappointment. The biggest disappointment to me is that I can't buy a Macbook that converts into a tablet. I've never owned a tablet, and my wife never replaced her 1st generation iPad, because there's just too much overlap between tablet and phone; and between tablet and laptop. And, as far as multitasking goes: When I do serious work that requires that kind of multitasking, I ne…

On the contrary, Apple is the only one who has this market figured out. Ever see anyone at a coffee shop using a Surface Pro in tablet mode? I haven’t. That’s because the second you sit down to complete tasks for more than a minute or two you’ll want a keyboard at least if not a mouse, too. In my view that eliminates productivity as a legitimate use for a tablet. There’s no way I’d prefer touching my screen to the ki…

> Ever see anyone at a coffee shop using a Surface Pro in tablet mode? I haven’t. That’s because the second you sit down to complete tasks for more than a minute or two you’ll want a keyboard at least if not a mouse, too.

Precisely because they are sitting on table. Have you seen those same users in their couch or bed?

Re: The iPad Awkwardly Turns 10

#303

Post by obelos »

Sure, getting apps into multitasking mode is hard, but have you tried to get an app _out_ of multitasking? Especially a “Slide Over” window? Just when you think you've banished it, you open the host app again and the slide over app revivifies. It's maddening. Every time I accidentally get an app into this mode I have to search the support docs for the magic sequence to make the window finally go away. I love my iPad, but a couple aspects are unambiguously terrible UX.

Re: The iPad Awkwardly Turns 10

#304

Post by wpietri »

It seems to me is that his main complaint is that the iPad fell short of what he dreamed it could do. But I think the problem there is in the dreaming, not the device.

I have a Samsung tablet, the Galaxy Tab S4. As a consumption device, it's great. I read books and newspapers; I watch videos and movies; I play the occasional game. It's great for that. I use my projector way less now, and don't have to struggle with the awkwardness of phones or laptops for those tasks.

Like Gruber, I thought it might do more, so I got it with the keyboard case, and thought about traveling with just that. But I pretty quickly swapped that for a dumb case and just kept traveling with my laptop when I needed to do actual work. A real keyboard and a real trackpad are way more effective for productive work than anything that's going to snap on to a tablet. Conversely, when I'm just aiming to consume something, there's a lot of hardware and OS complexity I just don't need.

I think it's telling here that he doesn't say what sort of revolution he really expects out of the iPad. He doesn't talk about an audience or a use case the iPad could serve if there were specific changes. Instead it's just a grumble about an obscure feature and how his grandmother struggles with it. In my view, tablets have definitely lived up to their potential. It just took us a bit to figure out what that potential really was.

Re: The iPad Awkwardly Turns 10

#305

Post by Marsymars »

zaphoyd wrote: post #122
killjoywashere wrote: post #40

The issue is the entrance into split-view, which should expose the springboard, not the dock. The intuitive way to launch a second app would be to slide in from the right or left with two (three?) fingers, which would expose a compressed view of the springboard in split view. Then you could access all the apps intuitively (by swiping to the next page of apps) and launch the second app in the intuitive click-an-app me…

Yes yes yes. I’ve often wondered why they didn’t do this. Having to go through silly hoops like full exit back to the spring board to launch an app so that it is available in the dock to pick for split view... why not just use the springboard in the first place.

My feeling is that they’ve deliberately avoided gestures that are similar to Windows 8 tablet UI.

Re: The iPad Awkwardly Turns 10

#306

Post by Terretta »

ibn_khaldun wrote: post #146

The main gripe of this article seems to be focused on a single issue. But it is a valid point. But it is sort of strange to see this article boil down to the author's displeasure with just this one issue. To be honest I never was aware that you could only pull apps from your dock into split screen because I really only use those apps for that function. There is a comment buried toward the bottom that suggests a very…

And, he’s wrong:

> I like my iPad very much, and use it almost every day. But if I could go back to the pre-split-screen, pre-drag-and-drop interface I would. Which is to say, now that iPadOS has its own name, I wish I could install the iPhone’s one-app-on-screen-at-a-time, no-drag-and-drop iOS on my iPad Pro. I’d do it in a heartbeat and be much happier for it.

Apple Multitasking Support page:

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT207582

Last section:

To turn Multitasking features on or off, go to Settings > Home Screen & Dock > Multitasking, then you can do the following:

- Allow Multiple Apps: Turn off if you don't want to use Slide Over or Split View.

Re: The iPad Awkwardly Turns 10

#307

Post by dangus »

I’m surprised that John Gruber hasn’t just turned off split screen for his mom:

Settings > General > Multitasking and Dock > Allow Multiple Apps (Off)

> But if I could go back to the pre-split-screen, pre-drag-and-drop interface I would.

I think you can, check your settings.

Re: The iPad Awkwardly Turns 10

#308

Post by kbutler »

JackFr wrote: post #286
jeromegv wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The iPad is a 20 BILLION dollar a year business. Let's not get crazy on "mediocre" sales, this is one of the most popular product line of all companies combined. Did not get as high as some people were expecting but this is far from mediocre. Source: https://sixcolors.com/post/2020/01/fun-with-charts-a-decade-...

> Let's not get crazy on "mediocre" sales If I've got a product whose sales were falling 5 out of the past 6 years, and whose current sales are 30%+ down from a peak of 6 years ago, I'm pretty worried about it.

Is growth required for success?

I expect the iPad, lacking any new revolutionary functionality, to reach a steady state of (new customer + replacement rate) sales that is some percentage of its peak, pre-saturation sales. If replacement rate is every 4-5 years, this may be below 30% of peak.

This won't mean it isn't successful, just recognizing that existing users don't need to upgrade every year.

Re: The iPad Awkwardly Turns 10

#309

Post by chucky »

davedx wrote: post #19

The iPad could have been a new Dynabook. Alan Kay was actually fairly impressed with it when it came out. Unfortunately I agree with Gruber, it has really failed to live up to expectations. Missing a hardware keyboard is quite a big deal I think.

> Alan Kay was actually fairly impressed with it when it came out.

I think you are misremembering. Every interview I can find points to Alan Kay being disappointed in the iPad. See this, for example: https://techland.time.com/2013/04/02/an-interview-with-compu...

Re: The iPad Awkwardly Turns 10

#310

Post by Marsymars »

_ea1k wrote: post #208
trey-jones wrote: post #204

Ten years ago this was a good reminder that what I want is not necessarily what the majority want. Make that "definitely not what the majority want". I thought the iPad was a stupid idea that I had no use for. I still feel mostly that way (though I think it could be handy for easy page turns in music). Obviously I was wrong about it being a stupid idea, and I'm happy to own that. I've built several apps specific to i…

Aren't keyboards (finally) replacable on iOS, though?

It drops back to the system keyboard sometimes - in my case, that difference was too jarring to make a non-stock keyboard practical to use at all.
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