Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

New iPad Air, powered by M4

apple.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

331–340 of 693 posts

Re: New iPad Air, powered by M4

#331

Post by b33j0r »

bigstrat2003 wrote: post #312
tomaskafka wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tim Cook's fear of people not buying a full set of Apple devices for each person is the driving force behind not just the lack of multiuser support, but also the overall nerfing of iPadOS. For the past 5+ years it's been, "This will be the year of real work on the iPad," but they keep circling around it, trying not to make iPads accidentally powerful enough for someone to skip buying a MacBook.

> they keep circling around it, trying not to make iPads accidentally powerful enough for someone to skip buying a MacBook. Which is really silly, because if someone needs to do actual work they are not going to do it on an iPad no matter how capable it is. The form factor simply does not work for getting work done. Apple has nothing to fear here.

My dad and my brother use ipad pros for their healthcare business and rarely use laptops. For them, the year of real work happened several years ago. My brother even has a mouse for it somehow.

Re: New iPad Air, powered by M4

#332

Post by coldtea »

bigstrat2003 wrote: post #312
tomaskafka wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tim Cook's fear of people not buying a full set of Apple devices for each person is the driving force behind not just the lack of multiuser support, but also the overall nerfing of iPadOS. For the past 5+ years it's been, "This will be the year of real work on the iPad," but they keep circling around it, trying not to make iPads accidentally powerful enough for someone to skip buying a MacBook.

> they keep circling around it, trying not to make iPads accidentally powerful enough for someone to skip buying a MacBook. Which is really silly, because if someone needs to do actual work they are not going to do it on an iPad no matter how capable it is. The form factor simply does not work for getting work done. Apple has nothing to fear here.

>Which is really silly, because if someone needs to do actual work they are not going to do it on an iPad no matter how capable it is. The form factor simply does not work for getting work done.*

Nonsens. The iPad is basically a 11 to 13 (Pro) monitor+computer with an amazing touch screen. Adding the official keyboard folio, or any bluetooth keyboard/mourse is trivial, and it makes for an excellent on-the-go machine. Not different to the 12-inch MacBook (circa 2015) and the older fan favorite 12-inch PowerBook G4 (circa 2003), and I know several devs who swore by them. Linus used and loved one of the latter (with PPC Linux on in his case).

The only issue is the lack of OS level support for some stuff, not the form factor.

Admins, devs working mostly on the Cloud, photographers, and writers already use it for "getting work done", I've seen execs too.

Re: New iPad Air, powered by M4

#333

Post by joshkojoras »

pier25 wrote: post #222
joshkojoras wrote: post #199

I had a 2008 iPad until few years ago and I think it was the most impressive device I ever owned. I couldn't believe how much performance and longevity you can get out of such a small and simple device, for the price which hasn't changed in 8 years. I sold it because I spent most of my time on a laptop, but looking at this new M4 Air iPad makes my wallet tingle. I first want to see what the low cost Macbook is like,…

The iPad 1 was released in 2010

I made a typo, it was supposed to say 2018.

Re: New iPad Air, powered by M4

#334

Post by MattGrommes »

upmind wrote: post #244

I owned a few iPads as a kid but as I get older I see less and less reason to buy one. It kinda sits in the middle of usefulness of a phone and laptop for me. Larger screen than phone yes, but can't run any of the applications I need from a laptop. If it had MacOS, I'd be much more inclined to buy it.

Mine is 98% for reading comics and 2% learning to draw on Procreate. Most everything else I find awkward to do on it.

Re: New iPad Air, powered by M4

#335

Post by lloeki »

CharlesW wrote: post #276
selectodude wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm kind of surprised that Apple hasn't full throttle on foldables. I'm more apt to spend $2500 on a foldable iPhone than I am $1500 on an iPhone and an iPad. I don't think I'm alone here.

When they introduce their first foldable device this year, keep in mind that Apple has been ideating on and prototyping concept devices with foldable displays long before working prototypes of foldable screens existed. The first Apple patent related to devices with flexible displays was filed in 2011. The first Apple patent related to hinges for foldable devices was filed in 2015. Foldable device prototypes were publ…

I see your 2011 and I raide you a 1987

https://youtube.com/watch?v=umJsITGzXd0

Re: New iPad Air, powered by M4

#336

Post by bottlepalm »

malshe wrote: post #326
bottlepalm wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

iPad is the most absurd device ever. It is fully capable of running a full blown general purpose OS, but artificially restricted to be a YouTube machine. Something you give kids in a restaurant to be quiet. Putting an M4 in it is like Apple rubbing our faces in it. Look at this device that could do everything, but can't do anything.

Comments like yours just go on to show how narrow the worldview of many HN users is. Just because you don't know how people are using their iPads doesn't mean iPads "can't do anything". It defies common sense, too. If iPads couldn't do anything, why would people buy them consistently? I can imagine people buying them once because they don't know any better. But iPad is more than 15 years old now.

I know exactly how it's used. I said in my comment it's used by kids to watch YouTube. By age 4, 58% of children have their own tablet. And YouTube is the #1 app for iPad. This is the majority use case, next to collecting dust on a shelf, or gifts for people's aging parents.

https://www.commonsensemedia.org/sites/default/files/researc...

You don't think an M4 chip, amazing, screen, form factor, quality - all for children to watch YouTube videos with is absurd? TSMC all busy making 3nm chips to be used for watching CoComelon. An amazingly powerful, affordable device that is totally locked out of being used for general purpose computing. That doesn't irritate you?

Re: New iPad Air, powered by M4

#337

Post by lostapathy »

b33j0r wrote: post #331
bigstrat2003 wrote: post #312

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> they keep circling around it, trying not to make iPads accidentally powerful enough for someone to skip buying a MacBook. Which is really silly, because if someone needs to do actual work they are not going to do it on an iPad no matter how capable it is. The form factor simply does not work for getting work done. Apple has nothing to fear here.

My dad and my brother use ipad pros for their healthcare business and rarely use laptops. For them, the year of real work happened several years ago. My brother even has a mouse for it somehow.

What's the "somehow" about the mouse? They've supported that for a while now.

Re: New iPad Air, powered by M4

#338

Post by rossant »

upmind wrote: post #244

I owned a few iPads as a kid but as I get older I see less and less reason to buy one. It kinda sits in the middle of usefulness of a phone and laptop for me. Larger screen than phone yes, but can't run any of the applications I need from a laptop. If it had MacOS, I'd be much more inclined to buy it.

Thank you for making me feel old. The first iPad came out when I was doing my PhD. When I was a kid, Tim Berners-Lee was inventing the web.

Re: New iPad Air, powered by M4

#339

Post by benfrancom »

JadeNB wrote: post #230
SOLAR_FIELDS wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple has historically never been good at multiple users at the same machine. Even MacOS is still pretty bad at it. IMO incentives are not aligned here, they want everyone purchasing their own iPad, so i suspect that their strategy is to not invest too much into profile management as it risks cannibalizing their hardware sales.

> Even MacOS is still pretty bad at it. What problems do you see with multiple users on macOS? I don't use it intensively, but I've never noticed issues.

USB security prompt disappears when multiple MacOS accounts signed in

Still a problem for me, and has been for years, but I may be holding it wrong. https://discussions.apple.com/thread/255929514?sortBy=rank

The solution posted in the discussion is not really secure.

Re: New iPad Air, powered by M4

#340

Post by baxuz »

moolcool wrote: post #214

The iPad would go from a never-buy to a buy-right-away for me, if they added user profiles. It'd be a nice thing to have on your coffee table, where anyone in the household can pick it up and be logged into all of their stuff. Windows XP had this feature. Chromebooks have this feature. It's inexcusable that such an expensive gadget can only have one user.

Absolutely the same thing here. It's why we went with a Galaxy tab, even though the iPad would have been a better fit (sheet music + MIDI)
Post reply on HN