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The iPad Awkwardly Turns 10

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Re: The iPad Awkwardly Turns 10

#41

Post by rusk »

stock_toaster wrote: post #23
tonyedgecombe wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's because it's a consumption device, despite the heroic efforts of some people to prove otherwise. If I want to reply to an email I'll walk upstairs to my real computer rather than attempt to do it on our iPad. As Joey Hess said[1] "If it doesn't have a keyboard, I feel that my thoughts are being forced out through a straw." [1] https://usesthis.com/interviews/joey.hess/

ipads have a non-insignificant footprint as point of sales systems these days too, so I wouldn't say ipads are _only_ a consumption device. They are also a pretty solid task specific unit for certain specific industries.

They make good head units too.

I guess what OP was trying to say is that their application as creative tools (production vs consumption) is far more limited than the full fledged PC systems that we are used to.

Re: The iPad Awkwardly Turns 10

#42

Post by Slartie »

The iPad has failed as a general purpose computing device, sure. But it has succeeded (along with other tablet devices of similar form factor) as a basis for a large and growing number of single-purpose use cases in various industries:

- iPad POS are popular in smaller coffee shops and similar outlets

- iPad-based document viewing solutions are used by pilots to replace large bags with manuals for planes that they used to lug around

- iPads are used for meeting room management solutions, information displays for customers and similar purposes where one single application is to be run basically 24/7 on a device with low power and space requirements, but where certain aesthetic requirements to the app as well as the hardware have to be satisfied

Granted, iPads don't hold this space exclusively. But so don't iPhones or Macs hold their respective application spaces exclusively, even though they significantly catalyzed their genesis.

Re: The iPad Awkwardly Turns 10

#43

Post by fiblye »

thomasfl wrote: post #35

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…

>When the Apple pen and the Procreate became available, the iPad pro also became one of the most used tools for painting and sketching.

Yep. I had zero interest in tablets whatsoever, but the day I saw the Apple Pencil had launched, I went to a store to try it out. Ended up buying it and an iPad after less than 5 minutes of thinking.

Drawing pads for PCs were a pretty bad market before Apple hopped into the game. Your only real options were buying a "cheap" tablet at a couple hundred bucks (the lower end ones are inaccurate and barely a step above struggling with a mouse) with no screen and trying to adapt to drawing without looking directly at your hands, or you could spend a huge amount of cash on a drawing pad with a screen built in. The latter was really only available for people with loads of cash to spare and certainty that they'll be getting their money's worth.

An iPad with a Pencil barely costs more than a garbage bin drawing tablet, but you get a highly responsive screen and direct input. All of that plus Procreate is about the price of a 2 year Photoshop scheme.

The last thing to open up the digital art world this much to normal folk was Paint.exe.

Re: The iPad Awkwardly Turns 10

#44

Post by crooked-v »

threatofrain wrote: post #24

> The iPad was a new class of device, sitting between a phone and a laptop. To succeed, it needed not only to be better at some things than either a phone or laptop, it needed to be much better. It was and is. For me the problem of the iPad is that it's merely inconsistently better at a slew of entertainment/consumption based activities but for everything else it's worse than any decent laptop. As even consumption-ba…

> IMO to be revolutionary the iPad should convince you not to buy a laptop

The key thing sitting in the way of that for me, at least for the most part, is the lack of true background multitasking. I understand the need to avoid the battery problems of the Android ecosystem, but there needs to be some way to take an app and say 'yes, I really want to let this sit active indefinitely until I intentionally quit it'.

For a simple example, consider an IRC client: it's useless if it drops the connection every time you turn off the screen or switch to another app for too long.

Re: The iPad Awkwardly Turns 10

#45

Post by bronco21016 »

lowkeyokay wrote: post #11

>By 1994 almost all graphic designers and illustrators were using computers for work. The iPad is a great device but, it isn't essential to anything or anyone. If tomorrow there where no iPads anymore, we would all just get on with our lives.

If all of them disappeared into thin air one night then nearly the entire global aviation system would come to a screeching halt. It’s the device of choice among air carriers for navigation charts. Paper backup isn’t even carried anymore. We just carry extra iPads and batteries.

I’m not sure any of the charting apps used by air carriers are even available on another OS at this point. I’ve never been aware of JeppFD Pro on Android and I believe they dumped Windows as well.

There are other options of course but as far as I’m aware in the US it’s all iPads and JeppFD Pro. The feds are familiar with it and a regulatory framework is created around it so it’s the path of least resistance. And as a pilot, I’d say most of us are pretty satisfied with it.

Re: The iPad Awkwardly Turns 10

#46

Post by mikehall314 »

I don't think I can substantively disagree with anything said here. Though I can think of a few places where iPad has revolutionised things; most notably point-of-sale. Especially for small businesses, I commonly see iPad and other tablet form factors used for retail point of sale.

Re: The iPad Awkwardly Turns 10

#47

Post by itsaride »

rusk wrote: post #38

Any chance we could get a Ctrl-F type function? I'm enjoying the mental training of learning to scan text for keywords myself, but from time to time this is a feature that I miss ...

You mean the “find on this page” function? Type a word in the search bar on a page then scroll to the bottom of the overlay that pops up.

Re: The iPad Awkwardly Turns 10

#48

Post by perilunar »

Maakuth wrote: post #14

> How would anyone ever figure out how to split-screen multitask on the iPad if they didn’t already know how to do it? I actually recently got my first personal iOS (okay, iPadOS) device and this is how I feel about many of the UI features. Touching some side of the screen triggers this or that surprising feature and I'm struggling to undo what I did to get back to the business. Maybe what's needed is good old RTFM,…

There is a manual of sorts: Tips.app

There’s also an iPad User Guide you can download in the Books.app.

Re: The iPad Awkwardly Turns 10

#49

Post by steeleduncan »

nallo wrote: post #26

I actually use iPad for coding nowadays. It is of course slower than using a keyboard but also a quite relaxing and fun way of programming.

After a few years of frustration with trying to make my iPad useful for coding, I bought a Samsung Galaxy Tab A 10.1 and keyboard case for about 200GBP. Install Termux from the Google Play store (no warranty voiding rooting required). `apt install clang` and off you go.

The iPad I had before this was undoubtedly prettier and had a better UI, but the cheapest iPad is twice this price and after years of buying apps, faffing with file sharing, and even porting one or two interpreters across to iOS I never managed what takes 10 minutes on Android.

Re: The iPad Awkwardly Turns 10

#50

Post by catalogia »

thomasfl wrote: post #35

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 machine itself. I can't say I have a lot of experience using iPads, so I'm curious what others think.

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