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The iPad Awkwardly Turns 10

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Re: The iPad Awkwardly Turns 10

#421

Post by jwr »

amelius wrote: post #239
jwr wrote: post #20

This is a very good take on the subject. I love the iPad, I use it all the time. It's an unbelievably good piece of hardware with a number of really good software applications. It is a surprisingly good thinking and note-taking tool, it's the best tool (period) for reading datasheets (or any large PDF documents), it is a great music workstation if you connect a MIDI keyboard and/or an external USB audio interface. Bu…

> it's the best tool (period) for reading datasheets (or any large PDF documents) Sounds intriguing. How would I go about copying the PDFs that are currently on my Linux PC onto it, though?

I use Readdle PDF Expert (or the free Documents), which syncs entire directories from Dropbox, both ways.

Re: The iPad Awkwardly Turns 10

#422

Post by Balanceinfinity »

Wowfunhappy wrote: post #352
Balanceinfinity wrote: post #350

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have to disagree - the ipad shouldn't be simpler than the iPhone - it should be binary: simpler for the grandparents, powerful enough to compete against a surface. When I travel, I'm only taking 1 big screen. The ipad should replace my laptop for trips where I don't have to work a bunch.

> simpler for the grandparents, powerful enough to compete against a surface. The UI of a 2010 iPad could replace your laptop on trips. If you just need a device to occasionally keep tabs on email and review photos and bring up websites, the iPad has always been great for that. If you need to do anything more intense, the one device you bring really should be a laptop, especially as we become able to engineer laptops…

The surface comes pretty close.

Re: The iPad Awkwardly Turns 10

#423

Post by ghaff »

monknomo wrote: post #420
ghaff wrote: post #280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One big difference with the newer phones is low light performance. I have a bunch of "real" cameras but I so often don't have them with me if I haven't set out with the explicit intention to take pictures. >I’m a hopeless photographer Like anything else you can learn. You may not transform yourself into a great photographer but learning some simple rules and practicing a bit will take you a long way. Smartphones have…

I am not a natural photographer, but a couple rules I've followed have made my pictures better: 1. Light up the thing I'm trying to photograph 2. Keep the bright light sources behind me insofar as possible (for example, pictures of a person with the sun behind them are really hard) 3. Turn on the grid lines and try to get interesting things either on the lines or where the lines intersect 4. Line up horizons or verti…

Probably add rule of thirds. Rules are made to be broken but it's a reasonable starting point.

ADDED: A couple of other things.

(Usually) have a clear subject of interest. i.e. focus in on something.

Probably related. If you are taking pictures of people, for example, get in closer.

Re: The iPad Awkwardly Turns 10

#424

Post by Wowfunhappy »

Balanceinfinity wrote: post #422
Wowfunhappy wrote: post #352

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> simpler for the grandparents, powerful enough to compete against a surface. The UI of a 2010 iPad could replace your laptop on trips. If you just need a device to occasionally keep tabs on email and review photos and bring up websites, the iPad has always been great for that. If you need to do anything more intense, the one device you bring really should be a laptop, especially as we become able to engineer laptops…

The surface comes pretty close.

The surface is just a "standard" computer in a different form factor. It has both the utility of a standard computer and the complexity that comes with it.

I would love an OS X tablet, and I'm looking into making a Hackintosh one (it can be done). But it's not going to be an iPad, just like an iPad in a laptop case isn't a laptop.

Re: The iPad Awkwardly Turns 10

#425

Post by gherkinnn »

ghaff wrote: post #280
gherkinnn wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Camera is true. Speaking for myself, I’m a hopeless photographer and the iPhone X’ camera won’t save me.

One big difference with the newer phones is low light performance. I have a bunch of "real" cameras but I so often don't have them with me if I haven't set out with the explicit intention to take pictures. >I’m a hopeless photographer Like anything else you can learn. You may not transform yourself into a great photographer but learning some simple rules and practicing a bit will take you a long way. Smartphones have…

Low light is an excellent point.

Regarding skills; while yes I could learn it — getting to a passable level is entirely possible. It’s just that I don’t really care that much.

Re: The iPad Awkwardly Turns 10

#426

Post by chungus_khan »

scalio wrote: post #358
kbutler wrote: post #308

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Thank you. We need to stop thinking of growth as a reasonable metric for wellbeing or relevance of products. When a new product is introduced, certainly, looking how the market reacts is interesting. But many years down the line, things should stabilise. Does your (metaphorical) baker round the corner grow yoy? And yet, somehow their bread is still good, and they have no problem surviving, except when a company with…

Growth is what the shareholders care about, and capital always rules, even at the expense of anything else.

Re: The iPad Awkwardly Turns 10

#427

Post by chungus_khan »

rsynnott wrote: post #101
flixic wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The issue with each of these examples is that hardware advancements barely matter. $200 Android tablet with a simple enough design works just as well. Apple doesn't want to participate in such markets. That's why they try to push creativity narrative, "what's a computer" and so on. iPad can only succeed as a premium enough product, and that requires software differentiation.

> . $200 Android tablet with a simple enough design works just as well. I mean, the normal (and I assume best selling) iPad is about 300, and will likely be supported for a lot longer than the Android one (my Air 2 is getting on for 6 years old).

Having serviced many kiosk-type iPad devices, expecting the operator to update is incredibly wishful thinking.

Re: The iPad Awkwardly Turns 10

#428

Post by jborichevskiy »

Yhippa wrote: post #342
davedx wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> struggling to undo what I did to get back to the business You'll love this one: to undo (don't think it works for everything, but it does for typing), shake your device rapidly from side to side.

Are you serious?

Yup, also Google Maps on iOS detects this as a "Send Feedback" command and shows a dialog for it. Slightly fitting, I suppose.

Re: The iPad Awkwardly Turns 10

#429

Post by brailsafe »

Fiahil wrote: post #269

I completely agree with this article. The iPad hardware is absolutely wonderful, it's light, gorgeous and powerful. I got the latest iPad pro to watch Netflix in bed and it fills that purpose completely. However, the OS running on the machine is bad. Very bad. The multitasking is horrifying. The Files app is unusable (especially if you want to access your files from an FTP server). You have to use your finger to sele…

How much Netflix are you watching!?

Re: The iPad Awkwardly Turns 10

#430

Post by simonh »

Fiahil wrote: post #269

I completely agree with this article. The iPad hardware is absolutely wonderful, it's light, gorgeous and powerful. I got the latest iPad pro to watch Netflix in bed and it fills that purpose completely. However, the OS running on the machine is bad. Very bad. The multitasking is horrifying. The Files app is unusable (especially if you want to access your files from an FTP server). You have to use your finger to sele…

All of those are either kind of ‘eh’, or have decent workarounds, or aren’t even valid at all. There are plenty of ftp client and server apps that work absolutely fine, I don’t even know what your talking about on that front.

Please don’t add a mouse cursor to iOS, No!

I find the new cut n paste stuff outstanding. There are a range of decent screen sharing, presentation and touchpad apps. There’s a decent free Gmail app that supports multiple accounts.

Can’t use Python? Good grief, where have you been hiding all these years? Pythonista is a fantastic Python dev environment on iOS, with several apps and games published using it, and there are a bunch of other dev apps for other languages, plus Working Copy for git and github integration.

The iPad doesn’t do everything, sure, but it’s way beyond being a basic consumer device. In particular Pythonista, with its built in GUI designer, support for games development, community shell extensions and tools make it an incredible powerhouse device.

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