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The iPad Awkwardly Turns 10

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Re: The iPad Awkwardly Turns 10

#451

Post by mort96 »

irrational wrote: post #172
apexalpha wrote: post #143

This is excellent. My grandma (89) uses an iPad and iPhone. She can use both these devices exactly because of the simplicity mentioned in the article. 1. Open app by tapping it. 2. Close it by tapping the physical button. (rip) That's it. And that's why my grandma can use it. The first and only device she comfortably uses to this day. People in our (tech) communities tend to overestimate a users ability with technolo…

Same here. My grandmother is 97. She grew up as a shepherdess during the great depression, was a nurse during WWII, and then raised 6 children. She has no technical training, but she can use an iPad with no trouble while she always struggled using a desktop computer or laptop. iPads really are great for her use case.

My experience is similar, but my grandmother has gotten worse at using her iPad as iOS has gotten more and more confusing. I usually see her with Safari in split-screen as Gruber mentioned, and know that: A) there's not really any way to teach her to get out of it because the gestures literally require more precise movements than her fingers are capable of, and B) there's no way to teach her to avoid open Safari in split-screen mode, because I constantly do it myself accidentally too on my iPad.

The iPad used to be a really great device for her use case, but the more they add gestures which it's easy to accidentally trigger but hard (as in physically hard, requiring precise finger movements) to reverse, the worse it gets.

Re: The iPad Awkwardly Turns 10

#452

Post by munk-a »

gregjor wrote: post #447
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…

Working Copy and CodeHub handle git repos. I code from an iPad Pro sometimes with Blink (mosh/ssh client) and Working Copy with Textastic. I sympathize about not running local dev environments, but for the actual work I do the apps won't run on a laptop or local PC anyway without a lot of trouble, so I'm used to working over ssh to a dev server. That works very well on an iPad, even better with a decent keyboard with…

I'm quite confused why you'd pursue attempting to use an iPad for development work. As someone who hates laptop-style thin keyboards I could justify it by the fact that carrying around a laptop and a keyboard feels more silly than an iPad and a keyboard - but the weight difference is pretty negligible and the software running on a laptop just has so much more utility for task switching (checking the kanban - making sure the VPN is up and running - quickly tabbing to chat to make sure you can disregard an @ mention) ... all these, on an iPad, require fully backing out with clunky key-presses to activate a very limited app switcher.

Re: The iPad Awkwardly Turns 10

#453

Post by derefr »

simonh wrote: post #430
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…

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

It has one! https://www.macworld.com/article/3405887/how-to-use-a-mouse-...

Re: The iPad Awkwardly Turns 10

#454

Post by gregjor »

garrickvanburen wrote: post #400
0xCMP wrote: post #322

As someone who uses his iPad Pro regularly, I love all the multi tasking of the iPad. I know many have written that they have issues with multiple windows on the iPad, but for me it's never been better or easier. My main gripe is keyboard behavior which is very buggy, but not related to how easy/hard it is to make and move apps around the screen. The fact is that the iPad is only useful because of its software. In my…

An iPad Pro has been my primary work device for nearly 20months now. I recommend it any professional that doesn’t need to write code.

An iPad is fine for writing code, but not capable of compiling/running code. For web development specifically you can't run a real web app on it. iOS Safari doesn't have the inspector/debugger so you can't use it much for debugging/experimenting with web pages.

If iOS Safari had the inspector/debugger, or just inspector with live JS console, I would almost never need to use my laptop (which is just Chromebook, but runs full Chrome).

Re: The iPad Awkwardly Turns 10

#455

Post by derefr »

simonh wrote: post #450
dividedbyzero wrote: post #406

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This can't be installed like a regular app, can it? Also, I wonder why they emulate x86 – isn't the iPad CPU ARM64? Couldn't this simply use binaries for that architecture?

Then you’d be running unsigned, unreviewed binaries bypassing iOS controls directly on the CPU, which would be a security nightmare for iOS. This way it’s a completely emulated environment that’s isolated from the underlying system.

Running x86 binaries under software emulation, and forking off arbirary ARM binaries, aren’t the only two alternatives. You can do what Wine or gVisor does: run native-architecture code, but virtualize system calls as calls into the host binary.

Re: The iPad Awkwardly Turns 10

#456

Post by munk-a »

snapetom wrote: post #411
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…

I feel that Apple has lost its way with OS design in the past 5 years or so. Not at a macro level, but at a micro, "little things" level. Launch anything Apple-written these days and you'll get a wizard telling you how to use some new widget - just like any other software by anyone else. I don't think Apple has ever done that before because features were designed so well, you can easily figure it out. Then there are…

I agree with this - I feel like Windows has gotten much better at catering to delivering (or allowing other people to deliver) more targeted UX improvements. Once upon a time Fences was a requirement to be alive - now instant searching in the start menu means I hardly ever see my desktop - similarly universal key combinations (and global key capture) have let things like media keys really take off - being able to pause a video that skipped to the next entry in the playlist without ever backing out of a different fullscreen app is kinda beautiful.

Heck, I've got, and regularly use, an iPad and had no idea you could go into split screen mode - the UX is entirely invisible and un-intuitive - especially if you pick up something running older iOS and need to remember how to pull up the carousel.

Re: The iPad Awkwardly Turns 10

#457

Post by derefr »

radnor wrote: post #346
streb-lo wrote: post #296

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why on earth should I need a separate device to organize the files on my device?

You don't need to, but doing so with a virtual on-screen keyboard is annoying and slow compared to using a separate laptop.

Or, y’know, we’re talking about the iPad Pro here, so use the keyboard cover. (Are there people buying an iPad Pro who don’t buy the keyboard cover? Seems silly to me.)

Re: The iPad Awkwardly Turns 10

#458

Post by egypturnash »

Terretta wrote: post #435
dkarl wrote: post #344

Earlier quoted context omitted.

folks should try it for a couple months. Leave the Macbook or Win10 laptop at home, and force yourself to rewire your brain into the iPad affordances and apps Stop using other devices and give yourself a few months to learn the basics? This is how I used to encourage people to try desktop Linux in 2001.

That’s also how you get habituals to stop complaining O365 isn’t Blackberry Work, or any other change to a tool that had become ‘second nature’. You have to unlearn or overwrite the second nature.

You also have to be prepared for many weeks of the special frustration of not knowing how to do a thing, or if it even can be done, and of any task potentially turning into a multi-hour rabbit hole of trying to figure out if and how to do it.

Re: The iPad Awkwardly Turns 10

#459

Post by anamexis »

gregjor wrote: post #447
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…

Working Copy and CodeHub handle git repos. I code from an iPad Pro sometimes with Blink (mosh/ssh client) and Working Copy with Textastic. I sympathize about not running local dev environments, but for the actual work I do the apps won't run on a laptop or local PC anyway without a lot of trouble, so I'm used to working over ssh to a dev server. That works very well on an iPad, even better with a decent keyboard with…

Also, Secure Shellfish does great at integrating SFTP with the Files app. (It doesn’t do plain FTP, though.)

Re: The iPad Awkwardly Turns 10

#460

Post by egypturnash »

ghaff wrote: post #423
monknomo wrote: post #420

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

"Turn on the grid lines" is basically "rule of thirds".
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