Apple has not destroyed Steve Jobs' vision for iPad • Hacker News Board

Re: Apple has not destroyed Steve Jobs' vision for iPad

#51

Post by mcphage » Tue, Aug 19, 2025, 1:50 PM UTC

weego wrote: post #6

I honestly thought the touch bar was introduced into the laptops as 'test' iteration before it leading somewhere, and maybe partly with the ipad pros. For on-the-move prosumer use in music, video, and image editing I can see a lot of use for fully customisable hot buttons, especially combined with the pencil. As it is, they're in a weird space. It's better to buy an air than the ipad pro + pro keyboard, the price of…

> I honestly thought the touch bar was introduced into the laptops as 'test' iteration before it leading somewhere

I think you're right—but for whatever reason, they decided not to go there.

Re: Apple has not destroyed Steve Jobs' vision for iPad

#52

Post by Almondsetat » Tue, Aug 19, 2025, 1:51 PM UTC

wpm wrote: post #21

Almondsetat wrote: post #4

From Apple's point of view, Apple Vision (Pro) is the ultimate platform. That's why I think they were so convinced in developing it. If VR/AR headsets follow the same transition we had between the first gigantic mobile phones of thw 80s and the pocketable ones of the 2000s, I could seriously see Apple throwing out all their consumer lineup (phone, watch, ipad, macbook) and only have a Vision device. This would solve…

You still could t ditch the Mac because it’s the only platform you can develop apps on due to its yucky, “legacy” feature of….letting you run software on it without Apples “approval”. I’m sure it’s true what they say and it’s really about “security” though, not their App Store monopoly. Even Apple can’t get around that. The Mac sticks around for this very reason: as a dev platform

I specifically said "consumer lineup" and not "professional lineup"

Re: Apple has not destroyed Steve Jobs' vision for iPad

#53

Post by epistasis » Tue, Aug 19, 2025, 1:52 PM UTC

dogleash wrote: post #36

cm277 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

After years with a mini, I jumped to an Air just so I could finally get a proper 'netbook' experience. Don't like Chromebooks, Windows is too complex; there is room for a simplified laptop that is easy to use and update but let's you use proper apps without going all the way to a full laptop with pro tools. I've started to see this as a generational challenge. I am Gen X, I used to run FreeBSD and Linux, I don't mind…

> Gen Z who are used to simple, powerful technology with simplified apps and UIs? why would they/should they put up with legacy UX and ways of working? I disagree with the premise. The modern UIs are rife with more special cases, hidden gestures and non-transferable knowledge than the old “one mouse button is enough” or even early windows’ ugly but constant model. Gen Z has harder UI, over a superficial simplicity th…

That and the visual language is so ambiguous and slapdash. Discovery is so much harder these days. And with every changing widget layouts, it's so hard to have a spatial memory if where to interact! Word in Windows 3.1 was far easier.

Re: Apple has not destroyed Steve Jobs' vision for iPad

#54

Post by Almondsetat » Tue, Aug 19, 2025, 1:52 PM UTC

gregoriol wrote: post #17

Almondsetat wrote: post #4

From Apple's point of view, Apple Vision (Pro) is the ultimate platform. That's why I think they were so convinced in developing it. If VR/AR headsets follow the same transition we had between the first gigantic mobile phones of thw 80s and the pocketable ones of the 2000s, I could seriously see Apple throwing out all their consumer lineup (phone, watch, ipad, macbook) and only have a Vision device. This would solve…

The Apple Vision solves no problems, like the Apple Watch, they are just toys.

Whatever you posted this reply with is just a silly worthless toy. No, I will not elaborate

Re: Apple has not destroyed Steve Jobs' vision for iPad

#55

Post by scarface_74 » Tue, Aug 19, 2025, 1:56 PM UTC

moduspol wrote: post #35

scarface_74 wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s not really a solved problem on any desktop platform. Once you download an app on a desktop, it has complete access to all of your files you have access to in user space. The Files app itself works just the same to manage files as Windows and Macs assuming you didn’t have multiple windows to work with. The Files app as method to open and save files with in an app, works like any other file picker with more granul…

Apple added functionality to macOS a few years ago that requires a separate pop-up / permissions dialog when apps try to access various directories the user can otherwise access (like Documents, Downloads, Desktop, other apps' files, etc.).

And that doesn’t help. Once an app has permission to your folder along with every other app, it’s not actually solving the problem of an app having access to all of your files.

An app on iOS can only read and write to its own folder in your iCloud Drive by default. You can specifically choose a file in another folder or from another storage provider.

Re: Apple has not destroyed Steve Jobs' vision for iPad

#56

Post by WillAdams » Tue, Aug 19, 2025, 1:56 PM UTC

An interesting contrast here is to how the other side handled things --- Windows for Pen Computing elegantly integrated a stylus into a desktop OS, and things progressed with fits and starts, with a marked upthrust with Microsoft's Tablet PC effort on Windows XP, and then Windows 8 --- but since Fall Creators Update, the stylus has been dumbed down to an 11th touch input, and it takes a bit of effort to get it to do anything other than scroll in a web browser (use Firefox and set a specific option to disable this).

If Apple would make an iPhone which supported the Apple Pencil, I'd be inclined to replace my Samsung Galaxy Note 10+, and the pair of an iPad Pro and MacBook w/ an Apple Pencil controlling Sidecar seems workable enough to replace my Wacom One, and presumably the iPad would be portable enough to replace my Samsung Galaxy Book 3 Pro 360 --- but that still leaves my Kindle Scribe....

Steve Jobs promised that killing the Newton would result in devices which would justify that, but I'm still not seeing a Newton replacement from Apple, and the Scribe is about as close as I've gotten (and I wish Amazon would add a smaller model, or better still, engineer a phone case which included an e-ink screen, Kindle functionality, and had a Wacom EMR stylus and which would extend/replace a phone screen (replacing allowing for usage in direct/bright sunlight)).

Re: Apple has not destroyed Steve Jobs' vision for iPad

#57

Post by scarface_74 » Tue, Aug 19, 2025, 1:57 PM UTC

icedchai wrote: post #28

StopDisinfo910 wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It’s not really a solved problem on any desktop platform. Once you download an app on a desktop, it has complete access to all of your files you have access to in user space. Amusingly, Linux solved that with flatpack. Applications are installed in their own sandboxed containers and you decide which files they can and can’t access. The Linux desktop has some very interesting pieces of technology. Apple could do the…

Apple has "App Sandbox" and an entitlement system on the Mac: https://developer.apple.com/documentation/security/app-sandb... It's "baked in" and doesn't require containers.

Isn’t this only enforced for Mac App Store apps?

Re: Apple has not destroyed Steve Jobs' vision for iPad

#58

Post by JumpCrisscross » Tue, Aug 19, 2025, 1:59 PM UTC

kibwen wrote: post #37

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> confusing choices are deliberate way to exploit psychology of potential buyers into up-selling themselves There is a lot of consumer research that suggests the opposite: analysis paralysis delays a purchase past the point where impulsivity might have pushed a customer over the line.

Apple is a luxury fashion brand, its sales are predicated on people who want to confer social status upon themselves by being seen with something that signals wealth. Apple doesn't care about impulse purchases, because the pressure to purchase comes from marketing and society.

> Apple doesn't care about impulse purchases, because the pressure to purchase comes from marketing and society

I believe your assumption is bunk, but for sake of argument, let’s assume Apple is solely a fashion brand. Are you really claiming luxury fashion doesn’t revolve around impulse purchases?

Re: Apple has not destroyed Steve Jobs' vision for iPad

#59

Post by JumpCrisscross » Tue, Aug 19, 2025, 2:00 PM UTC

endemic wrote: post #40

PaulRobinson wrote: post #3

I broadly agree with this thesis - I don't think there's a "betrayal" of a vision (and even if there had been, who really cares?) - but I do think Apple's vision has got muddled. My problem is we're not all talking about the same thing when we talk about "The iPad". Right now, on sale today, there are four iPads to choose from. No, not different colours, or memory sizes - you need to make a choice between the Mini, t…

Yeah, I really loved the clarity of the 2x2 product matrix Apple had immediately after Jobs' return: 2 desktops, 2 laptops, one "consumer" and one "pro." Of course there were configuration variations within those broad categories as well. I realize we don't live in that world anymore, though.

> return: 2 desktops, 2 laptops, one "consumer" and one "pro”

Isn’t this 2 x 2 x 2?

Re: Apple has not destroyed Steve Jobs' vision for iPad

#60

Post by JustExAWS » Tue, Aug 19, 2025, 2:00 PM UTC

robenkleene wrote: post #46

StopDisinfo910 wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It’s not really a solved problem on any desktop platform. Once you download an app on a desktop, it has complete access to all of your files you have access to in user space. Amusingly, Linux solved that with flatpack. Applications are installed in their own sandboxed containers and you decide which files they can and can’t access. The Linux desktop has some very interesting pieces of technology. Apple could do the…

macOS and iOS have sandboxed containers too, and regardless I don't understand your last statement about motivations (i.e., whether Apple platforms have sandboxes relating to greed isn't a clear connection).

Yes and they are only as far as I know enforced for Mac App Store apps. But once an app has free reign to read and write anywhere on a shared folder, it defeats the purpose as opposed to being able to read and write to the apps own folder and the user can choose a file from another folder explicitly.

But what do sandboxes have to do with greed?