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The iPad Awkwardly Turns 10

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Re: The iPad Awkwardly Turns 10

#601

Post by asdff »

Fr0styMatt88 wrote: post #483
jarjoura wrote: post #480

As someone who worked on the iPad v1, I can tell you, it was a product built in search of a problem. It was going to compete against the, then, growing Netbook market. Steve Jobs thought Windows was going to win that market and hastily threw a team together to answer for it. However, during several all-hands, no one except SJ seemed even remotely excited about the product. "These things will probably sell in the educ…

I still remember people saying that the iPad was just going to be a big iPhone and what is the point? I NEVER understood this. I was one of those people that was immediately excited about the iPad. Being able to lay back in bed and casually browse the web, read magazines, watch movies, play games? On something with a decently large screen, decent battery life and something that wasn't bulky? PLEASE TAKE MY MONEY!!!!…

Somepeople definitely love the device. It depends on what these things mean to you. My iPhone is fine for reading for me. Paperback novels aren't as large as ipads. The column width in a print magazine and newspaper isn't as large as an ipad, it's about as wide as my iphone screen. Text wrap is important for comfortable reading. Therefore, in my eyes, having something larger than it needs to be to actually read is a waste.

Similarly, the web isn't any better on an ipad vs. an iphone; its the same mobile website but with more white space to fill the scale.

I could never stand gaming on a touch screen device, personally. I know people play fortnight on their phones these days, but I can't stand the lack of tactile response with virtual thumb sticks and the fact you have to block the screen with your thumbs to do anything at all. Games tailored to the device, like tap tap revenge, were fun but only for 10 minute spurts.

I get the merit of having a 12" light weight screen that connects to the internet, but apple hasn't sold me on the utility to make it worth dropping the couple hundred bucks, especially when my phone does it all while also being a phone.

Re: The iPad Awkwardly Turns 10

#602

Post by gumby »

dmd wrote: post #598
gumby wrote: post #586

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Definitely, but I like to write on my scores which I can’t do on my iPad. The big iPad Pro made a difference here too. The older iPads so t get enough music on the screen.

> but I like to write on my scores which I can’t do on my iPad. What? Annotating scores is a main use for me. I do it constantly. It's something the ipad is great at.

What program do you use? Do you have an iPad that supports a pencil? How is it?

Re: The iPad Awkwardly Turns 10

#603

Post by VvR-Ox »

neuronic wrote: post #568
VvR-Ox wrote: post #563

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just recently bought a used iPad that still got the iPadOS update and what I noticed is very ambivalent. PRO: - The device is light, has a nice screen and good sound. I can use it to read documents that need color, watch videos and browse the web all in one device with acceptable performance - The battery has enough capacity for the pad to work for days without recharging - You can use pencil 1 as an input device (…

> as someone coming from Linux it feels already "walled" enough for my taste Not criticizing at all, genuinely curious: what do you want to accomplish on an iPad that is prevented by the walled garden?

Ok this feeling especially comes from the following disadvantages:

- iOS/iPadOS AppStore vs. macOS AppStore + ability to install apps from the web (I can't even compile FOSS apps on my own without owning a mac + 100$/year dev licence - this is a real shit show for me!)

- mostly paid & stripped down terminal apps vs. a real native terminal (and of course just installing iTerm2 because you can do so on a mac)

- no "real" apps like on a desktop machine. As I mentioned in my CON's I would love to use a real browser like Firefox including Add-On's because the web is unusable in many cases without blocking and filtering all the evil scripts people use to make some extra money. Also I would like to use the Adobe products (photoshop, illustrator etc.) and not the stripped down (and from what I heard also bad) pseudo-apps. Finally I have a device that could replace things like a Wacom Tablet connected to your computer but that opportunity was missed. Very sad.

- no up- or downgrades as you please because Apple likes to force you to go to / stay on certain versions of their OS on the mobile devices to "motivate" you to buy new ones once in a while when they need more revenue.

- no free choice of OS. My MBP runs macOS and linux and if I would need it I could just install windows as well (uagh!).

There is much more to this but I think the issues mentioned should be enough to draw a clear picture of the paternalism Apple treats it's users of the mobile devices with. I don't like this at all and it was THE deal breaker that prevented me from ever buying a new iPad.

If they get worse as the MBP's do, I would also take care and probably never buy a new model and instead stick to an old one that is a combination of some "freedom" (the max. level Apple allows you to do anything with it), enough quality (good product, not too many beta-experiments) and stability (software is new enough not to be dangerous to use).

Re: The iPad Awkwardly Turns 10

#604

Post by VvR-Ox »

prpl wrote: post #506
jarjoura wrote: post #480

As someone who worked on the iPad v1, I can tell you, it was a product built in search of a problem. It was going to compete against the, then, growing Netbook market. Steve Jobs thought Windows was going to win that market and hastily threw a team together to answer for it. However, during several all-hands, no one except SJ seemed even remotely excited about the product. "These things will probably sell in the educ…

Kids love iPads/tablets - more than just for education. They love fortnite on them, they love youtube on them. A 3 year old can use an iPad. Sure - they can use phones too, but tablets will be the first computer for kids for a long time, until they start to reach for phablets when they are teenagers (or, as a society, we reject screen time below a certain age)

As someone who grew up with real computers it really hurts and saddens me to read this.

Kids also love sugar but it damages their brains and bodies.

Re: The iPad Awkwardly Turns 10

#605

Post by pjmlp »

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 can use a terminal and SSH to my raspberry pi, but I can't use git, bash, node, python, go or rust on it...

Nothing of that is something I care about.

Pythonista, Continuous, Codea, Shaderific, Playgrounds, and a couple of others provide enough juice for my tablet coding needs.

Re: The iPad Awkwardly Turns 10

#606

Post by moon2 »

gumby wrote: post #602
dmd wrote: post #598

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but I like to write on my scores which I can’t do on my iPad. What? Annotating scores is a main use for me. I do it constantly. It's something the ipad is great at.

What program do you use? Do you have an iPad that supports a pencil? How is it?

Not sure about the app, but newer iPads support Apple Pencil. It's a bit expensive, but definitely worth it.

Re: The iPad Awkwardly Turns 10

#607

Post by GhettoMaestro »

nannal wrote: post #541
freepor wrote: post #538

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You realize that one of the reasons the device feels so powerful is that it runs iOS. A 5x specified Mac Pro doesn’t have the feel of the iPad.

Lets not get caught up unduly, any light OS would perform as well on the hardware, there's no magic between iOS and the ipad hardware.

> there's no magic between iOS and the ipad hardware.

I love hacker news for these gems. Lmao.

Re: The iPad Awkwardly Turns 10

#608

Post by farisjarrah »

nwallin wrote: post #600
farisjarrah wrote: post #595

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its a real shame the android tablet ecosystem has all but died. Android is better these days then its ever been. Highly customizable, you can use the firefox browser with uBlock origin, excellent 3rd party password manager support(much better then iPad). You also have a really nice open-source app eco system. Apps like Termux make it possible for me to basically do my DevOps job from anywhere in the world with a port…

I think the problem is that even the best tablet is worse than a cheap shitty netbook. Shitty netbooks can be had for $200. The fancy shmancy backwards folding ones, (into a tablet form factor) aren't that much more. You know what's better than termux? OpenSSH, tmux, a proper term, a proper tiling WM, in X.org. Or Wayland or screen if that's your thing I don't judge.

Termux is just a linux container, it has OpenSSH, and tmux. Yes I agree that a full linux workstation is better then an android phone, but sometimes I like to go out with friends and family and I might still be on call for work, and I really dont want to have to carry around a bulky laptop. Termux is just an extremely nice thing to have on an android phone and there is no legit officially sanctioned method of doing these things on iPad other then iSH which isnt even fully in the app store yet, its only on testflight.

Re: The iPad Awkwardly Turns 10

#609

Post by dmd »

gumby wrote: post #602
dmd wrote: post #598

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but I like to write on my scores which I can’t do on my iPad. What? Annotating scores is a main use for me. I do it constantly. It's something the ipad is great at.

What program do you use? Do you have an iPad that supports a pencil? How is it?

I use https://forscore.co/ . Only very old iPads don't support pencil, I believe.

Re: The iPad Awkwardly Turns 10

#610

Post by swift »

VvR-Ox wrote: post #603
neuronic wrote: post #568

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> as someone coming from Linux it feels already "walled" enough for my taste Not criticizing at all, genuinely curious: what do you want to accomplish on an iPad that is prevented by the walled garden?

Ok this feeling especially comes from the following disadvantages: - iOS/iPadOS AppStore vs. macOS AppStore + ability to install apps from the web (I can't even compile FOSS apps on my own without owning a mac + 100$/year dev licence - this is a real shit show for me!) - mostly paid & stripped down terminal apps vs. a real native terminal (and of course just installing iTerm2 because you can do so on a mac) - no "rea…

I agree with a lot of your comments, but just FYI, you can do a couple of those things:

> (I can't even compile FOSS apps on my own without owning a mac + 100$/year dev licence - this is a real shit show for me!)

You do need a Mac, but you can build FOSS apps and deploy them to your own iPhone, iPad, or Apple TV with a free developer account. You only need the paid license to distribute them to others.

> Finally I have a device that could replace things like a Wacom Tablet connected to your computer but that opportunity was missed.

There have been apps that support this for a while, but this is now a built-in iOS/macOS feature called "Sidecar".

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