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The iPad Awkwardly Turns 10

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Re: The iPad Awkwardly Turns 10

#81

Post by m4rtink »

ghaff wrote: post #66
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/

The main exception is drawing. It essentially replaces touch sensitive Wacoms.

This is unfortunatelly very true - Ipads have the best oen latency from mobile tablet devices & good software ecosystem (Procreate, etc.), likely thanks to overall more $$$ in iOS software development.

There are Android tablets with precise pen support, but especually the cheaper ones don't have that good pen precision (jitter, lag) and also the available drawing software is not as advanced as on the iPad & powerful ossdesktop drawig tools such as Krita or Mypaint are not yet ported to Android.

So in the end I basically had to get the top of the line Android tablet (Galaxy Tab S6) to get something comparable, where the manufacturer dumped so much mone so that some got also to the pen support & it would be working correctly. And so far so good. :)

Re: The iPad Awkwardly Turns 10

#82

Post by Aissen »

bronco21016 wrote: post #45
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 P…

Why couldn't you put the app on an iPhone or iPod touch ? Or in a simulator on MAC ? It's not like the device is essential. It might be more practical for some purposes, but not essential.

Re: The iPad Awkwardly Turns 10

#83

Post by zozbot234 »

GordonS wrote: post #70
rusk wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Touching some side of the screen triggers this or that surprising feature Ah this brings back fond memories of Windows 8 :-)

They even did this silly "corner thing" in the server edition, Windows Server 2012 - I remember the first time I RDP'd onto one, and had no clue how to open the start menu (the Windows key didn't work over RDP)! I had to google it, obviously whilst cursing profusely the whole time. Microsoft have a lot of UI/UX people - it boggles the mind that someone thought this was a good idea!

In Gnome-Shell, pointing to the top-left corner of the screen (labeled "Activities" on the system bar) will bring up their Windows-8-screen equivalent, and it's quite intuitive to use once you know the basics. It's slow as hell because Javascript, but other than that it works fine. And yes, you can tap or swipe from outside for pure touch access.

Re: The iPad Awkwardly Turns 10

#84

Post by Heliosmaster »

From the comments here, I think many people are missing a very important factor: while we (as technologists) focus on what WE think of the iPad, or what we can do with it to be productive, this is only part of the picture of the general population.

In my opinion the iPad has had a tremendous impact within the general population and (combined with smartphones) got rid of the PC altogether for the average family. And tablets, especially for the elderly, are a true game-changer.

My mother, not a technologist at all (she doesn't even have a cellphone) cannot live without her iPad. Granted that she could do everything with a smartphone, but the bigger screen of an iPad is particularly good for people who have a waning eyesight and, in general, might require a bit of a bigger UI (bigger buttons, etc.).

Re: The iPad Awkwardly Turns 10

#85

Post by k__ »

Heliosmaster wrote: post #84

From the comments here, I think many people are missing a very important factor: while we (as technologists) focus on what WE think of the iPad, or what we can do with it to be productive, this is only part of the picture of the general population. In my opinion the iPad has had a tremendous impact within the general population and (combined with smartphones) got rid of the PC altogether for the average family. And t…

I don't know anyone with an iPad and only professionals who sometimes use an Android tablet for special cases (drawing, audio stuff)

Most non-tech people I know simply have a Smartphone and that's it. Tablets in general still seem like a niche product to me.

Re: The iPad Awkwardly Turns 10

#86

Post by zozbot234 »

Nextgrid wrote: post #76
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.

iPad succeeds in these examples because it's a consistent environment with updates. The problem with the cheap Android tablet is that unless the entire world standardises on a single model of tablet for these purposes you'd have all kinds of quirks around hardware, etc. Updates are also another issue even on premium-priced Android devices, so the cheap one is a lost cause.

Updates can be provided by the community in many cases. Buy cheap LineageOS-supported tablet, unlock the bootloader and put LineageOS on, you're done. (Then once pmOS gets good enough for your use case, your device will be software-supported for the entirety of its useful life, by a mainstream, desktop-like OS. You don't get anything like that on the iPad - the best you can do is reuse it as an additional screen for a Mac via Sidecar.)

Re: The iPad Awkwardly Turns 10

#87

Post by Nextgrid »

zozbot234 wrote: post #86
Nextgrid wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

iPad succeeds in these examples because it's a consistent environment with updates. The problem with the cheap Android tablet is that unless the entire world standardises on a single model of tablet for these purposes you'd have all kinds of quirks around hardware, etc. Updates are also another issue even on premium-priced Android devices, so the cheap one is a lost cause.

Updates can be provided by the community in many cases. Buy cheap LineageOS-supported tablet, unlock the bootloader and put LineageOS on, you're done. (Then once pmOS gets good enough for your use case, your device will be software-supported for the entirety of its useful life, by a mainstream, desktop-like OS. You don't get anything like that on the iPad - the best you can do is reuse it as an additional screen for…

The community is not an acceptable answer for a business deploying thousands of these. With an iPad you are guaranteed X years of updates. With the community, you may or may not get an update, it might have quirks and installing it might be non-trivial.

Re: The iPad Awkwardly Turns 10

#88

Post by CiaranMcNulty »

gnicholas wrote: post #21

> The iPads Pro outperform MacBooks computationally. Off-topic, but it's an interesting choice to pluralize "iPads Pro", especially in a sentence where it could easily be singular ("The iPad Pro outperforms MacBooks computationally"). After all, there aren't different tech specs on the different iPads Pro (of the same generation). They just differ in screen size, IIRC.

Wouldn't it be strange to compare 'iPad' to 'MacBooks'?

Re: The iPad Awkwardly Turns 10

#89

Post by dewey »

alopex_plenus wrote: post #74
bronco21016 wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 P…

so the captain tells us to switch off all electronic devices and then proceeds to navigate the plane via iPad?

They tell you to switch off the device's broadcast functionality ("airplane mode"). Something they don't need for navigating with an iPad as it's just offline maps / apps).

Re: The iPad Awkwardly Turns 10

#90

Post by Phenix88be »

acqq wrote: post #36
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…

> The worst thing is that the forced over-simplification of the UI features did not make it easier to use for beginners. I believe Gruber argues completely the opposite: that the recent changes to add features like split screen make it more confusing (e.g. the example of his mother getting stuck in the split screen and calling him). He continues in the very article we comment here (emphasis mine): "if I could go back…

> And Steve Jobs was old enough to learn that much earlier: that the "modes" are bad and that good UI doesn't require one to do some magic to switch between them, as it can be summarized in the joke: "How to Quit Vim and Exit the VI Editor — the most popular Stack Overflow question -- and I'm using vi last two years because I can't figure out how to exit it."

The more a software do, the less it's user friendly... You can't really compare Vi, a text editor that need training to master by technician, and the IpadOS. They are not made for the same people.

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