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 select a textbox on the screen before you can use your physical keyboard. Copy/Paste between apps is a nightmare (mostly because of the really poor multitasking). Sharing your screen via Airplay is useless except for demoes (doesn't match the target monitor resolution, nor transform the iPad into a giant touchpad). It doesn't support multiple icloud/gmail accounts (if you want to share it with your SO). 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...
Just let met install MacOs instead, it can't be worse.
PS: even having a console-only ubuntu VM would make me happy at this point.
It's particularly annoying because of the headline features of iPadOS was that you could finally use Google Docs in Safari! It's actually amazing how well it works...until you switch tabs or apps and have to wait for your entire spreadsheet to reload.
Then there are just tons of small decisions that are head scratchers. In iOS 13, they changed when Select/Select All appear, and it's a real pain in the ass. Early versions of iOS didn't have Select/Copy/Paste because the general belief was that they had to get it right the first time. They nailed it, but now they've tweaked it and made it much harder to use.
It really kills the value of that feature in a setting where multiple people who each own their own set of devices want to be able to work together more easily. Like, say, homes, offices and schools.
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.
But I completely agree that it's practically a moral crime that the OS is so locked down. Just a sandboxed native terminal would make this device my main coding environment. The cheap wireless keyboard and mouse I use with it makes the lack of a native terminal where I'd have complete control the one thing holding it back for me.
If you're ok with that console running on a home Ubuntu workstation/server or cloud server, then the Blink.sh iOS app is great for this. ssh into your Ubuntu workstation/server from your iPad. Discussed at HN before:
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 an escape key.
As someone else mentioned Pythonista gives you local Python.
I work on multiple large web applications for a few clients and I've tried using my iPad Pro exclusively. I've only run into two issues that make it less than ideal: No web inspector/JS debugged in Safari (though workarounds exist they're clunky), and difficult text selection (not an issue in a terminal window with vim but imprecise and fussy in iOS apps). Otherwise it's great and I do use my iPad a lot. My main work setup is a Chromebook (Pixel Slate), which I only prefer over the iPad Pro because of the trackpad/mouse text selection and Chrome web developer tools.
Others use it for games and social media, where the many accurate deficiencies you point out don't matter much. The average person seems to use it within a narrow sandbox where it works. The minute you try to do something else with it, you'll struggle and be disappointed.
I am under the impression to have a well designed base layer and apps. Then if I want anything more or different, I can use other apps that are secondary citizens with each their own isolated subscription/cloud/format strategy.
The ecosystem of free apps that you can find on desktops (mac, windows, linux) of reliable text editors, command line tools, syncing software ... seems to be missing.
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.
"These things will probably sell in the educational market or something."
"Developers will always surprise us, they will come up with use cases for us."
During development Amazon was proving that people wanted E-Book readers. So when it was clear the iPad didn't yet have a coherent story from Apple, iBooks was thrown together at the eleventh hour and then SJ went on the attack against Amazon to push back against the growing Kindle market.
And then Windows 8 happened! People asked Apple (And Tim Cook), will we see touch-screen Macs? And instead Apple trapped itself in a corner by doubling down that the iPad was going to forgo running full macOS because something about people not wanting to touch their laptop screen. So here we are, a product that launched without a vision, and then hamstrung by ego.
It's true that people who love their iPads, LOOOVE their iPads. So it's a nice product. It's definitely well made and I love reading the news on mine. It's a great device to travel with, for sure, yet I agree with Gruber, this thing will never flourish outside of the niche markets its found itself in.
Well, they did. iPads are now replacing POS registers and kiosks. Although a part of me dies when I see iPad Pros being used for this, because it’s so powerful and capable yet being used as a big touch monitor.
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!!!!
It really surprises me to hear that there wasn't much excitement inside Apple for it. I now have the first generation of the 12.9-inch iPad Pro and it's just about always in my bag with me.
I do think it's a shame you can't really develop apps ON the device. I'm glad the OS is getting more capable with the direction they're taking, so who knows? We might get Xcode one day :)
From his concluding paragraph: "[G]reat though it is in so many ways, overall [the iPad] has fallen so far short of the grand potential it showed on day one. To reach that potential, Apple needs to recognize they have made profound conceptual mistakes in the iPad user interface, mistakes that need to be scrapped and replaced. . . "
How you get "never flourish outside of niche markets" from that, I have no idea.
so give me a nice, niche product company any day!
I still think they're very cool devices—in particular the latest iPad Pros are gorgeous—I just wish I had some use for them that wasn't already covered by my computer, phone, or TV.
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 (I would not have bought one without support for pencil)
CON: - While apps like browsers (Safari, Firefox) look like the desktop versions they are just poor copies without the full potential. Without Add-On's my browsing experience is very limited in comparison to the experience on my computer - No Adobe Suite like many people wanted it while you can run Apps like the real PS on a surface - No native terminal, seriously? I live in a terminal and e.g. consume news via newsbeuter - Support for USB thumbdrives and mouse have just been added recently while competitors allowed much easier access much earlier. This "walled garden" feeling diminishes the experience a lot for me. I hoped for the iPad to be more like "a real PC/Mac" and this is one of the major reasons I never bought an early model or a new one.
My dream iPad would be more like macOS because as someone coming from Linux it feels already "walled" enough for my taste.
I have another major concern but that is based on the evidence about consumption, climate change etc. and of course Apple itself can probably not do much about it (can they?): What happens to the device when it is obsolete (e.g. no major OS updates and security patches)? It would be really awesome if they would open up to after market solutions to reduce waste and keep their products running so one can install linux on it.
I know this is a wild dream in a world that is driven by maximizing profit. Let dreamers be dreamers ;)
Use the “Pro” laptop only for professional work and coding, and use the iPad only for anything else that falls into that “personal” categories of newsletters, mail, shopping, gaming, entertainment.
As a traveling remoter, that radical separation of two contexts has brought a great peace of mind.
You can surely sit back comfortably with your iPad for personal stuff, while work asks for you sitting seriously on a desk with your laptop: no blurry lines.
So in my opinion, that “curious” category that falls in-between “mobile” and “laptop” is nothing more than “personal computing” itself!
Isn’t it what that “revolution” has been all about, anyway?
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.
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 Pro on Android and I believe they dumped Windows as well.
There are other options of course but as far as I’m aware in the US it’s all iPads and JeppFD Pro. The feds are familiar with it and a regulatory framework is created around it so it’s the path of least resistance. And as a pilot, I’d say most of us are pretty satisfied with it.
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."
The combination of portability (form factor, battery life, LTE modem), with the growing support for the apps. I’m yet to see device that would replace it for me. I have had to take my MBP with me for quite some time.
iPad essentially fuels my remote-first work style.
It does however seem to have found it's way into various trades as an information device. For instance is has replaced laptop as the primary device in elder care in many cities in Denmark. It makes perfect sense to use an iPad, it's more portable, the limited interface forces developer to think hard about what input is really required, and it faster to"unlock" than a laptop.
The iPad has develop very quickly from a consumer device to an "Enterprise" solution. You basically only need it, if you can afford to have custom applications developed. For almost everyone else, there's the large screen iPhones.
Apple isn't going to tell us, but it would be interesting to learn how many iPads are going to customers, and how many to companies and governments.
Also, they are tremendous for the elderly. My 97 year old grandmother really struggles with desktop/laptop computers, but has absolutely no trouble using her iPad. It's the main way she stays in touch with her family.
This would only be said by someone who isn't a frontline worker no interacts with any. Unless you see the people who use tablets for work as not really working.
And why is the iPad peripheral system such a mess? The released the pencil 2 which is a significant usability improvement and had every indication of replacing the pencil 1, but that was years ago and they keep releasing new pencil 1 only devices, while just calling both of them “Apple Pencil” in many places. If you want a good pencil now, there’s no way to buy a moderately specced machine with it, you have to pay for the pro with more compute power than a high end laptop.
And ipads now have full usb host support, but instead of marketing that as a perk, they kind of pretend it doesn’t exist by calling it the “camera kit” like it only has one specific use.
As to the “Air” name... they got to where they had a solid low-priced offering and a “Pro” line with huge prices. And a big hole in the middle. But “iPad Medium” wasn’t appealing, so they resurrected the “Air” name. (FWIW, writing this on an iPad Air 3, and I love it - the only real loss for me, from the Pro, was the “ProMotion” variable rate 120Hz display, and I could live without that, for $$$ less.)
The magnets are strong enough to keep it in place during normal use, but there's no way to put it in a bag and retrieve it without the Pencil flying off.
I eventually got a third-party case that does the right thing, it's just a strange oversight.
Apple doesn’t really release new budget devices; the case may change, but once technology has advanced enough to release an improved top-end device and parts prices for the existing product have fallen enough, they package the parts of the former top-end device in a new lower-priced device.
And iPhones too, I just used iPhone with USB powered hub, USB mic and USB DAC for headphones, worked great :)
The worst thing is that the forced over-simplification of the UI features did not make it easier to use for beginners. I can see many people (including myself) struggling. So we have been forced into a "compromise" with all the downside, but none of the upside.
Given how great the hardware is (really, I think this is under-appreciated), I really hope Apple can get out of that thinking rut.
I also think that the slow iPad sales are directly connected to the mediocre OS software.
I used to think the meaningless icons with zero text or popup hints were bad (they are!) and the zero differentiation between a UI item and ordinary text (a button or link just looks like ordinary text, so you have to fumble around with the UI to guess what you can press; horrible flatness) was bad, but the inability to discover gestures other than behaving like a 2-year old with their first "feeling/textures" toy is the worst.
It just isn't obvious.
I wholly disagree, at least at the beginning. When the original iPad was released, I remember seeing multiple viral videos of two-year-olds being given iPads and instantly figuring out how to use them. At the time, this was surprising.
I think we've forgotten just how simple iOS was in the Steve Jobs era. You had a grid of objects, and when you tapped an opbject, your device became that object until you transformed it back with the home button. There was no control center, no notification center, and no app switcher—even when Apple added "multitasking" in iOS 4, it took the form of a little bar, not a new view.
I'm not ready to say Apple should get rid of Notification Center, because it's pretty darn useful. But I would like a single kill switch in Settings which turns all these features off. Then I could enable it for my grandmother.
The iPad, for its part, should be simpler than the iPhone, because simplicity is the iPad's reason for existence. Laptops exist because they are (and continue to be) the most efficient way to get things done. The iPhone exists because it's a relatively capable device that fits in your pocket.
And the iPad exists so you can browse the web and watch Netflix in a focused and leisurely way. iPads also make these tasks accessible for people who are not familiar with computing and will be more comfortable a simpler environment.
By attempting to make the iPad as capable as a laptop, Apple is taking away the iPad's very real original use-case in service of a use-cases for which the iPad is inherently ill-suited. And for what? To compete with a class of product which Apple already makes?
2010 iPads were great at what they did, and 2010 Macs were great at what they did. I legitimately don't understand why 2020 Apple is now on a mission to conflate these two product lines. Even if Apple succeeds at making the iPad as capable as a Mac, what will all their work have accomplished?
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 to the pre-split-screen, pre-drag-and-drop interface I would. Which is to say, now that iPadOS has its own name, I wish I could install the iPhone’s one-app-on-screen-at-a-time, no-drag-and-drop iOS on my iPad Pro. I’d do it in a heartbeat and be much happier for it."
And I think that should be a configurable accessibility option: to have UI completely discoverable and non-stuckable, even if some "so-called-Pro" features need more steps (or can't be implemented). Or even better and safer: that should be the default, with "advanced" shortcuts as an opt-in option.
The interface should by default to never bring users to the point where they can remain "stuck" in some mode from which they can't get out.
Steve Jobs understood that that 100% "discoverability" and "non stuckiness" must be the default UI, that's why Gruber would like to switch back to that older ideal.
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."
Even these "visual" UI changes that made the UI more "Ive-conform" (removing buttons and having only text) made the UI more confusing for anybody not trained and retrained. The back "button" in the apps was drawn as a button when Jobs controlled the UI. Then it got to be switched to just the < sign, which those who don't frequently use the UI never understand to be anything more than a meaningless symbol on the screen.
Sounds intriguing. How would I go about copying the PDFs that are currently on my Linux PC onto it, though?
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 case it'd be useless without Files, Working Copy, Blink, Wireguard, and Screens. Only 1 of those is built-in and still it's a fairly recent addition. And it's the latest version on iOS 13 which is really the version which turbo-charged using many apps together easily. I use these apps to pretty much avoid directly using my "real computers" as much as possible via VMs or remote access via Wireguard.
But, I think we're only seeing the beginning of the iPad. I can relate to the feeling that "we should have more of what we expected by now", but the fact is that designing these power user interfaces, actually redesigning them for touch while making them compatible with existing ones, is very difficult.
A great example for HN is how we develop like we're in the 70s with text terminals and executing commands. Where on the iPad it might make more sense for the terminal to be rich like a REPL where commands/expressions act more like the results of a Shortcut (rich data, not just text) or code might be edited as an AST instead of the text which allows the concept of a "source file" to go away and instead there be a source database. Instead of trying to rebuild the editors we had we build something else designed for testing, iterating, and managing the AST. Dark[1] is a good example of this, but currently focused on the web.
This is all way out there right now, but it makes me think that the iPad is still just getting started.
I think Gruber’s dead wrong, and 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.
Aside from being able to turn his complaint off:
To turn Multitasking features on or off, go to Settings > Home Screen & Dock > Multitasking then turn off Allow Multiple Apps if you don't want to use Slide Over or Split View.
I think it works fine for business and development consumption and creation, both.
I’ve daily drivered iPad Pro with Apple keyboard for last 3 generations of iPad 12.9”. It started as an experiment to see if we could move employee population over for less support costs, and then became a habit because it’s just too ideal if you’re mobile for travel or even between multiple offices and meetings.
Each new Macbook model, I get nostalgic for MBP days and carry it around for a bit, and then realize too many compromises carrying a laptop compared to carrying or traveling with just the iPad Pro.
I’m on a two week trip right now, with the brand new top of line Macbook Pro 16” with full dev and Adobe setup in my bag. But it only came out of my carry on once in two weeks, and that was a failure.
Tried to display a web demo, some custom diagramming, and a PowerPoint on conference room screen from the laptop. Unable to use the enterprise guest WiFi due to their security proxies, and the hotspot was too slow. Popped the same USB-C HDMI adapter in the iPad, and showed all the content over LTE.
In a room built for Windows world, people struggled, and failed, to get HDMI from their HP or Dell or Lenovo laptops working, via HDMI ports or USB-C ports. Both the Macbook and iPad “just worked” with Apple’s same latest USB-C to HDMI adapter.
With the always on networking, all day battery life, decent choice of text based dev tools including code editors, git clients, and terminals like Blink (mosh) to do git-commit based development/deployment, Citrix and RSA and enterprise VPN, not to mention full O365 and Adobe suites (though I recommend Affinity now), it’s hard to figure out what it is I need the laptop for enough to deal with the PITA of carrying it.
This was not true 10 years ago, but today, iPad Pro can be the sole computing device even for an enterprise technology executive.
Bonus anecdata, I’ve recently noticed the iPad Pro is what’s used by 80% of folks in the board room, even though it’s a Windows based enterprise. Something’s changed.
I use the iPad for the vast majority of my non-development computing. For me—and clearly for a lot of people—multi-tasking on the iPad has never been as good as it is on the Mac or even Windows. At the same time, it is absolutely as good/ easy as it's ever been. It's just still awkward and sometimes frustrating.
> This is all way out there right now, but it makes me think that the iPad is still just getting started.
I think so too, I love the iPad and wish I could use it as my primary computer. Every year when WWDC (the show formerly known as WWDC?) rolls around I hope we'll see some improvements that would allow me to run some of my web development workflow on the iPad and I'm generally disappointed.
Why? Are you actually faster at any tasks on the iPad?
I don’t doubt that Apple could eventually make iPads as productive as traditional computers, given time. But I also don’t understand how doing so is a productive use of Apple’s resources when macOS already exists.
Considering that they barely managed to design working "regular user interfaces", the next-generation editors and development tools won't come from the teams currently working on iPad OS.
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 technology.
My dad (early 80s) struggles with tech in general, including the iPad and iPhone. Many in his peer group use touchscreen devices with fewer issues.
This is what I noticed from trying to teach him how to use the interfaces:
1 - He refuses to mentally process what the icons represent and ignores the text label below them. I thought switching them to Chinese would help, but he'd struggle with some of the terms, as they were unfamiliar to him. For a person his age and background, "address book" is more meaningful than "contacts".
2 - He wants to memorize locations and steps as opposed to using intuition via #1. This sometimes helped, but there would be occasional pitfalls, i.e., an unintentional gesture pulls him out of what he's doing and then he just doesn't doesn't know how to get back.
I tried switching him to an old school feature phone (one of the newer Nokia remakes), but even that's a struggle, as there's simply too much UI, and I notice rocker buttons confuse the hell out of him. Many of these devices are marketed to seniors (and pretty much have the same interface and functions) but I don't think they were really tested with seniors.
My dad doesn't have or use the Internet, and he's starting to get left behind as large companies are trying to move away from snail mail for things like bills, etc.
The unintuitive multi-tasking is actually an advantage for them. It's hard to accidentally end up in that mode and they wouldn't have a need to ever use it. If it was easier to get into multi-tasking, they likely would only want to know how to stop it.
On the other hand, the iPad can't seem to actually replace those tools. Those pro artists still use a Wacom for their professional corporate work. The problem is less the software, I think, than the limitations the software forces by nature of the hardware. For professional work, you need as big a screen as possible -- Wacoms go up to 32". You also need hotkeys for an efficient workflow. Hunting and tapping through menus on a touchscreen is, by nature, going to be slower then having your left hand ready to hit the undo command at a moment's notice. Sure, it might be possible to plug a big external screen and a full keyboard into your iPad, but at that point, is it really an iPad anymore? What professional artist would bother buying an iPad to act as a desktop computer tower when they could buy an actual desktop computer tower with better specs for cheaper?
So the iPad is about as good as it can possibly be: such a good touchscreen tablet that professional artists love it in all situations where they're willing to sacrifice power and flexibility for the convenience of a fully portable touchscreen tablet. It's not very good at replacing a full professional art setup on a desktop. But should it really aspire to be? In other words, I agree with this article, but disagree with its conclusions. Tablets won't replace laptops not because the iPad isn't a good enough tablet, but because they're simply never going to be the most efficient work machine you can buy.
Another killer app for me is Nebo. The text recognition and UI is very good. I use it for regular, cursive writing and conversion to text. It's the least in-my-way handwriting recognition that I've used. I've played around with it in French and Czech as well, and it recognized the language and accent differences even though my handwriting is quite poor.
It will also recognize and solve some handwritten math problems and simple diagrams. I originally tried this back when PDAs were a thing, but that form factor and capability a decade and a half ago was awful.
I just wish it had something like windows subsystem for Linux so that I could do some programming in my normal environment as well, then I would pick up a decent keyboard cover and leave my laptops at home.
I’ve seen DJs and other performance-artist using mixing software that actually spreads its control UX over several tablets. I wonder why no professional studio program has copied that?
(I’m not suggesting you’d need to own, like, five iPad Pros. More like one iPad Pro to draw on, and then a pile of random $100 Android tablets each showing one palette window.)
I think I did once see a demo where someone had a second iPad that acted entirely as an painter’s palette for the drawing on the primary iPad. And I mean “palette” literally: it was a canvas to smear and mix literal paint blobs around, with accurate optical results, which you could then sample with a brush tool, or take a cut of with a painting-knife tool.
I really feel like this should be a solvable problem though. It can’t be that complicated to select text reliably.
I still get “5e” instead of “the” about twice a month. And once in a while I will be typing and four words to half a sentence will just disappear and I still have no idea how I’m doing that.
A whole new text entry system wouldn’t go amiss for me, either.
I actually recently got my first personal iOS (okay, iPadOS) device and this is how I feel about many of the UI features. Touching some side of the screen triggers this or that surprising feature and I'm struggling to undo what I did to get back to the business. Maybe what's needed is good old RTFM, but having heard how easy Apple device are to supposed to be to use, it's kind of unexpected that so much of this stuff is not that discoverable.
That was a rule for very good reason, and it will take some time to erode, but it’s definitely not as true today as it once was. It’s no consolation, but the first iPad - from the era of usable Apple design - was much better. Not in terms of power or weight, of course, but the OS didn’t have all these weird mystery-meat controls, gestures, broken multi-windowing etc.
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.
Ah this brings back fond memories of Windows 8 :-)
There’s also an iPad User Guide you can download in the Books.app.
I can understand this from a battery perspective but why not give us an option to let certain apps run in the background, especially when the iPad is plugged in to power.
As an example, if I start a download in Safari, I can’t use a different app until Safari finishes the download. I could use split-screen but who wants to watch a video I split screen.
Android just fires a progress bar notification that stays in the notification center. It is fantastic.
If true, that's surprising. I thought Safari initiates a background download.
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.).
Then in 2013 she got an iPad 2 and she instantly started using it several hours a day for the next five years.
In particular, I set it up so I could push new family photographs to her iPad remotely through iCloud. That was absolutely life-changing for her: now she was able to see super recent photos of all her children and grandchildren without having to beg for a printed version. That also worked for videos: for the first time since the VHS days she could replay family videos whenever she wanted.
She also liked multiple card games and the iPad was a wonderful device to play them electronically. The biggest self-service I ever gave myself was to only suggest games that had a paying version without ads, and pay a few euros to buy them. The biggest problems with ads for her was that she could sometimes be a bit sloppy with the touchscreen : when an ad was present it would redirect her to a random website and she would get lost. The quality of the iPad touchscreen and that we stuck to ad-free apps allowed her to almost never get lost like this anymore.
While the iPad may not have been a revolution for the general population, it definitely changed the world for my grandmother. For that I will be grateful for this device to exist.
Miss you, grandma.
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.
And I think whoever owns that restaurant might not be that smart if you consider the competition.
I like the idea of Microsoft's surface. But I haven't used one.
The biggest disappointment to me is that I can't buy a Macbook that converts into a tablet. I've never owned a tablet, and my wife never replaced her 1st generation iPad, because there's just too much overlap between tablet and phone; and between tablet and laptop.
And, as far as multitasking goes: When I do serious work that requires that kind of multitasking, I need a keyboard and mouse. Furthermore, I'll probably be sitting in a chair, at a desk, with a giant monitor... Multitasking is just an absurd use case for a "tablet." Instead, it shows that "tablet" and "laptop" just need to converge to be the same ^%#$ device.
Windows tablets might suck, but at least you don't have to own two devices!
Ever see anyone at a coffee shop using a Surface Pro in tablet mode? I haven’t. That’s because the second you sit down to complete tasks for more than a minute or two you’ll want a keyboard at least if not a mouse, too.
In my view that eliminates productivity as a legitimate use for a tablet. There’s no way I’d prefer touching my screen to the kind of keyboard and trackpad you get on a MacBook Pro.
Next up, content consumption. As you mentioned, your phone covers this use case. I watch videos on the bus nearly every day and never desired a tablet. If you need that bigger screen, you’ve either already got a computer because you do productive work, or you buy a cheap tablet because you don’t need all the extra stuff a computer has, or you’ve got a bigger phone. Why would I watch content on a tablet when my laptop or TV can do that? A tablet doesn’t even stand itself up on my lap. I think only kids tolerate consuming content this way.
Finally, there’s the creative market. Apple has this nailed down with the iPad Pro. The only other reason to need a tablet over a phone or laptop is to do digital art. These are probably the only folks who need to buy two devices, but they’ve needed to buy expensive computer peripherals for ages.
So I think what you’re asking for is for someone to find the really tiny market who wants their tablet to do full computer stuff but doesn’t prefer a proper laptop computer, and then make special software modifications just for them like Microsoft did.
But as daringfireball explains, the problem is with the poorly thought out UI choices. It feels almost like the iPad is deliberately hobbled in many ways, but I think it's just poor management.
The iPad is the best portable device for reading (besides a kindle), watching entertainment, or using an Apple Pencil.
Just because you don't have a use case for it, doesn't mean no one does.
I think judging the iPad based on changes they make for power users is near pointless in terms of its success.
Hence it can almost be fitting to categorize them as toys.
Kid not screaming for X hours on a flight is a reason to buy and iPad for that trip alone.
Plus you can easily justify it to yourself as ‘educational’.
There is also another comment buried toward the bottom questioning why everything has to be "revolutionary", which I agree with. I find that the iPad is a cozy fit for most people's personal and professional workflows and the fact that it's Apple keeps everything cohesive. What revolution is it supposed to spark? It is a companion, a bridge, so to speak, between two pieces of equipment that the author has already acknowledges as "revolutionary" on their own.
The article may be mainly about one issue, but it's an important one. Apple has made a horrible mess of multitasking on the iPad, which not only causes frustration with that product, but also should make us wary about the future.
I personally never (literally never) want multi-windowing on my iPad: it's only an iPad-mini, so multi-windowing isn’t very practical anyway. All I need is a single toggle to turn it off, and any gripes essentially disappear. But I have to have it, even though I actively don’t want it. So I have to, periodically, work out how to exit multi-windowed mode, because it’s very easy to accidentally enter it. And exiting it is NOT easy - pretty sure one time I just gave up, put the iPad down, and did something else instead, I was that frustrated.
> I like my iPad very much, and use it almost every day. But if I could go back to the pre-split-screen, pre-drag-and-drop interface I would. Which is to say, now that iPadOS has its own name, I wish I could install the iPhone’s one-app-on-screen-at-a-time, no-drag-and-drop iOS on my iPad Pro. I’d do it in a heartbeat and be much happier for it.
Apple Multitasking Support page:
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT207582
Last section:
To turn Multitasking features on or off, go to Settings > Home Screen & Dock > Multitasking, then you can do the following:
- Allow Multiple Apps: Turn off if you don't want to use Slide Over or Split View.
There is no cause to spend thousands of words covering dozens of issues when a single one suffices to clarify the thesis.
The iPad I had before this was undoubtedly prettier and had a better UI, but the cheapest iPad is twice this price and after years of buying apps, faffing with file sharing, and even porting one or two interpreters across to iOS I never managed what takes 10 minutes on Android.
- iPad POS are popular in smaller coffee shops and similar outlets
- iPad-based document viewing solutions are used by pilots to replace large bags with manuals for planes that they used to lug around
- iPads are used for meeting room management solutions, information displays for customers and similar purposes where one single application is to be run basically 24/7 on a device with low power and space requirements, but where certain aesthetic requirements to the app as well as the hardware have to be satisfied
Granted, iPads don't hold this space exclusively. But so don't iPhones or Macs hold their respective application spaces exclusively, even though they significantly catalyzed their genesis.
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.
I think the iPad has succeeded as a general purpose computation device for normal people who use computers for email / music / Facetime / photos etc.
Always seems like its the 'power users' who don't seem to understand the iPad when the average person can pick one up and do most things they want to do with one.
Just an anecdote. I am a very technical user and I still got confused by the multitasking / slide-over thing. So I just ignore it.
I had an easier time learning Xmonad back in the day, which might say something about Apple's UI design these days.
I use the iPad Pro and Juno connect as my main development tools, together with a VNC connection to an AWS instance for tasks that need a desktop.
I tried to use split screen initially but found little value in it and now ignore.
iPad generates ~$20B/year in revenue with huge margins. [1]
If iPad was a standalone business, it be the 156th largest company in the world by revenue (Fortune). [2]
How can having a single product where only 155 entire companies are bigger than it, “not live up to its potential”?
[1] https://sixcolors.com/post/2019/10/apple-results-64b-in-reve...
Obviously we can't know, but the point is success is relative.
Some people might expect better from Apple and so their standard for success is higher than $20B/year on one of their flagship products.
Gruber follows that philosophy
Yep. I had zero interest in tablets whatsoever, but the day I saw the Apple Pencil had launched, I went to a store to try it out. Ended up buying it and an iPad after less than 5 minutes of thinking.
Drawing pads for PCs were a pretty bad market before Apple hopped into the game. Your only real options were buying a "cheap" tablet at a couple hundred bucks (the lower end ones are inaccurate and barely a step above struggling with a mouse) with no screen and trying to adapt to drawing without looking directly at your hands, or you could spend a huge amount of cash on a drawing pad with a screen built in. The latter was really only available for people with loads of cash to spare and certainty that they'll be getting their money's worth.
An iPad with a Pencil barely costs more than a garbage bin drawing tablet, but you get a highly responsive screen and direct input. All of that plus Procreate is about the price of a 2 year Photoshop scheme.
The last thing to open up the digital art world this much to normal folk was Paint.exe.
Do you think a young novice user with such an iPad, rather than a windows or mac laptop, would be as likely to develop a more advanced computer skillset? iOS seems easier for common users because it's more regimented, but I wonder if that same trait might leave less room for creative exploration of the machine itself. I can't say I have a lot of experience using iPads, so I'm curious what others think.
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.
It's not just typing on a touch screen; that's awful, but then I bought a keyboard. But using the Dvorak layout, Scandinavian letters and Japanese input in my daily life makes iPad just not cut it. It's not a flexible device like a PC is. I still haven't been able to type the way I'd want to.
I think you are misremembering. Every interview I can find points to Alan Kay being disappointed in the iPad. See this, for example: https://techland.time.com/2013/04/02/an-interview-with-compu...
Why does everything have to be revolutionary? Pretty much everybody I know who has an iPad love using their device. It's a wonderful tool for media and web consumption, it just works for that use case very, very well. It can be used effortlessly, for multiple hours a day. Does it really have to do more?
Personally I just don't use split-screen apps on the iPad, but I'm not the least inconvenienced by the feature being around, behind some strange gestures I don't really bothered to learn.
I think that's the problem. As somebody who uses splitscreen all the time, it's utterly painful. It's a great feature, but whoever designed it from a usability-standpoint was, quite frankly, retarded. The problem is that it could be so much better, even revolutionary, but it stumbles on the implementation of features like this.
It should do more to justify the price tag of the Pro model.
It should also do more simply because Apple's advertising for the product attempts very hard to push it into a productivity device angle, not a consumption one. Hence the "what is a computer?" debacle.
My SO is returning to school and wants a tablet for school. She likes her iPhone. Is the iPad ready to be a primary note taking solution? I have seen its note taking app used to great effect but how is external keyboard support? Does anyone use an ipad in uni as their primary input device?
If she just needs to take notes, make PowerPoints, and write essays, then the iPad is great. The Apple Pencil (and keyboard case) is a virtual requirement, but I prefer it far above even traditional pen-and-paper notes.
The iPhone had competition below it, from feature phones and Blackberrys. But there was nothing above it. Similarly, the Mac was launched into a very nascent market, where there were competitors (PCs), but it wasn't facing competition from above and below in the same way the iPad was.
Perhaps the iPad would have done better and grown faster if it had been made by a company that wasn't worried about cannibalizing iPhone or Mac sales. But surely part of the reason the iPad has been as successful as it has is that it runs the same apps as iPhones and has attracted devs who might not have otherwise been interested.
The intuitive way to launch a second app would be to slide in from the right or left with two (three?) fingers, which would expose a compressed view of the springboard in split view. Then you could access all the apps intuitively (by swiping to the next page of apps) and launch the second app in the intuitive click-an-app method. This could even be tiled in a golden-rectangle geometry to expose a third app.
All you're trying to do is repurpose the slide-right slide-left function to expose springboard in a new way, which can be done with a multi-finger gesture.
For me the problem of the iPad is that it's merely inconsistently better at a slew of entertainment/consumption based activities but for everything else it's worse than any decent laptop. As even consumption-based workflows may involve intermediate bursts of typing, and just to extend the iPad's range into more uses I am tempted to have a keyboard -- but then it almost nears the inconvenience of carrying a laptop.
IMO to be revolutionary the iPad should convince you not to buy a laptop, or it should be as light as the kindle so that you would consider reading it Star Trek style for 20-30 minutes per day, as even the iPad mini is a bit weighty. Right now with the focus on iPad Pro and Air I think Apple is going toward the former.
The key thing sitting in the way of that for me, at least for the most part, is the lack of true background multitasking. I understand the need to avoid the battery problems of the Android ecosystem, but there needs to be some way to take an app and say 'yes, I really want to let this sit active indefinitely until I intentionally quit it'.
For a simple example, consider an IRC client: it's useless if it drops the connection every time you turn off the screen or switch to another app for too long.
It's really sad, because I love it as a computing device and the missing pieces are totally arbitrary. It could offer the same user experience it offers now while still giving me the tools I need to have it replace my laptops and desktops.
I bought my mom an iPad in 2012 and she is still (!) using it. She loves it. But she has an iMac too, which as far as I can tell she mostly uses to—you guessed it—manage files. Or, at least, that's the only part of her workflow that can't be hosted on the iPad. 8 years later, that's still the case.
I've heard people say this before, as if there's no way to use anything but your permanent dock apps in split screen. But if it's not in the Dock, you launch it, and now it's in the dock. That's why the recent items section on the right side exists.
My personal gripe with iOS multitasking is that it's easy to make a second instance of an app by dragging and dropping (such as Safari tabs to split screen), but then it's not as easy to close the second copy when you're done with it. When split screen was a special implementation within Safari, dragging the last tab from one side to the other would automatically collapse that side and bring the remaining one back to full screen. Now it leaves an empty Safari window hanging around.
If you want to close that, you have to make one side or the other full screen, open the app switcher, and swipe the empty one up off the top.
Yesterday the guy fixing the mobile traffic lights was using an iPad to configure them / My gym gets me to change my membership plan using an iPad within a floor standing cabinet.
The good thing that the article points out is that Apple’s historical business model (4.99 price cap) limited productivity tools by capping the prices that could be charged through the app store. Fair point there. Apple can still breathe life going forward for developers by rebooting the developer ecosystem. 10 years on the tablet has just arrived for productivity. That is still a fraction of iPad consumers. Prosumers are a minority and the only ones demanding landscape view and split screen apps.
I work for an IAM consultancy and the password manager we recommend to our clients and that I use is SAASPASS and one of the reasons is that it supports multitasking, landscape view and split screen. Split screen is great for Authenticator codes and password management. But the masses probably don’t care at all for these features. Although AutoFill has solved some of these UX issues with most apps and websites.
If anyone is interested in an iPad friendly Authenticator and Password Manager see here:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22173634
It might be good to clear this up.
the multi-tasking, drag&drop, split-screen interface is very complex and confusing even for me, who have been using the iPad for ten years.
I use my iPad Pro's multitasking stuff daily and it still confuses and infuriates me. Who came up with this stuff?
Personally, I really like the split window support but to be honest I had to practice the gestures for opening and closing second windows.
Off topic, but my big complaint about my iPad Pro is that the physical buttons for volume control, etc. are placed differently than my iPhone 11 Pro. This always makes me pause when switching devices because I like to think of my iPhone and iPad to sort-of be the same device as far as apps and most use cases. Apple, place the hardware controls in the same locations. Also, the menu bar on Safari is different on the two devices. I wish Apple would fix that also.
Obviously I was wrong about it being a stupid idea, and I'm happy to own that. I've built several apps specific to iPad over the years, and I'm going to start another one today.
I _do_ also think that iOS has fallen behind Android in several important ways in the last 2 or 3 years. Not in every way, but things like the Keyboard on iOS drive me crazy. Can't speak for iPad OS. Today will be my first experience with that.
I have a Samsung tablet, the Galaxy Tab S4. As a consumption device, it's great. I read books and newspapers; I watch videos and movies; I play the occasional game. It's great for that. I use my projector way less now, and don't have to struggle with the awkwardness of phones or laptops for those tasks.
Like Gruber, I thought it might do more, so I got it with the keyboard case, and thought about traveling with just that. But I pretty quickly swapped that for a dumb case and just kept traveling with my laptop when I needed to do actual work. A real keyboard and a real trackpad are way more effective for productive work than anything that's going to snap on to a tablet. Conversely, when I'm just aiming to consume something, there's a lot of hardware and OS complexity I just don't need.
I think it's telling here that he doesn't say what sort of revolution he really expects out of the iPad. He doesn't talk about an audience or a use case the iPad could serve if there were specific changes. Instead it's just a grumble about an obscure feature and how his grandmother struggles with it. In my view, tablets have definitely lived up to their potential. It just took us a bit to figure out what that potential really was.
I've been using my MBP less and less ever since. I can cover a good deal of my normal "laptop" activities with the iPad.
- I can put the latest CW DC Superhero show I'm hate-watching on from Plex in picture-in-picture and browse Reddit or Hacker News at the same time - I can use Newsblur to check my RSS feeds, Telegram/Discord/IRCCloud to chat - The battery lasts me all day, from morning to night - I can even use Blink.sh to log in via ssh/mosh to any server to tune some template or adjust script settings
The only time I actually pick up my MBP is when I need to do some Serious Coding with a Big Display (or two).
Even my commutes are more enjoyable with synced Plex media and Netflix downloads, beats looking at a 5" phone screen.
Jobs' criticisms may have been a bit abrasive at times, but these kinds of problems seem to indicate that nobody is currently filling that important role at Apple.
1) Whether the iPad is revolutionary, and how in this respect it compares to the iPhone and the Mac.
2) iPad’s split-screen UX
The two are not linked in a casual relationship imho. I personally never use split screen on my Mac (and of course on my iPhone), but this has not precluded it from being a device I use almost every waking hour.
So to address the first point, the reason the iPad is not as revolutionary is because being in the middle of the two revolutionary products, it’s shares the pros and cons of both, in a way that negates each other. So the iPad is not small enough to be truly portable, but not big enough to be the perfect work horse. It will never have the same success and impact on the world, no matter its UX.
Form is function.
Bigger than phone, touched orientated versus keyboard/mouse mac.
That's also whythe physically 'panic' home button was very good.
Personally the most interesting feature of the iPad these days is the pen - a way of physically interacting with the computer that's different.
At the end of the day, the 'user interface' isn't just software it's physical. Whether it be touch, voice, pen, or keyboard.
One of the problems with the more 'advanced' UI features/gestures is that they don't anchor in the physical - you have no idea it existed or why the software responded in that way.
IMHO, the biggest innovation is that an enterprise can purchase one of these interest free for ~$20 / month (no interest) and get a brand new one in 3 years through Apple’s enterprise sales.
Hardware sold as a service. $11B.
I think the focus on multitasking misses the real innovation.
The answer to a lot of this should be "open the Tips app and follow the tutorials," but they don't cover the entire set of possibilities, so a valid criticism would be that the Tips app should be improved.
A tip for people that might not know:
> apps that aren’t in the Dock can’t become the second app in split screen mode.
Not true: on an external keyboard you can execute the same key command you use for Spotlight in macOS: ⌘ + Space, then you can immediately type the name of the app you want, and drag it into multitasking from the results. As Gruber points out with the dual purpose gesture of dragging icons from the dock (either multitasking or removing from dock), there is one here too: if you swipe down in the center of the home screen to activate a search, you can't drag those icons into multitasking. It makes sense because there's no other app open to multitask with, but the gesture is overloaded nonetheless.
A personal bummer lately is that my $150 smart keyboard stopped working, so I'm rocking a Magic Keyboard with it currently at my desk. The Bluetooth connection story isn't perfect, and I don't take it around with me, so when I'm mobile I just have the dead keyboard cover.
I wonder if the trend to confusing designs has something to do with the recent rise of "use case centered" UI design.
My impression is that many graphical designs in the past were designed by coming up with certain fundamental abstractions or metaphors first and then integrating the different functions of the software into it: That way, we got windows and standard widgets which function the same way everywhere, no matter which particular application makes use of them. We also have abstractions like "files" or "desktop icons" that a user can interact with in a consistent way independent of application.
This way of design has pitfalls: You can choose the wrong metaphors and paint yourself into a corner, you can overvalue consistency to the point the UI becomes cumbersome to use or you can find that a new feature doesn't fit into your abstractions and you have to shoehorn it in. However, what this design guarantees is that the user has some basic tools to orient themselves, without needing to consult a manual for everything or remember some random onboarding popup that appeared a week ago when the user had completely other things on their mind.
I feel today, UI design has shifted away from common abstractions to the point it's almost seen as an anti-pattern. Instead, the design process is started with assembling an exhaustive list of "use cases" or "user stories": The app is supposed to enable the user to do the tasks on the list - and only those tasks. Then, every item on the list is passed, one-by-one to the UI team, who add a button, gesture or other affordance to perform exactly that task. Finally, users are watched via telemetry to see if they are using the app as intended and if any additional tasks must be added via the above procedure.
This method of design does have advantages: The most common tasks are easy to access, even if they are, by themselves, complex procedures involving different components (such as "make a photo, color-correct it, upload it to Twitter and refer to it in a tweet").
On the other hand, everything that falls outside ymthe immediate attention of the developers becomes ridiculously hard to do or even impossible: Take the above photo, but zip it, then send it in an email? Sorry, you need an app for that. Take a photo, color-correct it and send it to mastodon? Sorry, not integrated. Etc, etc.
To be honest, I have no idea if modern UI design really is done like this, but it very often feels that way. I really wonder if a return to some well-dosed consistency wouldn't improve a whole lot of things both for casual and power users.
Even commercial crews (CPL, ATPL) are using them, and no longer have to lug around booklets.
For 'redundancy' people often don't use paper, but have multiple electronic devices as well.
I'm actually surprised by a lot of HN's failure of imagination — "I can't imagine why you would want an iPad when you could use an xyz", often translating into "I don't believe an iPad could ever become abc".
And yet, against all odds and despite its relative decline in sales, the iPad marches forward, stands strong despite its flaws, and defies the naysayers of 2010 and 2020.
To give my own answer to my question: I prefer optimism over pessimism, myself.
But you can see it start to happen. An iPad is becoming the default point of sale system in a lot of places. My wife works with autistic kids; he doesn't have a computer, he has an iPad so he can go from recording behavioral data to YouTube in a fluid motion.
The iPad stumbled because it was supposed to be a consumer device, and then developers and users realized it filled a niche for a lot of creation tasks, and Apple has been playing catch-up ever since.
From day 1, the iPad was a great format for music making. But it’s fun to look back and remember that back then it didn’t have MIDI, and Audiobus would be some time to follow.
If you have to collect information from a bunch of disparate documents, make comments, and share your collected thoughts, LiquidText is the absolute best.
> The iPad has been a spectacular success, and to tens of millions it is a beloved part of their daily lives, but it has, to date, fallen short of revolutionary.
Yes, well it has fallen short of revolutionary, probably because it's just a big iphone, (or a laptop without keyboard). There was no new paradigm here.
Every household in USA has one ipad or wants to have one. (360million total sold in usa - so 1.1 ipad per person).
360,000,000 ipads x $400 (example average price) = $144B in sales !!!
There is nothing Awkward about that. They crushed it!
ongrats to Apple for making a great product for media consumers!
Settings > General > Multitasking and Dock > Allow Multiple Apps (Off)
> But if I could go back to the pre-split-screen, pre-drag-and-drop interface I would.
I think you can, check your settings.
Rhe next big thing going to be VR/AR/glasses, but have stalled. It might be foldable displays, but I think they'll suffer the same fate as tablets, for the same reasons. Convenience is kimg.
Just make a multitask button in slide up menu or dock, which, when press, would present a user with his own home screen and an overlay titled "Select an app", maybe with slight clarification, "the launched app will be run next to your current app". Maybe not the best solution, but way better than the current one
There’s a lot to criticize about the software, it is actually very easy to criticize the software for not doing the things you want it to do because it seems like it ought to be able to, and there is obviously a better way to do the thing you want to do if Apple would only do X, Y, and Z and stop doing A and B to hold it back.
Here’s where reality gets really boring though: iPads are only tablets, and only of the stuff in your bag, leave on a table or have it permanently docked in some kind of kiosk variety. That lends itself to being a bit better at some applications than others, but there‘a some applications it will always be downright inferior to compared to a laptop or phone. It’s not going to fit in my pocket better than my phone, and it’s not the entire self-contained package that my laptop is, nor does it have the benefit of always being plugged into a wall socket being able to draw essentially unlimited power that my desktop has. I could try to replicate some of the benefits of those devices with some creative planning and a big enough pile of money with some mixed success, but in exchange for not being as good for certain applications, it is absolutely top tier for reading and drawing. It’s all about the trade offs you are willing to make.
If what a tablet is better at is more important to you than what a laptop is better at, and the few things you would prefer to do on a laptop can still be done on a tablet, you might make the tradeoff to spend more money to have both, or you might make the tradeoff to save some money and only have the tablet. Neither is a bad choice to make.
Putting it that way is boring though, and it doesn’t play into the narrative that we’re only going to have one or the other at some far flung point in the future and tablets are the predestined winner of that zero sum game, you know, just like how we only have GUIs these days and positively no one uses what we once called the command-line interface.
In retrospect the above comment is less a direct response to Gruber’s article, and more a response to a broad swath of sentiments expressed here in this thread and across the part of the web that spends too much time talking about Apple. It should be understood as such anyway.
Pros: biometrics / security / immediately usable to check email
Cons: software has started going all SAAS and Apple allowed developers to upgrade and break previous versions to force users on to SAAS versions
>and apps that aren’t in the Dock can’t become the second app in split screen mode. What sense does that limitation make?
I think that hits the nail on the head. I just couldn't believe that somehow Apple settled on this UI interaction for multitasking.
Instead of iOS, Arch GNU/Linux! It's too bad that even old iPads haven't been figured out enough to bring first-class GNU/Linux support to these machines.
Fast forward to today, iPad Pro has been my primary device for pushing 2 years.
With a keyboard and multi-tasking it’s a far more flexible, collaborative, and portable compute experience compared to my MacBook.
Or if this article hadn't just taught me how to do it. Be right back, about to go multitask on my ipad for the first time...
I mean. Does it really, still? If so, that's horrifying as a technologist and sad.
It is a good part of the ecosystem.
Was it?
I've never personally been interested in tablets, but my perception is that they're not especially popular. Over the last few years, I've rarely seen them being used for anything other than mobile video machines for little kids. A lot of people bought the iPad, but very few people appear to regularly use one.
I'm aware that the iPad extremely useful for some people. I'm just not convinced it's the breakout success this article paints it as. My personal experience and observations show that it is more of a niche product.
I'm enjoying the mental training of learning to scan text for keywords myself, but from time to time this is a feature that I miss ...
How quickly Gruber falls in line with the propaganda machine the moment that official guidance (Airpods Pro) comes out. :D
i think the most lacking features are related to pencil interactions ( which still can't be used to enter text in iOS text fields easily), but i feel it's really slowly getting there
Software is absolutely the strength.
The extraordinary social impact of iPad on education, bringing technology and books to the masses, especially the non technical, education and entertainment to the young (who can use this device even before they can read), the elderly and most importantly the enablement of the disabled are the greatest achievements of the iPad. This is the device of the 2010's.
Focussing on something like multitasking in the OS is really narrow and misses why this device even exists.
Instead they're inventing all sorts of hidden gesture based workarounds.
They're no longer targeting ipad for new users.
I agree that adding apps to multitasking seems to baffle people. But this seems like it can
With the addition of a folio-type keyboard and self-supporting tip-up mode, there's little the device cannot do from a set of basic laptop functionality. And yet it's still a fully-capable touch device.
Where failure enters is in the accessories and peripherals (especially keyboards), and of course, the OS and apps.
At which point I think I'm going to end up re-writing the rant I'd composed nearly three years ago, so I'll just link it:
https://ello.co/dredmorbius/post/lqgtwy_rhsfbdh5cdxb1rq
TL;DR:
1. Standardise form factors so keyboards Just Freaking Fit.
2. Offer a true and robust shell and Linux userland, with filesystem access.
3. Provide real apps with full keyboard support.
4. Uncripple the OS.
I'm looking at PineTab and Purism's tablet offerings with interest.
2-in-1 laptop designs ... might work, though the additional hardware and fragility strike me as large liabilities.
if ipadOS is 50% capable as macOS, the ipad pro would be a dream machine for web developer.
"I wish I could install my own OS/Apps on my iPad to solve the problems I have".
I have literally never wanted multiple windows of the same app on my iPad. But it keeps happening.
I’m a computer guy. I shudder to think what this is like for my grandmother.
The iPad is essentially, at this point, a two-mode device. There is the simple paradigm, screen-as-app mode inherited from the iPhone. Then, for power users, there is the multitasking paradigm with Flyover, Split Screen, Drag & Drop.
The multitasking paradigm is not meant to co-exist with the simple one, and it is not meant to be discoverable. I agree with Gruber that there is work to do here to make it better, but iPad can't drop the simple paradigm, because many people use it that way. So anything more that the iPad offers has to build on top of and integrate with that paradigm.
That is really a huge challenge. It's not often that challenges like that come along. In desktop computing, lots of things are un-intuitive or at least not intuitively discoverable, such as right-clicking for context menus or keyboard shortcuts. We all don't consider them that way because we are so used to them, and we almost never meet someone who hasn't ever had to interact with them the first time.
I'd also argue that the simple paradigm iPhone and iPad offer has made computing more approachable to great swaths of people (not even considering things like cost, etc).
Yes, iPad multitasking is not perfect. But I think they are at least on the right track, and I am thankful they have protected that approachability.
You’re missing the iPad business model. You’re not allowed to do anything (except maybe wash the dishes or get dressed) when the iPad is showing an ad that gets you free something.
True multitasking would break the business model of thousands of sites.
