Tim Cook: I've Given Up Physical Keyboards, Use iPad "80% of the Time"

bobbytallant said:

Wow a 500 word essay? Is that the demands of the US education system today

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Absolutely not! While I know its fun to poke fun of the US's education system, its not pitiful, or at least where I live. I live outside of Hartford, CT (the suburbs) and the schools are top-notch. All class rooms are outfitted with smart boards, the computers are being migrated to Windows 7, and we are actively rolling out iPads. It is not uncommon for students to be taking at least one honors or AP level class, and even only one is looked at as being not trying excessively hard. We have after school clubs and sports for just about anything you can point a finger at. I have 3-4 hours of homework a day and I maintain a A average. While I am positive that there are certainly areas and places that need to be brought up to snuff, don't automatically discount our system.

Liquorpuki said:

Yeah you can use it for work. Unless that work is surfing the net, fingerpainting or watching movies, it's also a pain in the ass so why bother

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Conversely, if your work involves being on the road, taking brief notes and approving/rejecting proposals most of the day, carrying something heavier and with less battery life is a pain in the ass.

Depends what you do.

One device doesn't suit ALL tasks. Tim's tasks are just biased more towards people and team oversight (surprise surprise, being CEO) than data entry. Besides, it wouldn't surprise me if he uses siri for the bulk data entry rather than typing it.

"Jim Cook"? Nice one, DirecTV!

superhrixenz said:

Waiting for Apple to make this.

Image

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i wouldn't want to carry this brick around.

I think it's good to see a head of a company use products and say they prefer Ipad over Mac. Comes across very natural with some companies you feel all they want to do is sell and make profit. Rarely do you hear other companies say they use there own products.

Tim probably spends all day on MacRumors using his iPad. I think he was really LTD.

throAU said:

Needing to open the same document in multiple different apps to get things done is a symptom that your Apps suck and need to be fixed.

That's the reason you're using multiple apps to work on the same data. For most people, it isn't because they have some irrational desire to do file management. The file management is a means to an end, to work around apps that don't do what they want them to do.

Fix that problem, get the side-effect of better applications, and your filesystem problem goes away.

I don't want 15 different apps that handle the same data files in varying sub-optimal ways. I'd rather have one app for the job that works and does what I want (for a tablet at least, more complex work will require a proper computer).

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No, its an embarrasment that it took until iOS 6 for apple even to support file attachments in emails and even now it very limited. Android, blackberry is, and Windows phone have had this available since the beginning and offer a much more robust solution. The file system is important and it has nothing to do with app quality. I can upload my files to any website drop box including desktop sites. At the moment this is not possible on iOS.

wschutz said:

That's a lie.

I would love to see Tim Cook typing a 14 pages paper with the iPad, and at the end if he is still smiling, maybe I will believe it.

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Actually, he uses his iPhone. Here's how it works: He calls someone at the company on his iPhone, and says "I need a 14 page paper about this subject, and here's a list of things that I want in it, and I'd like to review it by tomorrow at 2pm", and he hangs up and smiles.

AppleScruff1 said:

Tim probably spends all day on MacRumors using his iPad. I think he was really LTD.

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I imagine half the emails he gets is from people wanting Android features had 5" screens as these are people who quite like Iphone but won't jump ship and buy one.

throAU said:

Conversely, if your work involves being on the road, taking brief notes and approving/rejecting proposals most of the day, carrying something heavier and with less battery life is a pain in the ass.

Depends what you do.

One device doesn't suit ALL tasks. Tim's tasks are just biased more towards people and team oversight (surprise surprise, being CEO) than data entry. Besides, it wouldn't surprise me if he uses siri for the bulk data entry rather than typing it.

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So basically Tim Cook's work rarely involves typing

Yet when he tells people what they should be typing on, we're supposed to listen to him?

I'm not sure it surprises me that he uses an iPad 80% of the time, but I don't necessarily like it. For one thing, all development for both iOS devices and Macs is done on Macs. I'm not saying he should write code, but at least understand what's going on with development. If he used Macs a bit more, he might also see what needs to be improved on them. It takes heavy users who have niche uses for Macs to find a lot of bugs, and I am one such user who has reported bugs to Apple to no avail. The fact that iWork is iCloud compatible is less important to people who are heavy users of iWork on the Mac and encounter bugs with in their daily work, for example. Or people who use utilities like QuickTime that it sounds like Tim Cook would rarely if ever use.

If he uses an iPad the way 90% of people use iPads and it's his primary device and he's content with it, I'm not sure that Apple will change too much.

I hope he understands the importance of software, and by that, I don't mean how many millions of credit cards they have on file or billions of apps they've sold.

He does sound like a nice person, though.

coolfactor said:

You do realize that:

1. the autocorrect learns as you use it
2. you can change or disable some of the built-in autocompletions

If you're struggling with autocorrect, you haven't taken the time to learn to use it properly. Period.

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Please enlighten me Obi-wan. It might learn as I go (which I haven't noticed yet), but I don't see anywhere in Settings>Keyboard where I can edit "some" of the auto-completions.

CShort said:

Typical CEO. He should talk to his IT department about ditching keyboards and see what they think.

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You didn't get the memo? Virtual keyboards are great for CEO's that collect $500+ stock options & don't do real work. The keyboards are designed for the rest of us that live paycheck to paycheck. /s

pittpanthersfan said:

But when your keyboard and content are on the same screen, you're looking anyway...

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Not necessarily. I'm not always looking at the display when I'm typing - touch typing. When typing on a physical keyboard I know if I've typed the wrong letter due to feedback which you don't get on a virtual keypad.

Additionally, that keyboard takes up quite a bit of real estate, which is another issue for a lot of people. Editing text on the iPhone is PITA... shame there's no cursor key set. I find selecting text, go to a specific position using the magnifying glass very slow / cumbersome.

For simple text editing, the virtual keyboard is fine....

YMMV of course.

Liquorpuki said:

So basically Tim Cook's work rarely involves typing

Yet when he tells people what they should be typing on, we're supposed to listen to him?

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Context.

"I've dropped physical keyboards" is not telling everybody they should give up physical keyboards 100%.

The comments about trusting autocorrect are in the context of using a virtual keyboard.

He hasn't told anyone what THEY should be using for what THEY are doing at all. Just commented on what HE does.

And "real work" doesn't mean you need to do data entry.

He is at the strategic company leadership level. Paying your CEO with CEO money to do data entry is retarded. So it isn't what he does, likely other than small amounts as I mentioned above.

He isn't employed for what he can physically do. He is there because of the decisions he makes, after reviewing data. A data consumption device is ideal for that.

This makes no sense... virtual keyboards are perfect for casual web browsing on the internet, making comments here and there, a couple forum posts here and there, and even searches through a search engine...

But am I going to type out my 10 page English essays on an iPad? Hell no, I'd much rather use my notebook/desktop for that. Physical keyboards aren't going anywhere. The only thing I could see replacing it is voice typing.

wschutz said:

That's a lie.

I would love to see Tim Cook typing a 14 pages paper with the iPad, and at the end if he is still smiling, maybe I will believe it.

iPad cannot simulate the responsiveness that a physical keyboard provides with. In particular the keys of a keyboard are not only aimed at augmenting the response when typing but also slow down the action of pressing something by absorbing the impact; something that an iPad screen cannot do since the screen is rigid.
So no... I don't believe that crap (unless he doesn't type and then only dictates) because after a few minutes using a touch screen you get very tired...

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Tim never said he was doing 80% of Your work on an iPad.

Liquorpuki said:

So basically Tim Cook's work rarely involves typing

Yet when he tells people what they should be typing on, we're supposed to listen to him?

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Absolutely. If Steve had said this the trash trucks would be full of keyboards in the morning. Everyone here quit using optical media because Steve said it was dead.

Well that's great but I use my keyboard ALL DAY LONG and would NOT be able to work with an iPad or virtual keyboard. And I'm using a "big key" circa 2007 white keyboard at home, and still a 2000 black pro keyboard at work, all keys working in good order. The command key and spacebar have the shiny spot on them ;-)
So long as we can choose the tool that's right for us, I'm OK. I don't like when Apple takes away too many physical buttons or even digital options.

Steveo13 said:

Actually they really do. In the biography of Steve Jobs, the emails would go directly to him and he would read them and respond to you as well. This is most likely the same for Tim.

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Well, i dont doubt that he does actually read some of them, and respond as well. That is to say, i don't think its some lackey making up the responses on his behalf. But do you really think that the ceo of the most valuable company in the world has the time to sift through all the crap? If he's as efficient as we have been led to believe then he'll be paying someone to read them and filter them. each minute of his time must be worth hundreds of dollars!

SnowLeopard OSX said:

This makes no sense... virtual keyboards are perfect for casual web browsing on the internet, making comments here and there, a couple forum posts here and there, and even searches through a search engine...

But am I going to type out my 10 page English essays on an iPad? Hell no, I'd much rather use my notebook/desktop for that. Physical keyboards aren't going anywhere. The only thing I could see replacing it is voice typing.

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Well yes but I don't really want a laptop in the meeting I'm preparing that report for either. I don't want a stack of paper either. Thence iPad prefect for that use. If am working on a report then give screen realestate, iMac again prefect for the use. What's more for same price as rMBP I could have both and have the best of both worlds.

Whatever. Even slightest degree of actual, real work involving typing will always require a physical keyboard. Ordering a pizza? Sure, I'll use the iPad for that.

OK so Mr. Cook isn't in to real computers. He prefers Apple's toy computers instead. That's OK, I just hope Apple continues to support more traditional computer users.

My favorite input device is Apple's full-size wired keyboard.

throAU said:

Context.

"I've dropped physical keyboards" is not telling everybody they should give up physical keyboards 100%.

The comments about trusting autocorrect are in the context of using a virtual keyboard.

He hasn't told anyone what THEY should be using for what THEY are doing at all. Just commented on what HE does.

And "real work" doesn't mean you need to do data entry.

He is at the strategic company leadership level. Paying your CEO with CEO money to do data entry is retarded. So it isn't what he does, likely other than small amounts as I mentioned above.

He isn't employed for what he can physically do. He is there because of the decisions he makes, after reviewing data. A data consumption device is ideal for that.

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"How good are you at the physical keyboard which confounds a lot of people?"
"Quite good, I think if you stick with it a little while you get quite good at it and the autocorrection is quite good"

He's saying people should be using the virtual keyboard despite being confounded

AppleScruff1 said:

Absolutely. If Steve had said this the trash trucks would be full of keyboards in the morning. Everyone here quit using optical media because Steve said it was dead.

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Reminds of when Steve said nobody wants a stylus because God gave us 10 of them... even though he never painted or drew anything

Even though the Auto correct feature on iOS could be better (it has done some odd things before) I don't have nearly as much trouble with it as it seems other people do. I can type pretty dang fast on my iPhone. Maybe I am used to it.

Though honestly I feel as if lots of times it's not the fact that Auto correct sucks it's what people expect from it or something. When you type something out and before you send it you should always re read it to look for typos or even some mistakes that you might not had realized that you made. I'm sure most of us on here can type without looking but how many of us re read what we type before we send it (on a forum I am sure it's not done nearly as much as it should)? Most of us do. Though it seems on a virtual keyboard we just go and type it and then send it. Then after we sent it we re read it and notice a mistake and go "damn you auto correct you suck!"

Maybe it's just the fact that I don't make many mistakes on my iOS virtual keyboard but I honestly don't have many problems with auto correct. When I re read what I type on my iPhone before I send it 95% of the words are correct and then the words that aren't I can't really blame auto correct.