Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

AlexJoda

macrumors 6502a
Apr 8, 2015
779
595
His review is spot on, both on the positive and the negative.


Yes he nailed it. I really question myself why Apple did not improve on this although nearly everybody is complaining about that in mostly all reviews? It should be so easy for them to add the basic productivity features like pointing devices, extended external display mode and file transfer. Played with a Surface Go today and although is such a lesser device compared to the iPad it steels the show when it comes to basic productivity tasks....

To me a $2000 iPad only makes sense with an OS that gives us these basic productivity features....Nobody is only comsuming media or playing around with such a device.
 
Last edited:

AlexJoda

macrumors 6502a
Apr 8, 2015
779
595
It’s an iPad it’s not supposed to be needing any of those.

It would actually go against the purpose of the de ice itself

That might be true for the iPhones and the first iPads but today with iPads that are beating i7 notebooks on computing power and prices till $2000 the demands are growing too....I think IOS for iPads has to go beyond this initial purpose.
 

Koh Phi Phi

macrumors regular
Original poster
Nov 15, 2017
166
338
That might be true for the iPhones and the first iPads but today with iPads that are beating i7 notebooks on computing power and prices till $2000 the demands are growing too....I think IOS for iPads has to go beyond this initial purpose.

Agreed.

The original iPad was a small sub-$500 device that was mostly conceived as a large iPhone geared for content consumption... Now a days, it is a large, expensive and ultra powerful device that STILL uses the same operation system as the iPhone.

Clearly the device has outgrown its original operating system, and its original conceptual purpose.
 

AlexJoda

macrumors 6502a
Apr 8, 2015
779
595
Agreed.

The original iPad was a small sub-$500 device that was mostly conceived as a large iPhone geared for content consumption... Now a days, it is a large, expensive and ultra powerful device that STILL uses the same operation system as the iPhone.

Clearly the device has outgrown its original operating system, and its original conceptual purpose.

That is true! The question is: Does it make sense to buy a new iPP now and hope for a much improved IOS 13, 14....or wait till that happens and buy then....
 

Mabus51

Suspended
Aug 16, 2007
1,366
847
That might be true for the iPhones and the first iPads but today with iPads that are beating i7 notebooks on computing power and prices till $2000 the demands are growing too....I think IOS for iPads has to go beyond this initial purpose.
I don’t thing so. Mouse is dead on a device like the iPad. Your finger or even the pencil is far more precise than a mouse. A proper file explore might be beneficial if they add HDD support. But with apps like filebrowser and a usb drive connected to your router. You can use the native Files app to offload or load files directly to your iPad. Not saying the OS isn’t lacking. There are things holding iPad Pro back and a call for PadOS vs iOS is something for Apple to take note on. Intuitive-ness is something that needs to be more seamless.
 

AlexJoda

macrumors 6502a
Apr 8, 2015
779
595
I don’t thing so. Mouse is dead on a device like the iPad. Your finger or even the pencil is far more precise than a mouse. A proper file explore might be beneficial if they add HDD support. But with apps like filebrowser and a usb drive connected to your router. You can use the native Files app to offload or load files directly to your iPad. Not saying the OS isn’t lacking. There are things holding iPad Pro back and a call for PadOS vs iOS is something for Apple to take note on. Intuitive-ness is something that needs to be more seamless.

With a finger or pencil you are always limited to work with the display of the device itself. With indirect pointing devices you can use any kind of display. And it is much more precise and quick in many cases. Try to do heavy text editing, spreadsheets or working with multiple windows with an iPad and you know what I mean....
 

Mockletoy

macrumors 6502a
Sep 26, 2017
617
1,911
Gothenburg, Sweden
They go on and on about how "fast" the new iPads are, which is great, but they're also still hobbled by clunky multitasking, a lack of pointer support (especially egregious when an external display is connected), and a filesystem that has been abstracted and sandboxed away into absurdity.

Apple (and lots of fanboys) go on and on about how these things are great for getting work done, how they can replace your laptop, etc., and I have to wonder, what kind of work are people doing? Because for me, in order to do my work I need to be able to refer to multiple different source documents in multiple different formats. I need to be able to quickly manipulate blocks of text, images, charts, etc., and without filesystem access, a mouse pointer, and windowed multitasking it quickly goes from tedious to torturous.

So, I'm sure lots of folks can "work" on an iPad, but I'm not one of them, not really. Writing on an iPad? Great fun. Completing a writing project on an iPad? Impossible.

So, seriously, when people say they can do their "work" on an iPad, what are they doing? I'm genuinely curious.
 

booksbooks

Suspended
Aug 28, 2013
794
797
I don’t thing so. Mouse is dead on a device like the iPad. Your finger or even the pencil is far more precise than a mouse. A proper file explore might be beneficial if they add HDD support. But with apps like filebrowser and a usb drive connected to your router. You can use the native Files app to offload or load files directly to your iPad. Not saying the OS isn’t lacking. There are things holding iPad Pro back and a call for PadOS vs iOS is something for Apple to take note on. Intuitive-ness is something that needs to be more seamless.

When people talk about Mac, OS X, and a mouse it's like they completely forget or fail to aknowledge that all of the multi-touch you can do on an iPad is also in OS X! Pretty much all of it! And then some...

I have a massive multi-touch trackpad on my MacBook Pro. I can pinch and zoom in Web Browsers, Word, Keynote, PowerPoint, Excel.... Fan my fingers and clear all windows. Swipe up with four fingers to show all windows. Swipe down to hide them.

The Mac has all of the benefits of multi-touch with the benefit of more power, much larger screens, more complete software, much better multi-tasking, and more.
 

Mockletoy

macrumors 6502a
Sep 26, 2017
617
1,911
Gothenburg, Sweden
When people talk about Mac, OS X, and a mouse it's like they completely forget or fail to aknowledge that all of the multi-touch you can do on an iPad is also in OS X! Pretty much all of it! And then some...

I have a massive multi-touch trackpad on my MacBook Pro. I can pinch and zoom in Web Browsers, Word, Keynote, PowerPoint, Excel.... Fan my fingers and clear all windows. Swipe up with four fingers to show all windows. Swipe down to hide them.

The Mac has all of the benefits of multi-touch with the benefit of more power, much larger screens, more complete software, much better multi-tasking, and more.

Yeah, the iPad makes an excellent companion device, and can even handle a limited subset of what I need to do to get my work done, but it's not remotely close to being able to make me ask, "What's a computer?"
 
  • Like
Reactions: psac

skottichan

macrumors 65816
Oct 23, 2007
1,093
1,272
Columbus, OH
They go on and on about how "fast" the new iPads are, which is great, but they're also still hobbled by clunky multitasking, a lack of pointer support (especially egregious when an external display is connected), and a filesystem that has been abstracted and sandboxed away into absurdity.

Apple (and lots of fanboys) go on and on about how these things are great for getting work done, how they can replace your laptop, etc., and I have to wonder, what kind of work are people doing? Because for me, in order to do my work I need to be able to refer to multiple different source documents in multiple different formats. I need to be able to quickly manipulate blocks of text, images, charts, etc., and without filesystem access, a mouse pointer, and windowed multitasking it quickly goes from tedious to torturous.

So, I'm sure lots of folks can "work" on an iPad, but I'm not one of them, not really. Writing on an iPad? Great fun. Completing a writing project on an iPad? Impossible.

So, seriously, when people say they can do their "work" on an iPad, what are they doing? I'm genuinely curious.

Graphic design (toy design and packaging), creating art for shirts and prints, doing commissions, as well as working on writing, scripting and doing the art for an upcoming webcomic.

Apps regularly used;
ClipStudioEX
Procreate
Scrivener
Celtx Script
 

chfilm

macrumors 68040
Nov 15, 2012
3,306
1,987
Berlin
What’s really preventing the iPad from being a serious contender in the computer space is the lack of mouse and trackpad support.
Jeeeeez people what is it with the pointing device? They will never do it!
The device you’re asking for already exists, it’s called MacBook!

iOS is not designed for anything else than a finger. Everything, like EVERYTHING, including all apps would have to be redesigned.

It would be perfectly fine if all apps would have proper shortcut support, and just a proper file system.
 

Mockletoy

macrumors 6502a
Sep 26, 2017
617
1,911
Gothenburg, Sweden
But it might be a little too expensive and too powerful for a „companion device“

It's also great for sitting on the couch reading or something, or lying in bed watching videos, better than anything else, really. So I have an iPad for that sort of thing, and anything else I can get out of it is just a bonus.

But even the simplest things -- someone emailing me a .rar archive, for instance -- mean jumping through a lot of convoluted hoops on iOS, so why would I want to try to browbeat my workflow into conforming to the iPad's limitations when my Mac is sitting right there?
[doublepost=1541967220][/doublepost]
Jeeeeez people what is it with the pointing device? They will never do it!
The device you’re asking for already exists, it’s called MacBook!

Exactly the point we are all trying to make. Someone needs to tell Apple's marketing department, though, and all the folks who keep assuring me I'm "wrong" about the iPad. One dude on 9to5Mac even lectured me about being "trapped in the past" because I said iOS in its current state can't support my workflow.

That seems very weird to me. Why on earth would that guy seem to take it so deeply personally that I'm not as big an iPad cheerleader as he is? It's like watching someone berate someone because they need to use a screwdriver rather than a hammer.
 

AlexJoda

macrumors 6502a
Apr 8, 2015
779
595
Jeeeeez people what is it with the pointing device? They will never do it!
The device you’re asking for already exists, it’s called MacBook!

iOS is not designed for anything else than a finger. Everything, like EVERYTHING, including all apps would have to be redesigned.

It would be perfectly fine if all apps would have proper shortcut support, and just a proper file system.

For some tasks a finger is perfectly fine (like web browsing) but for others not. A MacBook on the other end has no touch display, is much bigger, thicker and heavier and uses last generation technology compared to the A12X environment...

It seems to me it might more sufficient to improve the iPad with some MacBook features than the other way round....
 

chfilm

macrumors 68040
Nov 15, 2012
3,306
1,987
Berlin
For some tasks a finger is perfectly fine (like web browsing) but for others not. A MacBook on the other end has no touch display, is much bigger, thicker and heavier and uses last generation technology compared to the A12X environment...
And tell me one app example on which a mouse on current iOS would help you please.
 

Mockletoy

macrumors 6502a
Sep 26, 2017
617
1,911
Gothenburg, Sweden
For some tasks a finger is perfectly fine (like web browsing) but for others not. A MacBook on the other end has no touch display, is much bigger, thicker and heavier and uses last generation technology compared to the A12X environment...

The other day I was trying to grab a bit of text off a webpage in mobile Safari on my iPad and send it to someone real quick and I could not get the text selection handles to appear. Period. Things like that happen all the time on iOS. Selecting text, copying, pasting, etc., things that are dead simple on a Mac are frequently clunky and frustrating on iOS.
 
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.