iOS 4.2.1--why bither updating?

[SpiceGrrl]

Oops, I meant why BOTHER. I have had my iPad for about 6 weeks (64g, 3G) and mostly love it. Now I hear about this new version of the operating system and frankly I am not all that excited by the changes and new features it would supposedly give me. Here is what I use it for:

* web research
* email (have 2 accounts, business and personal)
* editing documents on my iDisk
* storing photos for showing in person to friends & family
* occasionally watching movies when on airplane (Maybe 6 long flights a year)

I NEVER do gaming or listen to music. I really use it more for work and casual research.

The only thing I don't like about the pad is how slow it is to load video from YouTube. Sometimes my work requires me to watch videos on YouTube, which would be a major pain if I had to do that more often.

So--given my usage pattern, are there any dire consequences that will happen for me if I chose NOT to take the free upgrade to iOS4.2.1???

 

[mKTank]

Oops, I meant why BOTHER. I have had my iPad for about 6 weeks (64g, 3G) and mostly love it. Now I hear about this new version of the operating system and frankly I am not all that excited by the changes and new features it would supposedly give me. Here is what I use it for:

* web research
* email (have 2 accounts, business and personal)
* editing documents on my iDisk
* storing photos for showing in person to friends & family
* occasionally watching movies when on airplane (Maybe 6 long flights a year)

I NEVER do gaming or listen to music. I really use it more for work and casual research.

The only thing I don't like about the pad is how slow it is to load video from YouTube. Sometimes my work requires me to watch videos on YouTube, which would be a major pain if I had to do that more often.

So--given my usage pattern, are there any dire consequences that will happen for me if I chose NOT to take the free upgrade to iOS4.2.1???

Faster.
More future proof with more app support
Printing
Multitasking
Game Center
Stuff like unified inboxes, real Gmail calendar support, etc.
Safari actually retains other closed tabs instead of refreshing all the time
etc etc.

There's no reason to stay with 3.x You don't bither with 4.2, you want 4.2.

 

[viperGTS]

web research- iOS 4.2 lets you search in a page.
email - iOS 4.2 brings unified inbox and threaded messages.
editing documents on my iDisk- iOS 4.2 lets you open documents from other apps into iDisk (and any other app capable of Open In)
storing photos for showing in person to friends & family - iOS 4.2 will let you print those photos should you ever need to.
occasionally watching movies when on airplane - iOS 4.2 will let you stream those to an Apple TV with airplay should you ever need too.

and multitasking, well, it will let you switch between these things so fast

 

[SpiceGrrl]

Thanks, I appreciate your careful attention to my list. What do you mean "search in a page?" Also I'd like to know more about the ability to open more docs in idisk--what do you mean "open docs from other apps onto iDisk"?

 

[viperGTS]

Thanks, I appreciate your careful attention to my list. What do you mean "search in a page?" Also I'd like to know more about the ability to open more docs in idisk--what do you mean "open docs from other apps onto iDisk"?

well, in 4.2, the search bar on the top right also acts as an in page finder, kind of like control + f if you need to find something in a page.
"Open In" allows you to, for example, take a document from the mail app, and "open it in" another app, like an attachment. im not sure if iDisk supports this but most likely it does. i cant use iDisk (no mobileme subscription).
but 4.2 is great because slowly, devs will start unsupporting the 3.2.x series. which means apps will lose compatibility (unless you dont update your apps)

 

[pcunite]

* storing photos for showing in person to friends & family

This is one to watch out for. I use the iPad as a portfolio and with iOS 4.2.1 the Photo app is now useless. It applies some sort of automatic compression and the quality is now terrible. I use GoodReader now to showcase my work.

See here:
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=12728065&

 

[SpiceGrrl]

Thank you for this. I am still not very excited about the new features and am decidedly UNexcited about problems I am hearing about here and in other threads: shorter battery life, weaker wireless signal, uselessness of iPhoto, etc. I don't have or need a lot of apps and am happy with most of the current versions. I never need to print from my iPad so there goes that. Now if the new system supported FLASH, that would be different because it would solve my video-viewing problem. But so far, unless more info comes to light, I am sticking with what I've got. Many thanks for everyone's input.

 

[abriwin]

Photo app

I agree with pcunite, Apple have effectively trashed the photo app. Apart from the notes in pcunite's reply above, they also removed the organise by dates which worked under v 3.xxx. Now all we get is 101IMPRT, 102IMPRT, etc. useless, utterly useless. I hope they eventually port iPhoto into the iPad.