iPad Air 2 or Surface 3 ?

[sparksd]

Yeah - that is a phone. I never took photos with my iPad, does that mean I dont use the one on my phone?

Nope!

Taking lecture notes or trying to write music on a phone is just goofy.

Agree and I don't think extensive note take was ever the intent. Apps for short notes, etc.. My point is that many people have no interest in handwriting/note-taking on a device even when it is well supported.

 

[David58117]

Agree and I don't think extensive note take was ever the intent. Apps for short notes, etc.. My point is that many people have no interest in handwriting/note-taking on a device even when it is well supported.

But you went to the wrong place to ask, making the take away kind of pointless.

Also for the wrong device.

You're trying to say people have no need to take notes on a device... only because people who bought a phone don't take notes on it...

Why don't we ask people with iPhones 5s about them watching full featured movies on it.

When not many reply, we could take away people don't watch movies at all on tablets, they have no need or desire to, making it a pointless feature..

 

[sparksd]

But you went to the wrong place to ask, making the take away kind of pointless.

Also for the wrong device.

You're trying to say people have no need to take notes on a device... only because people who bought a phone don't take notes on it...

Why don't we ask people with iPhones 5s about them watching full featured movies on it.

When not many reply, we could take away people don't watch movies at all on tablets, they have no need or desire to, making it a pointless feature..

Not what I said - I said only that many people have no need or desire to take notes on a device. I already acknowledged its usefulness in an earlier post. Plus, stylus support for photo editing is also very useful and even necessary for some actions. I was simply saying that a lot of people could care less about taking notes on a device using handwriting.

 

[dyn]

And it happens like this on the desktop by design, as the user often has a keyboard hooked up while using touch, so bringing up the keyboard is redundant.

And with the desktop being the main focus in Windows 10 this is one of the reasons a lot of avid tablet users dislike 10. We'll see how good the tablet side of Windows 10 will be...

The iPad is very good at what it does, but what it does is rather limited. The Surface may not be as great at some of the things the iPad does, but it is leaps ahead in terms of what it can do.

They are both leaps ahead of each other. It's all in the eyes of the beholder.

This is simply not true, and it really makes me wonder how familiar you are with the Surface. OneNote, for instance, is miles ahead of anything on the iPad for note-taking, and you can still have other applications open next to it while you're working.

Then you have not used OneNote recently on the iPad. Microsoft is continuously improving the various apps and trying to get the feature parity on the same level. If you look at the iPad version and the Windows Modern version of OneNote they are the same. It's the Windows desktop version that is quite different from those and has more options (themes, templates, in Windows you can use Onetastic and so on) but this difference is getting smaller with each release. Its main competitor Evernote does have almost complete feature parity with its Mac, Windows and iOS apps. Some consider Evernote to be miles ahead than OneNote for note taking (or in other words, it is highly debatable whether OneNote is a killer note taking app). There is another app that mimics OneNote and its called Outline (Mac and iPad only though). As we've seen in the topic about Apples new Notes version in iOS9 a lot of people consider this to be an Evernote/OneNote killer. It's like with the todo apps, there simply are a lot of users only needing simple features.

Talking about todo apps...many people consider OmniFocus to be the best one, others consider it to be overly complex and rather use Reminders. On Windows such apps are nonexistent or they have really bad user interfaces making entering todos rather difficult.

Btw, with iOS9 the iPad now also has the option to use 2 apps next to each other. Sadly it is only for the iPad Air 2.

You can record the audio for the entire presentation/lecture and it matches each block of text or diagram with the time in the audio so you can replay relevant parts. You can even search for words in the audio clips.

Which you can do on the iPad, Mac and Windows.

You can quickly draw detailed diagrams and charts, or mathematical equations (which it recognizes and converts automatically), resize, and place them in the document.

It does not recognise diagrams at all like Grafio does. That's my number 1 feature for OneNote (and that of many others, it's on Microsofts uservoice page). Currently the only Microsoft products being able to work with diagrams are Word and Visio. As for equations...some people might need them, many others don't (again, take a look at the input regarding Apples new Notes version).

If you're working with documents, you very often need to reference another document, web page, video, etc, next to it. You can't do that on the iPad. That right there is enough to make it painful to work with.

That entirely depends on what software you use and how you are trying to reference things. There are iOS versions of Endnote, Mendeley, Zotero, etc. By taking use of the share sheets sharing data between apps is not a problem (it is a very useful feature in getting data into OneNote, OmniFocus, Evernote and so on) which is something that is unavailable in Windows. If the app doesn't support OneNote (which means nearly all of them) then you can't use things like anchored notes or share data with OneNote. Effectively on Windows you can only do this with Outlook and if you use OneNote on OneDrive you can also use supported webbrowsers (OneNote Clipper will directly send it to your notebook on OneDrive but it can't do that on the local drive).

Trying to write with a stylus on the iPad and have it legible is quite a difficult task. The tips are generally squishy and thick, and the capacitive touchscreen isn't great at dealing with it.

That's why you have active styli but like I said before, none of the offerings on any platform is a nice experience. Legibility and writing comfort are a major issue (the offset is a real pita).

And of course, being able to use the type cover for typing without consuming 2/3 of your screen real estate isn't half bad.

Any tablet has bluetooth which allows you to use an external keyboard. There are many of those for a lot less money than the type cover from Microsoft.

For presentations, you can output video. Presentations on the iPad are pretty well a lost cause.

Presentations on the iPad and even iPhone work the same way as on a Mac and you can use both Keynote and MS Powerpoint. You can even do this via applications like ClickShare if you use an interactive display instead of a beamer. In case of iOS there is also the low cost and less hassle AirPlay via an AppleTV that you put in conference mode. It's what we use daily in our company and it is part of the many things we sell. If presentations on an iPad are a lost cause then you are doing it wrong or you've never done it.

Besides that, the requirement of something like Powerpoint/Keynotes to be able to do presentations shows a great lack of skill. You should be able to do your presentation without those tools. It's about the message you need to get across, not about how flashy you do it.

As for the Surface, I've only really seen it used in the medical field for doctors as they move about. They've been using stylus Windows-based computers a few years now in my area, but have moved to Surface Pros. I'd wager that the Pro is the one to get for any kind of business use as it's effectively a normal laptop.

It depends on where you go. Some will use iPads, others iPhones and many won't use any of them. They consider devices like this not to be all that hygienic and/or don't want a wifi network (it still can cause noise which you don't want near sensitive equipment). Security is another issue with these devices as well as tooling. You are carrying sensitive medical data around or have access to such data on a mobile device. That's a huge security challenge and reason why not every hospital will allow them (one also needs to take law into account). The use of the Surface Pro isn't strange though. It's an easy to carry around ultrabook that you can write on. No matter how it works, that's it unique selling point.

What scientific studies are you talking about? I'm specifically saying that the Surface stylus is much better than the iPad with a stylus. That isn't even something you can argue against; a capacitive touch screen that uses thick, squishy styli, is nowhere near an active digitizer in the screen and pressure sensitivity in the pen with a fine tip.

For note taking you want the active one, not the capacitive ones due to the accuracy (smaller nib). For navigation it really doesn't matter since that is what you also use your fingers for. The study I meant is the one about digital note taking vs normal note taking. Something that is greatly discussed on pen forums like The Fountain Pen Network (FPN). I'll see if I can dig it up.

I suspect you think I'm saying that a stylus is better than pen and paper, which I'm not. Fair enough that you dislike using a stylus on either, but that doesn't mean they're that bad. The stylus with the Surface is quite highly liked by users and reviewers. Maybe one day they'll get the texture just right for you, but I don't think it will be the iPad.

It is nice stylus for what it is, even the quirky Surface Pro 2 one but it still doesn't make it a pleasant experience for most users. It is more a practical solution. I doubt it will ever change that much. They'll probably change the nibs a bit but making the screen feel like paper is rather difficult. That usually means a matte display which has some disadvantages over the glossy screens we have now. The screen has to be used by both stylus and finger.

I find it really helps to take notes by hand and type them up in the evening in order to really solidify the material into memory.

Same here but the tools you pick also help a great deal. For some it is OneNote, for others it is Evernote or something else on either the iPad or one of Microsofts Surfaces. Since I'm not allowed to store company data on servers other than our own I can't take use of OneNote on iOS, Android or the Modern UI version in Windows since these can only access cloud storage (iCloud, OneDrive, OneDrive for businesses). That's why I use pen & paper plus the desktop version of OneNote (this one is able to access its notebooks from local drives, network shares and SharePoint). Evernote is off the list because it syncs everything to their servers.

I'm the only one who still writes (analog or digital), everybody else types. That's the main issue: handwriting is in a decline. It's even so bad now that American schools are actually dropping handwriting (it's not mandatory any more) and some schools switching to iPad/keyboard only. Another reason why I'm not that positive about the future of digital handwriting. Rather sad to see, handwriting is a very personal thing. It differentiates you from others. Text on a computer screen doesn't do that.

 

[rowspaxe]

I hope this a joke.
The APIs available for touch apps is the main reason why they are so highly valued. Being able to take advantage of system hardware is kind of the important part here. That and they are a pleasurable experience being touch-based. They are able to deliver a first-class experience because they cater to one thing and one thing only, touch input (and occasionally keyboard). It is quite plain to see that touch apps are not "over rated".

I can't use one of those hybrid devices because it does not fit my requirements. And I do not find hybrid devices to be a good experience. I'd rather use the best tool for the job. (I hope that didn't sound like I'm a fanboy preaching Apple... that's my honest opinion).

I use itunes--a desktop app--with touch on the surface. the experience is similar to the safari browser on the ipad. Even shopping in the itunes store is easy. A lot of desk top apps are easily used with touch. Thats why i say touch apps are overrated--desktop apps often work well with touch

 

[dyn]

That's because the iTunes Store is actually a website that loads inside an app (iTunes on OS X/Windows, special app on iOS). A lot of the Windows apps are not touch enabled. Even the Windows Explorer is difficult (but not impossible!) to use with touch. The apps that have been developed with touch in mind work fine. Major difference between iPad and Surface: the only actual interface on the iPad is touch whereas the Surface is meant to be used with keyboard, mouse/pen and touch.

 

[sracer]

I use itunes--a desktop app--with touch on the surface. the experience is similar to the safari browser on the ipad. Even shopping in the itunes store is easy. A lot of desk top apps are easily used with touch. Thats why i say touch apps are overrated--desktop apps often work well with touch

I can understand that, it's a highly subjective issue.

I have not found desktop apps to work well with touch. It's not simply a matter of resolution scaling, but of application window composition. Resolution scaling helps enlarge UI elements to be able to accurately select them, but what is displayed within the application is not conducive to the effectively reduced screen resolution.

Modern UI apps have been optimized (not only for touch) but for data presentation in the touch environment.

If the quantity of quality of Modern UI apps were comparable to iOS, there'd be no comparison... Windows would be far superior IMO. The situation is improving, though not as quickly as I'd like, but with each passing month I'm able to use my Acer Aspire Switch 11 and Surface 2 more and more as a tablet.

 

[rowspaxe]

Resolution scaling helps enlarge UI elements to be able to accurately select them, but what is displayed within the application is not conducive to the effectively reduced screen resolution.

Perhaps--but i find using desktop apps with touch far more enjoyable than dumbed down metro apps. For example-compare artrage to freshpaint. Or desktop onenote to metro onenote.

Is there a compelling metro app outside of staffpad?

 

[sracer]

Perhaps--but i find using desktop apps with touch far more enjoyable than dumbed down metro apps. For example-compare artrage to freshpaint. Or desktop onenote to metro onenote.

Is there a compelling metro app outside of staffpad?

Not really. That's a problem with Windows tablets in general (not just the Surface). Microsoft has not advanced the Modern UI APIs to enable developers to create advanced apps. It is why their "universal app" concept is just that... a concept.

Desktop and Touch apps are fundamentally different. Sure, you can use a desktop app in touch mode, but it will always be inferior to an app well-designed for touch.

Apple appears to understands this. Microsoft apparently doesn't.