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iPad as a laptop replacement

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Yup we're off topic slightly but I think in this case it's okay because there are some of us for whom access to certain software functionality impacts to what degree an iPad can replace a laptop.

Kal Madda said:
My gripe is that they did make lite versions of their apps for other platforms, yet charge the exact same price as the full version for them, even though apps like Word in particular are missing so many basic simple core features we know they can implement, because they’ve implemented them in other Microsoft Office apps on the iPad like OneNote… If they’re going to charge me just as much as for the full version, at least make an effort. At least deliver simple basic features… Or, since it is a lite version, give me a discount… 🤷🏼‍♂️
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I think this is what Microsoft 365 Basic is for, but MS obscures the existence of that plan from their front facing pages when people are shopping for Microsoft 365 plans. $2/mo or so for just mobile and web app access vs higher pricing for desktop licenses.

I would love to have more robust versions on my mobile devices too, but I just don't see it happening no matter how much I think it should. Honestly this issue is one of my barriers to purchasing another large iPad Pro because I am fully locked into the Microsoft 365 ecosystem with no ability nor desire to change (Windows and MS 365 is a corporate preference in software platform where I work).

As things stand the mobile and web versions of Office apps continue to be supplemental versions to the desktop apps in Microsoft's eyes, particularly since the enterprise sector makes up over 3/4 of their revenue from the Office products.
 
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muzzy996 said:
Yup we're off topic slightly but I think in this case it's okay because there are some of us for whom access to certain software functionality impacts to what degree an iPad can replace a laptop.
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Fair enough, that makes sense. I was mostly talking about where things were beginning to drift, if that makes any sense.
muzzy996 said:
I think this is what Microsoft 365 Basic is for, but MS obscures the existence of that plan from their front facing pages when people are shopping for Microsoft 365 plans. $2/mo or so for just mobile and web app access vs higher pricing for desktop licenses.
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I never heard of that option. So is that specifically for the mobile and web versions? I would actually say that is pretty reasonable pricing for the web and mobile versions, it’s $24 a year. If that’s the case, I will cut them some slack on that front, as that isn’t really bad pricing for them, considering it used to cost several hundreds to buy a license for desktop back in the day if I recall correctly.
muzzy996 said:
I would love to have more robust versions on my mobile devices too, but I just don't see it happening no matter how much I think it should. Honestly this issue is one of my barriers to purchasing another large iPad Pro because I am fully locked into the Microsoft 365 ecosystem with no ability nor desire to change (Windows and MS 365 is a corporate preference in software platform where I work).

As things stand the mobile and web versions of Office apps continue to be supplemental versions to the desktop apps in Microsoft's eyes, particularly since the enterprise sector makes up over 3/4 of their revenue from the Office products.
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Yeah, I would love to see them improve just a few basic things. To be fair, at this point I have gotten used to Pages at this point, and so I don’t know I’d go back to Office even if they did make the changes I’d like them too. I’d have to consider it. But I definitely would like to see them improve stuff like this. I get not including some more niche stuff, or not wanting to make the feature set too good so that it preserves platform lock-in, but there are just some things that make very little sense to me with their current implementation. Like custom document templates would just make so much sense. Companies use these all the time. Microsoft doesn’t make phones, and barely makes “tablets”. With custom document templates on the mobile version, those who need to fill out small forums while doing other tasks around the company, kind of like checklists, could just carry their phone or tablet with them to do so. Take the answers/data, plug them into the form, save the document, move onto the next one. It would just make so much more sense than having to lug a Windows laptop around for something as simple as that… 🤷🏼‍♂️. I can sort of get the potential “the mobile version isn’t meant for final page formatting/layout work” argument, though I disagree with it. But custom document templates just seems a very basic thing that would appeal to business/enterprise use… 🤷🏼‍♂️

But yeah, sadly you’re probably right that they aren’t going to improve this very much anytime soon, which is quite a shame.
 
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Anyone on here doing web or software development on the iPad? Is there a decent IDE app or code editor similar to Visual Studio Code? I remember using the app CodeAnywhere and it was great as it had built in FTP -- but it is gone now.
 
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lostPod said:
Anyone on here doing web or software development on the iPad? Is there a decent IDE app or code editor similar to Visual Studio Code? I remember using the app CodeAnywhere and it was great as it had built in FTP -- but it is gone now.
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I don’t do web dev professionally, I’ve only tinkered a bit, but I have a friend who does do it professionally. There’s a couple options he uses and recommended to me that you may find useful. 👍🏻

One is the web version of Visual Studio Code:


That link is to a page about how to use the web version, and it includes a link to the web app there near the top of the page.

The friend who uses his iPad for web dev also recommended an app called Code that is built on the same engine as VS Code:

apps.apple.com

Code App App - App Store

Download Code App by thebaselab Ltd on the App Store. See screenshots, ratings and reviews, user tips, and more apps like Code App.
apps.apple.com apps.apple.com

The latter Code App has built-in FTP, which you may find useful. 👍🏻

I’ve used both for tinkering with web development and coding, and found them useful. So they may be useful for you. 🙂👍🏻
 
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iWorks feels like it has stagnated for years, especially after going free. If being subscription based means Apple is again incentivised to devote more resources to improving it, this may not necessarily be a bad thing.

And yay for qualifying for the educational discount. $4 for me is practically a no brainer, though I am not hopping on board yet because I haven’t had a reason to open up the various iWorks apps since Microsoft made their own office apps available on iOS.

My main concern will be if the take up rate ends up being lukewarm. Not enough people end up subscribing to make this a profitable enough venture, improvements still come in drips and drabs, and it’s not fair to the people shelling out $17 each month.
 
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Abazigal said:
iWorks feels like it has stagnated for years, especially after going free. If being subscription based means Apple is again incentivised to devote more resources to improving it, this may not necessarily be a bad thing.

And yay for qualifying for the educational discount. $4 for me is practically a no brainer, though I am not hopping on board yet because I haven’t had a reason to open up the various iWorks apps since Microsoft made their own office apps available on iOS.

My main concern will be if the take up rate ends up being lukewarm. Not enough people end up subscribing to make this a profitable enough venture, improvements still come in drips and drabs, and it’s not fair to the people shelling out $17 each month.
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Yeah, we’ve already seen Apple rolling out more updates to Final Cut Pro and Logic Pro since they brought them over to the iPad with a subscription, so I think that makes sense.

$17 a month? The pricing I saw was like $12 a month or $130 a year. I’m currently on the free trial and seriously considering buying it when my trial runs out. The education discount is sweet! Hey, it supports Family Sharing! Are you my long lost cousin? 😉 😂🤣
 
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Slartibart said:
as did all other word processors, presentation programs (Keynote is excellent IMHO), or spreadsheets didn‘t they? 🤓
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Well, the office apps do feel pretty "feature complete", in that I basically use them to do all my planning work in school. Like at least powerpoint automatically resizes to take up the full space of my classroom whiteboard (similar to Notability in presentation mode); while keynote still has that black letter-boxing all around.

I did use keynote and pages on my iPad a fair bite when I first got my iPad (paid for them before they ended up being free), when the office apps weren't available yet and I find that for most part, they worked for the basic stuff that I used them for - to type and present stuff to my students. Like I needed a word processor to type out a situational writing letter, and pages was a pretty streamlined app that did the job.

But right now? Cross-compatibility is way too important to me to risk any of my work being locked into iWork's but I really am curious - for the people who are still getting by fine with the iWork's suite of apps, what do you use them for, and how are you managing without office?
 
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Abazigal said:
But right now? Cross-compatibility is way too important to me to risk any of my work being locked into iWork's but I really am curious - for the people who are still getting by fine with the iWork's suite of apps, what do you use them for, and how are you managing without office?
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I use Pages for my small business. I use custom document templates for bids and contracts for my clients. That’s one of the biggest reasons I can’t really use Office for that. With Word, the only way I could use it would be to constantly duplicate and overwrite documents, hardly efficient, and also prone to losing files. Pages also provides me with precision layout tools, so I can insert my logo header precisely centered at the top for my business documents. And I can precisely position other elements. And I can insert those resources from Files, so ironically, I can easily insert stuff from OneDrive in Pages, but can’t in Word. But yeah, a lot of my use of Pages is to do with bids, proposals, contracts, etc. for business. Though I also am using it for my sci-fi novel that I’ve been writing on my spare time. I do the primary writing for it scene by scene in Notes, and then bring it into Pages to bring the scenes all together.

So that’s mostly the way I use iWork. I think the Microsoft apps are fine for certain use-cases, and for some are likely even better. It’s just that I would need Word to support these things if I were to use it the way I use Pages. I’m so glad that Pages at least incorporates those features, so I can rely on it. And I haven’t had any issues with the export for MS Word. I work with others who use MS Office, and it works out fine. So that’s helpful. 👍🏻
 
Kal Madda said:
I use Pages for my small business. I use custom document templates for bids and contracts for my clients. That’s one of the biggest reasons I can’t really use Office for that. With Word, the only way I could use it would be to constantly duplicate and overwrite documents, hardly efficient, and also prone to losing files. Pages also provides me with precision layout tools, so I can insert my logo header precisely centered at the top for my business documents. And I can precisely position other elements. And I can insert those resources from Files, so ironically, I can easily insert stuff from OneDrive in Pages, but can’t in Word. But yeah, a lot of my use of Pages is to do with bids, proposals, contracts, etc. for business. Though I also am using it for my sci-fi novel that I’ve been writing on my spare time. I do the primary writing for it scene by scene in Notes, and then bring it into Pages to bring the scenes all together.

So that’s mostly the way I use iWork. I think the Microsoft apps are fine for certain use-cases, and for some are likely even better. It’s just that I would need Word to support these things if I were to use it the way I use Pages. I’m so glad that Pages at least incorporates those features, so I can rely on it. And I haven’t had any issues with the export for MS Word. I work with others who use MS Office, and it works out fine. So that’s helpful. 👍🏻
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Pages is on a completely different level in that regard. It just oozes design and taste. I'm still amazed that I can take elements from a picture and insert them into Pages without any hickups.

My project.gif
 
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ScanTheNavian said:
Pages is on a completely different level in that regard. It just oozes design and taste. I'm still amazed that I can take elements from a picture and insert them into Pages without any hickups.

View attachment 2601748
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Yeah, I grew up using Word for school and personal use. When I first moved to the Mac I decided to try Pages since it was free and Office wasn’t. At first the UI of Pages took some getting used to, but I actually really came to appreciate the less distracting UI. It feels like the UI doesn’t get in your way as much, and you can just focus on your work, and have the options when you need them. Word’s ribbon menu at the top is very distracting, I never really realized how distracting it was until I picked up Pages. I really like Pages’ UI, I think you’re absolutely right about it oozing design and taste. And I love the Liquid Glass update for it! It makes it look even better, and makes the toolbar even less distracting. 🙂👍🏻
 
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Kal Madda said:
Pages also provides me with precision layout tools, so I can insert my logo header precisely centered at the top for my business documents.
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I seem to recall something like that being one of the legitimately better aspects of pages. That somehow, every aspect of the software is geared towards making your task easier. I do concede that with Word, I often feel like I am spending as much time fighting the interface as I am actually typing stuff.

I think the straw which broke my back was when I did this writeup for a school event in pages, then had issues converting it to word (had initially planned to just submit it as a PDF, but my colleague wanted the doc version as well). Finally gave up and redid the whole thing in Word, with a different template.

Maybe I will give Pages a whirl again one of these days.
 
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The main problem isn't even that they are charging for the iWorks suite. The main problem is that they added it to a larger "creative super plus premium suite (and we think you are going to love it)". I don't use ANY of those apps except iWork and Pixelmator a little. I can't just buy those apps anymore. I HAVE TO BUY ALL OF THEM. That's my main issue. Like if we could get just iWork for $1.99 a month, great! For $12.99? Might as well use MS Office.

But then again, this is Apple now. This is who they are.
 
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eltoslightfoot said:
The main problem isn't even that they are charging for the iWorks suite. The main problem is that they added it to a larger "creative super plus premium suite (and we think you are going to love it)". I don't use ANY of those apps except iWork and Pixelmator a little. I can't just buy those apps anymore. I HAVE TO BUY ALL OF THEM. That's my main issue. Like if we could get just iWork for $1.99 a month, great! For $12.99? Might as well use MS Office.

But then again, this is Apple now. This is who they are.
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You can get iWork for free.. 🤷🏼‍♂️. The added stuff is very optional… It’s literally just some stock photos and AI image generation more advanced than Image Playground. Both of which can readily be done with other tools. All of the actual primary tools and functions are still free…

I’m sure that if they added more subscription features to iWork, they probably would separate them into a smaller separate subscription. But at this point, the additions in iWork wouldn’t even be worth $1.99 a month… They’re exceedingly minor. They’re basically a very small add-on perk for Creator Studio. They’re don’t provide enough value yet by themselves to justify a standalone subscription… 🤷🏼‍♂️

So iWork is free. You don’t pay $12.99 for any core iWork features or functionality… The $13 is for Pixelmator Pro, Final Cut Pro, and Logic Pro. Not for iWork.
 
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Kal Madda said:
You can get iWork for free.. 🤷🏼‍♂️. The added stuff is very optional… It’s literally just some stock photos and AI image generation more advanced than Image Playground. Both of which can readily be done with other tools. All of the actual primary tools and functions are still free…

I’m sure that if they added more subscription features to iWork, they probably would separate them into a smaller separate subscription. But at this point, the additions in iWork wouldn’t even be worth $1.99 a month… They’re exceedingly minor. They’re basically a very small add-on perk for Creator Studio. They’re don’t provide enough value yet by themselves to justify a standalone subscription… 🤷🏼‍♂️

So iWork is free. You don’t pay $12.99 for any core iWork features or functionality… The $13 is for Pixelmator Pro, Final Cut Pro, and Logic Pro. Not for iWork.
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Again, try to use the free versions on your iPad and change the toolbar to eliminate the weird premium stuff. You can't. Only on Mac. So, forgive me if I choose to disagree on this one. I think Apple is going down a very wrong path here. But that's where we are.
 
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eltoslightfoot said:
Again, try to use the free versions on your iPad and change the toolbar to eliminate the weird premium stuff. You can't. Only on Mac. So, forgive me if I choose to disagree on this one. I think Apple is going down a very wrong path here. But that's where we are.
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I use the iPad versions all the time. And yes, you can remove the “weird premium stuff”… You can customize the toolbar on the iPad version… So no, not only on Mac…

Furthermore it’s very simple without any customization required, just don’t click buttons you don’t intend to use… 🤷🏼‍♂️

I think Apple’s providing great value here. I’m glad that they put this bundle together. 👍🏻
 
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I use Pages and Numbers for work. I’m a draftsman subcontracting to building designers, and I’m studying for qualifications in performing thermal assessment of new buildings, so I do a lot of converting from docx so I can do my assignments. I don’t have Office, so Pages and Numbers are it.

I may have to buy Excel for my MacBook because there are some industry spreadsheets I will need to use that I can’t convert, but I’ve not met a reason yet to have to get Word.

Edit: As controversial as this new creative suite is, I’m actually excited for iWork again. I’m looking forward to seeing what Apple does. I am not likely to pay for the premium features, so I will be interested to see how Apple rides the line between the base apps and subscription options.
 
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Kal Madda said:
I use the iPad versions all the time. And yes, you can remove the “weird premium stuff”… You can customize the toolbar on the iPad version… So no, not only on Mac…

Furthermore it’s very simple without any customization required, just don’t click buttons you don’t intend to use… 🤷🏼‍♂️

I think Apple’s providing great value here. I’m glad that they put this bundle together. 👍🏻
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How do you do it? I am seriously asking. I didn't see a way to remove those stupid premium AI buttons in Numbers.
 
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Kal Madda said:
I use Pages for my small business. I use custom document templates for bids and contracts for my clients. That’s one of the biggest reasons I can’t really use Office for that. With Word, the only way I could use it would be to constantly duplicate and overwrite documents, hardly efficient, and also prone to losing files. Pages also provides me with precision layout tools, so I can insert my logo header precisely centered at the top for my business documents. And I can precisely position other elements. And I can insert those resources from Files, so ironically, I can easily insert stuff from OneDrive in Pages, but can’t in Word. But yeah, a lot of my use of Pages is to do with bids, proposals, contracts, etc. for business. Though I also am using it for my sci-fi novel that I’ve been writing on my spare time. I do the primary writing for it scene by scene in Notes, and then bring it into Pages to bring the scenes all together.
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Same, gave office away looong time ago.
 
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Kal Madda said:
You can get iWork for free.. 🤷🏼‍♂️. The added stuff is very optional… It’s literally just some stock photos and AI image generation more advanced than Image Playground.
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And removing giant ads. This is my very big annoyance about all of this. I freaking hate ads in software. And forcing me to buy a lot of stuff I have zero needs for, just to remove them, is just ridiculous.
 
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