iPad The grass is not greener on the other side

[a042349]

However, one person relaying their experience and wants/needs shouldn't result in them being told they're wrong or they're not using it right, etc. Everyone's experience, needs, wants, and skills are different.

I have an iPad because I wanted a larger mobile-geared device, by mobile I mean literally being mobile. Where's the Win8.1 tablet with cellular data? Where are the mobile-geared apps?

As you can see, what you want and value out of a tablet isn't necessarily the same for everyone else. It would take a lot to get me to willingly deal with Windows again and so far I haven't been overwhelmed. But that's just me.

Well sorry about the mother in law assumption, it's my bias against my own parents computer ineptitude coming through.

Also I didn't mean to say "you're wrong cause you're using it wrong" what I'm trying, apparently inelegantly, to say, is these new tablets are a very real challenge to Apple's dominance and they really should be wary. They are filling a lot of need/want in the geek community and I suspect will broaden out to mainstream more over time.

Also yes, but the Dell 8" and 11" will have the 3G option, there are SIM slots in the case, just not available yet. The Lenovo Thinkpad 8.3 will be shipping with 3G available too.

Bottom line is choices and options are good for us, and if I see somebody not giving a technology a fair chance to an audience, I'll always give my two cents.

 

[SlCKB0Y]

Agreed, and this plays towards the "it just works" part of Macs. Tried syncing Android with OS X?

Why would I sync my phone to my Mac when I can seamlessly sync them both (and all my other devices) to cloud services?

Syncing mobile devices to a computer is an unfortunate hangover from Apple's iTunes obsession and not something to be paraded about as if it were a benefit.

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I swear there are people that are so loyal to a product or brand that they'd still use it even if it made their eyes bleed.

Wow...after reading your post this is precisely what I was thinking!

 

[a042349]

Why would I sync my phone to my Mac when I can seamlessly sync them both (and all my other devices) to cloud services?

Syncing mobile devices to a computer is an unfortunate hangover from Apple's iTunes obsession and not something to be paraded about as if it were a benefit.

Especially if you couldn't avail yourself of that benefit on the odd chance you might need to. DFU mode anybody? Does that work with the cloud?

Not "having" to do something you're unable to do, is not nearly as good as not having to but being able to in a pinch.

YMMV of course, but in my mind options are good.

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I didn't sit through the whole video - but he doesn't seem to do any really complex operations in that video. And at the end it takes 2 seconds to generate a "save for web" preview of a reasonably small PNG image.

Plus, Bay Trail is supposed to be the "next big thing" for tablets. Going by this:

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2424262,00.asp

they benchmarked the Atom Z3770 at 2,935 using geekbench. That's really not a *great* score. Yes, it's better than the atoms of yesteryear, but it's only 700 points more than my phone scored - and it's a whole lot less than anything I'd consider running Windows 8 on.

It may not be a scorcher - but it's good enough for light duty work. Baytrail is the "current" big thing in low power intel processors.

I'm guessing you've never used Windows 8 on a Baytrail. Again look to Youtube or try one in a store. It's got perfectly acceptable performance, it even plays many current games very well.

All I'm saying is these new Windows tablets are NOT the dogs they used to be. The functionality of a touch friendly interface, a PC class browser that doesn't suck like Safari on iOS, and a usable desktop for legacy apps while weighing less than a pound, getting 10 hours on a charge, and costing around $300 is a pretty nice piece of kit.

 

[Yahooligan]

Not doubting you OP, but give it some more time. I find that a lot of "issues" that people have when switching platforms is just their unfamiliarity with the new platform. Give it some time and force yourself to use only that platform and then reassess.

Having said that, I personally stick with iOS just because it's easy to use and does everything I want it to. Plus, there is no question that Apple devices have much better build quality than anything else out there.

How would giving it more time prevent the problem the OP had, which looks like some sort of file corruption? Time doesn't usually result in bugs fixing themselves.

 

[Yahooligan]

Why would I sync my phone to my Mac when I can seamlessly sync them both (and all my other devices) to cloud services?

Syncing mobile devices to a computer is an unfortunate hangover from Apple's iTunes obsession and not something to be paraded about as if it were a benefit.

Not sure if you've discovered this yet, but not everything can be done via the cloud (Did you know I have nearly 100GB of space used on my iPad, which includes a dozen or so movies as well as quite a bit of music?). How long do you think it would take to sync all that to the cloud? Oh, wait...I couldn't...unless I paid to expand my cloud storage. I also don't have unlimited data, so being able to sync over wifi is free and easy.

Hey, why don't you do a factory reset on Android and let me know how that restore goes, too...good luck getting all your data restored. Syncing with a computer, whether tethered or over wifi, is not a bad thing for those of us that value not only our data but our privacy. The "cloud" has a long way to go before it can completely replace local sync and backup.

Wow...after reading your post this is precisely what I was thinking!

Then you either didn't read what I said in its entirety or you didn't comprehend it.

I HAVE an Android device as my primary mobile phone. I KNOW what's involved with it which is exactly why I brought up syncing with Mac.

If you honestly think that everything on your device is being backed up to the cloud then you're going to be in for a surprise should you ever need to restore from it. That goes for Apple and non-Apple devices and cloud services.

 

[SlCKB0Y]

Especially if you couldn't avail yourself of that benefit on the odd chance you might need to. DFU mode anybody? Does that work with the cloud?

Not "having" to do something you're unable to do, is not nearly as good as not having to but being able to in a pinch.

YMMV of course, but in my mind options are good.

Well your example in this context is not a good one because I can perform all the actions required to restore my Android phone under OS X by other methods. My point is that because I have an Android phone I have no need for any syncing functionality which might be present in iTunes software. This is especially true given that i'm not dependent on any one machine to accomplish this and all of my data is backed up and synchronised across all my devices automatically using cloud services.

Even if I had an iPhone I would not be using iTunes to sync anything and it's only use to me (as you pointed out) would be DFU.

 

[Yahooligan]

Well your example in this context is not a good one because I can perform all the actions required to restore my Android phone under OS X by other methods. My point is that because I have an Android phone I have no need for any syncing functionality which might be present in iTunes software. This is especially true given that i'm not dependent on any one machine to accomplish this and all of my data is backed up and synchronised across all my devices automatically using cloud services.

Even if I had an iPhone I would not be using iTunes to sync anything and it's only use to me (as you pointed out) would be DFU.

Who said anything about syncing with iTunes?

Plug your Android phone into your Mac and see what happens. (Hint: Nothing will happen. You need additional software.)

 

[SlCKB0Y]

Not sure if you've discovered this yet, but not everything can be done via the cloud

Oh, I discovered this alright. To do this using OS X and Android I have to do this terribly hard process called "drag and drop". Once done I can even delete the data from the Mac if I don't want to be duplicating that 100GB of data on both my Mac and phone.



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Plug your Android phone into your Mac and see what happens. (Hint: Nothing will happen. You need additional software.)

It's not synchronisation software though is it? No, it isn't. I can't remember the last time I plugged my phone into my computer anyways.

Even then I dont need to plug it in: http://www.airdroid.com/

I've never understood why people would want media blindly synchronised from a device with very large amounts of storage, to a device with relatively small amounts of storage without any input.

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Not sure if you've discovered this yet, but not everything can be done via the cloud (Did you know I have nearly 100GB of space used on my iPad, which includes a dozen or so movies as well as quite a bit of music?). How long do you think it would take to sync all that to the cloud?

I don't know, I don't keep movies on my iPad - I almost always stream them - either from cloud storage or from my home server.

I can't remember the last time I absolutely had to access 100GB of data at ONE time whilst being away from home/wifi.

Even if I did, 100GB with Google Drive costs $4.99/mo.
https://support.google.com/drive/answer/2375123?hl=en

 

[a042349]

Well your example in this context is not a good one because I can perform all the actions required to restore my Android phone under OS X by other methods. My point is that because I have an Android phone I have no need for any syncing functionality which might be present in iTunes software. This is especially true given that i'm not dependent on any one machine to accomplish this and all of my data is backed up and synchronised across all my devices automatically using cloud services.

Even if I had an iPhone I would not be using iTunes to sync anything and it's only use to me (as you pointed out) would be DFU.

I can get to work using methods other than my car - doesn't mean it's faster, easier or more reliable.

Again, my ultimate point here is that for the first time in 4 iPads and 5 Android tablets I have one device that is a damn good tablet (for my needs) and a damn good full PC (for my needs).

Why would I want two devices at over $600 each, when I can get one at less than $400?

Also for me the single biggest app I use on ANY tablet is the web browser. Easily 80% of my tablet time is spent in my browser. Now I have a 10 hour, 1lb, PC class browser that does not crash.

That in of itself, is reason enough for me to be happier with my choice. As I say, YMMV.

 

[Yahooligan]

Oh, I discovered this alright. To do this using OS X and Android I have to do this terribly hard process called "drag and drop". Once done I can even delete the data from the Mac if I don't want to be duplicating that 100GB of data on both my Mac and phone.

I thought you said the cloud does everything? Changing your story? Drag and drop doesn't even back everything up. Cloud doesn't back everything up. Even if you did both you'd still lose data if you wiped. Try again.

It's not synchronisation software though is it? No, it isn't. I can't remember the last time I plugged my phone into my computer anyways.

Even then I dont need to plug it in: http://www.airdroid.com/

You seem to be easily confused by words. Nobody said anything about sync software, iTunes, etc. All I said was sync. You do know what sync means, right boy? There are even different kinds of syncs. Partial sync, manual sync, full sync, automatic sync...

Once a week I back up my iPad to my Mac. I've been around long enough to know it's not if but when you'll need to restore from a backup. You're putting a lot of faith into something you don't have full control over. Good luck with that.

I've never understood why people would want media blindly synchronised from a device with very large amounts of storage, to a device with relatively small amounts of storage without any input.

I never understood it either, which is why I don't do that and why I manually choose what movies and music to put on my iPad. Assume much?

I don't know, I don't keep movies on my iPad - I almost always stream them - either from cloud storage or from my home server.

There you go not reading/comprehending again. Missed the part about not having unlimited data, did you? I don't watch movies on my iPad while at home. Why would I do that when I have a home theater? So I either stream movies/music away from home/wifi and consume my entire data allocation in a matter of hours or days or I make use of the device storage which I paid for for a reason. I still have tens of gigs of space free on my iPad, why wouldn't I make use of it? Does it do me any good just sitting there unused? No.

I can't remember the last time I absolutely had to access 100GB of data at ONE time whilst being away from home/wifi.

Even if I did, 100GB with Google Drive costs $4.99/mo.
https://support.google.com/drive/answer/2375123?hl=en

Who said I had to access all of it at one time? There you go making wild assumptions again. You're good at that, must have a lot of practice. Oh, and more lack of reading/comprehension again. What good is 100GB of Google Drive space if I'm out of data on my data plan?

I travel a bit utilizing various modes of transportation, whipping out a 15" rMBP? Yeah...not exactly convenient or practical. No wifi or cell data? *whew* Glad I don't have everything stored on the cloud where I can't access it.

I'm glad your setup works for you. You may not fully understand the consequences of not having proper backups, but that's a mistake most people only make once.

No part of my setup is a compromise or inconvenient for me and I know for a fact that I can fully recover ANY of my devices in a timely manner and without data loss (Within reason, obviously there is going to be data loss if there's only data in one location that doesn't exist anywhere else).

 

[Abazigal]

Or print to any standard printer
Or plug in a USB scanner
Or use a true pressure sensitive pen for art/graphics/etc
Or burn a CD/DVD
Or use it to jailbreak your iPhone
Or run iTunes on it
Or copy files to a flash drive for your friend
Or download movies torrents on it
Or run full photoshop on it (with a BT mouse and kybd of course)
Or <insert anything you can do on a real PC>

Are any of those tasks really what the average consumer really wants or needs to do on a tablet?

IMO, the whole point of a tablet is to stay mobile and let me do certain tasks better than a conventional laptop. If I need to hook up a keyboard and mouse (wireless or no) and tether myself to a desk (which kinda defeats the point), then I may as well just stick with a laptop.

I feel the best part about an iPad is that it is nothing like a "real PC".

 

[Count Blah]

Are any of those tasks really what the average consumer really wants or needs to do on a tablet?

IMO, the whole point of a tablet is to stay mobile and let me do certain tasks better than a conventional laptop. If I need to hook up a keyboard and mouse (wireless or no) and tether myself to a desk (which kinda defeats the point), then I may as well just stick with a laptop.

I feel the best part about an iPad is that it is nothing like a "real PC".

Not really. But running a browser that doesn't crash all the time, or can handle more than 3-4 tabs without refreshing, would rank pretty high. And the Air/rMini can't do that.

 

[a042349]

Are any of those tasks really what the average consumer really wants or needs to do on a tablet?

IMO, the whole point of a tablet is to stay mobile and let me do certain tasks better than a conventional laptop. If I need to hook up a keyboard and mouse (wireless or no) and tether myself to a desk (which kinda defeats the point), then I may as well just stick with a laptop.

I feel the best part about an iPad is that it is nothing like a "real PC".

The point is I can do tablet type things - consumption of media, games, reading, etc AND all those things you would need your laptop for.

Or anybody would need their laptop for.

Why carry or buy two devices if you could have one that did both use cases (tablet and PC) equally well? And cost is a big point here. An iPad and a laptop will cost at least $1200 for both, my tablet PC hybrid cost $379. That's a lot of math right there.

If Apple came out with an iPad that you could (if you so desired) dock into a Macbook Air like lower half, open an icon and have a full OSX environment maybe even with Wacom pen compatibility built in you don't think there'd be a mad rush for Apple's "new" amazing device? What if the whole thing cost less than an iPad Air? Genius!

Point is choices are good, competition is good, and the choices and competition are starting to get VERY interesting.

 

[a042349]

Not really. But running a browser that doesn't crash all the time, or can handle more than 3-4 tabs without refreshing, would rank pretty high. And the Air/rMini can't do that.

This right here is my biggest reason for loving this new tablet. I feel like for the first time in 4 iPads and 5 Android tablets, I finally have a desktop class web browser in the palm of my hand. I'm a Chrome user, and have three or four extensions I really like, and now I have everything and it really works.

Even before the Air/rMini Safari crashing problem, web browsing on iPads and Android tabs was an 80-90% at best experience. Some sites wouldn't quite look right, or work right, Flash of course was out, etc.

But now I have the perfect couch surfing tablet, with my favorite browser, all my extensions, 10 hour battery life, 20 tabs open and never a crash. What's not to like?

 

[Abazigal]

The point is I can do tablet type things - consumption of media, games, reading, etc AND all those things you would need your laptop for.

Or anybody would need their laptop for.

Why carry or buy two devices if you could have one that did both use cases (tablet and PC) equally well? And cost is a big point here. An iPad and a laptop will cost at least $1200 for both, my tablet PC hybrid cost $379. That's a lot of math right there.

If Apple came out with an iPad that you could (if you so desired) dock into a Macbook Air like lower half, open an icon and have a full OSX environment maybe even with Wacom pen compatibility built in you don't think there'd be a mad rush for Apple's "new" amazing device? What if the whole thing cost less than an iPad Air? Genius!

Point is choices are good, competition is good, and the choices and competition are starting to get VERY interesting.

The issue is that for the moment, there isn't this one mythical device that acts as both a laptop and tablet equally well.

Thus, for now, I feel I am better off with 2 dedicated devices. A Macbook and iMac for when I need to do desktop stuff, and an iPad for when I want to do those tasks in situations where it is not convenient to use a laptop.

I agree competition is never a bad thing (so long as it drives innovation), but it doesn't mean we can't criticise choices which we feel suck.

 

[Rodster]

I was pretty much the opposite to the OP. My first tablets were Android, followed my WebOS, then got an iPad. Now all I use are iPad's. I still use my Android devices but rarely. It's basically 95% iPad use.

 

[a042349]

The issue is that for the moment, there isn't this one mythical device that acts as both a laptop and tablet equally well.

Thus, for now, I feel I am better off with 2 dedicated devices. A Macbook and iMac for when I need to do desktop stuff, and an iPad for when I want to do those tasks in situations where it is not convenient to use a laptop.

I agree competition is never a bad thing (so long as it drives innovation), but it doesn't mean we can't criticise choices which we feel suck.

And I disagree. For me there now is a device that does work equally well as a tablet and as a laptop. Any of the current Baytrail Win8 tablets that have keyboard docks are that mythical device. At least for me and I suspect a growing number of technical users.

I get a tablet that gives me all the consumption apps I've ever really used, and most importantly a web browsing experience that doesn't "suck" as does Safari on iPad or Chrome on Android. Neither of those solutions is anything but a huge compromise in performance over a true PC class browser, and I don't have to make that compromise any longer. heck reading the front page of this forum, Safari on the Air has regressed to less capable than the original iPad. Not moving in the right direction there I'm afraid.

For what I use my laptops for, these devices are also fine. It gives me all the extra USB device compatibility, good long form writing, printing, jailbreaking, Android flashing, movie ripping, etc that no tablets can do well.

Nevermind what a difference in cost there is between a combined solution of a MacBook and an iPad. Nevermind what travelling with a MacBook and an iPad means in weight, or potential financial loss, etc.

To each his own, choices are good, and as a 4 time iPad buyer, 5 time Android buyer, I've found what I think is the best one yet. YMMV

 

[dontwalkhand]

The issue is that for the moment, there isn't this one mythical device that acts as both a laptop and tablet equally well.

Thus, for now, I feel I am better off with 2 dedicated devices. A Macbook and iMac for when I need to do desktop stuff, and an iPad for when I want to do those tasks in situations where it is not convenient to use a laptop.

I agree competition is never a bad thing (so long as it drives innovation), but it doesn't mean we can't criticise choices which we feel suck.

That also holds true for me. I use my MacBook when using the iPad (or even iPhone) is not convenient., For example when I need to type long paragraphs of stuff, or when I decide to do some "desktop stuff" such as editing a video (which I still can't do that well on an iPad).

 

[AdonisSMU]

Or print to any standard printer
Or plug in a USB scanner
Or use a true pressure sensitive pen for art/graphics/etc
Or burn a CD/DVD
Or use it to jailbreak your iPhone
Or run iTunes on it
Or copy files to a flash drive for your friend
Or download movies torrents on it
Or run full photoshop on it (with a BT mouse and kybd of course)
Or <insert anything you can do on a real PC>

Most of these either aren't true or there are more efficient ways to handle the task.

I can print with my iPad. It can play music and videos just fine. Content is widely available that I'd need on any CD/DVD...of course neither which I've used in a decade. It has iTunes on it already. I don't need my iPad to do everything a PC can do. The tablets who try to make a tablet behave like a PC do neither good at all. It's better to be the best at a few things rather than be terrible or mediocre at all things. There is a reason why singers generally don't make great actors and vice versa. Lacking focus is not good for the users experience.

 

[a042349]

Most of these either aren't true or there are more efficient ways to handle the task.

I can print with my iPad. It can play music and videos just fine. Content is widely available that I'd need on any CD/DVD...of course neither which I've used in a decade. It has iTunes on it already. I don't need my iPad to do everything a PC can do. The tablets who try to make a tablet behave like a PC do neither good at all. It's better to be the best at a few things rather than be terrible or mediocre at all things. There is a reason why singers generally don't make great actors and vice versa. Lacking focus is not good for the users experience.

Look you can argue all day long that an iPad can do everything just as well as a laptop can but in the end you and everybody on this board knows that simply isn't true.

A Windows convertible tablet (Dell Venue 11, Asus T100, etc) can absolutely do everything a laptop can do because it IS a Windows laptop. There's no compromise there, it's a laptop first and foremost.

So the question then is does it make a good tablet, and for my needs (and I suspect others) it does. First it has a rock solid web browser that iPads could only wish for. There are most other consumption type apps - Facebook, Twitter, email, music, videos, Netflix, Kindle, Reddit, etc. These are the things I used my iPad for and the experience on my Win8 tablet is as good as my iPads. Just having a PC class browser which is 70-80% of what I do on my iPads is a HUGE win for this platform.

So you can say it's a jack of all trades and a master of none, but I can say that the iPad has a long way to go to beat the web browsing capability of a netbook. No plugins, no extensions, no flash, limited tabs, constant refreshes, it just isn't desktop class in any way. So if it has a crippled browser, and obviously no true desktop app support, is an iPad really a master at anything either?

Now that being said, I think iPads are great. I'll always want my parents, and less technical family and friends to have one. They're simple, reliable, trouble free and very VERY well made. But for folks like me that want real computing performance in their tablets, it's losing the game.

 

[AppleHater]

Maybe just unlucky?
Always had it good with Apple, or just got used to certain issues?

Ive been in a simular situation, i had never used an android device before a few month ago. Felt like i should explore the phablet market (phone-tablet)
and got a Galaxy Note 2, mainly as it has a stylus and i like to draw.

BUT for all its power, the amount of menus you can easily get lost in.
And while other devices will recognise the onboard memory, they wont see the memory card. Meaning i cant access my library of music.

I've got note 2. While it's not my fav phone it surely recognize memory cards fine. That's where all my photos and music stored.

I do agree with their menus confusing, but there are also things that can do that can't on my iPhone. I don't think it's a matter of what's better but what you prefer.

 

[Lloydbm41]

pretty silly comparison, I dont think its fair to think anything other than a Samsung tablet with the iPad, everything else is a tier below those 2

Personally, I can't stand Touchwiz and if you install a ROM on the WACOM digitizer versions of Galaxy tablets, you lose functionality. I'll take my pure Nexus tablets over the Touchwiz Galaxy tablets any day of the week.

That said, I am using my iPad mini right now, because 4:3 ratio screens are better for internet consumption, than 16:10 or 16:9 like we see on many Android tablets.

 

[maflynn]

pretty silly comparison, I dont think its fair to think anything other than a Samsung tablet with the iPad, everything else is a tier below those 2

Not really, but in one sense if you're well entrenched in the iOS ecosystem, then using an android tablet will require more work arounds and not have the same level of integration.

 

[samiznaetekto]

On either side, it's not uniform grass horizon to horizon, it's a patchwork. Grass, dirt, rocks, mud - every platform has all of it. iPad has a greener grass for wasting time - playing games, watching video, playing music, loading and reloading web pages, facebootwitting. But for real, professional productivity, it's pretty much just dirt, or maybe fake plastic grass. Professional productivity means that you ought to have a real computer, just in the palm of your hand. For that, Windows 8.1 has much much greener grass than iPad ever will. Take software development, for example. On a true computer, you can write any software you like, even operating system. If someone is able to write a new OS, they could do it on Dell Venue 8 Pro, which fits in the pocket. I use Visual Studio on DVP all the time to write .NET applications and ASP.NET websites, it's unbelievably awesome and powerful. You can't write (and never will) a new iOS on an iPad.

If you're a professional, it's better to stop complaining about the color of the grass, drop the religious attitude and have whatever tools you need to suit your needs. One device/platform simply doesn't cut it all.

 

[scottw324]

I can get to work using methods other than my car - doesn't mean it's faster, easier or more reliable.

Again, my ultimate point here is that for the first time in 4 iPads and 5 Android tablets I have one device that is a damn good tablet (for my needs) and a damn good full PC (for my needs).

Why would I want two devices at over $600 each, when I can get one at less than $400?

Also for me the single biggest app I use on ANY tablet is the web browser. Easily 80% of my tablet time is spent in my browser. Now I have a 10 hour, 1lb, PC class browser that does not crash.

That in of itself, is reason enough for me to be happier with my choice. As I say, YMMV.

What win8 pro tablet do you have for ~$400? Curious since I like tech. Thanks.