Just because iPadOS doesn’t meet your needs does not make it useless. My iPad Pro is several years old. It met all of my needs when I bought it. Yearly upgrades are just a bonus for me.
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Useless iPadOS became just a bit more useful
- Thread starter StoneJack
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Exactly. 👍🏻. I’ve been using the iPad Pro as my primary computer for about the past 4-5 years, and I do professional freelance graphic design work, some 3D modeling/sculpting, writing, video editing, etc., all on my iPad. For my workflow and those things, the iPad actually works better for me than the Mac.
People’s needs and preferences are different. Some need an iPad, some need a Mac…
Guess it depends on how you use your iPad, it’s been my main devices for years and pretty useful to me as it was, it got better and i am happy about it.
Not for everyone, but the iPad is plenty useful.
Not for everyone, but the iPad is plenty useful.
iPad user and fan since the very first unit. Getting better but apparently they still have not enabled audio in background when switching apps. Also worked on some file-related tasks last night. Hoping that improvements to the new « Files » app are significant. For me at least « Files » is a glaring weakness. FileBrowser Pro is essentially a shell and dependent on « Files », more like a band-aid.
Some developers have taken their apps very far down the line. Others bring to market neutered versions of desktop.
We’re not there yet, IMHO.
Some developers have taken their apps very far down the line. Others bring to market neutered versions of desktop.
We’re not there yet, IMHO.
I think this is done with the understanding that most people can’t or don’t want to listen to two things at once. I agree however, that this would be useful in certain cases.
Windows 95 couldn't even reliably play the login sound without glitching during disk access, so calm down guys.
Windows 95 came out 30 years ago.
My Mac can play simultaneous sounds, my iPad should as well.
My Amiga could do that in 1987.
Point being, holding up windows 95 as any shining example of ANYTHING is a stretch.
I honestly don’t think it’s something most people care about. I tend to agree with @groove-agent, I think it’s with the understanding that most don’t want to listen to two audio streams simultaneously. Most people don’t want to end up with the headache that is two different audio playing at once. It’s like when you’re in a room with two people trying to talk to you at the exact same time. People can only really focus on one audio stream at once. I just don’t see many situations where this would actually be practical. If they end up adding it at some point, that’s fine, but I think it’s something the majority of people don’t really care about.
You may be right that most people don't care about. But it's not necessarily about listening to two audio streams simultaneously... more about having a choice to mute an app while another plays in the background.
I do this often on my Galaxy Fold when it comes to watching a sporting event (audio muted) while having a podcast or music app playing in the background. It would be nice if my iPad could do it, but it's not a deal breaker... at least I can do it on another device.
Forgive me if I’m misunderstanding here, but can’t the iPad already do that? If the video is muted, I’m pretty sure it doesn’t cause an issue. I think it’s only if the video audio begins playing that the music/podcast will pause. Maybe I’m wrong about that, but I’m pretty sure I’ve played muted videos plus music at the same time on my iPad. And playing music on the iPhone (or whatever other phone) and the video on the iPad could also be a viable alternative. 👍🏻
As I said, I’m definitely not against that as an option. I just don’t think it’s a very high priority because I think it’s something most people wouldn’t necessarily use. Perhaps they could add it as a Control Center toggle.
And I mostly think people shouldn’t be trying to use it as an argument in a thread that begins with “useless iPadOS” to claim the iPad (or iPadOS) is useless. The lack of one relatively niche audio feature doesn’t make iPadOS anywhere remotely close to useless. Not saying that’s what everyone talking about it here are saying, but that’s almost certainly the way the OP who started this thread will use it…
The iPad is far from useless - I'd argue it's far more usable for the way I use it with some of the changes in iPadOS 26.
Having said that, it has hit me many times when listening to music while surfing the web and having a video on a web page start playing and kill off my music. That is very annoying.
But like what are you doing in that moment? Are you watching the sport or listening to a podcast? I never understand why people want this feature.
There are some cases where it’s possible… where video ad is playing while some music/podcast is continuing in the background. But the thing is… iPadOS doesn’t have a system in place to monitor or control audio playback that’s why it doesn’t really exist.
I think they should have some audio interface where it will let us control playback similar to SoundSource on the Mac.
Well, it is possible to do both at that moment… watching basketball, because I don’t care for the commentary and listening to a podcast. I mean, whenever you are eating at the table… can you process what folks are talking about as well.
I have a niche audio application I cannot do on my iPad: practicing guitar. On my Mac I listen to music while playing my guitar through a Fractal amp modelor which also plays audio. I can't do that on an iPad. Yes, this is very niche.
Question, why not play the music on iPhone (or other device) while playing the guitar through iPad’s audio?
I could, but I have a pair of high end studio monitors that sound far better than iPad speakers. I admit, this use case is niche, but my other scenario of surfing the web while playing music in the background is the one that annoys me and I wish they would fix.
I'm not sure I'd say that's a comparable scenario, but maybe my brain is just wired differently. Driving and a podcast makes sense, as does cooking with music or running with music - to me at least
Similar to that, several web browsers will disable auto play by default. There's nothing more disruptive than audio playing in ways that are unexpected, and I think that applies to multiple audio sources playing at once. It would be great if Apple could create a setting to enable or disable this feature.
I've always thought it would be cool to create an app that pans the audio from a window based on where the window is dragged on the desktop. This idea is based on the "cocktail effect" where people can manually focus their attention on a single conversation at a party by concentrating on a particular location in sound space.