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Why is the iPad so complicated/frustrating?

A

Audi09

macrumors member
Original poster
Aug 24, 2009
59
8
Los Angeles
I guess I had the wrong idea about apple software. I thought they were supposed to be user friendly/easy.
I download a movie and want to transfer it on to the iPad, but it's Forcing me to use iTunes. Then i found out it only plays mp4 files so I need to convert the movie too! I should have just went with a android tablet. Even my nexus is as easy as drag and drop. :mad:
 
Audi09 said:
I guess I had the wrong idea about apple software. I thought they were supposed to be user friendly/easy.
I download a movie and want to transfer it on to the iPad, but it's Forcing me to use iTunes. Then i found out it only plays mp4 files so I need to convert the movie too! I should have just went with a android tablet. Even my nexus is as easy as drag and drop. :mad:
Click to expand...

Then return the iPad. iTunes is listed as a requirement ON THE BOX.

Yes, you should have probably gone with an Android tablet.
 
Psst, there are dozens of apps that will play any video file within reason.

Flexplayer is free but simple. Goodplayer and AVPLayer HD are usually recommended.

You simply go to your iPad in iTunes, go to apps, click on the video app in file sharing section, and then add the videos.
 
DS3 said:
Psst, there are dozens of apps that will play any video file within reason.

Flexplayer is free but simple. Goodplayer and AVPLayer HD are usually recommended.

You simply go to your iPad in iTunes, go to apps, click on the video app in file sharing section, and then add the videos.
Click to expand...

Still gotta use iTunes which the OP for some reason can't figure out.
 
Well I will admit that it is a little more complicated than it should be to manage video files on the iPad.

But still, its not exactly difficult either and its a small part of the experience, the iPad in general is incredibly intuitive/easy to use.
 
It's just a learning curve. True story:

A buddy of mine bought an ipad1 pretty much on release day...I had one too. He phoned me up saying that his was faulty or broken and would I take a look before he returned it for a new one.

He came over, I booted it up, and connected it to iTunes....What are you doing? he asked. Turns out he thought the screen with the USB cable picture indicated a fault....He didn't read the little card telling him to connect it to iTunes.

All new devices are strange at first, and not all of us have had the benefit of owning them before. OP: Stick with it, it becomes second nature pretty quickly...:)
 
I have not synced my new iPad with my Mac/iTunes once.

I use iTunes Match / iCloud for music and sync/backup.

I use an inexpensive app called AcePlayer which allows me to download films off my home NAS, and plays them in their original format.

So there you have it!

:D
 
MrJoshua-UK said:
I have not synced my new iPad with my Mac/iTunes once.

I use iTunes Match / iCloud for music and sync/backup.

I use an inexpensive app called AcePlayer which allows me to download films off my home NAS, and plays them in their original format.

So there you have it!

:D
Click to expand...

Yep, but my buddy is REALLY bad with computers....No way would he have worked that one out...:D
 
I love my iPad but I agree with the OP 100%. Apple needs to beef up Video support and make it easier to get content onto the iPad.
 
The OP's sentiment is the reason I mainly stream my videos off my imac using airvideo now. I find it too much of a hassle to have to convert it to a playable format and then transfer it over.

I won't say apple is complicated, but they do sometimes implement some rather head-scratching "features" which seem to serve little purpose outside of locking people into their ecosystem. Case in point - dropbox vs icloud.
 
Yes, it IS really cumbersome and user-UNfriendly in many ways

santaliqueur said:
Then return the iPad. iTunes is listed as a requirement ON THE BOX.

Yes, you should have probably gone with an Android tablet.
Click to expand...
That iTunes is listed as a requirement ON THE BOX does NOT make the iPad more userfriendly at all. In fact, what kind of reasoning or argument is this?!

That kind of "arguments" just makes it even clearer in what incredible way Apple makes their products completely unreasonable and user-UNfriendly (complicated, cumbersome, etc. etc.).

And what is even more surprising: That so many (must be fanboys, I think) really seem to defend and "understand" why this is so, and also should/must be so. It is very hard to see that this attitude is rationally founded. It seems to be founded in deep emotional and perhaps even irrational ways of functioning.
 
No one ever said the ipad is the best tablet device for every usage. For playing video, Android tablets are far superior to the ipad, not only it can play multiple formats, the screen ratio of 16:10 is perfect for current HD TV shows and good enough for movie aspect ratio.

The ipad's 4:3 ratio means there are lots of wasted (black) space when playing HD TV shows, movies are even worse with half the vertical spaces wasted.

That is why I use my Galaxy Tab 10.1 to stream videos and movies using Plex around the house.
 
I think you need to learn some stuff then you can decide which side you would stick to. Androids are like PCs they are easier for people not willing to get adapted to new stuff.
 
Audi09 said:
I guess I had the wrong idea about apple software. I thought they were supposed to be user friendly/easy.
I download a movie and want to transfer it on to the iPad, but it's Forcing me to use iTunes. Then i found out it only plays mp4 files so I need to convert the movie too! I should have just went with a android tablet. Even my nexus is as easy as drag and drop. :mad:
Click to expand...

There's an app for that...

Ohh, and you should really purchase movies and not steal them off the internet :rolleyes:
 
ArztMac said:
There's an app for that...

Ohh, and you should really purchase movies and not steal them off the internet :rolleyes:
Click to expand...

What makes you think he isn't trying to convert movies he purchased off the net? There are plenty of sites for that (granted, many of them are of "questionable" content...:D)
 
I think there are a number of great video player apps – so I don't think it's quite accurate to say the iPad doesn't do well with video. I think the big problem and challenge is around the fact that there isn't an easily shared filesystem between apps. So wall there are great video player apps they don't play well with the app you might use to download the video, or the app you may use to access files off of your home network, etc., etc.

The (unfortunate) solution for this has been that many video player applications have clunky and rudimentary web browsing/filesystem/download manager components. This often comes, in my opinion, at the expense of not allowing a developer that wants to to create a great video player app to create that great video player app – because they also need to have all this other functionality built into the program rather than know their users can rely upon a good NAS access program or download manager or whatever.

In fact, one horrible limitation is the iPad's current inability to transfer large files between applications. This means if I use my favorite download manager to download a video file which saves it in the download manager out it's impossible to then use the built-in iOS feature of "open with" to open it up in my favorite video player app. Instead, I need to use the mediocre video player out whose developer includes a very mediocre web browser and download functionality.

Ugh. Frustrating.
 
I find it exrtremely annoying that I can't copy and/or delete ANY file into the iPad from my pc, especially since it shows up on my computer as a device. In order to complete that simple basic task you either need separate software or a jailbreak or go through multiple steps in iTunes. Moving files back and forth is a basic function of any device that is so "entertainment" orientated. I can live with some of the other shortcomings but getting a file onto a device meant for playing/viewing files should be a simple operation. Drag it in, drag it out, delete if desired. Kind of like the lack of a way to "select all" and "delete all" in the email app.

These types of things are the main reason I see for jailbreaking.
 
This is just another example of how stubborn apple is. They certainly have the technology to make it easier to get content on the pad. But they don't dare do something that other tablets do.
 
Phoneview on the Mac and quite a few apps for Windows let you drag and drop to your iPad/iPhone.
 
You are not alone to be complaining about apple products being tied to iTunes. This and the restrictions that apple puts on it's products is part of Apple ownership.

Do remember that you can not say anything negative about Apple without the unconditional lovers of apple products landing on you. I love my apple products but not so much I do not look at and try other products. :eek:
 
OP it is essentially drag and drop.
You drag your movie / file and drop it onto the appropriate app in iTunes.
You don't have to even connect you iPad via USB if you have wifi synching enabled.
It really is no more complicated then anything else.
The thing to remember about iOS and the iPad is that everything is geard towards apps hence the term " There is an app for this ".
Once you wrap your head around this everything will make sense.
 
I have to agree with the original sentiment.

Beautiful screen, but I hate how any large video files require hours of conversion, and leaving a mess of duplicate files in different formats lying around my computer. Why can't Apple just add in support for additional video formats like avi and wmv?
 
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