My iPad is relegated to being either an eBook reader or a Spotify player for my bluetooth speaker. Can't really be bothered to use it for anything else, the iPhone 7 plus is more than enough for most other tasks. Also can't see it becoming relevant for any sort of serious creative work with applications like Lightroom, Photoshop, Movie editors etc, those are all super shortcut driven once you become a power user and have to crunch through a ton of work.
My grandma uses it for Internet shopping, email via Mail app, and banking via an app. She no longer has a computer. The security model is much better for her.
My ex wife won one and gave it to me. I use it in the kitchen(I'm a head chef).
I watch Al Jazeera news, listen to music and do my monthly stocktake on it. Occasionally I'll send an email etc.
It suits my needs as I don't have room for a laptop(I can stiff the iPad on the shelf when I get busy and still hear my music), I can do basic Excell input(I designed the sheets on a PC though).
In my mind it's a support tool, not a primary tool.
Do you use a mouse and keyboard with the iPad? I've tried to use an Android tablet for anything other than a media player and web browser and everything took far too long (only using a mouse). Even to write a long email I could go downstairs, power-up my computer, type, send, power-off the computer, and return upstairs faster than I could on my tablet.
I do agree tablets are great support tools. For watching videos, music, and email (reading) they are great.
Not really, although I do avoid doing anything intensive KB wise. My stocktake is just inputting numbers, and then return, over and over. To format the document, I do that on my PC.
Typing on the pad is a major pain in the arse honestly, partially because it is an older unit, and every update requirea more processing power to do the basics.
Off-topic: do you have any advice for a programmer thinking of becoming a chef? And: do you have any ideas for (mobile) apps that would make the life of a chef easier?
My normal goto response is, unless you have a passion for fine dining, go do something that makes money, and just host dinner parties.
Realistically though, two things. A) knife skills, learn them, though google, YouTube and practice. They will be your best asset. It will take years. There is no shortcut to experience here, but there are shortcuts to mediocrity.
B) there is nothing wrong with not remembering everything. Read up on every style of cooking and each technique, so if you are rushed you will know the basics, but there is too much to remember - don't be afraid to google how to search a specific thing. Eg roasting times for different types of meat. I looked it up tonight, I don't roast that often, so I don't remember the general times for each type of meat, there is nothing wrong with double checking your memory haha.
(Bonus?) C) once you get to my level)executive chef), don't be afraid to learn or listen, I have learnt more in the past 12 months than I would have thought possible, due to meeting chef's with an amazingly different outlook on things.
Edit:
Mobile apps? Not really, there isn't a stack overflow for chef's, or any major resource center, just Google. (I am working on this with another chef :-p)
Thanks for the amazing response and advice given (I realize I'm a beginner still in A) and B), and perhaps C) to some extent :)).
I do have a passion for fine dining but I'm not sure if I would be able to handle the pressures of working in a professional kitchen. I do think it would be a more rewarding profession compared to programming in a corporate environment which has become a chore.
I think I may go with your advice of developing my skills as a hobby!
I should have phrased my last question better- I was wondering if as an Executive Chef and technology enthusiast you can think of ways a mobile app (or technology in general) could aid a team of chefs in a professional kitchen? (developing something like that would be a pretty amazing experience).
Commercial kitchems are very noisy, hell as soon as I turn on the extraction fans - without cooking anything, I think it would struggle. Plus during service everyone is too busy to even think of non-absolutely necessary talking.
The demographic is huge, an insane number of tablets have been sold and are being used. I'd estimate over 50% of the people I know have a tablet at home, and most definitely more have a tablet but not a PC, than vice-versa.
The whole 'problem' with tablet sales is not that they are not useful or convenient, but that current models are actually so useful and convenient there is no reason to upgrade. I would only consider this a 'problem' if you are trying to sell tablets, from a user perspective it's actually a good thing.
The fact that tablets cannot comfortably do many things a laptop or PC can has been obvious to me from day one, they are complementary devices where the tablet is primarily a more convenient/more comfortable device for many things, but not suited at all for others. Convertible/hybrid laptops may seem to follow naturally, to unify all use cases in a single device, but personally I'm not sold on this idea. I'd guess the demographic who really wants a full PC-like experience typically doesn't mind having separate devices that are best at a subset of tasks, instead of one device that's merely 'ok' at all of them. At least I know I don't mind...
"consuming content online" is such a broad advertising term it becomes pretty much useless if you bring in other devices in the discussion.
So what is the actual demographics here?
You'd at least need to have more money left then most of the above mentioned demographics. You'll also need to be prepared or willing to use an apple system. It's very likely that you already have at least one other Apple device that you already use to "consume content online". Which brings us back to the question that appears often here:
Thing is, iPads are powerful, even though Apple tried their very best to cripple most of them by software updates.
There are other plausible theories:
1. When the iPad was introduced, the average smartphone screen size was between 3 and 3.5". I couldn't find statistics for 2016, but I would guess that the average is just north of 5". Large phones have considerably more screen estate than they had in 2010, so a lot of things that were done on tablets in 2010 can now be done conveniently on a phone.
2. There was initially a lot of enthusiasm for the iPad and other tablets, but over time people realized that iPads are mostly limited to media consumption. The form factor is not convenient for serious work.
In the end it's probably a mix of all of these: people wait longer before upgrading tablets; phablets have cannibalised tablets; most of the initial tablet hype/optimism has died out.
He was saying it about smartphones, at the introduction of the iPhone. Its competitors at the time did require a stylus for all UI interaction. Indeed, he is right, if you require a stylus to operate a smartphone, the UI is not going to work well.
But neither the iPhone nor the iPad require a stylus. The iPad offers it as an option. But I also would like to be able to take notes on an iPhone plus sized device with a stylus, I don't see that as a contradiction.
He was comparing the design goals of the original iPhone to the preexisting smartphone market 12+ years ago. The fact that it was designed to not require a stylus for basic usage WAS a big deal. If you never used a Palm Treo or a Windows tablet or a PocketPC device in the early 2000s, you may not realize what he's talking about, but a stylus was absolutely required for most or all basic operations on competing devices at the time, and that UI model was (clearly, in hindsight) holding back the entire industry. If you don't remember having to use Graffiti to scrawl out characters on the bottom third of a PalmOS device, this quote has likely never been contextualized for you.
> Steve Jobs proclaims that “if you see a stylus, they blew it”.
> But only idiots never change their minds.
> It’s now September 2015: All hail the 12.9” iPad Pro…with a keyboard and stylus (pardon, a Pencil).
Why do people love to trot out that Steve Jobs quote and then completely misinterpret it? The context of that quote was a device that requires a stylus. Steve was not dissing the concept of styluses in general.
Indeed. That comment was implicitly referring to operating systems like Palm OS and Windows CE which had user interfaces which were essentially impossible to use without a stylus. (You could sometimes muddle your way through with a careful fingernail, but it was awkward going.)
The Apple Pencil is something rather different -- it's an entirely optional add-on for artists/designers who want to use the device as a drawing tablet.
Yes, I would like to have the option to use the Apple Pencil with an iPhone with Graffiti or some modern alternative. Handwriting still beats typing on the on-screen keyboard.
In the 8 years since I bought my current laptop (and still daily driver) I've bought 1 tablet (still using it after 6 years) and 4 smart phones (of which I only use 1)
This is of course just an anecdote, but I am in no way surprised that smartphones are outselling their bigger siblings.
That's because phones are heavily subsidized (whether as a discount or a payment plan) by mobile service providers, who put heavy marketing effort into making sure you always have the latest and greatest.
Meanwhile the iPad is basically a toy.
What's surprising to me is that anyone is surprised by these numbers.
The difference is you need to have a phone and contract, so might as well buy a new and have it subsidized, whereas you (generally) don't need to have a tablet and contract.
I update my phone every other year because the camera gets noticeably better (my phone is my only camera) and new radio systems and bands open up to increase data speeds.
None of that applies to buying a new tablet.
I'm finally considering a new laptop for the 30% CPU boost and WiFi 802.11ac improvements over my 2012 model.
It's not a mystery. It's obvious. What works better for watching Netflix in bed? A laptop which naturally stands up on its own or an iPad which you need to hold?
I think the reason why the iPad is down while the Mac is up in the market is that it is not a full computer. My definition of a full computer is that I (1) can write software on the device itself that (2) can do everything you could imagine the device could do, and then (3) distribute that software to any other machine, be it your second machine, or 1 billion of your closest friends, (4) define yourself under what rules and what price that software could be bought, and (5) at no point will there be any other party (like the device creator) that could do anything to prevent you from doing any of these steps.
The iPad is so very much lacking in all of these terms, and the Mac is not, to me it's no wonder why the iPad sales numbers are going down while the Mac sales numbers are going up.
That definition is completely arbitrary and more than a little ridiculous. The majority of the population do not program and so for them a "full computer" is anything that allows them to complete all of the tasks they would ever want to do. For many an iPad could well be that device. For others it might not be.
Because there are platforms like Chromebook and Windows 10S which also do not satisfy your criteria but many would consider to be a computer as well.
Agree. But while the majority of the population just needs to browse the web, view pictures and play a few games at home, for which the ipad is fine, the majority of the population also works with computers during the day. And without a keyboard, it's hard to create anything. Try even creating your resume on an ipad.
You don't have to program to be positively affected by my suggested change. You could be just a user of an app that currently does not exist on the iPad, or the user of a feature that does not exist.
Would you like to group all your files that belong to a certain project (photos, texts, presentations etc) together in one thing, like a folder? The iPad currently cannot do that. After that change, somebody could do a patch that would. And then Apple would see that there is a demand and do a proper version of that.
Would you like to use the great Apple Photos app, but also have all your files on dropbox/google drive? Well if you do that currently, you need to have your photos twice, and work with two different apps. With my suggested changes, one could create a patch app that just stores all your documents on the service of your choice.
Would you like to use the Google or Amazon Alexa voice assistants when you long press the home button? Currently you can't, but in my future you could. Any you would be surprised how much better they often are. That would create more competition, and would motivate Apple to up their Siri game.
Would you like to have a SNES emulator? A bittorrent client? A bitcoin client? A podcast client that can do flattr? All of these things are constantly shut down by Apple. You are not allowed to have these. With my suggested changes, you can have these.
Would you like to have something like Maya? Current iOS rules prevent any app from implementing their own windowing GUI, with the reason being that in this way, apps cannot become their own platform, which would be problem for Apple because then another party would become a platform owner. Well many professional apps like Maya are their own platform.
The list goes on an on. You do not have to be a programmer to suffer from the limits Apple currently imposes on iOS.
And it's not arbitrary at all. It just returns to the same state computing was in for 30 years until iOS arrived.
Also, watch your words. "More than a little ridiculous" is not an objective rational statement, it's just pure ad hominem.
I disagree. Saying "this claim is more than a little ridiculous" also contains the connotation that the speaker must be out of his mind.
And in case, we're doing a meta discussion on rhetorical semantics now, which is besides the point - because you can't argue away that saying "this claim is more than a little ridiculous" is just plain bad form.
Interesting that iPad was introduced into a market that didn't need to refresh them all of the time. Look at the lifetime ownership of a game console for example, many are owned for 3 - 6 years. The more interesting question would be to get hold of Apple's internal update/active numbers. How many iPads are in daily use as identified by them checking the App store for updates? I'd love to see that number but I'm not holding my breath.
Rotation-lock the iPad in landscape mode. Lie on your side, tuck your upper arm under your pillow, rest one narrow side of the iPad on the bed, and hold the opposite side with that arm's hand.
Now your arm won't get tired, because it's no longer fighting gravity, and while you will drop the iPad when you fall asleep, it won't hit your face unless you're a lot more nearsighted than my -3.5 diopters. (That's a lot - ~20/120 in old money.) It'll also land face down if you hold it with a slight tilt toward you, which helps prevent the screen light from interfering with sleep any more than it already will because you're watching it in bed.
That delightfully detailed description is definitely HN approved.
I'll add another one: lean your back against the wall sitting upright, pull your knees towards you so they form an inverted V and prop the iPad up against your legs. Slightly awkward but workable.
Unless you wear bifocals, in which case the screen is just outside the comfortable range of focus for the magnifying lenses, yet too low in the field of view to be comfortably seen through the distance lenses - you end up with your chin on your breastbone and a crick in your neck.
Maybe an Air is light enough to prop more up against your knees. My 4th gen certainly isn't!
Check mail, social media (Facebook etc), read books and browse in bed relaxed, etc.
And those are just the main uses for everybody. There are tons of niche uses so that most people, if they have any kind of hobbies/interests outside of web/movies, end up having one or two.
His point stands. You might have 3 uses, I might have 5. But what's likely is that neither of us are going to benefit too greatly by upgrading to the latest and greatest. So we stick to what we have.
I theorize the rise Chromebooks has at least partly contributed to the slump in tablet sales. I thought it was odd they weren't mentioned at all in the article, esp. given they are increasingly touch enabled and run Android apps now.
Speaking of which, I'm kind of blown away Apple hasn't tried to take all their touch expertise from the iPad and add it to MacBooks in some fashion.
Really? I personally feel adding a touchscreen to a laptop is pretty much useless. The smudging of the screen far outweighs the negligible usability improvements (are there really any?).
At any rate, Apple has already been using their touch expertise on MacBooks. Their touchpads are highly regarded, and they recently added Touch Bars to the new MBPs.
I'm typing this on my iPad & it strikes me that there's not a lot of motive to upgrade your iPad once you have one. It's a consumption device, as long as I can continue easily browsing the internet, listening to podcasts and watching movies I have no reason to upgrade.
My laptop I may want to upgrade to improve computing power and phone form factors continue to improve. Both of those things sort of affect the iPad but not nearly to the same degree. I carry my phone around in my pocket, if it's a tiny bit lighter it makes a huge difference. I mostly use my iPad at home, it's great for the things I use it for and there's no upgrade I can imagine that would significantly increase its utility.
I used to - but there are very few very good games based on touch controls only, and what really killed gaming on iOS is the flood of freemium games, which are focussed on getting people to pay more instead of offering good gameplay.
For mobile gaming, this made me first get a Nintendo 3DS, and now a Switch. Not only is the hardware optimized for gaming, they still have a healthy market with full-priced pay-once games.
I also have and enjoy the MFi GameVice for my iPad Mini 4. It works quite well.
And I use the Zagg Tough Book case with my iPad Mini 4 to essentially turn it into an iPad Mini ToughBook, which fits into the hip pockets of the 'business BDUs' I normally wear.
Apple loves to demo 3D games at WWDC, but I think most people stick to casual 2D gaming that doesn't require high-end hardware. From looking at the App Store charts and accidentally shoulder-surfing on the train, Candy Crush and Farmville clones seem to be the most popular. Some games like Clash of Clans claim to still support iOS 5.
Here's why I upgraded my Ipad : webdesign.
My Ipad 1 still works perfectly, unfortunately it cannot handle javascript heavy websites. People love to talk about planned obsolescence but React, Angular (and others frameworks), stupid parallaxes etc bricked my Ipad, not Apple.
Apple is not blameless. I use an iPad4 as a radio and the podcast app is a miserable laggy and unresponsive experience. 30s lag for tapping something is not unusual. The idea I have to replace a 2012 device to render a bloody list with start/stop buttons is pretty shameful.
Here's the bad news : even with a brand new Ipad, the stock podcast experience sucks. Indeed it declines with each version of iOS. (You can however install Overcast)
Since the iOS 9 update my iPad 2 is a miserable piece of trash: everything is sluggish beyond saving, and the rendering has been butchered on those low dpi devices (the old iOS designs looked crisper).
EDIT: Fix iOS version, whichever one ditched skeumorphism.
Not saying the contrary, just disagreeing with the "old iPads haven't been deprecated" opinion.
iOS 9 was released in 2015, so 4 years after the iPad 2 release.
I'd expect a $600 device to last a bit longer than that, and I'm sure the biggest IT firm in the world could easily create custom builds for their older devices: optimise font-rendering, properly convert assets to low-res versions, and disable (or degrade) the animations and transparency. If the internal OS architecture is sensible, these 3 adaptations shouldn't be that much work and shouldn't cause any bugs.
They're too expensive relative to consumer income. The form factor is wonderful. The price and relative fragility are awful. I think Apple has gone from monopoly pricing to potential market failure.
Everyone in this thread has been going on about how iPads are “toys”, “game machines for kids”, “only consumption devices”, “for movies and casual web browsing”, etc. But I use my 13" iPad as a drawing tablet, and it’s amazing.
I wouldn’t want to code or a write book with it, and the software is in some ways more limited than I would prefer, but the hardware (display, stylus) are great and it’s a lovely tool for proofreading/annotating PDF files (or other material), making doodles, writing mathematical notes, sketching out user interface designs, drawing technical diagrams, planning carpentry projects, and so on (I know others also use it for drawing comics, making visual art, & cetera).
Basically it’s a great tool any time you want a computer (unlimited pages, many drawing tools in one, easy to import/share content, undo support, layers and versions, ..) with pen input rather than mouse/keyboard. The latency and precision of the stylus are as good or better than other graphics tablets, the screen is gorgeous, and the price is competitive as a drawing tablet.
I’d recommend one to anyone who can afford it, and does any kind of critical reading, design work (e.g. great for flow-charts), or work in a visual medium. It doesn’t replace a laptop, but it’s a great complement.
The mini2 is a really nice iPad. I think it's at a similar sweetspot in the power/support curve that the Ipad2/mini1 was at -- something that's going to be usable for a good long time. (They sold something with the guts of the ipad2 for something like 4 years)
My mini2 has been used solidly for 2 years, I'm only looking to upgrade because the ipad2 the kids use has taken a beating and needs replaced.
The Microsoft Surface seems like a better product for this market. In addition to a drawing tablet with a set of stylus-oriented apps, it's also a real computer so you can use Photoshop, Painter etc.
I tried both, and my subjective impression was that the iPad had a nicer display, better precision on the stylus with somewhere under half the latency, and a better feel when drawing. The software also seemed to do a better job of interpreting pen input (but admittedly I only tried MS’s first-party software and a few other tools pre-installed at the MS store, and conceivably a team of DSP experts could fix this in third-party software).
I also found the tablet versions of MS Windows to be kludgy and uninspiring with some weird corner cases, but I’m not enough of an expert with it to really offer a fair review.
When I’m reviewing/proofreading someone’s paper, doodling mathematical notes, making a flow chart, sketching a user interface design, or drawing an illustration, I don’t want a “real computer”. I want one app at a time, and I want the UI chrome to get the hell out of the way.
Which version of the Surface did you try? I recall they changed the stylus implementation at some point (after Microsoft acquired a digitizer company).
Personally, I want a real computer for the things you mention for a simple reason: managing files on iOS is hell. The single-app model and app-specific content silos would be a poor fit for my workflow, where files come and go.
Surface 1/2 are Wacom styli, Surface 3/4 are NTrig styli.
I know this all too well because I got a Surface 4 and it was really great except for the part where my main use for it was "run Adobe Illustrator in smaller spaces than a laptop and a drawing tablet require" and Illustrator drops the first half second or so of every line I draw with the pencil tool.
I now have a Wacom Mobile Studio which is pretty good when it's not failing to connect to the pen/touch drivers after waking from sleep, which happens just often enough to be annoying. It's got enough other problems that I would replace it with an OSX-capable IPad in a heartbeat.
I have been an iPad user from day 1. In the beginning, I have been very enthusiastic about the iPad, but while I am still using mine, it is only very lightly these days. The reasons and some things for Apple to change are:
- The iPad is getting cornered between large smartphones, which cover many mobile needs and the very portable laptops.
- Software. There are very few iPad-specific apps, which are really great productivity-wise. Software development was ruled out by the App Store conditions and still is difficult. The builtin applications didn't really grow over the years. Last time I tried, photos still didn't support hierarchical folders. This worked well in my first year of usage, but after 5 years it became unusable.
- Data transfer. For anything relating to productivity, the individual sandboxing of apps just gets into the way of working productively. Also getting data in and out of the iPad is not seamless.
- Software again :). The "desktop" just showing a grid of icons was nice for the iPhone, but the life tiles of Metro looked more useful on a phone already. A larger device like an iPad needs this or any other "real" desktop. I am not talking about "MacOS on the tablet" though. It needs a tablet-optimized desktop, but not a phone OS either. Multitasking needs to be improved. And why is it, that external bluetooth keyboards are still not fully supported with all special keys, e.g. for ssh clients? Why can't I browse photos on a SD-Card without importing them?
- Connectivity. Have courage, Apple, add USB-C. Have a real HDMI out, and if there were an HDMI-input dongle, it would be an instant buy for me. Duet is nice, but having the option to use the iPad as a real second screen would be great. A mode for the iPad pro where it would be an extension screen for a MacOS computer with full pen support would probably sell a lot (and hurt Wacom)
> Last time I tried, photos still didn't support hierarchical folders
iOS 10 does support it, but it's kind of hidden (you have to long-press on the add album button to get an action sheet to add a folder) and I don't think it supports re-arranging anything (gotta do that on a Mac and sync it)
I am trying to sync hierarchical folders from photos to the iPad, but they get flattened to one level of hierarchy of folders, i.e. only the folders containing the pictures remain, but no hierarchy above them.
I only tested on an iPhone, since I made the unfortunate decision of buying a 16 GB iPad, so if I turn on iCloud Photos it effectively stops working because it fills up its internal storage (despite being "optimized").
I'm surprised something works on the iPhone but not the iPad. Are you syncing via USB or iCloud?
I am syncing via USB or WLAN - would need to buy iCloud storage to sync my images. But if it works for you via iCloud, then the rumors I heard of it being different are true :). But this only confirms that the software is quite quirky.
I've been trying to replace my MBP with iPad since the original and almost have a viable solution with the iPad Pro and the Razer Mechanical keyboard case except for two main things:
- Integration between apps is still not there. There's some good code editors out there with syntax highlighting and project based but none support git. There's some good git clients but there is no workable path between them and your coding environment without intermediaries like Dropbox etc, and none that share the concept of a project. You are at the mercy of the developers to support everything you need or to integrate with another (possibly third party) app. On MacOS there is always the lowest common denominator, the terminal which can glue any workflow together.
- The combination of iPad Pro and keyboard is bigger and thicker than a 13" MBP. Which would I rather take then...
Is the size bit true if you're using an Apple Magic Keyboard instead of a mechanical keyboard? I'm certainly not one to fault you for using a nice keyboard, but that does make it a bit of an apples and oranges comparison.
I really enjoy using Textastic with Working Copy - you can mount your git repo from Working Copy as a folder, edit in Textastic, then commit and push via Working Copy.
This (exposing your internal file-system as a mount point) is available to all apps, since iOS 10 - it's just only Working Copy and Textastic that seem to support it.
1. It's too good for some (most?) use-cases.
2. It's not even close to good enough for other use-cases.
If all you're doing is consuming content on an iPad, the replacement cycle is absurdly long. The only reason I upgraded from an iPad 3 (the first retina version) is that I bought my dad an iPad air for Christmas one year, and the next year, I bought him a new iPhone. He stopped using the iPad when he got a large form-factor phone. So I took the iPad air. The 3 is still pretty functional.
But I can't really do anything with it. It's probably the world's most perfect porn delivery device, but you know, I can't write any meaningful code on it on a day-to-day basis that wouldn't be a huge compromise.
I know that there are some people who have successfully transitioned to iPad as a primary machine. But I'm just not there yet. Yeah, I wanted the hell out of one when they first came out.
Now, I'm glad to have one, but the one from a few years ago is good enough. Why buy a new one?
I got a max-specced iPad Pro after returning my top spec 2016 MBP... It's now become my main work machine. I still need my 2012 MBP at home for tasks that can't be done on iPad, but those are rare and quite specialised (music production, dj library management, bits of programming, and some more advanced document preparation).
It's working well. I love the lightness (with the Apple keyboard case it's a fair bit lighter than an MPB), the quasi-infinite battery (though some apps like Slack and, weirdly, Notes, can, without announcing it, suddenly go into battery draining mode... I'd love a more battery-friendly replacement), and the freedom of not needing wifi in most countries that I'm likely to travel too (thanks to the UK network "Three"'s "Feel At Home" feature that allows me to continue using my phone and iPad data as if I was in the UK). It feels really liberating.
Worth adding a disclaimer: I no longer do much or any programming. Most of the "value adding" work I do consists of talking to people, preparing the odd document and sending emails.
Did you consider the 12" MacBook? It's nearly as light as a tablet, has a full operating system, and the top of the line is plenty fast to run macOS even for programming.
(Just curious to know what swayed you to the iPad rather than the lightest Mac.)
For me, SIM card, battery life, automatic backups (with easy restore on new devices), general simplicity - and surprisingly important - separation of keyboard and display.
I did consider that. It didn't seem like a valid upgrade path from a functioning 2012 MBP. I don't want to be having to use two laptops, and the MB lacks ports and power to be the fallback machine I think. I also don't like the keyboard (worse than the new MBP). In short, if I was going to get an MB, instead I would just keep my 2012 MBP. iPad was enough of a change to be worth trying (knowing I could return it in 2 weeks). I ended up keeping it!
I tried the same as a programmer. I used Prompt to SSH into a EC2 machine and did all my coding there. I loved the size but had problems with multi-tasking, debugging and especially spotty WiFi in cafes. Also tried the route of jailbreaking and using Prompt to connect to a local SSH server but that didn't work so well either because of missing software.
The thing that then really pissed me off was that iOS9 changed all of the keybindings so my bluetooth iPad keyboard with it's function keys all of a sudden became almost-useless. I still don't know how to switch the input language. Something with space? If I click the switch-language-key it just opens Spotlight.
Now I just degraded it to my media tablet that Airplays stuff to my TV, write scripts and documents and just organize my day-to-day. Though I wouldn't absolutely care if I wouldn't have it anymore. It's a 'extra' that makes certain things slightly more convenient but by no means do I think of it as a necessary tool.
I'm going to buy the next 12" MBP to replace it but I do hope for a better blend between iPad and Mac. If I could program on that thing more reliably I would.
I'd recommend trying out the Apple Smart Keyboard case. You can always return it in 2 weeks if you don't like it. It is currently, imho, the best keyboard Apple makes.
> bits of programming, and some more advanced document preparation
If you can't do them on an iPad then you simply can not consider it a "work machine", in the general sense. You can do those on a 15 year old laptop with ease.
> If you can't do them on an iPad then you simply can not consider it a "work machine", in the general sense. You can do those on a 15 year old laptop with ease.
If it's something you can do on a 15 year old machine, which is otherwise nearly unusable (last week I turned on my 2001 Titanium Powerbook G4 for the first time in years; it could see my WiFi network, but not connect), then maybe that's not a very useful definition for "work machine".
I can't code from my work-issued iPhone, but I wouldn't leave the house without it. I can't make calls from my work-issued Thinkpad, but I'm not sitting down in the morning next to my iPhone. You see how silly your line in the sand is?
That being said, I actually can do everything from my iPhone with the magic of Citrix.
I'm surprised nobody mentioned that it could simply still be a normalization phase.
The iPad's growth exploded because everybody thought it was the new iPhone. Analysts started analyzing it like if it WAS the new iPhone.
But it's a very different product, with a lifecycle much more akin to that of a laptop. In this regard the iPad is indeed a computer. I'm typing this on a late 2014 MacBook Pro Retina. It's still a great machine, why change it? I can do everything with it. Even video editing to a very good extent.
The same for my iPad Air, bought in 2014. Still rocking.
I might be swapping it for a new iPad in 2 years maybe, but so far, why bother?
My mom's iPad is my old short-lived iPad 3. She gets Pinterest, she browses the web, she does her email, we Facetime. My dad borrows it from time to time to buy a rare book online or to look for some obscure Prog Rock band from the '70. He is the typical proudly tech-illiterate son of the fifties, but well, he actually loves to use his iPad 1 as a YouTube Radio when he's painting.
She has a laptop at home, but it's strictly connected to work related task. I.e. spreadsheets. And that's it.
Her laptop and her iPad are perfectly complementary devices she is not really thinking about changing until they will break or become unbearably slow.
There's no mystery: the iPad IS a computer, and its update cycle reflects it.
Another thing to bear in mind, since many people are talking about how convenient iPads are for older parents (I too gave my parents an iPad Air a year or two ago - they get a lot more use out of it now than the MacBook I gave them about 8 years ago...): their definition of "unbearably slow" and our definition are really markedly different!
I'm not sure I'm the age of your parents, but even as an over-50 tech nerd, I am quite happy with my iPad 1. I use it as a reader, an alarm clock, and a terminal emulator on a daily basis. The battery still keeps its charge and it is one of the most solid pieces of tech that I have ever purchased.
Students always come into my office and wonder why I don't have "a good computer" or why "everything is so old" (which admittedly the Apple //e is), but if the only software you need to run is a terminal and a browser, then upgrading your hardware becomes a lot less critical.
I just recently pulled out my old iPad 1 and charged it. I was marveling at how well-designed it is, and how much I miss the simpler OS that runs on it. It's since been supplanted by my iPhone, MacBook and Surface, but I'd love to have a good reason to use it again :)
I use the original Prompt from Panic and the Apple bluetooth keyboard. I also have the charging stand which keeps the iPad in portrait mode. I would have preferred landscape for emacs, etc., but it is certainly usable.
I just upgraded our family iPad 3 this week... because it finally died after FIVE years constant use (and abuse from two young kids, and it was fine for the games they play all this time).
The school district issued ipads are holding together and are nearing refresh cycle. Repeat scheduled sales will happen soon unless there's more of a push to chromebooks. The durability of ipads surprise me given the reputation of phones being weak and easily destroyed.
The school district also requires their ipads be used in indestructible cases, which helps with reliability and also eliminates conspicuous consumption, which is a major driver of phone sales. If every kid at school has a uniform identical ipad case then a replacement does not indicate high status, so there's no motivation to replace often.
I put our family iPads in indestructible cases. The one for the Pro arrived just the other day, and sadly it turns the beautiful design into this massive brick. Oh well, need to protect them from the kids <cough> and wife </cough>.
I've gotten a lot of life out of an iPad 2, still works fine for checking traffic, text sites, and Garage Band. Have acquired a Mini for when it eventually sunsets - though down the street there are rows of small shops that will unlock and/or modify any number of devices for a reasonable fee. Yay!
I've the 2012 mbp retina and the 2014 ipad air 2 and neither actually needs a replacement, they do everything they did when they came out and still support all the use cases without their outdated performances being in the way, including video editing on the mbp (gf's a vlogger)
we're also stretching out their lifespan because today's equivalent offer arguably the same or worse overall experience at a higher price point, so there's that as well.
uMatrix[0] is a fantastic way to get more performance out of old computers.
I have a low-end laptop that I use for travel - a ThinkPad x131e running OpenSuSE. uMatrix makes the difference between a machine that's unusable for web browsing and one that's actually fast.
However, it is kind of a pain to figure out what pieces need to be allowed for a site to work and what are superfluous. Once you get it nailed down though, you can just press the lock icon to make it remember your selections.
Maybe the value is on the developer side of the equation. More layers of abstraction might enable faster development cycles or more advanced features at the cost of resource consumption.
I have an original iPad 2, and it still works (mostly) fine. The browser likes to crash on the weather.com map. But, outside of that, and few other choice crashes, it works fine. Youtube app works perfect, and I use some iOS synths like Animoog and PPG Wave without any issues.
And, the battery still lasts for a long time. If I don't touch it for a few days, it's charge is where I left it. Pretty amazing. No reason to upgrade this thing.
Really frustrating that newer versions of iOS inevitably run more slowly on aging hardware, Apple incessantly prompts you to update, and there's no way to roll back.
Sure, I miss security fixes if I don't update, but at the point when Apple stops supporting the hardware, what's the difference?
You say this as if an unexpectedly slow update cycle can be a retroactive justification of the product. If Apple weren't expecting users to update iPads so infrequently, then it will be an issue for them.
Also it can't be considered both "a computer" and considered to be in a maturing lifecycle phase if tablet sales are down while laptop sales are increasing. If you consider the iPad a computer, then Apple's product line is cannibalising itself, which would also be an issue.
I believe camillomiller is very much not looking at the issue from Apple's business perspective. I think camillomiller is trying to explain why sales are slow, but without using the narrative that tablets, as a market, are a miss. And I agree. I use my iPad every day. I bought one in 2012, upgraded in 2015, but I don't see a need to upgrade yet. My parents bought two in 2010, use them every day, and didn't upgrade until 2016. Whether or not tablets meet businesses sales expectations I can't speak on. But, anecdotally, I feel tablets are something people like using, and are here to stay.
>If you consider the iPad a computer, then Apple's product line is cannibalising itself, which would also be an issue.
Say what? You know Apple doesn't sell just one computer, right? They don't have any product called the Apple Computer. They have several different laptops, several different desktops, several different AIOs, and if you consider an iPad to be a computer, several different tablets. No one is saying the Macbook Air is cannibalizing sales of the Macbook Pro, or that the Mac Mini is cannibalizing sales of the 27" iMac. They might be computers, sure, but different computers are built for different use cases. There's a world of product differentiation between those offerings.
Cannibalisation refers to competition within your own product-line causing a reduction in revenue.
E.g. with simple figures: Apple spend 1 billion producing iPads from start to finish, and selling them produces 10b in income. They then introduce Macbooks which cost 5b to produce and result in 10b in income. If the introduction of lower margin Macbooks causes a 25% drop in sales of higher margin iPads, then the profitability of their product line has been reduced due to inter-product competition.
It's generally not a good thing and represents a waste of resources.
That's how I see it. In the last quarter Apple sold twice as many iPads as Macs, so twice as many people thought an iPad does what they need to get done. It also has twice the installed base (300m) of the Mac. App sales are a multi-billion dollar industry that’s growing and key players like Microsoft, Adobe and IBM think the iPad is a strategic platform they have to be on.
The early sales growth of the iPad was unsustainable. If it had flattened at 11m a quarter the installed base would now be about 800m devices, more than half that of all laptops and desktop PCs combined. Is anything much less than that to be considered failure?
I believe what happened is that, leveraging the already mature iOS platform, the iPad was already close to being fully realised as a product in the first few years. Customers and developers recognized that value and bought into the platform heavily very quickly, but so quickly that it wasn’t sustainable. Since then platform improvements have been incremental, but it’s still selling extremely well. ASP, margins, customer satisfaction and App sales are all very healthy. This is a strong product that owns it’s market.
Twice the installed base of Mac OS makes a lot of sense to me. My wife and I both have an iPad but only one laptop which we share but almost never use. If that is representative of everyone that owns a Mac then you end up with about double the installed base.
I upgraded my first iPad because of weight not speed. As long as the battery keeps up I can probably keep this one 3 times as long. My Mother got three of various sizes, but is probably going to stick with just one or two sizes long term.
Assuming many people get a new one fairly soon based on form factor Apple and others may have been confusing side grades for upgrade.
Because iPads are generally limited to basic computing tasks, I think the lifecycle is even longer than a typical laptop. My iPad Air from 2013 still feels brand new to me. Still looks great and I'm sure will still be getting used in another 4 years.
Edit: By comparison, the iMac I bought at the same time as the iPad Air is starting to feel sluggish and outdated, particularly as it is not a 5K version so switching between a retina iPad and a retina MacBook and a retina iMac feels jarring when using the iMac.
"There's no mystery: the iPad IS a computer, and its update cycle reflects it."
For me, the upgrade cycle is longer than for a laptop. I still do most of my reading on an iPad 1 (from 2010). When I replace it (soon), it won't be with another Apple product since I'm a bit miffed that I can't upgrade it and the web browser crashes with certain valid HTML. There's absolutely nothing wrong with the hardware and the battery life is still amazing.
My plan is to either get a Kindle or a cheapish Android tablet and will definitely go for something lighter.
I've been buying my kids Android tablets for $80 every few years. The iPad was close to $700 when I bought it. I can update Android with an open distribution for a long time after the device is out of warranty but I can't install a browser because Apple decided my hardware couldn't handle IOS 6.
I have an Apple PowerBook G3 Wallstreet that still runs and even has reasonable battery life. I'm not using it because it's simply too slow but I can still load a modern Linux on it. This is how hardware should become obsolete.
No, but you could buy a fairly high end Android tablet every 2 years and the TCO over 7 years would still be comparable to the iPad, which I think is the point the GP was making.
Agreed. I have an original iPad from 2010. It's running iOS 5.1.1 and is not compatible with many current apps, but still does what I need it to do: web browsing, email, and Netflix.
I might replace it this year with the 9.7" model announced in March, but I have a good laptop and no particular need to replace the iPad. Not yet.
the other side of the coin is a lot of people just stopped using the thing. I haven't touched a tablet is a long time, my phone screen is big enough for most things.
I think we'll see smartphones plateau a little bit soon as well — once you hit a certain processing speed and saturation... it's hard to justify constant updates. The average web/device user really only needs so much to browse the web, email, and use apps.
Before buying a tablet, we have a need in mind. If the need is filled, we either do not need to change the tablet or change it quickly to have a stronger one more adapted to the need. If the need is not filled, the tablet is almost not used (often given to children) and we do not buy another one. The candy crush like applications almost never requires a tablet: they work as fine on a phone.
The use case is very different from phones. Obsolescence is very different. I am still using my palm III XE (very rarely) for the single application that motivated buying it 18 years ago.
There is a serious distortion in perspective underlying this narrative. iPad sales are down and revenue is less than the Mac, therefore users don't want iPads anymore because Macs are more useful and are the right answer for more people.
Horse puckey. Last quearter Apple sold 8.9m iPads and only 4.1m Macs. That means in the last 3 months twice as many people decided an iPad was the right device for them and did the things they wanted to do better, than thought that of the Mac. The iPad also has around double the installed base of the Mac. Ok, iPads are cheaper and I'm sure that's a factor, but still. How does dramatically better ongoing device sales of the iPad square with this iPad has failed, Mac rules narrative? It just flat out doesn't.
The question then becomes, what are these devices being used for? Yes of course the iPad is an excellent device for reading ebooks, watching video, casual browsing, emails, social media, etc. Is that all they’re used for? Well no, iOS has a thriving App Store and developing apps for the iPad is a multi-billion dollar industry. Leading players such as Adobe, Microsoft and IBM regard it as a key strategic platform they have to be on. There are also thriving niches such as music production and visual arts where the iPad has moved well beyond just casual or toy status. The decline in device sales don’t appear to be threatening that as App sales continue to rise, so the sales decline seems to be on the ‘consumption device’ side of the sales category.
We have not transitioned to a world in which more people buy Macs because they are more useful. We're in one where instead of 3x as many people thinking the iPad is the right device for them, now only 2x as many people think that. But if this was a collapse in the iPad value proposition we'd be seeing a reduction in ASP, margins and customer satisfaction. Actually these are as high as ever.
Let's look at the expectation though. Suppose iPad sales had stayed flat at their peak of 11m a quarter? By now the installed base would be 800m devices, more than half the installed base of all laptop and desktop PCs. Is that the definition of success? Anything less is failure? I would contend that current sales of the iPad are very healthy, they just don't compare well to the completely unsustainable, unprecedented success of it's early years.
So that’s the positive case. Even so the iPad faces some major challenges to achieving it’s full potential. I completely agree with the posts here pointing out it’s weaknesses. I use Pythonista heavily and the lack of convenient Github integration is a major pain point. iCloud is a lot better than it used to be, but still a very long way from where it needs to go. Many small software studios are struggling to make money out of Apps. But this narrative of a failed product that nobody needs anymore is simply not supported by the facts.
The iPad is nowhere near killing off the desktop or Laptop, sales of both of which by the way are also down industry wide. I can’t see a future in my lifetime when I won’t want to own a desktop or laptop. Equally though you’re going to have to take my iPad out of my cold dead hands. It’s actually pretty much found it’s niche and is here to stay.
Totally unrelated to Gassee's main point, but of note in a tangential way: The best place to find AAAA batteries, like those the Surface Stylus takes, is inside 9V batteries, which are all but universally composed of six AAAAs wired in series to reach the specified voltage and packed in a metal can.
Of course, getting the metal can open in an airport, especially on the "secure" side where you'll have been relieved of any personal toolkit you might ordinarily carry, is a separate consideration - but in a real pinch, a house or car key will probably do, because all you really need to manage is to pry out the top bulkhead with the terminals. If you can do that, you can get the batteries out, twist them off their solder tabs, and use them.
I'd tend to agree, but if you just have to use that stylus right then, it's probably your best shot. AAAA cells on a blister card are rare as hen's teeth.
They seem to exist in the NiMH chemistry [1], but you might have to try a few brands to find decent-quality ones. That said, if you can find ones that work reasonably well, they'd be by far your best option. And I'd be amazed to see them in a brick-and-mortar shop, other than a specialist battery store, and maybe not even then. (If those even still exist, anyway.)
Another potential issue is that NiMH cells seem to run at a somewhat lower voltage than alkalines do throughout the discharge curve. I'm not sure whether that would pose an issue for a device like this; while it probably sips power, it might have a large voltage drop, which could conceivably result in shorter operating time from a cell that runs at a lower voltage to begin with. Still, I'd say it's certainly worth a try.
Oh, hey, he's doing it with nail clippers, and checking the TSA site, it looks like those are allowed! Yeah, you'd be fine with one of those, as long as you don't mind messing up the edge a little - you could probably even get a massively overpriced nail clipper at the same newsstand where you get your massively overpriced 9V battery. No problem at all, in that case.
The iPad marked for >= 9.7" actually grew last quarter. This article has a graph where the ipad mini is split out as a separate component of the graph. Big phones have eat up a lot og the ipad mini market, but there is still a big market for bigger ipads.
I bought iPad 3, it was good at its time. Now it's laggy but I don't want to buy another one, it's waste of money. So it's only natural that sells are slowed, people who wanted to buy one already did it, and not everyone wants to replace working device every few years.
The only thing that I could desire is if Apple would revive iOS 6 and allow downgrading. It's awesome OS, much better than following releases for iPad 3. But, I guess, it won't happen.
I don't know how many of you have kids, but the iPad is a revolution for kids. They can literally start using it independently from age 2. I think most families will have at least one in the house.
They also have a very long service life. That's probably a big reason why the growth rate doesn't compare well to the iPhone. The upgrade cycle is like 5-6 years, not 1-2.
I've thought a lot about Steve Jobs' "cars vs trucks" analogy.[1] Personally I don't use the iPad much anymore, owing to the narrowing of the gap between my bigger phone and slimmer, all-flash Macbook. But although I work in tech I don't see my Mac as just a "truck". I prefer it for web browsing, email, writing, etc., all "car-like" things. If you had a car and a truck in the garage you probably wouldn't pick the truck to drive the kids to school.. but that's what I do with my Mac, metaphorically speaking.
So I would expand the analogy slightly. If iPads are cars and desktop computers are trucks, then Macbooks are the SUVs. Still a very appealing choice for regular non-industrial users who just want a bit more capability.
We've got four iPads in the house, and we're only now replacing the iPad Mini (first generation) with a new iPad 2017; we've also got an iPad 2 that's next in line for a replacement, but since it's still handling Netflix et al almost acceptably the 4yo can use it a while longer.
These things have survived three kids, I don't think we've had any other thing they've used live this long. Pretty darn impressive.
My kid loved his iPad, until he got a cheap windows laptop. Now he spends all his time playing games on the laptop. Both my kids spend all their free time on youtube or games, but they prefer to do it on laptops. It is a combination of better software (particularly games) and having a keyboard and a mouse, which is still an amazing input device. I would make the analogy that an iPad is like a tricycle, a laptop is a bicycle.
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[ 24.3 ms ] story [ 303 ms ] threadMy iPad is relegated to being either an eBook reader or a Spotify player for my bluetooth speaker. Can't really be bothered to use it for anything else, the iPhone 7 plus is more than enough for most other tasks. Also can't see it becoming relevant for any sort of serious creative work with applications like Lightroom, Photoshop, Movie editors etc, those are all super shortcut driven once you become a power user and have to crunch through a ton of work.
(My mom uses an iPad as well for similar purposes.)
I for one love the idea of a durable product with a long usable life span. But Apple investors might disagree.
I watch Al Jazeera news, listen to music and do my monthly stocktake on it. Occasionally I'll send an email etc.
It suits my needs as I don't have room for a laptop(I can stiff the iPad on the shelf when I get busy and still hear my music), I can do basic Excell input(I designed the sheets on a PC though).
In my mind it's a support tool, not a primary tool.
I do agree tablets are great support tools. For watching videos, music, and email (reading) they are great.
Typing on the pad is a major pain in the arse honestly, partially because it is an older unit, and every update requirea more processing power to do the basics.
My normal goto response is, unless you have a passion for fine dining, go do something that makes money, and just host dinner parties.
Realistically though, two things. A) knife skills, learn them, though google, YouTube and practice. They will be your best asset. It will take years. There is no shortcut to experience here, but there are shortcuts to mediocrity.
B) there is nothing wrong with not remembering everything. Read up on every style of cooking and each technique, so if you are rushed you will know the basics, but there is too much to remember - don't be afraid to google how to search a specific thing. Eg roasting times for different types of meat. I looked it up tonight, I don't roast that often, so I don't remember the general times for each type of meat, there is nothing wrong with double checking your memory haha.
(Bonus?) C) once you get to my level)executive chef), don't be afraid to learn or listen, I have learnt more in the past 12 months than I would have thought possible, due to meeting chef's with an amazingly different outlook on things.
Edit:
Mobile apps? Not really, there isn't a stack overflow for chef's, or any major resource center, just Google. (I am working on this with another chef :-p)
I do have a passion for fine dining but I'm not sure if I would be able to handle the pressures of working in a professional kitchen. I do think it would be a more rewarding profession compared to programming in a corporate environment which has become a chore.
I think I may go with your advice of developing my skills as a hobby!
I should have phrased my last question better- I was wondering if as an Executive Chef and technology enthusiast you can think of ways a mobile app (or technology in general) could aid a team of chefs in a professional kitchen? (developing something like that would be a pretty amazing experience).
The issue with anything for chef's is the kitchen is hot, wet with lots of oils and liquids going around. Most devices don't last too long haha.
For non service related items, there are quite a few for execs to help control costs and work flow, it's a fairly well supplied area to be frank.
In the kitchen, something like an Amazon Echo may work?
The whole 'problem' with tablet sales is not that they are not useful or convenient, but that current models are actually so useful and convenient there is no reason to upgrade. I would only consider this a 'problem' if you are trying to sell tablets, from a user perspective it's actually a good thing.
The fact that tablets cannot comfortably do many things a laptop or PC can has been obvious to me from day one, they are complementary devices where the tablet is primarily a more convenient/more comfortable device for many things, but not suited at all for others. Convertible/hybrid laptops may seem to follow naturally, to unify all use cases in a single device, but personally I'm not sold on this idea. I'd guess the demographic who really wants a full PC-like experience typically doesn't mind having separate devices that are best at a subset of tasks, instead of one device that's merely 'ok' at all of them. At least I know I don't mind...
So what is the actual demographics here?
You'd at least need to have more money left then most of the above mentioned demographics. You'll also need to be prepared or willing to use an apple system. It's very likely that you already have at least one other Apple device that you already use to "consume content online". Which brings us back to the question that appears often here:
Why do you need another one?
Thing is, iPads are powerful, even though Apple tried their very best to cripple most of them by software updates.
The vicious circle is, that people who are not power users (demanding the latest features) are the ones less likely to update the software.
So here we are, with a ton of iPads working flawlessly with their stock firmware.
I mean, even I still own a first gen, just for kicks (and synths, synthstation49).
Every parent I know (including myself) has 1 or 2 of these for entertaining children on long trips or rainy days.
There are other plausible theories:
1. When the iPad was introduced, the average smartphone screen size was between 3 and 3.5". I couldn't find statistics for 2016, but I would guess that the average is just north of 5". Large phones have considerably more screen estate than they had in 2010, so a lot of things that were done on tablets in 2010 can now be done conveniently on a phone.
2. There was initially a lot of enthusiasm for the iPad and other tablets, but over time people realized that iPads are mostly limited to media consumption. The form factor is not convenient for serious work.
In the end it's probably a mix of all of these: people wait longer before upgrading tablets; phablets have cannibalised tablets; most of the initial tablet hype/optimism has died out.
https://medium.com/@somospostpc/a-comprehensive-look-at-smar...
But neither the iPhone nor the iPad require a stylus. The iPad offers it as an option. But I also would like to be able to take notes on an iPhone plus sized device with a stylus, I don't see that as a contradiction.
> But only idiots never change their minds.
> It’s now September 2015: All hail the 12.9” iPad Pro…with a keyboard and stylus (pardon, a Pencil).
Why do people love to trot out that Steve Jobs quote and then completely misinterpret it? The context of that quote was a device that requires a stylus. Steve was not dissing the concept of styluses in general.
The Apple Pencil is something rather different -- it's an entirely optional add-on for artists/designers who want to use the device as a drawing tablet.
This is of course just an anecdote, but I am in no way surprised that smartphones are outselling their bigger siblings.
Meanwhile the iPad is basically a toy.
What's surprising to me is that anyone is surprised by these numbers.
Most iPads sold I'd guess are just wifi models.
If my iPad is a toy because it is mainly used for browsing reddit and watching youtube, then my laptop and my phone are also just toys.
None of that applies to buying a new tablet.
I'm finally considering a new laptop for the 30% CPU boost and WiFi 802.11ac improvements over my 2012 model.
The iPad is so very much lacking in all of these terms, and the Mac is not, to me it's no wonder why the iPad sales numbers are going down while the Mac sales numbers are going up.
Because there are platforms like Chromebook and Windows 10S which also do not satisfy your criteria but many would consider to be a computer as well.
Would you like to group all your files that belong to a certain project (photos, texts, presentations etc) together in one thing, like a folder? The iPad currently cannot do that. After that change, somebody could do a patch that would. And then Apple would see that there is a demand and do a proper version of that.
Would you like to use the great Apple Photos app, but also have all your files on dropbox/google drive? Well if you do that currently, you need to have your photos twice, and work with two different apps. With my suggested changes, one could create a patch app that just stores all your documents on the service of your choice.
Would you like to use the Google or Amazon Alexa voice assistants when you long press the home button? Currently you can't, but in my future you could. Any you would be surprised how much better they often are. That would create more competition, and would motivate Apple to up their Siri game.
Would you like to have a SNES emulator? A bittorrent client? A bitcoin client? A podcast client that can do flattr? All of these things are constantly shut down by Apple. You are not allowed to have these. With my suggested changes, you can have these.
Would you like to have something like Maya? Current iOS rules prevent any app from implementing their own windowing GUI, with the reason being that in this way, apps cannot become their own platform, which would be problem for Apple because then another party would become a platform owner. Well many professional apps like Maya are their own platform.
The list goes on an on. You do not have to be a programmer to suffer from the limits Apple currently imposes on iOS.
And it's not arbitrary at all. It just returns to the same state computing was in for 30 years until iOS arrived.
Also, watch your words. "More than a little ridiculous" is not an objective rational statement, it's just pure ad hominem.
Not at all. He said (paraphrasing) "this claim is ridicuolous", not "you are ridiculous".
And in case, we're doing a meta discussion on rhetorical semantics now, which is besides the point - because you can't argue away that saying "this claim is more than a little ridiculous" is just plain bad form.
* who paid for your MBP?
In many cases, your employer did. After the MBP is written off and after the phone contract renews, you get a new one. Not so for the iPad.
Also, iPads serve mostly three purposes:
* feed a bluetooth speaker
* watch movies in bed
* lookup recipes in the kitchen
It does this very well, and you don't need a new one every two years.
Without a proper ipad holder, watching movies in bed with iPad is painfully, your arms get tired quickly after opening.
(Not movies but the occasional book.)
Now your arm won't get tired, because it's no longer fighting gravity, and while you will drop the iPad when you fall asleep, it won't hit your face unless you're a lot more nearsighted than my -3.5 diopters. (That's a lot - ~20/120 in old money.) It'll also land face down if you hold it with a slight tilt toward you, which helps prevent the screen light from interfering with sleep any more than it already will because you're watching it in bed.
I'll add another one: lean your back against the wall sitting upright, pull your knees towards you so they form an inverted V and prop the iPad up against your legs. Slightly awkward but workable.
Maybe an Air is light enough to prop more up against your knees. My 4th gen certainly isn't!
I'd be interested to know how much of the iPhone upgrade market is replacements for smashed/water damaged phones.
Check mail, social media (Facebook etc), read books and browse in bed relaxed, etc.
And those are just the main uses for everybody. There are tons of niche uses so that most people, if they have any kind of hobbies/interests outside of web/movies, end up having one or two.
Speaking of which, I'm kind of blown away Apple hasn't tried to take all their touch expertise from the iPad and add it to MacBooks in some fashion.
At any rate, Apple has already been using their touch expertise on MacBooks. Their touchpads are highly regarded, and they recently added Touch Bars to the new MBPs.
My laptop I may want to upgrade to improve computing power and phone form factors continue to improve. Both of those things sort of affect the iPad but not nearly to the same degree. I carry my phone around in my pocket, if it's a tiny bit lighter it makes a huge difference. I mostly use my iPad at home, it's great for the things I use it for and there's no upgrade I can imagine that would significantly increase its utility.
For mobile gaming, this made me first get a Nintendo 3DS, and now a Switch. Not only is the hardware optimized for gaming, they still have a healthy market with full-priced pay-once games.
I also have and enjoy the MFi GameVice for my iPad Mini 4. It works quite well.
And I use the Zagg Tough Book case with my iPad Mini 4 to essentially turn it into an iPad Mini ToughBook, which fits into the hip pockets of the 'business BDUs' I normally wear.
So what about the other 10+ podcast apps out there?
Since the iOS 9 update my iPad 2 is a miserable piece of trash: everything is sluggish beyond saving, and the rendering has been butchered on those low dpi devices (the old iOS designs looked crisper).
EDIT: Fix iOS version, whichever one ditched skeumorphism.
I'd expect a $600 device to last a bit longer than that, and I'm sure the biggest IT firm in the world could easily create custom builds for their older devices: optimise font-rendering, properly convert assets to low-res versions, and disable (or degrade) the animations and transparency. If the internal OS architecture is sensible, these 3 adaptations shouldn't be that much work and shouldn't cause any bugs.
I wouldn’t want to code or a write book with it, and the software is in some ways more limited than I would prefer, but the hardware (display, stylus) are great and it’s a lovely tool for proofreading/annotating PDF files (or other material), making doodles, writing mathematical notes, sketching out user interface designs, drawing technical diagrams, planning carpentry projects, and so on (I know others also use it for drawing comics, making visual art, & cetera).
Basically it’s a great tool any time you want a computer (unlimited pages, many drawing tools in one, easy to import/share content, undo support, layers and versions, ..) with pen input rather than mouse/keyboard. The latency and precision of the stylus are as good or better than other graphics tablets, the screen is gorgeous, and the price is competitive as a drawing tablet.
I’d recommend one to anyone who can afford it, and does any kind of critical reading, design work (e.g. great for flow-charts), or work in a visual medium. It doesn’t replace a laptop, but it’s a great complement.
I seriously think the upgrade cycle for these devices is just much much longer than most people think it is
My mini2 has been used solidly for 2 years, I'm only looking to upgrade because the ipad2 the kids use has taken a beating and needs replaced.
I also found the tablet versions of MS Windows to be kludgy and uninspiring with some weird corner cases, but I’m not enough of an expert with it to really offer a fair review.
When I’m reviewing/proofreading someone’s paper, doodling mathematical notes, making a flow chart, sketching a user interface design, or drawing an illustration, I don’t want a “real computer”. I want one app at a time, and I want the UI chrome to get the hell out of the way.
YMMV.
Personally, I want a real computer for the things you mention for a simple reason: managing files on iOS is hell. The single-app model and app-specific content silos would be a poor fit for my workflow, where files come and go.
I know this all too well because I got a Surface 4 and it was really great except for the part where my main use for it was "run Adobe Illustrator in smaller spaces than a laptop and a drawing tablet require" and Illustrator drops the first half second or so of every line I draw with the pencil tool.
I now have a Wacom Mobile Studio which is pretty good when it's not failing to connect to the pen/touch drivers after waking from sleep, which happens just often enough to be annoying. It's got enough other problems that I would replace it with an OSX-capable IPad in a heartbeat.
- The iPad is getting cornered between large smartphones, which cover many mobile needs and the very portable laptops.
- Software. There are very few iPad-specific apps, which are really great productivity-wise. Software development was ruled out by the App Store conditions and still is difficult. The builtin applications didn't really grow over the years. Last time I tried, photos still didn't support hierarchical folders. This worked well in my first year of usage, but after 5 years it became unusable.
- Data transfer. For anything relating to productivity, the individual sandboxing of apps just gets into the way of working productively. Also getting data in and out of the iPad is not seamless.
- Software again :). The "desktop" just showing a grid of icons was nice for the iPhone, but the life tiles of Metro looked more useful on a phone already. A larger device like an iPad needs this or any other "real" desktop. I am not talking about "MacOS on the tablet" though. It needs a tablet-optimized desktop, but not a phone OS either. Multitasking needs to be improved. And why is it, that external bluetooth keyboards are still not fully supported with all special keys, e.g. for ssh clients? Why can't I browse photos on a SD-Card without importing them?
- Connectivity. Have courage, Apple, add USB-C. Have a real HDMI out, and if there were an HDMI-input dongle, it would be an instant buy for me. Duet is nice, but having the option to use the iPad as a real second screen would be great. A mode for the iPad pro where it would be an extension screen for a MacOS computer with full pen support would probably sell a lot (and hurt Wacom)
iOS 10 does support it, but it's kind of hidden (you have to long-press on the add album button to get an action sheet to add a folder) and I don't think it supports re-arranging anything (gotta do that on a Mac and sync it)
I only tested on an iPhone, since I made the unfortunate decision of buying a 16 GB iPad, so if I turn on iCloud Photos it effectively stops working because it fills up its internal storage (despite being "optimized").
I'm surprised something works on the iPhone but not the iPad. Are you syncing via USB or iCloud?
- Integration between apps is still not there. There's some good code editors out there with syntax highlighting and project based but none support git. There's some good git clients but there is no workable path between them and your coding environment without intermediaries like Dropbox etc, and none that share the concept of a project. You are at the mercy of the developers to support everything you need or to integrate with another (possibly third party) app. On MacOS there is always the lowest common denominator, the terminal which can glue any workflow together.
- The combination of iPad Pro and keyboard is bigger and thicker than a 13" MBP. Which would I rather take then...
This (exposing your internal file-system as a mount point) is available to all apps, since iOS 10 - it's just only Working Copy and Textastic that seem to support it.
1. It's too good for some (most?) use-cases. 2. It's not even close to good enough for other use-cases.
If all you're doing is consuming content on an iPad, the replacement cycle is absurdly long. The only reason I upgraded from an iPad 3 (the first retina version) is that I bought my dad an iPad air for Christmas one year, and the next year, I bought him a new iPhone. He stopped using the iPad when he got a large form-factor phone. So I took the iPad air. The 3 is still pretty functional.
But I can't really do anything with it. It's probably the world's most perfect porn delivery device, but you know, I can't write any meaningful code on it on a day-to-day basis that wouldn't be a huge compromise.
I know that there are some people who have successfully transitioned to iPad as a primary machine. But I'm just not there yet. Yeah, I wanted the hell out of one when they first came out.
Now, I'm glad to have one, but the one from a few years ago is good enough. Why buy a new one?
It's working well. I love the lightness (with the Apple keyboard case it's a fair bit lighter than an MPB), the quasi-infinite battery (though some apps like Slack and, weirdly, Notes, can, without announcing it, suddenly go into battery draining mode... I'd love a more battery-friendly replacement), and the freedom of not needing wifi in most countries that I'm likely to travel too (thanks to the UK network "Three"'s "Feel At Home" feature that allows me to continue using my phone and iPad data as if I was in the UK). It feels really liberating.
Worth adding a disclaimer: I no longer do much or any programming. Most of the "value adding" work I do consists of talking to people, preparing the odd document and sending emails.
(Just curious to know what swayed you to the iPad rather than the lightest Mac.)
The thing that then really pissed me off was that iOS9 changed all of the keybindings so my bluetooth iPad keyboard with it's function keys all of a sudden became almost-useless. I still don't know how to switch the input language. Something with space? If I click the switch-language-key it just opens Spotlight.
Now I just degraded it to my media tablet that Airplays stuff to my TV, write scripts and documents and just organize my day-to-day. Though I wouldn't absolutely care if I wouldn't have it anymore. It's a 'extra' that makes certain things slightly more convenient but by no means do I think of it as a necessary tool.
I'm going to buy the next 12" MBP to replace it but I do hope for a better blend between iPad and Mac. If I could program on that thing more reliably I would.
If you can't do them on an iPad then you simply can not consider it a "work machine", in the general sense. You can do those on a 15 year old laptop with ease.
If it's something you can do on a 15 year old machine, which is otherwise nearly unusable (last week I turned on my 2001 Titanium Powerbook G4 for the first time in years; it could see my WiFi network, but not connect), then maybe that's not a very useful definition for "work machine".
That being said, I actually can do everything from my iPhone with the magic of Citrix.
My mom's iPad is my old short-lived iPad 3. She gets Pinterest, she browses the web, she does her email, we Facetime. My dad borrows it from time to time to buy a rare book online or to look for some obscure Prog Rock band from the '70. He is the typical proudly tech-illiterate son of the fifties, but well, he actually loves to use his iPad 1 as a YouTube Radio when he's painting.
She has a laptop at home, but it's strictly connected to work related task. I.e. spreadsheets. And that's it. Her laptop and her iPad are perfectly complementary devices she is not really thinking about changing until they will break or become unbearably slow.
There's no mystery: the iPad IS a computer, and its update cycle reflects it.
Sure. I mean, even my definition changed every year if I have to go backwards.
Students always come into my office and wonder why I don't have "a good computer" or why "everything is so old" (which admittedly the Apple //e is), but if the only software you need to run is a terminal and a browser, then upgrading your hardware becomes a lot less critical.
I just recently pulled out my old iPad 1 and charged it. I was marveling at how well-designed it is, and how much I miss the simpler OS that runs on it. It's since been supplanted by my iPhone, MacBook and Surface, but I'd love to have a good reason to use it again :)
Got a refurb 9.7" Pro... so nice.
The school district also requires their ipads be used in indestructible cases, which helps with reliability and also eliminates conspicuous consumption, which is a major driver of phone sales. If every kid at school has a uniform identical ipad case then a replacement does not indicate high status, so there's no motivation to replace often.
we're also stretching out their lifespan because today's equivalent offer arguably the same or worse overall experience at a higher price point, so there's that as well.
I have a low-end laptop that I use for travel - a ThinkPad x131e running OpenSuSE. uMatrix makes the difference between a machine that's unusable for web browsing and one that's actually fast.
However, it is kind of a pain to figure out what pieces need to be allowed for a site to work and what are superfluous. Once you get it nailed down though, you can just press the lock icon to make it remember your selections.
[0] https://github.com/gorhill/uMatrix
And, the battery still lasts for a long time. If I don't touch it for a few days, it's charge is where I left it. Pretty amazing. No reason to upgrade this thing.
Sure, I miss security fixes if I don't update, but at the point when Apple stops supporting the hardware, what's the difference?
Also it can't be considered both "a computer" and considered to be in a maturing lifecycle phase if tablet sales are down while laptop sales are increasing. If you consider the iPad a computer, then Apple's product line is cannibalising itself, which would also be an issue.
It would be like if they created a product category that made another product category obsolete. Like, say, the iPhone and the iPod.
Say what? You know Apple doesn't sell just one computer, right? They don't have any product called the Apple Computer. They have several different laptops, several different desktops, several different AIOs, and if you consider an iPad to be a computer, several different tablets. No one is saying the Macbook Air is cannibalizing sales of the Macbook Pro, or that the Mac Mini is cannibalizing sales of the 27" iMac. They might be computers, sure, but different computers are built for different use cases. There's a world of product differentiation between those offerings.
E.g. with simple figures: Apple spend 1 billion producing iPads from start to finish, and selling them produces 10b in income. They then introduce Macbooks which cost 5b to produce and result in 10b in income. If the introduction of lower margin Macbooks causes a 25% drop in sales of higher margin iPads, then the profitability of their product line has been reduced due to inter-product competition.
It's generally not a good thing and represents a waste of resources.
The early sales growth of the iPad was unsustainable. If it had flattened at 11m a quarter the installed base would now be about 800m devices, more than half that of all laptops and desktop PCs combined. Is anything much less than that to be considered failure?
I believe what happened is that, leveraging the already mature iOS platform, the iPad was already close to being fully realised as a product in the first few years. Customers and developers recognized that value and bought into the platform heavily very quickly, but so quickly that it wasn’t sustainable. Since then platform improvements have been incremental, but it’s still selling extremely well. ASP, margins, customer satisfaction and App sales are all very healthy. This is a strong product that owns it’s market.
Yeah - that graph just looks like the derivative of a completely standard sigmoid curve.
Assuming many people get a new one fairly soon based on form factor Apple and others may have been confusing side grades for upgrade.
Edit: By comparison, the iMac I bought at the same time as the iPad Air is starting to feel sluggish and outdated, particularly as it is not a 5K version so switching between a retina iPad and a retina MacBook and a retina iMac feels jarring when using the iMac.
For me, the upgrade cycle is longer than for a laptop. I still do most of my reading on an iPad 1 (from 2010). When I replace it (soon), it won't be with another Apple product since I'm a bit miffed that I can't upgrade it and the web browser crashes with certain valid HTML. There's absolutely nothing wrong with the hardware and the battery life is still amazing.
My plan is to either get a Kindle or a cheapish Android tablet and will definitely go for something lighter.
I have an Apple PowerBook G3 Wallstreet that still runs and even has reasonable battery life. I'm not using it because it's simply too slow but I can still load a modern Linux on it. This is how hardware should become obsolete.
I might replace it this year with the 9.7" model announced in March, but I have a good laptop and no particular need to replace the iPad. Not yet.
The use case is very different from phones. Obsolescence is very different. I am still using my palm III XE (very rarely) for the single application that motivated buying it 18 years ago.
Horse puckey. Last quearter Apple sold 8.9m iPads and only 4.1m Macs. That means in the last 3 months twice as many people decided an iPad was the right device for them and did the things they wanted to do better, than thought that of the Mac. The iPad also has around double the installed base of the Mac. Ok, iPads are cheaper and I'm sure that's a factor, but still. How does dramatically better ongoing device sales of the iPad square with this iPad has failed, Mac rules narrative? It just flat out doesn't.
The question then becomes, what are these devices being used for? Yes of course the iPad is an excellent device for reading ebooks, watching video, casual browsing, emails, social media, etc. Is that all they’re used for? Well no, iOS has a thriving App Store and developing apps for the iPad is a multi-billion dollar industry. Leading players such as Adobe, Microsoft and IBM regard it as a key strategic platform they have to be on. There are also thriving niches such as music production and visual arts where the iPad has moved well beyond just casual or toy status. The decline in device sales don’t appear to be threatening that as App sales continue to rise, so the sales decline seems to be on the ‘consumption device’ side of the sales category.
We have not transitioned to a world in which more people buy Macs because they are more useful. We're in one where instead of 3x as many people thinking the iPad is the right device for them, now only 2x as many people think that. But if this was a collapse in the iPad value proposition we'd be seeing a reduction in ASP, margins and customer satisfaction. Actually these are as high as ever.
Let's look at the expectation though. Suppose iPad sales had stayed flat at their peak of 11m a quarter? By now the installed base would be 800m devices, more than half the installed base of all laptop and desktop PCs. Is that the definition of success? Anything less is failure? I would contend that current sales of the iPad are very healthy, they just don't compare well to the completely unsustainable, unprecedented success of it's early years.
So that’s the positive case. Even so the iPad faces some major challenges to achieving it’s full potential. I completely agree with the posts here pointing out it’s weaknesses. I use Pythonista heavily and the lack of convenient Github integration is a major pain point. iCloud is a lot better than it used to be, but still a very long way from where it needs to go. Many small software studios are struggling to make money out of Apps. But this narrative of a failed product that nobody needs anymore is simply not supported by the facts.
The iPad is nowhere near killing off the desktop or Laptop, sales of both of which by the way are also down industry wide. I can’t see a future in my lifetime when I won’t want to own a desktop or laptop. Equally though you’re going to have to take my iPad out of my cold dead hands. It’s actually pretty much found it’s niche and is here to stay.
Of course, getting the metal can open in an airport, especially on the "secure" side where you'll have been relieved of any personal toolkit you might ordinarily carry, is a separate consideration - but in a real pinch, a house or car key will probably do, because all you really need to manage is to pry out the top bulkhead with the terminals. If you can do that, you can get the batteries out, twist them off their solder tabs, and use them.
Another potential issue is that NiMH cells seem to run at a somewhat lower voltage than alkalines do throughout the discharge curve. I'm not sure whether that would pose an issue for a device like this; while it probably sips power, it might have a large voltage drop, which could conceivably result in shorter operating time from a cell that runs at a lower voltage to begin with. Still, I'd say it's certainly worth a try.
(Edit: forgot link.)
[1] https://www.amazon.com/LUITON-Ni-MH-batteries-rechargeable-O...
https://www.aboveavalon.com/notes/2017/3/29/apple-is-pushing...
Diagram is about 2/3 down the page.
The only thing that I could desire is if Apple would revive iOS 6 and allow downgrading. It's awesome OS, much better than following releases for iPad 3. But, I guess, it won't happen.
They also have a very long service life. That's probably a big reason why the growth rate doesn't compare well to the iPhone. The upgrade cycle is like 5-6 years, not 1-2.
I've thought a lot about Steve Jobs' "cars vs trucks" analogy.[1] Personally I don't use the iPad much anymore, owing to the narrowing of the gap between my bigger phone and slimmer, all-flash Macbook. But although I work in tech I don't see my Mac as just a "truck". I prefer it for web browsing, email, writing, etc., all "car-like" things. If you had a car and a truck in the garage you probably wouldn't pick the truck to drive the kids to school.. but that's what I do with my Mac, metaphorically speaking.
So I would expand the analogy slightly. If iPads are cars and desktop computers are trucks, then Macbooks are the SUVs. Still a very appealing choice for regular non-industrial users who just want a bit more capability.
[1] http://allthingsd.com/20130109/steve-jobs-was-right-tablets-...
These things have survived three kids, I don't think we've had any other thing they've used live this long. Pretty darn impressive.
Mostly owned by douches who have no real need for one? I agree.