[HN Gopher] iPad Pro M1
___________________________________________________________________
iPad Pro M1
Author : tosh
Score : 304 points
Date : 2021-04-20 18:00 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.apple.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.apple.com)
| TickleSteve wrote:
| Countdown to someone forcing MacOS to the M1 iPad...
| peanut_worm wrote:
| Might as well be running MacOS with those specs
| cap10morgan wrote:
| I'm hoping this leads to an announcement of some kind of
| hypervisor support in iPadOS 15. I would imagine that would come
| at WWDC if it's coming. Seems like it would allow software
| development on the iPad while retaining app sandboxing.
| paxys wrote:
| When they announced it I was briefly excited at the prospect of
| finally seeing macOS on an iPad, but for some reason Apple
| continues to be stubborn about it.
| WORMS_EAT_WORMS wrote:
| If you have been passively reading about M1 and haven't had the
| chance to upgrade your Air or MBP, just know it's the real deal.
| I have never been happier with a laptop than this first
| generation M1 MBP.
|
| A little wild to think in -- poof! -- a single year we have gone
| to the Air, Mac Book Pro, iPad, and iMac sharing the SAME chip!
| Amazing, can't wait for the new iPhone...
| treespace88 wrote:
| Thanks I'm thinking about it. But is it good for ios
| development? It's the only thing holding me back right now.
| Currently on 2012 16 inch MBP.
| ancount wrote:
| M1 macs can run iOS apps natively, so I am guessing that the
| emulation for iOS development is a whole lot better. Sorry I
| can't really give you anything more concrete than that.
|
| I would wait until the fall, though, it is likely that there
| will be a 15+ inch MBP with a new apple chip.
| deergomoo wrote:
| I sold my nearly maxed out 16" MacBook Pro for an M1 Air. I
| hated the 16" with a passion, but the Air is my favourite
| computer I've ever owned.
|
| It sounds like a criticism, but the best thing about it is that
| it gives me absolutely no cause to ever think about it. I don't
| get irritated by it being burning hot and loud as hell because
| it's always cool and silent. I don't have to worry about
| battery life because it just lasts all day. I don't constantly
| bump stuff on the Touch Bar because it has actual function
| keys.
|
| It just gets the hell out of the way and lets me do my job.
| That would be enough, but it's also drastically faster than the
| 16" at literally everything I do day-to-day, which is nice.
| technics256 wrote:
| My biggest concern is the screen size. Does it get in the
| way?
| ianai wrote:
| It's a 13" display. You probably already know whether
| that's enough or not - the processor can't affect that.
| deergomoo wrote:
| I do miss having the extra screen space, but even 16" felt
| like a bit of a compromise compared to being docked with a
| 27" monitor.
|
| If you don't mind a little blurriness you can always run it
| at a higher scaling mode and get effectively the same
| screen space as the 16", just shrunk down. I go the
| opposite way--I'm willing to sacrifice space for perfect
| 1:1 pixel mapping.
| gordon_freeman wrote:
| care to share hardware specs of your M1 Air?
| lucasverra wrote:
| 16gb ram, base SSD. You cannot go wrong with that. Great
| machine I'm typing on this message
| ianai wrote:
| 16 gig and 512g ssd. It gets like 10% better ssd
| performance and the drive usage is less than reported for
| the 8 gig models.
| deergomoo wrote:
| Sure: 16" was 6-core i7, 32GB RAM, 512GB SSD, 5500M 4GB GPU
|
| Air is M1 with the 8-core GPU, 16GB RAM, 1TB SSD
| PragmaticPulp wrote:
| The M1 feels like magic in this power/thermal envelope.
|
| It's almost as fast as a top of the line desktop CPU in many
| tasks, but it accomplishes this in the envelope of a power
| efficient laptop.
|
| I'm looking forward to seeing what they can do with the larger
| MacBook Pro models.
| ttul wrote:
| This was indeed one of Apple's best moves ever. I've been
| happily using the M1 MacBook Air. So long as you steer clear of
| heavy apps that aren't M1-optimized, the battery life is insane
| and the device seems to make use of the high performance cores,
| which really scream.
|
| I am confident that the iMac will take advantage of that huge
| wedge of metal to dissipate heat even better than the laptops
| do. That will allow it to run all the cores all the time. My
| impression is people will be extremely happy with this
| hardware.
|
| I'm a total fanatic. I'll be dumping all my money into this new
| gear on April 30th.
| rvz wrote:
| From the grandparent comment:
|
| > I have never been happier with a laptop than this first
| generation M1 MBP.
|
| I always skip the first generation of any Apple product. The
| M1 adoption cycle was infested with hype and was somewhat a
| hacky process, especially for the developer software
| ecosystem, and it is still immature, un-optimised and still
| not ready. You still can't even use two monitors on the M1
| Macbook Air simultaneously which I can already do on my older
| Macbook.
|
| The M2 / M3 enabled Mac would be a more worthy upgrade,
| depending whether or not if they have addressed these issues
| rather than getting last years model.
|
| From the parent comment:
|
| > I'm a total fanatic. I'll be dumping all my money into this
| new gear on April 30th.
|
| I hope this is a joke right? Since I would rather dump that
| money on some cryptocurrency on April 30th, than dump it all
| on another beautiful expensive downgrade. At least wait until
| WWDC.
|
| To Downvoters: Given one already has a Macbook, I am in no
| rush to purchase either last years model or to purchase
| another shiny new one; especially if it is a first gen M1.
|
| The fanatics will say the same thing in WWDC and in September
| when they realise their 1st gen transition technology is
| already replaced. By then the software ecosystem for M1 is
| hopefully optimised and somewhat stabilised. Plenty of time
| to wait.
| staticfloat wrote:
| In case there's anyone out there with an M1 MBP that
| desperately wants multiple monitors, if you use a
| DisplayLink compatible external dock, something about the
| alternate driver that such a dock uses allows for multiple
| monitors. I personally use the Dell D6000 to run three
| external displays in addition to the built-in display off
| of my M1 MBP and it works quite well. You can see a list of
| DisplayLink docking stations here [0].
|
| [0] https://www.displaylink.com/products/universal-docking-
| stati...
| SXX wrote:
| Any chance that you know of any good dock station with 3
| HDMI ports? Since DP on my monitors is used by desktop
| GPU.
| dijit wrote:
| The hype so far is very well justified, though.
|
| There are issues, for sure, the "2 displays, max"
| limitation, the memory limitation, these are real problems-
| but they're not hidden away, they're well known and
| understood and if you can live with that then these are
| genuinely generational leaps in terms of performance/watt
| which _really matters_.
|
| Your negativity is misplaced, the machines limitations are
| well understood and the performance advantages known too.
|
| We don't know what M2/M1X will bring, but if you want huge
| performance wins _today_ and not hypothetically then the M1
| is delivering that.
| ttul wrote:
| I'm a little surprised that they didn't do an M2 chip for
| the iMac. However, perhaps they'll roll that out later
| this year with a 27" iMac refresh. In any case, the M1 is
| insanely fast and will be more than fantastic for most
| people.
| lofi_lory wrote:
| Have the USB-C PD issues been resolved? Like hubs frying the
| motherboard for some bad PD implementation?
| supernova87a wrote:
| Correct me if my layman's understanding is wrong, but the M1 in
| an iPad is not as significant a change as it was in the
| Macbook/Mini, isn't that correct?
|
| iPad was already using Apple's Arm A12/13 chip, etc so this is
| kind of incremental?
| joakleaf wrote:
| Geekbench: iPad Pro 12.9-inch (4th generation), A12z: Single-
| core: 1128, Multi-core: 4713
|
| MacBook Air, M1: Single-core: 1730, Multi-core: 7640
| jonplackett wrote:
| Wondered why they seemed fine with the iPad Air grabbing so many
| pro features. They had an M1 up their sleeve.
| nkotov wrote:
| I have the 12.9 iPad Pro (last generation now) and I really want
| to like but I can't - I keep going back to using a MBP.
| oddthink wrote:
| What do you find lacking in the iPad Pro? I'm curious, because
| I have a 12.3" pixel slate that I'm not a fan of, because it's
| too big to work well as a tablet (cumbersome to hold, etc.),
| and inconvenient to attach the somewhat-wobbly keyboard to it,
| so it feels like it works well for neither use-case. I'm sure
| the iPad software is better, but the size seems like a
| contradiction.
|
| My daily driver is my 16" MBP, and while I'm thinking of
| getting a plain-vanilla 10.2" iPad, I can't think of any cases
| where I'd want a bigger one.
| Zenst wrote:
| Hmmm Does this have Ethernet as standard without a dongle?
|
| Asking as I can't see any mention beyond under the Thunderbolt
| section in which it has "Configurable with Gigabit Ethernet"
| slapped about.
|
| Gigabit Ethernet! If that's the max then that will upset some for
| sure.
| technofiend wrote:
| Do you mean does it have an ethernet adapter? No according to
| the tech specs page: https://www.apple.com/ipad-pro/specs/
|
| Their marketing blurb mentions 10 gigabit ethernet is available
| over the thunderbolt port.
|
| _Thunderbolt supports 10Gbps Ethernet and opens up a massive
| ecosystem of high-performance accessories, like faster external
| storage and even higher resolution external displays, including
| the Pro Display XDR at full 6K resolution, all connected using
| high-performance cables and docks._
| denysvitali wrote:
| I don't like Apple at all, but I have to admit that HW-wise this
| iPad really looks interesting.
|
| Now, please Apple, keep the bootloader unlocked (or unlockable),
| let us install Asahi Linux (or any other distro, really) and I'll
| buy this thing.
| ihojman wrote:
| shouldn't HN have a gear/hardware section like ask HN or Hiring
| or show HN?
| DCKing wrote:
| The M1 has the necessary hardware to run virtualization. Apple
| _could_ decide to allow VMWare or Parallels to bring desktop
| virtualization software to the iPad. You could have an all-in-one
| device for casual use, note taking, art and media consumption
| that turns into a capable Linux desktop at will. There 's even
| 16GB RAM options available to make that reasonably comfortable,
| as well as a port to connect to a dock.
|
| But I don't think that matches with what Apple considers the iPad
| to be, so we won't see it. Especially because virtualization
| would imply virtualized macOS too. I bet it remains amazing
| hardware crippled by software flexibility - from my perspective
| at least. It's hardware I'd really want to buy but really can't
| justify.
|
| All the pieces are there in hardware, only limited by Apple's
| software choices. A shame, really.
| twobitshifter wrote:
| Is there a performance penalty with virtualization on the M1?
| markstos wrote:
| Based on what I've read about the Mac M1, it's hard to
| notice.
| saagarjha wrote:
| Usually about 10-25%, I've heard. Depends how often your
| workflow vmexits.
| _ph_ wrote:
| If it were possible to run Linux on the iPad Pro, I would
| upgrade in a heartbeat to a high-end configuration.
| KabirKwatra wrote:
| https://getutm.app
| _ph_ wrote:
| Impressive, but unfortunately not in the AppStore :(
| caleb-allen wrote:
| Same. I wouldn't need to give it a second thought. Such an
| amazing piece of hardware
| lofi_lory wrote:
| _If_ peripheral input works and networking and all. And
| 0.5-1TB storage is just expensive, not ridiculously
| expensive.
| nchase wrote:
| So do these things run Xcode and Terminal, or not?
| Austin_Conlon wrote:
| No shell access or Xcode.
| jaaron wrote:
| I haven't used it, but I've heard of others using Blink Shell
| [1] with Mosh [2] very effectively.
|
| [1] https://blink.sh/
|
| [2] https://mosh.org/
| Ancapistani wrote:
| I use Blink regularly, and it's great. The only issue is that
| the keyboard's Cmd button gets "stuck" in software sometimes.
| Blink added a modal to warn you to tap the key to fix it,
| nchase wrote:
| I _love_ Blink Shell on my iPad - it's great for connecting
| to other machines, and I've had some success setting up a dev
| environment in EC2. but what I really want is for my iPad to
| be a complete development environment.
| fastball wrote:
| macOS on iPad when?
|
| There isn't really a reason you _can 't_ do this, right?
| geoah wrote:
| Would be interesting to see if people will manage to run macos on
| this.
| R70YNS wrote:
| I don't think MacOS supports touch, yet.
| Toutouxc wrote:
| A moment of silence for the guys working on the MS Surface
| devices.
|
| There are still reasons to get the Surface instead of an iPad,
| but the M1 in an iPad sounds like a hit.
| jrockway wrote:
| Apple needs to do something about the software situation. You
| can write computer programs on a Surface. You can do CAD and
| play AAA games on a Surface. Windows, for all its flaws, does
| have a lot of software that targets it. Big things, and the
| long tail. iPad OS is rather limited.
|
| I have an older iPad Pro and I like it better than any laptop
| I've had. It doesn't have any configuration to tune, it doesn't
| require a 2 hour update every time you turn it on (like my
| Surface Pro did). But, you can't deny that it is limited; you
| have to SSH somewhere to do real work, and its hardware isn't
| exposed to web applications. (For example, it has a 120Hz
| display, but web apps can't use it.)
|
| Even with these limitations, it's still my favorite mobile
| device. For $20/month I have unlimited 4G anywhere in the
| country, and so sshing somewhere to do real work is no problem.
| (The whole pandemic thing really killed my desire to travel,
| though, so it just sits on a table until I use it to read a
| book or something.) But, there's no need to upgrade it; it's
| fast and the battery lasts forever. Only better software would
| make me want to upgrade, and it's not there yet. People still
| treat the iPad like a toy. I'm willing to treat it as a
| computer, but people that make software I use aren't quite
| there yet ;)
| fareesh wrote:
| When you can play DOTA2 on an iPad I'll be impressed
| FearlessNebula wrote:
| That seems very feasible
| georgeecollins wrote:
| Wow, as a Surface and an iPad owner I really disagree. The M1
| is great. But iOS means that the iPad is mostly a device for
| media consumption and maybe writing or drawing. It had all the
| power you need to do that with the A12.
|
| The surface can run JetBrains, Godot, Blender, a bunch of IDEs
| that make it useful as productivity device for a person in
| tech. Most people don't need that, so I am sure the iPad will
| sell great. But there is still a need for laptops/ tablets
| (whatever weird hybrid that is becoming) that are not locked
| down.
| paxys wrote:
| Until the iPad Pro gets a real desktop OS there will always be
| reason to buy a Surface.
| FearlessNebula wrote:
| Yep. M1 changes nothing for iPad, it has been limited by
| software not CPU for years now.
| monkmartinez wrote:
| No moment of silence needed. I have a iPad Pro 12.9 and its
| awesome for consuming content and drawing. For everything else
| there is a real computer. I can't use the iPad to program my
| Drone, or Run a CNC, or Play steam games, or link to the
| Oculus, or run VS Code, or use Fusion 360, or Run Linux or
| Windows VM's. Or, or... or ...
|
| I love my iPad, but it is very, very far from a good computer
| interface right now.
| Toutouxc wrote:
| > program my Drone, or Run a CNC, or Play steam games, or
| link to the Oculus, or run VS Code, or use Fusion 360, or Run
| Linux or Windows VM's
|
| But you don't have to use (and pay extra for) a Surface for
| that. I'm not saying the iPad is a computer. I'm saying that
| iPad is a touch+ink device superior to the Surface (most
| models of which are kinda mediocre computers IMO).
| monkmartinez wrote:
| You are right that I don't need a surface to perform
| general computing tasks. All I am saying is that, I could
| do those things with a Surface. I can not do those things
| with an iPad. The Surface line is is DEAD once you can run
| a desktop OS on an iPad. Heck, I would go so far to say
| that would be a redefining moment for computing in general.
| [deleted]
| varispeed wrote:
| > Committed to the Environment
|
| That section is just nasty and dishonest. It perpetuates an image
| of Apple as a company caring for environment, which isn't exactly
| true. They should at least be honest that their devices are
| artificially hard to repair, so that they can squeeze more money
| out of the consumer. If someone does not have money to pay Apple
| to repair the device, where it lands?
| andor wrote:
| Their stuff lasts though. iPhones don't get slower over time
| like Android phones inevitably do, and they get software
| updates for 5 years.
| nojito wrote:
| Right to repair has nothing to do with the environment.
|
| Additionally Apple supports their devices far longer than any
| other company.
| varispeed wrote:
| How so? Inability to extend the life of the device is
| environment neutral?
|
| Does Apple make parts available for their products? If you
| want to replace the charging chip, can you get it from Apple?
| Or do you need to take a bus, train, a car to go to Apple
| store, to have them then ship the entire device god knows
| where, to replace whole motherboard and then ship it back?
| How is that has nothing to do with environment?
| mimsee wrote:
| Reduce, reuse, recycle. And in this order. What can be fixed
| will not end up in a landfill somewhere.
| samatman wrote:
| Agreed!
|
| Apple products last longer than the competition. You can
| verify this in any manner you please: there is a robust
| aftermarket in everything Apple, and in _at least_ phones,
| laptops, and tablets, the Apple offering will last longer
| in the wild than comparable products from other companies.
|
| Perhaps the most virtuous thing is to _reduce_ tablets by
| not having one. But let 's say you want one, an iPad will
| be used by someone or other for ten years, an Android
| tablet... won't be.
| varispeed wrote:
| > there is a robust aftermarket in everything Apple, and
| in at least phones, laptops, and tablets, the Apple
| offering will last longer in the wild than comparable
| products from other companies.
|
| And these devices could last even longer if independent
| repair shops or users themselves could repair them.
| Unfortunately Apple has a habit of telling their
| suppliers to not sell parts to 3rd parties.
| samatman wrote:
| I wish I could agree!
|
| Modern electronic gizmos last as long as the underlying
| software is supported by the manufacturer. The bits are
| the first part that wear out, unless supplied by Apple.
|
| Having spent some time in southeast Asia, I can assure
| you that if you break the screen on your iPhone 5,
| someone can put a new one in for you. Good luck finding a
| sceen replacement for any contemporary phone: not that
| you would be carrying it, since the version of Android it
| would be running would be so out of date and insecure
| that the parasitic malware would render it unusable.
| ksubedi wrote:
| How long before MacOS and iPadOS have enough feature parity that
| they get merged?
| ilkkao wrote:
| My guess is that they prefer to sell more than one device to
| everybody, so not anytime soon.
|
| Really interested to hear Apple's excuse not allowing to run
| MacOS on M1 iPad pro with an external monitor and keyboard. The
| standard "optimized for different use case" argument doesn't
| make that much sense with that setup.
| masklinn wrote:
| > My guess is that they prefer to sell more than one device
| to everybody, so not anytime soon.
|
| Sharing the same OS never precluded people having both an
| iphone and an ipad.
| faitswulff wrote:
| They just split off iPadOS from iOS, so it seems unlikely.
| dbbk wrote:
| The change was purely around the marketing name. It's still
| the same "iOS" for both.
| balls187 wrote:
| I would expect an announcement during the next WWDC.
| charlesju wrote:
| You can already use iPadOS apps on MacOS with m1 right? So
| maybe that's why you would pay more for the Mac versus the
| iPad.
| hajile wrote:
| 1TB harddrive and 16GB of RAM puts the ipad at $1,800.
|
| Macbook Air with the same RAM/storage is about $1,600.
|
| If you want to compete, you need a $350 keyboard for the ipad
| which makes it a full $550 more expensive.
|
| As to tradeoffs, you get a better conferencing camera and
| touch on the ipad, but you get a better trackpad and two
| thunderbolt ports on the macbook.
| R70YNS wrote:
| Hopefully soon.
| paulpan wrote:
| I wonder even if that never comes to fruition, there'll be a
| "hackpad" that's essentially flashing/installing macOS onto an
| iPad Pro. Same M1 SOC hypothetically should be straightforward.
| LASR wrote:
| They are the same already. Just different user interfaces.
| masklinn wrote:
| Probably never.
|
| The divergence between macOS and ipadOS is not technical, it's
| that Apple believes a touch-oriented and a pointer-oriented
| interface are completely different things.
| [deleted]
| paxys wrote:
| Yet almost every marketing photo of the iPad Pro shows it
| with a keyboard + trackpad attachment.
| RandallBrown wrote:
| iPadOS, iOS, and tvOS are all the same operating system with
| different user interfaces.
|
| I think eventually macOS will be too.
| balls187 wrote:
| With BigSur, users can run ipad and iphone apps natively on
| an M1 mac.
|
| It's not a large stretch to see some overlap between allowing
| macOS features on a large screen mobile device.
| masklinn wrote:
| > It's not a large stretch to see some overlap between
| allowing macOS features on a large screen mobile device.
|
| It is in fact a rather large stretch. macOS allowing the
| larger targets of iPad applications is a rather different
| proposition than macOS's rather small targets being on
| touch devices.
| SahAssar wrote:
| ipadOS has pointer support and the preferred way to do
| pointer interactions on macOS seems to be touchpads (not
| mice), so the gap is definitely not as large anymore.
| masklinn wrote:
| > ipadOS has pointer support
|
| Yes, but it does not mandate a pointer.
|
| > the preferred way to do pointer interactions on macOS
| seems to be touchpads (not mice), so the gap is definitely
| not as large anymore.
|
| A touchpad is a pointer device with a similar level of
| precision and interaction as a mouse. One completely unlike
| touch.
| SahAssar wrote:
| > A touchpad is a pointer device with a similar level of
| precision and interaction as a mouse. One completely
| unlike touch.
|
| The main difference is if you aim by using a pointer on
| the screen or if you aim by touching what you want to
| interact with. Some things like gestures are basically
| the same (or could be).
| masklinn wrote:
| > The main difference is if you aim by using a pointer on
| the screen or if you aim by touching what you want to
| interact with.
|
| Yes. That is not a small difference. That is, in fact, a
| huge difference.
|
| The buttons on my phone are physically larger than those
| on my laptop's screen, yet they are significantly harder
| to hit reliably. Manipulating text remains a chore on
| touch device, except when those touch devices provide a
| pointer erzats (of which Apple removed a large part of
| the convenience when they broke selection support with
| the deprecation of 3D touch).
| oddity wrote:
| That might be part, but it's not the whole picture.
|
| The only way to put software on the iPad is through Apple's
| app store, which is a hill they seem awfully willing to die
| on. It's possible they give that up for the iPad but hold
| onto the iPhone, but that would weaken the PR value of their
| security argument.
|
| I've worked a full week away from an office using only VNC
| even before Apple added mouse support. It's fine. Touch-
| oriented vs Mouse-oriented is an odd philosophy to hold when
| it's used to oppose a workflow being somewhat supported vs
| not at at all.
| anonymouse008 wrote:
| I'd emphatically disagree.
|
| Touch and Pointer are different in emphasis not user intent.
| User Intent can span across device classes for different
| contexts -- i.e. jotting notes in a long form document in a
| meeting vs. at your laptop in private, all revolve around
| making progress on a text based deliverable.
|
| Before recent MacCatalyst developments, the UI libraries were
| on different continents with CC and UIKit. Now, the major
| differences are design limited, not API limited.
|
| UIMenuBuilder and UIHoverGestureRecognizer tells you most
| everything you need to know about how Apple is viewing the
| touch vs. pointer environment.
|
| https://developer.apple.com/documentation/uikit/uimenubuilde.
| ..
|
| https://developer.apple.com/documentation/uikit/uihovergestu.
| ..
| ksubedi wrote:
| While that makes sense, Apple's recent changes with the iPad
| Keyboard case adding a trackpad makes me think that they
| might have something else brewing for the long term. Time
| will tell, but I would love to see more MacOS applications
| like XCode become available on the iPad.
|
| Edit: Also the fact that MacOS has been changing the UI to
| make it more touch friendly, for example: new control center.
| jolux wrote:
| Plus the Big Sur interface changes seem to be touch-
| oriented. They made a lot of pointer targets much bigger
| than they used to be, and added a new special window type
| for modals.
| astrange wrote:
| https://sixcolors.com/link/2020/11/craig-federighi-says-
| touc...
| jolux wrote:
| Sure, but it's not really like Craig would say "yeah,
| touchscreen Macs are coming eventually, and this redesign
| is preparing for that" if they were. Apple doesn't do
| that. What I would glean from this is that they're not
| coming soon, and it's probably not going to be a
| conventional "add a touch screen to an existing
| interface" type deal. At the very least it leaves the
| option open for them here.
| rumori wrote:
| Quite honestly I don't think Xcode is ready for the iPad.
| It's a complicated software that has a lot of bugs that has
| to be fixed manually a lot of times by accessing or
| clearing files directly. I'm pretty sure they have a
| version of it already running on the iPad but the workflow
| or software quality is just no there yet. However if
| SwiftUI becomes the standard I can imagine an Xcode light
| as a starting point with way less panels and options.
| Foivos wrote:
| If the kernel is the same, I imagine at some point it is
| going to happen.
| Toutouxc wrote:
| I don't think it's about features, but mostly about the input
| methods. Until this day we (as a society) haven't found a way
| to combine pointer based and touch based UIs in a single
| product in a way that at least one of them doesn't suck hard.
| mlindner wrote:
| Apple has repeatedly denied that whenever it's come up. MacOS
| and iPadOS are completely different platforms with different
| goals.
| [deleted]
| ilyas121 wrote:
| If it could just port current CAD software, I would buy it in a
| heart beat. I don't want to have to learn new CAD software like
| Shapr.
| tristanb wrote:
| Text selection, and IOS keyboard autocorrect will forever fuck
| this platform until they fix it. Autocorrect on my IOS device is
| so dam bad now. "Fir" instead of "for" - no manner of resetting
| dictionaries will fix it. Think you can catch it? Well IOS will
| re-write the whole sentence for you when it thinks it knows the
| context resulting in utter garbage being output.
|
| Using mail on IOS? Try clicking on a red underlined word to see
| the spelling correction. Its impossible. Its seriously so dam bad
| is embarrassing and ruins a very capable platform.
| kjjjjjjjjjjjjjj wrote:
| Why do they give it so much power if it can't really do much? Its
| still just an ancillary device for youtube, some presentations,
| maybe some very light workloads. You can't even code on it!
| suyash wrote:
| I have an iPad with Apple Pencil, thought I would use it but
| hardly ever. Don't think I need or have time between Laptop and
| Smartphone.
| Austin_Conlon wrote:
| What kinds of iPadOS workflows benefit from this most? The device
| never seemed lacking in performance.
| afpx wrote:
| I have the previous version with the keyboard, and I love it as
| a general tablet. I use it for writing down ideas, reading, and
| an occasional game. But, there's nothing in this new model that
| seems to be worth upgrading for.
|
| I could never see my iPad Pro as a workstation replacement. Is
| that what they plan on doing? I don't see the benefit.
| charlesju wrote:
| Maybe it's not even about more performance, it's simply about
| economics of scale. It's cheaper to just make more m1 chips
| than to create a new process to create a worse m1-mobile
| version. Paradoxically you might get more speed for less cost.
| hajile wrote:
| Their entire current lineup has all 8 cores plus 7 or 8 GPU
| cores too.
|
| I was thinking that they'd sell a 6-core M1 in the AppleTV,
| but I guess that's not happening and the package is too big
| to go in a phone. Given their die size and even amazing
| return rates, there are hundreds of thousands of m1 chips
| that simply aren't being used. That seems like a lot of waste
| for a company that talks about going green. Maybe they have
| another project in the works.
| heresaPizza wrote:
| I agree with the ones below who say that it's because of
| economy of scale, but I also think they made this choice
| because we'll see more at the WWDC and in the next years. Apple
| keeps saying the iPad is a computer, when in fact it isn't. But
| the iPad is capable of many things the Mac can't do. It has the
| pencil, it can become more portable when used alone, it has 5G,
| cameras, the lidar and more. As long as they can sell both,
| they'll keep doing it, but I think at some point 13" Macs (at
| least the Air and the cheapest Pro) will be replaced by the
| iPad, when it will have a better software. After the Apple
| Silicon announcement many choices started making sense, and in
| a similar way this iPad will be a way to test in which
| direction the computer market will take.
| vmladenov wrote:
| Lightroom is still sluggish on current gen
| f6v wrote:
| You can run drawing apps on it in conjunction with Pencil.
| Those could benefit from increased power if you're working with
| many layers.
| baby wrote:
| My thoughts as well, I freaking love my iPad pro and it already
| is good enough at anything I throw it. I reminds me of the
| iPhone 6s which I kept for like 5 years, until recently where
| the scheduled obsolescence forced me to change phone.
| oneplane wrote:
| I suppose it's not as much a major change but more like an
| upgrade or evolution to get feature parity. If it turns out you
| can make more devices use a SoC you already have you can scale
| up production of that SoC and get the benefit of scale.
| dangwu wrote:
| I agree. Are there really that many people using iPads for high
| performance video/audio editing? Everyone I know uses their
| iPad as a video player or recipe displayer.
| samatman wrote:
| Probably doesn't qualify as "high performance", I've done
| video editing which stitches together a few 4K video sources.
| Gen 3 handles it without any stutter, lag, or heat.
|
| I see no compelling reason to upgrade, but also, I didn't
| expect to. This just means that people who get an iPad Pro
| will now get a nicer one. Good for them.
| vlozko wrote:
| Isn't that where the regular iPad and iPad Air come in? I
| know a couple of graphic designers that could get by with the
| regular, consumer iPads but the Pro is far more ideal for
| them.
| submeta wrote:
| I ended up using my iPad Pro 2018 as a third screen (via Airplay)
| below my 4k monitor. My MBP sits on the left. It's an excellent
| setup running iTerm on the iPad screen, calendar or email on the
| MBP screen and editor / IDE on the 4k display.
|
| Other than that I use the iPad Pro for occasional couch surfing.
| iOS is just too limited to use the iPad Pro for pro use-cases.
|
| Would love to have macOS on the iPad though. Sometimes I connect
| the iPad to my MBP via Airplay and do some coding on it (using
| macOS with a full keyboard / mouse) in another room, away from my
| desk.
| IkmoIkmo wrote:
| I think the real question is, suppose they make this thing 10x as
| fast, with 10x as much storage, and 5x the pixel density, 5x the
| max brightness, unlimited battery life.
|
| Would I get one (at >$1k)? The answer is likely no, unless it's
| very cheap.
|
| It's an absolutely lovely little device to have laying around on
| the coffee table / couch, to read the Economist, turn on some
| music, watch a Netflix episode. But not at the price levels it's
| at.
|
| I can easily do without it, because it's still not replacing my
| iPhone or Macbook.
|
| It's great to see the innovation because these features will be
| part of the $300 entry level iPad in 5 years. But the added value
| just doesn't seem to be there for me to be an early adopter of
| the latest Pro models. All the improved features don't really
| help me read the news any better or stream a show any better. And
| while I'm happy to pay $1500 for a Macbook due to its deep
| functionality, I'm only willing to pay a few hundred for a
| consumption device like the iPad.
|
| I feel the iPad is kind of getting squeezed by a much improved
| bigger iPhone and smaller and better Macbook. The last iPhone
| screen is 75% larger than the iPhone 4, making lots of
| consumption in an iOS interface doable. The Macbook Airs are
| powerful, slim, great battery life, lightweight. There's the
| Apple TV / Smart TVs for watching shows. For me I either have to
| be way to rich to care, or the iPad to be so cheap that it's
| worth having on the side.
| ISL wrote:
| Are there official specifications for the bit-depth of the new
| display?
| nickysielicki wrote:
| My read: Apple has a disconnect between their product refreshes
| and the internal development on their M1 SoCs. They knew they
| weren't going to tackle Thunderbolt for the first gen of the M1
| macbooks, but now the internal development has caught up enough
| and they're in a position where they _have_ to refresh the iPad.
| So, of course, they put the new SoC into the refresh.
|
| Is thunderbolt relevant to the iPad? Their video really tried to
| sell it, I don't really buy it. It's not like, "Oh, I would have
| used Photoshop on the iPad, but the transfer speeds are too slow
| so I guess I'll get something else." That's not to say that it
| isn't welcome, just that it's not a big deal for this particular
| product.
|
| The MacBooks and the new iMacs on the other hand, yeah --
| thunderbolt is a huge deal over there. Apple's 2nd gen ARM
| laptops should scare the hell out of all their competition.
| Synaesthesia wrote:
| The first gen M1 devices have thunderbolt.
| nickysielicki wrote:
| Thanks for correcting me on this. You're right, they have TB3
| (and just not TB4). I was confused and thought they just had
| USB-C.
|
| My read above is just wrong.
| [deleted]
| no1youknowz wrote:
| Anyone remember the Ubuntu Edge? [0]
|
| Perhaps with todays announcement, a bit into the future we will
| see a new class of phone that unfolds into a tablet and even
| docks to a screen with accompanying magic keyboard and trackpad.
|
| I know, it's a real shame that I am probably dreaming. But Apple
| will probably never release a similar phone as it'll cannibalise
| one of the other products.
|
| Maybe someone can prod shuttleworth again and see if the time for
| this idea can be realised? I'm sure soon it will be.
|
| I also hope that this trend of arm minimization can continue so
| an idea like morph [1] will one day be come also.
|
| [0] - https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/ubuntu-edge
|
| [1] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IX-gTobCJHs
| andor wrote:
| Samsung phones can do that:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samsung_DeX
|
| Samsung even offered a full Ubuntu desktop for the phones, but
| stopped supporting it rather quickly.
| indymike wrote:
| I sometimes plug in my Android Phone to a USB-C dock (with a
| keyboard, mouse and monitor) and use it like a desktop.
| Android has a desktop mode that is actually surprisingly
| nice. It's like Dex, but doesn't do the remote desktop via
| USB thing... It just displays on the monitor.
| Tiktaalik wrote:
| This thing being absurdly powerful is cool and all, but when the
| hell am I gonna be able to code on it?
|
| I know this thing is wildly changing workflows for creatives on
| the art and design side. Let's shake up coding too!
| FearlessNebula wrote:
| How to code on an iPad: step 1, remote into a Linux box. Jokes
| aside, there is a Python IDE but that's it as far as I know.
| thrwawayrbags wrote:
| But can it mine crypto?
|
| (I feel inadequate to be the first one to ask the question, but
| the discombobulation I felt at its absence overwhelmed me.)
| damsta wrote:
| Is 8GB of unified memory enough for a such machine?
| samuelroth wrote:
| Yes. Definitely.
| ksubedi wrote:
| It's overkill since most iPadOS apps are not optimized for more
| memory.
| masklinn wrote:
| The previous generation maxed at 6, so probably.
|
| Although note that it maxes at 16, not 8. But the RAM you get
| is linked to the SSD size for some reason:
|
| > 8GB RAM on models with 128GB, 256GB, or 512GB storage
|
| > 16GB RAM on models with 1TB or 2TB storage
| julienb_sea wrote:
| I have a 2018 iPad Pro and it still feels wildly overpowered. I
| can't really see myself upgrading for a newer chip. They need to
| further improve on the software to make it more realistic as a
| high performance work environment. Until then, I'll continue
| using laptops, and my iPad will remain primarily for web browsing
| and media consumption.
| advpetc wrote:
| It just feels like an iMac with touch screen to me, and the price
| is on par with an iMac
| smasher164 wrote:
| To me, it doesn't matter how powerful the iPad is if the software
| experience is subpar. Multitasking is cumbrous enough that it
| might as well not exist, multi-display setups can only mirror at
| a fixed aspect ratio, it lacks multiple user profiles requiring a
| family to be under a single user, and the few apps that take
| advantage of the keyboard/trackpad are nowhere similar to their
| desktop counterparts.
|
| Take Excel for example. Try right-clicking on a cell or dragging
| down a formula, and you'll see that it only picks it up a
| fraction of the time, and you have to click multiple times with
| gesture-like latencies in between to get it to work.
| Grustaf wrote:
| I personally think multitasking works great, but I guess that's
| subjective. The claim about external screens is not true
| though, as a developer you can put anything you want on an
| external screen, mirroring is just the fallback behaviour.
|
| Almost all apps obviously take advantage of the keyboard, and
| 100% of apps where it makes sense. The trackpad can also be
| used in all apps, although it is true that not all apps are
| optimised for it yet, but all standard UI elements support it
| automatically.
|
| Not sure why you'd expect iPad apps to be similar to the
| desktop variants, it seems that would be pretty pointless no?
| You might not like the iPad UX, but many people prefer it.
| f6v wrote:
| I'm still skeptical that Apple wants it to be a general-purpose
| computer.
| hnburnsy wrote:
| Remember the Apple ad with the little girl who replies...
| 'What's a computer?' The ad ended with the tag line...
|
| "Imagine what your computer could do if it was an iPad Pro".
| FridayoLeary wrote:
| disappointingly limited, it turns out.
| smasher164 wrote:
| If you look at it in the abstract, using a computer is
| equivalent to programming it (ad-hoc), whether the
| computation and memory live in your head, on a clipboard, or
| in some app. If the whole "low-code"/visual programming trend
| is any indication, we need to collectively raise the power of
| tools and narrow the gap between usage and programming.
|
| Apple should be trying to empower users with safe
| abstractions, not lock them down even more.
| roody15 wrote:
| It doesn't. It is more a consumer console than personal
| computer IMO
| intergalplan wrote:
| Personally, if they make it a general-purpose computer, I'll
| be eagerly waiting for them or someone else to create the
| next iPad. It's already gone too far that way, IMO--I like it
| as a slab of smart glass that can become, entirely, a whole
| bunch of different, separate, specific tools, not as yet
| another complex, generic, multi-tasking computer. In that
| respect, it's mostly been going downhill since iOS 6, IMO, as
| far as the OS interface and behavior.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| Why can't it let you just choose which experience you want?
| intergalplan wrote:
| I like it better if 100% of the software on the device
| operates under the same constraints, so the developer of
| some app that I really need/want can't decide "no, you
| need to be in desktop-alike mode for this to run, because
| I just don't feel like dealing with tablet mode". It's
| basically the same problem as allowing multiple app
| stores, in that it'd fragment the experience and leave me
| having to choose between "do what the developer of this
| app wanted, which isn't what I wanted" and "don't have
| the app". I prefer that everyone has to deliver software
| the same way, under the same constraints, for
| predictability and user control of their environment
| (that is, I want the device to work like a traditional
| tablet, period, so I prefer that developers _have to_
| treat it that way, as it results in the device always
| working the way I want it to, for _all_ software that
| runs on it)
|
| And in fact, I can currently choose the experience I want
| if I decide I want a typical multitasking desktop--by
| putting down the iPad and going over to a Mac (or Linux,
| or Windows, or FreeBSD machine, or whatever). Or, to
| extend the "I like a tablet that _becomes_ things,
| modally " way of thinking about it, by putting the iPad
| in Remote Desktop mode and connecting over VNC or SSH or
| RDP to a traditional desktop or server.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| As I wrote the above comment, I was thinking along a
| similar line of thought re: "no, you need to be in
| desktop-alike mode for this to run."
|
| I do agree that this is an issue, but I wonder how much
| of one. I feel like there is quite a bit of inertia
| behind iOS style "apps" right now that a sizable mass
| userbase will not use your service if it is a desktop-
| style interface, because that sort of interface is
| unfamiliar to them.
|
| Only for very niche apps would you be able to survive on
| desktop app alone. Many fo those niche uses would be
| geared towards power-users who are likely more used to a
| desktop environment.
| f6v wrote:
| We tried to build a universal app for two sides of a job
| board once. The app offered different workflows depending
| on whether you're a job seeker or a recruiter. Man,
| managing that UX- and code-wise was a pain the ass.
| Imagine doing that for the whole OS.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| This is a common workflow? two views talking to the same
| backend.
| drewzero1 wrote:
| I think that's what Windows 8 was going for, to be able
| to choose between a tablet experience and a desktop
| experience based on which app you use. The problem was
| that they pushed the app experience too hard without a
| clear option to choose between the modes. Win 10 has
| walked this back pretty well, but I still find myself
| using desktop apps 99% of the time (even when using the
| Surface as a tablet).
| tyingq wrote:
| I don't know that it would have to be a full general-purpose
| computer. For the most part, if they found a way for Xcode to
| run on an iPad, I feel like MacOS would be (eventually,
| slowly) doomed.
| f6v wrote:
| iPad is a "computer" for people who just browse internet,
| watch YouTube and play games. Bringing the whole macOS
| experience to iPad would be a distracting endeavour IMO.
| Yeah, it'd be dope for some people, but the number of those
| people is overestimated.
| swiley wrote:
| This is something I've been saying: Try cloning and building
| even a moderate project from github on iSH on the latest iThing
| with Apple silicon and compare the same on a pinephone with a
| decade old budget SoC.
|
| One will get painfully hot and visibly tick through a large
| fraction of the battery while not letting you look at anything
| else or look away from the screen without killing the 10s of
| minutes long operation while the other just does what you
| asked, does it quickly, and lets you do other things (on the
| phone or not) while it's working. And of course if there's
| something you don't like about the OS you can just change it
| _on the phone._ No need for some crazy setup process even to
| modify system software /configurations.
|
| You might say it's not fair because iSH isn't running natively
| but it's your only choice on the iPhone.
|
| EDIT: to be clear: even just running git clone on an iPhone in
| iSH can take upwards of 20 minutes and chew through ~20% of the
| battery on normal sized repos.
| camillomiller wrote:
| Peak Hacker News. Comparing an iPad Pro with a Pinephone to
| do something 99.9% of iPad Pro target audience wouldn't even
| know the meaning of.
| lofi_lory wrote:
| How is that different from any other computer?
|
| Point is, the limitation is software. Even an extremely
| underpowered niche toy beats the iPad in a common,
| intuitive task for such a device.
| jshen wrote:
| I hear this argument a lot, but I don't buy it. Let's flip
| it around, 99% of people will want to do something with
| their computer that will turn out to be a giant pain in the
| ass with an ipad compared to a mac or windows laptop.
|
| If you had a friend/relative that didn't have much money,
| and was asking you for advice about which "computer" to get
| and they can only have one. Would you recommend an ipad?
| There is no chance I would recommend an ipad in this
| context.
|
| Jobs liked to describe computers as bicycles for the mind.
| The ipad is a unicycle for the mind.
| camillomiller wrote:
| No, and you know what, neither would Apple, otherwise
| they wouldn't offer M1 Macs. The mistake is that everyone
| thinks Apple wants its product to be everything, just
| because their marketing tends to encompass and emphasize
| bold claims of universality. The reality is that Apple
| knows pretty well its segmentation. The Pro in the iPad
| Pro is the same Pro of the iPhone, it simply doesn't mean
| what the average hackernews reader thinks it means. The
| Pro is a videographer, a photographer, an influencer, a
| consultant and so on. In general, a subset of the
| creative professions or someone that needs a slick device
| to show its presentations on. I'm lucky enough to review
| tech products for a living and I've been through the last
| seven generations of iPads. iPad Pro is a product of its
| own league. It's perfect for low-distraction pro tasks
| like writing, for example, with light research on the
| side, but it's absolutely the best device I've ever used
| for professional photography workflows. I have, indeed,
| suggested to many photographers to absolutely buy the
| iPad Pro, as it's simply a game changer. The quality of
| the screen paired with the speed of the the AXX chips is
| unrivaled on Macs, unless you spend quite some money to
| buy a Eizo monitor or some other professional device. So
| here's a simple "Pro" definition that in my book is way
| more effective at explaining why the iPad Pro does not
| need to be what so many users here think it should be.
| smasher164 wrote:
| I agree that the target market might be different.
| However, even though multimedia workflows work pretty
| well on the iPad, some of the same restrictions that
| apply to development apply there.
|
| For example, there's no notion of rendering a video in
| the background, organizing project files independent of
| the application, a plugin ecosystem for creative
| software, and proper IPC between these apps. So even
| though the market is different, there's still a lot to be
| done to come close to desktop editing workflows.
| swiley wrote:
| If you're not going to do anything where performance
| matters why pay a premium for it?
| foldr wrote:
| Video and photo editing are common iPad Pro use cases
| where performance matters.
| justaguy88 wrote:
| I always assumed that safari/youtube/netflix were the
| common use cases. Do numerically many people actually
| video/photo editing on these devices to make it "common"?
| rahoulb wrote:
| I do all my audio editing on the iPad. And I generate
| artwork (generally by mangling stock photos) on there. I
| also do a little bit of video editing but not enough to
| count it as a common use case.
|
| It has a great screen, it's very fast, it has built in 4G
| and the single tasking nature also makes it my favourite
| tool for writing (including coding, if I don't have to do
| UI work as well).
|
| For me, it's definitely a creation device and one of my
| favourite computers of all time.
|
| It's also infuriating because it could do so much more -
| but as soon as it starts multi-tasking properly it will
| lose some of its strengths. Same goes for the magic
| keyboard - I use it a lot but the utility of it has to be
| balanced by the fact that it turns it into a laptop,
| which is something it's not.
| breakfastduck wrote:
| Do you really think apple would be making pro level
| devices for that exact purpose if people werent?
| armadsen wrote:
| I make a (good) living working as an iOS developer on the
| video editing app (LumaFusion) shown several times in
| today's event. We have a very solid userbase, including
| plenty of people using it for professional work. Apple
| chose to use the app as a featured example in marketing
| the new iPad. To me, that's all evidence that video/photo
| editing is indeed a "common" use case for these devices.
|
| Anecdotally, these days my wife (an artist) does digital
| painting and photo editing exclusively on her iPad Pro
| because she prefers the software available there combined
| with the Apple pencil.
| camillomiller wrote:
| Yes, absolutely. In photography circles the iPad Pro is
| regarded as an amazing device that offers performance and
| color quality that you won't be able to achieve even with
| expensive desktop monitors. Also, for the professional
| photographer, whose average rig is probably worth at
| least 20 to 50k depending on what they do, a 2000$ tablet
| with these characteristics is a steal.
| Applejinx wrote:
| Well, now, that's interesting. I legitimately did not
| know that, even though I own three Blackmagic PCC4k video
| cameras and take quite an interest in 'playback
| technology', whether audio or imagery. I do know that my
| horrifyingly over-expensive iMac Pro has a good screen,
| but not Pro Display XDR good. I'd assumed the iPads were
| basically consumer grade.
|
| So the iPad Pro actually does make sense for color timing
| and proofs and working in DaVinci Resolve etc? If the
| display is relevant for this, damn straight giving it a
| good CPU is going to matter.
|
| People are going to be doing serious video color
| correction work on these things. I certainly won't... but
| it's going to start looking very compelling for that
| audience.
| breakfastduck wrote:
| The screen is honestly amazing. Puts everything else in
| its field (and most pc / laptop monitors) to shame.
| drewzero1 wrote:
| As far as I can tell, those would better describe the use
| cases for the plain old iPad, whereas the iPad Pro is
| meant to be used for more content creation in addition to
| those things.
|
| I've been a little confused about Apple's product lineup
| the last decade; does anybody else miss the foursquare
| grid of consumer/pro and desktop/portable?
| filleduchaos wrote:
| Haven't you heard? Programming is the only "pro" or
| performance-intensive thing that exists.
|
| I don't even understand why programmers are always so up
| in arms about devices like the iPad. Why on earth does
| one want to program on a handheld touchscreen device
| anyway? I have zero expectations for that, much like I
| have zero expectations for the laptop I do program on to
| be a good drawing device.
| intergalplan wrote:
| I don't get the huge blind spot there, either, and it's
| pervasive on here every time the iPad comes up.
|
| "I can't boot an OpenBSD VM on it so it must only be for
| watching YouTube, for sheeple consumers, not godlike
| 'creators' like me".
|
| Meanwhile it's _plainly_ great for all kinds of creation-
| oriented activities, especially where the real-world
| meets the digital. The sensors are great. Pencil is
| great. It 's a really good companion-tool for all kinds
| of real-world work, better than a laptop (though actually
| iPhones often beat both iPads and "real" computers, in
| that regard, just because of the form factor) Plus it's
| got some damn good, often-interactive educational apps,
| some of which work better on a tablet than they would
| anywhere else. Much the hell better for several of those
| things than any laptop running a "real OS for Serious
| Work".
|
| But no, it's just a Netflix console for drooling morons,
| because you can't easily HAX0R it to replace the lock
| screen with a port of DOOM, since if you can't do that
| then it must not be any use for creating things. Give me
| a break.
| camillomiller wrote:
| Amen.
| pjmlp wrote:
| Don't forget only UNIX guys are programmers, the rest of
| us using XCode and similar tooling are just muggles.
| yellowapple wrote:
| Well yeah, you are. We _real_ programmers program by
| fabricating our own NMOS transistors and wiring them
| together by hand.
| throwawayboise wrote:
| > Try cloning and building even a moderate project from
| github on iSH on the latest iThing with Apple silicon
|
| OK but you are describing something that 99.8% of iThing
| owners will never do.
| swiley wrote:
| sharing and building code is an important aspect of
| computing and making computers fundamental to people's
| lives while working to make them difficult to understand is
| very wrong. They don;t do it _partly because it 's so
| unpleasant_.
| breakfastduck wrote:
| You're just not living in the real world.
|
| My mum is never going to care about being able to compile
| a repo from github on her ipad. Neither are 90%+ of the
| userbase. The developers interested in the platform use a
| mac.
| rchaud wrote:
| Watch a commercial for the iPad. It is not marketed as a
| computing device, to do CLI programming or spreadsheets
| on. It's selling points are stuff like Procreate and
| Lightroom...both 'work' apps but for the 'creative
| economy'.
|
| That being said, an executive at my company swears by the
| iPad Pro and he only ever uses it as a remote desktop
| device to log into his Citrix Windows environment.
| theshrike79 wrote:
| I'm a computer nerd at heart, and I've _never_ wanted to
| pull a repository or compile a project with a phone.
| Ever.
|
| (Ok, there was this one time with a Nokia N900, but it
| was just a phase =) )
| whimsicalism wrote:
| They will likewise also not care about the increased
| computational power here.
| jacobmischka wrote:
| Based on the way you phrased this I'm legitimately unsure
| which one gets painfully hot and which one does what you ask
| in your example.
| busymom0 wrote:
| I hope they are making these changes in order to take iPad into
| MacOS direction. Based on MacOS big sur UI changes (icons are
| now rounded corner iPad like, menu bar has more spacing and
| iPad like controls etc), I think they are prepping for it.
| notJim wrote:
| For me the overall experience just doesn't work as a
| productivity device. The gestures to multitask are too complex.
| Every edge and corner has a different meaning, and swiping does
| several different things depending on direction.
|
| It's not natural to have your monitor and keyboard super close
| together, and to have your monitor sitting directly on a desk.
|
| It's not comfortable to poke a semi-vertical touchscreen over a
| long period of time where you have to support your whole arm
| while also making precise movements with your fingers.
|
| Fingers are not precise enough to interact with basic elements
| like text fields and buttons.
|
| I'm sitting here at my desk with its large monitor on an arm,
| mechanical keyboard and precision mouse and appreciating the
| years of thought that went into making this setup work. I think
| there is a possibility of something better with an iPad like
| device, but Apple would need to be far more ambitious than
| they've been so far.
| deergomoo wrote:
| > It's not comfortable to poke a semi-vertical touchscreen
| over a long period of time where you have to support your
| whole arm while also making precise movements with your
| fingers.
|
| To be fair I think Apple knows this too, which is why
| trackpad/mouse support is now a first class feature rather
| than an accessibility option.
|
| And also probably why they have never released touch Macs.
| enos_feedler wrote:
| Productivity takes many shapes and forms. The use cases
| highlighted in the video were about capturing video podcasts,
| rendering previews in the field, etc. you can be productive
| without fitting into the traditional mold of productive
| computing. Thats what ipad is after.
| jshen wrote:
| ipad's limitations are arbitrary and have no strong reason
| to exist. I've been an apple fan for years, and bought my
| first PC in nearly 20 years recently because I shouldn't
| have to buy two very expensive apple devices (a mac, and an
| ipad) to cover all of my use cases.
| enos_feedler wrote:
| If ipad's limitations were arbitrary they wouldn't exist.
| The product design is shaped by the use cases it
| optimizes for. This is no different than saying a GPU has
| arbitrary limitations for running general C++ code. In
| some sense yes, you could make a single thread c++
| compiler target the GPU, but 1) it wouldnt fit the design
| well and 2) changing the design to make it work well
| would mess up the original intended use case.
| indymike wrote:
| The limitations were born of hardware weaknesses when
| mobile devices were brought to market. The do seem
| arbitrary now, but they made sense 10 years ago. Those
| hardware weaknesses are long gone (it's not just Apple
| Silicon that is blazing fast in ARM land). Maybe it's
| time to rethink the whole mobile OS thing.
| jshen wrote:
| That's fair, arbitrary wasn't the right word. They were
| chosen for the use case of a smart phone, not a general
| purpose computer. People pretending that they are
| reasonable for a general purpose computer are missing the
| boat IMO.
|
| But some things are arbitrary. For example, only allowing
| one web browser engine is 100% arbitrary (or worse, an
| abuse of monopoly power).
| enos_feedler wrote:
| MacOS allows arbitrary web browser engines, yet I just
| use safari. My mac has never felt less like a general
| purpose computer because of this. How is this related?
| enos_feedler wrote:
| Yes those people are missing the boat. We don't have to
| worry about them though. Let'em suffer the pain of
| ignorance ;)
| lazide wrote:
| It's been gratifying to see I'm not the only one with
| these issues! That said, lineage wise the limitations and
| issues aren't arbitrary - iPadOS is basically a slightly
| upsized clone of iOS, and just like you wouldn't be using
| your phone for precision data/pointing (or if you were it
| wouldn't be as buy a deal, because you'd just be using a
| finger/thumb and not reaching across a keyboard), the
| original nature of iPad interactions are similar.
|
| Obviously seeing some improvements, but for instance
| copying 50GB of high precision photos (without
| potentially mangling them/importing them because it's a
| dataset not a bunch of snapshots!) is a terrible
| experience in iPadOS - and a trivial exercise in every
| laptop/pc OS out there.
|
| They've got a long way to go, unfortunately, especially
| for enterprise use cases. The hardware really has
| potential though!
| jshen wrote:
| yeah, I love the limitations in ios for my phone, but not
| for my computer!
| emsy wrote:
| Exactly, the Mac has very biased defaults but is open to
| customization. The iPad is very biased period. It's
| ,,you're using it wrong" taken to the extreme. The device
| should work for the user. Every time I see a convoluted
| iPad remote webdev setup I can't help but think the user
| is working for the device. (I have the same feeling
| towards using VIM as a general purpose IDE. It works but
| requires much more work than, say, using VSCode with a VI
| plug-in).
| boardwaalk wrote:
| Yeah, I saw this announcement and was thinking, "Why do I need
| more power?" coming from a 2018 iPad Pro. All this power is
| _cool_ , but, the design of iPadOS is just not conducive to me
| wanting to get anything done on it. I know that's ambiguous and
| hand wavey. Part of it is certainly the multitasking. Part of
| it is the keyboard. Part of it is no local Unix or build tools
| or good code editor. Yeah, I can SSH into another machine, even
| using mosh on a local network so it feels entirely local. But
| given the choice I'll bounce and use my Macbook or desktop
| instead and I always make that choice because I'm not in an
| iPad vacuum.
|
| It seems like they have _everything_ lined up to put MacOS on
| the iPad, but it would be so unlike them to do it. What'll they
| say, you can dual boot but you only boot MacOS if you have
| their expensive keyboard case attached? They wouldn't do that.
|
| Maybe someone will hack it on there eventually. An M1 MacOS on
| an M1 iPad "hackintosh" doesn't seem impossible.
| 2muchcoffeeman wrote:
| Did you see the new iMac? It's just a huge tablet now.
|
| 12.9 inch iPad is starting to look like a 12 inch MacBook.
| All you need is the OS upgrade.
|
| It going to be really interesting to see if/how/when they
| unify their entire ecosystem.
| barrenko wrote:
| I view Apple devices as devices for developers AND artists.
| Sometimes artists are better served.
| pkulak wrote:
| Even the hardware isn't ideal for MacOS though. I don't want
| top-heavy laptops with all the hardware behind the screen. I
| want an actual laptop... like the MacBook.
| ideamotor wrote:
| Apple should let users alternate between iOS and macOS on
| this device. They should also enable touch on the iMac and
| let users run iOS on that as well.
| brundolf wrote:
| I would've thought this was a really silly notion until
| now, when they're not just running on similar chips but on
| the _same_ chip.
| LaSombra wrote:
| I do not doubt that this may become a thing in the future
| whimsicalism wrote:
| Agreed. They can already support mice, why can't I just use
| it as a computer when I want!
| colejohnson66 wrote:
| If Apple allowed macOS on the iPad, I wonder if they'd
| allow Rosetta?
| dhagz wrote:
| Give it like, five more years.
|
| Big Sur already takes a lot of design cues from iOS -
| they're prepping the merge. They're just making sure the
| frog doesn't realize the pot is starting to boil.
| paultopia wrote:
| Yeah. Exactly the same sentiment. I have a 2018 ipad pro too,
| and... it runs anything I can throw at it. Admittedly, I
| don't try to do, I dunno, video editing or something on it.
| But unless they release xcode for the ipad, or put macos on
| it, or _something_ that actually uses all that juice they
| keep shoving inside, I just... don 't see the point.
|
| maybe for gamers?
| kunjanshah wrote:
| Dual boot is not even needed M1 can virtualize, you could run
| both side by side. Previous iPad Pros could virtualize too,
| it was disabled in hardware.
| saagarjha wrote:
| This is the first iPad Pro with hardware virtualization
| support.
| JimBlackwood wrote:
| Exactly the same here, coming from a 2017 one.
|
| There hasn't been a moment I lacked computing power or battery
| life or anything else. The software experience has been
| lacking.
|
| I was really hoping iPadOS would bring us closer to MacOS.
| There was even some hope that an M1 iPad would come with MacOS.
|
| I just want to be able to do things without needing an
| expensive app or a really shitty work around. If it wasn't for
| needing the pencil, I'd have stepped away quite some years ago.
| robertu wrote:
| True. But this is also what I am so exciting about what will be
| next on iPadOS on WWDC this year, hardware has already over
| Mac, it's time to software.
| bluescrn wrote:
| The problem is that nobody has really found a way to bridge
| the chasm between touchscreen UI design and mouse/keyboard UI
| design.
|
| Attempts to get there tend to dumb down and limit the
| functionality of the mouse+keyboard experience.
|
| I guess the obvious option would be to let Pro users switch
| an iPad into a 'MacOS mode' with the full desktop interface,
| mostly relying on an additional keyboard+mouse. But I can't
| see Apple going for anything like that. They're more likely
| to push the desktop interface more in the direction of iOS...
| wayneftw wrote:
| Windows 10 does it perfectly.
|
| If you haven't used a Windows 10 tablet for any amount of
| time, I'd suggest trying it out. I've used small and large
| Windows tablets for many years and have yet to find any big
| complaints about the UX.
| tluyben2 wrote:
| In your opinion ofcourse. I find Windows 10 tablet mode
| ghastly, especially compared to ipados or ios. The only
| nice thing is that you have a real OS. If this iPad would
| run macos or windows, I would leave laptops and phones
| behind from that moment in. But alas. Maybe the 2nd gen
| surface X?
| wayneftw wrote:
| I suppose everybody here should always preface their
| comment with IMO...
|
| Good thing that if you don't like the way Windows 10
| looks, you can easily change it. Other than that,
| functionally, everything just works and I'd challenge you
| to say what doesn't.
| clairity wrote:
| > "...gesture-like latencies in between to get it to work."
|
| i _hate_ that animations on ios are i /o blocking.
|
| every single time i have to enter my passcode, it misses at
| least one if not two of my keypresses, which means i have to
| erase the whole thing and do it more slowly since the missing
| keypresses are essentially random (not just the final one or
| two).
|
| another related annoyance is alert popups that occur more than
| once. the bounce animation takes over a second, so if you have
| multiple of these coming in succession, which happens
| constantly, it's a collossal waste of focus and time.
|
| i want to take a sledgehammer to my idevices every time these
| things happen.
| manigandham wrote:
| Yes, this is why the default iPhone calculator app is
| completely useless.
|
| These forced animations make tasks take the same amount of
| time regardless of how fast the hardware gets. I would love
| to be able to turn off all animations in iphone/ipad UIs.
| benhurmarcel wrote:
| > Yes, this is why the default iPhone calculator app is
| completely useless.
|
| Well, it's already made pretty useless by not showing you
| what's it's calculating...
| peterburkimsher wrote:
| There used to be a jailbreak tweak called Accelerate that
| would speed up animations.
|
| https://www.idownloadblog.com/2012/11/12/accelerate/
|
| I still use an iPhone 4S, and thanks to this tweak, I don't
| feel like my phone is any slower than newer models. Pity I
| can't browse half the web though (https died due to TLS).
| Joeri wrote:
| Maybe I'm misunderstanding the problem being described, but
| I just tried this and it is impossible for me to type so
| fast in the iphone calculator app that it misses inputs.
| The animation completes in the background but does not
| block anything.
| cjm42 wrote:
| If I type "3 + 6 + 9" as fast as I can, then hit "=", I
| only get 18 about half the time. Sometimes I get 12,
| sometimes 15, occasionally something else. This is with a
| iPhone 11 Pro on iOS 14.4.2. It's ridiculous. I always
| hear the same number of clicks, though.
| wlesieutre wrote:
| I must have never run into this because I don't calculate
| fast enough, but I just tried it and confirmed it really
| happens.
|
| Somehow got the "6" key is stuck lit up, and despite
| having definitely registered a tap, it wasn't included in
| the addition.
|
| https://i.imgur.com/onkcv59.png
| manigandham wrote:
| Happens to me all the time, especially when repeating the
| same numbers.
| clairity wrote:
| right. it's even more frustrating in light of the amazing
| advances in parallel processing for these devices over the
| years, which are essentially being ignored. at the very
| least, they could offload the animation to secondary
| threads/processes and unblock the i/o, which would allow
| the keypresses to be registered correctly even as you wait
| for the UI to catch up. instead, you're forced to wait for
| the animation to finish before registering the next input.
|
| the computer should serve the whims of the user, not the
| other way around.
| ricardobayes wrote:
| Probably that's the reason there isn't one on iPad. Let
| that sink in. There's no calculator on a $1000+ 'Pro'
| device.
| eigenvector wrote:
| Thanks for articulating this as I never understood why iOS
| suffers from this phenomenon. The only other place I've seen
| "typing too fast" result in garbled input is on Android based
| VoIP phone handsets, where if you try to "type" numbers too
| fast some of them get dropped - an amazing example of a
| device with many orders of magnitude more computing power
| than what it replaced still managing to be less performant.
| robocat wrote:
| Are you sure it isn't that you are sliding your finger enough
| for iOS to think you are doing a "scroll gesture" instead of
| a click?
|
| I _hate_ iOS because the movement limit before a tap gets
| cancelled is too small for my tastes - simulating "virtual"
| clicks at 10px limit of motion worked better for my tastes
| using a browser. Maybe I am just lazy, maybe the capacitance
| or shape of my fingers is the problem, or maybe I have some
| motor issue. However I don't on Android devices. I have to
| allow myself time on iOS devices to make taps work reliably.
|
| I notice it especially on the home screen of my iPad where
| lazy tapping an app won't open it... Grrrr - there is no
| other function to a "slight" scroll on the homescreen!
|
| I have seen others have the same issue, so it isn't just me.
| clairity wrote:
| yah that also happens to me sometimes too (and it's
| maddening), but that's definitely not it here. in these
| cases, the ui isn't responsive because of the animations.
| rconti wrote:
| I don't swype, and I get my passcode wrong on iOS all the
| time. It doesn't register the first press if you do it too
| quickly.
| pkulak wrote:
| "Pro" used to mean "professional" for Apple. Now it just
| means "expensive".
| [deleted]
| valesco wrote:
| It's been at least 13 years that the meaning has changed.
| Since the introduction of the 13 inch MacBook Pro.
| drewzero1 wrote:
| While I do feel they should've continued the plain old
| "MacBook" designation for the 13" beyond 2008, I've got
| to admit the 2009-2012 13" MBP was a solid workhorse for
| a moderately professional user.
|
| In my experience with that whole line I really feel like
| only the 17" truly deserved the "pro" moniker since it
| got better options (processors, matte display) than the
| others.
| erickhill wrote:
| My 2015 MBPs (I have 2) rock. Ports galore, too. Hence
| why I've never upgraded.
| Andrew_nenakhov wrote:
| You've never upgraded because it has a non-upgradeable
| RAM and SSD. :-|
| chongli wrote:
| The iPad Pro is the only one with the ProMotion 120Hz
| display. The higher refresh rate is a big deal for pro
| users who want the pencil to be as low latency as possible.
| rrrrrrrrrrrryan wrote:
| From my primitive understanding, many of the iOS animations
| are basically pre-rendered and played at the right time to
| cover up any CPU-intensive activities that are happening
| under the hood. Rather than display a laggy, stuttering input
| box that captures every keypress (eventually), they've chosen
| to lock you out from input entirely, force you to sit back
| and watch the beautiful transition, then allow you to input
| when the device is fully ready to accept that input.
|
| It's a frustrating design decision to me as well, maybe
| because I'd much rather prefer a barebones, stripped-down,
| streamlined experience, but I'm sure it's more
| psychologically soothing for more people when compared to the
| laggy experience on some competing devices.
| Grustaf wrote:
| iOS animations are not pre-rendered, and more and more they
| are even interruptible, even interactive. For example, if
| you start swiping the home screen you can catch the swipe
| at any point.
| [deleted]
| clairity wrote:
| yes, i've heard at least a variation of that explanation
| before, and it made sense for the first few iterations of
| idevices, but not so much anymore. apple devices are among
| the most powerful personal computers ever available. it
| really shouldn't be that way at this point.
| [deleted]
| Version467 wrote:
| Ohh, so that's why entering the passcode on my ipad feels so
| wonky.
|
| I guess this is some kind of legacy thing because the first
| iphone wouldn't have been able to handle it? Because this
| seems like an exceptionally bad decision, unless absolutely
| necessary for some reason.
| ricardobayes wrote:
| Must be deep-rooted like the UI render refresh issue on
| Android. No matter how fast the hardware of an android
| phone, it will always will be a bit clunky/laggy. "Android
| has a difficult time dealing with the touch interface
| because it handles rendering "on the main thread with
| normal priority," as opposed to iOS, which treats UI
| rendering with real-time priority." https://appleinsider.co
| m/articles/11/12/07/former_google_int... Also try endlessly
| scrolling your photos on your iphone and on an android
| device - the difference in memory management will be
| apparent.
| drusepth wrote:
| No matter how fast I type 3 + 6 + 9 into the stock
| Android calculator (on a Pixel 3a, 2 years old), I can't
| replicate keypresses getting ignored or laggy, input-
| blocking animations.
|
| There's also zero lag scrolling through Google Photos. I
| don't have an iPhone to compare to, but I can't imagine
| how it could get any better.
|
| If this is actually still a problem 10 years after the
| linked article was posted, I'd say the main problem is
| then instead the variety of processing in Android
| devices. I'd guess I'd see these issues on cheaper phones
| (maybe I can dig up one of my $79 burners to try with),
| but I doubt this problem exists on any phones of
| comparable pricing to iPhones.
|
| Comparing iOS to "Android" might show some clunky/laggy
| UI in cheaper models, but comparing iOS to iPhone-priced
| Android phones most certainly won't (most of the time _).
|
| [*]: Though, obviously, I expect the sheer amount of
| variety in Android phones to still produce some
| expensive, low-power phones that would be an exception
| here._
| yakkers wrote:
| The software experience is the one thing I wish Apple would
| improve upon faster. It's got quite good as of late, but
| there's still a lot of things that could be way better all
| around.
|
| I can certainly agree that Excel on iPad is an awful
| experience, though. I gave up using my iPad for Excel stuff at
| work in short order.
| spideymans wrote:
| >Multitasking is cumbrous enough that it might as well not
| exist
|
| iPad OS desperately needs a persistent dock or taskbar, like we
| see on macOS and Windows. The gesture system is too cumbersome
| to be effective.
| crooked-v wrote:
| Really, at this point the only things keeping me from replacing
| my everyday-use personal laptop with an iPad Pro or iPad Air
| are:
|
| - The lack of a true development environment local to the
| device
|
| - The lack of true background app support for things that need
| persistent connections (ssh clients, etc)
| lofi_lory wrote:
| I honestly think there is a great opportunity for a Linux
| tablet plus pen input (high dpi; precision and low latency).
| People just don't know yet, that's what they want. FOSS would
| thrive there.
| kimburgess wrote:
| I've been working from an iPad as my main machine for the
| past couple of years now. Definitely doable (but as other
| have said, there's _is_ pain when working local only).
|
| I keep an AWS box spinning that runs docker and my dev env
| (vim as editor), then connect to this via Blink shell. This
| lets me port forward via SSH. If I need L2 I then use
| ZeroTier. My SSH key lives in my local Secure Enclave and
| then forwards via ssh-agent when needed on the external box
| (eg pushing commits). Background offloading is avoiding by
| enabling the geo lock, which also has the bonus of tearing
| down any SSH connections if the device leaves the lock area.
| Ends up as a pretty neat setup.
| nunez wrote:
| Hard agree. M1 on the iPad is great from a technical
| perspective (having the same CPU/CPU arch on desktop and mobile
| platforms is a game-changer), but doesn't really do anything
| for me right now when things like Google Sheets are a pain to
| use on it.
| sharken wrote:
| It does chew through a fair bit of your IT budget though, but
| yeah no doubt its a cool device.
|
| But, for the asking price of the iPad Pro I'd rather get a
| nice PC laptop with latest gen Ryzen and Nvidia hardware.
|
| Guess I'm just not in the target group for the iPad Pro.
| reader_mode wrote:
| I can think of one use case where it could be nice - content
| creators.
|
| For example I like to noodle on guitar and frankly guitar
| interface + iPad > laptop.
|
| Likewise for video editing, photo touchups, etc.
|
| I can see iPad for creatives using more processing power
| isatty wrote:
| The iPad is great for musicians. I use mine for sheet music
| and also for noodling on the guitar but here's what I don't
| like about it:
|
| - you need a dongle to plug the interface and the charger
| together (maybe other interfaces can supply power but mine
| cannot)
|
| - my interface also behaves as an usb audio device (I suspect
| all of them do) but iOS does not let you choose audio out
| through internal speakers or airplay if the usb audio device
| is present
|
| - some apps don't support multiple inputs and default to the
| first input (which on my interface is mic in), GarageBand
| does not have this problem
|
| Of course this is not a problem for things like digital
| pianos that just explore midi over Bluetooth.
| rasengan wrote:
| What I do these days is use an iPad Pro and use a cloud-based
| virtual desktop [1] so I have the best of both worlds with me.
| The caveat is that you can't do this without internet access.
|
| [1] https://shells.com/
| dmcginty wrote:
| This is a neat idea, but I feel like an iPad Pro is overkill
| for accessing a virtual desktop. You could set up something
| similar with an old laptop for a fraction of the price.
| [deleted]
| drewzero1 wrote:
| Or an old regular iPad, if you like the form factor.
| smoldesu wrote:
| My thoughts exactly. Apple might have the apps, but actually
| getting stuff done on it feels cumbersome and strange. I'm not
| sure why they continue to stretch the iPad in so many
| directions when they _could_ just be focusing on a good tablet
| experience.
| monkmartinez wrote:
| It is a great tablet experience! They could have a dual boot
| option where you get a MacOS for real work. Otherwise you are
| right, don't try to make real work happen in the current
| form. SO MUCH FRICTION to copy and move a file around for
| example.
|
| The bulk of my use is strictly tablet stuff and I think it is
| really great at that.
| jack_riminton wrote:
| Exactly. The OP complaining that it's cumbersome to use
| Excel, well yeah, but the things tablets are designed for;
| dragging, drawing, tapping etc. It excels at (pun intended)
| smoldesu wrote:
| Sure, but I think the overall sentiment is that Apple
| hasn't really pushed the iPad any further as an input
| device. It still does those drawing, dragging and tapping
| things well, but why haven't they pushed those gestures
| to work with context menus or have some unified purpose?
| In some ways, the iPad is still the bare minimum of being
| a tablet, but it's mastered that concept. As Apple
| continues to market it as a "computer" though, they have
| a responsibility to improve the computer aspects of it:
| file management, improved user control, and developer
| solutions are all weak or missing links in the chain
| here. Sure it does tablet well, but it sucks at computer.
| andy_ppp wrote:
| I can't speak to these issues, however it would be excellent to
| have one of these running a full OSX. I'd certainly get one if
| I had that level of control to develop on it and choose which
| software I installed without an App Store. As things stand
| these devices aren't for us, so judging them on the needs of
| hacker news user vs more standard consumers isn't really a fair
| fight. They are deliberately limited to appeal to your gran and
| your 6 year old and your casual user without too many issues.
| FearlessNebula wrote:
| My issue is that an $800 iPad Pro with keyboard and pencil
| ($1200 including the accessories) should be in a whole
| different class in terms of productivity than the $329 base
| iPad. But it's not. They both do the same thing (good for
| consumption, decent for creativity, pretty crappy for
| productivity)
| smasher164 wrote:
| I should mention that my frustration only came out of trying
| to switch my parents over from an old 32-bit Windows laptop
| to the iPad. They're already iPhone users and most of their
| time is either spent in a web browser or in document
| processing. So I figured that an iPad Pro with a magic
| keyboard would be perfect for them.
|
| Even still, the level of finesse they have with Excel and
| productivity software on a desktop OS was just not replicable
| on the iPad. It pained me to see my Dad work on his
| spreadsheets on the old laptop again.
|
| The silver lining to this is at least the iPad is good for
| watching videos and pretty decent at web browsing. They still
| use the device casually.
| samatman wrote:
| Things I do on an iPad, ranked by how unlikely I am to do them
| on another computer:
|
| - Draw. This is the big one. I'm no fine artist, but I do a bit
| of calligraphy now and then, and Procreate is amazing.
|
| - Make memes. It might not be more "productive" to caption
| funny pictures on my iPad than it would be to do it on desktop,
| but it's more fun. It feels more natural to manipulate images
| on a tablet.
|
| - Read PDFs. the 12.9" iPad is carefully sized to make US
| letter and A4 documents readable. I'll load a PDF up in one of
| the zones of my wide monitor if I'm using it as a reference for
| a slide deck or whatever, but if I'm just reading it, it's the
| iPad for me.
|
| - Edit video. I doubt I would stick with this work flow if I
| were a dedicated content creator. But I'm not, and stitching
| some footage off my mirrorless camera together, putting a
| soundtrack to it: the iPad makes this pleasant.
|
| - Look at photos. Also, showing them to other people. A couple
| weeks ago I took my iPad with me to the mechanic to show some
| pictures I had taken of my front bumper, lamentably separated
| from the rest of the vehicle in a fender bender. A phone might
| have sufficed, but a tablet is obviously better and I have one.
| When I'm in the mood to scroll through my memories, the iPad is
| the place to do it.
|
| - Twitter. This is the inflection point! I had a phase of
| taking my Twitter time on the tablet, and went back to using my
| laptop. Scrolling with a flick of the pencil is nice, but
| inputting text is very much not its strong suit, and there are
| ads. I don't like ads.
|
| Edited to add: I'm heavy on the gizmos. If I had to ditch one,
| it would be the iPad, and I have no interest in upgrading my
| 3rd gen whatsoever. But I'm glad I don't have to ditch it! For
| what it's good for, it really shines. I'm fond of it.
| koboll wrote:
| >- Draw. This is the big one. I'm no fine artist, but I do a
| bit of calligraphy now and then, and Procreate is amazing.
|
| Same, and this is how the iPad really shines, except for one
| huge drawback: limited RAM means I either have to reduce my
| art to sub-4k quality or limit it to 30-ish layers.
|
| Both options suck. It was very disappointing to see no
| mention of RAM anywhere in this announcement. Maybe for some
| applications processing speed is a limiting factor, but it
| certainly isn't the bottleneck for artists, so this
| announcement is a bit of a letdown.
| xxandroxygen wrote:
| Wait there was a mention of RAM today - up to 16Gb!
| lofi_lory wrote:
| For me the iPad (2018) was just the cheapest entry to the
| tablet + pen combo. I love digital pen input and the tablet
| for reading documents. For a moment I liked the app ecosystem
| and thought maybe the Apple hype is valid. Now, I hate the
| stupid limitations of iPadOS, the Appstore and the
| commercialisation of every god damn aspect of the iPad
| experience.
|
| I would kill for a good Linux tablet with low latency pen
| input. Xournal++ and Krita would be completely sufficient.
|
| Most apps and ideas I initially liked on the iPad, would be
| much better FOSS. So many apps ultimately fail for me because
| the developers trying hard to wall some garden, instead of
| implementing export/import of an open standard.
|
| Oh and ofc, horrible file management and no code execution.
|
| Fuck this shit. Stallman was right...
| jeromenerf wrote:
| Pretty similar for me.
|
| - reading pdf and books
|
| - import and watch photos
|
| - write notes and draw sketches and plans with the pencil
|
| - bring along in the shop
|
| I also use it as a laptop sometimes, with an external
| keyboard. As a linux/vim user, anything with an ssh client is
| good enough to get work done anyway. I still find it
| preferable to a windows machine.
| brundolf wrote:
| I think the idea is: for most of these, extra horsepower
| isn't much of a selling point (video editing being the big
| exception). Not that it's bad - it means your device will
| stay capable for longer, if nothing else - it's just a weird
| thing to focus on in marketing materials
| bsharitt wrote:
| I recently decided to get a Macbook Air over an iPad Pro(would
| have waited for the refresh for the iPad as it was already
| heavily rumored). I really wanted to want the iPad, but the
| software is still holding it back, and other than a
| tablet/convertable form factor I like and a few things it affords
| like being a decent color eReader, there's nothing that I can do
| exceptionally better on the iPad compared to a Mac, but several I
| can do on the Mac over the iPad.
|
| So now I've got a MacBook Air I'm happy with, but my 6th gen iPad
| will soldier on doing the few things the form factor affords such
| as being my large color eReader for certain books and the
| occasional lazy from the bed web browsing while I rely on the Mac
| for anything heavier.
| dade_ wrote:
| The iPad Pro has Thunderbolt before the Microsoft Surface. So
| tired of MS dragging their feet, kicking and screaming on TB.
| tomjen3 wrote:
| The iPad doesn't need better hardware, it needs Mac OS X.
| Tycho wrote:
| Thinking of buying one and propping it up on my piano and using
| it for music writing and music tuition apps. Anyone tried
| anything like this?
| FearlessNebula wrote:
| It's great for this, but by a base $329 model for that, there's
| no advantage with the Pro for piano. Or buy a refurb 12.9" if
| you want a bigger screen for the piano
| mseidl wrote:
| I'm in a band and want to get one to use for for sheet music.
| intergalplan wrote:
| We use it a 1st-gen 12.9" iPad Pro for our piano (and other
| stuff). If you've got a digital piano you can even plug it in
| and get MIDI input, which enables some really cool stuff
| (especially for writing music, I'd expect). It's great, and the
| 12.9" size is really good for that. I'd expect any newer model
| to be the same thing, but a little nicer.
| Spartan-S63 wrote:
| It'll be interesting to see if iPadOS 15 steps us any closer to
| laptop/desktop class usage. The biggest thing holding back iPad
| from being a real laptop replacement for so many is the software.
| It's also not as simple as porting macOS to iPad. I get Apple's
| hesitancy from a usability and a product cannibalization
| standpoint, but it's time they step things forward.
| crazygringo wrote:
| Seriously. The thing that still bites me the most is that
| "Share" functionality of files continues to be broken in
| certain apps.
|
| For example, I frequently need to save a PDF from my Google
| Drive app either to my local Files or the Books app. But both
| those options are just... missing from the iOS share sheet,
| even though Acrobat is there. So I have to share to Acrobat,
| then share to Files or Books from within Acrobat. Bizarre.
|
| The problem is some kind of combination of file type plus
| application -- Gmail will let me share a PDF straight to Files
| or Books just fine.
|
| Or sometimes when you open a PDF in Books from another app it
| _saves_ it to Books as a copy... but in other cases it opens it
| in-place. So you think you copied a bunch of things into Books
| to read on the airplane... and then they 're not there.
|
| The fact that there's never any indication whether something is
| being copied or not, and that apps that support a filetype are
| simply arbitrarily missing from _some_ share sheets (but not
| all), makes iPadOS just a disaster for any serious work that
| spans multiple apps.
| Isthatablackgsd wrote:
| the file management in iPadOS is a POS. It wasn't even closer
| to MacOS Finder level. It still feel like juiced-up iOS
| without expanding functionalities.
|
| Apple needs to provide an official way to easily transfer
| file without using iTune & iCloud. Yes, there is unofficial
| way (VLC) of doing this but it is cumbersome and iPad Files &
| other apps will not see those files at all. I understand why
| Apple does this to prevent jailbreaking. But for pete's sake,
| tablet are not suppose to have a restricted access in file
| manager since it is a freaking tablet!
| unfamiliar wrote:
| Unfortunately the terrible file management seems to be
| spreading to MacOS, rather than vice versa. Now if you have
| iCloud Drive turned on and navigate to ~/Documents in Finder,
| if you go up one level you'll find yourself in some kind of
| virtual folder called iCloud Drive, rather than your home
| directory.
|
| This is exactly the sort of weird filesystem-tree-concept-
| breaking thing that made Windows Explorer so annoying to use
| for me.
| derefr wrote:
| iCloud Drive is not a "virtual folder" (I think you mean
| "shell folder"? Like the one that you see when you navigate
| up from / in the Finder?) iCloud Drive is a real place in
| your home directory (it is located at ~/Library/Mobile
| Documents/). It's equivalent to the root of any other
| synced-directory service -- Dropbox, Google Drive, etc.
| Your Documents and Desktop folders -- when iCloud Drive
| sync for them is enabled -- are just regular folders inside
| that synced folder.
|
| The _hacky_ part is the fact that, while the Documents and
| Desktop folders are _canonically_ nested inside the Mobile
| Documents folder, they 're also _linked_ from outside of it
| with weird pseudo-symlinks.
|
| Those pseudo-symlinks are more than just symlinks -- they
| appear as real directories (like Linux bind-mounts), which
| is helpful to avoid breaking legacy apps that expect to be
| able to find real directories at ~/Desktop and ~/Documents.
|
| But, like a symlink, the "real" directory these pseudo-
| symlinks point to only exists in one place, and that place
| is ~/Library/Mobile Documents/. Presuming `readlink(2)` was
| called to resolve the file at any point, you can't navigate
| back "up" from the resulting file, to find yourself back at
| the directory that contained the symlink. Once you resolve
| the link, the symlink isn't part of the resulting path any
| more.
| saagarjha wrote:
| You mean "if you have your Desktop and Documents folder
| synced to iCloud".
| manigandham wrote:
| Yes, the file management is absolutely terrible, along with
| the extremely limited multitasking. These are the two biggest
| factors keeping the iPad from real desktop usage.
|
| It seems most of the successful "pro" usage is by those who
| can work entirely within a single app that provides
| everything they need.
| [deleted]
| phelm wrote:
| a workaround is to create a shortcut that shares its input,
| you share to the shortcut (which you set to be on the share
| sheet and accept anything) and from there you can share
| anywhere
| tluyben2 wrote:
| I guess the market is tiny for a full OS on an iPad or Apple
| just waits until MS is close in other feature parity: the
| surface X has the battery life and the looks but is crap in all
| other departments (or so I heard: I have not tried one as
| people also say it is slow). So maybe gen 2 or 3.
| mlindner wrote:
| As an active user of the Mac. That would not be a step forward.
| It would be a step backward. There are so many things that are
| fundamentally impossible on a closed ecosystem like the iPad.
| For example, Macs still support, even on the M1, installing
| your own OSes.
|
| I don't get why some Apple fans are so interested in destroying
| a core stable of Apple's userbase.
| kgermino wrote:
| It would destroy the Mac user base if iPads were capable of
| running desktop class applications?
| pixard wrote:
| I think they could find a good middle ground. Since macOS can
| run iOS apps on M1 devices, why not allow it to be installed
| on the iPad as-is? Let users choose between iPadOS for the
| tablet experience, or macOS for the "full" experience.
|
| Of course just saying this out loud sounds ridiculous
| considering that Apple is Apple but hey, we can dream. :)
| joshhart wrote:
| Another idea I think is interesting. If we reach that level of
| usability and tech with an iPad, then it seems plausible that
| we could build tech where you just need to bring an iPhone near
| a monitor, keyboard, and mouse and you instantly have a usable
| environment for things we think of as desktop. We've seen
| usability across devices with things like the google suite or
| Evernote improve over time, but if you had a single device with
| you everywhere then data sync is totally solved.
| mulmen wrote:
| I have zero interest in using a worse laptop. Touch screens are
| an anti-feature. For decades we have tried as an industry to do
| touch interfaces on "real" computers and it's always horrible
| because it's not actually a thing worth doing.
|
| With M1 Macs being a thing I have no idea what benefits an iPad
| offers.
| fastball wrote:
| "Touch screens are an anti-feature" - I guess you don't have
| a smartphone then?
|
| The benefit is obvious: if you were the kind of person that
| previously had a laptop _and_ an iPad (iPads / touch screens
| are nice for all sorts of things, esp. for say artists), then
| an optimal solution would be a device you can use as both. An
| iPad Pro that could run macOS and have a keyboard case with
| trackpad seems ideal.
|
| Or if you're the kind of person that _only_ has an iPad (my
| mom), it might be useful to sometimes have more flexibility
| than it provides, even though she does 't need it 99% of the
| time.
| jandrese wrote:
| Touch screens are a design compromise. Not as good as
| dedicated input devices, but necessary if you're putting
| something in your pocket and perfectly acceptable if all
| you are doing is consuming media and maybe some light
| typing.
| fastball wrote:
| Someone should really tell all my artist friends that
| their touchscreen tablets aren't actually very good for
| drawing and to just use a mouse and keyboard.
| jordanab wrote:
| I own a 2018 iPad Pro, and it's possibly the best & most
| versatile device I've ever owned. Among the things I use it
| for are: surfing the web whilst on the couch, checking in on
| my RSS feeds, casual gaming, watching movies, reading PDF &
| Kindle e-books, handwritten & typed notes for work & study,
| replying emails, portable RDP, VNC & SSH client on the go.
| And I'm probably still forgetting a lot of things...
| monkmartinez wrote:
| Agree its a great tablet! It is versatile and I use the
| pencil quite a bit... HOWEVER, if it could boot to a
| desktop OS in addition to iPadOS... it would be the
| absolute killer machine for almost every use case under the
| sun, imo.
| jordanab wrote:
| I absolutely agree.
| mulmen wrote:
| Yeah I just use a combination of my Mac and iPhone to do
| all that. The iPad is an awkward middle spot for me.
| Different strokes.
| jordanab wrote:
| Fair enough. I had the same feeling with older tablets
| that I owned (early iPad's and Samsung Android tablets),
| but the iPad Pro did hit a sweet spot for me.
| roody15 wrote:
| not sure i am with you on "versatile"
| emptyfile wrote:
| So about half as versatile as a big phone.
| jandrese wrote:
| surfing the web whilst on the couch -- consuming media
|
| checking in on my RSS feeds -- consuming media
|
| casual gaming -- consuming media
|
| watching movies -- consuming media
|
| reading PDF & Kindle e-books -- consuming media
|
| handwritten & typed notes for work & study -- light typing
|
| replying emails -- light typing
|
| portable RDP, VNC & SSH client on the go -- not sure
|
| This is what the OP was complaining about. It's fine for
| consuming media, but the Pro part was supposed to be about
| people creating things. Programming, video editing,
| graphics design, writing papers, etc... For these
| applications the iPad Pro has been a disappointment.
| jordanab wrote:
| _Programming, video editing, graphics design, writing
| papers, etc... For these applications the iPad Pro has
| been a disappointment_
|
| Apart from maybe graphics design, I don't believe the
| iPad Pro was ever advertised to do those things (if I'm
| not mistaken), so I can imagine your disappointment if
| you expected to do those things on it.
| jermeh wrote:
| If you read the press release, Apple VERY heavily
| emphasizes "creative workflows"
| formercoder wrote:
| Touch isn't great but styluses are for those of us that work
| on presentations.
| mulmen wrote:
| That's a fair point. It's not something I need so I don't
| consider it. But if I need a stylus I don't want to involve
| a desktop environment. The whole unified os/one-device
| thing is unworkable IMHO. Just have a laptop and a tablet
| if that's what you need. Let the tools excel in their role
| instead of making a ton of compromises.
| binbag wrote:
| Couldn't disagree more. I've used touchscreen laptops and
| surface for years and if I go back to a non touchscreen
| portable machine it feels stunted.
| layer8 wrote:
| What I'd like to do is to use a pencil to draw on my 27"
| monitor when screen-sharing/presenting. That's the one use
| case for "touch" I'm really missing. You can sort-of simulate
| it by screen-mirroring, but it's cumbersome.
| FridayoLeary wrote:
| i think tablets have their place, but i find that as a tablet
| interface, windows 10 seems morbidly overweight. Android otoh
| is too lightweight imho. i think a 2 in 1 might be an ideal
| compromise. meanwhile ms is trying to push a succession of
| thinly-veiled tablets, which i don't understand. Windows is a
| desktop OS, why promote it on the environment it's least
| comfortable with?
|
| Anyway, just working my way through a stomachache...
| hajile wrote:
| The inability to run the software I need is why an ipad isn't
| even on my radar yet. The nicer screen isn't worth the lockdown
| (not to mention that the macbook air is much lighter than ipad
| + keyboard and cheaper too)).
| volta83 wrote:
| The macbook air screen is ok, its webcam is horrible, it
| doesn't have a touch screen, so you can't use it as a
| "digital blackboard" for remote work, and it can't use
| multiple monitors.
|
| The iPad has a great front camera, great screen, great touch
| screen and Apple Pen, yet is software-handicapped to prevent
| professional use.
|
| I guess Apples' goal is for people to buy both, but I've been
| on the market for a new "work device" for a while and this
| messed product lineup just means I'll wait till they get
| their s** together and produce a decent work machine with:
|
| - support for multiple monitors
|
| - reasonable webcam
|
| - touchscreen and apple pen support
|
| Until then, I'm out. Neither the Macbook nor the iPad are
| good work machines for me, and I'm not going to buy both to
| compensate for bad product management. I mean, the title says
| it all, iPads now have "Macbook Pro CPUs" in them. That's a
| super mixed message to send if they are not suitable for
| professional work.
| mulmen wrote:
| In the last year of remote work I have not missed
| whiteboard collaboration at all. My team just got better at
| writing docs and generating diagrams with dedicated
| tooling.
| volta83 wrote:
| I use it every day. A 10 second drawings saves me 5
| minutes of talking every time.
|
| Colleagues that don't have this capability at home give
| the impression that they are wasting everbody elses time,
| to the point that they draw on a piece of paper and hang
| it infront of the camera instead.
|
| Also, this pretty much completely disqualifies them for
| doing things like, e.g., "interviews", which restricts
| their career development.
| mulmen wrote:
| Yeah we just have a totally different workflow where you
| provide a doc and that has all the material already
| included. There's no adhoc sketching stuff because we
| think that through before taking anyone's time.
|
| It's just a different way of working. But it pays
| dividends when you have people spread across time zones.
| Plus none of it is throw-away work. The docs are there
| for anyone to reference any time in the future.
| hajile wrote:
| An external camera will blow away the quality of the ipad
| camera and work better under a variety of situations. In
| truth, by the time zoom is done compressing my video, I'm
| not completely convinced that higher-res input makes a
| difference.
|
| The macbook air gets higher performance (I doubt they can
| fit that large heatsink in the ipad) and has better battery
| life too.
|
| In any case, it's academic because I can't run the software
| I actually need on an ipad.
| vetinari wrote:
| > Also the macbook air can only drive 1 external monitor.
|
| That's the limitation of the GPU in the current-gen M1. It
| has two display encoders, one of them is connected to eDP
| for the internal display - except for the M1, which doesn't
| have an internal display, so it can be wired to external
| connector.
|
| So unless they redid this part, this iPad and the new iMac
| will have the same limitation.
| gpm wrote:
| Hmm, for the laptop I'd be happy if I could turn off the
| built in display to get a second external display. That
| would literally be a big enough change that I would have
| already bought one instead of not having done so.
|
| I guess I'd be happy with an ipad-m1-computer if
|
| - It could run desktop software.
|
| - It could do that.
|
| Unfortunately, having a feature that requires turning off
| the built in display doesn't seem like Apple's style.
| minimaxir wrote:
| Tech specs for both the iPad Pro and the iMac show this
| still is the case.
| stevehawk wrote:
| it wont be porting MacOS to the iPad. It'll be discontinuing
| MacOS and having everyone on a derivative of iOS locked up with
| the App Store at a 30% tax.
| nojito wrote:
| It's not really a laptop replacement. Apple's philosophy shared
| by Phil? is that you should be able to do as much as you can on
| each device before having to move up to the next product.
|
| Watch -> phone -> tablet -> laptop -> desktop
| swiley wrote:
| Apple would be giving up an incredible amount of control by
| allowing anything more and it's obvious their customers don't
| care.
|
| I've personally completely given up on Android/iOS even if that
| means I won't have a working cell phone (although I mostly do.)
| There's way too much money involved for good firmware to be
| written.
| gmaster1440 wrote:
| Missed opportunity in today's announcement to introduce
| arguably the most compelling part of M1 adoption: a desktop-
| like experience, especially since hardware keyboard and
| trackpad already exist.
|
| If it runs M1, I wanna run my Electron VS Code on it.
| wikibob wrote:
| Good news: https://github.com/features/codespaces
| gmaster1440 wrote:
| A step in the right direction, but still not quite the same
| as a native app. Try using the magic keyboard trackpad to
| scroll, unless they finally fixed it recently.
| reader_mode wrote:
| Why tho ? Everything about the system is locked down - it's
| never going to be a good development machine no matter if you
| run electron vscode or not.
|
| It could be a decent client for stuff like web vscode.
| pjmlp wrote:
| I don't remember to ever look into the AmigaOS source code.
| reader_mode wrote:
| Locked down as in Apple won't let you run anything not
| going through the store on the device because it breaks
| their business model.
|
| You aren't going to install a custom browser to test your
| front-end (or get usable devtools), no brew or package
| manager, no custom IDE unless it's built for iOS with its
| insane limitations (nobody is going to bother). At best
| you'd be able to port some dev tools and install with
| your certificate - and for what gain exactly ?
|
| It's just not a general purpose computer, and it's
| certainly not a dev machine
| gmaster1440 wrote:
| I don't think a machine's fitness for development is
| correlated to how locked down it is--you can totally have a
| very controlled environment with gatekeeping like the
| current iPadOS but have well-designed tools and development
| environments built for it. Apple did it with macOS after
| all...
| reader_mode wrote:
| I think we don't have the same definition of locked down.
| I can download Linux compatible tools to my Mac and run
| server compatible software locally. I can install custom
| browsers, development environments, etc. This just isn't
| compatible with iOS app model.
|
| The only way I see this happening is if they let you run
| docker images/VMs. Even then it would suck for front-end.
| And it's such a niche use case from their perspective - I
| don't see this happening ever.
| Jtsummers wrote:
| macOS is not terribly locked down. The terminal is
| immediately accessible, dev tools are one download away
| (unless you want to use an older version of various
| interpreted languages). Most of the locked down defaults
| with regard to downloading programs can be easily
| sidestepped if you open up Preferences and click a couple
| buttons.
| sz4kerto wrote:
| VSCode Remote SSH would solve practically all my dev
| problems. I don't need anything else. :)
| reader_mode wrote:
| Don't know if you're aware of it but you can run vscode
| on the server and open it in the browser. Might be worth
| investigating https://github.com/cdr/code-server
| theodric wrote:
| Have you priced these things, though?
|
| 2TB/5G iPad Pro 12.9 + keyboard + pen = 3000 Swiss Francs (over
| $3k)
|
| 2TB/16GB RAM MacBook Air = 2200 Swiss Francs
|
| For whom are these iPads made? I bought a 12.9 in 2015, and
| another in 2017, but it's my last. They're just not that
| useful, and certainly not useful at a level that justifies the
| price of a very nice laptop!
| sirn wrote:
| Just a wishful thinking, but since this is an M1 and not the
| A14X (and 8c+8c+8/16GB setup used in MacBook Pro even), I'm
| hoping that Hypervisor.framework will come to an iPadOS in the
| next WWDC. Having something like macOS.app, or even Ubuntu.app
| within iPad Pro would make it a pretty amazing convertible (for
| me).
| justaguy88 wrote:
| Agreed, ubuntu.app would be amazing
| jxy wrote:
| Switch to Safari to surf the net, and come back to
| ubuntu.app ... ooooh, it got killed in the background!
| kitsunesoba wrote:
| iOS/iPadOS only kill background processes if they're
| resource hungry and competing with another resource
| hungry frontmost app and resources are running low.
|
| Anecdotally, on my iPhone 11 Pro Max w/4GB of RAM it's
| very rare for apps to get killed while multitasking.
| There's been a few times when I've brought forward an app
| I used multiple days ago and it's still running exactly
| where I left it.
|
| Based on that, with these new models having 8GB and 16GB
| of RAM processes getting killed should be pretty rare. On
| top of that, it's highly likely that virtualization apps
| would be given increased protection from getting killed
| due to their inherent extra overhead.
| saagarjha wrote:
| M1 is essentially an A14X.
| Method-X wrote:
| I think they should include macOS in new iPads as a dual boot
| option and allow users to connect the iPad to a monitor. This
| is what I do with my MacBook Air and I'm sure many, many iPad
| users would find this tremendously useful. Ditto for iPhone.
| api wrote:
| "If I can't run whatever I want on it, it's a console not a
| real computer."
|
| iPads are still consoles regardless of what kind of chip you
| put in them.
|
| That may be Apple's intent. They don't seem to be cancelling
| the Mac, their "real computer." There's more than one market.
| binbag wrote:
| I'm a surface pro user. Why does Apple not just put macos on
| the iPad and then it can go head to head for my business? The
| comment above said it's not as easy as just sticking macos on
| them. Why? (Obviously the answer could be they simply don't
| want to take on that market, but technically I don't see the
| barrier.)
| Spartan-S63 wrote:
| Biggest reason is that macOS is designed as a pointer
| interface and iPadOS/iOS is designed as a touch interface.
| You could argue that with the Magic Keyboard and Trackpad,
| the iPad is well suited for pointer input and I wouldn't
| disagree. However, macOS with touch as an input option would
| be atrocious, in my view. Rather than opening the door for
| touch input on macOS, they should bring iPadOS closer to a
| desktop-class, touch-first experience.
| tluyben2 wrote:
| It could switch maybe? If you use the magic keyboard it
| switches to Mac OS and otherwise ipados? But yes, iPados
| with proper multitasking and allowing development apps
| locally would be a step in the right direction IMHO.
| indymike wrote:
| I have a Dell XPS-15 laptop. 15" 4K touchscreen/tablet. It
| is fantastic. Gnome, KDE, Windows all work fine with the
| touch screen and even active stylus. Come to think of it,
| MacOS has fantastic support for Wacom tablets, so I'm
| pretty sure it wouldn't be a terrible experience with the
| same kind of display that my Dell has.
| fastball wrote:
| I mean, why can't you just port macOS to iPad? It's all M1 now.
| jack_riminton wrote:
| Dual boot would be a great hack
| kuprel wrote:
| Seems like apple could make an Xcode app that runs on the large
| iPads
| anonymouse008 wrote:
| Oh, do not worry... it's coming.
|
| M1 > SwiftUI > MacCatalyst = Write once, run anywhere.
|
| Watching the iPadOS and MacCatalyst APIs mature says different
| form factors will emphasize certain workflows over others, but
| overall, feature parity is and will be a priority across the
| device lineup, iPhone included...
|
| Though it makes me sad... soon after their unified OS is
| realized, Sherman's coming by with his hammer. It'll be
| beautiful while it lasts.
| arecurrence wrote:
| I don't know if you've tried going from a universal app to
| Catalyst but it feels very subpar compared to the Mac app
| variant. EG: Catalyst does not have the proper sidebar
| support that a Universal App with a Mac target has. Also
| there's no 'click' in Catalyst (at least not in the way that
| those components work on the Mac... they feel quite
| different). The experience is definitely "iPad" with Catalyst
| instead of "Mac".
|
| I believe Apple is going all in on the Universal App model.
| You can already get most of the way there today with some
| limitations (many libraries don't support Mac yet). Making
| different targets for each hardware with a 99% Shared code
| base is really excellent.
| evertheylen wrote:
| Lots of people in here talking about trying to use to a tablet
| for productivity, but finding iPad OS a bit lacking. I'd
| cautiously suggest you check out the Samsung Tab S7(+).
|
| It is likely considered a worse tablet by many, but Samsung Dex
| [1] actually works quite well and using something like UserLAnd
| [2] you can have a full Linux environment (without root). I'm
| still experimenting a bit with the latter, but seeing that
| Android is still Linux under the hood I'm expecting it to work
| out in the end. I plan to run code-server [3] on it which would
| provide a full IDE.
|
| [1]: https://www.samsung.com/us/explore/dex/
|
| [2]: https://github.com/CypherpunkArmory/UserLAnd
|
| [3]: https://github.com/cdr/code-server
| pyrophane wrote:
| I've been considering this.
|
| One small question: how is the front facing camera? One of my
| necessary uses for a tablet would be video conferencing because
| the camera on my ThinkPad is not so good.
| evertheylen wrote:
| I think it's pretty good? Certainly better than what I expect
| of an average (non-Mac) laptop. It is placed on the long side
| of the screen, which makes sense if you want to use it for
| video conferencing (in contrast to the iPad, which has the
| camera on the short side).
| awiesenhofer wrote:
| Seconded. I got my S7+ two months ago and havent used my
| (otherwise beloved) thinkpad since. It is incredibly fast and
| super responsive, especially the pen! Also the (OLED) screen is
| naturally gorgeous and the microSD slot a nice bonus.
|
| As for apps I mostly use OneDrive, Office, Teams, Termux and
| Total Commander. Samsungs Browser is also pretty nice, the
| automatic dark mode is amazing and it has quite good integrated
| adblock options.
| midwestemo wrote:
| I also recommend termux, code-server works on termux
| flawlessly.
|
| https://termux.com/
| christiansakai wrote:
| For this Mother's Day I am thinking of getting my old mother
| either an iPad Pro (M1) or Macbook Air (M1). Emphasized on "old"
| because she is technically quite illiterate. She does use iPhone
| though. I wonder what will be the better gift for her? Is iPad
| quite foolproof? I am thinking of getting the magic keyboard as
| well and the mouse in case she needs a mouse.
|
| Her workflow most likely just browsing, email, FaceTime, reading,
| thats all.
| filoleg wrote:
| If she is familiar with iPhone, she will be right at home with
| iPad Pro after some small adjustments.
|
| As for being foolproof, it is about as foolproof as an iPhone
| is. So if you count iPhones as foolproof, then you should be
| good to go.
|
| MacOS, for all its good, is an entirely separate beast, and she
| will essentially have to learn a new OS, with all the caveats
| that come with it, not even mentioning foolproofness and such.
|
| For your specific scenario, sounds like iPad Pro is the better
| of the two options.
| twobitshifter wrote:
| There's the iPad mini or Air as well. None of those use cases
| requires the performance of the iPad Pro. It's easy to use and
| just like a big iPhone if that's what you want to do.
| rudedogg wrote:
| Yeah, I'd go for something smaller like an iPad mini, or
| regular iPad. The iPad Pros are big.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| The benefit of iOS is there is almost no way for them to mess
| it up, no matter what they click on. Troubleshooting is usually
| always turn it off and on, or uninstall the app. I have been
| pleased with the results of giving all of the older and non
| tech literate people in my family iPads.
|
| I do not see why a non tech literate person would need an iPad
| Pro though. iPad Air (bigger screen is more comfortable for
| older eyes) or even Mini should easily suffice.
| rz2k wrote:
| I'd go with an iPad over a MacBook Air, especially for the much
| better FaceTime camera. My parents (~80) use iPad Airs and
| thought the Pencil looked like a silly product until I
| convinced them to try using mine for a few days.
|
| The current iPad, iPad Air, and iPad Pros all work with some
| version of the Pencil. Any recent iPad will have 1080p FaceTime
| rather than 720p of the MacBook Air. This new iPad Pro has even
| higher resolution with automatic panning that could be useful
| if they want to set up the iPad on the kitchen counter and walk
| around while they talk to you.
| Toutouxc wrote:
| I'd go with the iPad for some casual content consumption, but
| in my opinion even the iPad Pro is totally overkill. iPad Air
| has already been upgraded to the new design and is much
| cheaper.
| DavidAdams wrote:
| Since my mom moved to an iPad for her general internet
| consumption, my thankless tech support tasks dropped to zero.
| asadlionpk wrote:
| iPad for sure! I went with the mini for my parents.
| crooked-v wrote:
| I'll echo the other comments about the iPad being the better
| choice in this case (though you may as well get the Air rather
| than the Pro - you can get the same Magic Keyboard as the
| 11-inch Pro for typing).
|
| As well as being more familiar right away because it will
| mostly feel like a bigger iPhone, it's a better device for
| reading (put the Kindle app on there with a Kindle Unlimited
| subscription for a bajillion books and some free magazine
| subscriptions), it's got a better camera for FaceTime, if she's
| at all artistically minded there are a ton of excellent drawing
| apps to go with the Apple Pencil, etc.
|
| The one big caveat I would point out is that the gesture
| controls have really poor discovery, so you may want to print
| out and laminate a cheat sheet (like the illustrated versions
| on https://ipadpilotnews.com/2020/04/all-the-gestures-ipad-
| pilo...) for easy reference.
| specialist wrote:
| YMMV. My formerly technically competent mother can no longer
| learn new skills. We've tried for years to teach her how to
| text, initiate FaceTime, play Word with Friends, etc.
|
| My advice to future eldercare providers is to pick a tech
| stack, lock down those skills, and then stick to it.
| christiansakai wrote:
| Wow this is a good advice!
| FearlessNebula wrote:
| I'm not disagreeing with you, but picking a tech stack and
| sticking too it kinda sucks. You never know when the
| manufacturer is gonna do something to screw you (MacBook
| keyboards from 2016-2019). And then you're stuck.
| hmottestad wrote:
| Go ipad. My parents both have ipads, works great!
| minimaxir wrote:
| The product page is up indicating 128GB base storage and an
| interesting RAM note:
|
| > 8GB RAM on models with 128GB, 256GB, or 512GB storage
|
| > 16GB RAM on models with 1TB or 2TB storage
| HiroProtagonist wrote:
| Does anyone know what the reason for this might be? (doubling
| the RAM because the SSD is larger)
|
| Also are there any performance implications to this? Should I
| get the 1TB version for the 16GB RAM because it'll be a
| snappier machine and more future-proofed?
| eyesee wrote:
| I believe this is the first time has ever advertised RAM in an
| iPad or iPhone.
| randyrand wrote:
| Also the first time they shipped different amounts of ram
| stratified by storage choice.
| dbbk wrote:
| They did do it before, but it wasn't advertised.
| kevincox wrote:
| Configurations are expensive. If you have 2 RAM configs and
| 4 storage configs you have 10 different models. This way
| they only have 5 models.
| stefandesu wrote:
| I'm pretty sure the 2018 iPad Pro with 1 TB also had more
| RAM than the other models.
| volta83 wrote:
| How many external monitors can the iPad Pro M1 drive ?
| cletus wrote:
| And... no Touch ID (unlike the iPad Air) [1][2].
|
| I recently bought the iPad Air after having the iPad Pro and
| hating Face ID on it. It's bad enough that I have Face ID on my
| iPhone. I hate it so much.
|
| Face ID is such a terrible UX that has caused me to enter my
| passcode to unlock more times a day than I care to count. Even if
| you ignore the fact that they don't work with masks, it's still a
| bad idea.
|
| The false negative rate is incredibly high and a certain number
| of failures will trigger a passcode requirement and there's
| nothing you can do about that. That threshold is set by Apple.
|
| Just give me Touch ID. I don't care that the false positive rate
| is too high (in your opinion, Apple; this was a state reason to
| get rid of it).
|
| Another UX problem: when I had a home button I could exit the app
| by testing it. Now I have to swipe up. But which way I swipe
| depends on how the app is rotated. I could bring up my list of
| apps with a double tap of the home button. Now I have to do a
| weird swipe up-right-up to get the same functionality.
|
| Just die, Face ID.
|
| [1]: https://www.apple.com/ipad-pro/specs/
|
| [2]: https://www.apple.com/ipad-air/specs/
| twobitshifter wrote:
| That is strange. I don't remember FaceID failing for me without
| a mask on. Do you have any ideas on why it doesn't work for
| you? FaceID is frictionless now. At first I missed not having
| to look at the phone to unlock it, but when compared to using
| our iPad with touchID it's much easier.
| samatman wrote:
| Asia has been familiar with the limitations of Face ID since it
| debuted, COVID just brought it to the West.
|
| It's common (as everyone is now well aware) to wear a face mask
| when sniffly or coughing, but also, many in Asia wear a face
| mask when driving a moped, to try and filter out some of the
| pollution.
|
| I get the vague impression that Apple is moving toward having
| both a thumbprint reader and Face ID, which I would welcome. It
| annoys me that it's taken them so long to roll out the iOS
| update which will let my Watch unlock my phone, that by the
| time I get it I probably won't be required to wear a mask in
| public anymore.
| moogleii wrote:
| I love the move to Face ID (pre-covid). I would accept Touch ID
| as a back up, but never as my primary.
|
| > Another UX problem: when I had a home button I could exit the
| app by testing it. Now I have to swipe up. But which way I
| swipe depends on how the app is rotated.
|
| It's always swipe up relative to the bottom of the app. That
| makes sense.
|
| > I could bring up my list of apps with a double tap of the
| home button. Now I have to do a weird swipe up-right-up to get
| the same functionality.
|
| This is incorrect. You need only swipe up 20% of the screen or
| so. You should feel haptic feedback. No right motion needed.
|
| And if you want to swipe directly to previous apps, simply
| swipe left or right on the bottom bar.
| randomsearch wrote:
| Touch ID doesn't work for me, doesn't recognise my fingers most
| of the time.
|
| Die, Touch ID.
| intergalplan wrote:
| Same here, I was really getting sick of re-training the damn
| thing every time the seasons changed. Drier air and colder?
| TouchID drops to maybe 10% success. Humid and warm again?
| Same. Took a shower or thoroughly washed your hands in the
| last 30 minutes? Or were swimming recently? TouchID doesn't
| work at all. Warmed your hands in front of a heater for a
| minute? TouchID's dead for a while. Ugh.
|
| Masks are a problem with FaceID, of course, but otherwise
| it's a huge improvement, in my experience. I gather some
| people didn't have the trouble I did with Touch ID, so maybe
| for them FaceID is worse.
| kevincox wrote:
| That's quite strange. My understanding was that most
| fingerprint readers were constantly updating their image of
| the fingerprint. For example shortly after enrolling my
| finger or after doing some manual work that made my hands
| feel raw it was noticeably less accurate to recognized my
| finger on the Pixel 4a. However I could quickly lock+unlock
| my phone with different areas of my finger and then it
| worked reliably.
| runxel wrote:
| Still no big MacBook Pro? (Sorry folks, 13 inch is not "Pro" in
| my eyes)
|
| Will we even ever get one? What's happening?
| sitzkrieg wrote:
| i have a m1 mac mini and so far it has been unusable garbage. it
| crashes everytime i shutdown/restart (lol) and will no longer
| detect any usb keyboards until i reinstall big sur. yes, really.
| maybe i could do a trade in for something like this to get a
| remotely usable device out of this waste of money
| barbazoo wrote:
| > Today, Apple is carbon neutral for global corporate operations,
| and by 2030, plans to have net zero climate impact across the
| entire business, which includes manufacturing supply chains and
| all product life cycles. This means that every Apple device sold,
| from material collection, component manufacturing, assembly,
| transport, customer use, charging, all the way through recycling
| and material recovery, will be 100 percent carbon neutral.
|
| This sounds impressive. I wonder how that works in practice
| especially the parts of the supply chain that Apple doesn't
| control directly, like "material collection". Are they just
| planting a bunch of trees, buying CO2 certificates, or are they
| actually making the entire supply chain carbon neutral?
| JoshTko wrote:
| Even Apple corp has to buy co2 certificates, the staff need to
| take flights, and work in non 100% sustainable buildings. What
| matters though is that Apple is considering the carbon costs of
| vendors and suppliers. So all thing equal, low carbon emitting
| vendors will be preferred.
| justnotworthit wrote:
| Anyone know anything about the impact of rare earth material
| mining/refining?
| DIVx0 wrote:
| This so easily could be my primary computing device. I've been an
| iPad user since the first gen and its my goto for anything that
| isn't work related and that's only because I can't easily write
| software on it.
|
| I understand there are more people interested in the use cases
| apple illustrated in their presentation than software developers
| who just want to run docker on their ipads so I wont hold my
| breath.
|
| But I'd love to actually justify the need for an M1 to be in an
| ipad.
| jug wrote:
| Yes, I think iPadOS is lagging behind the hardware. Hopefully
| WWDC will show us something that tells they "get it" this year,
| rather then spending time on widgets and app management.
|
| What I personally want is smoother peripheral support, like
| working directly on external hard drives and NAS storage both
| for coding and photo library management. No transfers, no
| syncing, just working on it.
|
| The Files app doesn't feel right, it still feels like a
| hamstrung file management island in the OS.
| speedgoose wrote:
| I wish the iPad pro was not such a locked down operating system.
| I just want to run a web browser that is not safari, and visual
| studio code.
| f6v wrote:
| At that point, what's the difference to MBA? iPad will always
| be subpar in my eyes due to poor lappability in "laptop" mode.
| And I realised I don't want my work screen to be covered in
| fingerprints.
| Jtsummers wrote:
| Re fingerprints: I got an iPad Pro last year, no screen
| protector or anything, and I do not notice any fingerprints
| on it after nearly daily use since last June or so when I
| bought it.
| strogonoff wrote:
| My iPad is covered in fingerprints all the time, even though
| I don't use it all that heavily. They are visible when
| brightness is low, as well as when it reflects surrounding
| light at particular angles.
|
| I was considering getting a paper-like screen protector
| (which can also make drawing with Pencil more comfortable)
| but I'm torn on the issue. On one hand, fingerprints are
| annoying, and thoroughly cleaning the screen is a hassle
| since not using any protector I have to be mindful of having
| a rogue speck scratch it permanently. On the other hand, a
| screen protector negatively affects image reproduction, and a
| poorly designed one could imaginably leave permanent marks on
| the underlying screen through its use.
|
| Does anyone have experience using paper-like screen
| protectors with iPad? Can they leave marks?
| aosaigh wrote:
| You can run Chrome and Firefox on an iPad.
| monkmartinez wrote:
| Its not the real Chrome or Firefox. The iPad version is not
| even close to the real thing on MacOS or Win10.
| aosaigh wrote:
| Understood, didn't realise they were all the same
| AdamTReineke wrote:
| The engines are still Safari Webkit, not Chromium/Gecko.
| teatree wrote:
| I know is a massive overkill, but how is the experience of
| reading books (pdfs)on the iPad Pro ? (Reading books on a laptop
| is a pain and phones are too small)
| Jtsummers wrote:
| I read programming books side-by-side with Blink ssh'd into a
| remote server. I find the experience pleasant. For other
| reading, it depends. I do a lot of gaming and so I have a lot
| of PDFs, two-page view or split view of different materials is
| very nice since I can read them without needing to zoom in.
| OTOH, if I'm just trying to read fiction or something then a
| smaller tablet (Kindle Fire, in my case, that I bought to
| replace a defunct iPad a few years ago since I just wanted a
| reading device) works better for me. I knew it was a stretch,
| but I was really hoping for an upgraded iPad Mini.
| 88840-8855 wrote:
| I recommend you the 2 TB 5G version for 2400 USD + the 150 USD
| Apple Pencil + the 350 USD keyboard, so in total 2900 USD for
| reading PDFs.
|
| Best regards :)
| TheDudeMan wrote:
| Apple has lidar on this iPad. At some point, Elon has to concede
| that lidar is not too expensive to put in a car, right? I
| understand that not all lidar is the same in precision and cost.
| But surely some lidar is better than no lidar.
| eyesee wrote:
| Automotive lidar is a very different beast than this. 200m
| range vs 5m just to start.
| nimish wrote:
| I tried to use an iPad air since the processor is more than
| adequate for me.
|
| The software experience is trash.
|
| Great for single tasking but just awful for doing two things or
| more. Facetime inexplicably behaves differently when minimized
| for example.
| deergomoo wrote:
| The iPad now has hardware virtualisation support. Indicative of
| big changes to iPadOS coming at WWWDC in June, or just a case of
| it being cheaper to only manufacture M1 vs both M1 and something
| like an A14X?
| peraspera wrote:
| Here are two anecdotes to explain why I'll never buy an Apple
| computer again, as 'sexy' as they are:
|
| 1. My brother has a old iPad (3rd generation). Somehow its
| battery is still good enough and the screen is in great shape,
| but the OS hasn't been updated in years. IIRC, Chrome is stuck on
| version 60 something. I could jailbreak it, but apparently I'd
| need a Mac to do that.
|
| 2. A friend of mine sold me an iMac 2010 for 50 bucks last year,
| peripherals and all. The hardware was in excellent shape. When
| November came, Apple stopped maintaining the latest version of
| the OS I could possibly get. Due to that iMac's finicky graphics
| card, installing a user-friendly Linux distro such as Ubuntu
| wasn't trivial. I ended up donating the computer to a repair
| centre.
|
| So here's a company with no interest in its hardware being of any
| use a decade after it's released.
|
| Planned obsolescence is bad enough when done to phones, it should
| never apply to full-on computers.
| mabedan wrote:
| 3rd gen iPad was from 9 years ago... show me a 9 year old phone
| or tablet for any other manufacturer which still gets updated
| peraspera wrote:
| Not my point at all, though still pretty appalling.
|
| It's quite trivial to install LineageOS, for instance, on an
| old Android phone. Apple completely blocks this route. If
| your iDevice is no longer supported, it becomes a shiny,
| expensive paperweight.
| peraspera wrote:
| That's fair. I'm not complaining about their update policy,
| though.
|
| My issue is that I see tablets as computers, and yet I
| can't even run an updated browser on a fairly decent
| computer released only nine years ago.
|
| Apple also makes it very hard for more savvy users to
| install something else on their hardware, so once they stop
| supporting it one's forced to recycle it.
|
| Perhaps I shouldn't have mentioned the iPad, but a
| thousand-dollar iMac from 2010 no longer being useful is
| quite sad, IMHO. My 2005 NEC laptop is still going.
| KabirKwatra wrote:
| Apple markets the iPad as a computer, so we can compare it to
| competing touchscreen laptops.
| FearlessNebula wrote:
| The iPad 3 was not being marketed as a computer like the
| new ones are
| my123 wrote:
| A dual-core Cortex-A9 with 1GB of RAM chokes at almost
| everything today even when updated.
|
| Source: Surface RT today is still getting security updates.
| And will continue to get them until 2023. However, it
| doesn't matter much in practice. And that's a quad-core
| Cortex-A9 clocked 400MHz higher with twice the RAM.
| benhurmarcel wrote:
| > My brother has a old iPad (3rd generation). Somehow its
| battery is still good enough and the screen is in great shape,
| but the OS hasn't been updated in years.
|
| Try to update the OS on a 9-year-old Android tablet, see how it
| goes.
| FearlessNebula wrote:
| You really can't complain about their update support when
| iPhone gets support twice as long as Android. And I'm using
| Android personally so don't think I'm just an Apple shill
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