iPad Has lack of iPadOS innovation changed your future iPad buying decisions…

[secretk]

The OS restrictions actually dictate RAM support. iOS 12 runs on minimum 1GB RAM so developers would have to support that.

Alas, it doesn't guarantee developers will do extensive testing nor can they test for all possible scenarios. What may work fine with just the single app focus may be an exercise in frustration when one starts swapping between a couple of apps.

Yes, this. There is no easy way to test how your app behaves in multitasking mode. So I as a Developer or QA would be frustrated. I would also be frustrated as Product Manager because what would happen is that DEV teams would reject 80 % of my feature ideas because of not enough RAM. Honestly such situation would not motivate me to write powerful apps.

 

[iPadified]

No. IPad OS does exactly what is supposed to do. You press on a icon and the app starts - no fuzz. Easy and direct interaction. For many professions, the iPad is perfect but for other it is not. It is not a Mac and should not be a Mac either. I do agree that an 12.9 inch “iPad Air” or even and 12.9 “iPad” would be great (yes and a 15 inch iPP of course).

 

[rui no onna]

No. IPad OS does exactly what is supposed to do. You press on a icon and the app starts - no fuzz. Easy and direct interaction. For many professions, the iPad is perfect but for other it is not. It is not a Mac and should not be a Mac either. I do agree that an 12.9 inch “iPad Air” or even and 12.9 “iPad” would be great (yes and a 15 inch iPP of course).

Yeah. I bought the Pro 12.9 primarily for the display size rather than the processing power.

BTO would be nice.

Apple A14/15
16GB RAM
1TB SSD
choice of TouchID or FaceID
10.9/11" and 12.9" options (IPS LCD is fine)
same camera setup as iPad mini 6

I don't need ProMotion nor quad speakers.

Of course, given RAM densities, 16GB on A14/15 may not be possible. I believe the M1 iPads use 2x8GB RAM chips. I'd be willing to settle for A14/15+8GB for a $400 discount over M1+16GB.

 

[capathy21]

Yeah don’t get me wrong the device on itself is awesome, but the exact thing you say ‘enjoying the process of finding new workflows/ways to get things done’ just shows the iPad isn’t currently headed in the right direction…

You shouldn’t as a user have to find new ways of getting stuff done you should be able to pick up the device and just get stuff done without having to find workarounds etc… and I think that’s why so many people are still to this day agreeing that the iPad is fantastic hardware but extremely poor on the software side of things.

I believe it‘s only viewed as extremely poor by those who expect it to be a traditional laptop. It’s not. I find almost every task easier to accomplish on my IPP versus my MacBook. Mac OS feels archaic in comparison to how everything is just easy and integrated in ipad os. Of course it has some limitations, but for those who live in the cloud and have for years, ipad os is more than enough. Ipad os is far more capable than many give it credit for. It is not a traditional operating system. Those who expect it to function as such are going to be disappointed.

 

[HaddockW]

I've been reading a few pages in this thread. I just ordered a M1 11" Pro w/ 512GB. It is a big purchase as I load up pencil, keyboard,etc.. It is replacing a 10.5" Pro 1st gen. I also have an iPad Mini gen 5 that I rarely use. But I use my iPad Pro 10.5" everyday since 2017. And I use it for a few key apps - Lumafusion and Serif's Affinity Photo. Hence, I will splurge on the new pencil. I got a good solid 4 years from the 10.5 and I've made some decent money with it; creating content. I spend about 2 hours a day on it; retouching images so I did not hesitate to spend $1100 on the iPad Pro M1. Would I like iPad OS to do more? Of course, if I could run Docker on it, I'd probably ditch the Macbook Pro. But I'll digress. The iPad excels at what I want from it. Drawing with a pencil is by far more relaxing than trackpadding on a macbook. LIke the analogy people make; the best camera is the camera you carry with you. I do most of my retouching casually when I take my kids out to their after school activities. I can be on the bleecher while my son does his swimming laps. I can't do that with a Macbook. But with an iPad, you can just whip out the tablet and get things done.

I've calculated the hours I use to create things on the iPad versus a laptop and the cost to use is amortized. $1000 or even $1500 for an iPad is a no brainer for me. It totally depends on what value you can extract from it.

Do I still need a laptop? Of course, I plan to get a loaded 16" M1 Max for my day job. But those are two computing use case.

 

[mrLucas]

Not exactly. You asked me why I say that Developers might not want to write iOS software for wide range of devices (including base iPad). I am not talking about floating windows, I am telling you that as a Developer I find annoying to have to create an app and test it for iOS devices of different combinations (SoC, RAM, iOS version). This is a nightmare for maintenance and testing.

what? no I didnt ?
Also, I find your argument not quite good, as IOS platform is in fact much easier to build for, compared to android. You basically have only one device and OS to test for - the newest one.

 

[mrLucas]

If you're running the same apps you were back then, sure. Alas, apps are way more bloated nowadays and a single web browser tab often uses 500MB-1GB all by itself.

If one is already experiencing reloads when switching between, say, 5 foreground and background apps, that suggests there's insufficient RAM to actually keep those 5 apps in active foreground windows. Mind you, while using split screen on a 2017 12.9 with 4GB, I've actually had both split screen apps crash on me (Safari and Excel).

And again, there's no swap on iOS like there is on Mac/Windows/Linux. That's something Apple can add but would probably require extensive changes in the way the OS functions. There's going to be a minimum storage performance (at least A12?) and capacity level (128GB?) to support swap so iPads don't slow to a crawl or die prematurely from SSD wear or have the swap use up a huge chunk of user's available storage.

yeah.. thats true and so sad.

 

[mrLucas]

I dont think swap is coming to ipad btw. its an old depreciated technology that made sence when ram was small and expensive

 

[mrLucas]

The OS restrictions actually dictate RAM support. iOS 12 runs on minimum 1GB RAM so developers would have to support that.

Alas, it doesn't guarantee developers will do extensive testing nor can they test for all possible scenarios. What may work fine with just the single app focus may be an exercise in frustration when one starts swapping between a couple of apps.

I really dont see hardware as the reason for windows not existing on ipad, but UIUX

the thing with hardware is already there with M1



You know… This is probbably not going to be a poppular opition - but I think Apple has some amazing concepts going on with the iPad, that might not be so obvious to the developer comunity yet . But I think in terms of OS design iPad is actually next level - and the future of computing (Architecture wise)..

The facts like swap not existing, memory management, single app focus, and so much more - are actually features not bugs with ipads - and with - consumer first type devices.

It just makes all the sence in the world - the way iPad OS Architecture is built, - and this is especcialy true for memory management, but also resources management at large.

I am not sure if there are people here that can actually understad this, and have the foresight about this? and what I am talking about?

 

[mrLucas]

Yes, this. There is no easy way to test how your app behaves in multitasking mode. So I as a Developer or QA would be frustrated. I would also be frustrated as Product Manager because what would happen is that DEV teams would reject 80 % of my feature ideas because of not enough RAM. Honestly such situation would not motivate me to write powerful apps.

I think you miss being a developer, as you keep mentioning ‘ I as a Developer ‘ (with big D), whereas I understand you are not working as a developer any more Maybe you should go back to it, it seems you would enjoy it, and miss it subconciously

 

[mrLucas]

Yeah. I bought the Pro 12.9 primarily for the display size rather than the processing power.

BTO would be nice.

Apple A14/15
16GB RAM
1TB SSD
choice of TouchID or FaceID
10.9/11" and 12.9" options (IPS LCD is fine)
same camera setup as iPad mini 6

I don't need ProMotion nor quad speakers.

Of course, given RAM densities, 16GB on A14/15 may not be possible. I believe the M1 iPads use 2x8GB RAM chips. I'd be willing to settle for A14/15+8GB for a $400 discount over M1+16GB.

thats not happening ?




PS. wow man, this forum reallly needs to work on grouping posts - like vBulletin does. Its quite messy this way

 

[mrLucas]

I've been reading a few pages in this thread. I just ordered a M1 11" Pro w/ 512GB. It is a big purchase as I load up pencil, keyboard,etc.. It is replacing a 10.5" Pro 1st gen. I also have an iPad Mini gen 5 that I rarely use. But I use my iPad Pro 10.5" everyday since 2017. And I use it for a few key apps - Lumafusion and Serif's Affinity Photo. Hence, I will splurge on the new pencil. I got a good solid 4 years from the 10.5 and I've made some decent money with it; creating content. I spend about 2 hours a day on it; retouching images so I did not hesitate to spend $1100 on the iPad Pro M1. Would I like iPad OS to do more? Of course, if I could run Docker on it, I'd probably ditch the Macbook Pro. But I'll digress. The iPad excels at what I want from it. Drawing with a pencil is by far more relaxing than trackpadding on a macbook. LIke the analogy people make; the best camera is the camera you carry with you. I do most of my retouching casually when I take my kids out to their after school activities. I can be on the bleecher while my son does his swimming laps. I can't do that with a Macbook. But with an iPad, you can just whip out the tablet and get things done.

I've calculated the hours I use to create things on the iPad versus a laptop and the cost to use is amortized. $1000 or even $1500 for an iPad is a no brainer for me. It totally depends on what value you can extract from it.

Do I still need a laptop? Of course, I plan to get a loaded 16" M1 Max for my day job. But those are two computing use case.

r you saying iPad is actually saving you time, and allowing you to finish tasks quicker than on a Mac?

 

[secretk]

I think you miss being a developer, as you keep mentioning ‘ I as a Developer ‘ (with big D), whereas I understand you are not working as a developer any more Maybe you should go back to it, it seems you would enjoy it, and miss it subconciously

I am no longer actively developing because I am managing 50 Developers. However part of my job is to know what motivates and engages my Developers and what not. Also we do have mobile app and Developers doing iOS and Android Development in my organization so I do check with them on what they like and dislike in terms of the DEV process.

My job is to on one side to build engaged Development team but also to foster the product evolution and support Product Management in building and meeting their Product Strategy.

Do I miss writing code in general - yes. Do I miss working as a Developer - no. I became a manager because I saw how managers did not do enough to engage and retain their best Developers to a point where I had to spend most of my time to train newcomers. At certain point it got really frustrating and I realized that if I want to change the situation, I need to assume the role of the manager.

 

[secretk]

what? no I didnt ?
Also, I find your argument not quite good, as IOS platform is in fact much easier to build for, compared to android. You basically have only one device and OS to test for - the newest one.

Not true. People do not buy iOS devices every year. The percentage of people that use older iOS devices is higher than the ones having the newest device so Developers do not need to test on more devices than the latest one.

Also Apple tends to play around with their APIs way too much and change things from year to year. The worst for Developers is the yearly iOS upgrade. Apple manages to break things that used to work in the past without offering any meaningful gain for Developers or end users. So Developers need to make sure that their apps is working before September. This means every year there are 2-3 months (between June and September) where they cannot focus on product development because they need to work on this.

And that still is not enough because the percentage of people that upgrade to the newest iOS version within 1-2 months of availability is smaller than the ones that keep on the old version. So Developers still need to make sure their app is working on the other platforms.

About Android platform. There are way more devices for Android, this is true. You do not need to own them to test your aps though as Android Studio offers pretty good emulator so you can test how your app behaves. As you know Android manufacturers (excluding Google) do not support their devices for more than 2-3 years. Also most of the brands have their own custom builds and they generally hide Google API changes. Lastly Android is built on top of Java. If you are Java Developer you can easily switch to writing Android apps, if you are Android Developer you can easily switch to writing Java applications. iOS Development is more niche as skills compared to Android.

And yes you can run Android Studio on every desktop OS so it is accessible to more people to learn and play around with it.

 

[mrLucas]

Also Apple tends to play around with their APIs way too much and change things from year to year

Thats never good to hear. Gets frustrating pretty quickly keeping up with changes

Apple manages to break things that used to work in the past without offering any meaningful gain for Developers or end users

I highly doubt it. It may be the case that you specifically dont value the changes or they are not beneficial to your team and your product.

This means every year there are 2-3 months (between June and September) where they cannot focus on product development because they need to work on this.

That sounds horrible, Thats 1/4 of total time just for fixing - keeping up. Did you say you do IOS iPADOS developemet specifically in your team? meaning - this is exactly your job to work on iPad and iOS apps, and oversee the process.

You do not need to own them to test your aps though as Android Studio offers pretty good emulator so you can test how your app behaves

X code has this too. Or are you not happy with the X code implementation? Do you even use Xcode since you said you dont know swift and also not really work in Objective C, but C# and so on?

In other terms, does your team build iOS or Android apps? or maybe pc programs? This is important for context so we can better understand where you are coming from, and value your experience accordingly.


PS. I can see you are quite proud of your developers and your profession Nice to see.

 

[yabeweb]

Yeah don’t get me wrong the device on itself is awesome, but the exact thing you say ‘enjoying the process of finding new workflows/ways to get things done’ just shows the iPad isn’t currently headed in the right direction…

Wanting to use a tablet as a desktop is not the correct direction.

It's a powerful tablet, with some desktop-class app (Affinity and Luma Fusion are as close to a desktop app as it gets) but it's NOT a laptop/desktop.

The minute you realize that. it's the minute you either enjoy and use the iPad or hate and go back to desktop/laptop for work.

If we never had to "adapt" to a new workflow, we would be still using terminals.

No it's not for everyone, not for every job, but the iPad CAN BE and IT IS amazing for some professions.

 

[secretk]

Thats never good to hear. Gets frustrating pretty quickly keeping up with changes

Yes.

I highly doubt it. It may be the case that you specifically dont value the changes or they are not beneficial to your team and your product.

Good point! It is not important just the people around me, but percentage wise how Developers feel and whether this is their perception or not. I can only provide experience from the people around me.

That sounds horrible, Thats 1/4 of total time just for fixing - keeping up. Did you say you do IOS iPADOS developemet specifically in your team? meaning - this is exactly your job to work on iPad and iOS apps, and oversee the process.

Not my team, but a team under my boss. I have weekly calls with the TL of same team twice a week so I know their issues. I am also aware of their planning as we have the same product manager. In this specific case their recent planning was screwed up because of iOS 15 changes done by Apple and they had to adapt.

X code has this too. Or are you not happy with the X code implementation? Do you even use Xcode since you said you dont know swift and also not really work in Objective C, but C# and so on?

It is difficult to use Xcode if you do not have a Mac and I won't buy a Mac just to play with iOS development (which is one of my point on whether Apple motivates me to be iOS Developer). That being said the team I am talking about has both Android and iOS Developers so I have discussed with them about Android Studio vs Xcode. I am not saying that Android Studio is generally better than Xcode. There are things that Xcode does better, there are things that Android Studio does better.

PS. I can see you are quite proud of your developers and your profession Nice to see.

That I am. I am lucky to enjoy my job.

And you do not need to treat my feedback as a general truth and you should not. I am saying why some people might not like iOS Development. That might not be the case for everyone but it might explain why sometimes we do not see the apps we want to see on the platform.

 

[James Godfrey]

I believe it‘s only viewed as extremely poor by those who expect it to be a traditional laptop. It’s not. I find almost every task easier to accomplish on my IPP versus my MacBook. Mac OS feels archaic in comparison to how everything is just easy and integrated in ipad os. Of course it has some limitations, but for those who live in the cloud and have for years, ipad os is more than enough. Ipad os is far more capable than many give it credit for. It is not a traditional operating system. Those who expect it to function as such are going to be disappointed.

I view it as extremely poor as I can get just as many tasks done on my iPhone as I can an iPad, albeit the screen just being bigger in the iPad.

I don’t think the vast majority feel that it’s poor as they expect it to be a traditional laptop, I think the vast majority feel it doesn’t disconnect enough from the iPhone for the device to be worth what apple are charging for it.

 

[mrLucas]

I view it as extremely poor as I can get just as many tasks done on my iPhone as I can an iPad, albeit the screen just being bigger in the iPad.

I don’t think the vast majority feel that it’s poor as they expect it to be a traditional laptop, I think the vast majority feel it doesn’t disconnect enough from the iPhone for the device to be worth what apple are charging for it.

I’m confused. Are you saying your iPhone is enought for you?
Or are you just complaining that iPad is not ”novel” enought for you to be happy?


Are you seeking a new ”experience” so you need it to “disconnect” from the iphone, or are you seeking to do meaningfull things? like watch movies, look at and organize photos, write documents, read and write long emails, or maybe draw, design, model,.. Edit photos.

I can assure you - you cant do any of those things on your iphone.

obviously : your original post has struck something a lot of us are feeling could be better. but your most recent one is a bit narrowsited if not untrue. in addition to that - iPadOS is just rigged with bugs, and works horribly bad for a lot of things. Its just a ****** OS with so many bugs , mostly UX UI related, and thats a big part of whats wrong with it. Other than not a lot of quality software existing, and a lot of stupid meaningless bloatwre, or old software that treats iPad as a toy for babies… But - concept wise, its bang on.

 

[rui no onna]

I view it as extremely poor as I can get just as many tasks done on my iPhone as I can an iPad, albeit the screen just being bigger in the iPad.

For folks who prefer tablets though, the bigger screen of the tablet is exactly the point.

I tried getting a big iPhone once to see if I can ditch carrying both iPhone+iPad. I hated having to use mobile website layouts and constant scrolling. I still ended up carrying the iPad with me everywhere and using it over the big phone. Went back to smaller phones after that.

I don’t think the vast majority feel that it’s poor as they expect it to be a traditional laptop, I think the vast majority feel it doesn’t disconnect enough from the iPhone for the device to be worth what apple are charging for it.

And this is why Apple sells something like ~200+ million iPhones to just ~30-40 million iPads every year. I believe looking at the overall market (including Android), the unit sales gap between smartphones and tablets is even bigger.

Outside of MacRumors and tech pundits, I'm guessing most iPad buyers (from basic to Pro) are quite content with their iPads. Normal people wouldn't just continue spending $$$ on buying/upgrading iPads if they don't like using it. Those who need more than what the iPad provides are likely buying Macs, Surface, etc

 

[HaddockW]

r you saying iPad is actually saving you time, and allowing you to finish tasks quicker than on a Mac?

Yes. Depends on tasks/workflow.

I am a big user of Affinity Photo. I do a lot of compositing of images and it is quicker for me to dodge/burn, remove items off images using Apple Pen at my convenience. If I have to export to .PSD and do it in Photoshop on the Mac. I can do it but it is cumbersome. On the iPad, pen specific apps are a joy to use.

 

[Tsepz]

Don’t know if it’s just me, but I have had a Pro 12.9” but being too big I am now rocking a Pro 11”… now I am contemplating selling it again and just going for the new mini, my reasoning is just how limiting iPadOS currently is and how Apple just never seem to give it much love every time WWDC comes round…

Personally I feel that the PRO iPads just don’t seem to be cutting it as a Pro device, and likely won’t in the foreseeable future mainly down to the OS and apples lack of innovation with it, let’s be honest the Pro iPad has barely changed at all since 2018 (both in hardware and software), and likely is not going to get any better until late 2022 (that’s if it does at all), that’s 4 years minimum of stagnation for the Pro line of iPads.

Does anyone else feel like it really makes no sense to go for the higher end iPad line up anymore?

I guess this entirely rests on everyone’s varying use cases for iPads (the whole range). I don’t do any “Pro level work” (whatever people may interpret that as), but I still love the 120hz ProMotion screen, the powerful internal hardware when/if I game and what it brings in general (the quad speakers and so on).

I think one needs to always be prepared to buy any iPad for what it is and not what it may potentially be in the future. I have come to accept that Apple may never go “the full hog” with the iPad Pro range, you are literally buying it for the novelty of the features it has when you purchase it and that’s it.

With above said I do understand where you come from as I to would have loved to see Apple make it more like a Mac with touchscreen, or just take better advantage of the hardware and make it more of a touchscreen computer versus a “bigger iPhone“ with stylus support.
If you do not like where Apple is with the Pro right now then I fully agree, rather avoid paying extra for a Pro unit and rather get an iPad Air, standard iPad or iPad Mini, whichever fits your use case.

 

[HaddockW]

If you do not like where Apple is with the Pro right now then I fully agree, rather avoid paying extra for a Pro unit and rather get an iPad Air, standard iPad or iPad Mini, whichever fits your use case.

I wholeheartedly agree. The $329 base iPad is a wonderful tablet. I've suckered myself to buy cheap Galaxy tabs, Amazon Fires because they go on firesale. Even at $80, $100, those tablets are pure junk due to major lagginess. A majority of user can do fine with just a "regular" ipad. But the Pros are in another league for useability for those who value those extra features. Larger storage, more ram, and a thunderbolt port was worth it for me. I know my use cases. I have regular iPads and even a Mini 5 that sits in the drawer. My wife and kids do just fine with those versions.

 

[HaddockW]

Wanting to use a tablet as a desktop is not the correct direction.

The minute you realize that. it's the minute you either enjoy and use the iPad or hate and go back to desktop/laptop for work.

If we never had to "adapt" to a new workflow, we would be still using terminals.

Agreed. Trying to hamfist an existing workflow on the iPad is not the approach. I will probably drop $4k on a new M1 Max 16" in the next month. That laptop has a DIFFERENT workflow. Very different than an iPad. For the iPad. I did not try to make it work as a laptop replacement. Otherwise, I think the M1 13" Air is a better buy. But for my iPad specific use case, it is delightful to use. That is the key word. Delightful. The Apple Pen and Affinity Photo has opened up a new world for me. I do a lot of hobby photography and I make some good side money that pays for the iPad. But it has entirely changed how I do photography work and I dont think I can go back to a laptop for that specific use case. A laptop, I use it for software development and some Final Cut. But the iPad, I use it for photography and retouching. When I say it is delightful, I mean, all the times I have to wait for my kid at Karate lesson or Swim practice, I can pull out the iPad and draw. I dont have to be confined to a table or desk and "force myself" to concentrate on being creative in a desk environment. That is the key thing for iPad users like myself. I create content and I create a lot of it for social media and I do it all on the iPad.

The moment someone on Android has that level of delightfulness of Affinity/LumaFusion on an Android device for $500, I may consider.

 

[James Godfrey]

I’m confused. Are you saying your iPhone is enought for you?
Or are you just complaining that iPad is not ”novel” enought for you to be happy?


Are you seeking a new ”experience” so you need it to “disconnect” from the iphone, or are you seeking to do meaningfull things? like watch movies, look at and organize photos, write documents, read and write long emails, or maybe draw, design, model,.. Edit photos.

I can assure you - you cant do any of those things on your iphone.

obviously : your original post has struck something a lot of us are feeling could be better. but your most recent one is a bit narrowsited if not untrue. in addition to that - iPadOS is just rigged with bugs, and works horribly bad for a lot of things. Its just a ****** OS with so many bugs , mostly UX UI related, and thats a big part of whats wrong with it. Other than not a lot of quality software existing, and a lot of stupid meaningless bloatwre, or old software that treats iPad as a toy for babies… But - concept wise, its bang on.

I’m saying much like the Mac is a completely unique experience in comparison to the iPhone, and the iPhone is a completely unique experience to the Watch, the iPad just isn’t that unique experience which personally I think it needs.

Rather than just being an upscaled and more powerful iPhone it needs its own unique software which actually takes advantage of the hardware.

I don’t want the iPad to replace the Mac, much like I don’t want it to replace the iPhone, but I do want the software to take full advantage of the hardware that is housing it.

Unfortunately the iPad just isn’t doing that right now and considering some of the iPad line up is more expensive than some MacBooks, it’s quite embarrassing.

Apple truly need to develop a completely unique OS which is developed specifically for the iPad line up (specifically the pro line up) because at the moment it using an OS for a phone with a few extra bells and whistles nothing more.