iPad as a laptop replacement

[PandaPunch]

Hardware-wise it is.

If Apple wanted to allow macOS on it they could do so with a simple flip of a switch.

I am not saying they should, but I am saying that after 11 years iPadOS is still missing so many features that it is embarrassing.



Ok, great. Please explain how I would accomplish the e-mail task detailed above the iPad way.



I could respond to this, but I would be repeating myself. Again.



Sure, there are apps for tons of stuff. Many of them contain all sorts of rubbish, from tracking and analytics to downright scams, not to mention how many garbage apps you have to wade through to find one that actually does what you want it to. Researching is difficult because the scammers are pretty good at SEO.

A Mac has pretty much everything I need it to have out of the box, except for Drafts and Pastebot. (Oh, and NetNewsWire, since Apple ripped RSS support from Safari.)

Which of course brings to mind the best examples of all the missing iPad features, a ****ing calculator. ATP recently had an interesting segment on all the scam calculator apps, and how difficult it is for a normal user to get a decent one if you haven't been told to just download PCalc. It is truly mind-boggling.



Once again, the "iPad way" is to download and install something from a developer you need to research and decide to trust.

I have decided to do so in this case because of the utility it provides, and use iSH every day. I am not happy about the lack of a first-party solution though. Ask me how thrilled I am about trusting joe-random-developer with my RSA private key?

Also, iSH is far from a replacement.

It only has access to its own sandbox root, which means I cannot use ls to sort or filter folder contents of my iCloud Drive or OneDrive, and need to use the useless file listing capabilities in these apps instead.

(I know, I know, do it the "iPad way" and download Midnight Commander or something. Have you seen the garbage SEO pages that searching for "iPadOS file manager" results in?)



Ok, I'll start you off with a few challenges:

1. You arrive at the location where you are expected to hold your presentation. Once there, you find that the projector only has HDMI input, but the audio is analog-only. Of course you have your HDMI dongle, but you do not have a spare Apple TV, Airport Express or dongle for HDMI analog audio extraction, and there is no time to get one. You just go into the audio settings and choose the headphone jack as your audio out, and everything just works, right? Right? Oh, it doesn't? What is the iPad way?
2. You are enjoying a podcast or music while browsing a web page that has an embedded youtube video. You want to see the video, but do not want your audio to pause, and you definitely don't want to have to restarted it manually when the video is done playing. And naturally you don't want to do this when you do a quick check-in on Ring to see who is at the door only to find out it was a bird either. How do you solve this the iPad way?
3. You have an mp3 that is not in your Music library, and not available from the iTunes store. You just import it, right? Drag and drop? Swipe? There must be some gesture, right? Let me guess, download Infuse Pro or something?
4. Your kids are dancing to the music playing from the iPad on the living room Airplay 2 speakers. Of course you want to grab a quick video of it. This works, right? No? What's the iPad way? Go find some other device than the one you have in your hand?

No Xcode is a pretty big ****ing asterix for any developer asking "can an iPad replace my laptop" which is literally the topic of this thread.

I know you didn't target the challenges at me, but you raised some good points with them.

1) I do not have experience with this, but I see how this could be a serious problem.

2) This is a feature I do like, pausing what's currently playing when something else plays is nice. But I fully understand why other people don't like it. Apple could have solved this by having a toggle option and no one would complain about it either way.

3) This one could be solved, depending on what you are willing to use. But it's not looking good, I put an mp3 that wouldn't be on iTunes onto my iCloud. Apple Music doesn't import it as a local music file (no surprise). I didn't test a lot of other apps, but VLC is possibly the best app since I can at least import mp3s from a cloud service or use a web browser on a Windows or macOS computer to wirelessly drag and drop it onto the iPad.

This point and trying to import music files onto my iPad/iPhone is just reminding me of why I ended up preferring music streaming. The solutions I came up with depends on how much you can trust the apps you download. I can somewhat trust VLC, having used it for years before Netflix and other streaming services back in high school. And I'm personally happy with VLC's solutions for importing music and videos, but not everyone would.

4) This is more of a question, are you saying it's hard to impossible to take a video with your iPad if you are AirPlaying media? I'd like to repeat this for myself, that's a glaring problem.

 

[mrLucas]

Here's one that I want and Arctic Moose has mentioned - get an mp3 music file into the music library without iTunes.

This is a great example od what I am saying. MP3s are the old world. Streming is the new world

 

[mrLucas]

Ok, great. Please explain how I would accomplish the e-mail task detailed above the iPad way.

However, just now I needed to reply to an e-mail, include quoted sections from two other e-mails, and copy three of seven addresses from these other e-mails. That was a major chore, something that literally takes a second or two on a Mac.

Okay. lets see.

So, click reply, open new mail instance, find other emails, select sections drag them to your mail window, after that, find other emails you need and drag them too..
or you can copy paste it as well (quick double tap, click copy, click double tap click paste)
or you could squeeze it and unsqueeze it (copy paste gesture)
you can use fullscreen and swipe left right on the bottom, or use splitview. both are fine, and quick.

…
Its pretty much the same as os Mac OS, only you need to use iPad language to do it - so taping, swiping and so on…


I just did it btw. Its super easy.
(barley an unconvinience)

 

[sparksd]

This is a great example od what I am saying. MP3s are the old world. Streming is the new world

Wrong. Sorry, but I go a lot of places where streaming is not possible. There is a lot of "old world" still out there.

 

[PandaPunch]

Wrong. Sorry, but I go a lot of places where streaming is not possible. There is a lot of "old world" still out there.

Plus I don't think it's cool to tell someone with a hefty music collection to just abandon it if they clearly don't want to. Otherwise, they would have moved to streaming like many others have.

 

[Arctic Moose]

This is a great example od what I am saying. MP3s are the old world. Streming is the new world

Yeah, but the recorded music of the band I was in when I was 17 isn’t on any streaming service.

Also, rights to particular music come and go on streaming services all the time. If you want a particular playlist to always have exactly the songs you want on it you need to use your own music.

 

[mrLucas]

You know.. I’m trying to make sence of iPads thats all.
I think , iPads are not just new formfactors, or different OSs, but they are a completely new computing paradigm.

if you get it, youll enjoy it.
And unfortionatley (or not really) MP3s are not a part of it.

BTW I have a HUGE music collection, but streaming takes no space on my hdd, plus I can stream everything in LOSSLESS, which is, not everything I have is lossles even a lot of it is, and plus everything is sorted and nicely tagged. To find a new song I just search for it, instead of messing with torrents and downloading, and converting.

Its easier and more convinient, plus you get to actually pay for music you are listening to, which I think is fair.

 

[mrLucas]

Yeah, but the recorded music of the band I was in when I was 17 isn’t on any steaming service.

Also, rights to particular music come and go on streaming services all the time. If you want a particular playlist to always have exactly the songs you want on it you need to use your own music.

Good point. I am not sure for the rights thou? In Apple Music case? I dont think most bands would be retreiving from streaming there at all… do you think otherwise?

 

[Arctic Moose]

I just did it btw. Its super easy.
(barley an unconvinience)

Cool, post a screen recording of how this takes only a second or two, and I will do the same.

 

[mrLucas]

Wrong. Sorry, but I go a lot of places where streaming is not possible. There is a lot of "old world" still out there.

nicely put. Lots of old world out there

With apple music btw, you can download all the music you are streaming to your device anyway, so you can have it with you when you dont have internet.
For my usecase thou, I dont do this, since where I live hispeed internet is everywhere. (Belgrade/Serbia)

 

[Arctic Moose]

Good point. I am not sure for the rights thou? In Apple Music case? I dont think most bands would be retreiving from streaming there at all… do you think otherwise?

On the Mac you just drag your music, whatever it is, into your library and it’s there. With iTunes Match you get the “Apple version” if there is one in Apple Music. If there isn’t, Apple uploads and distributes it for you. That is why I have my band’s songs in the Music app on my phone, because I added them to my library on a Mac.

 

[mrLucas]

Cool, post a screen recording of how this takes only a second or two, and I will do the same.

Keep in mind I never said iPad is FASTER than mouse keyboard combo. Its not. (not if you are a superuser anyway).
But its far from hard, or unconvininet.

You can also post how hard is it for you to just reply to an email, or read emails, and I will show you that too. You do that more often than the example you provided.

Or better yet, How hard is it to acctually record a screen!

 

[mrLucas]

Or better yet, How hard is it to acctually record a screen!

On the Mac you just drag your music, whatever it is, into your library and it’s there. With iTunes Match you get the “Apple version” if there is one in Apple Music. If there isn’t, Apple uploads and distributes it for you. That is why I have my band’s songs in the Music app on my phone, because I added them to my library on a Mac.

I am not saying this feature should not be there, I am saying I dont miss it, and I dont think you do either, since I dint think your band frim the 8th grade will publish any new songs now ?

 

[sparksd]

nicely put. Lots of old world out there

With apple music btw, you can download all the music you are streaming to your device anyway, so you can have it with you when you dont have internet.
For my usecase thou, I dont do this, since where I live hispeed internet is everywhere. (Belgrade/Serbia)

I know all about Apple music - I'm talking about the large CD collection I already own and have ripped.

 

[PandaPunch]

Or better yet, How hard is it to acctually record a screen!

I am not saying this feature should not be there, I am saying I dont miss it, and I dont think you do either, since I dint think your band frim the 8th grade will publish any new songs now ?

Uh, 17 year olds are not 8th graders...

 

[mrLucas]

heres checking email for you.

Shared Photos

share.icloud.com

 

[Arctic Moose]

heres checking email for you.

Shared Photos

share.icloud.com

Not sure what this is supposed to illustrate, it just says "please check back soon".

To check my e-mail I literally just shift my eyeballs to the section of one of my screens where my inboxes are located, so I have a hard time seeing how it could possibly be any faster, or require any less effort.

I dont think you do either, since I dint think your band frim the 8th grade will publish any new songs now ?

If you honestly want me to believe you mean that you cannot see the other thousands of use cases for this you really are just trolling.

I am not saying this feature should not be there, I am saying I dont miss it

Ok, so we’ve gone from “everything is possible and it’s great” to “you can do a lot of things, as long as you’re not being silly and trying to do the wrong things that nobody should want to do, and it will be a lot slower much of the time”.

I may not perform that particular task all day, every day, but it is a common enough occurrence for it to add up. Factor in all the other inefficiencies of using an iPad in its current state, and top it off with all the things that are simply not possible and it is death by a thousand paper cuts and a few knife and axe wounds.

Obviously this discussion is over.

 

[mrLucas]

take a look at the video. Checking email is faster on ipad, and you do that more often.


also, we can do a race if you want. I am confident you could be a BIT faster, but not much.

But I am WAY faster in checking the mail althogeather, and you do that more often, so in total, ipad is actually saving you time.


(But this is the wring message I want to send.)

 

[mrLucas]

Ok, so we’ve gone from “everything is possible and it’s great” to “you can do a lot of things, as long as you’re not being silly and trying to do the wrong things that nobody should want to do, and it will be a lot slower much of the time”.

I may not perform that particular task all day, every day, but it is a common enough occurrence for it to add up. Factor in all the other inefficiencies of using an iPad in its current state, and top it off with all the things that are simply not possible and it is death by a thousand paper cuts and a few knife and axe wounds.

Obviously this discussion is over.

I really don’t think you should be using an iPad. it’s not for you. I think you’re too stubborn to think about new ways of doing things do you know how to do in a PC. And also I think you don’t really understand the idea that the iPad really is a new paradigm of computing. So it is a new world. And you want to do the old world things on the new world device that’s not gonna fly. But not because the new device is actually inherently bad, it’s because you’re doing it bad.

iPad is not perfect. There’s a couple of things that are very annoying to me, but in fact a lot of them were Fixed in the new iPadOS. For the form factor, I actually find iPad to be an insanely capable computer.

And really there is nothing or almost nothing do you can’t do on the iPad. your example actually shows this. You’re saying that it’s hard to check email it’s not it’s actually easier than a computer, and your thing about copying and replying to me just implies that you actually don’t know how to use an iPad maybe. It’s extremely easy and it’s very fast as well. Could be that the computer is faster for like one second or something like that but not really let’s do this. Send me your recording of your email and I will beat it.

 

[mrLucas]

Obviously this discussion is over.

again, I feel the discussion is over for you, because you really shouldn’t use an iPad in the first place. I feel that you’re being a little bit stubborn and did you really don’t want between a fact to learn the new ways how to do the old things. and for that reason I really don’t think you should be using an iPad it’s just not for you…

 

[mrLucas]

I would also like you to show me that your Old World PC can check email faster than my New World iPad can.

 

[PandaPunch]

again, I feel the discussion is over for you, because you really shouldn’t use an iPad in the first place. I feel that you’re being a little bit stubborn and did you really don’t want between a fact to learn the new ways how to do the old things. and for that reason I really don’t think you should be using an iPad it’s just not for you…

No, I think it's because you're outright gatekeeping the iPad even when the person you're talking to likes the iPad but the iPad doesn't work as well as a Mac for certain tasks for them. How can you just straight up say, "You shouldn't be using an iPad"?

 

[mrLucas]

1. You arrive at the location where you are expected to hold your presentation. Once there, you find that the projector only has HDMI input, but the audio is analog-only. Of course you have your HDMI dongle, but you do not have a spare Apple TV, Airport Express or dongle for HDMI analog audio extraction, and there is no time to get one. You just go into the audio settings and choose the headphone jack as your audio out, and everything just works, right? Right? Oh, it doesn't? What is the iPad way?

you have a dongle that has an analog audio

1. You are enjoying a podcast or music while browsing a web page that has an embedded youtube video. You want to see the video, but do not want your audio to pause, and you definitely don't want to have to restarted it manually when the video is done playing. And naturally you don't want to do this when you do a quick check-in on Ring to see who is at the door only to find out it was a bird either. How do you solve this the iPad way?

iPadOS15 doesn’t stop the music anymore, even though I actually liked that. So I actually like my music to stop when I play my YouTube video.

1. You have an mp3 that is not in your Music library, and not available from the iTunes store. You just import it, right? Drag and drop? Swipe? There must be some gesture, right? Let me guess, download Infuse Pro or something?

I use Apple Music and I find it more convenient.

1. Your kids are dancing to the music playing from the iPad on the living room Airplay 2 speakers. Of course you want to grab a quick video of it. This works, right? No? What's the iPad way? Go find some other device than the one you have in your hand?

you should really record them with your iPhone.



by the way you seem quite angry in everything you wrote and I am quite sure now that you’re really just not knowledgeable enough do use the iPad. It seems that you really don’t know how to use it. And I wish you could learn how to use it because it has quite a lot of nice features and it’s very enjoyable to use. But it actually needs you to be open and not angry and I feel that you’re quite angry about all of these things and I’m just wondering why are you angry. I don’t understand why you would be angry technology just seems a very a ilogical thing to do…. anyway as I said I don’t think you should really be using an iPad it’s just not for you

 

[mrLucas]

No, I think it's because you're outright gatekeeping the iPad even when the person you're talking to likes the iPad but the iPad doesn't work as well as a Mac for certain tasks for them. How can you just straight up say, "You shouldn't be using an iPad"?

I feel a little bit differently than you, I think the person actually doesn’t want to use an iPad. I think they just want to complain about the iPad. I think they would like to have a touchscreen a Mac. And I think they’re angry that Apple doesn’t make touch screen macintoshes. And sure I think touchscreen mackintosh computers would be great. But iPad is not a touchscreen a Mac. And I think he’s having problems because he wants the iPad to be a touchscreen Mac and doesn’t really understand that the iPad is not a Mac at all. It’s an iPad. It’s a completely different thing. It’s actually a completely different device it’s a new computer, it’s a new computing way I like to say it’s a new computing paradigm. And I think I’m right in this way of perceiving the way did the iPad is used. It’s just a new computing paradigm

 

[Arctic Moose]

1) I do not have experience with this, but I see how this could be a serious problem.

I do. Stuck in a hotel in the middle of nowhere in Croatia I had to export my Keynote presentation to PowerPoint and run it off some guy's Windows laptop.

Of course the presentation looked like crap, I couldn't read my notes and use my iPhone as a clicker as I had intended and couldn't use the Pencil where I had intended to draw and write on slides, and the laptop crashed halfway through.

I wouldn't dream of trying to make a presentation on the iPad (although I appreciate that iPad-first or iPad-only people could do it just as well or better than I can on a Mac) but I figured if I only needed to make minor tweaks I would be fine traveling with only the iPad.

Of course I checked the interfaces beforehand, for both audio and display, and was told it would be HDMI, so I couldn't have been better prepared for the "iPad way" short of carrying all sorts of hardware for every possibility.

The point is, had I only brought a MacBook this would not have happened.

Also, had iPadOS not been so limited, and had the audio routing capabilities System 7 had 11 years after the original introduction of the Macintosh (which is now 25 years ago!) it also would not have happened.

2) This is a feature I do like, pausing what's currently playing when something else plays is nice. But I fully understand why other people don't like it. Apple could have solved this by having a toggle option and no one would complain about it either way.

Which is exactly my point. If the OS wasn't so limited and provided more choice we could both be happy.

3) This one could be solved, depending on what you are willing to use. But it's not looking good, I put an mp3 that wouldn't be on iTunes onto my iCloud. Apple Music doesn't import it as a local music file (no surprise). I didn't test a lot of other apps, but VLC is possibly the best app since I can at least import mp3s from a cloud service or use a web browser on a Windows or macOS computer to wirelessly drag and drop it onto the iPad.

I am actually I very happy Infuse Pro user (although primarily on Apple TV for NAS access) and long-time VLC user, but my point is that I have all my music in my Apple Music library. I have playlists where I mix my music and streaming Apple Music source material, and have it synced on all my devices. There is no other option in this case beyond importing into Apple Music, and this works fine on the Mac but is impossible if you only have access to an iOS or iPadOS device.

4) This is more of a question, are you saying it's hard to impossible to take a video with your iPad if you are AirPlaying media? I'd like to repeat this for myself, that's a glaring problem.

It may have been fixed in iPadOS 15, and could potentially only have been an issue with AirPlay 1. I'm not going to get out of bed to test it. (And/or wake everybody/anybody up.)