thanks for the tip about forwarding. i just set that up.
i have the apple smart keyboard cover but it is not very sturdy to be honest. do you surf the web while laying down? if so, which case do you use to surf the web?
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iPad as a laptop replacement
- Thread starter Omar Comin' Yo
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thanks for the tip about forwarding. i just set that up.
i have the apple smart keyboard cover but it is not very sturdy to be honest. do you surf the web while laying down? if so, which case do you use to surf the web?
I have the magic keyboard, and I also use the Apple folio case, depending on what I'm doing with it. These days I use the magic keyboard less as I have the 14" MacBook Pro. If I'm using the iPad in bed, I'm usually sitting up in bed with the iPad in the folio case, and it's just propped up against my legs, held by friction.
Oh right, that came out 9 years later… I think I read stories about how folks in 1980 were buying Macs and telling Apple II users “Just you wait! In 8 years, I’ll be able to do MY bookkeeping on this” but then going out of business because they just refused to buy an Apple II to do their books
Literally, anything they want.
Or, do you think that people that don’t own a Mac or PC of some kind are incapable of earning a living? There’s quite a large number of people that might disagree with you.So, you have a Mac Mini, are familiar and adept with a Mac Mini, including the ways macOS works, and you tried to convince yourself, a well versed macOS user, that macOS wasn’t right for you? I think anyone could have guessed you wouldn’t be successful with that.
It’s a “dumb” device that can do all of what the vast majority of people need to do. To be clear, most people aren’t “correcting scanned artwork and preparing the artwork for Giclée prints”. They’re checking their email. They’re editing a few photos, they’re watching some videos, they’re participating on social media… just like they would with ANY device you give them
You can install and use basically any Opentype or Truetype font (variable weight OTF and Multiple Masterfonts are not supported as of iPadOS 15) on iPadOS using e.g. the free Fontcase.
Coincidently is this an almost wonderful example of "the hoops you’ll have to jump through” when doing something on your iPad, which is quite trivial on MacOS - obviously iOS and iPadOS support advanced typographic features for sometime, iPads are clearly positioned as document and ebook readers, Apple offers Keynote, Numbers and Pages - which support e.g. ligatures (if the font contains them), but apparently nobody at Apple thought of a user-friendly way to install fonts (for sure for various reasons).
This is the procedure to install a custom font as a normal user on iPadOS:
- install e.g. the mentioned Fontcase.
- Transfer the font you want to use to the iPad so that it is accessible from Apple’s Files - of course you can simply download TT or OTF fonts e.g. from a website, or use something like e.g. SendAnywhere or Snapdrop.net to transfer them from your laptop or desktop in the same network, or use USB-C or Lightning external storage, etc. YMMV.
- start Fontcase. Import the font to it. Click Install.
- This window will appear:
-
- Click Download Fonts.
- A warning appears:
- Allow. A message will appear:
- Open Settings. Open Profile Downloaded under your Apple ID settings.
- Open it. This is presented (we are installing the make cake-font for educational purposes 😎):
- Click install. You will be asked to enter your passcode for the iPad.
- Do that. A warning appears:
- Click Install. This will pop-up:
- Click again Install. You will be informed that the install was done:
- Click Done. Your font is now available system-wide in any app on your iPad. The Font profile can be found under VPN&Device Management in the General settings:
- The Fonts list in the Settings of your iPad will still be empty.
- You’ll do this for every font you like to use in Pages, Affinity Photo&Designer, Vectornator, Amide, etc.
nota bene: if you use the free Fontcase all installed Fonts will in the one Fontcase Installation profile. Other apps like iFont install a profile for each font which makes deleting individual fonts much easier. The installation procedure is still the same though.
Additionally custom font installations can be bought via the Appstore, these will appear in the Fonts settings on your idevice.
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Yes, my 16” M1 Max MacBook Pro puts the M1 12.9 iPad Pro to shame.
The way I see the iPad Pro is as a tablet, and I use the iPad Pro also as a tablet.
I am not going to pay for expensive iPad apps when I got free software like Davinci Resolve that is probably better than any paid iPad app for video editing.
And this is something I also observe with other things.
On Mac I can download VScode and can install any plugins I want for coding.
Unfortunetly, I paid for many expensive apps on the iPad Pro for coding that are terrible in comparison to free software like VScode in the end. I have learned my lesson and stop trying my iPad Pro to be a laptop.
But if I start using as a tablet, it is excellent.
So I am not going to sell my M1 12.9 iPad Pro, it is just a different device that is used differently and is not meaned to replace my 16” M1 Max MacBook Pro.
Now that I think of it, I can probably do all the things I do on a laptop, but it is just going to be a pain in the ass* and lots of frustration.
So sure, I can replace it but it is not going to be fun at all with alot of headaches. And the end results will not be as good due to lack of computing power and quality of software.
It is better to use a laptop for things they are good at and use the iPad Pro for what it is good at.
So sure, I can replace it but it is not going to be fun at all with alot of headaches. And the end results will not be as good due to lack of computing power and quality of software.
It is better to use a laptop for things they are good at and use the iPad Pro for what it is good at.
Thi's is the crux of it for me. I could get by on the iPad if I wanted to. But I don't want to. I want the best experience I can get, and currently that's a phone, MacBook, iPad, and Windows gaming PC (and whatever consoles you like). I'd love for some consolidation there, but if you want the best experience in 2022, you're pretty much looking at all those devices.
There is no expensive app on the iPad. Period.
At least for applications I’m interested in - RawPower, Pixelmator/Photo, Affinity Photo, Designer, Publisher, Omnigraffle, iFont, a-Shell, Carnets, Textstatic, FileBrowser Pro, et cetera, et cetera... to name a few of my daily drivers on iPadOS. All these are ridiculously cheap compared to desktop apps.
I like to hypothesize that the general low app price, which is common on the iPlatform, is one of the reasons why most developers do not offer their programs at all or with a reduced/restricted functionality. For the latter Apple is partly responsible too - their iAPIs are at the end what defines what an app can do - which fits as a remark to the Davinci Resolve comment part above IMHO.
The main problem is availability- wether is on app or a fundamental functionality level.
For the reader with a penchant for computing a.k.a. working a.k.a. doing stuff on iPad and iPhone it is of course NO secret that Apple’s progress to advance the i-operating systems can euphemistically only be described as glacial... possibly also being a somewhat bitter realisation sometimes.
Admittedly the latter being caused by the misalignment between what a particular group of users wishes for the iPad platform and the vision Apple has - anyone knows anything about that in form of recent official statements… ? (please provide links 🤓)
To adress wether an iPad offers a valid solution and to be "save" you should have a clear idea what you want to do.
Then you should dissect the process needed to to do that.
In detail.
Meticulously.
Bear with me please 😎, what follows is quite simplified (and I’m aware that certain steps can be solved in various ways involving e.g. iCloud etc.):
Let’s imagine one of your elder relatives like to take photos. With a nice compact camera (something like a Fujifilm X100V - cameras from other companies ARE available 😆).
- And they want to process and edit photos from their camera using a pencil. At first glance this appears like an ideal scenario in which the iPad truly shines. But - as usual 🤪- there is more to do that:
- how to transfer the photos from the camera to the iPad (that’s the obvious easy one 😁).
- Some app(s) which allows for (maybe even batch) processing and editing of photos.
- Additionally your relative likes to have their photos in print… these photos on paper are the basis for the calender you and your siblings receive at christmas each year - and "No", no other procedure: photos are edited, printed and then finally glued to the page of each month of this calendar - "this is the way" 😎
- Photos are and were always printed at the local drugstore market or the local photography shop (support your local economy! 💪)
1.). We check Apple’s list of digital camera RAW formats supported by iOS/iPadOS 15 and MacOS and find that the camera is on it, albeit with the restriction regarding RAW support for "Uncompressed RAW format only". But no biggy, we can adress that in the camera settings (as well as via the app we choose as e.g. RAW Power or Lightroom offer extended camera support). Our relatives won’t even notice that this restriction exists. 🙂
2.) Well, the camera offers a USB-C connection (among other options), we just need the right cable for the connection to the iPad and already we have solved the fast import bit of our scenario. 🙃 Additionally - factoring in 4.)&5.) - we narrow down the iPad model to recommend to Air or Pro.
3.) Caveat: YMMV - after presenting them some apps and let them use them on your iPad, our relatives settle for Apple’s Photo and SnapSeed (photo editors from other companies ARE available 😆... nothing to see here, please continue… 😀)
This implies of course that you have not only several suitable apps installed on your iPad but know about their “strengths and weaknesses” - a visit to the local Apple or photographer enthusiasts group is probably very helpful. Or the internet.😇 Accept no buzz words or superficial empty phrases! 🤜🤛
4.) okay… taking in account 5.) too, we need at least a USB-C stick (better dual USB-C-A)¹ - and because our elder relatives mentioned “isn’t it better to have a backup? And we might like to use our Photos on our Windows desktop. ” - maybe even an SSD… because we then just connect one of these and happily copy to the external storage, right?
Well… first of all, Apple Photos doesn’t simply allow to copy to an external USB-C stick or SSD.
Apple’s Files does, which means of course that a photo has to be exported - in iPadOS parlour “shared” - from Photos to Files first. Then we can copy it from there to the stick or SSD, right?
But our research discovered, among others, this long running thread which I recommend reading… I'll wait… … … … no need to stop, I’ll be here, please continue reading it… … 🤓
As a result we install FileBrowser Professional - which besides being seemingly less prone to introduce file system errors on external media allows to copy directly photos from your Photos library to external media. Point 5.) covered. We recommend to buy a Samsung T5 as well as Sandisc dual USB-C-USB-A - these because our research shows that they work well with the selected iPad models… and because the local fnac/multitronic/saturn/insert-shop-here offers them (and yes, other external storage option with USB-C are available 😆).
Which means we are set! 👏👏👏👏👏
after spending probably quite some time, we have arrived at a nice solution, something where the iPad actually shines. Your relatives are happy and so are you. 😎
But there are enough scenarios on the iPad where you end up at best with some workaround and might hope that Apple will fix/add/offer an elegant solution for whatever you want to do in the future. Workarounds are of course totally fine, but if you try to optimise what you do, often you have to acknowledge that “the iPad isn’t there”… adding a “yet” doesn’t really help, does it?
Thanks for walking with me through this little scenario my brain came up with. Now continue being awesome… 😎
nota bene: please try to refrain from pointing out things like »(But) iCloud…«, »… offers a better solution/is the industry standard«, »… I (personally) never…«, »if… « 🤓
¹A lightning-to-USB-A stick is another option, but because it involves another app and there isn’t nice integration with Apple’s Files, let's reject this as a solution - please keep in mind: we try to minimize our technical support volume in the future too. 🥹😆
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I use iFont… it’s been awhile since I did all the installing Fonts, but I believe
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Looking back everythings seems so much nicer 🥹😀… sadly this doesn’t apply for the custom font installation on iPadOS… wether it’s iFont, Fontcase, xFont, etc., you create a profile and have to download it into settings and then step through the system procedure. But iFont offers a bunch of advantages - much more functionality and comfort… as far as it can. 😎
I agree… the process is a bit tedious. But iFont does make the process less annoying.
Because I was going through your steps and I recall when I first started installing fonts.. I’m like yeah, I remember that. But iFont issued some update awhile back and this was in tandem with a new iPadOS release (so, I’m assuming Apple is aware of this) to help make the process much easier, that way you can install a bunch of fonts into one profile to avoid the back and forth.
Huh… Thanks for the detailed reply. It’s interesting there’s a way to install fonts but Apple doesn’t provide a straightforward way to do it.
Seems like the typical Apple way is to not allow it at all unless they provide an official means.
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Considering that most computing devices used by the vast majority of people today are used for things like surfing the internet, checking mail, etc. an iPad with cellular service is better at these majority use cases than a Mac laptop or desktop simply by the fact that they’re able to be online whenever anyone wants, by itself, no tethering, rather than just where there’s a wifi signal. Off the top of my head I can think of several things that not many people do that are difficult or impossible on an iPad currently and I think that’s kinda the point. Apple’s focusing on what roughly 40 million people a year want to do on an iPad, not a few hundred thousand want to do.
Refrain from pointing out obvious solutions that everyone with an iPad had access to? Kay.
True. People don’t even need an iPad to do those tasks. Just a smartphone will do that’s why there’s billions of those.
The iPad (and tablets in general) is more of a luxury for those wanting a bigger display than is available on smartphones.
I LOVE Affinity Photo - and yes you can use ALL system fonts in it. I also have Designer - don't use that as much.... I have used PS for many many years. IN 2018 when PS was coming to he iPad Pro - I bought a 12.9" anticipating it.... So I started using Affinity Photo and found out it worked really good. When PS was slow to get their app together and then it was terrible when it first came out. When my subscription was up, I cancelled it... The only thing I miss is actions.... On the Mac, I have created one for Affinity Photo - it's similar, but different. But I am totally pleased with Affinity - not much you can't do compared to PS and the quality is just as good.....
I think people use Luna Fusion on the iPad for FCP substitute....
This thread is about how an iPad can replace a laptop though. 🤓
It’s not about any form of digital nomadism - in fact, your comment is a non-sequitur to my little mental construct.
for the theoretical scenario I presented iCloud Photos isn’t a good or an somewhat obvious solution - frankly one can flat out remove it from the list of solutions, because it holds only what you carry on, in this case, a hypothetical iPad already (and yes, I am aware that you can optimize storage). This isn’t a valid backup concept (and yes, I am aware I can include photos to iCloud backups when I turn off the iCloud Photo Library, but this doesn’t help the fictional elder family relatives when they want to use their imaginary photos on their equally fictional windows computer. So “no”, iCloud does not cut it in this hypothetical scenario. 😀)
The whole point was to hint at two things:
- if you do your due diligence how to solve a particular problem on the iPad, you might find a solution which equals, if not excels the solutions on laptops or desktops.
- If you don’t do said due dilligence, you might at best end up with some kind of workaround or hack and you probably won’t enjoy it - and betting on future progress doesn’t help it.
An iPad can indeed be a marvellous device - for sure it is for some of the 400 million per year¹, you mention - for some it offers an adequate solution, and there are some for sure who discover it isn’t offering any.
By the way, I can assure you that our hypothetical elder family relatives are over the moon and really, really enjoy editing their hypothetical photos on their hypothetical iPad… we all might get a hypothetical christmas calendar this year. 💪🙃🙂😀
Now back into the real world - it’s a nice saturday summer evening in this hemisphere, in any case: enjoy!
¹Regarding that number - I would guess that the majority of iPads sold doesn’t include the cellular option.
So an Adobe font activated through Creative Cloud is considered a system font? If I continue to use and pay for CC I’ll have this fonts available in Affinity? Good to know.
I can’t cancel CC because I use Lightroom for my freelance photo business.
Also do you ever export as PDF?
And, in any given year, there’s more people that want a “bigger display than is available on smartphones” than there are people that want Mac laptops of any kind.
True. Revenue for Macs and iPads are around the same so given the lower average sale price for iPads, they’re probably selling 2 iPads : 1 Mac yearly.
I know plenty of Windows users with iPhones and iPads who have no interest in switching to Macs.
It is VERY easy to create many theoretical scenarios where a Mac laptop would be better than an iPad for an average user. It’s even easier to create many, many real world scenarios, scenarios that don’t even require very many steps at all, where an iPad would be better than an iPad, again, for an average user. And, that’s because your average user’s needs for a computing device are VERY simple indeed. As someone else mentioned, those needs are so simple that many people would opt for a larger screened iPhone before a Mac. For those folks, a Mac laptop is the furthest from their minds.
Apple will likely sell over 20 million Macs this year…some to people who have requirements above and beyond your average person, but, still, most of those will go to people who have simple needs, they just are most comfortable with the macOS UI. Apple will likely sell over 40 million iPads to people who have simple needs and are comfortable with the iPadOS UI.
oh, I presented a real world example 💪- but what I tried to point out with this and then my follow-up comment - obviously poorly - was that you should try to define what you want to do with, in this case - please see the thread title -, an iPad as exact as possible. Then you can come up with an answer to the subject presented by the OP.
And you should break down what you need.
And accumulate information how or to at least to what extend this is possible on the iPad.
To be able to make the right decision wether to get an iPad or something else.
Many apparently don’t do that. MR is full of threads and comments which give testimony to this - I mean, just one example which appears over and over again since the introduction of AS to the Mac product line: is it really that difficult to get some information on the avaibility of current AAA game titles BEFORE buying into the Apple platform(s)?
I know that there are trolls travelling in these grounds, but there are people to whom it is important to e.g. play a particular game and they recognize AFTER they bought an Apple device that it does not really bring the fun they expected, because they didnt research for whatever reason or presented an imprecise question, receiving a vague answer and didn’t end up which an enjoyable solution.
There are no AVERAGE users, at least not in the way this is often thrown around in this or other threads.
There are only COMMON requirements to or on a device platform which users share.
This is valid for a lot of areas, for example within in this thread - we all have the iPad platform and wether it can replace a laptop as common interest… I suppose? 😀
If you belong to a certain group there are common requirements - bakers, model train enthusiasts, water color artists, … a member of any of these groups shares common requirements to the use of an iPad or laptop.
Such common requirement within a certain group might be e.g. using mail, web browsing, etc.. people tend to operate with these kind of generalities.
And that’s where this discussion took a wrong turn IMHO - the answer to a question like “Can you do »insert general subject like mail, programming,here« … on the iPad?” can probably often be “Yes.”
But it does in no way address specific needs to solve a specific problem.
But of course there is an “average” to apply or which can be used here too. 🤓
Within a specific interest group I am for example - an average user among my peers.
That is, if I take note who is using which app or program within this group, I find myself using what on average a.k.a. the majority is using.
To that extend iPad users do on average use without doubt Apple Mail, don’t they?
Which might not offer an enjoyable or even acceptable solution for a specific user scenario.
And to avoid sich outcome and experience one should define the desired application as specific and detailed as possible.
Which increments - probably on average 😆 - the probability that the solution found, leaves the user happy.
I have no doubt that people find personal arrangements and solutions for and on any platform.
But this whole tread isn’t about that, isn’t it? I mean you can’t seriously recommend a solution to someone based on sales figures alone?
That’s exactly the form of superficial approach I try to point out and to dissuade from. 😃
nota bene: I am genuinely interested - in my neck of the world (northern europe) the vast majority of iPads is probably bought by educational, health, and public service institutions. And these are not even necessarily the current but a previous base model e.g. 7th gen - purchased in 21/22. How is it around you?
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I think I'm going to go for it... and I'm somewhat of a "power user" so we'll see how that goes. My wife has an M1 Air so there's always that fall back if needed. I recently sold my old laptop and was waiting on an M2 Air to ship, so I had to use my 2018 iPad Pro for everything and I wasn't really hitting any major roadblocks.
The thing with me is that I run an illustration business on the side. So if I can go iPad only, I'm saving $1500 right there by not also needing a Mac. I NEED to have an iPad for the drawing aspect, so it's in my interest to make it work for everything else.
One sticking point was not being able to export a PDF from Photoshop, but I just figured out how to last night (export as a TIFF and then in the Save dialog, choose "Open in Acrobat" and then you can save as a PDF).
I know there will be growing pains, but it seems like every issue I find I eventually come up with a solution.
Fingers crossed for...
-Apple to keep giving us nice iPadOS updates each year
-Adobe to keep adding features to Photoshop iPad
-Final Cut iPad PLEASE (though I rarely edit video in my personal time, so Adobe Rush is likely enough)
My set up is going to be M1 12.9" Pro w/ 512 SSD/8 GB RAM, Magic Trackpad, Smart Folio. I have an external 4k monitor, so excited for iPadOS 16.
The thing with me is that I run an illustration business on the side. So if I can go iPad only, I'm saving $1500 right there by not also needing a Mac. I NEED to have an iPad for the drawing aspect, so it's in my interest to make it work for everything else.
One sticking point was not being able to export a PDF from Photoshop, but I just figured out how to last night (export as a TIFF and then in the Save dialog, choose "Open in Acrobat" and then you can save as a PDF).
I know there will be growing pains, but it seems like every issue I find I eventually come up with a solution.
Fingers crossed for...
-Apple to keep giving us nice iPadOS updates each year
-Adobe to keep adding features to Photoshop iPad
-Final Cut iPad PLEASE (though I rarely edit video in my personal time, so Adobe Rush is likely enough)
My set up is going to be M1 12.9" Pro w/ 512 SSD/8 GB RAM, Magic Trackpad, Smart Folio. I have an external 4k monitor, so excited for iPadOS 16.
What is the effective difference? An average user is just a user that doesn’t have any use cases that sets them apart from the average. There’s nothing about them that makes them “special” Like, a user that has access to iCloud, email and social media BUT only accepts images from their friends by way of an external flash drive. THAT would be a special-case user. You can be assured that Apple has a rather detailed model of their “average user” as a persona they use when creating “user stories” during their development activities.
For those that don’t have a computer, the only specific problem they can relate is likely “not having a computer”.
For those that DO have a computer, for most of them, their specific problems are just a definition of the simple tasks high level tasks they’re currently using a computer for (I want to check my email - I want to message my brother). That would cover the majority of today’s computer buying public and the decision of iPad/Mac Laptop could very well just come down to cost. The few million that fall outside of that are the ones where iPad/Mac Laptop decision might take some time to describe their specific problems in full as they are aware of them. But, by this point, we’re down to only evaluating a small slice of the entire computer buying public.But, if someone puts forth the notion that the Mac, due to it’s flexibility and ability to encompass a wider range of special use cases, is indeed a better fit for most people, Mac unit sales being greater than iPad unit sales would actually help to support that notion. As it is, it appears that there are factors which are driving the iPad to, fairly regularly, hit twice the unit sales of the Mac. Even if one is generally against the notion of the iPad as a replacement for a Mac laptop, one still would need to account for the unit sales discrepancy. No one should recommend a solution based on sales figures, BUT those superficial numbers are telling a real story that might mean adjusting one’s assumptions about what one thinks the buying public is looking for or needs.
And, bought by businesses that are being driven to develop iPad based solutions by their customers, and the enterprise customers that purchase those solutions, like aviation, retail, maintenance, etc. Right now, there’s very few buying any of the latest models as they are severely constrained, suppliers just don’t have them available to deliver.
Well, if you have any questions… come to the thread. We are here to help.
Apple will continue to give us nice iPadOS updates... whether they be beneficial for you is the question. And Adobe will continue adding features... just by their update history, that tells you they are active on the platform.
As much as I would like Final Cut on the iPad... I highly doubt that would happen anytime soon. And if it was to happen... the features wouldn't be as rich compared to the Mac version. But if you want the best video editing experience on an iPad then LumaFusion is your best bet.