iPad as a laptop replacement

[rletras]

Btw, anyone uses some app to sync files between ipad and external storage? Something like freefilesync for windows.
That could be useful to mirror my local files in the ipad to an SSD

 

[Kal Madda]

Btw, anyone uses some app to sync files between ipad and external storage? Something like freefilesync for windows.
That could be useful to mirror my local files in the ipad to an SSD

I don’t, so unfortunately I can’t be of help there. I just transfer files to external drives via the Files app. 👍🏻

 

[sparksd]

I just want to share with the community… what I just picked up, I’m excited.

TineeOwl for iPad Pro 13 inch (M4) 2024, Adjustable Kickstand Cover - Infinite Viewing Angles, Portrait/Landscape Stand, Apple Pencil Charging, Wing Series, (Black)

✔️ Adjustable Kickstand ▶ Enjoy infinite adjustability with the built-in kickstand to achieve the perfect viewing angle. ✔️ Landscape to Portrait Instantly ▶ Best for book reading, video calls, gaming, or scrolling through long spreadsheets and documents. ✔️ Kickstand Stops at Typing Angle ▶ The ...

www.amazon.com

Been waiting for this kind of case since the M4 iPad dropped, I stumbled upon this morning and when it arrives I’d share my initial impressions. I use my iPad docked to the Magic Keyboard majority of the time, but this case can help me use it more as a traditional tablet.

Nice find! I ordered one for my M4 13" - I'll also use it in lieu of my MKB at times. Thanks!

 

[rletras]

‎Sync Folders

‎Sync Folders is a free version of the popular Sync Folders Pro utility. The app is an easy-to-use for beginners, has the ability to fine-tune synchronization settings for the most exacting professionals. Sync Folders is perfect for folder synchronization on the external storage devices including:…

apps.apple.com

Anyone heard or uses this one? Sync Folders?

An alternative for me is to just use weekly my wife's Mac with Free File Sync and backup folders

 

[Ludatyk]

I end up saving backups for a lot of my design files on OneDrive, though the OneDrive app keeps having this bug where it uses excess amounts of native storage on my iPad. I’ve tried reporting the issue to Microsoft probably more than 6 times, and their support is nothing like Apple’s putting it kindly…🙁😤

Yeah, Microsoft does that with Outlook on my iPad as well. Last time it happened, I’d delete the app and reinstall it.

I’m impressed with the performance for a flash drive of this size. I could use a portable SSD, and perhaps eventually I’ll decide to do so, but I really like that this drive is incredibly compact!

Never seen that flash drive before. But I like portable SSDs, I got the T7…. I ended up buying these magnetic USB-C adapters (packaged with two) originally for the Magic Keyboard, decided to use it with the T7 as well.

 

[sparksd]

Yeah, Microsoft does that with Outlook on my iPad as well. Last time it happened, I’d delete the app and reinstall it.


Never seen that flash drive before. But I like portable SSDs, I got the T7…. I ended up buying these magnetic USB-C adapters (packaged with two) originally for the Magic Keyboard, decided to use it with the T7 as well.

View attachment 2458197

Plus 1 on the T-7 - I have two of them.

 

[bondr006]

Yeah, Microsoft does that with Outlook on my iPad as well. Last time it happened, I’d delete the app and reinstall it.


Never seen that flash drive before. But I like portable SSDs, I got the T7…. I ended up buying these magnetic USB-C adapters (packaged with two) originally for the Magic Keyboard, decided to use it with the T7 as well.

View attachment 2458197

Plus 1 on the T-7 - I have two of them.

Yeah, I have a couple T7's also. Great external SSD.

 

[Kal Madda]

‎Sync Folders

‎Sync Folders is a free version of the popular Sync Folders Pro utility. The app is an easy-to-use for beginners, has the ability to fine-tune synchronization settings for the most exacting professionals. Sync Folders is perfect for folder synchronization on the external storage devices including:…

apps.apple.com

Anyone heard or uses this one? Sync Folders?

An alternative for me is to just use weekly my wife's Mac with Free File Sync and backup folders

I’ve never used that app, but it looks like it gets good reviews! 👍🏻. I may have to try that app out. 👍🏻

 

[Ludatyk]

Plus 1 on the T-7 - I have two of them.

Yeah, I have a couple T7's also. Great external SSD.

Lol, why do you guys have two of them?

If I was to buy another portable SSD, I’d like to try one of those enclosures from DOCKCASE.

SSD Enclosure

www.dockcase.com

 

[sparksd]

Lol, why do you guys have two of them?

If I was to buy another portable SSD, I’d like to try one of those enclosures from DOCKCASE.

SSD Enclosure

www.dockcase.com

Because I wanted 2TB but originally only bought a 1TB drive. I use these interchangeably with my laptop and desktop machines.

 

[Kal Madda]

Yeah, Microsoft does that with Outlook on my iPad as well. Last time it happened, I’d delete the app and reinstall it.


Never seen that flash drive before. But I like portable SSDs, I got the T7…. I ended up buying these magnetic USB-C adapters (packaged with two) originally for the Magic Keyboard, decided to use it with the T7 as well.

View attachment 2458197

Yeah, apparently it’s been a reported issue with OneDrive for several years now, but Microsoft doesn’t seem to care about fixing it. I’ve been having to delete and reinstall the OneDrive app every so often like you said to correct it. I finally got a Microsoft assistant that answered my feedback, and I explained the problem, collected screenshots and a bunch of other stuff to help them diagnose the problem, and the assistant gave me a list of things to try, one of which was uninstalling and reinstalling the app. I uninstalled and reinstalled the app, and told him I had been having trouble to do that repeatedly to prevent my device storage being overused, and asked if he could inform the dev team about the bug. So what was his response? Close the feedback case, and saying that uninstalling and reinstalling the app was the solution! My problem is fixed because I can continue to uninstall and reinstall the app every month or two! 🤦🏼‍♂️🙄😤. Yeah, I was missing Apple’s wonderful support system that I’ve never had an issue with through the entire process… 😂

I’ve heard the Samsung T7 is great! I’ve considered eventually getting one, I don’t think you can really have too much native storage drives, right? 😂👍🏻. I have a 1TB Samsung SATA SSD drive that has worked wonderfully, that I’ve owned for probably around 4 years now. I think it’s the 860 Evo? Samsung makes great SSDs. 👍🏻

That’s really cool that you used one of those magnetic connectors! I thought about getting one of those for my Magic Keyboard. I might just do that. I didn’t realize that some support data pass-through! 👍🏻

 

[Kal Madda]

Lol, why do you guys have two of them?

If I was to buy another portable SSD, I’d like to try one of those enclosures from DOCKCASE.

SSD Enclosure

www.dockcase.com

That does look pretty cool! 👍🏻. I’ve considered eventually getting an enclosure for my Samsung SATA SSD drive, but I’m leaning towards using it as additional storage paired with my Mac Mini. 👍🏻

 

[bondr006]

Lol, why do you guys have two of them?

If I was to buy another portable SSD, I’d like to try one of those enclosures from DOCKCASE.

SSD Enclosure

www.dockcase.com

I keep one in my work case that goes out with me and my iPad, and I keep one at home. I am an external drive junkie.

I have a couple of these also.😊
SAMSUNG Type-C™ USB Flash Drive, 512GB

I also have a WD My Book 6TB hooked to my Mac Mini, which serves as a backup server.

 

[Kal Madda]

I keep one in my work case that goes out with me and my iPad, and I keep one at home. I am an external drive junkie.

I have a couple of these also.😊
SAMSUNG Type-C™ USB Flash Drive, 512GB
View attachment 2458241

That’s cool, I use that same flash drive, I just was talking about it earlier in one of my comments here. 👍🏻. It’s nice that they’re so small, and the performance is actually pretty good for a flash drive. That’s actually currently my main mobile storage solution. Eventually I may add a Samsung T7 to my mobile storage options, but I really do like how compact the flash drive is, and for now it’s been working great! 👍🏻

 

[Webcat86]

While you can't recover a whole window with tabs, iPad Safari does have a history feature...so you can recover individual tabs.

View attachment 2457278 View attachment 2457279

This is what I ended up doing, but I was unable to recover everything. I have a tendency to have a lot of tabs open and they will be open for months, or longer. So I guess not everything was stored in the individual tab recovery.

And @Webcat86, I looked more into it because I thought it was interesting, and apparently there is supposed to be a way to recover Safari windows. If I remember the steps correctly, you hold press the Safari icon in the dock, select “show all windows”, and this should be visible at the top right if some windows unexpectedly closed recently. I haven’t had a need to test it myself, but I thought you may find that useful. 👍🏻. I thought it was pretty interesting. 👍🏻View attachment 2457298View attachment 2457297

I found this when I was searching too but, for whatever reason, the "Reopen Closed Window" did not appear for me at all, despite multiple tries.

Compare this to MacOS where it's a permanent feature under "History" and it's a pretty glaring inferior difference on the iPad.

 

[Kal Madda]

This is what I ended up doing, but I was unable to recover everything. I have a tendency to have a lot of tabs open and they will be open for months, or longer. So I guess not everything was stored in the individual tab recovery.

I found this when I was searching too but, for whatever reason, the "Reopen Closed Window" did not appear for me at all, despite multiple tries.

Compare this to MacOS where it's a permanent feature under "History" and it's a pretty glaring inferior difference on the iPad.

I’m supposing you tried it multiple times by creating a new window with a few tabs, closing it, and then looking for that button? Because I did that as well at first to try to test it, but realized that I was closing it out too quickly before iPadOS had a chance to index it. I tried creating a window with some tabs in it and waiting a little before I closed it in the rest of my tests, and then it worked reliably every time. 👍🏻

Maybe they should assign a keyboard shortcut to that action. I don’t think iPadOS really has the space for a Menu Bar, at least not implemented the same as the Mac Menu Bar, so a keyboard shortcut could provide better access to that feature when a keyboard’s attached, but I think the current on-screen implementation is probably about the best they can pull off, unless they added it to the hold-press menu for the Safari app?

 

[ricojagustin]

This is what I ended up doing, but I was unable to recover everything. I have a tendency to have a lot of tabs open and they will be open for months, or longer. So I guess not everything was stored in the individual tab recovery.


I found this when I was searching too but, for whatever reason, the "Reopen Closed Window" did not appear for me at all, despite multiple tries.

Compare this to MacOS where it's a permanent feature under "History" and it's a pretty glaring inferior difference on the iPad.

I use Tab Groups to solve this issue.

 

[bondr006]

I use Tab Groups to solve this issue.

Could you please elaborate? Thanks!

 

[ricojagustin]

Could you please elaborate? Thanks!

I keep the tabs I want to save open in Tab Groups, and only stay there while I'm interacting with those tabs. Tab Groups are designed to be kept in a more preserved state versus the default list of open tabs.

Right now I only have one Tab Group: Saved. But sometimes if I have a lot of tabs open, I'll separate them into more refined list of Tab Group categories.

 

[Kal Madda]

‎Sync Folders

‎Sync Folders is a free version of the popular Sync Folders Pro utility. The app is an easy-to-use for beginners, has the ability to fine-tune synchronization settings for the most exacting professionals. Sync Folders is perfect for folder synchronization on the external storage devices including:…

apps.apple.com

Anyone heard or uses this one? Sync Folders?

An alternative for me is to just use weekly my wife's Mac with Free File Sync and backup folders

I just installed and tested this app today. It’s pretty cool. You can select a set of folders to sync, and save that combo of folders as a “Task”. Then to sync the files in those folders, you can just select “Sync Current Task”, and it looks like you can even sync several tasks at a time with “Sync Selected Tasks”. It’s pretty handy. This even works with syncing a folder on the iPad’s native storage with a folder on an external drive. The only thing I wish is that it had better Siri Shortcut integration. Perhaps I’ll send some feedback and request that. But I think it’s a great app so far! 👍🏻

 

[Ultracyclist]

I just installed and tested this app today. It’s pretty cool. You can select a set of folders to sync, and save that combo of folders as a “Task”. Then to sync the files in those folders, you can just select “Sync Current Task”, and it looks like you can even sync several tasks at a time with “Sync Selected Tasks”. It’s pretty handy. This even works with syncing a folder on the iPad’s native storage with a folder on an external drive. The only thing I wish is that it had better Siri Shortcut integration. Perhaps I’ll send some feedback and request that. But I think it’s a great app so far! 👍🏻View attachment 2458515

I’ve read a few post back to figure out the why, but I can’t wrap my head around it.

So, here it is…. Why? Why would use a 3rd party app for something I think is inside the iCloud part side of Files and Finder?

I have some folders I want to keep offline and synced up with my iCloud. (And used to have synced with my Mac)
So on the iPad I selected the folder and turned on the suppoost for it to be kept offline available. As long as I have a internet connection the folder is live and in zinc with iCloud(/Mac) side and if not, and I update a file in that folder, it sync as soon as internet is restored.

 

[rletras]

I’ve read a few post back to figure out the why, but I can’t wrap my head around it.

So, here it is…. Why? Why would use a 3rd party app for something I think is inside the iCloud part side of Files and Finder?

I have some folders I want to keep offline and synced up with my iCloud. (And used to have synced with my Mac)
So on the iPad I selected the folder and turned on the suppoost for it to be kept offline available. As long as I have a internet connection the folder is live and in zinc with iCloud(/Mac) side and if not, and I update a file in that folder, it sync as soon as internet is restored.

I can answer that: this app syncs folders without using the cloud. You can use it to sync folders local in ipad with your SSD, for example.
Some of us won't use the cloud for sensitive files and is important to make backups.

 

[Kal Madda]

I’ve read a few post back to figure out the why, but I can’t wrap my head around it.

So, here it is…. Why? Why would use a 3rd party app for something I think is inside the iCloud part side of Files and Finder?

I have some folders I want to keep offline and synced up with my iCloud. (And used to have synced with my Mac)
So on the iPad I selected the folder and turned on the suppoost for it to be kept offline available. As long as I have a internet connection the folder is live and in zinc with iCloud(/Mac) side and if not, and I update a file in that folder, it sync as soon as internet is restored.

Yeah, as @rletras pointed out, this app can sync folders without using iCloud. I love iCloud and use it for all of my photos from my iPhone, but I share my iCloud storage space, so I don’t want to fill up my iCloud space with my large design files and 3D models/scenes. So what I’ve been doing is offloading these files onto an external storage drive. I know many other people have a similar workflow, where they create a lot of files, and don’t want to put all of those files into their iCloud space. So that’s where this app is handy, because you can sync your local file folder with a folder on an external storage drive. The syncing makes it easier than copy and pasting files over manually, though I don’t think it’s too big of a deal copying and pasting the files. I decided to try this app because @rletras asked about it, so I wanted to try it out and see how it worked and what it did. I’m actually pretty impressed. 👍🏻

 

[sparksd]

I can answer that: this app syncs folders without using the cloud. You can use it to sync folders local in ipad with your SSD, for example.
Some of us won't use the cloud for sensitive files and is important to make backups.

Or as with me - I travel a lot to places with poor or no Internet connectivity so I don’t use the cloud at all for file storage.

 

[bondr006]

Yeah, as @rletras pointed out, this app can sync folders without using iCloud. I love iCloud and use it for all of my photos from my iPhone, but I share my iCloud storage space, so I don’t want to fill up my iCloud space with my large design files and 3D models/scenes. So what I’ve been doing is offloading these files onto an external storage drive. I know many other people have a similar workflow, where they create a lot of files, and don’t want to put all of those files into their iCloud space. So that’s where this app is handy, because you can sync your local file folder with a folder on an external storage drive. The syncing makes it easier than copy and pasting files over manually, though I don’t think it’s too big of a deal copying and pasting the files. I decided to try this app because @rletras asked about it, so I wanted to try it out and see how it worked and what it did. I’m actually pretty impressed. 👍🏻

Looks interesting and potentially very useful. How are you liking it so far, and have you found any significant limitations in the free version? I see the Pro version is $8.00US with no subscription but still offers "In App Purchases". What say you?