iPad as a laptop replacement

[scottrods]

I don't use Office products often, myself... however, it would be nice if one worked easily and without having to "relearn" a software type to move to a new platform.
About 2 years ago, I tossed my old Wndoze crap and went Full Apple with all of my personal pieces. I still have many issues using the software that replaces my Microsoft Office programs. Especially Numbers. The Word processor stuff isn't too bad after a couple of years of use, but I also haven't had to convert files to windows formats and stuff like that yet either. I haven't been unemployed or searching for a job so no new Files built for Resume and accompanying documents yet. If I get in a pinch I'm gonna wish for my Windows stuff back as I had been using that stuff for 20 years and still kinda fall back on the concepts used in their Word program... BUT - I still spend more time on the MBP than the iPad Pro, which is a stellar device.

What I find more concerning about anything that would have me using the iPad Pro as a replacement, is the delicate nature (or at least the perception of delicateness) of the device. It just seems more fragile to the touch and handling in my life. I actually have mine set up mostly like a laptop anyway, which is perfect really for most things, but the one and only thing that has me sticking with the MBP today is still the lack of touch pad/mouse interface. If it weren't; for that one thing, I would likely be spending the time learning to use the "free" office programs on the iPad for daily use.

 

[Daveeoh]

As long as iPad can’t run full version of Microsoft Office or Apple iWork, it can not be used as a laptop replacement. I think Microsoft and Apple intentionally crippled the iPad version just so that people would buy a Mac or Windows machine if they want to use the full version of their office suites.

Hi all i joined today to share my experiences here.

I am an IT consultant and I use the following apps heavily in my daily life

• Email
• Web Browser
• Slack
• Todoist (Amazing task manager)
• MS Word
• MS Excel
• MS OneNote
• MS PowerPoint
• Skype for Business
• GoToMeeting
• Concur (Expenses system)
• Workday (Horrible HR system)
• SAP (necessary evil for time entry)
• ShareFile (my companies cloud file storage solution)
• Microsoft Azure

I have been using an iPad 10.5 + ASK + Pencil as a replacement for my 15” Dell XPS laptop on business trips lasting up to a couple of weeks at a time. In that time I have found it to be a 100% suitable replacement, in fact the Apple Pencil + HDMI adapter allows me to have better functionality by allowing me to do digital whitboarding in meetings on big screens or with remote customers using screen sharing features of GoToMeeting.

Let me break down my usage:

Native iOS Mobile Apps. The following apps have native iOS options which give me all the functionality I need:

• Email (My company uses Citrix SecureMail and this is a really good mobile email experience now (wasn’t a couple of years go!)
• Web Browser (I use the built in Safari)
• Slack
• O365 - Good for most of my simpler work flows with Word, Excel and PowerPoint using the mobile apps. Some stuff can’t be done with this (like tracked changes edits when i am reviewing documents but i will explain how this works for me
• OneNote - part of 0365 but wanted to say how this is my most used app. Meeting notes, ideas, scanned correspondance, random thoughts all get logged here
• Todoist
• Skype for Business
• GoToMeeting
• Concur
• Workday
• ShareFile

For the apps which are not available as mobile apps / the functionality just isn’t there I also use Citrix Receiver to deliver a full windows 10 desktop experience to the iPad with a Citrix x1 mouse it can run any other application I need like natively so long as there is WiFi or cellular connectivity:

• SAP
• Microsoft Azure
• Any other corporate app my company wants me to run
• Full versions of office for more complex workflows such as tracked changes etc

Because my company uses ShareFile the files and data I need are always available in both my iOS and Win10 environments, as well as when i get back home to my XPS laptop and my large 4K screen.

The light weight of the iPad + long battery life means I don’t need to carry around my laptop at all and there are no compromises.

So in short yeah I think the iPad is 100% a replacement for a laptop for me at least...

 

[Sodium Chloride]

The following apps have native iOS options which give me all the functionality I need:

• O365 - Good for most of my simpler work flows with Word, Excel and PowerPoint using the mobile apps. Some stuff can’t be done with this (like tracked changes edits when i am reviewing documents but i will explain how this works for me

So in short yeah I think the iPad is 100% a replacement for a laptop for me at least...

Yeach but when plotting data, Excel for the iOS wouldn’t let you change the scale of the x and y axis.
For example: If you have 1000, 1100, 1200, 1300, 1400 in the x-axis and 13, 67, 43, 20, 19 in the y-axis and you plot the x-y scatter, what you are going to get is an x-y scatter from x=0 to x=1400. It won’t let you limit the x-axis just from 1000 to 1400. I found this limitation completely unacceptable. Why can’t MS implement such a basic functionality?

Moreover, when I took a statistics class, I need to use Data Analysis Toolpack which is only available for Excel for the Mac and Windows.

 

[Daveeoh]

Yeach but when plotting data, Excel for the iOS wouldn’t let you change the scale of the x and y axis.
For example: If you have 1000, 1100, 1200, 1300, 1400 in the x-axis and 13, 67, 43, 20, 19 in the y-axis and you plot the x-y scatter, what you are going to get is an x-y scatter from x=0 to x=1400. It won’t let you limit the x-axis just from 1000 to 1400. I found this limitation completely unacceptable. Why can’t MS implement such a basic functionality?

Moreover, when I took a statistics class, I need to use Data Analysis Toolpack which is only available for Excel for the Mac and Windows.

Agreed I would like to see feature parity between the mobile and desktop versions. They are better than they have ever been but still fall short in some specific areas. that’s where for my use case being able to run the full version of office or any other windows apps on my iPad via Citrix Receiver is a life saver. I can even use a mouse for precision.

Is iOS a replacement for desktop OSes? Not quite for some use cases (although it probably is acceptable to more folks that I realise as someone who has more specific needs)

However is an iPad a replacement for a laptop? With the right tools and services (like my company’s virtual desktops) then yes it is.

 

[Sodium Chloride]

Agreed I would like to see feature parity between the mobile and desktop versions. They are better than they have ever been but still fall short in some specific areas. needs)

Why do you think they didn’t narrow the gap? Changing the axis is already available back from Excel for Windows 95 if not earlier. Is it because they want people to buy their Surface Book?

 

[Daveeoh]

Why do you think they didn’t narrow the gap? Changing the axis is already available back from Excel for Windows 95 if not earlier. Is it because they want people to buy their Surface Book?

I’m not sure its anything that sinister, although i suppose it could be

In my opinion its simply that MS Have an established and mature business model based on perpetual software sales for Windows and Office. The future of the company is to pivot towards a service model but that can’t happen overnight without upsetting the applecart. They don’t want to destabilise the Windows market by making it an equal platform to mobile just yet but as they move more and more to the services model they will eventually make the change to be truely platform agnostic and feature parity will follow soon after.

Edit - they are now quite far down the “services” route with O365 and Azure and even win10 so i can see this pivot completing sooner rather than later.

 

[Boyd01]

My MS Office needs are pretty basic, and since I retired a number of years ago I just continued using my copy of Office 2008 on my Mac. I recently created some 30 to 50 page Word documents that include over 100 images and although it worked, performance was very sluggish and it would crash pretty frequently.

So a couple months ago I got an Office 365 personal subscription and have been very happy with it. $60/year seems like a unusually good deal for a Microsoft product, especially since it includes both the Mac and iPad version along with 1TB of cloud storage. I paid full retail price for my older versions of MS Office, and they weren't cheap!

I can understand how this might not meet advanced needs, but it seems just about right for someone like me who only needs basic word processing and spreadsheets that can easily be shared between MacOS and iOS. And as a bonus, I now have the newest version of Office, which is something that was very expensive to keep up with in past years.

 

[scottrods]

I’m not sure its anything that sinister, although i suppose it could be

In my opinion its simply that MS Have an established and mature business model based on perpetual software sales for Windows and Office. The future of the company is to pivot towards a service model but that can’t happen overnight without upsetting the applecart. They don’t want to destabilise the Windows market by making it an equal platform to mobile just yet but as they move more and more to the services model they will eventually make the change to be truely platform agnostic and feature parity will follow soon after.

Edit - they are now quite far down the “services” route with O365 and Azure and even win10 so i can see this pivot completing sooner rather than later.

I believe, looking back at Windows OS's... they started the transition with a failure in Windows Vista, and again with a lousy try in Wndows 8... when 10 hit I jumped ship due to the absolutely shameless info gathering and sharing that was more prevalent and intrusive... Slowly they took your controls away... I endured a year and a half of it before I gave it up and went MBP. The only thing I miss at all is the Office Suite and there were a few Windows only Programs I used (They didn't call them apps so much until windows 8) I have found suitable replacements within the Apple ecosystem for most of my needs. The last step is transitioning all of my files to Apple format... some are slow in getting converted and some are difficult... mostly due to size and time it will take to verify the change.

I find it smart for all software to take steps and stead of jumps, after what happened with Microsoft over the Vista change that was not widely accepted by the masses... They went too far too fast and the rest of the software developers took notice... now they all seem to be waiting for the other to make the jump that will define a "YES" or a "NO" on the open platform style software... I am hungry for it as many of the rest of us discussing it are... but everyone may not be as receptive to it as some of us are.

 

[Macintoshrumors]

I recently finished graduate school, which anyone that goes to this knows its a ton of research and writing papers. For my needs, I had to have a computer. I needed to have several research articles open and be able to switch back and forth from them on a bigger screen and type at the same time. This could probably be done on the larger iPad Pro, but I dont have that and just have an air 2. That being said, for my day to day uses, an iPad can replace what I use a computer for, for the most part. Right now the storage limitation is my only hold out. I have lots of music, pictures, and videos on my Mac, and currently use an external drive to move files around. I could use cloud storage, but the iPad doesn't let me download files like a Mac does. If this came to be, then I could replace my computer with cloud storage.

Reading these post made me think of something. The iPad is not a computer replacement for us, but a computer replacement for upcoming generations. The kids in school now, say idk,3rd-middle schoo/Highschool are growing up using iPads in school and touchscreem phones. We grew up with desktops and MacBooks in college. The younger crowd is growing up with iPads and could care less about operating a desktop quality machine. This push towards apples future is not dependent on us but the upcoming generation. By then I suspect pro like desktop app will be coming to iOS to secure its legacy.

 

[KarmaRocket]

I don't think the iPad is a laptop replacement. I got the 12.9 and tried to use it for writing. I found it cumbersome to carry around. And I was a little frustrated with the multitasking and file management. I found just carrying my heavier 15" MBP more convenient. Just with my workflow of gathering research and trying to assemble images for a lookbook or gathering articles, iOS is just too limiting.

Im also getting into programming, it's kind of silly you can't write iOS apps with an iPad. Playgrounds is great but why is there still no version of XCode? You can write python and Lua apps on the iPad!

It's a fantastic media consumption device. But at it's current state there needs to be a more coherent workflow. It's too simple and limiting. Honestly I would rather have a Surface device for writing/research and programming on the go rather than an iPad. At least I can do my work on it and use the pen for markups and notes. I was hoping the iPad would do that for me. I'll probably just give my 12.9 to my sister and buy the newer 10.5 and use it to play games and read comics.

 

[Neverbepeace]

Reading these post made me think of something. The iPad is not a computer replacement for us, but a computer replacement for upcoming generations. The kids in school now, say idk,3rd-middle schoo/Highschool are growing up using iPads in school and touchscreem phones. We grew up with desktops and MacBooks in college. The younger crowd is growing up with iPads and could care less about operating a desktop quality machine. This push towards apples future is not dependent on us but the upcoming generation. By then I suspect pro like desktop app will be coming to iOS to secure its legacy.

Thats a good point....

 

[Sodium Chloride]

If Apple could make a smart connector keyboard with a trackpad, then it may be a viable laptop replacement. I find it too disorienting when I have to type with the keyboard and reach the screen back and forth with my fingers. My hands get tired pretty quickly.

Imagine you have a laptop with touch screen but the trackpad is broken and you don’t have a mouse. You would then have to type and reach the screen back and forth over and over. That how it feels like!

 

[musicpenguy]

If Apple could make a smart connector keyboard with a trackpad, then it may be a viable laptop replacement. I find it too disorienting when I have to type with the keyboard and reach the screen back and forth with my fingers. My hands get tired pretty quickly.

Imagine you have a laptop with touch screen but the trackpad is broken and you don’t have a mouse. You would then have to type and reach the screen back and forth over and over. That how it feels like!

The only minor difference is they designed the SmartKeyboard to keep your hands as close to the screen as possible (no function row etc.)

 

[ericwn]

The only minor difference is they designed the SmartKeyboard to keep your hands as close to the screen as possible (no function row etc.)

That is surely the best excuse ever for a too simple keyboard layout - ignoring the fact that any media key would run circles around any touch interaction on the screen.

 

[spiderman0616]

Reading these post made me think of something. The iPad is not a computer replacement for us, but a computer replacement for upcoming generations. The kids in school now, say idk,3rd-middle schoo/Highschool are growing up using iPads in school and touchscreem phones. We grew up with desktops and MacBooks in college. The younger crowd is growing up with iPads and could care less about operating a desktop quality machine. This push towards apples future is not dependent on us but the upcoming generation. By then I suspect pro like desktop app will be coming to iOS to secure its legacy.

I'll take you one level further than that--my generation learned on and used beige box Gateway 2000 and Dell (and yes, even Apple) desktop PCs growing up because honestly, what other option did we have? What else was there? Think of what most people did with their home desktop PCs back in the 90s:

--AOL chat
--email
--web browsing
--games
--document creation

Of course there were more specialized things you could do too, but for the most part, this is what we used our computers for, and there wasn't any other device in existence that could do those things for us. Then eventually we all had them at work too and got very set in our ways about what a "computer" is. But we were using these big complicated desktop PC setups and operating systems at home for all the same things we use our iPhones and iPads for. 80% of us probably didn't need anything nearly that complicated.

My oldest child was born the same year the iPhone came out. He has never cared about or needed desktops/laptops for anything. They use Chromebooks at his school for testing, but he hates them and always defers to his iPad whenever possible for homework projects and entertainment. He just doesn't see the need for anything other than his iPad for most things.

Me personally? I grew up always wishing I'd have a computer that was kind of like the book Penny used on Inspector Gadget. I read the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy over and over again wishing something like that were real. With my iOS devices and Apple Watch, all those things are now real. I still have a Macbook Air for work, but it's definitely not my computer of choice anymore and if I had to give it back to my employer, I would not replace it with a personally owned Mac.

A lot of people my age (early 40s) are hesitant to count the iPad as a "real computer". My attitude about that is....who cares? To some people it's not. To me, the iPad Pro is the computer of my dreams, the iPhone is a mini version of the computer of my dreams, and my Apple Watch is like a remote control for all of it that I always have on my wrist at all times. It's a great time to be alive.

 

[musicpenguy]

That is surely the best excuse ever for a too simple keyboard layout - ignoring the fact that any media key would run circles around any touch interaction on the screen.

It does make a rather big impact in usability without needing to fully leave the keyboard - I’m not sure media keys would do much to benefit what you’d need to touch the screen for - I think the benefit there outweighs the cost - in the office where I work I use Beats Studio 3s that for the most part replace my need to play/pause music and change the volume. I understand the want for that but appreciate from a design standpoint why that row is just not there. It wasn’t an accident and I think they did test what it felt like to touch the screen with that extra row there and it wasn’t as good.

 

[ericwn]

It does make a rather big impact in usability without needing to fully leave the keyboard - I’m not sure media keys would do much to benefit what you’d need to touch the screen for - I think the benefit there outweighs the cost - in the office where I work I use Beats Studio 3s that for the most part replace my need to play/pause music and change the volume. I understand the want for that but appreciate from a design standpoint why that row is just not there. It wasn’t an accident and I think they did test what it felt like to touch the screen with that extra row there and it wasn’t as good.

Well I use the iPad every day and every day with a keyboard . I can but shake my head at such decisions and will take a different product as result. All my keyboards have media keys and many of those I use very often.
Put the other way round I never felt less good just because my keyboard has more functionality.

But then back in the day I also didn’t use Apple’s mice- which to me lost out too, especially the one-button variants.

 

[Mr. 123]

It’s getting harder and harder for me to justify a laptop. With apps like Luma Fusion, Affinity Photo, Affinity Designer, GarageBand, and Procreate, all my hobbyist creative needs are being fulfilled and at times exceeded. I find working with Affinity Photo, Affinity Designer, and GarageBand to be much better on the iPad than on a computer. The Apple Pencil capabilities along with multitouch opens for so much more creativity and interactivity.

Not to mention, most of these apps are much cheaper than their computer equivalents. The iPad itself is much cheaper than the computer equivalents. iPads offer vastly better better life than laptops, especially when under heavy work loads. Performance is usually just as fast and smooth as a high-specked laptop. iPads are much lighter and easier to handle than laptops. I do like typing on the on-screen keyboard too and find my accuracy to be really good on it.

There are some use cases for me here and there where a laptop is needed. Multitasking is still better on a desktop/laptop OS. Some websites don’t work well on iPads. If I want to tinker with my Android, sometimes a computer is needed. I have bootleg Android Auto in my car, which required a computer and flash drive to install. But it’s getting harder and harder for me to justify a laptop.

I think I’m going to try to pretend I don’t have a laptop, go full-time with the iPad, and try to find solutions/workarounds to any limitations I might have. If I am successful, I will save lots of money ($600 for 10.5” vs $1500-$2500 for a high-end laptop. Cheaper software also. Plus, I’d only be upgrading an iPad every 4 years instead of upgrading both an iPad and a laptop). Forcing myself to use the iPad in new ways and finding workarounds should also allow me to use the iPad in new ways that will maximize my workflow and fun too.

The iPad is a very good device but I don’t understand why it has to be a laptop replacement. I use an iMac for music production which definitively can’t be done on the iPad. I sometimes use the iPad for secondary tasks like basic notation after I’ve exported from a daw. I use the iPad to take notes with the pencil but my MacBook Air or iMac to type essays. I watch Netflix in the sofa on the iPad and do browsing etc. I also use it on trips where I know I don’t have to work a lot. So basically, I like using both macs and iPad for different things!

 

[akash.nu]

The iPad is a very good device but I don’t understand why it has to be a laptop replacement. I use an iMac for music production which definitively can’t be done on the iPad. I sometimes use the iPad for secondary tasks like basic notation after I’ve exported from a daw. I use the iPad to take notes with the pencil but my MacBook Air or iMac to type essays. I watch Netflix in the sofa on the iPad and do browsing etc. I also use it on trips where I know I don’t have to work a lot. So basically, I like using both macs and iPad for different things!

That’s exactly how it’s supposed to be used but some people don’t want to. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

 

[Boyd01]

That’s exactly how it’s supposed to be used but some people don’t want to. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I wonder where they got such an idea?

“I think if you’re looking at a PC, why would you buy a PC anymore? No really, why would you buy one?” Cook told the British publication. “Yes, the iPad Pro is a replacement for a notebook or a desktop for many, many people. They will start using it and conclude they no longer need to use anything else, other than their phones.”

https://www.macworld.com/article/30...-ipad-pro-why-would-you-buy-a-pc-anymore.html

 

[Shanghaichica]

That’s exactly how it’s supposed to be used but some people don’t want to. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I would say it's up to an individual how they want to use an iPad. Apple themselves advertise the iPad as computer. I think it just comes down to picking the right tool for the right job. For some people an iPad can be their only computer because what they need to do can be done with an iPad. I own 2 iPads and a MacBook. I find my iPads more useful for what I need to do but if I could only own one then I'd pick the mac, only because its a better investment as it's more versatile and I don't know what I might need to do in the future.

 

[spacebro]

Tablets are going to replace laptops. Its just a matter of choosing to be an early adopter or choosing to dig in your heels and be a laptop holdout past when the world moves on. The people who choose to move on sooner will save like 6k not having to buy that final gen laptop!

 

[sparksd]

Tablets are going to replace laptops. Its just a matter of choosing to be an early adopter or choosing to dig in your heels and be a laptop holdout past when the world moves on. The people who choose to move on sooner will save like 6k not having to buy that final gen laptop!

My iPP won't replace my laptop on the road for substantive photo editing and management. And who pays 6k for a laptop?

 

[akash.nu]

I wonder where they got such an idea?

“I think if you’re looking at a PC, why would you buy a PC anymore? No really, why would you buy one?” Cook told the British publication. “Yes, the iPad Pro is a replacement for a notebook or a desktop for many, many people. They will start using it and conclude they no longer need to use anything else, other than their phones.”

https://www.macworld.com/article/30...-ipad-pro-why-would-you-buy-a-pc-anymore.html

His statement is actually pretty relevant for most tech consumers.

It’s important to ask that question. The answer to that will determine if someone can use only iPad as their main computing device or not!

Eg. I can’t make my iPad my main computing device for sure, but then I don’t try to. Because when I ask that question, there are several things an iPad just can’t do.

 

[Mr. 123]

Tablets are going to replace laptops. Its just a matter of choosing to be an early adopter or choosing to dig in your heels and be a laptop holdout past when the world moves on. The people who choose to move on sooner will save like 6k not having to buy that final gen laptop!

Professionals who need special software or powerful specs won’t be using iPad in the future. For instance I am a composer and I work in Logic Pro. First of all there is no DAW on the App Store, second I load huge amounts of samples via SSDs via thunderbolt through another App. To use this software etc I need at least 16Gbs or Ram (I have 40GBs on my iMac) etc. People who do this kind of thing won’t be using iPads in the near future.

I’m not saying that the iPad can’t works as a replacement for some people but to broadly state that it will happen for everyone is not acurate.