iPad as a laptop replacement

[Warhawk15]

So I’m pretty much 90% on my iPad Air 2 128gb now...waiting until I have more money and to see what the new iPads are.
Hoping my MBP will sell someday.

- Had to reformat my 2 TB hard drive to FAT32 I believe and have everything on there, it’s plugged into my router via usb and I can access it from the Documents app.
From that I have all my music, photos, video, ebooks, audiobooks, other random documents.
Not as seamless as my MBP, but hopefully it will get better, and being able to plug a hard drive directly to my iPad without jailbreak or something would be nice as well.
- I use the Google Photos app to share/upload all of my and my wife’s photos/video. Maybe someday Apple will allow you to have a shared photo/video library via iCloud with your family users...
- Hokusai 2 app has replaced Audacity as a basic sound/music editor.
- Arena of Valor has quenched my thirst for MOBA games, used to play HOTS. Also play other games of course if/when I have time
- Have it with a Logitech keyboard/case combo for typing.
- Forger is a great sculpting app, though obviously not as powerful as Blender.
- Use a combination of free Dropbox/iCloud storage for files on the go away from my home router
- Use Apple’s Pages, Numbers etc for personal use and Google’s suite for use with other people
- Mango is a great app for learning languages and is free from local library
- ^ Ditto for Linda for learning business/tech stuff
- ^ Ditto again for CloudLibrary for free ebooks/audiobooks
- Kindle/iBooks for reading free stuff
- Google music has all my music uploaded if I need that for some reason
- Use Apple Notes for general notes and lists I use, such as for shopping, etc
- Apple reminders for... reminders and tasks I need to do
- Plenty of shopping apps with coupons you can’t get on desktop
- Yoga Studio and Pranayama apps plus other spreadsheets/videos I keep in the Documents app for exercise/health
- I have used the YouTube/Safari app to upload to YouTube and edit, though I hope they continue to make that better.
- Clinical Pharmacology app with tons of drug information
- Quizlet to learn pretty much anything
- Using my MBP brick and usb c to lightning cable to charge, will need to buy a fast charge one if/when I sell my MBP

Granted most of this can be done on my iPhone, but the large screen and keyboard makes it so much faster/easier.
Also some of the apps I listed and other ones I use can be used in the browser, though not as fluid.
Hoping they have more iPad updates in future 12.x versions of iOS, or just better productivity/utility updates in general.

As you can tell I mostly use Apple’s stock apps if I can get away with it as I like to keep it clean and save $.
I’m also looking for new ways to do stuff on my iPad, if you have any insights please let me know!

It works for me, but I’m not a professional/amateur photographer, programmer, engineer, etc.

 

[Hater]

Sigh. I totally agree with this, doing web development or coding is very clunky on the iPad. I miss tools like Google / Firefox / Safari Developer Tools, Codekit, Xcode or Little Snitch, which is why I'm still stuck with a MacBook Air.

Try doing any form of video editing. People jump at them because Apple show infinate adds of iMovie and happy people editing holiday snaps and selfie videos, so they spend $1200+ on an iPad Pro.

Ever tried to use FCP with no hot keys or mouse modifiers? Ugh.... a 20 second edit takes 5 minutes, and a touch screen has the dexterity of a cat picking up a golf ball... not to mention that there is no workspace, so you can't just quicky run up a text PNG and import it for a text overlay etc, you have to use the inbuilt tools which also such majorly

It's just not a viable solution

 

[Populus]

Hey! Today I tried to use an iPad Pro just like a replacement for my old MacBook Pro, which I mainly use to take notes while viewing PDFs... I do it on full screen on my mac, with Preview on one side (bigger) and text edit / pages on the left side (smaller), with the feature introduced on El Capitan.

So today I tried to do the same with the iPad Pro with keyboard on the store and... Surprise! There are no sample PDFs on any iPad on the store, and the only apps I find to read PDFs are Books, and some third party apps. So I could not do something as simple as viewing a PDF while writting on a text editor. Maybe my workflow has just adapted to the resources my mac brings me, and I'm asking too much to an iOS device. But... really, there's no Preview equivalent on iOS?

I would love to use one of the upcoming 2018 iPad Pros with almost no bezels and FaceID. But if I cannot work with iOS... It's just a waste. I've discovered keyboard shortcuts on iOS, and the app selector, so iOS is closer and closer to mac. But it lacks that flexibility, I guess.

 

[Dave-Z]

So today I tried to do the same with the iPad Pro with keyboard on the store and... Surprise! There are no sample PDFs on any iPad on the store, and the only apps I find to read PDFs are Books, and some third party apps. So I could not do something as simple as viewing a PDF while writting on a text editor. Maybe my workflow has just adapted to the resources my mac brings me, and I'm asking too much to an iOS device. But... really, there's no Preview equivalent on iOS?

iOS has natively supported reading PDFs for awhile. If you access them through mail attachments, Safari, etc. they just open and are viewable (since iOS 11 you can even mark them up).

If you want something a little more like Preview, try Documents by Readdle or for something more advanced PDF Expert also by Readdle. (I use PDF Expert all the time.) Documents is free and PDF Expert has a cost.

Edit: iOS comes with Notes and you can get Pages as a free download.

 

[Populus]

Well, if you see my set up on my mac, i find it difficult to achieve the same configuration.
I'll put it here since it's a new page:

And yeah @Dave-Z I've seen they have the Readdle app on the iPads on the store. Maybe next time I'll have to try better to merge both apps (Documents and Pages) in one single screen, like I do on my mac.

 

[Warhawk15]

Hey! Today I tried to use an iPad Pro just like a replacement for my old MacBook Pro, which I mainly use to take notes while viewing PDFs... I do it on full screen on my mac, with Preview on one side (bigger) and text edit / pages on the left side (smaller), with the feature introduced on El Capitan.

So today I tried to do the same with the iPad Pro with keyboard on the store and... Surprise! There are no sample PDFs on any iPad on the store, and the only apps I find to read PDFs are Books, and some third party apps. So I could not do something as simple as viewing a PDF while writting on a text editor. Maybe my workflow has just adapted to the resources my mac brings me, and I'm asking too much to an iOS device. But... really, there's no Preview equivalent on iOS?

I would love to use one of the upcoming 2018 iPad Pros with almost no bezels and FaceID. But if I cannot work with iOS... It's just a waste. I've discovered keyboard shortcuts on iOS, and the app selector, so iOS is closer and closer to mac. But it lacks that flexibility, I guess.

EDIT: looks like I was slow in my response lol. As you can tell this is very basic and many people do it.

I don’t have my iPad with me at work but this seems pretty simple having any document viewer like Documents open with your pdf file and another app like Pages that you’re writing on.

Both are side by side and you can read the pdf while typing in Pages.

I’ve actually done something like this with safari open while typing in another app at the same time.

 

[mk313]

EDIT: looks like I was slow in my response lol. As you can tell this is very basic and many people do it.

I don’t have my iPad with me at work but this seems pretty simple having any document viewer like Documents open with your pdf file and another app like Pages that you’re writing on.

Both are side by side and you can read the pdf while typing in Pages.

I’ve actually done something like this with safari open while typing in another app at the same time.

Yah, I do this all the time. I usually use adobe acrobat on the iPad, along with a notes app, word, pages, etc. it’s actually really easy in the ipad

 

[rosyapple]

Hey! Today I tried to use an iPad Pro just like a replacement for my old MacBook Pro, which I mainly use to take notes while viewing PDFs... I do it on full screen on my mac, with Preview on one side (bigger) and text edit / pages on the left side (smaller), with the feature introduced on El Capitan.

So today I tried to do the same with the iPad Pro with keyboard on the store and... Surprise! There are no sample PDFs on any iPad on the store, and the only apps I find to read PDFs are Books, and some third party apps. So I could not do something as simple as viewing a PDF while writting on a text editor. Maybe my workflow has just adapted to the resources my mac brings me, and I'm asking too much to an iOS device. But... really, there's no Preview equivalent on iOS?

I would love to use one of the upcoming 2018 iPad Pros with almost no bezels and FaceID. But if I cannot work with iOS... It's just a waste. I've discovered keyboard shortcuts on iOS, and the app selector, so iOS is closer and closer to mac. But it lacks that flexibility, I guess.

The Preview equivalent of iOS is the built-in PDF viewer when you open the PDF file from the File Browser.

I use a third party app (Notability and Good Notes) though, since I want more flexibility.

 

[Dave-Z]

And yeah @Dave-Z I've seen they have the Readdle app on the iPads on the store. Maybe next time I'll have to try better to merge both apps (Documents and Pages) in one single screen, like I do on my mac.

You can do that on an iPad: https://support.apple.com/en-ca/HT207582

 

[Populus]

Thank you all. I will do a bit more of research, especially with the built-in PDF viewer of File Browser, that @rosyapple said. That way I will know better what to do in October when the new 13" basic MacBook and the new iPad Pros will be announced.

I won't deny it: I've always been a mac guy, but the crappy keyboard and the astronomic prices of new MacBook Pros, make me wonder if I should jump to the iPad Pro boat when the new bezel-less and TouchID design are released, or at least try them with the Christmas sales period (November to mid January) and return it if it doesn't meet my needs.

 

[Mainsail]

Thank you all. I will do a bit more of research, especially with the built-in PDF viewer of File Browser, that @rosyapple said. That way I will know better what to do in October when the new 13" basic MacBook and the new iPad Pros will be announced.

I won't deny it: I've always been a mac guy, but the crappy keyboard and the astronomic prices of new MacBook Pros, make me wonder if I should jump to the iPad Pro boat when the new bezel-less and TouchID design are released, or at least try them with the Christmas sales period (November to mid January) and return it if it doesn't meet my needs.

Yep. You have to mess around with the iPad for a couple of weeks to adjust your workflow, but at some point the dam kind of breaks and you find yourself doing things more naturally. In fact, after a while, you might find yourself reaching up to touch the screen of your MacBook and thinking wow why did I do that.

I am in a similar situation as you wrt my MacBook. I have been experimenting with using my base 2017 iPad (plus keyboard case) as my primary device because when the time comes to replace my 2014 MBA, I just don't know if Apple will have a laptop that I feel is reliable. This keyboard thing is a real issue. So, I might just go Desktop (Mac Mini) + iPad, since I already have a monitor, keyboard, and mouse for a desktop setup. In fact, my MBA is pretty much in clamshell mode most of the time anyway.

BTW - As it relates to your question, you probably know this but.....you can have two Apps side by side on an iPad.....just open one App and then drag the other up from the doc. It will appear as split view 50/50 or can be adjusted to 70/30. You just move the slider in the middle. Also, for PDFs, you might try Good reader. I have marked up and annotated numerous documents using this App, and it is pretty slick once you learn some of the tricks. You can also use Good reader to create a new PDF with diagrams etc.

 

[aeronatis]

My iPad Pro could never replace my laptop computers even if it has a bigger screen. I use the computers for long research sessions, advanced video editing, spreadsheets, work applications, virtual machine usage, Steam Gaming, etc...

There are things I prefer iPad over MacBook Pro though such as using Affinity Photo and Affinity Designer with Apple Pencil, note taking, video calling, reading articles, watching videos during flights. Of course, I can never call myself a professional level photo editor or designer.

 

[Momof9]

I just discovered yesterday, that the back button on my logitech keyboard deletes emails.... not the delete button LOL

that is a game changer for reading email. You can use the arrow keys to scroll to the next email. I will have to see what else I can do using this bluetooth keyboard!

 

[Synergie]

Try doing any form of video editing. People jump at them because Apple show infinate adds of iMovie and happy people editing holiday snaps and selfie videos, so they spend $1200+ on an iPad Pro.

Ever tried to use FCP with no hot keys or mouse modifiers? Ugh.... a 20 second edit takes 5 minutes, and a touch screen has the dexterity of a cat picking up a golf ball... not to mention that there is no workspace, so you can't just quicky run up a text PNG and import it for a text overlay etc, you have to use the inbuilt tools which also such majorly

It's just not a viable solution

Try LumaFusion

 

[Hater]

Try LumaFusion

I don't see any videos that use it. Yeah, there's a few "demo" videos that are just 3 minutes of random filters, but I don't see any actually proper videos that demonstrate exactly how it can be used in a proper context, which is the delivery of information.

How do you even cut and overlay videos from 4 or 5 different sources?

Hell, even before you get to the editing part, I have 10 to 50GB of footage a day I copy over and sort...

And even if LumaFusion somehow replaced FCP, how do you

a) Make text overlays (Photoshop, PNG's etc)
b) Animate said overlays (Motion)

How do you even record voiceovers? Can you plug an actual mic into an iPad?

There's just so much that goes into making a video these day. So many sources and apps and inputs...

 

[sparksd]

I don't see any videos that use it. Yeah, there's a few "demo" videos that are just 3 minutes of random filters, but I don't see any actually proper videos that demonstrate exactly how it can be used in a proper context, which is the delivery of information.

How do you even cut and overlay videos from 4 or 5 different sources?

Hell, even before you get to the editing part, I have 10 to 50GB of footage a day I copy over and sort...

And even if LumaFusion somehow replaced FCP, how do you

a) Make text overlays (Photoshop, PNG's etc)
b) Animate said overlays (Motion)

How do you even record voiceovers? Can you plug an actual mic into an iPad?

There's just so much that goes into making a video these day. So many sources and apps and inputs...

Did you try checking out their user guide?

https://luma-touch.helpscoutdocs.com/article/87-reference-guide

 

[Hater]

Did you try checking out their user guide?

https://luma-touch.helpscoutdocs.com/article/87-reference-guide

Doesn't work.

Why the hell would people spend $10,000+ on workstations and monitors if it could all be done on an iPad with $40 worth of software? Premiere licensing alone costs more than that per month.

 

[sparksd]

Doesn't work.

Why the hell would people spend $10,000+ on workstations and monitors if it could all be done on an iPad with $40 worth of software? Premiere licensing alone costs more than that per month.

What doesn't work? I tried that link just now and it has a link there to a PDF user guide that I was able to open.

As to your question, it's a matter of scale. If you're doing videos on the scale of most users, an iPad is fine. But there are certainly cases where it is entirely inadequate and you need a setup with significantly greater capability. Just like any other job.

 

[Hater]

What doesn't work? I tried that link just now and it has a link there to a PDF user guide that I was able to open.

As to your question, it's a matter of scale. If you're doing videos on the scale of most users, an iPad is fine. But there are certainly cases where it is entirely inadequate and you need a setup with significantly greater capability. Just like any other job.

Was a problem with Chrome, weird.

I like how they go on about Gnarbox/WD external storage and have all of the videos of people working wirelessly with smiles and all that kind of stuff. 100GB worth of video over wireless? Good luck.

Like most iPad stuff, it's 99% fantasy land and 1% productivity - all these fantastic features which don't work in reality.

Trash.

 

[sparksd]

Was a problem with Chrome, weird.

I like how they go on about Gnarbox/WD external storage and have all of the videos of people working wirelessly with smiles and all that kind of stuff. 100GB worth of video over wireless? Good luck.

Like most iPad stuff, it's 99% fantasy land and 1% productivity - all these fantastic features which don't work in reality.

Trash.

Sounds like an iPad isn’t for you.

 

[Synergie]

I don't see any videos that use it. Yeah, there's a few "demo" videos that are just 3 minutes of random filters, but I don't see any actually proper videos that demonstrate exactly how it can be used in a proper context, which is the delivery of information.

How do you even cut and overlay videos from 4 or 5 different sources?

Hell, even before you get to the editing part, I have 10 to 50GB of footage a day I copy over and sort...

And even if LumaFusion somehow replaced FCP, how do you

a) Make text overlays (Photoshop, PNG's etc)
b) Animate said overlays (Motion)

How do you even record voiceovers? Can you plug an actual mic into an iPad?

There's just so much that goes into making a video these day. So many sources and apps and inputs...

Text overlays are easy (you can use built in fonts and do it right in the app or import your own from any graphics app). Animating then takes a tiny bit of learning but also easy. You just create points by tapping where in the timeline when in edit... and move it where you want to be at that point and it animated between the two points automatically. Just try it out...

Also for managing files, I have a portable wireless travel router when away from home which allows USB storage to be connected (like a 2 TB drive). At home I now have a WD My Cloud 4 TB drive attached to the home Fibre Op router. The travel router also has an SD slot which easily allows importing of videos and photos from the camera. Another option is the WD My Passport Wireless Pro. It’s a 2 Tb drive with wifi built in (with wifi passthrough as well so it can also be a travel router) and it also has an SD and USB slot as well to import other files.

An app called File Browser lets you seamlessly work with files and storage etc. And LumaFusion actually can import from NAS itself natively.

 

[Hater]

Sounds like an iPad isn’t for you.

They're for people who want a toy, nothing more, nothing less. It's why you always see them in a childs hands.

Text overlays are easy (you can use built in fonts and do it right in the app or import your own from any graphics app). Animating then takes a tiny bit of learning but also easy. You just create points by tapping where in the timeline when in edit... and move it where you want to be at that point and it animated between the two points automatically. Just try it out...

Also for managing files, I have a portable wireless travel router when away from home which allows USB storage to be connected (like a 2 TB drive). At home I now have a WD My Cloud 4 TB drive attached to the home Fibre Op router. The travel router also has an SD slot which easily allows importing of videos and photos from the camera. Another option is the WD My Passport Wireless Pro. It’s a 2 Tb drive with wifi built in (with wifi passthrough as well so it can also be a travel router) and it also has an SD and USB slot as well to import other files.

An app called File Browser lets you seamlessly work with files and storage etc. And LumaFusion actually can import from NAS itself natively.

So it imports naively... over WiFi. Into some sort of library I assume. I'll ignore how crap iOS is for multitasking for a moment, I can't imagine how slow it is to transfer all of this data for you, let alone trying to actually edit anything. Ignoring all of the workflow stuff, there are library constraints - How quickly are you going to run out of space?

When I talk of Motion, i'm quite obviously talking of Generators, Behaviours, all of that good stuff. Motion tracking like pretty much everyone uses excessively these days - Not just tweening using the Transform function, which is what you're alluding to there - Otherwise you'd just use iMovie which is free.

Doesn't it only have like 3 concurrent Audio tracks or something?

Even looking at the shortcut keys, it has like 10. Man. Sounds frustrating as all hell.

What about plugins? Are there any? I doubt it. Motion tracking?

 

[Mainsail]

Oh boy, another of these sweeping statements proclaiming that the iPad is a “toy” because it doesn’t meet your use case......and nobody could possibly have needs that differ from yours. Such an old tiresome narrow minded point of view. This has been debunked a thousand times with hundreds of examples of people being productive with their iPads.

 

[The Samurai]

• Proper file system
• Safari Pro (can't believe i am saying this lol - I need to be able to manage and create Squarespace websites and at present Safari is not capable of handling it nor is Chrome)
• Ability to save multiple files from a single email in an instant (like you can on the Mac; i've tried both Mail and Outlook to no avail)
• Whatsapp (this is no fault to Apple but come on!)
• Instagram (same as above, im guessing its to do with Facebook)
• Mouse cursor
• Wide support of peripherals i.e. memory sticks, microphones etc.

^^ in this order.

 

[Synergie]

They're for people who want a toy, nothing more, nothing less. It's why you always see them in a childs hands.


So it imports naively... over WiFi. Into some sort of library I assume. I'll ignore how crap iOS is for multitasking for a moment, I can't imagine how slow it is to transfer all of this data for you, let alone trying to actually edit anything. Ignoring all of the workflow stuff, there are library constraints - How quickly are you going to run out of space?

When I talk of Motion, i'm quite obviously talking of Generators, Behaviours, all of that good stuff. Motion tracking like pretty much everyone uses excessively these days - Not just tweening using the Transform function, which is what you're alluding to there - Otherwise you'd just use iMovie which is free.

Doesn't it only have like 3 concurrent Audio tracks or something?

Even looking at the shortcut keys, it has like 10. Man. Sounds frustrating as all hell.

What about plugins? Are there any? I doubt it. Motion tracking?

I worked briefly at a TV station news room doing editing for the news program and the software the station used was almost identical to LumaFusion. In fact if people record video clips the same way the camera operators did that is... in clips vs one long video, then Luma Fusion is quite capable. I’ve actually created an hour documentary with it. So no, not just your run the mill family videos but an actual documentary. By the way if you want full on animation use a separate app create the animation and then import it.

The limitations on the full version are 4 video tracks (with audio) and 4 audio only tracks. It also has a built in voice over function right in the app.