There is definitely a lot of frustrating aspects to iOs. Another not mentioned here - write access to the Music Library through an interface other than iTunes.
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iPad Pro iPad as a REAL Productivity Device
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There is definitely a lot of frustrating aspects to iOs. Another not mentioned here - write access to the Music Library through an interface other than iTunes.
You make a great point and I guess at the end of the day when one buys an iPad or iPad Pro they need to remember that they are NOT buying an outright laptop replacement. One needs to look at it in its own context.
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I'll add on to the rant.
My biggest problem with iPad is that so many basic problems require 3rd party solutions. For example, Apple has the most popular camera in the world but instead of bringing back Aperture for photo editing then they instead push us to an Adobe subscription service for Lightroom. And despite Final Cut proving itself to be insanely efficient on ARM, they want us to buy LumaFusion as a Final Cut knockoff. This is Apple telling Pro iPad users how little thy care about "Pro" work on iPads. They'll happily sell us pro priced hardware and pro priced accessories but pro-level software is someone elses problem.
Let us start small, how about they make a damn Calculator app for iPad!I'll add on to the rant.
My biggest problem with iPad is that so many basic problems require 3rd party solutions. For example, Apple has the most popular camera in the world but instead of bringing back Aperture for photo editing then they instead push us to an Adobe subscription service for Lightroom. And despite Final Cut proving itself to be insanely efficient on ARM, they want us to buy LumaFusion as a Final Cut knockoff. This is Apple telling Pro iPad users how little thy care about "Pro" work on iPads. They'll happily sell us pro priced hardware and pro priced accessories but pro-level software is someone elses problem.
Tablets are not more 'modern' than laptops or desktops I think the utility of
touch for productivity has been completely discredited
Primarily an iPad user, I agree that iPadOS is way more primitive than macOS. iPad is great for touchscreen based work or Apple Pencil. Anything else can be done much more efficiently and with less acrobatics involved on a Mac. IMO, M1 MacBook Air can be an excellent iPad alternative in almost every way, except for the touch-screen and the pencil. ?
Ok, but are they really though? And how many of them are to 12.9” Pro users, how many are to 11” Pro users, and how many to iPad Air 4 users?
I find the Magic Keyboard for iPad to be a great product. I loved mine while I had it. But Apple has never said how many they’re selling or what the breakout per model is.
We will probably never know these numbers unless they become so big that Apple feel the need to gloat about them, lol.
It would be interesting to know the split of iPad Mini, iPad, iPad Air, iPad Pro 11 inch and 12.9 inch sales split. I think we can deduce that the Mini is the poorest seller due to how few and far between releases are for it.
My belief is that the 12.9 iPad Pro probably does better numbers than the 11inch though, I have no proof of that but that’s the feeling I get, would be cool to see if the exact numbers.
Nah, I digital artist for living, and I fairly disagree.
I am using Mobile Studio Pro as main portable setup, my 12 inch iPad pro are barely usable for finishing artwork, mainly just for displaying reference image for portable setup. Before that, I am using MBP + Intuos Pro combo.
iPad Pro is portable, ultra lightweight, but that's just my sketching device, no more, the rest are mainly for consuming content and as additional references screen on the go.
Wacom Mobile Studio is etched glass, pressure is more finer and granular controlled. Indeed, before Apple make nano coating was things, Wacom etched glass has been around 2 years earlier, and this things is super durable, no scratch ever, with daily strokes of my lines. It also backed with real workstation Quadro Graphics, ability to add NVMe SSD and 64GB of RAM is nice bonus.
32 inch Wacom Cintiq Pro is attached on my Mac Pro, that's was main studio setup, and their resemble same characteristic like Mobile Studio.
Honestly, if my works have simpler art style, iPad Pro might work, but in my case isn't usable. Not mentioning iPad Pro is slippery as hell, there's no fine tuning pen control, no pen shortcut button, no express keys, I can list more.
I love Apple products, but I comes to digital art I getting out from my Apple bubble, because Apple haven't real equivalent with Cintiq Pro yet.
iPad Achievements
Better Screen can be used portrait or landscape
Pro Motion
Better Camera and ability to shoot video
LIDAR
Supports mouse, keyboard, and screen inputs
Pencil Support
4 Speakers
5 Microphones
Cellular
Face ID
Accelerometer
Gyro
Barometer
GPS
Compass
For the laptop M1
Better Battery
Ability to run legacy desktop software
In fact, the only thing holding back the iPad is the ability for app developers to utilize the full potential of the platform.
Legacy file systems don't float for me. I have no reason to store and archive my files in my house when I can store and access them and archive online where I can access from any device anywhere in the world.
I made a Chromebook work for me for a year. I can make an iPad work. Not all can, and that is okay. I realize if you need specific legacy software to manage legacy workflows you need Mac OS, for many of us we don't.
I think the issue here is that the iPad and especially the iPad Pro models have such great state-of-the-art hardware (all of which you have mentioned) yet the software is what is behind. It has the prowess to handle a lot but is held back by iPad OS.
Well, because:
0. Obviously the base MacBook Air has more memory than your average iPhone/iPad, so it won't need to hit swap that often, but iPad with 4GB RAM will hit swap a lot.
1. When the OS needs to swap, it kills performance, and battery life, and it wears your solid state storage out faster. iOS is not made to handle "swap" at all. This is where it forked with MacOS a long time ago, and the fork has resulted in some mechanisms and frameworks being markedly different.
2. iOS is made to be simple. Users shouldn't need to care about what they are doing on iOS. MacOS is not like that. You are made to be constantly aware of what you are running, both in the foreground and background. Fundamentally, if you introduce the ability to run an infinite amount of apps in the background on iOS, that means you need to watch what you are doing. That defeats the whole point of iOS.
Well, I can concede that someone like you who is on the higher echelon of "professional digital art" will probably still want a Cintiq connected to a Mac.
But if I was in the market for a smaller and more portable drawing tablet device, I bet even you will have to agree with me that the iPad Pro 12.9" is the far better option than MobileStudio 13. Note that the latter device doesn't come with Quadro graphics at all, and it's stuck on Intel integrated graphics.
So let's just say... I'm not dissing Wacom, but the lower-end Cintiq devices like the 13" doesn't stand a chance against the iPad Pro IMHO. If Apple gets more serious and start introducing A14Z 18" iPad, or add Pencil support to the next line of iMac, or make the Pencil 3 much more "pro" like the Wacom pen, then I think our conversation will go in a completely different direction.
Well aren't you a lucky guy. Not everyone has access to unlimited high speed internet. My home Xfinity (comcrap) internet is very flakey. I'm limited to 10GB mobile data shared with another family member. In addition, I would also have to pay another monthly fee to store my files in the cloud.
Apple makes 512GB and 1TB iPads for a reason. To store LOTS of files on them. All of my high definition music files are stored in Music.app, all of my DVDs and HD videos files are stored in the TV.app. Apple developed a Files.app and added external storage support for a reason, but it seems that they only took a half assed attempt at it. I wouldn't consider wanting to access files stored in folders to be a "legacy workflow" It's a shame that we have to wait for the major once a year release to bring about changes. It would be nice if they released a 14.X release with a functional Files.app, but I'll keep dreaming.
- As far as LiDar, what is the point of putting in hardware but not developing software for it? Besides a few gimmicky demos, I still haven't seen anything useful with it. I hear people say it will be useful when AR becomes mainstream, but I've been hearing that for YEARS now. ?
- Nothing special about the 5 "studio" microphones, the iMac and 16" MBP have "studio" quality mics now.
- MacBooks also have accelerometers, so nothing special there either.
- FaceID is meh, works well in the home, but the past year it's been a hassle for me. ( had to use my old iPhone 6s Plus for 3 weeks while I was waiting for my iPhone 11 Pro Max to arrive, and it worked flawlessly since I wear a mask 8 hours a day) FaceID isn't an upgrade over TouchID, it's an alternative. Some folks have difficulty getting TouchID to read their finger so FaceID is battery for them.
- Mac screens can also be used in portrait mode...
Does the cellular iPad actually have a GPS chip?
As far as swapping killing battery life and wearing solid state storage faster, Apple has allowed this for years with Mac notebooks. They've sold MacBook Airs with 4GB RAM and 128GB of storage not so long ago. I'm aware that it does cause unnecessary wear on the flash storage, but if it's okay for a Mac's storage, why not an iPad's? Is there something special about then NAND chip in the iPad? Apple has no problem with Big Slur swapping files to the SSD on a 2013 MBA my friend owns.
Many of the non technical Mac users I know have no idea what "swapping" is. They are not "constantly aware of what they are running both in the foreground and background" for them, it's suppose to "just work" or they ask me for help.
Once I return this 2020 iPad, maybe I'll buy it (or a 2018 1TB model) again used once the 2021 comes out.. They depreciate pretty quickly, even quicker than Macs do it seems.
Like I said, more RAM helps. MacBooks have never had 4GB RAM ever since switching to Retina Display. This is because retina assets take up a lot more memory. Unfortunately, we still have iPads that have 4GB RAM while running at higher resolution than the equivalent MacBook, so RAM is actually even more constrained on those models.
Perhaps storage wear won't be that big of a problem, but power efficiency and performance are big concerns. Note that with the exception of the new M1 MacBooks, past MacBooks could never reach the same battery life as an iPad. M1 MacBooks have batteries that are 1.5 - 2x more than your typical iPad, and even then, the worst case battery life when running virtual machines can be around 6 - 7 hours depending on what you're running.
And beyond that, all of these are technical details that shouldn't concern any iOS user at all. Sure, there are Mac users who use their computers without care. But there are also Mac users who are highly technical, and there are also apps for these highly technical users. For instance, virtual machine is one such use case. Your average Mac user may not care, but someone running a virtual machine is already automatically highly technical and should be well aware of all of this "swapping" mumble jumble.
The Mac is actually not supposed to "just work". That's another lie Steve Jobs told. MacOS is just like any other desktop computer OS, and while it has some "hand-holding" aspects, it's still highly technical in a lot of places. In contrast, you don't get anything highly technical on iOS at all, and Apple curates the App Store in such a way that these highly technical apps are automatically rejected. So it's very clear where they draw the line.
If you're doing something that exceeds the use case of iOS, you really need MacOS.
Here are my counter arguments
There are touch screen laptops that support keyboard and mouse.
True but not that relevant. I have better screen but I do not use it a lot because of other drawbacks.
I am one of those people that do not notice pro motion unless it is pencil latency.
I don't use iPad camera. I would not use it on the field as it is not ergonomic and the camera placements sucks for video calls as I use the iPad in landscape mode on keyboard, not in portrait mode. So also not relevant.
Lidar is not that useful currently and we need to wait supposedly for some apps to be developed to make it useful. Given that most of the talks here are about inferior software, we have to wonder when we will see those apps (if we see them).
There are touch screen laptops that support keyboard and mouse.
Yep, huge yep on that one.
Yes but I would not use them because I don't watch video on smaller iPad. I hook up external monitor to my laptop to watch moves on the bigger screen. So not relevant.
Yep but due to camera placement I would not use the iPad for video calls so not that relevant.
Yep, but I don't need cellular. Additional taxes that for me do not outweigh the need.
Eh not a fan of Face ID on an iPad. 50 % accuracy, 50 % error rate. And even when it works it is slower than Touch ID. So not a win for me.
Yep but I do not need those on an iPad. I have smartphone for those.
Few things to add here:
- External monitors support
- Better RAM management
- Better file system
- True multitasking in the sense of long running multiple processes
- Better camera placement
And inferior iPadOS IMO. Lots of fragmentation and bugs in iPadOS.
Yes, if you have awesome internet connection. The problem with the iPad is that without connection is like an expensive kids toy.
Yeah for me it is not about legacy software. It is about efficiency. iPads Pros are more expensive than some laptops and give clunkier workflows that take more time than using a laptop.
Thanks for the valid criticisms. I think, and as @Tsepz points out, the hardware is there, and while many can take advantage of them, others cannot. Because I have Giga Fiber and an external monitor I can make it work if I need to, but if I'm being honest, the one last hold over is the external monitor for connecting to work. I VM Ware into a Windows Desktop Server for work, I can do on iPad, but the experience is better on my MacBook Air (M1)
All of my personal uses are on the iPad. Including web development using Textastic an awesome editor and SSFTP tool I use to connect to a Linux Server on the Web.
Welcome and thanks for accepting it back gracefully!
This is interesting. If you don't mind would you share your workflow on an iPad in a bit more details? I at least would be interested. I am former Software Developer (currently team lead of DEV team) and I cannot see myself relying only on the iPad. I can for personal purposes indeed but I don't like it that much. For example during my Christmas vacation I was visiting my parents and I had only my iPad. I used it but man I had to charge at least once every day. I am a heavy user. Plus I do stuff that do require multiple displays. For example I was reading a book (awesome experience on an iPad) but then I have the habit to type notes from the book in Notion. And in this specific case I also wanted to build quotes page. I used split screen and did it on the iPad but it was better experience when I was using my laptop to write the notes and the iPad for checking the book. I wanted to export the Notion page into PDF but this is not supported on the iPad version so I had to remember to do it once I go back and have my laptop. It is things like that stop me from relying long term only on an iPad.
I just do all my annotations/highlights/notes in-book with Marvin 3 EPUB reader (sadly abandonware, last updated 2017). It allows me to export annotations to EPUB, PDF, HTML or CSV.
With that said, anytime I've had to travel long distance, I still bring a laptop. There are still websites that aren't fully supported on Safari (e.g. my credit union). My dad was hospitalized overseas and preparing the forms for my FMLA request and insurance reimbursements purely on iPad would have been a major pain (if it had been even possible). I remember the PDF forms I had to fill out didn't work on Safari, GoodReader, PDFExpert or Adobe Reader on iPad.
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This sounds good. Books app does not export notes at all. What I do (for now) is a bit different. During reading I use the Pencil to highlight stuff and maybe even add notes. Then I create like a summary document (with content and all) with the general concept of the book. For this I use Notion and its markdown capabilities.
Sucks that you have to bring also a laptop. It would be so much lighter if you could go by just the iPad.
Yep. My laptop was fairly old (circa 2012/13) so it was laptop+charging brick. My laptop backpack was ~7 lbs already by itself and the weight limit for carry-on was 15 lbs (international flight and the airline was pretty strict). I barely managed to squeak by.
I don't want macOS per se on the iPad but I'd love to get Rosetta Mac app support when paired with keyboard+trackpad/mouse so I can at least get full Firefox, Chrome and Calibre on the iPad.
A couple of remarks...
1. SSD wear is not an issue, tests have proven that with normal use it would take many decades to kill an SSD.
2. RAM impact on battery life is minimal.
3. Paging has no technical issues on iPadOS, it's just a choice by Apple, with it's benefits and drawbacks...
4. There is an alternative to paging, it's pegging apps to RAM. It's possible on some Android devices.
Problem is Android flagships tend to have more RAM, and implementing this on I(Pad)OS would expose the limited amount of RAM of Apple devices, so I doubt they will implement this, at least before a few more years...
1. SSD wear is not an issue, tests have proven that with normal use it would take many decades to kill an SSD.
2. RAM impact on battery life is minimal.
3. Paging has no technical issues on iPadOS, it's just a choice by Apple, with it's benefits and drawbacks...
4. There is an alternative to paging, it's pegging apps to RAM. It's possible on some Android devices.
Problem is Android flagships tend to have more RAM, and implementing this on I(Pad)OS would expose the limited amount of RAM of Apple devices, so I doubt they will implement this, at least before a few more years...
Computing has changed for me. Using a computer is now a chore and inconvenience. I get it and know people like, use, and need them. I work a 9-5 and my tech is not for making YouTube videos, pro level pics, or any other excuse people make for needing them and if it did, my iMac can do it.