iPad iPadOS is severely holding the iPad back... and Microsoft is going to save us...

[Flabasha]

I had the 2020 12.9" iPad Pro, and used Procreate a lot. I never had that kind of battery drain.

Procreate crushes the battery, as you’d expect it to do, with dozens of Bluetooth handoffs every minute of drawing. Granted, I’ve used my iPad Pro a lot over the last year, (including resource hogs like Shapr3D) so the battery may have degraded a bit.

Also the GBP uses Wacom EMR for the pen, not Bluetooth, so it’s far less demanding on the processor for drawing. For other tasks, my GBP and iPad Pro get similar (and very impressive) battery life.

 

[aevan]

Apple will have to retaliate now by opening up iOS even more over time. Make no mistake, the Surface + Windows 11 is currently a real iPad killer. And it's only going to improve as Windows 11 officially launches, as the SQ3 chip is released in the Surface lineup this year, and as Android support is added to W11.

Strongly disagree. iPad is a much better tablet and a much better tool for many things, including illustration, consumption, communication. Mac is a better laptop. Surface is a strange mix of the two. And I would rather drink my own piss then use Android apps (that are not that great on actual Android tablets to begin with) running in emulation on a Windows device. That will be the exact opposite of the iPad experience.

I’m sorry, but I would take iPad and MacBook over Surface any day of the week. And now with Universal Control and Sidecar, I will have the best mobile setup available.

 

[aevan]

I get about 6 hours of drawing on the Galaxy Book. I get about 2 hours in Procreate on my iPad Pro. Can’t speak for the Surface, though.

I get 5 hours of intense Procreate drawing on my 2 year old battery in my iPad Pro. And I would take these 5 hours over 6 hours on Galaxy devices or any other, really, nothing comes close to Apple Pencil and Procreate.

 

[spiderman0616]

Strongly disagree. iPad is a much better tablet and a much better tool for many things, including illustration, consumption, communication. Mac is a better laptop. Surface is a strange mix of the two. And I would rather drink my own piss then use Android apps (that are not that great on actual Android tablets) running in emulation on a Windows device. That will be the exact opposite of the iPad experience.

I’m sorry, but I would take iPad and MacBook over Surface any day of the week. And now with Universal Control and Sidecar, I will have the best mobile setup available.

Yep. I banned Microsoft hardware from my house years ago when my Xbox 360 got a third RRoD and Windows 7 stopped being stable and responsive, even on my state of the art (for the time) gaming PC. They don't have the software, they don't have the hardware, and they DEFINITELY don't have the benefit of the built-in integration that comes from owning as much of the stack as possible.

 

[Flabasha]

I get 5 hours of intense Procreate drawing on my 2 year old battery in my iPad Pro. And I would take these 5 hours over 6 hours on Galaxy devices or any other, really, nothing comes close to Apple Pencil and Procreate.

Do your comps have 99 layers?

And Apple pencil is glorious… but Wacom’s EMR pen is better. Same nonexistent latency, BUT… the EMR allows hover capability, like a full Wacom tablet. You don’t have to lay down a stroke to see the size, texture and location of your brushstroke, it will appear as soon as the pen gets close to the screen. Cuts way down on having to erase strokes you put down with the wrong brush.

Plus, the EMR pen never needs charging…

EDIT: By the way, I adore Procreate, but it has some glaring problems. Resize any portion of your image and it becomes a blurry mess, no matter what interpolation you use. And the layer limit sucks. As does the lack of customizability to the UI… if you like to have your layer panel open, it covers a third of your drawing area.

 

[Rafterman]

The biggest problem is, none of us know what we are talking about. It's like when there is a legal issue in the news, and all the "Google University" law grads think that you can look something up online and you suddenly are an expert who knows what's going to happen.

Well, none of us are experts at the things like technology development, trends, profit and loss, distribution chains or even what's going on in Tim Cook's brain, or that of upper management. So, to be convinced that MacOS won't ever come to iPad because you can google what iPad's current profitability for iPads might be (e.g., iPads are selling like hotcakes as is, so MacOS is never coming to iPad) is just ridiculous.

Everyone was convinced Apple would never produce a stylus. Then came Apple Pencil. Big screen phones? Ridiculous - and let's mock Samsung. Then came iPhone Pros. So, for now, iPadOS is what it is.

 

[kc9hzn]

Do your comps have 99 layers?

And Apple pencil is glorious… bu Wacom’s EMR pen is better. Same nonexistent latency, BUT… the EMR allows hover capability, like a full Wacom tablet. You don’t have to lay down a stroke to see the size, texture and location of your brushstroke, it will appear as soon as the pen gets close to the screen. Cuts way down on having to erase strokes you put down with the wrong brush.

Plus, the EMR pen never needs charging…

That’s not really my experience with Wacom EMR stylus support, at least on the one device I have that offers it. Latency is decent, but only in the bundled apps. Third party apps, even those with EMR support, are pretty laggy. And I’ve never seen the hover features you’re talking about. Maybe my device is a poor example, that’s definitely a strong possibility, but it shows that Wacom EMR support isn’t always a silver bullet (while iPad+Apple Pencil provides the same quality experience on every device it supports).

 

[aevan]

Do your comps have 99 layers?

And Apple pencil is glorious… bu Wacom’s EMR pen is better. Same nonexistent latency, BUT… the EMR allows hover capability, like a full Wacom tablet. You don’t have to lay down a stroke to see the size, texture and location of your brushstroke, it will appear as soon as the pen gets close to the screen. Cuts way down on having to erase strokes you put down with the wrong brush.

Plus, the EMR pen never needs charging…

I am a loooong time Wacom User, everything from Intuos and Intuos Pro to Cintiq tablets, including Wacom EMR tech on laptops. I currently use Wacom Pro Pen 2 and it’s one of the best pens out there. Still, in terms of paralax, feel, precision and the pressure curve, I simply find the Pencil better. It’s subjective, but for me it is better. And that’s compared to the Pro Pen, which is, again, better than Wacom EMR pens (which are good, of course). Yes, the hover mode is really useful, I don’t deny that. But still the parallax effect (especially near screen borders) is worse, so is the shape and feel of the pen itself (I vastly prefer the firmness of Pencil’s tip compared to more flimsy Wacom nibs).

As I said, I’ve been a Wacom fan since I started digital illustration more than a decade ago, and its pens remain one of the best on the market, but I consider Apple Pencil the best in the industry.

 

[Digitalguy]

hasn’t samsung dex mode already put ipads to shame?

Dex turns the Samsung tablet into a sort of Chromebook, but without full Chrome. Are Chromebook iPad killers? I don't think so...
Where Dex puts iPad to shame is when you connect the tablet to an external monitor. Then Dex will run on the external monitor and the tablet will run as usual, which is only a dream for iPad users so far....
Having said that, it's not like you now have a laptop, since you have even less pro apps than on iPad (which already lacks important things like a full desktop browser, full Microsoft Office, background apps and realtime cloud syncing, but at least has some pro drawing, photo and video editing apps, some pro music creation and playing apps, etc. things that miss on Android, other than Clip Studio...)

 

[kp98077]

The surface is boring IMO and every time I am in Best Buy there is someone coming in witch a broken surface!

 

[Rafterman]

(I vastly prefer the firmness of Pencil’s tip compared to more flimsy Wacom nibs).

That's what she said.

Sorry, you put it out there, I couldn't resist.

 

[GSWForever8]

I love iPad and use it every day, and have done so since launch day with the iPad 1. I use it as a computer replacement for most of my non-work stuff. I also own a Surface Pro X. I installed Windows 11 on the Surface Pro X.

Microsoft has made the entire user interface touch friendly, with a vastly improved touch typing experience as well as swipe gestures. And I'm honestly surprised at how bug free it is. I always think of iOS as something that "just works", and I love that reliability on my phone, and it's more or less there too on the iPad, but W11 surprisingly is also very bug free-- especially for a beta.

I honestly never thought I'd see the day where Microsoft beat Apple at making their flagship operating system touch friendly. But as it stands the Surface + Windows 11 looks like an iPad killer to me. IMO, The iPad has historically been so good that it hasn't really had competition. I think this is about to change and it's going to be really good because Apple will be forced to up their game and give us real functionality in iPadOS!

The iPad with its beautiful hardware is stuck in almost a prison with a painfully crippled operating system. You can have your M1 but can't even do basic things like easily sign PDFs or navigate the file system properly. In contrast, my entire windows and linux development environment runs flawlessly on the Surface Pro X. It's capable of running Windows software, Linux software through WSL (CLI + GUI) and x86 and amd64 software via emulation. And soon Android app support. All with a touch friendly interface. It puts the ipad to shame. iPad may have mind blowing faster hardware, but it doesn't matter at all because you just can't do very much with it compared to the Surface.

With Windows 11, Microsoft is taking on both Apple (the iPad) and Google (with Android support).

Apple will have to retaliate now by opening up iOS even more over time. Make no mistake, the Surface + Windows 11 is currently a real iPad killer. And it's only going to improve as Windows 11 officially launches, as the SQ3 chip is released in the Surface lineup this year, and as Android support is added to W11.

As this ^ unfolds people are going to pay attention and Apple is going to lose market share to the Surface. They will have to throw us some meat to make us happy and compete. I'm very excited!

iPad is still better because of the ecosystem, as I can use all my I devices together. But iPadOS is holding iPadOS back. The iPad Pro should run a hybrid of macOS and iPadOS.

Speaking of surfaces, I used to have one, and it was great! Surfaces are actually great alternatives for iPads.

 

[Flabasha]

That’s not really my experience with Wacom EMR stylus support, at least on the one device I have that offers it. Latency is decent, but only in the bundled apps. Third party apps, even those with EMR support, are pretty laggy. And I’ve never seen the hover features you’re talking about. Maybe my device is a poor example, that’s definitely a strong possibility, but it shows that Wacom EMR support isn’t always a silver bullet (while iPad+Apple Pencil provides the same quality experience on every device it supports).

Yeah, there’s a new EMR pen Samsung designed with Wacom, only for Samsung tablets. Apparently the old ones (and the current Surface ones aren’t great).

Believe me, having owned Wacom Cintiqs, the pen performance was paramount for me. I was quite prepared (and half-expecting) to put the Galaxy Book right back in the box if the pen was anything less than stellar.

BTW: Unfortunately, you can’t test this out in Best Buy (the only brick-and-mortar that sells it). Clip Studio comes with it, but it’s not installed in the in-store demo models. You have to buy the damn thing to see if you like the art experience, which sucks.

 

[nStyle]

Yep. I banned Microsoft hardware from my house years ago when my Xbox 360 got a third RRoD and Windows 7 stopped being stable and responsive, even on my state of the art (for the time) gaming PC. They don't have the software, they don't have the hardware, and they DEFINITELY don't have the benefit of the built-in integration that comes from owning as much of the stack as possible.

Duds can come from anywhere. I had a 2 yr old 27” iMac need a $500 GPU replacement which is by far the largest expense I’ve ever had for an electronics repair. I still own plenty of Apple stuff but I’m not giving up my gaming PC anytime soon either.

 

[cupcakes2000]

I can’t speak for Mcckoe (and would be interested to know what s/he uses), but I use a program called ‘Jump Desktop’ from the App Store.

For the 5% of things that my iPad doesn’t do, I interact with an old Windows laptop in my house via Jump Desktop on my iPad Pro + magic keyboard. Another thing I added was a £3.79($5) dummy HDMI dongle so that I could remotely interact with the laptop with the lid closed (tricks Windows into thinking an external monitor is attached so it doesn’t turn off graphics drivers).

It works really well. Next year I will probably replace the laptop with a Mac Mini and use the same setup.

I use an iPad plus Mac mini - I love it. It’s like having macos as an app on the iPad. It’s a vastly better solution than wedging macos on to the iPad in my opinion.

I generally remote in using Jump and then switch to sidecar as it’s normally a lot better. I wish Apple would increase sidecars functionality to become a full remote client, or at the very least make a sidecar app so that you can access it directly via the iPad.

 

[Flabasha]

I am a loooong time Wacom User, everything from Intuos and Intuos Pro to Cintiq tablets, including Wacom EMR tech on laptops. I currently use Wacom Pro Pen 2 and it’s one of the best pens out there. Still, in terms of paralax, feel, precision and the pressure curve, I simply find the Pencil better. It’s subjective, but for me it is better. And that’s compared to the Pro Pen, which is, again, better than Wacom EMR pens (which are good, of course). Yes, the hover mode is really useful, I don’t deny that. But still the parallax effect (especially near screen borders) is worse, so is the shape and feel of the pen itself (I vastly prefer the firmness of Pencil’s tip compared to more flimsy Wacom nibs).

As I said, I’ve been a Wacom fan since I started digital illustration more than a decade ago, and its pens remain one of the best on the market, but I consider Apple Pencil the best in the industry.

It is indeed a different feel. I’ve always preferred the softer Wacom pen feel, but don’t get me wrong, Apple Pencil is fantastic.

And if you like doing the sideways-pencil stroke technique for pencil-shading, the conical design of Apple Pencil’s tip still can’t be beat.

 

[Ludatyk]

Hard to say--ask the 10 people who have actually tried it.

I have to disagree with you there.

Although Dex might seem insignificant to you.... but there's a large segment of users (me included) who's made Dex a substantial part of their setup. However, I do admit I was skeptical of Dex in the beginning... but the more and more I use it, I enjoy it. I'm glad Samsung hasn't given up on it.

Having said that, it's not like you now have a laptop, since you have even less pro apps than on iPad (which already lacks important things like a full desktop browser, full Microsoft Office, background apps and realtime cloud syncing, but at least has some pro drawing, photo and video editing apps, some pro music creation and playing apps, etc. things that miss on Android, other than Clip Studio...)

I agree with everything you said. But what iPad gets criticized the most is window management and Dex provides that.

Dex is like a Chromebook layered with Samsung OneUI.

 

[sracer]

I'm curious; why is the file system hard to navigate for people? Complex finder-level functions, I get that there are limitations for the small niche power user market, but navigating to files; saving and recovering them; renaming/moving/sorting them; sending documents via the files app, those functions are there and quite standard. Markup allows for PDF annotation and signature right in the Files app as well as in any app using the Files extension without duplicating a thing. If people have an issue with having to launch a corresponding app to launch a document rather than use a document to launch an app, again that's a paradigm issue where someone is unwilling to change their traditional FILE-oriented OS paradigm and is trying to demand an OS flex to them rather than the other way around.

Short answer: app storage sandboxing.

I'm perhaps the most vocal proponent of "think different" here on MR. But even with that, there are limitations and deficiencies with the current approach to filesystem access on iOS/iPad OS that will make certain workflows more convoluted than on other OSes.

 

[Flabasha]

Short answer: app storage sandboxing.

I'm perhaps the most vocal proponent of "think different" here on MR. But even with that, there are limitations and deficiencies with the current approach to filesystem access on iOS/iPad OS that will make certain workflows more convoluted than on other OSes.

If they’d just allow you to search across the sandboxes, it’s be fine. Without system-wide search, it’s a disaster.

 

[sracer]

If they’d just allow you to search across the sandboxes, it’s be fine. Without system-wide search, it’s a disaster.

That's a start, but there is quite a bit more that needs to be opened up, IMO. Apple painted itself into a corner with sandboxing. The Files.app is a band-aid, but they can't go much further than they already have without a major rewrite or with a large risk of breaking existing apps.

 

[Admiralbison]

I love iPad and use it every day, and have done so since launch day with the iPad 1. I use it as a computer replacement for most of my non-work stuff. I also own a Surface Pro X. I installed Windows 11 on the Surface Pro X.

Microsoft has made the entire user interface touch friendly, with a vastly improved touch typing experience as well as swipe gestures. And I'm honestly surprised at how bug free it is. I always think of iOS as something that "just works", and I love that reliability on my phone, and it's more or less there too on the iPad, but W11 surprisingly is also very bug free-- especially for a beta.

I honestly never thought I'd see the day where Microsoft beat Apple at making their flagship operating system touch friendly. But as it stands the Surface + Windows 11 looks like an iPad killer to me. IMO, The iPad has historically been so good that it hasn't really had competition. I think this is about to change and it's going to be really good because Apple will be forced to up their game and give us real functionality in iPadOS!

The iPad with its beautiful hardware is stuck in almost a prison with a painfully crippled operating system. You can have your M1 but can't even do basic things like easily sign PDFs or navigate the file system properly. In contrast, my entire windows and linux development environment runs flawlessly on the Surface Pro X. It's capable of running Windows software, Linux software through WSL (CLI + GUI) and x86 and amd64 software via emulation. And soon Android app support. All with a touch friendly interface. It puts the ipad to shame. iPad may have mind blowing faster hardware, but it doesn't matter at all because you just can't do very much with it compared to the Surface.

With Windows 11, Microsoft is taking on both Apple (the iPad) and Google (with Android support).

Apple will have to retaliate now by opening up iOS even more over time. Make no mistake, the Surface + Windows 11 is currently a real iPad killer. And it's only going to improve as Windows 11 officially launches, as the SQ3 chip is released in the Surface lineup this year, and as Android support is added to W11.

As this ^ unfolds people are going to pay attention and Apple is going to lose market share to the Surface. They will have to throw us some meat to make us happy and compete. I'm very excited!

I speak for myself.

As an iPad user since day 1 in 2010 and having bought the highest end model iPad Pros since they first launched in 2015 with the 2020 12.9 iPad Pro fullest specs

Spent thousands and thousands of dollars on paid applications, third party and first party peripherals over the 10 years I have finally had enough.

- I'm sick and tired of Apple's closed wall gardened environment on iOS running the iPad.

- Most of the time having to compromise or taking extra steps in how to do things compared to many things that come naturally on Macs.

- NO choice but to use what is available on one App Store, having to side load apps that I want and have jailbroken in the past to get more functionality out of my iPad Pros


I am switching to a Windows tablet as soon as Microsoft masters Windows 11 for the tablet touch interface both portrait and in landscape.

I want control over my device, flexibility in the Operating environment with openness to allow me to install and modify what I want and be not restricted by the software only the hardware.


Apple is more interested in protecting it's iOS App Store cash cow on the iPad Pro with no plans on putting MacOS on the iPad Pro models or opening iOS on the iPad with more choice of App stores.


It's time to consider the alternatives because getting Apple to have a more open OS on the iPad Pros at least is beating a dead horse.


Looking forward to what Microsoft can do with Windows 11 and tablet hardware.

 

[jsmith1]

I don't know what Apple's plans are for the iPad and MacOS, if any. But I can't believe that Apple crammed an M1, 2TB storage and 16GB of RAM in an iPad Pro, just to keep running mildly better versions of the current iPadOS.

Don’t forget paying over $2K to check that email a little a little faster or reply in 22 tabs of Mac forums at one time lol.

serious work for most of the world still needs windows and for sure any real type of gaming…iPad is a sidepiece no need to waste $2k on a sidepiece

 

[Lemon Olive]

Nothing is being held back.

The iPad form factor does not have the potential so may pretend that it does. It is perfectly suited to be the type of device that it already is.

There is no massive swath of users that are intereted in using iPad solely as a primary work device, and doing heavy work. People who buy iPads do so specifically to have a consumption device that they can maybe get some work done on. Some that have very light work needs get all their work done.

The laptop and desktop form factors continue to be the devices where work gets done, so the OS they run continues to reflect that.

iPad continues to be used as a Netflix device with light work duty, so the OS continues to reflect that.

It is not a chicken/egg scenario. It does not require Apple to "make it happen" for the flood gates to suddenly open. Apple already knows. They can see it in the usage patterns of the devices. And they have just enough foresight to know that you can never be truly productive with a touch device. It just isn't adequate for that.

For other reasons we can't comprehend or codify, this form factor is just not the major workhorse form factor. It is a toy more than a tool, even though it has some pretty great tools. And it always will be. AND, that is perfectly fine.

 

[Lemon Olive]

The biggest problem with the people who embody this kind of thought process is that they don't understand one simple fact: the iPad does not have to become something else.

This is not some inevitablity. This not some given eventuality. The iPad is not destined to replace every laptop and desktop. It never was. And it doesn't have to.

 

[Rafterman]

- I'm sick and tired of Apple's closed wall gardened environment on iOS running the iPad.

For all the limitations of the Apple app store, I have to admit that I do like that keeping it closed keeps a lot of the crap off your phone. While they don't catch all of it, spyware and such is imited when you have someone watching out for it before you infect your device.