I would have preferred a title like “The iPad’s biggest problem is Lazy App Design”
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iPad The iPad’s biggest problem is Lazy App Design
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I would have preferred a title like “The iPad’s biggest problem is Lazy App Design”
er… no, it doesn’t make sense to me. Perhaps so much so that I might have completely misunderstood what you are trying to say.
I started my Computer/Information technology career in the early 1980 and I am sure glad that Apple is NOT trying to “please dudes still liking their IBM XT desktop experience”.
I use a bunch of pro level apps on the iPad and I am amazed at the creative App design employed to cope with the small size and single window interface of iPadOS.
The OP lists Google apps as an example of bad design experience.
I have no idea whether he has a point or not as I don’t use any Google app on my iPad, but my most useful suggestion would be to try another App for the job before dismissing the entire platform.
bacially, what I want to say is educating younger people and getting them accustomed to apple devices and apple way to do certain things are better than trying to persuade adults who are born in 1980s or before, who are more accustomed to “traditional” or “legacy” way to use the computer.
I like that. Let me see if I can change it
Telling people to write their own apps is like telling them to build their own house, or grow their own food. If you had the skills and resources to do that, yes, it would be fun and it would be the best way to get exactly what you want. But to most people, it's just completely impractical to try to do that themselves.
Coding is fun, but learning it is even more fun and is very much worth trying.
eek - I wrote code for 25 years and wrote my last code 25 years ago. Not something I want to pick up again ...
The issue goes deeper than “app developers” - the issue is money. The company I work for has a variety of apps and our iPad downloads are a tiny fraction of iPhone downloads (1/100, if that many) As a developer I would love for our apps to better support the platform, but the numbers just aren‘t there.
That is where the onus goes back to Apple - if they want quality apps on their (specific) iPad platform, they need to give developers a reason to do so. A simple thing thrown out - 1/2 the IAP cut on iPad initiated sales. Right there alone you give a boost to developers pushing their product managers to support iPad/Mac as a first class citizen.
The other problem is - Apple isn’t showing the way at all. Where is Final Cut? Logic? Aperture? Xcode?There are no Apple pro apps on iPad, so there isn’t a model for developers to measure against. This year we got Swift Playgrounds…but in a way that seems to be the way Apple still sees the iPad, as a playground. That plus things like Files are still janky even into iOS 15.
That is where the onus goes back to Apple - if they want quality apps on their (specific) iPad platform, they need to give developers a reason to do so. A simple thing thrown out - 1/2 the IAP cut on iPad initiated sales. Right there alone you give a boost to developers pushing their product managers to support iPad/Mac as a first class citizen.
The other problem is - Apple isn’t showing the way at all. Where is Final Cut? Logic? Aperture? Xcode?There are no Apple pro apps on iPad, so there isn’t a model for developers to measure against. This year we got Swift Playgrounds…but in a way that seems to be the way Apple still sees the iPad, as a playground. That plus things like Files are still janky even into iOS 15.
I'm not sure I entirely agree with that. I certain instance, for smaller developers this is true. But I'm citing, Google, Amex, NYT, Redfin. These companies do not have a financial barrier to accomplishing this. They do not have resource barrier. In addition I subscribe to the NYT, I put all my spending on Amex. I am giving them money. They are just not doing their jobs.
And the issue you bring up, could be a self fullfilling prophecy. Maybe people do not download these apps, or download them and remove them becuase they are so bad. I did that for Linkedin. It was so bad, using it through the browser was a better experience. They look at that data point on their end and go, "people only use this through safari and chrome on the iPad, so why develop it?" when in reality it's so underdeveloped, the only option is to use safari and chrome.
And I do agree with you on Apple, I think they, themselves do not know how to design for the iPad. I think that ambiguity trickles down to devs.
There's no financial barrier for those companies but neither is there much financial incentive, the real driver. Why does LinkedIn care if you use a browser instead of an app on the iPad? Very little, I would guess.
Because I pay for it. That's the financial incentive. I'm not sure what that even means. That's like saying what financial incentive do they have to design for a browser or an iPhone. Apple sells more iPads than Macs. Usage is their financial incentive. People are going to use the devices they have.
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As much as some claim iPads are teaching the next generation how to use computers, the reality is that even students who have never used "legacy" input methods will prefer mouse and keyboard over Touch/Pencil. I worked with young students and computers and that has especially been proven true over this last school year. iPads were initially approved or even distributed by some schools but it was realized quickly that these devices had severe limitations and most students preferred even the junkiest Chromebooks over iPads.
Thats not to say that Tablets aren't a big part of the future. But IF a tablet limits itself to input choices, artificial usage restrictions or truncated versions of full apps then its very difficult to say that the iPads should (or can) be replace legacy Macs, PCs or Chromebooks.
(Note: This is why so many people are disappointed with iPadOS 15. The iPad CAN replace a computer but Apple is intentionally/artificially holding it back.)
If the task can be done in Safari, why develop an app? Do you expect Amex to develop a Mac app? If not, why should they develop an iPad app?
For me, iPad works best as a reading device, with the ability to take notes as I read. There are in fact some great note-taking apps for the iPad. I also imagine task-management apps work better on the iPad than on iPhone, because the additional screen space allows you to take in more info at a glance. I also find I'm able to do quite a bit of writing on the iPad, even though I end up doing the final formatting touches on my iMac.
I think the tablet form factor makes it suitable for a certain set of tasks. The problem is that developers and users haven't quite figured out what those tasks are. So developers have trouble focusing Their apps, and users often have unrealistic expectations of what an iPad app should be/do.
On an iPhone, the browser is too cramped, so users have an incentive to use apps instead of a browser. On an iPad, the browser works perfectly fine, so I, for one don't have any motivation to use an app.
The main problem I see with the iPad replacing computers is the way our bodies physically work. There's just something about sitting at a desk, with a big screen in front of you, that focuses your mind in a way that sitting on a couch with a tablet on my lap doesn't.
That said, I'd love it if I could have a single device that does both modes. So an iPad that is a tablet when used by itself, but when you are at your desk, it links to the keyboard/mouse and desktop monitor, and presto, you are working on a desktop computer. There were some things in this year's WWDC keynote that made me think Apple may be gradually inching toward that. I hope I'm right.
I am not seeing a clipboard app called “Clips”. I am seeing the Apple video/photo app called “Clips”… most of the clipboard apps I see in the App Store haven’t been updated in a few years. No app privacy data available…
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That certainly is age discrimination. Very agist. Also very stereotypical that children are more tech savvy.
The WSJ does a great iPad app. I wish the NYT would do the same. I uninstalled the NYT iPad app.
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I have subscriptions to the NYT, Wash. Post, Seattle Times, and The Atlantic and read all in a browser. I don't use any of the news apps - switching between tabs is easier than switching between apps and the on-line presentation is good.
I think you make some good points. However what I expect is for my experience to be native to the platform I'm using. For iOS that is apps. I could watch netflix through a browser too, but they developed an app, specifically for that experience.
The examples I mentioned, they've created apps for the iPad on their own. They exist. They are just bad apps. If they didn't want me to use them, and they wanted me to use a browser, why did they take the time to develop apps at all. Or why are they still on the app store, why are they updated? Why when I go to a browser, are they directing and prompting me to download the app then?
Because it's really easy for them to treat as the phone side where an app may be better. They don't want to invest the extra $. Maybe they should just remove the app from tablet offerings.
I mean, that's kind of true. Both my parents were realtors so I walked through thousands of houses by the time I was 18.
Talk about flaws. Housing developers would design a single floorplan and then modify it slightly so they had a few different options for design appeal.
By the time the first home was built, hundreds more would already be approved to be built and now 40 years later, there's an entire swath of homes where you have to have flushmount cabinet knobs otherwise the dishwasher won't open or the bathroom door bangs into the bedroom door or whatever.
It's a huge undertaking that I think these "codeless" webapps are trying to solve - the issue that you don't realize your app flaw until the entire app is written and you didn't realize the flaw was so interwoven into every aspect of the app so you don't have a way to change it for years.
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Not arguing, but thousands of photographers do full projects on laptops while sitting on the couch or a tree stump. I’ve done dozens of paid video edits purely on a MacBook Pro because of the superior color accuracy. I get what you’re saying about “ideal conditions” but with great power comes great portable computing so “big screen and a desk” has become more of a luxury than a necessity.
That said, IF we can accept that pro work can be done on a M1 MacBook 13” then it is worth questioning why pro work SHOULD NOT be done on a M1 iPad Pro 12.9 with Magic Keyboard.
Actually, I totally agree with you. We should be able to do pro work on the go. And I do hope Apple and the app developers figure out how to bring pro-level apps to the iPad. But if/when that day comes, I'd still want the option of working in a "desktop" setting when I'm home/at the office. To tell you the truth, I'd totally forgotten about the smaller MacBooks -- since the iPad Pro came out, it's totally replaced my MacBook for on-the-go computing. But you have a very good point, an M1 iPad should be able to do the same things as the smallest M1 MacBooks!