iPad Pro What Can't you do on your iPad Pro ?

[0958400]

I'll make this simple instead of praising the things we can do I'll ask what Can't you do on your iPad Pro that limits you to still need a PC or Mac?

Thanks for the question, hopefully someone from Apple will read this.

I am an author, I write, correct and edit a lot of documents. Corrections without a mouse are really difficult and an additional keyboard is always a must (though I always buy that for my iPad.)

I need to do a lot of research and formatting, I do need several programs quickly with instant access. Again it is the access method, but it is also the windows that I have on my mac that are simply faster. The iPad just takes too much time. (Esp. when they change the swipes, swips and swops again, so that I keep forgetting which "shortcut" I should be using in this currecnt software / hardware installment.)

I need to edit lots of pictures, quickly and insert them quickly in my documents. I am simply a lot faster on a desktop machine than on an iPad.

Apart from that I am a music buff, I own a l-o-t of music, it is already a pain with iTunes on the mac, imagine that on an iPad. I will not give up my music collection in favour of Apple Music, I want to remain in control of my music, my playlists and the things I own.

Which finally leads me to the point that I am growing evermore suspicious of all things online. It might be my age. But whenever Microsoft is down for whatever reason, I cannot access my files and those are vital to me. I simply prefer offline storage as I do not always have wifi or a cellular connection. I don't live in America where it seems to be the case (though I doubt it.)

And then there's my backup system. All in the cloud: nice and fine. Seven backups: finer.

For me the main problem is speed. I will not go for a MS Surface, I will stick to my iPad but in the foreseeable future, I do not see me working solely on an iPad, though I'd love that.

Thanks!
Alex.

 

[neutrino23]

AppleScript
iBooks Author
Graphic Converter
Xcode

I love the iPad Pro for single tasks like note taking, reading, sketching out ideas, etc. I rely on the Mac for tasks requiring fusion of content from different sources.

 

[xxray]

Access the online textbook + assignments for one of my classes. It insists I use their app instead, which is literally unusable.

 

[ofarlig]

Theres loads of things I would like to be able to do really.
- Xcode.
- Proper file management so that I can shuffle files around from and to external sources better (have to use my wife’s Mac for that).
- Mouse support in certain apps (push to talk for Discord/Teamspeak, remote desktops, Excel and so on).
- Proper full Excel experience with developer tabs and what not, it is still not good on OS X so I won’t hold my breath for this one.
- Output to a secondary display and choose what goes where (so not just mirroring).
- More useful multitask ”overlay” shapes. For many apps I would rather have a smaller box down in the right corner (say like Netflix does) instead of the thin long bar. Not sure if that is on the app devs or not.

 

[ascender]

For me, I found apps that will let me do nearly everything I'd normally do on a macOS device. One thing I did find to be a pain on an iPad was spreadsheets - if I was doing anything other than very simple sheets, I found it a real pain without a trackpad.

But for me, many of these took me longer to do when on an iPad. I think it was John Gruber who articulated the same issue when he says he feels like he's wearing mittens when trying to do stuff on an iPad compared to his laptop.

Personally, I think that a lot of this is just down to iOS not being quite there yet for the iPad Pro - it needs some tweaks to make the whole experience more seamless for those times when you're not just using the pencil or using it to consume media.

That said, I'm now using my 11" Pro as much as I can and it makes a great portable device with the keyboard folio and pencil. But for some things I keep going back to my laptop.

 

[1rottenapple]

Thanks for the question, hopefully someone from Apple will read this.

I am an author, I write, correct and edit a lot of documents. Corrections without a mouse are really difficult and an additional keyboard is always a must (though I always buy that for my iPad.)

I need to do a lot of research and formatting, I do need several programs quickly with instant access. Again it is the access method, but it is also the windows that I have on my mac that are simply faster. The iPad just takes too much time. (Esp. when they change the swipes, swips and swops again, so that I keep forgetting which "shortcut" I should be using in this currecnt software / hardware installment.)

I need to edit lots of pictures, quickly and insert them quickly in my documents. I am simply a lot faster on a desktop machine than on an iPad.

Apart from that I am a music buff, I own a l-o-t of music, it is already a pain with iTunes on the mac, imagine that on an iPad. I will not give up my music collection in favour of Apple Music, I want to remain in control of my music, my playlists and the things I own.

Which finally leads me to the point that I am growing evermore suspicious of all things online. It might be my age. But whenever Microsoft is down for whatever reason, I cannot access my files and those are vital to me. I simply prefer offline storage as I do not always have wifi or a cellular connection. I don't live in America where it seems to be the case (though I doubt it.)

And then there's my backup system. All in the cloud: nice and fine. Seven backups: finer.

For me the main problem is speed. I will not go for a MS Surface, I will stick to my iPad but in the foreseeable future, I do not see me working solely on an iPad, though I'd love that.

Thanks!
Alex.

Maybe you have this already but why not have the laptop for heavy lifting pro work and the iPad for leasure. That’s what I do. I had to do an application and did most of the work on the laptop. But my iPad gets used 95% of the time. I know some people don’t have this luxury but it’s great if it’s possible.

 

[secretk]

Maybe you have this already but why not have the laptop for heavy lifting pro work and the iPad for leasure. That’s what I do. I had to do an application and did most of the work on the laptop. But my iPad gets used 95% of the time. I know some people don’t have this luxury but it’s great if it’s possible.

This is what I do too . Both at work and at home. The problem I honestly would have is during trips. I have 15.6 personal laptop, soon I will have 14 inch company laptop and 2018 6th gen regular iPad. Out of those three devices obviously the most portable one is the iPad. However due to the fact that the iPad can't cover my usage case fully I will have to either carry around both my 14 inch laptop and iPad or just the 14 inch laptop.

I can't speak for others and won't but for me this is a bummer. Now granted I never bought this iPad as a laptop replacement. I knew that it would not be and have not expected it to be. My daily usage of a computer (laptop or desktop) is around 12 to 13 hours. For more than one reason I could not use 12/13 hours my iPad. I would have neck pain, I would have wrist issues (the gestured cause issues for my hand and wrist) and I would not be productive as quite a lot of activities I do on computer are just slower on an iPad.

However I would have liked to use the iPad as a compromise device during trips considering how portable it is. If it's a leisure trip it would work. Problem is when I have to answer emails for work. iOS is just not working out for me when it comes to typing, text selection and editing and I can't even type a proper email without being frustrated.

 

[Mathias Denichi]

This is what I do too . Both at work and at home. The problem I honestly would have is during trips. I have 15.6 personal laptop, soon I will have 14 inch company laptop and 2018 6th gen regular iPad. Out of those three devices obviously the most portable one is the iPad. However due to the fact that the iPad can't cover my usage case fully I will have to either carry around both my 14 inch laptop and iPad or just the 14 inch laptop.

I can't speak for others and won't but for me this is a bummer. Now granted I never bought this iPad as a laptop replacement. I knew that it would not be and have not expected it to be. My daily usage of a computer (laptop or desktop) is around 12 to 13 hours. For more than one reason I could not use 12/13 hours my iPad. I would have neck pain, I would have wrist issues (the gestured cause issues for my hand and wrist) and I would not be productive as quite a lot of activities I do on computer are just slower on an iPad.

However I would have liked to use the iPad as a compromise device during trips considering how portable it is. If it's a leisure trip it would work. Problem is when I have to answer emails for work. iOS is just not working out for me when it comes to typing, text selection and editing and I can't even type a proper email without being frustrated.

Text selection is terrible compared to any Windows 10 touch selection, which is funny, because windows 10 falls way behind in touch near every where else compared to iOS. And auto correct is getting worse and worse on iOS it seems.

The iPad is my favorite Apple Device to date, but I can’t develop, run local vms, get a proper console or web inspector, or compile locally, so it’s a no go as my only mobile device I carry.

A local protected file manager, cursor support by app would also significantly reduce the work flow time it takes to edit one file on multiple apps. As well as reduce the over redundant file copy and open system iOS uses now.

 

[1rottenapple]

Having tried a surface, tablet mode isn’t really that great. It’s a compromised experience.

 

[DNichter]

Only operational work, which I don’t do a ton of. Occasionally I’ll need to work through a spreadsheet proposal for a client and need to make a few edits. I can get it done, but don’t like to, so I have mainly pushed this work to one of my reports. Besides that, I can do everything I need for work from my iPad Pro. This mainly consists of email, talent management, drafting proposals, reviewing metric reports, meetings via FaceTime, and presentations. I would never want to go back to a traditional PC. iOS is really all I need. Not expensive to manage either.

 

[subjonas]

And auto correct is getting worse and worse on iOS it seems.

Seriously! What’s up with that!

 

[secretk]

Text selection is terrible compared to any Windows 10 touch selection, which is funny, because windows 10 falls way behind in touch near every where else compared to iOS. And auto correct is getting worse and worse on iOS it seems.

To be honest iOS is that inadequate when it comes to text selection and editing that I have long stopped trying. In other words I can't even see AutoCorrect being bad because typing is not something I enjoy on iOS.

The iPad is my favorite Apple Device to date, but I can’t develop, run local vms, get a proper console or web inspector, or compile locally, so it’s a no go as my only mobile device I carry.

Same for me but I don't even expect to be able to do this with iPad.

A local protected file manager, cursor support by app would also significantly reduce the work flow time it takes to edit one file on multiple apps. As well as reduce the over redundant file copy and open system iOS uses now.

Yes to this. This copying files from app to app is quite redundant, slow and inefficient and it eats up storage because every app saves its own copy of the file. Quite inefficient.

 

[Jonathantuba]

Most things work great on iPad Pro. I run an international business from my iPad. But there are things I cant do, such as;

Compress a Pages document with lots of images to email.

Set up rules in Apple Mail

Fill in a FedEx shipping form online - will not work on iPad Pro. An example of webpages that for some reason will not work using iPad browser. It is annoying and I blame the owners of those websites for not making them mobile compatible. A particular problem is selection lists, where you can’t select as whole page moves when you try to scroll

 

[simplynando]

There's 2 things keeping me on my Mac right now: Photoshop and iTunes. I know the full version of Photoshop is coming sometime but who knows if it's going to do everything I can get from the desktop version, only time will tell.

My biggest reason is there's no way for me to manage my iCloud Music Library. I have a lot of music (ripped from collected CDs, remixes from random sources, overseas albums) that just isn't available on iTunes/Apple Music. Also, I collect a lot of unreleased music that I really love and just isn't available to purchase anywhere. If there was a lite version of iTunes or even an iCloud Music Library app where I can manage music files on my iPad I could really ditch my Mac. In my perfect world, the music app on iPad would just be a lite version of iTunes.

I'm ready to ditch my Mac after using my iPad Pro 11 inch w/smart keyboard, but I'm still chained to my Mac for iTunes which kinda sucks.

 

[ZivaD]

Hold it comfortably.

 

[SuperMatt]

I wonder if kids who grew up with an iPad as their primary computing device will start a thread in a few years talking about the things their desktop computer at work can't do....

 

[sparksd]

I have a number of devices that require a USB connection to support firmware/software/data updates.

I also posted the following on another thread. This isn't so much a case of what I couldn't do, it's a case of what I couldn't do efficiently so I'll stick to my laptop for it --

I just went on an 8 day trip where I decided to leave the laptop at home and just take the 10.5” iPP. Each day I took several hundred pictures – all RAW format – and some videos. I originally planned on just backing the pictures up to a portable HDD every day, using a RAVPower FileHub. But I ended up with free time and I really wanted to do some processing using Lightroom on the iPP. But I found the associated file handling (I wanted backup of processed images to the HDD and I had very poor Internet access) and finger manipulation of Lightroom controls to be too inefficient for processing for anything more than a handful of images. Next time, I will take the laptop, mouse, and external SSD drive; the iPP will tag along as the very nice consumption device I find it to be. My experience, YMMV.

 

[960design]

Access the online textbook + assignments for one of my classes. It insists I use their app instead, which is literally unusable.

Textbook companies literally make me want to rip they eyes out of my head. Today it is very simple to build cross platform applications.

 

[Disconnect_00]

Essentially Xcode support is all that’s missing for me. If that were to be added I can’t see anything that I’d be unable to do with my iPad Pro.

 

[960design]

I wonder if kids who grew up with an iPad as their primary computing device will start a thread in a few years talking about the things their desktop computer at work can't do....

Maybe in a couple of years we will be saying the same about our smart phones. Optimal use case for me would be to walk into office and have phone connect wirelessly ( bluetooth, ect ) to a monitor, keyboard, trackpad automatically. Login with facetime or fingerprint and charge via wireless pad.

Pick up the phone and when I'm 50ft away from work station environment everything disconnects and phone is back to being just a phone.

Side Note: The applications that run when connected to office, home or other setup would be similar to, but optimized for the environment. Trackpad arrow appears on screen, touch would be disabled ( possibly ), phone calls would go to monitor to be answered via click, ect.

 

[0958400]

There's 2 things keeping me on my Mac right now: Photoshop and iTunes. I know the full version of Photoshop is coming sometime but who knows if it's going to do everything I can get from the desktop version, only time will tell.

My biggest reason is there's no way for me to manage my iCloud Music Library. I have a lot of music (ripped from collected CDs, remixes from random sources, overseas albums) that just isn't available on iTunes/Apple Music. Also, I collect a lot of unreleased music that I really love and just isn't available to purchase anywhere. If there was a lite version of iTunes or even an iCloud Music Library app where I can manage music files on my iPad I could really ditch my Mac. In my perfect world, the music app on iPad would just be a lite version of iTunes.

I'm ready to ditch my Mac after using my iPad Pro 11 inch w/smart keyboard, but I'm still chained to my Mac for iTunes which kinda sucks.

I hear you, I have the same problems. Music is such an integral part of my life. I am really unhappy about the iOS music app. (Though it used to be really nice and great in iOS 6 - though, no comparison to iTunes which I need to manage my music, its tags and ratings.)

Apart from that using iTunes is so terrible slow on my MacPro, I just wish they'd create a nice SQL database with links to the files so things would run smoothly. (Ever tried the app Swinsian? Really love it.)

I am truly scared that Apple will ditch own music in favour of their Apple Music subscriptions (remember when they removed the star rating system?). I have no idea what I'll do then, I guess, I'd have to switch to another system if they ever intend to do that.

 

[simplynando]

I hear you, I have the same problems. Music is such an integral part of my life. I am really unhappy about the iOS music app. (Though it used to be really nice and great in iOS 6 - though, no comparison to iTunes which I need to manage my music, its tags and ratings.)

Apart from that using iTunes is so terrible slow on my MacPro, I just wish they'd create a nice SQL database with links to the files so things would run smoothly. (Ever tried the app Swinsian? Really love it.)

I am truly scared that Apple will ditch own music in favour of their Apple Music subscriptions (remember when they removed the star rating system?). I have no idea what I'll do then, I guess, I'd have to switch to another system if they ever intend to do that.

Agreed. I can't go too long without music, it's one of the things that gives my life joy. I'm also SUPER picky with how it's presented which is why I used to really love iTunes. It's easy to manage the library and have it synced it to all of my iOS devices via iCloud Music Library, which is why I don't think I could ditch it. I'm also really meticulous about the metadata which I'm used to managing on iTunes. I have tried Swinsian, it's what iTunes should look like and how it should perform in my opinion. It's also much faster and reliable (iTunes always crashes for what seems like no reason).

The music app that's on iOS now is really ugly and I hate it. The card-style "Now Playing" looks awful and there is far too much white throughout the app (it almost blinds me if I use it too long and in the car it's just awful at night). I really hope they revamp the app in iOS 13. I doubt they'll shift to an Apple Music only model, iTunes for managing and buying music is basically what gave them any room in the music industry. Unfortunately, I don't think they care anymore. The star ratings are still there, you just have to enable it in settings and it doesn't influence your "For You" selections which seems kind of pointless.

I currently have a Mac Mini that I keep in the guest room that is pretty much solely used to manage my iTunes library that I wish I could get rid of. Everything else I can do on my iPhone/iPad except manage my music. It's frustrating.

 

[DjStiky]

- Add attachments in Calendar
- Open multiple Word or Excel documents at the same time
- Plug in a client's flash drive to copy over files.
- Add personal MP3s copied over from external source to iTunes library and playlists
- Share a folder on iCloud for collaboration (I know this is more of an iCloud issue, but still... Feel handicapped)

 

[newellj]

File system access. That would be a big step forward.

Access the online textbook + assignments for one of my classes. It insists I use their app instead, which is literally unusable.

But that's not the iPad's fault.

 

[MyopicPaideia]

There's 2 things keeping me on my Mac right now: Photoshop and iTunes. I know the full version of Photoshop is coming sometime but who knows if it's going to do everything I can get from the desktop version, only time will tell.

My biggest reason is there's no way for me to manage my iCloud Music Library. I have a lot of music (ripped from collected CDs, remixes from random sources, overseas albums) that just isn't available on iTunes/Apple Music. Also, I collect a lot of unreleased music that I really love and just isn't available to purchase anywhere. If there was a lite version of iTunes or even an iCloud Music Library app where I can manage music files on my iPad I could really ditch my Mac. In my perfect world, the music app on iPad would just be a lite version of iTunes.

I'm ready to ditch my Mac after using my iPad Pro 11 inch w/smart keyboard, but I'm still chained to my Mac for iTunes which kinda sucks.

Plex.