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what does ipad/ios need to make it a full computer replacement?
- Thread starter mrklaw
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All this would be pretty cool. There's only 2 real reasons I still need a computer. One - I don't have cable so I download shows and stream them to my TV. Two - there are 2 iPads and an iPhone still somewhat tied to my Apple ecosystem so I use iTunes to keep content specific to individual devices.
The quoted suggestions would solve everything else.
Selecting text without a mouse pointer via a clickable pad or mouse totally sucks. I get why it is the way it is for a touch only UI, but adding a mouse pointer with the ability to distinguish between where you're pointing to and whether you click would be far easier.
And yes, it sucks when using a keyboard and the iPad on a desk hooked up to a monitor - having to look away from your 27 inch screen to look at the iPad to find out what you're pressing on. A mouse pointer would allow you to not divert your attention from the 27" screen and just move a pointer.
Sure, IOS is a touch based UI, but it can and does (as proven by the simulator with Xcode) work with a pointer if required.
Yes this is not what it was originally designed to do, but with the addition of the above, i could get away without using a PC at all for a lot of work stuff. For what I do, I'm not a heavy multi-tasker. Yes, i have a heap of apps open at once on my desktop but so long as they state suspend/restore that is good enough. I don't need them to all be updating all the time (just when i switch to them) due to the nature of my work.
re: file browser - don't really miss it much, i suspect the extensions stuff apple is doing and enabling apps to communicate and send data to each other is good enough.
the reason you're not getting a full on file browser is due to the app sandboxing. the data is sandboxed to the app. I can live without file system access really, and i'm an old school nerd. It's just not important to me how files are laid out so long as i can find them. I used to obsess over details like that but realised that it just doesn't really matter. A good search engine, or sending from app to app is good enough. No, it won't suit everyone and there are cases where a filesystem is nice to have, but i'm talking about what the iPad needs to be functional for 95% of what i do.
it's ALMOST there, but there are some small deal-breakers that are just so annoying to deal with. Which is a shame because the silence, great battery life, and tiny weight/form factor to carry out are great. working with a PC on the desk you don't realise just how loud and annoying they are until you work with a totally silent machine.
Apple are certainly a lot closer to utopia (in my previous post) than microsoft are in my opinion because 1. they have focused on best UI for device and ensure the data follows you from device to device and 2. they have a touch ecosystem.
Microsoft has the framework there (windows 8, 8.1, 10) for touch applications, but there are no touch applications to actually do anything worthwhile on their platform. The Microsoft app store is a joke, and the entire reason i "want" windows for work machine is to do things with windows only apps. And out of those windows only apps, approximately zero are touch friendly.
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Oddly enough, this is where I see the future being. Right now iOS devices like the iPad are personal devices, but over time they are getting more powerful and we will want to use one device to rule them all. Not the usual "ok I'll use my Mac for this and iPad for that". As sloppy as microsoft's implementation is, it makes sense to have a portable device you can use on the go and be able to just go home or work and plug it into some station and be able to use it on large monitors with an external keyboard and such. When I saw MS do that with the surface, it just made sense.
But I don't know.. maybe I'm wrong. Maybe the iPad will forever just be a portable device and Steve's "truck vs car" analogy will live on. We'll see. But just imagining it makes me drool: an iPad pro of the future where you had full pro apps like final cut X or logic or photoshop and you could just plop it down onto a desk (and maybe even wirelessly) charge and be hooked up to external monitors and devices for serious work. Even a trackpad device that would help you work as if you were on today's Mac.
It's definitely the way things are headed - Microsoft and Apple are both approaching it from different directions.
Microsoft, as usual are trying to leverage their desktop monopoly wiht Windows to fight their way into the tablet market. That's the only reason the Surface runs Windows apps. The problem is they aren't touch friendly - MS need to pull their finger out and port them, post haste.
Apple has a really nice touch UI that works a lot better with a mouse than Windows applications do with touch. But they stubbornly refuse to implement things like a mouse pointer or FULL keyboard support to make working at a desk with it easier. Maybe its because they consider the mac to be what you should use at a desk. And I get it... but that means I have 2 devices rather than one. Which is annoying if ONE of them could do it all... (or at least 90% of "all" of it. i don't want to ditch my macs any time soon, but it really would be nice to be able to do a lot more with the tablet and leave special purpose stuff to the mac).
Sooner or later one of them will get there.
You want another Windows? If they do that, each and every developer will start focusing on mouse and the touch UI will become a complete mess. No App Store rule will be able to stop that.
Don't agree at all. The difference is that iOS was developed from the ground up to be a table/phone OS where Windows is trying to make a unified desktop OS work on a tablet.
I don't feel quite that pessimistic. In the early years, devs might have been tempted to go with the mouse interface they know, but now, after years of getting used to writing for the touch interface, I don't think devs will abandon touch completely if mouse support was introduced into iOS. I do think there would be some confusion, though, where some apps may end up favoring the mouse over touch.
Did every developer start focusing on controller support when iOS 7 came out? Is touch support in games now a complete mess? The answer to both IMO is no and I don't think adding mouse support will cause any issues either.
A controller is a gaming device. Can't use it with apps. Gamers only.
A mouse is a universal device. Most likely everybody already has one and could be used with any app.
They are two very different things.
Saying every developer is hyperbole at its worst. Granted i'm no app developer but i'm pretty sure that last thing many would do is tailor the navigational design and framework of their app to suit a minority users. At any rate i would hope that if we do see it, its implementation would be identical to Android where its built into the OS and not an API.
Ok I should have specified every game developer. I have yet to encounter a game that doesn't use touch as its primary input. Only a few games support a controller. Those that do are still perfectly playable with touch only.
I disagree that everyone has a Bluetooth mouse. I would think the majority of the ones out there still require a usb dongle which would not work with the iPad. Sure there are probably more people who have a Bluetooth mouse then people who have a mifi controller but I don't think it will make a difference until every iOS user is guaranteed to have a Bluetooth mouse (which I believe is unlikely to ever happen). All iOS users are guaranteed to have a touch screen.
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A mouse may indeed be a universal device, but not everyone is going to use their iPad when sitting at a desk. For a lot of people, desk usage will be in the minority of the time they use their devices so apps will have to utilize touch.
I know most of this has already been mentioned but I'll through my hat in the ring anyway.
1.) Document Management System, we don't necessary need access to the entire file-system but we do need a better system than what is currently in place as it's really bad. I want to see a centralized DMS in which all local files are stored, including access to not only cloud services but FTP and NAS as well, with Open ID and LDAP support for secure NAS. This also means a single view in which apps utilize when accessing and saving files, the fact that apps currently manage their own documents is frankly absurd.
2.) Walled Garden, this needs to just go away. As of right now more than half of the apps I have installed in my iPad Pro don't support the resolution, instead their pixel doubled or zoomed in. Not only that but their using a different keyboard other than the default. This is because apps are basically islands in iOS, self managing entities that utilize API's to communicate with the OS in an extremely inefficient way. App developers have to manually create share profiles for their apps in order for them to communicate with other apps installed. Also with every single new feature that is added to iOS, example; dual app view, app developers have to program in these new features into their apps in order for their apps to utilize them. Unlike other mobile OS's like Android, in which when a new feature is added to the OS, every single app than supports it. For example when I enabled multi windowed support in Android 6.0 for my Pixel C, every app I had installed from that moment on just worked. The Walled Garden really is the root of all evil in iOS. We would also get features like multi-user support, without using a hack to do it like is the case with the educational iPADs, each user has to reinstall every single app because there is no other way to decipher which files belong to whom. Apps would no longer have to use API's for everything, the list of benefits defiantly out weigh the negatives by a factor of 10.
3.) Full multitasking, as in the ability to run apps in the background. This excuse of running multiple apps in the background causes faster battery drain needs to stop. Both my Blackberry Priv and Passport constantly have apps running in the background and they both last longer than my wife's iPhone, my Passport as much as an entire day more and I have a terminal running in the background constantly. The iPad Pro has 4GB of memory, I want the ability to run a terminal in the background, while I stream a film directly from OneDrive without having to first download the movie to my TV, while I convert a .avi to .mp4, while my son plays Modern Combat 5. Sounds like a lot but it really isn't, my Pixel C, Blackberry Priv and Blackberry Passport can all do this without issue, this is 2016, stuff like this should be second nature for any modern OS. To appease those who think running apps in the background has a huge impact on battery, iOS could utilize what Android has been doing for years now, have a simple user modifiable limiter, mine is set to 5.
4.) The ability to select your own default apps, this is a no brainier and the fact that this even has to be put on a list just show how much needs to be done to iOS before it can ever be thought of as a Pro system.
5.) Multi-user support with Open ID and LDAP support, this is a huge one for me and a lot of others who want to use their iPads in a Enterprise setting. This also ties in closely with a new document management system as after you login, you should than have access to your user directory on your firms NAS.
6.) Better external display support, actually I'm just going to say that iOS still needs support for this as in it's current form it's unusable. I want iOS's desktop to be extended, I want the aspect ratio and resolution supported and I want the ability to change the DPI to reflect that of a normal desktop UI.Though again, this has everything to do with that Walled Garden crap so we'll never have decent support for external displays until this goes away. Independent resolution is not a feature guys, it was a bi-product from apps having to basically fend for themselves, apps have just way to much responsibility in iOS, their practically OS's in themselves.
7.) Mouse support, yes mouse support. I completely agree with what Tim Cook said about noteBooks with touchscreen's being a failed idea do mostly to bad ergonomics, as in the user constantly has to reach up and over the keyboard to navigate the UI, ironically though the iPad Pro falls into these category. At least it does for me as the experience is identical to that of using a laptop with a touchscreen. Though unlike the notebook which has access to a trackpad, the iPad Pro has no such luxury. When using a keyboard with the iPad Pro, a mouse is a much needed add on for a lot of us. Yes, the iPad is a touch only device, however, the iPad Pro introduced a manufacturer built keyboard accessory and stylus, two input devices that greatly changed this paradigm, so adding support for a mouse shouldn't be a issue, if it is for some of you, than without being a hypocrite so should the other two.
Everything written here is nothing special as I'm using them daily on my Pixel C. Even external displays work like a champ, the desktop is extended so I have access to two monitors, aspect ratio and resolution are supported so no black bars or fuzzy image and I can modify the DPI. I even have profiles that are automatically triggered depending on the external source, TV, monitor and projector. I'm not saying buying a Pixel C is the answer either, especially when most of you hate Android anyway. However it's the reality that I'm faced with everytime I try to use my iPad Pro for productivity work, I'm constantly frustrated, especially when the device next to me has these capabilities. I don't mind having one device for work and the other for play but I would much rather just use One. Unfortunately that one device is quickly becoming the Pixel C, especially now that I'm dual booting Android and Arch Linux that is utilizing native GPU drivers from Nvidia. This is a big deal when I even have all of my CUDA apps and development stuff running, which means I can encode media files faster than most desktops can that are utilizing their CPU's to do it.
IOS just needs to be completely redone as it hasn't changed in any fundamental way since it's incarnation. Sure we've gotten more features, features that were frankly just playing catchup, however nothing ground breaking. We applaud Apple for changing the landscape of mobile, however since they now dominate it I expect their OS's to be the best on the market, I can say without a doubt that OSX is the best desktop OS, however iOS, well, it just needs work, a lot of it.
1.) Document Management System, we don't necessary need access to the entire file-system but we do need a better system than what is currently in place as it's really bad. I want to see a centralized DMS in which all local files are stored, including access to not only cloud services but FTP and NAS as well, with Open ID and LDAP support for secure NAS. This also means a single view in which apps utilize when accessing and saving files, the fact that apps currently manage their own documents is frankly absurd.
2.) Walled Garden, this needs to just go away. As of right now more than half of the apps I have installed in my iPad Pro don't support the resolution, instead their pixel doubled or zoomed in. Not only that but their using a different keyboard other than the default. This is because apps are basically islands in iOS, self managing entities that utilize API's to communicate with the OS in an extremely inefficient way. App developers have to manually create share profiles for their apps in order for them to communicate with other apps installed. Also with every single new feature that is added to iOS, example; dual app view, app developers have to program in these new features into their apps in order for their apps to utilize them. Unlike other mobile OS's like Android, in which when a new feature is added to the OS, every single app than supports it. For example when I enabled multi windowed support in Android 6.0 for my Pixel C, every app I had installed from that moment on just worked. The Walled Garden really is the root of all evil in iOS. We would also get features like multi-user support, without using a hack to do it like is the case with the educational iPADs, each user has to reinstall every single app because there is no other way to decipher which files belong to whom. Apps would no longer have to use API's for everything, the list of benefits defiantly out weigh the negatives by a factor of 10.
3.) Full multitasking, as in the ability to run apps in the background. This excuse of running multiple apps in the background causes faster battery drain needs to stop. Both my Blackberry Priv and Passport constantly have apps running in the background and they both last longer than my wife's iPhone, my Passport as much as an entire day more and I have a terminal running in the background constantly. The iPad Pro has 4GB of memory, I want the ability to run a terminal in the background, while I stream a film directly from OneDrive without having to first download the movie to my TV, while I convert a .avi to .mp4, while my son plays Modern Combat 5. Sounds like a lot but it really isn't, my Pixel C, Blackberry Priv and Blackberry Passport can all do this without issue, this is 2016, stuff like this should be second nature for any modern OS. To appease those who think running apps in the background has a huge impact on battery, iOS could utilize what Android has been doing for years now, have a simple user modifiable limiter, mine is set to 5.
4.) The ability to select your own default apps, this is a no brainier and the fact that this even has to be put on a list just show how much needs to be done to iOS before it can ever be thought of as a Pro system.
5.) Multi-user support with Open ID and LDAP support, this is a huge one for me and a lot of others who want to use their iPads in a Enterprise setting. This also ties in closely with a new document management system as after you login, you should than have access to your user directory on your firms NAS.
6.) Better external display support, actually I'm just going to say that iOS still needs support for this as in it's current form it's unusable. I want iOS's desktop to be extended, I want the aspect ratio and resolution supported and I want the ability to change the DPI to reflect that of a normal desktop UI.Though again, this has everything to do with that Walled Garden crap so we'll never have decent support for external displays until this goes away. Independent resolution is not a feature guys, it was a bi-product from apps having to basically fend for themselves, apps have just way to much responsibility in iOS, their practically OS's in themselves.
7.) Mouse support, yes mouse support. I completely agree with what Tim Cook said about noteBooks with touchscreen's being a failed idea do mostly to bad ergonomics, as in the user constantly has to reach up and over the keyboard to navigate the UI, ironically though the iPad Pro falls into these category. At least it does for me as the experience is identical to that of using a laptop with a touchscreen. Though unlike the notebook which has access to a trackpad, the iPad Pro has no such luxury. When using a keyboard with the iPad Pro, a mouse is a much needed add on for a lot of us. Yes, the iPad is a touch only device, however, the iPad Pro introduced a manufacturer built keyboard accessory and stylus, two input devices that greatly changed this paradigm, so adding support for a mouse shouldn't be a issue, if it is for some of you, than without being a hypocrite so should the other two.
Everything written here is nothing special as I'm using them daily on my Pixel C. Even external displays work like a champ, the desktop is extended so I have access to two monitors, aspect ratio and resolution are supported so no black bars or fuzzy image and I can modify the DPI. I even have profiles that are automatically triggered depending on the external source, TV, monitor and projector. I'm not saying buying a Pixel C is the answer either, especially when most of you hate Android anyway. However it's the reality that I'm faced with everytime I try to use my iPad Pro for productivity work, I'm constantly frustrated, especially when the device next to me has these capabilities. I don't mind having one device for work and the other for play but I would much rather just use One. Unfortunately that one device is quickly becoming the Pixel C, especially now that I'm dual booting Android and Arch Linux that is utilizing native GPU drivers from Nvidia. This is a big deal when I even have all of my CUDA apps and development stuff running, which means I can encode media files faster than most desktops can that are utilizing their CPU's to do it.
IOS just needs to be completely redone as it hasn't changed in any fundamental way since it's incarnation. Sure we've gotten more features, features that were frankly just playing catchup, however nothing ground breaking. We applaud Apple for changing the landscape of mobile, however since they now dominate it I expect their OS's to be the best on the market, I can say without a doubt that OSX is the best desktop OS, however iOS, well, it just needs work, a lot of it.
For point 1, I've been experimenting with using a Raspberry Pi 2 hooked up to a 3TB usb drive as my download and streaming station and it's working very well. My TV (and PS3) is DLNA compatible, which works great with miniDLNA. Low cost, headless and low power.
For point 2 - can't help you there sorry.
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Really, enjoyed your post, mate. I have a Nexus 5 and an iPad mini and having used both OSes I feel that Android is defeinately better for work and the iPad is better for play.
I've been looking at the iPad pro, but after reading your post I'm honestly considering getting the Pixel Q. How do you find it?
This. Never liked this argument. Let the devs and ultimately the consumers determine the path. If for some reason mouse is more popular...so be it.
It be on apple to hit the drawing board to wow us if so. Not even a mouse or death user. I use iOS touch, I use mouse (windows at work, MBP for personal). I also spend a fair amount of time in CLI (apple's or on my Linux vm's which are CLI bare bones server installs).
GUI and mouse....has not killed off CLI. Hell even M$ got the picture on that and after years of trying to hide it and make it fall off the vine had a reality check and said we can't beat it, so lets join it. Server OS can be a CLI install now. expanded cli power for the server os and application servers like exchange even. CLI has many things to say nope, I ain't going out to pasture just yet and I can hold my own against gui still.
IF touch has this endurance like many think it does....its time to show it.
iOS touch has had 5+ years to mature (5 years and change for ipad, phone predates this even). We aren't asking to kick the new kid off the block. New kid is over 5 years old. IT years like cat/dog years....they are a lot more than human years lol. Time to let it compete and see how that goes.
This is how tech gets stronger. Competition. Many things do. Touch dev wants touch to grow and prosper they won't get the proper motivation if their only competition is other touch apps. its all SSDD here imo. Candy crush doesn't try to knock other match 3's out of the box with UI improvements. drag finger, move something, align up 3+ and move on.
Gameplay, features, graphics...these are the match 3 battlegrounds. UI doesn't even enter the conflict.
True motivation for touch UI development will come from the mouse apps taking hits from them if it happened.
This is how I have seen many things live or die in the IT realm. I dabble in programming. It is littered with the corpses or small remnants of the faithful of languages that tried to take on the big boys and failed. The up and comers that won....did so because programmers said you want to take on C (variants), fortran, etc? Well show us what you got. They stepped up, showed us what they get in open competition, and got their accolades for that.
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No, i do not want another Windows, and apple is able to make MINOR changes that will have basically zero impact on developers to enable the ipad to be better used at a desk to do desktop type stuff for a lot of non-specialist tasks.
They have been quite stubborn with lack of pointer integration from teh start in order to force developers to be touch friendly. Well guess what - they did it. The development tools are there, the apps are there, they don't need to force people's hand any more.
The platform is mature enough to take on a mouse pointer now without the risk of getting ****** desktop application ports.
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His (edit: someone else's similar) original story i think was what prompted me to try it.
It was, at the time, too annoying for me to deal with in my day to day job. The issues i listed above were deal breakers. It was just too awkward.
it was so frustratingly close though, and with the changes I listed above i'd be able to ditch my work laptop in a heartbeat.
This is an excellent post. Yes, all it really comes down to is the spectrum of use-cases for all computer users in the world. Obviously, no machine is 100% and a manufacturer would go bankrupt trying to get to 100%. The key for Apple and every other computer manufacturer is to find the sweet spot. In my opinion, as a "pro-sumer" I sway more to the higher percentage Surface solution. However, covering 80% of use-cases with a sub-par implementation (Windows 10 touch apps) isn't any better than covering 60% of use-cases with an incredible implementation (iOS). I think Microsoft is making strides with it's hardware but if they can't figure out a way to overcome the Windows Store app-gap, and perhaps more importantly app-quality, I don't see Surface ever being more of a niche product. On the other hand, I really would love to see Apple push developers to enhance their iOS offerings to their OSX counterparts, and in my opinion, that will happen much sooner than Microsoft is able to offer iOS-quality touch friendly apps. Personally, I'm coming around on the idea that almost all of my use-cases can be solved in a touch/voice only environment in the near future.
Wait, so OSX is the best desktop OS, but what about mobile OS? I submit that you can't find a better mobile OS than iOS at the moment. If iOS needs work, it's because mobile OS in general is in the process of catching up to desktop OS.
Exactly. So for example, we hear stories about Surface being popular among college students. That's because of their use case. They need a single device that they can take everywhere and that does everything. My mom, on the other hand, wouldn't take a look at a Surface -- we passed by a Microsoft store, and I tried to show her the Surface, and she literally didn't want to look at it! But it took one look at an iPad Pro to convince her she wanted one. My boss carries his iPad Air and mini with him all the time -- he got them thinking he'd use one and his wife will use the other one, but it ended up he uses both, I'm not sure why. He'd never consider a Surface either, it's too big. For people with light computing needs, the iPad with iOS is the perfect device. And it may not seem that way on these forums, but light computer users are the majority.
I personally wouldn't mind seeing an iPad Pro with something like Continuum on Windows Phone... a device that you connect to a wireless display where you're put into an OS X-like environment, and you can then use the display as a giant trackpad while using the Smart Keyboard for text input.
Too bad this will probably never happen though, because it would render the portable Macs obsolete and eat into the sales of the iMac.
Too bad this will probably never happen though, because it would render the portable Macs obsolete and eat into the sales of the iMac.
How would the Smart Keyboard and iPad be positioned relative to each other when using them in this manner?
I haven't used an iPad Pro with the Smart Keyboard hands on, but from what I've seen in advertising based on the way it folds over to stand up and stay connected, you probably couldn't lay it totally flat like you could the Surface Pro line. Maybe a future version would allow it to stand flat if you wanted to, or you could just use it in the default standing position?
Of course, I could see using a Bluetooth keyboard and having the iPP to the left or right as a trackpad depending on one's laterality.