What's new about this is that Apple is FINALLY listening to its power iPad users!
Apple introduced a Files app that essentially works like the Finder app on Mac. Moreover it even allows you to sync with third party cloud providers besides just iCloud. Lastly, it's putting in an actual dock, multiple window layouts, easy copy paste.
I think it's a real game changer and all of these are features that I've been truly looking forward to. It's almost like a turning point in my mind. It's crossed the threshold to where iOS can indeed act as a laptop/desktop replacement for a huge number of people.
Also, in response to a sibling comment on this thread; I don't think it'll be too long now before we see full blown app development on iPads as well.
Haha. I work in a public Library and the few people that have a Surface are always coming up to us for tech support. No one can figure out Windows 10 on a tablet.
As usual Microsoft thinks it's Windows everywhere strategy makes sense - it doesn't. Tables are tables and computers are computers and they cross but they don't work the same and need considered and individual interfaces to make best use.
I think the Surface is just not meant to scratch the same itch as iPad. iPad has always had an interface, like the rest of iOS, oriented towards anyone competent enough to point at things. Power users could try to work past that, but it wasn't intended for that.
Surface Book seems to me like it was built for the more tech-competent demographic.
The issue isn't with "windows everywhere." It's that "surface book probably wasn't meant for deployment in a public library."
Your comment shows a very common view among us techies that being a member of "tech-competent demographic", is somehow a badge of honor, or at least of accomplishment. It's an accomplishment to be sure, but an accomplishment of little more than our willingness to sacrifice untold man-hours on learning the intricacies of near-universally bad UI inflicted on us all (usually in our youth, when time we are willing to puzzle out the details in something that interests us is nearly unlimited).
This experience molds our perspective on what is "normal" and "usable" UI, because our minds are already bent into the kitten-bonsai shapes that make it mostly-intuitive to us, and where we can use pattern matching to make a reasonable guess at a solution, iterating quickly with each failure. This process of "encounter unfamiliarity, guesswork, random clicking, reading docs, google other mentions of error, guesswork, final solution" is so quick and natural for us that we forget that most people do not have this mental toolkit ready. When a user with no previous exposure to it comes along and is confused, we tend to dismiss their concerns as trivial, because the answers to their bafflements are obvious to us through previous experience, and the process of searching out unknowns is so ingrained.
The actual fact that "tech-competent demographic" is a reasonable term to use in a conversation at all is in and of itself a bit of a tragic commentary on the sad state of our UX design as an industry.
----
I'm exaggerating above, perhaps, but not by much. Apple's accomplishment is that they actually manage to make UI that is intuitive to normal humans at best, and mostly not too terrible at worst. There's still a lot of failures even in their designs, but I think it's unfair to say that Apple's goals are to intentionally frustrate power users, as you seem to say. I would say, when power users hit those limitations, it's really just another reminder that intuitive and powerful UI is a really really difficult problem with no single correct objective answer for any given problem.
It's actually rather amusing how vocal the power users are when they hit limitations of the unfamiliar systems, and how dismissive they are when normal humans hit the limitations of the systems they are already familiar with. The problem is with UI/UX in both cases, they are two sides of the same experience, but it seems difficult for some people to recognize that.
And of course, when new UI/UX is designed by people whose minds are already shaped by the existing UI conventions, it will tend to follow the same patterns. Software UI is a near-monoculture currently, and the huge infrastructure of existing code and libraries makes it difficult for anyone to explore new concepts, and it takes time for any new concepts to grow into their strength.
iOS took many releases to really hit its stride in terms of features and usability, and a lot of the speed of progress is really limited by time and resources available. Throwing more people at the problem doesn't speed it up or make the quality better - most things really do need to be worked out by a small/medium team, so it does take time and experience.
(PS: I think Surface is an awesome piece of kit, and I can't wait for Microsoft to keep making it better and better - but I think it's silly to pretend that the Windows touch UI is good as it is because it's targeted at power users - no, it's just still really really young, and needs to grow and improve more. I'm certain there must be very smart people at Microsoft working very hard on making the UX better)
Strongly agree. Own a Surface and MacBook Pro, but iPad Pro is my daily driver. I stopped lugging MacBook Pro a year ago.
Heavy use of Ulysses for text / markdown, Safari, Microsoft Office suite especially PowerPoint, Omni suite, Readder PDF Expert w/ Documents manager, Working Copy, Textastic, iSSH, Screens, Citrix, OneDrive, Box, and Good/BB Enterprise.
If your code flow is a Git commit to trigger CI/CD then web or SSH to view, you aren't lacking much if anything.
In a way I'm unhappy about Files, I was fine with paradigm shift to 'per app' view (file workspaces) and ok with ability to see those as 'folders' via iCloud Drive on other devices.
It is interesting to watch two companies converging on to the same product space, I suggested to Panos that my choice between updating an iPad or getting a new Surface would be whether or not they include LTE connectivity in the Surface.
The thing Microsoft still doesn't seem to internalize is that 'wifi only' is a disqualifying feature for many people they would like to convert.
In the past I've been adamant on buying the LTE+Wifi iPads (because more options right?). In hindsight however, the cellular feature was barely used.
Have you considered an LTE mobile hotspot? It can be left charged (but off) in your laptop bag for days/weeks and only used for travel or as needed. I found it to be super useful and not much hassle at all. Also multiple devices can connect rather simply.
Lastly, a benefit of this sort of decoupling, is it allows for using a different network carrier to the mobile phone, thus effectively increasing one's LTE coverage.
I try a lot of stuff. I'm on my fourth iPad, second Surface Pro, my third Macbook Pro, my fourth ThinkPad. I have also had a Newton, Palm Pilot (various), Handspring, Nook (ebook), and Android tablets (most interesting being a 13" one from Lenovo with a built in projector)
I use the Verizon LTE network on my iPad pro all the time. When I'm on the train, when I'm travelling hither and yon. I don't browse/read/search on my phone (which I use for actually calling and texting people). Not saying that I represent a typical consumer but I certainly represent at least a cohort of 1 consumers :-).
I had a MiFi for a while (company purchased), but found it consistently had lower performance then the native networking of my iPad and it was easy to lose if I wasn't paying attention. Twice I encountered times when it wasn't charged when I needed it. On analyzing it overall I found that because it wasn't forced to be charged when I charged my laptop/tablet, it suffered from sometimes being missed when it needed to be charged. That the radio is by definition charged when the iPad is charged avoids that failure mode for me.
When travelling with my SPro4 I would sometimes 'hot spot' it to my tablet. Awkward but it works. In the inversion that I still marvel about the software availability on the iPad has always been better than the availability of software on the SPro4.
The SPro4 has a better (to my taste) drawing experience than the iPad Pro does. And both the iPad Pro and SPro4 are way better than previous stylus attempts on capacitive screens.
The iPad has a much better 'tablet only' experience for me, and a much worse 'docked' experience. SPro4 with a Surface Dock and a couple of UHD monitors is literally indistinguishable from the NUC i7 box I use as a desktop. There is nothing (yet) that I can attach to my iPad Pro to make it work like a Macbook Pro (I know I know, different OS, processor etc.)
As a result I create more in general on my SPro4, consume more on my iPad Pro. I travel with my iPad in my hand and my SPro in my backpack.
Clearly I have been unable to leave one behind and just use the other so there is some more convergence to go :-)
What are your LTE costs per GB? It hasn't caught on in Australia; you pay about $30AUD a month for about 5GB of total data traffic. If you have 5 devices you usually can't share it either so you either have to swap a lot of SIMs or that's $150 a month one for each.
In the US pretty much all carriers have moved to shared data plans where you can get a pool of data to share between all devices on the plan, which can include other family members.
I'm in Sweden and here you can pay $63/month to get a flatrate for calling/smm/mms/surfing + 100GB in EU/ESS, Malaysia and Thailand, and you can get a extra SIM card if you need one for another device.
But for me my company pays that anyway so I can get a new phone every year with basically free surfing in the whole EU, which is really nice.
It's not just the cost, but also the hassle of getting SIM cards, submitting documentation to get each (in India), paying multiple bills, tracking which plan you're on for each SIM card, and so on.
I don't understand why people don't just tether to their phones. It just works, and you don't pay any extra for another device on your account. Biggest downside I can see would be draining your phone's battery a bit.
I did that once, and I wished that I could plug my phone in to my iPad to charge it. That didn't work because the iPad uses Apple's proprietary Lightning connector rather than the standard USB-C. If my iPad had USB-C, I could have plugged my Google Pixel into it with the USB-C to USB-C cable Google gave me.
This is another limitation of the iPad — like a computer, but with arbitrary limitations like non-standard ports.
It still must be nice to be able to pull out your tablet-esque tablet and be connected to the internet anywhere you go. Especially as CAT-6 LTE is being rolled out in my city (Toronto) with comparable speeds as my home interest in recent years.
This will definitely become a must-have feature in future machines for me. I would no longer have to worry whether or not my local coffeeshop's internet is running slow or takes 5 minutes to properly connect to some random public wifi at a new place.
Public WIFI is prevelant but still very hit/miss. A consitent fast LTE connection would be quite the luxury.
It'd also totally kill SMS and telephone plans which I'm looking forward to the most. Encrypted E2E crypto for both voice/text will be a great incentive for this too.
The LTE is faster because your ISP is a douche. It is insane to ever, ever think transmission over airwaves can rival same-day wired capacity. They're just assholes.
Use your mobile phone as a hotspot. In the US, T-Mobile includes 10GB of hotspot in the unlimited mobile plans, so it was a no-brainer for me to go that route.
When it becomes available I do not doubt that I will get one :-) Best estimates though are 'fall'. And as the article states, there is still a lot of questions around it: "Microsoft isn’t revealing exact pricing or a release date, or even what processor will power the Surface Pro with LTE. It's possible that Microsoft could opt for an ARM-powered Surface. LTE versions should be available later this year."
Can you tell Panos the next time you see him that he should have included Thunderbolt 3 in the Surface Series?
That decision alone made them not viable to buy for our company. We rely heavily on Thunderbolt 3 Docks in our new offices that work for Windows and Mac. No such thing possible with the Surface Products.
It's such a game-changer to be able to just plug in your device wherever there is a free spot and have a full featured 2x 4k + Gbit Ethernet + Charging Workplace via one cable.
I suspect that the choice of whether or not to include Thunderbolt 3 is constrained by the available chip sets from Intel rather than a design intent from Microsoft. Looks like Intel is going to make that an option however (https://liliputing.com/2017/05/intel-thunderbolt-3-will-inte...) so I would not doubt to see it brought out on laptops that use chip sets that incorporate it.
We got a bunch from the first batch of Caldigits Thunderbolt Station 3.
We're eyeing the ones from OWC/Elgato/Belkin too, but they are simply not available until later this month.
I wouldn't be so sure regarding the design constraints, the Dell XPS 13 has very similar parts to the Surface Pro, but has been offering the Thunderbolt Port ever since Skylake.
The XPS 13 is a nice laptop, it isn't "all in the display" though, which when you talk about volume and battery time it counts. Currently from what I can see from teardowns (https://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/Microsoft+Surface+Pro+4+Tear...) there isn't enough space for the current Intel discrete solution (but there is in the XPS 13 and there would have been in the Surface Book if they put it in the keyboard half.)
We haven't experienced any overheating yet, but they get quite warm.
You are probably right now when I look at the teardowns. It makes one wonder what the custom Surface Docks use to push all that I/O out. The ASUS Transformer 3 Pro T303UA somehow managed to cram it in though.
Somewhat questionable maybe, but they had a number of polls among their Kickstarter backers which came out in favor of "more battery life" over "more power" or "thinner/lighter"
Good point — though I don't have any Thunderbolt 3 devices or docks, the Surface is limited by not having a Thunderbolt 3 port, because I may buy a device later, perhaps the LG Ultrafine 5k monitor.
Interesting, it wasn't in the coverage I read on the announcement in May but I see on the web site they have added : "We wanted to ensure Surface Pro was a transformative device – so we also have added LTE Advanced, available in units shipping later this year." Makes me wonder how much later, later is?
Now I have a dilemma: I'm forced to retire my SP2 and the SP5 is any day going to be debited unless I cancel.
This hiatus looks like just how I'm going to be reviewing the new HP Spectre tablet instead. I was seriously intrigued, especially by the 3000 * 2000 display. I guess I will find out soon enough. Something tells me that I have room for disappointment plenty here, tho'...
Consider how much more common this would be if wireless ISPs added more reasonable options for adding additional devices to your plan. More devices which would eat through your crazy low transfer cap more quickly...which they currently charge you quite a bit to tack on.
I honestly don't have much interest as things stand. I'm on a theoretically unlimited AT&T plan for my phone. I might pay a few extra bucks to get other devices onto cellular. But, for the fees as they exist today, I'll just make do with my phone if WiFi isn't available.
I'm almost surelybeing inadvertently obtuse, but how in the heck is it legal to restrict my use of the service I pay for. Is there a case law reference easily pointed out?
Indeed. I've often wondered why my Macbook Pro can't just have this option. I would use it fairly infrequently but when I did it would be so damm handy.
I bought a new Thinkpad last fall and it has a slot for a SIM card. What I don't know is where on earth I can get a good cellular internet plan I can use with this! Just something for occasional light use (emergency SSH sessions, etc).
Excellent customer service, too. I'm probably going to another provider soon, since I've been using my cell plan heavily enough for a while now to make Ting not wholly economical - but I'm probably going to keep the account active and the SIM in my satchel, just because it's worth $6 a month to have the option if I need it.
Awesome, hadn't heard of this. Very responsive customer service. Thanks for the reference. Just placed an order for a SIM card. Hope it works with Linux! :)
I'm kind of exhausted on Surface after using it for a couple of years. It just isn't that reliable yet, it isn't something I can depend on like an iPad, and often when I turn it on it wants to spend a couple of hours updating. I really want to like it, but...I might give an iPad Pro a try to play in the stylus space.
This. I have a Surface Pro 4 and it's garbage for work. I've had two MacBooks, currently use a Win 10 desktop, have a 6 year old iPad, and the Surface is my least favorite device. Physical keyboard doesn't work well on a lap, mediocre touchpad, on screen keyboard only pops up with certain apps, tons of updates, and awful reliability. Surface seem to increase productivity in theory/during demos, but it's a jenky experience in practice.
iPad Pro, even with iOS instead of a full-fledged OS, looks waaaay more appealing.
I'm yet to see any long term review on YouTube that explains the way anyone who finds the SP a terrible experience has so much difficulty. I'm genuine in my interest as it's a leap of faith even though I have been a committed happy SP2 user a long while now. I'm not sure either why if the device is so counterproductive for a individual, why did they not sell or their employer finally relent and provide alternative since the productivity cost would be considerable. The only other common features of such comments, is the similar grass is greener conclusion. This isn't consistent with a actual concerted effort to address a problem, the first impression I get anyhow.
It isn't terrible, it is just...a laptop. It is slow to turn on, slow to login and unlock, it likes to update a lot, it isn't as casual iPad at all. I find myself not using it because my older iPad is just easier to pick up and use...
I really want to use my surface more, it is really nice. Just it straddles the worlds between PC and tablet too much.
Like many people, I would much prefer an Apple based OS to MS. Feature-parity is not the point. Welcome to Apple in general: Feature parity has never been the point.
Depends what you're using it for. If it's mostly tablet-y things (consuming stuff, casual infront-of-TV use), iOS is clearly superior. You can try and tear the iPads from my parents' cold dead hands.
If you want to 'get work done', sure you'd have to take Windows over iOS. But then Apple users would be reaching for a Macbook instead.
I get why people want 'both' from the Surface, but to an Apple user like me, Windows doesn't appeal for either use-case. I'll take macOS for work and iOS for casual use, and put up with separate devices for now.
Right, but this submission is about the iPad Pro announcement, not iPads in general. I have an iPad. It gets used for exactly what you describe. Work gets done on my Macbook.
I like iOS on my iPhone. I like OSX on my Macbook. The only thing I'm pushing back on is the idea that iOS (via the iPad Pro) is set to consume my Macbook.
Mostly the surface is more of a portable laptop. Slow to wake, short autonomy. Not the kind of thing you charge once a week and can forget in the sofa, and can be turned on instantaneously. Not the same market at all.
I think I just explained why I prefer two separate devices, but to clarify further: I don't like Windows, I prefer a unix-based OS for work, and iOS is a much better tablet OS in my opinion.
Also I don't agree with 'over priced hardware'. I tend to find if you look for comparable hardware from other manufacturers the prices are similar (e.g. Samsung S8 vs iPhone, Dell XPS vs Macbook).
So the best processor you can get on a macbook pro is an i5. Dell XPS comes with an i7. Same memory, same SSD, Mac has worse graphics card. Mac has soldered in memory. And it 600 bucks more.
On a 13-inch, sure. The 15 inch all have i7 processors.
The screen resolution is much higher, they come with double the ram, not a "home OS" (whatever that is), and I'm not sure how an AMD 560m stacks up against an Nvidia 960m.
Not to say the MacBook will be cheaper, just pointing out discrepancies in your comparison.
A plastic computer is not the same as one from machined aluminium. They may have similar specs, but they are not the same computer and the premium you pay falls directly into the spots where your specs fall apart.
That's fine, but if aluminium costs $1000 more and there are obvious benefits, then it's no longer the same computer for $1000 less. The quoted Dell is not $1000 cheaper for the same computer because it's objectively not the same computer.
I recall reading a familiar source I usually expect to be sensible (I've had memory problems since a head trauma a couple years back, which frustrate me constantly over seemingly unimportant context that's actually more disorientating than I like to admit) anyhow I received the impression that only the 13" models of the MBP with the new oled bar actually perform solidly for the headline spec and I can't recall any reason why now. Am I completely misinformed by my recollection or is the reality of a $2700 laptop that is the practical price of the performance one might expect just a garbage datum stuck in my mind? I'm not at all anti Apple, in fact particularly careful recently to seek a entry point into the ecosystem for a variety of reasons. This iPad announcement at least solves what my first Apple device in 27 years is going to be...
I've run a top of the range MBP for 4 years. 60% of the time I run Windows 10 perfectly via bootcamp, only takes a few seconds to switch. Previously I would have bought a new laptop once a year, Apple build quality and durability is light years ahead of Dell or the umpteen other pc brands I've tried so ends up being much cheaper in the long run. As with clothes, cost per wear not cost of purchase.
My mobile office has been reduced to a 12" iPad Pro with a 13" MB. All files are kept in iCloud and shared between the portable devices, a MBP, an iMac, and a custom PC.
The two portables together - inside a shared soft case with plastic protectors on each - weigh a lot less than my 15" 2015 MBP, and vastly less than a 17" Dell laptop I tried to use for a while. Having two big screens and one real keyboard is hugely more productive than trying to do everything on a single device.
The MBP gets hauled out for anything that needs more power or a bigger screen - not often in practice, because the battery life isn't anywhere close to being good enough for a full day of work.
I moved to this setup from the MBP about six months ago, and it's been a big step up in productivity. With two fairly light devices I can do almost anything I need to do almost anywhere. It's at least as productive for coding, research, and social as my old non-portable dual-screen Mac Mini setup from a few years ago.
It's not powerful enough for content creation, but that needs extra music hardware and bigger displays, and for now I'm happy to leave the tools for that at home.
As a bonus, the big iPad on its own is also the best ereader I've ever used.
Maybe I want to use my fork and knife at the same time, in each hand?
Not to mention, the knife in a Swiss Army knife is going to be way worse than a similarly priced knife. There's a number of things you can do with a $60 knife you can't with a Swiss Army knife.
Off-topic, but I'm a lifelong collector of knives, and I use my $13 Spartan about 100x more than any of the others. Honestly, probably not an exaggeration. Its utility divided by its cost is extremely happy-making.
I'd rather have 2 devices made for dedicated form factors that play to the pros and cons of said form factor, than a jack of all trades, master of none.
Basically, OS X's big win is its quite good integration with the ecosystems that grew up and around the GNU/Unix ecosystem. The lure of a GTX 1070 GPU in a laptop was very strong, but in the end, it was more comfortable for me to run Linux virtually than to use Windows 10 bash. My 2012 Macbook Pro is still more productive than a shiny new Windows 10 laptop.
My Surface 3 came with support only for Chinese without even an English option. I had to buy and reinstall a totally different SKU to make it functional for me (and this was an employee purchase program, grumble).
I get what you are saying, but when iOS can manage to support more languages than Windows, well, we are in a totally different world these days.
Funny, I watched this and it reminded me of a leaked Microsoft executive looking at OS X "Tiger" and saying "it's like getting to use Longhorn two years early"
(which is to say, iOS 11 makes Surface look archaic, IMHO)
Archaic? Matter of opinion, but I don't see anything at all that gives that impression.
The only thing I came away with was an amusing question about how Apple is going to reconcile iOS with Mac OS someday, like Microsoft has already been working on / done for years
I might be in the minority here, but Microsoft hasn't "reconciled" a damn thing with the different versions of Windows. Instead of getting a great, consistent experience on multiple devices, they've gotten a half-baked, schizophrenic experience on them.
Uhh. We have. A while ago. The Xbox One ran Windows 8 until IIRC last year when it got upgraded to Windows 10. UWP apps are just that, universal across PCs, phones, Xbox One and HoloLens.
Tablet "mode" does not make a seamless tablet experience.
Case in point: I'm an IT guy meeting another vendor in the field mid-day. He pulls a dead surface from his bag and is now looking for an outlet, I pull my iPad, which hasn't been charged in a week, and it's at %20 but still good for the rest of the day.
What good is a mobile computer with a dead battery?
Then, in June 2004, Steve Jobs announced that Apple was releasing its new operating system, called “Tiger.” And inside Microsoft, jaws dropped. Tiger did much of what was planned for Longhorn—except that it worked.
E-mails flew around Microsoft, expressing dismay about the quality of Tiger. To executives’ disbelief, it contained functional equivalents of Avalon and WinFS.
“It was fucking amazing,” wrote Lenn Pryor, part of the Longhorn team. “It is like I just got a free pass to Longhorn land today.”
Vic Gundotra, another member of the group, tried out Tiger. “Their Avalon competitor (core video, core image) was hot,” he wrote. “I have the cool widgets (dashboard) running on my MAC right now with all the effects [Jobs] showed on stage. I’ve had no crashes in 5 hours.”
Somehow they managed to turn it around enough that there's discussions in this thread about a windows surface and an iPad Pro. Which is something in itself.
Ha. I have an HP Elite X2 1012 and I love it. Windows 10, user-upgradable parts (recently updated the SSD to 512GB), running Bash/Ubuntu for Windows, no moving parts, wonderful keyboard, and superb stylus. I have been using Windows Tablet PC designs since 2003 and this is the best one yet. I can do serious development work on it and then detach the keyboard and get down to a good read (Zinio, Kindle, built-in PDF reader app for my scanned books.)
Well, I am waiting for both to realise it is a much better UX when the pen is stored inside the tablet as opposed to being lost in a bag and never available when needed.
Nah, it will take them another decade to make the simplest tasks, like copying an MP3 to the device, at least a bit reasonable. iTunes alone stops me from using Apple phones and tablets.
If you're going to make assumptions, you might as well just assume the MP3 magically appears on your device.
You see, I can USB-plug almost any Android device into any Windows or Linux machine, and transfer any files either way without installing any software. It just works.
Even with Dropbox, what if it's a 10GB file? Are you going to upload and then download it? Do you not see how ridiculous that is?
I just hope MS makes it easier to use UWP file managers.
Operating file explorer by touch is a right pain, too many overlapping interactions (mark, drag&drop, scroll).
And right now if i want to use a UWP file manager outside of some designated folders require me to fiddle with the win32 file picker, that share problems with the age old file explorer.
No, this is completely untrue. You can't just shove Windows into a touch based cloud world. You had to start over with something like iOS. Plus Apple is pretty user friendly, something Windows never really got.
This all sounds more like an opinion that you're stating as fact. I own an SP3. It has it's problems: sucky trackpad, average battery life etc. But touchscreens are invaluable. They save me minor inconveniences so many times, that I will refuse to buy a laptop without it. Also, I really like Windows 8.1. Power users are perfectly capable of customizing the machine to get rid of Metro, and have shortcut keys etc., and once you do these things, there are simply more Windows software than Mac software in my line of work (mechanical engineering).
Tbh, if you're getting by fine without it, why deliberately look to find uses for it. Generally speaking, I hate trackpads, especially for things like dismissing message boxes or scrolling. So those two are where I use the touch panel the most.
Plus Apple is pretty user friendly... edit: lets add the rest of the quote here so it is obvious why this comment is harmful: ", something Windows never really got."
for some users.
For this user, who was enthusiastic to finally get a Mac it was tragic.
I have used and liked
Gnome and Mate in a number of configurations including Gnome 2 and 3.
KDE 3 and 5.
Elementary.
Windows 3.1, 95, 98, xp, 7, 8.1 and 10.
Mac OS X was a productivity nightmare to me for three years.
I still belive that others like it and are more efficient with it but
... please stop talking like this is generally established facts.
I have to say that however you deliver the message, it's true for a lot of people including myself: OS X is bad for my professional productivity. When I'm using several programs together (such as IDE, terminal, browser, emulator) I am never able to get into a flow as smooth and focused I could achieve with Windows, KDE, GNOME, and the various niche window managers I tried. OS X is just so standoffish. I've been using OS X as my primary desktop OS for six years now, and it still feels slightly stiff and awkward, like I'm using someone else's computer. It never feels truly tight and focused, no matter how much I fiddle with it. It's always just kind of good enough, which is extremely frustrating, because I feel like as a professional I should have a closer relationship with my tools.
Do you have specific criticisms? I'm pretty fine with OSX these days now that I can have two maximised windows next to each other on a screen, and four-finger switch left and right between screens
My specific criticism is not against the OS (AFAIK it is good even if I don’t like it[0]. )
My criticism is against mindless repetition of the idea that it is somehow always better or more userfriendly than other modern OSs.
[0]: I swap a lot between programs. I swap using alt-tab. I frequently used to/will have some web-based tool running in in one browser window and the docs for the tool running in another browser window. I prefer keyboard. If I hit the mouse or trackpad I often feel I (or the OS) has failed to learn / adapt.
From what I saw people who enjoy Mac OS X worked at a slower pace than me (although possibly more efficient). They had multiple overlapping windows. They enjoyed using the trackpad and didn't feel the pain of the hunt for the global menu bar.
- Confusion between the window receiving mouse events and the window receiving keyboard events. I'm a programmer, I know exactly how this works, and it STILL startles me on a daily basis when I've been reading text in one window for a minute or two, scrolling around, and then when I start typing, I realize my keystrokes aren't going to the program that I've been interacting with for the last few minutes. What was the last window I actually clicked on? Did I just type random garbage into a code file? An email? A chat window? I have to go find it and fix it before I continue what I'm doing.
- Awkward switching between screens. Waiting for the animation reminds me of those spinning scene transitions in the old Batman TV show [0]. At one point I learned to set the screen animation to be almost instant — there was still an annoying flicker — but the hack stopped working, I looked up another hack, then I got a new Macbook Pro and the notes I had didn't work, and realized I should just stop fighting it. I guess the thing about a "snappy" transition is that you don't see what's happening and could get confused. Makes sense, but very frustrating if you know what you're doing. Now I just amuse myself by mentally playing the Batman transition sound when I switch between workspaces.
Funny thing: early film editors initially thought that cuts needed to be extremely gentle, with explicit cues to help viewers understand that one scene had ended and a new scene was starting. They didn't stick with those techniques for long; it turns out that people are smarter than they anticipated, and they get bored with filler that doesn't move the movie forward! Even a fraction of a second of boilerplate filler to show that a cut has happened (as opposed to moments that serve an artistic purpose) decreases engagement.
- Awkward switching between program windows. If a program has multiple windows, and there's one I really don't care about right now, like an email or document I was working on a few days ago, I don't want to see it randomly popping to the foreground just because I switched to an email or document that I've been working on today. OS X occasionally gets really pushy with me like OH YOU SHOULD REALLY FINISH THIS EMAIL TO YOUR MOM or I HAVEN'T SEEN YOU WORKING ON THIS APP LATELY. Shut up, OS X, I know what window I asked for, and that wasn't it.
- No way to avoid collisions between my keyboard shortcuts and application shortcuts. It's really easy in Linux, thanks somewhat ironically to that Windows key that I cursed when it first appeared. Turns out it's perfect: it's a key that you can bind to window manager shortcuts in full confidence that it will never collide with application keyboard shortcuts. It's a logical division that worked really well with my brain: my window operations and system-level shortcuts all used the same modifier key, and application shortcuts used different modifier keys. You'd think Apple would have something equally elegant, but they don't. You set up key bindings, get attached to them, and then the next program you learn might require you to redo them (or customize application shortcuts to something that makes less sense than the defaults.)
- Menu bar at the top of the screen. I admit this is cliche and somewhat arbitrary, but I was a years-long Apple user, using Apple GUI operating systems all the way back to the Mac Plus and Apple IIgs days, and the instant I saw that Windows programs had menu bars attached to their windows, I realized that's the way it should be. I'm sure other people have the opposite reaction, but I'm an Apple "native speaker" who used Apple GUIs for many years before I saw a Windows machine, and who has used Apple on the desktop almost exclusively for the last six years, yet the menu bar thing still seems weird to me. Why is the menu bar for my program so far away? From a productivity standpoint, on Windows or Linux, if I can see program window, I can visually target the menu. On a Mac, first I have to click the program window, then I can visually target the menu and click on it. It's a small annoyance, but the small annoyances add up.
I'm sure I could go on, but I shouldn't invest more of my morning in complaining :-(
It's also 3x-4x the price depending on config. Surface Pro's are laptops with touch screens. They have basically no quality touch apps available. iOS has a HUGE lead in the app ecosystem department for touch based apps.
> Apple introduced a Files app that essentially works like the Finder app on Mac, and even allows it to now sync with third party cloud providers besides just iCloud. I think it's a real gamechanger and something I've been personally waiting on.
We'll see how well it works, I suppose. Remember that Apple thought this was a dumb, backwards feature (paraphrasing) when people were asking for it years ago.
> Also, in response to a sibling comment on this thread; it won't be too long now before we see full blown app development on iPads as well.
What are you basing the "won't be long" sentiment on?
I don't mean to get on you, but there's a lot of optimism in your post, and I'm not sure that's entirely warranted just yet. Yeah the hardware is a lot better, but it's yet to be seen if it's still just a giant iPhone from a software perspective. Of course, you may think my cynicism is unwarranted, that's fair too.
> Remember that Apple thought this was a dumb, backwards feature (paraphrasing) when people were asking for it years ago
They also (rightly) saw that iOS, and the devices it runs on, weren't even close to replacing a desktop-class device. Now, we're about to cross that line.
> They also (rightly) saw that iOS, and the devices it runs on, weren't even close to replacing a desktop-class device. Now, we're about to cross that line.
Are we? I'm not seeing that. It may happen, but this iteration isn't it.
I'm really happy with every OSX product I've purchased. On the iOS side, there's a long way to go before I can bring only my iPad instead of my Macbook. I don't really want to carry both. If the iPad Pro can replace my laptop for the bulk of my work day, I'll be right there with you buying one. I'm just not sold on that as Apple's vision.
I said we're close. I think we're less than 5 years away from macOS being phased out. I'd put money on it.
edit: People really dislike this comment. I'm not claiming desktop class devices are going away, I'm claiming that iOS is growing into a desktop class OS, and we are absolutely at that threshold. I hope anyone downvoting can explicitly address that.
It's hard to believe that there won't be some sort of reconvergence between laptops and tablets. The trick is to do so without compromising either the laptop or the tablet. One could argue that the Surface Pro comes closest, but not really.
It really doesn't make sense for me to travel with both a tablet and a laptop/Chromebook given that they're mostly similar hardware. Their sweet spots are different enough today that I carry both--and consider that, if I only carried one, I'd probably be carrying more batteries as well.
On the other hand, for the same reasons, it's not really in Apple's interests to discourage you from buying two separate devices. I do think we'll get to that point though.
I genuinely don't think Apple ever plans on converging their laptops and tablets. In features and capabilities yes, but in hardware form factor no. I don't expect to see a convertible, touch screen MacBook in my lifetime.
This really just reveals a narrowness of experience, if you don't mind me saying. Desktop PCs are where real engineering work gets done. CAD, FEA, CFD, simulations etc, they arent going to be running on middling mobile CPUs anytime soon.
Big screens. I have my circuit board designs up on a 28" 4K screen.
Latency. Not all engineering tasks are based on static data.
Tools. Few easily allow you to farm out your simulations. Many tools have decades of development in them. You could in theory develop them for tablets, but there's not been a good business case for that.
Mechanical, civil, aeronautical engineering, these fields are notoriously slow at adopting the latest and greatest technology. A lot of our code is still written in Fortran, and C++ libraries might as well be considered state-of-the-art. Further, when you're doing a lot of work on code, you are also multitasking like nobody's business. I have three screens, one for code, another for documentation or something, and a third for my browser (for example). iOS specifically will need massively more multitasking capabilities, a proper filesystem, the actual ports of software like CATIA/ANSYS, USB ports etc. to even become part of the conversation. Not to mention the fact that I just don't see why an ipad would be useful in this context. I'm not constantly moving between offices, or from my home to office, as I do advanced simulations. My workstation stays plugged in, and so the ipad doesn't solve any existing problems for me.
As a final note, these fields are involved in most things that you and I use on a day to day basis, so it would also not be right to call them an outdated niche that can be neglected (not that you are calling them that).
Optimism? It's pretty obvious that Apple is going to start cannibalizing their laptops. I personally already use my ipad pro as a laptop. The file thing is neat, for sure, and I'll use it definitely (zip files, in particular) but it's not that huge for me. I'm mostly cloud based and I already have a file manager app.
This post is about the new iPad Pro release, though. The iPad Pro itself isn't that different from a regular iPad - it has a keyboard and stylus, but the same OS and mostly the same apps. In that regard, Apple was already cannibalizing its laptops with the iPad for a certain set of use cases. The iPad Pro doesn't go much beyond that.
The optimism is in framing the above as "not yet" and that's fine, but that is optimism.
It looks like any app can use the new “FileProvider” framework and implement an “NSFileProviderExtension” to integrate with the “Files” app and other apps. I'm guessing that Dropbox, Google Drive, and the like are only supported by installing the corresponding app.
The file system on iOS is a bit weird, since apps are all sandboxed. But it looks like it can access the public files of apps on your device, and I think there was an "On this iPad" tab in sidebar.
I would imagine that you could save locally too (don't know for sure), but I mean, they upped the space for both models and have a high-end model with 512GB of space. I'm guessing that's not for simply storing more Photos and Video.
Man, what a bummer it'll be if this is restricted to cloud drives. Given the app sand boxing in iOS I wouldn't be surprised if that is it the case. I didn't find any aspect of the demo which showcased a local filesystem.
Probably not natively supported by Apple. But I'm guessing that the Files app just builds on the File Provider extension mechanism [1] that provides the document picker in apps, so Transmit can probably expose your servers too.
I don't get why the first two don't exist already. Really annoying there's so many apps in both categories, but they are horrid. It's as if they don't use their own products.
On the last app though, did you see the demo of Serif's app!? That looked incredible!
The Files App does not exactly work like Finder. It gives you access to a central file store that an application must support before your files show up there. It does NOT give you the ability to browse the iOS filesystem.
Funnily enough, one of the biggest issues I have observed with my parents using a desktop computer is "well where did that thing go that I was looking at yesterday".
Naked filesystems are intuitive to us as power users because we are in a mindset which many more casual computer users aren't. We understand that it's a hierarchy and that files have formats and extensions and file type associations and a whole list of technical details as to the how and why.
On the other hand, there are plenty of people who have no idea about this stuff - they will be thinking about the application they were using at the time and will expect that things they have "saved" are somehow associated with that application. They might not even associate a contact card or a photograph with being a "file"!
I feel like the iOS Files app makes a decent attempt at bringing features that we power-users enjoy - like tags, search, online storage - into an ultimately simplified model that is cognitively compatible with a much wider spectrum of users.
The ideal user interface to a filesystem is one that actually foregoes the idea of "files" (because formats and file type associations and extensions and things aren't intuitive to everyone) and instead treats photographs like photographs and contact cards like contact cards and emails like emails and webpages like webpages. It seems Apple are striving towards that. Did you notice in the keynote that, when dragging and dropping photos into an email, they were actually represented as photos and not as file icons?
I'm not saying it's a bad thing. I agree that they are approaching this the right way. It's just not the "Finder for iOS" that many are calling it.
The president of my company is one such person as you describe. He has no idea. He puts everything on the desktop, because the only way he knows of opening a document is to launch the corresponding application, and then File, Open the file on his desktop. In other words, he treats his Mac like an iPad. We have tried to break him of this habit, to no avail.
They have deprecated the whole idea of RAM as a spec. At https://www.apple.com/ipad-pro/specs/, they only list "capacity" (of 64GB, 256GB, 512GB), and have no mention of RAM anywhere. Interesting. I guess they are viewing RAM versus persistent flash memory as just another level of tiering/caching, and believe their swap is so good that it all blends together.
And yet, a short period of working with some large apps shows that, in fact, it isn't quite so good at all: from Safari pages refreshing to apps "paging in", the lack of ram is clearly present once one starts really working with iOS devices.
I look forward to the new device showing a new day... but I'm not holding my breath.
Apple's always been weird about ram. They're the last place to upgrade ram across product lines - but the first to dump peripherals/connectors like optical drives and headphone jacks.
I guess they are viewing RAM versus persistent flash memory as just another level of tiering/caching, and believe their swap is so good that it all blends together.
I think this is the correct long-term view, as persistent solid state memory gets better and cheaper. The old 20th century memory hierarchy, with nothing between RAM and spinning platter hard drives should fade into the past. As technology changes, this is sure to be an obsolete model of the world that no longer fits.
iOS doesn't do "traditional" swap though. Once memory runs low, apps will be warned and may be booted out to free some up. It's up to the apps to then persist their state to the solid-state storage.
IIRC they also lie about the amount of RAM when you query sysctl. iOS apps aren't allowed to use all of the RAM on devices and so the system simply lies to the app about how much RAM there is.
As an illustrator I dabbled with the iPad Pro when it first launched. Pencil was great, but lack of RAM was really noticeable when adding layers on a high resolution sketch in the watered down Adobe apps.
So the additional UI functionality announced today is great news, but yes, lack of RAM undercuts performance one might expect from a Pro product.
Which is particularly annoying because I have the feeling safari on my ipad pro is crashing all the time because of running out of RAM on demanding webpages.
iOS does not have a swap space. The closest you get is persistent app data that can be reloaded and discarded. As far as app development goes, you need to be very conscious of RAM usage.
Haven't they also made RAM more important? I saw a tweet saying you can now have 3 apps at a time (split screen + one floating) but apparently this somehow requires 4GB of RAM. I find it hard to believe my iPad Air 2 couldn't do it just fine, but I don't think it has 4GB so apparently it's not allowed.
iOS is designed from the ground up to use RAM extremely efficiently. So Apple gets the performance equivalent to a competing product with less RAM. So they'd never want to brag about how much RAM is in an iPad, since it is generally half of what an equivalent product not running iOS would have.
Your last point is interesting, but RAM is as relevant a spec as some of the others Apple still lists, like the A10 64-bit processor. If I'm not supposed to care how much memory there is, why should I care whether there's a 64-bit or a 43-bit processor, or a f/2.2 camera lens?
The thing that I hung onto during this part of the Keynote was that I have never seen anyone use an iPad laying flat on a table like that. Not only ergonomically that's bad (for your neck) most of the time I'm using mine on one knee kicking back on the couch or in bed.
A lot of the gestures they showed for multitasking require multiple fingers on both hands, so you can't also be holding the device.
I suppose with it propped up via a kickstand it might work fine, it just looked awkward to me to be fully flat like that. I also don't draw on an iPad so maybe I'm just not the target user for that orientation.
I use my 12" iPad Pro flat a lot, mostly for taking notes in meetings using the pencil or drawing diagrams. It's no different to using pen and paper in terms of neck angles and the like.
I do find myself using the pencil for stuff you'd do with a finger (clicking buttons etc.) as well as writing/drawing though, maybe in subconscious deference to those ergonomic issues.
Model numbers please(!). I know there already was an iPad Pro, and now there's another iPad Pro. Is this the iPad PRO version 11 then (to correspond with the IOS version it was released for), or iPad PRO version 2017 (the year it was released)? Or is it version 2 or 3?
Microsoft appears to be doing the same thing with their Surface Pro, so it's not just Apple.
Look at Lenovo's site, e.g. for an X1 Carbon, and it tells you we're now on Gen 5. Thank you, Lenovo. And Dell doesn't try to hide that their latest XPS 15 is the 9560. Thank you, Dell.
I think they do fine with simple year numbers. The silly "air" and "pro" monikers seem to be confusing them. They seem to want to sunset the "air" qualifier, but they just refreshed it's CPU. I wish they would move back to a standard hardware set. Have their ultrabooks named one thing and keep them up to date. Do the same for the pro and desktop lines.
The net effect of the generic non-versioned "ipad" naming is to make me feel a bit dumb. I can recite spec changes between Samsung Galaxy models, and keep close track on aforementioned Dell and Lenovo products, but for the iPads I just draw a blank.
I don't know. I bought an iPad (Air?) a few years ago for my son. It may have been in September 2014; it's one of the slim ones (perhaps "2nd generation slim"??), and it looks pretty much the same as the newer ones.
I struggle to tell the difference between them; as long as it works I really don't feel an incentive to upgrade it. (Protip: The thick child iPad cases are just about bulletproof).
This will steer more users from a platform where you can run whatever you want (macOS) to a platform where you can run whatever Apple lets you (iOS). If it's not self evident why this is bad then -- as I did with the recent Windows S, Amiga X5000 announcements -- let me dig up my seven year old blog post trying to explain why this is very bad http://drupal4hu.com/future/freedom
And no, this is not an "Apple is evil" rant, it's simply they are making more money this way.
I have been using Linux as my primary OS for probably 10 years now, and I still love the Surface Pro. I bought a Surface Pro 1 the week they came out. I think the Surface lineup is one of the best lines of computers ever.
I'm incredibly conflicted, because I need a new portable computer, and I love the Surface, but I do not love Microsoft.
Is it possible to run Linux on a Surface Book? I'd really love to have the large detachable screen to read PDFs, but I'd really prefer to be able to use actual Linux as opposed to WSL Linux.
Alternatively, are there any other laptops like the Surface Book (i.e., have a detachable touch screen) that work with Linux?
Which is one of the reasons I'm considering an XPS 13 over a Surface.
I actually like touch screens, but they do not work well in Linux. I didn't 'get' Windows 8 until I got my Surface, and I really enjoy using the touch screen when browsing the web and just screwing around with my computer. Touch/pen is a lot more convenient than any other mouse replacement while on the go.
I will be surprised if the Linux community does anything meaningful with touch in the next 5 years though.
As for WiFi, I hate how finicky it is, but it isn't really the developers fault. I spent an entire week trying to get a "Linux compatible" WiFi dongle working before I gave up and returned it. The drivers had been written for Linux 4.1 or maybe even 3.xx. Once I took care of all of the errors and got the driver to compile, I learned that the USB 3.0 version never worked on Linux, despite the fact that the manufacturer had compiled a driver.
At least every new install of Linux doesn't start from the command line, unless you are looking for a distro like that.
I totally agree. I actually love both Linux and my Surface, but I would never put Linux on the Surface, for exactly that reason. Touch-friendliness is one of those things that's just going to take a while on Linux if it comes at all: a lot of the people who might contribute tend to be the same sort of people who turn up their noses at touch interfaces on a desktop OS.
As for the WiFi, that's probably more Microsoft's fault. For some reason they insist on using these godawful Marvell chipsets for all the Surfaces. Users have been yelling at them to pick anything else, but it hasn't stuck.
The Marvell chipsets are awful, this is true. However, I think the only 802.11ac chipset that currently works with Linux is Intel, since Atheros hasn't been Linux-friendly ever since they were bought out by Qualcomm.
As far as I'm aware, there are no WiFi dongles that support 802.11AC. I think your only option is internal. So if you want to connect to a 802.11ac network on a Linux desktop your only option is connecting through a wired connection with a bridged 802.11ac router or something.
I don't personally mind, but I do think it's bad for the adoption of Linux. Most people I know only have Laptops, and if people can't get their WiFi working they aren't going to use Linux.
Yeah, me too. I've honestly considered designing it myself, but I'm a really marginal system programmer. I can modify things that other people have built, but I don't think I could start a project from scratch.
Heh, the NVMe patch for the XPS 13 will probably never be merged, meaning you have to switch the config over to "AHCI" mode and lose ?????? (features? performance? power usage?)
Yes, I run all kinds of distros; Manjaro, Xubuntu, Mint and even Fedora. Fedora is especially stable, but some fiddling is required, and personally, I cannot get stable WiFi. Others can, though, so maybe you might want to read a bit more. There is also the famous /r/surfacelinux subreddit.
I have a high opinion of the Surface Pro, hardware wise, and I have been considering getting one. But the things Microsoft has done to Windows 10 regarding mandatory updates and telemetry are leaving me leery of it.
Well the downside of it is that you can use iPad pro without keyboard because its optimized for a touch, while with Surface pro you can't do much without a keyboard, windows is nowhere near as touch friendly as iOS. So you end up with a flimsy laptop like tablet that you can't even put on your laps without it collapsing...
You can completely use a Surface Pro without a keyboard. It has a touch screen, on-screen keyboard and a stylus. I use it frequently without a keyboard.
with what apps? Windows has very few good touch based apps available. If all you do is browse or read pdfs/books sure but my surface is all but useless for much else. The stylus is ok but most graphics apps do a really poor job of supporting touch. Whereas the iPad has a bunch of great touch based graphics apps.
I feel like you're grasping at anything you can right now. Would you like to be more forthcoming with your opinion here without the required song and dance?
On the contrary, usaphp is making a valid point, which is that the Surface has two modes, and that many things that work well in one mode don't work well in the other. In tablet mode, you're generally using lighter weight apps, so you don't need the full power of the device. Or, if you're using pro apps like IDEs, they're generally not touch-optimised. You can't have both at once. You can in theory, but not in practice, as every review points out.
I dont think its a stretch to see that it is nice to have a tablet device for things like note taking and web browsing on the same device that I can do things like run Matlab simulations
What do you do in tablet mode? I bought a surface pro 4 and returned it after a few weeks. Reading a PDF was just straight up horrible as I couldn't a single app that was touch friendly with appropriate features. I.e. highlighting things required too many pen-clicks, on very tiny icons
The majority of my tablet usage is browsing the web with Edge, which has such good touch support that I now use it as my daily browser even when I'm not in tablet mode. Other than that I:
- check my emails;
- manage my todo lists (previously with Wunderlist, now with Microsoft To-Do);
- watch Twitch with Livebeard or Unstream;
- watch YouTube with TubeCast (could use a better app for this, but I haven't looked in a long time);
- rent and watch movies from the Store app;
- read and manage my notes with OneNote;
- listen to music with Groove;
- use Twitter with Aeries or Tweetium;
- read my Pocket articles with Latermark;
- listen to podcasts with Grover Pro;
I make liberal use of the window snapping feature to do most of those things side-by-side with my browser open.
When in tablet mode I'm primary consuming content, and I've found that my Windows device is just as good at that as an iPad or Android tablet. If I'm in tablet mode I'm sticking to the apps that were built for touch, i.e. apps from the store and Edge, not poking around in VSCode or other apps meant for a mouse or keyboard.
What really sold it for me was that I can just flip it over into full laptop mode whenever I want and have 16gb, core i7 dev laptop ready to go instantly.
For reading PDFs, I'd recommend taking a look at Edge again. It's pretty great for reading PDFs and ebooks with the new Creator's Update.
As for a YouTube app, take a look at mytube. The Dev very recently released a complete overhaul of the app and while I wasn't a huge fan before, it is now the by far best YouTube app on the store imo.
Already does fluent design (acrylic) and is very actively supported. Just days ago it added 360 support for example which I think no other app does. It's really good.
Thanks for the suggestion! I've used MyTube a long while ago but didn't like the UI or experience. I'll be sure to give it another try, as TubeCast has too many bugs and doesn't let me resize it to less than 2/3 screen height.
I assume his point is that several people (judging on your comments being downvoted) think you are just bashing surface with no good reason.
First you respond saying that the problem with the Surface is it's not touch-friendly, then when pointed out that it apparently is you reply saying that if it's used in touch mode then its power is irrelevant, and you seem to be missing the point that being able to operate as a powerful machine OR a touch-friendly machine, with the user being able to choose between them, is a double win, not a double loss.
Basically, your comments on this subject come across as biased in favour of iPad over Surface. And I say that as somebody who has never owned a Surface and who hasn't owned an iPad for several years.
A shame to see there's no update to the iPad mini. For casual users, it's not so useful any more, with the larger iPhones of today, but it's very useful for professional and business use in cases where space/size is a constraint, and an iPhone isn't warranted.
The app we develop has quite a few users on iPad minis. Apart from the fact that it's only for iPad, I don't think we would get many users moving to using an iPhone, firstly because of cost, and secondly because it's just a bit too small.
I'm dying for a Mini with Pencil support. I want a digital Moleskine.
If "iPads seen in the wild" are anything to go by, they're still the best-selling model, too. My best guess is that the usability gurus have decided that it's just no good for "getting work done," and they're willing to sacrifice some sales to get more professional traction.
They really are a great size. Pretty much the portability of an iPhone with plenty of screen. But since it's not my phone I don't have to take it everywhere.
That, to me, is one of the defining features of a general-purpose computer. Can I develop software for it, with it?
Perhaps it might not be pleasant, if the hardware isn't very powerful - looking at 20 lines of code on a netbook screen, or waiting for the serial communication to catch up to my terminal on the embedded board - but it makes it a tool with which you can do real work. Tablets and phones don't count yet.
Edit: Yes, I am aware of the SSH clients, with which you can connect to a remote server, do the development there, and download the resulting app. But the remote server is the general-like computer there, just as the PC running the terminal is not the primary machine in some embedded development.
Seriously. The only thing keeping me from trying out an ipad is the inability to install my own software on it.
Until then, 10-11" chromebooks are scratching that itch for me. They usually have 360-degree flip keyboards with touch screens, and they'll run a full ARM Linux stack with dev mode on. Plus, the UI and Android app support are great.
I went on a trip last week and left my workhorse macbook pro at home for the first time on a trip and brought my iPad mini.
It just isn't that useful for dealing with photos taken with a separate camera. It was nice for browsing the web but that was pretty much it. I couldn't work on my learning new graphical js on my downtime, not beat making (ableton). The iphone was great on the trip while on the go.
It just doesn't feel like a creative device. Even though the pencil is amazing, I just don't see it.
It worked out surprisingly well. I mainly bought the MyPassport for the extra storage space so I didn't have to bring a million SD cards, but it also worked well as a backup battery pack for the phone, and for transferring a few of those images to the phone for immediate access. Admittedly, I shot in RAW + JPEG and the app only recognizes the JPEGs (from what I could tell quickly) but it was good enough for the few photos I wanted to share right away after taking them.
I don't have an iPad but I've been considering one just for photo editing with the pencil. I hear Lightroom on iPads is getting better, and I just got an e-mail today about Affinity Photo being released for iPad.
But yeah, consider the WD MyPassport if transferring/storing photos without a true laptop was a problem.
consider getting the cable that connects iphone to camera. it's $30 but pretty useful. you can transfer/edit on phone, and upload directly to its permanent home in cloud storage.
probably won't work for a professional but is fine for photo hobbyists. it's nice not having a laptop or an external drive in your camera bag.
The drive I'm fine with. My cameras both have iOS apps that allow wireless data transfer, but both of them are just a nightmare to use. The WD drive is leagues better, despite getting some negative reviews (which all seem, to me, to just be user error).
The iPad mini is a very different thing then the iPad Pro with keyboard and Pencil. There are a ton of great music making apps, photo editing apps (some of the best available on ANY device), and other creative devices. I use my iPad Pro as laptop replacement and very little do I miss or need a macbook pro.
Do you write software using your iPad Pro? I've thought about using one with an AWS instance for modeling/prototyping, but it doesn't seem like we're there yet.
mosh support in Blink completely changes the game. Switching networks is trivial and not worrying about the three minute connection timeout just because I'm reading docs in Safari is freeing.
Even using SSH I find it to be much snappier than the competition. Killer feature for me: key repeat and remapping caps-lock to escape on the Apple Keyboard. I'm actually amazed how Blink manages to go beyond what I thought were fundamental limitations of iOS. It even has full support for an external monitor as independent second screen at full resolution! (not that I use that much, but it kinda blew my mind)
> couldn't work on my learning new graphical js on my downtime
Assuming that you mean Javascript, there are a few environments like Coda [1] which let you code and play around.
I can't do Mac app dev, but I can certainly play around on my servers via SSH (keyboard really helps here).
> not beat making (ableton)
There may not be Ableton for iOS, but there are loads of music apps covering the spectrum. I'm a total amateur, but have been experimenting with Garageband, some synths, and an app that does tone-detection and spits out MIDI.
Yeah, I just don't get why you wouldn't get an air instead of trying to use this. Is the touch screen really that helpful for working? I much prefer to use my mac book, but I'm probably just not the target audience.
I wonder what the pencil means for Wacom? It looks fantastic, and from my naive perspective looks like it'd be just as capable as a high end Wacom tablet. Any artists here who can chime in?
I haven't tried iPad Pro nor Microsoft Surface, but Wacom has a texture on the surface which makes a lot of difference when drawing and painting. Even Cintiq has a layer of that on it. Even if they've solved 'drawing on glass' (which should be shit compared to textured surface), there's still that whole issue of proper apps to draw in compared to iOS.
In my studio with 12 or so creatives, none have shown any interest in trading out their Cintiqs for an iPad Pro + Pencil + Duet (or some other screen sharing app), despite having a few around the office and many of them having played around with them. That said, I could see many artists that don't like to tether themselves to an office liking the iPad Pro very much.
I tend to forget one at home and one at the office. So I keep one in my briefcase just to be sure. I accumulated the other 2 over months. Trust me, spending $100 on a writing utensil pains me a little, but not so much it precludes doing what it takes to get the work done.
You could have lied and said you actually use two at once. I had a professor that could do that with chalk once. (His lectures were to information what costco is to groceries.)
On the Surface side, there's Gabe from Penny Arcade, who's kind of informally become their artist advocate. If the Pencil's fidelity is as good as the Surface's -- and I wouldn't expect it not to be -- it seems like it would be perfectly capable.
That said, the Surface also works because it can run full versions of programs like Photoshop. I don't know how that plays out on iOS.
The 12.9" iPad Pro + Pencil + 60hz app works very well with no behavior like that. My guess is that it's a beta iOS issue because there seems to be a lot of churn with major iOS versions when it comes to the pencil. Apps usually have to do some kind of update to address whatever Apple has done each time around.
Not really. I mean unless I've missed an app or two basically every app that can be used for web development is just absolutely dreadful and the git support terrible since it's not installed and used system-wide (it has to be fully embedded within the app itself).
If someone has a positive experience doing on an iPad I'd love to hear about it because while I would rarely do it it would be nice to be able to quickly change something when I'm on the go. But in my experience so far it's no good.
I use prompt to ssh into a remote server and that's my preferred method. If I need to be local to the device I'll use working copy (Great git app!) and coda to work locally. I'm more of a command line driven dev so I like the first option but the second is good also.
Two ways I get it done:
1. ssh into a remote vm in the cloud and use that. Emacs (or vim if you are that kind of person ;) ), tmux, and zsh shell are all I really need.
2. Use Coda or another on device editor. This one is a little harder as it's not quite as good as you desktop editors like VS.Code or Atom. That said I do it often and enjoy the experience.
Prompt2 + tmux + vim is pretty much mysetup as well. It's mostly used for side projects and experimenting, but is very robust.
For long flights I've been experimenting with Pythonista app, but so far haven't hit anywhere close to the same productivity as with the SSH setup.
Another big plus for SSH is ability to literally pickup where you left off without any warm up/resetup - everything is still running when you reattach the tmux session.
I use the SSH machine as the control center, with the actual code running on AWS or Heroku (for APIs/web apps).
it's ok but just ok. If I'm going for a really long time I have a bluetooth mechanical keyboard but it loses a ton of the value to carry it around. I go back and forth, currently I do a mix of web app dev (node.js/react frontend) and native mobile dev. If I'm mostly web app, I tend to use the iPad as my primary device. Native iOS dev is split with a Macbook Pro and native Android is all Macbook.
To balance out the negativity here's my anecdotal input - the iPad Pro has had more impact on my creativity than any device I can remember, and it's almost entirely due to the pencil and how it's brought drawing back into my life.
That's not even counting it's usefulness for music making, etc.
I've never seen it as a replacement for desktop software - it's a different class with different user behaviors. I'm generally bullish on the form factor over the long term, and see no reason why it needs to be a zero sum game between tablet and desktop.
I really wish they would have brought Files to the iPhone as well. Actually, many of the features they demoed for the iPad would be very welcome on the iPhone.
I have a the 12" with a pen since it came out. Really wanted to use it for taking notes, but then I remember my handwriting is complete chicken scratch. It did find a nice place as a tool for doing wireframes of the UI for my current startup for PLM. Also I will say I have gotten used to the split screen. It is nice to watch a video and also open the web browser or email. Looks like IOS 11 makes this even better. The iPad was not a replacement for my MacBook Pro. Speaking of which, 16GB on MacBooks now. Going to order one ASAP. I travel so weight and size is the most important thing (besides the fact I need 16GB). At home or work I just jack into the thunderbolt port for monitor, keyboard, mouse and network.
The file manager is better late than never. My real question is what will text editing look like?
The lack of a cursor on iPad makes something like programming or writing on the iPad insanely frustrating. Have you ever tried selecting a precise amount of text with your finger?
On the iPad you can drag two fingers over the keyboard to move the cursor around. When you have text selected, two finger dragging on the top half moves the left side of the selection and the bottom the opposite. It's a very useful gesture.
Moving the cursor via a two-finger-swipe on the keyboard works surprisingly well. On the iPhone you can use this gesture (3D touch the keyboard) to also select text when pressing harder.
Agree with siblings about two finger drag to move cursor around. Additionally, I really enjoy the apple keyboard case for my iPad Pro. Real arrow keys, along with option, command, and shift modifiers are how I select text on the Mac, and it works identically on iPad.
As an additional screen to a mac, yes, there are severals apps for that, however they all require 3rd party kernel drivers on the mac so they will most likely break on major updates and they will probably be discontinued at some point.
They work reasonably well for web browsing and development, but I would not use them for photo or video stuff.
I wonder where iPad line will be in few years. Personally I don't see a reason to use an iPad over my macbook, but if this trend continues, then it might be a reasonable pc replacement for most users.
iPad sales are down by half (in unit terms) compared with its peak. Android tablet sales are down as well.
From his previous remarks (Why would you buy a PC? etc), Tim Cook seems to want everyone to move to iOS, and the neglect of the Mac line seems to support that idea. But he's yet to show he can move the market in that direction....
Apple posted its first full-year iPad sales dip in fiscal 2014. Unit sales slipped 4% that year, while revenue fell 5%.
The sales declines accelerated thereafter. In fiscal 2015, unit sales plunged 19% and revenue dropped by 23%. In fiscal 2016, unit sales fell another 17%, while revenue tumbled 11%. Double-digit declines along both metrics continued in the first quarter of fiscal 2017.
The net result is that Apple shipped just 42.6 million iPads during the 2016 calendar year, down about 40% from the peak a few years ago.https://www.fool.com/investing/2017/02/19/is-the-ipad-dead.a...
In an interview with The Telegraph, Cook said, "I think if you're looking at a PC, why would you buy a PC anymore? No really, why would you buy one?"
He continued: "Yes, the iPad Pro is a replacement for a notebook or a desktop for many, many people. They will start using it and conclude they no longer need to use anything else, other than their phones."http://uk.businessinsider.com/apple-ceo-tim-cook-why-would-y...
Did anyone notice any mention of Apple's new File system in iOS 11 for the iPad Pro ? I stepped out of the keynote for 5 mins and probably missed the announcement. Apple homepage isn't updated with the new model details yet.
It's funny how almost all announced pencil features have been available on Galaxy Note devices for years (Apple even copied the lock-screen note feature. It seems that somebody at Apple got to use a Galaxy Note.
I had a Note 2, then a Note 4, then switched to iPhone, and the stylus is the only thing I miss, so if they are stealing that from the Note series, I'm totally fine with it.
Really? I wonder if this is some sort of optical illusion like the dress? I can't imagine Apple releasing a skewed product photo, but I can't see anything but a trapezoid when I look at that iPad on the left...
Apple is trying to made ipad become a laptop by adding keyboard, pen, upgrading iOS (files app, drop-n-drag).
It is funny because most people will go to work with a Mac/PC. Why should Apple try to make iPad become a Pc?
It is so late because Microsoft has Surface pro which runs windows long time ago. It is funny to see Apple adding file app, drag-n-drop features as improvements.
I actually think this is a major advantage for Apple.
While Microsoft is trying to pare down their desktop system while maintaining legacy code, Apple is able to add core features based on usage and demand. The iPad and Mac are like testing grounds for each other where both OSes can borrow good aspects from the other. Sometimes it’s easier to start from scratch and rethink the fundamentals rather than modifying existing ideas under constraints of the old paradigm.
Apple has MacOS already as a “fallback”. If Microsoft one day realizes that Apple’s tablet interface is the way to go, they would be seriously behind.
Under jobs, Apple has vision clarity, iOS was going to be primarily consumptive, and MacOS was production. The two were not to meet.
MSFT on the other hand had grown too many OSes to deal with capably, an example being that xbox, windows, windows CE all had their own implementation of TCP (iirc).
So MS decides to fix their architecture, unifying and ordering all implementations. It's a huge under taking.
Apple without jobs is meandering towards the same ideas. But iOS is not designed for these use cases. The iPad Pro and Mac OS will not converge. The best that the iPad Pro will become is a power android variant.
Microsoft will keep making surface and surface like devices, which will be not face that limitation.
If anything, Apple will have to imitate the entire Microsoft style, and include a touch screen on the mac, along with stylus support.
I think it's about the next generation of users. Been wondering how to explain a mouse to my five-year-old nephew, "You push this pointer around to push buttons on the screen." "Why not just push the button?" Every answer I try to formulate doesn't even convince me.
Lots of us really like the 2-in-1 concept and find it incredibly useful. Last time I bought a non-touch laptop, I quickly realized my mistake and took it back for a touch-screen model.
Otherwise, the long-term plan is to transition between the old Win32 API and the new Windows Runtime (which are both part of the same OS).
The transition to the UWP isn't going very well at the moment, of course, but Microsoft didn't know how it would go when it started. However, it's a long-term play so ask me again in 10 years.
If Microsoft hadn't made the move then it would clearly be a legacy OS. As it is, Windows 10 is a cloud-integrated, continuously-updated mobile OS with sandboxed apps maintained from an app store, just like iOS and Android. It just has rather too much of the old stuff hanging around as well...
I recently saw Ken Bone tweet "Savage" in a serious context. It's funny how fast 'youth'/'urban' culture is being swallowed up by mainstream typically out-of-touch demographics.
But I guess it's all part of this obsession with authenticity recently. This puts a lot of pressure on the youth to adapt quickly and develop new slang.
Not sure I feel comfortable with this development though. I'd rather be okay with big corporate marketing firms not being lame by using old slang, focusing on interesting but neutral copy, rather than them constantly keeping up with the latest slang and memes to seem in touch with 'millennials'.
They should know how defeating this feels to people 'in the know' aka people who pioneer what is cool.
The images make little sense. And then I got to the point where paragraphs referenced photo animations and the images were still, and realized they probably wanted to make some fancy animation that's not working on firefox.
I tried on chromium, and then on Safari on my iPhone. Same results. Not sure if they screwed up or what, but even the "Live Photos" images are stills that make no sense.
This appears to be revisionist history. Jobs saw phone interfaces via stylus, noted they sucked, concluded that interacting with a handheld device with a stylus sucks on principal. You can agree or disagree but it seems nonsensical to try to add words to inject your own context to revise history to render jobs correct if you don't think the original statement as given was correct.
Further that link commits the usual sin of ascribing the invention of tech that apple popularized to apple for no reason. Multitouch and gestures goes back to the 80s see
Quora is kind of a low value source. I would refute author on quora but they want access to read and manage my google contacts to create an account. Kind of one step up from malware I'm pretty sure they intend to use it to spam my contacts.
The context any statement is made in is very important and can't be ignored. At the time, we all remember the touchscreen devices that were popular. They had tiny little UI elements and basically required a stylus to interact with them.
I would make a slight but important modification to your second sentence:
concluded that interacting with a handheld device's *UI* with a stylus
sucks on principal.
That still holds. It's not a fair interpretation to think that Jobs considered having an optional stylus a failure.
I agree with respect to Quora in general, but that link summed up my feelings on the subject so I included it instead of writing it out myself.
> The context any statement is made in is very important and can't be ignored
The fact that Jobs said this can't be ignored: he would diss anything Apple did not (yet) have without needing a better reason than making Apple look good. He's the man who said "No one wants 'Hummer' 5-inch phones" (remember when that counted as huge?) and "You will need to file down your fingers to use 7-inch tablets" yet 3.5-inch iPhones could handle full-sized fingers just fine. I still remember the bogus[1] comparison shared by Apple fans that showed 3.5 inches as the perfect size for thumb reachability.
As you know Apple later entered those product categories without Apple adding anything significant to the formula.
1. Bogus because the phone sizes were not to scale. The thumb radius was larger on the smaller iPhone.
Fair point. I also remember Apple saying black and white screens were somehow superior to color. (Could be apocryphal)
FWIW, I use an iPhone SE because I still think the 5" phones are too annoying to use in one hand.
But yes, Apple has done this. I think the stylus thing has been beaten to death already, and I should have known better to be baited into a comment thread that isn't very useful anyway.
And if they don't use it themselves to spam everyone you've ever interacted with through a Google service, they'll have a data breach in the next few years and get their entire DB stolen by someone who will do at least a spam campaign with it.
He said that over seven years ago. Two years before the Surface. The tablets at the time definitely did require a little pointy device to access the Start menu and interact with the "Tablet" OSes that were just desktop OSes with a few bolt-ons.
Jobs has form for this kind of thing, too (breaking something to force developer behavior before reintroducing it when habits have changed).
Best example: the original Mac had no cursor keys (to force developers to build mouse-based UIs). Steven Levy writes about it at length in "Insanely Great".
If you make a "pro" device, well, graphics designers require the precision, and they are a big part of pro users. They aren't forcing you to use it, it supports touch too, so the only drawback is increased cost to support the option, really.
Apple introduced a Files app that essentially works like the Finder app on Mac. Moreover it even allows you to sync with third party cloud providers besides just iCloud. Lastly, it's putting in an actual dock, multiple window layouts, easy copy paste.
I think it's a real game changer and all of these are features that I've been truly looking forward to. It's almost like a turning point in my mind. It's crossed the threshold to where iOS can indeed act as a laptop/desktop replacement for a huge number of people.
Also, in response to a sibling comment on this thread; I don't think it'll be too long now before we see full blown app development on iPads as well.