4 ms·

I don't think you've actually used the iPad to browse the web. Personally, I block flash on my desktop and rarely find reason to unblock it, so the lack of flas

by necubi 17y ago

I don't think you've actually used the iPad to browse the web. Personally, I block flash on my desktop and rarely find reason to unblock it, so the lack of flash doesn't bother me. Meanwhile, surfing on the iPad is in general so nice that I've been doing it even when near my computer.

zzzmarcus 17y ago
I have an iPad and I don't really miss Flash too much, but I do find other aspects of web browsing much less efficient. Tabs are much more cumbersome. Instead of just clicking a tab, you've got to zoom out, pick your window and zoom back in. It's a lot more motion. Scrolling, typing, copying and pasting are also not as simple. Touch scrolling is nice, but it's a lot more movement. Typing and copy/paste are just slower. I still type slower on the large iPad keyboard than on the much smaller iPhone keyboard. Another problem I have with it is that if I'm filling out a form, for example a message on Facebook, and I need to switch to email to copy something and come back to Safari and paste it in, there is no guarantee that the Facebook message I started typing will still be there. It's a little frustrating. I'm sure all these kinks will eventually be worked out, but as it is, I still find myself grabbing my Macbook Pro when I'm going to be any "serious" browsing or my iPhone when I'm just looking something up really quickly. I really like the iPad for some things, but in my experience, browsing hasn't been all it was cracked up to be.
kenjackson 17y ago
It's a great experience for browsing a web page. But here's something I had to do when I had my iPad, which sucked with it, but is great on desktop: We have a wiki and I needed to move a bunch of comments to work items in our bug database. So on my desktop I would have just have two instances of the browser open and would literally read from the wiki and create new work items in the bug database. On the iPad this was painful. There's no side by side view (that I could get to work at least), and it seemed to reload the bug database every time I'd toggle back to that page!!! I don't want a reload, just show me the page I was looking at 10 seconds ago! Not a good experience.
- commieneko 17y ago
  The side by side issue for windows, especially browsers is intrinsic in the small screen size. For now, the desktop is the place for activity like that. However ... Remember all those Star Trek episodes with people sitting at a desk with _several_ pad like devices spread out in front of them; like a paper covered desk? Now imagine a similar situation with several tablet devices that have some type of screen bridging/device linking software. I can easily imagine scenarios where this will be useful. Now imagine combining that _with_ a desktop display. Frankly, I think there is a big future in tablet and multi-screen devices as adjunct input and manipulation platforms. Dig up a copy of a short anime called _Pale Cocoon_ and watch what the people are doing with the computer interfaces in that show. Whether or not the UI concepts would actually work in real life, the ideas presented are _very_ much worth thinking about.

by necubi 17y ago

zzzmarcus 17y ago

I have an iPad and I don't really miss Flash too much, but I do find other aspects of web browsing much less efficient. Tabs are much more cumbersome. Instead of just clicking a tab, you've got to zoom out, pick your window and zoom back in. It's a lot more motion. Scrolling, typing, copying and pasting are also not as simple. Touch scrolling is nice, but it's a lot more movement. Typing and copy/paste are just slower. I still type slower on the large iPad keyboard than on the much smaller iPhone keyboard. Another problem I have with it is that if I'm filling out a form, for example a message on Facebook, and I need to switch to email to copy something and come back to Safari and paste it in, there is no guarantee that the Facebook message I started typing will still be there. It's a little frustrating. I'm sure all these kinks will eventually be worked out, but as it is, I still find myself grabbing my Macbook Pro when I'm going to be any "serious" browsing or my iPhone when I'm just looking something up really quickly. I really like the iPad for some things, but in my experience, browsing hasn't been all it was cracked up to be.

kenjackson 17y ago

It's a great experience for browsing a web page. But here's something I had to do when I had my iPad, which sucked with it, but is great on desktop: We have a wiki and I needed to move a bunch of comments to work items in our bug database. So on my desktop I would have just have two instances of the browser open and would literally read from the wiki and create new work items in the bug database. On the iPad this was painful. There's no side by side view (that I could get to work at least), and it seemed to reload the bug database every time I'd toggle back to that page!!! I don't want a reload, just show me the page I was looking at 10 seconds ago! Not a good experience.

commieneko 17y ago
The side by side issue for windows, especially browsers is intrinsic in the small screen size. For now, the desktop is the place for activity like that. However ... Remember all those Star Trek episodes with people sitting at a desk with _several_ pad like devices spread out in front of them; like a paper covered desk? Now imagine a similar situation with several tablet devices that have some type of screen bridging/device linking software. I can easily imagine scenarios where this will be useful. Now imagine combining that _with_ a desktop display. Frankly, I think there is a big future in tablet and multi-screen devices as adjunct input and manipulation platforms. Dig up a copy of a short anime called _Pale Cocoon_ and watch what the people are doing with the computer interfaces in that show. Whether or not the UI concepts would actually work in real life, the ideas presented are _very_ much worth thinking about.