7 ms·

This is a very good take on the subject. I love the iPad, I use it all the time. It's an unbelievably good piece of hardware with a number of really good softwa

by jwr 7y ago

This is a very good take on the subject. I love the iPad, I use it all the time. It's an unbelievably good piece of hardware with a number of really good software applications. It is a surprisingly good thinking and note-taking tool, it's the best tool (period) for reading datasheets (or any large PDF documents), it is a great music workstation if you connect a MIDI keyboard and/or an external USB audio interface. But it is so sadly limited by the user interface and artificial restrictions that Apple places on the OS. The worst thing is that the forced over-simplification of the UI features did not make it easier to use for beginners. I can see many people (including myself) struggling. So we have been forced into a "compromise" with all the downside, but none of the upside. Given how great the hardware is (really, I think this is under-appreciated), I really hope Apple can get out of that thinking rut. I also think that the slow iPad sales are directly connected to the mediocre OS software.

tomgp 7y ago
Spot on. I've been using an iPad Pro for 3 years now I use it every day and I love it but I still can't reliably get two apps to sit side-by side on the screen.
- dceddia 7y ago
  I just got an iPad Pro and I agree this gesture is awkward. Plus, some apps seem to not support it at all, so it’ll silently fail when one of those apps is on either side.
- ghaff 7y ago
  Maybe if I used the feature more. But the only time I use it is with a somewhat older large iPad that I sometimes use for drawing but which mostly sits in my kitchen to display recipes. I can never remember the right incantations when I try to do the split screen thing. And don't even try on the smaller iPad I use day to day.
acqq 7y ago
> The worst thing is that the forced over-simplification of the UI features did not make it easier to use for beginners. I believe Gruber argues completely the opposite: that the recent changes to add features like split screen make it more confusing (e.g. the example of his mother getting stuck in the split screen and calling him). He continues in the very article we comment here (emphasis mine): "if I could go back to the pre-split-screen, pre-drag-and-drop interface I would. Which is to say, now that iPadOS has its own name, I wish I could install the iPhone’s one-app-on-screen-at-a-time, no-drag-and-drop iOS on my iPad Pro. I’d do it in a heartbeat and be much happier for it." And I think that should be a configurable accessibility option: to have UI completely discoverable and non-stuckable, even if some "so-called-Pro" features need more steps (or can't be implemented). Or even better and safer: that should be the default, with "advanced" shortcuts as an opt-in option. The interface should by default to never bring users to the point where they can remain "stuck" in some mode from which they can't get out. Steve Jobs understood that that 100% "discoverability" and "non stuckiness" must be the default UI, that's why Gruber would like to switch back to that older ideal. And Steve Jobs was old enough to learn that much earlier: that the "modes" are bad and that good UI doesn't require one to do some magic to switch between them, as it can be summarized in the joke: "How to Quit Vim and Exit the VI Editor — the most popular Stack Overflow question -- and I'm using vi last two years because I can't figure out how to exit it." Even these "visual" UI changes that made the UI more "Ive-conform" (removing buttons and having only text) made the UI more confusing for anybody not trained and retrained. The back "button" in the apps was drawn as a button when Jobs controlled the UI. Then it got to be switched to just the < sign, which those who don't frequently use the UI never understand to be anything more than a meaningless symbol on the screen.
- Phenix88be 7y ago
  > And Steve Jobs was old enough to learn that much earlier: that the "modes" are bad and that good UI doesn't require one to do some magic to switch between them, as it can be summarized in the joke: "How to Quit Vim and Exit the VI Editor — the most popular Stack Overflow question -- and I'm using vi last two years because I can't figure out how to exit it." The more a software do, the less it's user friendly... You can't really compare Vi, a text editor that need training to master by technician, and the IpadOS. They are not made for the same people.
have_faith 7y ago
I think a big part of the mediocre sales is related to the use-cases that most iPad users have which seems to mostly be watching videos, browsing the internet, reading etc. Any 2 or 3 generation old iPad will do this fine with very little reason to upgrade. It doesn't have anything near comparable to the upgrade path that a lot of phone users who seem very eager to upgrade to a better camera/battery/etc.
- devxpy 7y ago
  Exactly. If it were not for the OS, the hardware seems to be a lot more capable than casual entertainment. These use cases simply don't push the hardware to its limits.
  - arethuza 7y ago
    My iPad must be 4 or 5 years old and seems perfectly capable of pretty much everything I use it for (videos from various sources), lightweight web browsing, looking at pictures, browsing Ordnance Survey maps... Only reason I would upgrade is if I break it (unlikely as I don't take it outside very often) or when iOS upgrades stop (which is what happened to two previous iPads I have in a drawer somewhere).
    - mtgx 7y ago
      He meant UX and feature-wise capable, not hardware-wise. He's right, if the OS itself was more advanced, than even if the same people who own iPads now wouldn't be interested in using those features other than their regular media consumption, it would still open up a new market for the iPad (new target audience). But with its current limitations, it can't do that.
- jeromegv 7y ago
  The iPad is a 20 BILLION dollar a year business. Let's not get crazy on "mediocre" sales, this is one of the most popular product line of all companies combined. Did not get as high as some people were expecting but this is far from mediocre. Source: https://sixcolors.com/post/2020/01/fun-with-charts-a-decade-of-apple-growth/ https://sixcolors.com/post/2020/01/fun-with-charts-a-decade-...
amelius 7y ago
> it's the best tool (period) for reading datasheets (or any large PDF documents) Sounds intriguing. How would I go about copying the PDFs that are currently on my Linux PC onto it, though?
- GarrisonPrime 7y ago
  Pass them through an intermediary, such as Google Drive?
- wffurr 7y ago
  Dropbox, Google Drive, iCloud, a USB cable, a USB drive... Classic solution is email it to yourself.
  - amelius 7y ago
    > a USB drive For a moment I thought this was going to be the solution, but then I looked into it and it turns out that you need an external power supply even for a flash drive.
- acolumb 7y ago
  I use Nextcloud[1], a self-hosted, platform-agnostic file sharing / personal cloud app. It's FOSS and is super easy to set up through Docker. Whatever file I put onto it is available on iOS, Android, a browser and WebDAV. It also supports camera upload. Germany recently switched to Nextcloud[2] to share data between agencies and as a privacy-respecting alternative to G Suite / MS. When I upload a .doc to the platform my iPhone can open it within the app. Same for PDFs. [1] https://nextcloud.com https://nextcloud.com [2] https://nextcloud.com/blog/german-federal-administration-relies-on-nextcloud-as-a-secure-file-exchange-solution/ https://nextcloud.com/blog/german-federal-administration-rel...
- eyesee 7y ago
  The included "Files" app in iOS/iPadOS 13 can mount SMB shares.
- jwr 7y ago
  I use Readdle PDF Expert (or the free Documents), which syncs entire directories from Dropbox, both ways.
Wowfunhappy 7y ago
> The worst thing is that the forced over-simplification of the UI features did not make it easier to use for beginners. I can see many people (including myself) struggling. So we have been forced into a "compromise" with all the downside, but none of the upside. I wholly disagree, at least at the beginning. When the original iPad was released, I remember seeing multiple viral videos of two-year-olds being given iPads and instantly figuring out how to use them. At the time, this was surprising. I think we've forgotten just how simple iOS was in the Steve Jobs era. You had a grid of objects, and when you tapped an opbject, your device became that object until you transformed it back with the home button. There was no control center, no notification center, and no app switcher—even when Apple added "multitasking" in iOS 4, it took the form of a little bar, not a new view. I'm not ready to say Apple should get rid of Notification Center, because it's pretty darn useful. But I would like a single kill switch in Settings which turns all these features off. Then I could enable it for my grandmother. The iPad, for its part, should be simpler than the iPhone, because simplicity is the iPad's reason for existence. Laptops exist because they are (and continue to be) the most efficient way to get things done. The iPhone exists because it's a relatively capable device that fits in your pocket. And the iPad exists so you can browse the web and watch Netflix in a focused and leisurely way. iPads also make these tasks accessible for people who are not familiar with computing and will be more comfortable a simpler environment. By attempting to make the iPad as capable as a laptop, Apple is taking away the iPad's very real original use-case in service of a use-cases for which the iPad is inherently ill-suited. And for what? To compete with a class of product which Apple already makes? 2010 iPads were great at what they did, and 2010 Macs were great at what they did. I legitimately don't understand why 2020 Apple is now on a mission to conflate these two product lines. Even if Apple succeeds at making the iPad as capable as a Mac, what will all their work have accomplished?
- Balanceinfinity 7y ago
  I have to disagree - the ipad shouldn't be simpler than the iPhone - it should be binary: simpler for the grandparents, powerful enough to compete against a surface. When I travel, I'm only taking 1 big screen. The ipad should replace my laptop for trips where I don't have to work a bunch.
72deluxe 7y ago
I literally have no idea how any newbie will know how to use the iPad via the array of gestures to show the dock, go home, switch apps, move an app over another, move them side-by-side, know that you can use mutliple fingers on the keyboard to use it as a cursor pad. I used to think the meaningless icons with zero text or popup hints were bad (they are!) and the zero differentiation between a UI item and ordinary text (a button or link just looks like ordinary text, so you have to fumble around with the UI to guess what you can press; horrible flatness) was bad, but the inability to discover gestures other than behaving like a 2-year old with their first "feeling/textures" toy is the worst. It just isn't obvious.
- simonh 7y ago
  So we need to add multitasking controls directly to the visible UI. That means they could be accidentally triggered much more easily, so we'd need to do that in a clear and obvious way that isn't confusing, doesn't lead to accidental triggering and is easy and obvious to get out of. Also they need to be unobtrusive and minimise the impact on the display of applications and content. Clearly having obscure gestures trigger functionality isn't ideal, but are the alternatives actually better, or even viable? I do agree with Gruber, the current gestures and behaviours are awkward. I can think of some alternatives that might help. One would be to run your primary app, then have a Control Center widget activate a multitasking layout, then it display the home screen as an overlay, so you can choose any app to go into the 'second slot' of the chosen layout. That may well come with negative tradeoffs, but at least the app selection/launch process would be familiar. There may be things that can be done. However there are no magic wands here. Getting rid of gestures sound great, but then what do you replace them with?
  - 72deluxe 7y ago
    A single gesture from one side of the screen, in the style of the Windows 8 charms? A set of buttons (side-by-side, floating, switch foreground/background floating etc). Or put it on the dock. One gesture to learn - show the dock, multitasking actions.

by jwr 7y ago

tomgp 7y ago

Spot on. I've been using an iPad Pro for 3 years now I use it every day and I love it but I still can't reliably get two apps to sit side-by side on the screen.

dceddia 7y ago
I just got an iPad Pro and I agree this gesture is awkward. Plus, some apps seem to not support it at all, so it’ll silently fail when one of those apps is on either side.
ghaff 7y ago
Maybe if I used the feature more. But the only time I use it is with a somewhat older large iPad that I sometimes use for drawing but which mostly sits in my kitchen to display recipes. I can never remember the right incantations when I try to do the split screen thing. And don't even try on the smaller iPad I use day to day.

acqq 7y ago

> The worst thing is that the forced over-simplification of the UI features did not make it easier to use for beginners. I believe Gruber argues completely the opposite: that the recent changes to add features like split screen make it more confusing (e.g. the example of his mother getting stuck in the split screen and calling him). He continues in the very article we comment here (emphasis mine): "if I could go back to the pre-split-screen, pre-drag-and-drop interface I would. Which is to say, now that iPadOS has its own name, I wish I could install the iPhone’s one-app-on-screen-at-a-time, no-drag-and-drop iOS on my iPad Pro. I’d do it in a heartbeat and be much happier for it." And I think that should be a configurable accessibility option: to have UI completely discoverable and non-stuckable, even if some "so-called-Pro" features need more steps (or can't be implemented). Or even better and safer: that should be the default, with "advanced" shortcuts as an opt-in option. The interface should by default to never bring users to the point where they can remain "stuck" in some mode from which they can't get out. Steve Jobs understood that that 100% "discoverability" and "non stuckiness" must be the default UI, that's why Gruber would like to switch back to that older ideal. And Steve Jobs was old enough to learn that much earlier: that the "modes" are bad and that good UI doesn't require one to do some magic to switch between them, as it can be summarized in the joke: "How to Quit Vim and Exit the VI Editor — the most popular Stack Overflow question -- and I'm using vi last two years because I can't figure out how to exit it." Even these "visual" UI changes that made the UI more "Ive-conform" (removing buttons and having only text) made the UI more confusing for anybody not trained and retrained. The back "button" in the apps was drawn as a button when Jobs controlled the UI. Then it got to be switched to just the < sign, which those who don't frequently use the UI never understand to be anything more than a meaningless symbol on the screen.

Phenix88be 7y ago
> And Steve Jobs was old enough to learn that much earlier: that the "modes" are bad and that good UI doesn't require one to do some magic to switch between them, as it can be summarized in the joke: "How to Quit Vim and Exit the VI Editor — the most popular Stack Overflow question -- and I'm using vi last two years because I can't figure out how to exit it." The more a software do, the less it's user friendly... You can't really compare Vi, a text editor that need training to master by technician, and the IpadOS. They are not made for the same people.

have_faith 7y ago

I think a big part of the mediocre sales is related to the use-cases that most iPad users have which seems to mostly be watching videos, browsing the internet, reading etc. Any 2 or 3 generation old iPad will do this fine with very little reason to upgrade. It doesn't have anything near comparable to the upgrade path that a lot of phone users who seem very eager to upgrade to a better camera/battery/etc.

devxpy 7y ago
Exactly. If it were not for the OS, the hardware seems to be a lot more capable than casual entertainment. These use cases simply don't push the hardware to its limits.
- arethuza 7y ago
  My iPad must be 4 or 5 years old and seems perfectly capable of pretty much everything I use it for (videos from various sources), lightweight web browsing, looking at pictures, browsing Ordnance Survey maps... Only reason I would upgrade is if I break it (unlikely as I don't take it outside very often) or when iOS upgrades stop (which is what happened to two previous iPads I have in a drawer somewhere).
  - mtgx 7y ago
    He meant UX and feature-wise capable, not hardware-wise. He's right, if the OS itself was more advanced, than even if the same people who own iPads now wouldn't be interested in using those features other than their regular media consumption, it would still open up a new market for the iPad (new target audience). But with its current limitations, it can't do that.
jeromegv 7y ago
The iPad is a 20 BILLION dollar a year business. Let's not get crazy on "mediocre" sales, this is one of the most popular product line of all companies combined. Did not get as high as some people were expecting but this is far from mediocre. Source: https://sixcolors.com/post/2020/01/fun-with-charts-a-decade-of-apple-growth/ https://sixcolors.com/post/2020/01/fun-with-charts-a-decade-...

amelius 7y ago

> it's the best tool (period) for reading datasheets (or any large PDF documents) Sounds intriguing. How would I go about copying the PDFs that are currently on my Linux PC onto it, though?

GarrisonPrime 7y ago
Pass them through an intermediary, such as Google Drive?
wffurr 7y ago
Dropbox, Google Drive, iCloud, a USB cable, a USB drive... Classic solution is email it to yourself.
- amelius 7y ago
  > a USB drive For a moment I thought this was going to be the solution, but then I looked into it and it turns out that you need an external power supply even for a flash drive.
acolumb 7y ago
I use Nextcloud[1], a self-hosted, platform-agnostic file sharing / personal cloud app. It's FOSS and is super easy to set up through Docker. Whatever file I put onto it is available on iOS, Android, a browser and WebDAV. It also supports camera upload. Germany recently switched to Nextcloud[2] to share data between agencies and as a privacy-respecting alternative to G Suite / MS. When I upload a .doc to the platform my iPhone can open it within the app. Same for PDFs. [1] https://nextcloud.com https://nextcloud.com [2] https://nextcloud.com/blog/german-federal-administration-relies-on-nextcloud-as-a-secure-file-exchange-solution/ https://nextcloud.com/blog/german-federal-administration-rel...
eyesee 7y ago
The included "Files" app in iOS/iPadOS 13 can mount SMB shares.
jwr 7y ago
I use Readdle PDF Expert (or the free Documents), which syncs entire directories from Dropbox, both ways.

Wowfunhappy 7y ago

> The worst thing is that the forced over-simplification of the UI features did not make it easier to use for beginners. I can see many people (including myself) struggling. So we have been forced into a "compromise" with all the downside, but none of the upside. I wholly disagree, at least at the beginning. When the original iPad was released, I remember seeing multiple viral videos of two-year-olds being given iPads and instantly figuring out how to use them. At the time, this was surprising. I think we've forgotten just how simple iOS was in the Steve Jobs era. You had a grid of objects, and when you tapped an opbject, your device became that object until you transformed it back with the home button. There was no control center, no notification center, and no app switcher—even when Apple added "multitasking" in iOS 4, it took the form of a little bar, not a new view. I'm not ready to say Apple should get rid of Notification Center, because it's pretty darn useful. But I would like a single kill switch in Settings which turns all these features off. Then I could enable it for my grandmother. The iPad, for its part, should be simpler than the iPhone, because simplicity is the iPad's reason for existence. Laptops exist because they are (and continue to be) the most efficient way to get things done. The iPhone exists because it's a relatively capable device that fits in your pocket. And the iPad exists so you can browse the web and watch Netflix in a focused and leisurely way. iPads also make these tasks accessible for people who are not familiar with computing and will be more comfortable a simpler environment. By attempting to make the iPad as capable as a laptop, Apple is taking away the iPad's very real original use-case in service of a use-cases for which the iPad is inherently ill-suited. And for what? To compete with a class of product which Apple already makes? 2010 iPads were great at what they did, and 2010 Macs were great at what they did. I legitimately don't understand why 2020 Apple is now on a mission to conflate these two product lines. Even if Apple succeeds at making the iPad as capable as a Mac, what will all their work have accomplished?

Balanceinfinity 7y ago
I have to disagree - the ipad shouldn't be simpler than the iPhone - it should be binary: simpler for the grandparents, powerful enough to compete against a surface. When I travel, I'm only taking 1 big screen. The ipad should replace my laptop for trips where I don't have to work a bunch.

72deluxe 7y ago

I literally have no idea how any newbie will know how to use the iPad via the array of gestures to show the dock, go home, switch apps, move an app over another, move them side-by-side, know that you can use mutliple fingers on the keyboard to use it as a cursor pad. I used to think the meaningless icons with zero text or popup hints were bad (they are!) and the zero differentiation between a UI item and ordinary text (a button or link just looks like ordinary text, so you have to fumble around with the UI to guess what you can press; horrible flatness) was bad, but the inability to discover gestures other than behaving like a 2-year old with their first "feeling/textures" toy is the worst. It just isn't obvious.

simonh 7y ago
So we need to add multitasking controls directly to the visible UI. That means they could be accidentally triggered much more easily, so we'd need to do that in a clear and obvious way that isn't confusing, doesn't lead to accidental triggering and is easy and obvious to get out of. Also they need to be unobtrusive and minimise the impact on the display of applications and content. Clearly having obscure gestures trigger functionality isn't ideal, but are the alternatives actually better, or even viable? I do agree with Gruber, the current gestures and behaviours are awkward. I can think of some alternatives that might help. One would be to run your primary app, then have a Control Center widget activate a multitasking layout, then it display the home screen as an overlay, so you can choose any app to go into the 'second slot' of the chosen layout. That may well come with negative tradeoffs, but at least the app selection/launch process would be familiar. There may be things that can be done. However there are no magic wands here. Getting rid of gestures sound great, but then what do you replace them with?
- 72deluxe 7y ago
  A single gesture from one side of the screen, in the style of the Windows 8 charms? A set of buttons (side-by-side, floating, switch foreground/background floating etc). Or put it on the dock. One gesture to learn - show the dock, multitasking actions.