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This thread is an incredibly frustrating example of people talking past each other, apparently just for the fun of it. The iPad lacks flexibility and as a resu
by caconym_ 7y ago
This thread is an incredibly frustrating example of people talking past each other, apparently just for the fun of it.
The iPad lacks flexibility and as a result it is less generally useful than a "PC". Can we agree on that? I own a 12.9" iPad Pro, I love it, and I'm fully bought in with the pencil and the keyboard folio and all that shit. If I want to write or draw or browse the web or watch a video, I reach for my iPad first because it does all those things just as well as or far better than my laptop, and nothing would delight me more than to be able to toss my laptop in the trash (or whatever). But I can't!
Neither can my partner, who does most of her computing (largely consumption) on her iPad, but often has to interact with institutional websites that have poor compatibility. Neither can my mom, for whom I bought an iPad in 2012, which she still uses and loves, but not even the latest and greatest iPad can support her hobby genealogy research workflow, so I had to buy her an iMac, too.
The author's tone may strike some people as inflammatory or self-centered or whatever, I guess, but his essential point is right: the iPad's apps-first design and locked-down nature keep it from being a first-class general-purpose computing machine, especially for creative work. That it works for some people is great--we don't have to fight about that, nor should we. Obviously it is a crazy good form factor and fully capable for many real professional tasks and workflows. But it should not be recommended as a PC replacement for somebody who hasn't looked at all the angles, because it simply isn't a fully capable replacement, and that's what the author is talking about. If anything, I think the author's point is made more narrowly than it could be.
- lonelappde 7y agoiPad is different, not less. I can't use my PC on a treadmill or in a hot tub or for GPS when I'm traveling or many other things.
- caconym_ 7y agoI can use my PC for all those things if I really want to; it's just less convenient and less compelling a form factor. Those things are the big reason the iPad sells despite not being a fully-capable PC replacement.
- doctor_eval 7y agoBut you can use your iPad for all these other things too. That’s the point of this. There are work arounds in both directions. Nothing is stopping you from using an iPad to VNC into a Windows PC on AWS to access that website. It’s inconvenient and complex, just like using your PC on a treadmill, but it’s certainly possible.
- p1necone 7y agoI don't think remoting in to an entirely different device really counts as a workaround, that's just using a different device because the iPad can't do it.
- NikolaeVarius 7y agoI'll tell all those people using thin clients that they are doing it wrong
- p1necone 7y agoIf someone tried to sell me a thin client "pro" and told me it would replace my desktop PC I'd complain too.
- nessus42 7y agoPlan 9 was designed to work with Blit (or similar) terminals, which were basically thin-clients that would be backed by a Plan 9 server cloud. On the other hand, maybe there's a good reason that Plan 9 never caught on.
- caconym_ 7y agoOr I could hire an assistant to sit in front of a computer, follow my directions issued via Facetime running on my iPad, and read back the results (or not, if I only care about side-effects). Is that interesting in the context of a frank discussion of the iPad's capabilities as a general-purpose computing device? No, it isn't.
- ohazi 7y agoThe frustration is not that it's different or less, it's that it could be better if apple was actually willing to try. You don't need to sacrifice composability just because of the tablet form factor. You need to be careful with the input methods, sure, but composability on a tablet could actually be better than on a PC if designed well, but we'll never know until someone bothers to try.
- criddell 7y agoI'm in the camp that thinks Apple made a mistake adding multitasking to the iPad. I don't want my iPad to be more PC-like. The changes were significant and iOS is less stable now than it used to be. Even if they get all the bugs ironed out, I'm still a little sad that they clearly want to take the device in that direction. For similar reasons I thought Microsoft made a big mistake dumping the Windows 7 UI for Metro (or whatever it's actually called). If I want to do PC-type stuff, I'll do it on my PC. Tablet stuff I'll do on a tablet.
- graeme 7y agoIpad multitasking existed in ios 12 too. And ios 13 is less stable on iphone too, which had no multitasking. I think you’re conflating multitasking and stability.
- caconym_ 7y agoI don't really like the multitasking implementation, and I definitely don't need it. Multitasking was never one of the things standing in the way of my iPad being a PC replacement for me.