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For me the overall experience just doesn't work as a productivity device. The gestures to multitask are too complex. Every edge and corner has a different meani

by notJim 6y ago

For me the overall experience just doesn't work as a productivity device. The gestures to multitask are too complex. Every edge and corner has a different meaning, and swiping does several different things depending on direction. It's not natural to have your monitor and keyboard super close together, and to have your monitor sitting directly on a desk. It's not comfortable to poke a semi-vertical touchscreen over a long period of time where you have to support your whole arm while also making precise movements with your fingers. Fingers are not precise enough to interact with basic elements like text fields and buttons. I'm sitting here at my desk with its large monitor on an arm, mechanical keyboard and precision mouse and appreciating the years of thought that went into making this setup work. I think there is a possibility of something better with an iPad like device, but Apple would need to be far more ambitious than they've been so far.

enos_feedler 6y ago
Productivity takes many shapes and forms. The use cases highlighted in the video were about capturing video podcasts, rendering previews in the field, etc. you can be productive without fitting into the traditional mold of productive computing. Thats what ipad is after.
- jshen 6y ago
  ipad's limitations are arbitrary and have no strong reason to exist. I've been an apple fan for years, and bought my first PC in nearly 20 years recently because I shouldn't have to buy two very expensive apple devices (a mac, and an ipad) to cover all of my use cases.
  - emsy 6y ago
    Exactly, the Mac has very biased defaults but is open to customization. The iPad is very biased period. It’s „you’re using it wrong“ taken to the extreme. The device should work for the user. Every time I see a convoluted iPad remote webdev setup I can’t help but think the user is working for the device. (I have the same feeling towards using VIM as a general purpose IDE. It works but requires much more work than, say, using VSCode with a VI plug-in).
  - lazide 6y ago
    It’s been gratifying to see I’m not the only one with these issues! That said, lineage wise the limitations and issues aren’t arbitrary - iPadOS is basically a slightly upsized clone of iOS, and just like you wouldn’t be using your phone for precision data/pointing (or if you were it wouldn’t be as buy a deal, because you’d just be using a finger/thumb and not reaching across a keyboard), the original nature of iPad interactions are similar. Obviously seeing some improvements, but for instance copying 50GB of high precision photos (without potentially mangling them/importing them because it’s a dataset not a bunch of snapshots!) is a terrible experience in iPadOS - and a trivial exercise in every laptop/pc OS out there. They’ve got a long way to go, unfortunately, especially for enterprise use cases. The hardware really has potential though!
    - jshen 6y ago
      yeah, I love the limitations in ios for my phone, but not for my computer!
  - enos_feedler 6y ago
    If ipad’s limitations were arbitrary they wouldn’t exist. The product design is shaped by the use cases it optimizes for. This is no different than saying a GPU has arbitrary limitations for running general C++ code. In some sense yes, you could make a single thread c++ compiler target the GPU, but 1) it wouldnt fit the design well and 2) changing the design to make it work well would mess up the original intended use case.
    - jshen 6y ago
      That's fair, arbitrary wasn't the right word. They were chosen for the use case of a smart phone, not a general purpose computer. People pretending that they are reasonable for a general purpose computer are missing the boat IMO. But some things are arbitrary. For example, only allowing one web browser engine is 100% arbitrary (or worse, an abuse of monopoly power).
      - enos_feedler 6y ago
        MacOS allows arbitrary web browser engines, yet I just use safari. My mac has never felt less like a general purpose computer because of this. How is this related?
        jshen 6y ago
        I’m a developer that often does web work. I need to test on multiple browsers, which is literally impossible on the iPad for no good reason.
        patates 6y ago
        Additionally: I have this beautiful device with great computing power but I can't install my favorite extensions on its browser.
      - enos_feedler 6y ago
        Yes those people are missing the boat. We don’t have to worry about them though. Let’em suffer the pain of ignorance ;)
deergomoo 6y ago
> It's not comfortable to poke a semi-vertical touchscreen over a long period of time where you have to support your whole arm while also making precise movements with your fingers. To be fair I think Apple knows this too, which is why trackpad/mouse support is now a first class feature rather than an accessibility option. And also probably why they have never released touch Macs.

by notJim 6y ago

enos_feedler 6y ago

Productivity takes many shapes and forms. The use cases highlighted in the video were about capturing video podcasts, rendering previews in the field, etc. you can be productive without fitting into the traditional mold of productive computing. Thats what ipad is after.

jshen 6y ago
ipad's limitations are arbitrary and have no strong reason to exist. I've been an apple fan for years, and bought my first PC in nearly 20 years recently because I shouldn't have to buy two very expensive apple devices (a mac, and an ipad) to cover all of my use cases.
- emsy 6y ago
  Exactly, the Mac has very biased defaults but is open to customization. The iPad is very biased period. It’s „you’re using it wrong“ taken to the extreme. The device should work for the user. Every time I see a convoluted iPad remote webdev setup I can’t help but think the user is working for the device. (I have the same feeling towards using VIM as a general purpose IDE. It works but requires much more work than, say, using VSCode with a VI plug-in).
- lazide 6y ago
  It’s been gratifying to see I’m not the only one with these issues! That said, lineage wise the limitations and issues aren’t arbitrary - iPadOS is basically a slightly upsized clone of iOS, and just like you wouldn’t be using your phone for precision data/pointing (or if you were it wouldn’t be as buy a deal, because you’d just be using a finger/thumb and not reaching across a keyboard), the original nature of iPad interactions are similar. Obviously seeing some improvements, but for instance copying 50GB of high precision photos (without potentially mangling them/importing them because it’s a dataset not a bunch of snapshots!) is a terrible experience in iPadOS - and a trivial exercise in every laptop/pc OS out there. They’ve got a long way to go, unfortunately, especially for enterprise use cases. The hardware really has potential though!
  - jshen 6y ago
    yeah, I love the limitations in ios for my phone, but not for my computer!
- enos_feedler 6y ago
  If ipad’s limitations were arbitrary they wouldn’t exist. The product design is shaped by the use cases it optimizes for. This is no different than saying a GPU has arbitrary limitations for running general C++ code. In some sense yes, you could make a single thread c++ compiler target the GPU, but 1) it wouldnt fit the design well and 2) changing the design to make it work well would mess up the original intended use case.
  - jshen 6y ago
    That's fair, arbitrary wasn't the right word. They were chosen for the use case of a smart phone, not a general purpose computer. People pretending that they are reasonable for a general purpose computer are missing the boat IMO. But some things are arbitrary. For example, only allowing one web browser engine is 100% arbitrary (or worse, an abuse of monopoly power).
    - enos_feedler 6y ago
      MacOS allows arbitrary web browser engines, yet I just use safari. My mac has never felt less like a general purpose computer because of this. How is this related?
      - jshen 6y ago
        I’m a developer that often does web work. I need to test on multiple browsers, which is literally impossible on the iPad for no good reason.
        patates 6y ago
        Additionally: I have this beautiful device with great computing power but I can't install my favorite extensions on its browser.
    - enos_feedler 6y ago
      Yes those people are missing the boat. We don’t have to worry about them though. Let’em suffer the pain of ignorance ;)

deergomoo 6y ago

> It's not comfortable to poke a semi-vertical touchscreen over a long period of time where you have to support your whole arm while also making precise movements with your fingers. To be fair I think Apple knows this too, which is why trackpad/mouse support is now a first class feature rather than an accessibility option. And also probably why they have never released touch Macs.