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I fully admit I am a crusty old Mac user, who in fact started on the Mac back in those days. I perhaps don’t see the Pro in iPad Pro because I am wanting it to

I fully admit I am a crusty old Mac user, who in fact started on the Mac back in those days. I perhaps don’t see the Pro in iPad Pro because I am wanting it to basically be a Mac, but tablet. Maybe it is truly an orthogonal product that does pro work differently. But the software story just still feels incomplete. Just feels so limiting in terms of file system and such.

chongli 5y ago
I am also a crusty old Mac user from back then. I really miss MacOS 8 and its simplicity and spatial Finder. The iPad Pro is a pro device for creative professionals in visual arts only, to my knowledge. It’s definitely not a pro software development tool or anything else of the sort we’d use a Mac for. In some sense you can think of the iPad Pro as an attack on Wacom’s market. I’m not a creative pro by any stretch of the imagination. I use my iPad Pro for tutoring people remotely in mathematics, a task it excels at. I also play some games on it and use it for FaceTime calls because its front-facing camera is nicer than the one on my M1 MBA. I’m really happy with my iPad Pro even though I was hesitant about buying one for over a year. I was expecting buyers’ remorse to set in but it thankfully hasn’t. I keep finding new things to do with it. Scrolling through PDFs on the device is way smoother than the MBA, for example, so I’ve used it as a second screen for reading documentation while working.
- perardi 5y ago
  I’m a creative pro who works on math software, so, synergy. I just feel like I am slogging through mud to work with versions of mockups, quickly bouncing stuff to git or onto our damned fileserver, all that administrative jazz. (I will note my college illustration professor loves her iPad Pro with a passion that would fill an Apple keynote—she ditched her Wacom instantly.) But though I’m iffy on the Pro in iPad, I am pro iPad, if only because my somewhat elderly parents love the thing. They are like some Platonic ideal of iPad users—they have totally and completely ditched their Mac, and do all their banking and medical records and weather (old people love weather) on their iPad, with a fluency they never, ever came close to achieving with a mouse.
- Jcowell 5y ago
  I disagree. It makes a fantastic planning tool and on the fly monitor to my MacBook Pro and Mac Mini.
intergalplan 5y ago
It's basically "pro" for a bunch of uses that take advantage of the sensors, input methods, and form factor, a tolerable-to-good replacement for a few other use cases with the addition of a keyboard, and useless for a few cases where you either need a no-bullshit very powerful local workstation or a very open operating system (or both). Folks on HN have a strong tendency to label any computer-thing not serving that last use case, for which the iPad Pro is it no help at all, as a toy or "just a consumption device" (not saying you are, but it's a common sentiment on here). It's a kind of occupation-induced blindness, I think.
- perardi 5y ago
  (not saying you are, but it's a common sentiment on here). It's a kind of occupation-induced blindness, I think. Oh I am 100% guilty of that, and I admit that. I have been using Photoshop in some capacity since 1994, and I am 37 years old. So that “teeny tiny click targets and lots of keyboard chording” is just baked into the interaction homunculus in my head. It is admittedly difficult to for me to think of an iPad as a “Pro” tool. A blind spot I am working on, but once you get to be my age, you get set in your ways. You kids and your TikTok…
  - intergalplan 5y ago
    Oh, you didn't do it like some do, you just expressed that you didn't understand something, which is something everyone should probably do more often. Almost every time iPads come up on here there are several much more angry-seeming "LOL they're just toys for stupid consumer couch-potatoes to watch Netflix while conspicuously consuming Apple products, it's impossible to create things using a computer if you don't have root access" posts, which isn't at all the kind of thing you posted.
samatman 5y ago
Can't say I see it the same way about the file system, although I get where you're coming from about other limitations of the iPadOS way of doing things. I pay $2.99 a month for 200GB of iCloud, and what I get in return is a folder on my desktop which is shared between phone, tablet, and laptop. It "just works", I have no complaints. I'd be paying that money anyway just to back up my photos. The other way of doing things is the 'share' button, and when it works, it's really great. Sometimes it doesn't, because the app I want to use next hasn't registered itself properly or something, so I have to use Save to Files as a fallback. Which is fine and has never failed me.

chongli 5y ago

I am also a crusty old Mac user from back then. I really miss MacOS 8 and its simplicity and spatial Finder. The iPad Pro is a pro device for creative professionals in visual arts only, to my knowledge. It’s definitely not a pro software development tool or anything else of the sort we’d use a Mac for. In some sense you can think of the iPad Pro as an attack on Wacom’s market. I’m not a creative pro by any stretch of the imagination. I use my iPad Pro for tutoring people remotely in mathematics, a task it excels at. I also play some games on it and use it for FaceTime calls because its front-facing camera is nicer than the one on my M1 MBA. I’m really happy with my iPad Pro even though I was hesitant about buying one for over a year. I was expecting buyers’ remorse to set in but it thankfully hasn’t. I keep finding new things to do with it. Scrolling through PDFs on the device is way smoother than the MBA, for example, so I’ve used it as a second screen for reading documentation while working.

perardi 5y ago
I’m a creative pro who works on math software, so, synergy. I just feel like I am slogging through mud to work with versions of mockups, quickly bouncing stuff to git or onto our damned fileserver, all that administrative jazz. (I will note my college illustration professor loves her iPad Pro with a passion that would fill an Apple keynote—she ditched her Wacom instantly.) But though I’m iffy on the Pro in iPad, I am pro iPad, if only because my somewhat elderly parents love the thing. They are like some Platonic ideal of iPad users—they have totally and completely ditched their Mac, and do all their banking and medical records and weather (old people love weather) on their iPad, with a fluency they never, ever came close to achieving with a mouse.
Jcowell 5y ago
I disagree. It makes a fantastic planning tool and on the fly monitor to my MacBook Pro and Mac Mini.

intergalplan 5y ago

It's basically "pro" for a bunch of uses that take advantage of the sensors, input methods, and form factor, a tolerable-to-good replacement for a few other use cases with the addition of a keyboard, and useless for a few cases where you either need a no-bullshit very powerful local workstation or a very open operating system (or both). Folks on HN have a strong tendency to label any computer-thing not serving that last use case, for which the iPad Pro is it no help at all, as a toy or "just a consumption device" (not saying you are, but it's a common sentiment on here). It's a kind of occupation-induced blindness, I think.

perardi 5y ago
(not saying you are, but it's a common sentiment on here). It's a kind of occupation-induced blindness, I think. Oh I am 100% guilty of that, and I admit that. I have been using Photoshop in some capacity since 1994, and I am 37 years old. So that “teeny tiny click targets and lots of keyboard chording” is just baked into the interaction homunculus in my head. It is admittedly difficult to for me to think of an iPad as a “Pro” tool. A blind spot I am working on, but once you get to be my age, you get set in your ways. You kids and your TikTok…
- intergalplan 5y ago
  Oh, you didn't do it like some do, you just expressed that you didn't understand something, which is something everyone should probably do more often. Almost every time iPads come up on here there are several much more angry-seeming "LOL they're just toys for stupid consumer couch-potatoes to watch Netflix while conspicuously consuming Apple products, it's impossible to create things using a computer if you don't have root access" posts, which isn't at all the kind of thing you posted.

samatman 5y ago

Can't say I see it the same way about the file system, although I get where you're coming from about other limitations of the iPadOS way of doing things. I pay $2.99 a month for 200GB of iCloud, and what I get in return is a folder on my desktop which is shared between phone, tablet, and laptop. It "just works", I have no complaints. I'd be paying that money anyway just to back up my photos. The other way of doing things is the 'share' button, and when it works, it's really great. Sometimes it doesn't, because the app I want to use next hasn't registered itself properly or something, so I have to use Save to Files as a fallback. Which is fine and has never failed me.