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I can't stress enough how bad apple devices are for the uninitiated. I got my mom an iPad for her birthday, as she needed something to read medical books with c

I can't stress enough how bad apple devices are for the uninitiated. I got my mom an iPad for her birthday, as she needed something to read medical books with color and watch YouTube. It took her a week to get youtube working, and copying over PDFs is still done piecmeal - sending each file from her Windows PC one by one using a messaging app. She tried to install apps, but the app store progress thing was just spinning. With no indication as to what she was doing wrong. Turns out she just needed to upgrade to the latest iOS. And the instructions that I had looked up before buying the iPad on how to copy PDFs to an iPad have been deprecated as of the latest iTunes release. And iCloud Drive's upload button is greyed out, with the tooltip informing us that _uploading is disabled_. Since I can't travel 1000 miles to help her out in person, the fact that I have to debug this over a video call is even worse. Why is copying a file such a hard thing to do? Why is updating the iPad something my mother would have to think about? This is the UX I'd expect from some cheap Samsung tablet, yet I'm sure that with a Samsung tablet, copying a file onto a device over USB wouldn't be an issue.

jmrm 5y ago
I haven't done something like that on an iPad, but I think that Apple want people to use these devices in a way that every app have their files, like for example iPods used to store the music (you could drop files on the iPod storage but you need iTunes to insert your MP3s on the "player app"). The best thing you could do is looking for a tutorial to do that, and also a software to control that iPad remotely, so you don't have to videocall your mother to give her instructions.
- eptcyka 5y ago
  I based my purchasing decision on existing tutorials. But a recent iTunes update obsoleted those (iTunes won't manage your books anymore).
  - vkou 5y ago
    Your first mistake was dancing with the devil that is iTunes. It is one of the worst pieces of software I've had the dubious privilege of using, and I have used HP Quality Center and SeaPine Source Control.
    - eptcyka 5y ago
      I used whatever Apple seemed to suggest I use.
armincerf 5y ago
You can plug any usb device into an iPad and use the files app to copy stuff over? I use an external usb c ssd with my iPad for my photography work flow. file management has come a long way in the past couple of years. If it’s just pdfs I would probably email them though

jmrm 5y ago

I haven't done something like that on an iPad, but I think that Apple want people to use these devices in a way that every app have their files, like for example iPods used to store the music (you could drop files on the iPod storage but you need iTunes to insert your MP3s on the "player app"). The best thing you could do is looking for a tutorial to do that, and also a software to control that iPad remotely, so you don't have to videocall your mother to give her instructions.

eptcyka 5y ago
I based my purchasing decision on existing tutorials. But a recent iTunes update obsoleted those (iTunes won't manage your books anymore).
- vkou 5y ago
  Your first mistake was dancing with the devil that is iTunes. It is one of the worst pieces of software I've had the dubious privilege of using, and I have used HP Quality Center and SeaPine Source Control.
  - eptcyka 5y ago
    I used whatever Apple seemed to suggest I use.

armincerf 5y ago

You can plug any usb device into an iPad and use the files app to copy stuff over? I use an external usb c ssd with my iPad for my photography work flow. file management has come a long way in the past couple of years. If it’s just pdfs I would probably email them though