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Maybe it's an American thing but I don't think I know a single person who owns or uses an ipad, with the exception of rich parents who use them exclusively to d
by mvdtnz 3y ago
Maybe it's an American thing but I don't think I know a single person who owns or uses an ipad, with the exception of rich parents who use them exclusively to distract children. I certainly don't notice a lot of ipad users in airports or trains.
- camillomiller 3y agoI think it’s generational. In Berlin I see plenty of students that now actively use it while studying in cafés for example.
- fouc 3y agoYeah it's amazing how many iPads + Apple Pencils students have these days. I notice this in Thailand universities as well.
- QuarterReptile 3y agoAlmost all of the students in the undergrad engineering courses I teach seem to use them. 10 years ago, I had a Samsung Note tablet that was great for coursework: it made comparatively trivial the then-daunting task of keeping all your coursework organized and having it with you when you needed it. It was great back then, and now they're significantly cheaper with Apple. If the Samsung options were comparably cheap and sporting reading-friendly screen ratios, I would've skipped Apple altogether.
- jdshaffer 3y agoI'm seeing an increase in college students in Japan with iPads and Apple Pencils. And most of the visiting students from other countries have them for sure.
- fouc 3y agoI notice it more on airplanes when people want to watch their own movies. I would also say that about 1/3 of people that work primarily from their laptop, and travel a lot (no easy access to a desktop monitor), will probably have an iPad as a second display as well.
- mkaszkowiak 3y agoiPads are often used by students for note taking, they seem to excel in this niche
- ErneX 3y agoI see plenty of them around (Spain).
- Razengan 3y agoI have plenty of American friends who (including their kids) use iPads all the time, almost everywhere.
- bemusedthrow75 3y agoI’m in the UK. Yesterday I watched an eighty-plus year old woman settle her similarly elderly, physically-impaired husband into his seat on the train then get out her iPad to write an email. On my journey home in a more crowded train I saw half a dozen iPads just from where I was sitting. They are extremely useful devices for train journeys.
- pbhjpbhj 3y agoOnly Apple iPads or are you using the term generically? I'm guessing you're in London or another major city? Similar to the parent I only ever see iPads in two places, the hands of rich kids in restaurants, and in primary schools.
- GraemeMeyer 3y agoIn the UK you basically only see iPads (95%+). Android tablets aren’t common
- callahad 3y agoKindle Fire excepted; loads of those in the hands of kids all over.
- Fluorescence 3y agoI see a lot of Surfaces in commuter hours.
- bemusedthrow75 3y agoOnly Apple iPads as far as I could see, but by no means only the most expensive or newest. Non-Apple tablet devices really are not often seen in the UK (some convertible PCs, the occasional Samsung tablet). If you spend a lot of time on public transport, an iPad isn't really that much of a luxury item. It's a really pragmatic choice, and at least in the UK an entry-level or recent secondhand iPad is not much more expensive than the cheapest usable alternative. Most seats on British trains are not at tables, and while many (by no means all, depends on the operator) have a seatback tray table, it is generally not the right shape for all but the smallest laptop, and the proportions are not such that they work well with convertible PCs that use screen-cover keyboards. We really get crammed into trains. An iPad is large enough to read a book or emails even if you are stuck without a seat, the on-screen keyboard is practical enough to write reasonable emails or edit small documents on, watch a film on, etc. So is a very cost effective way to make use of what might be 2+ hours of every working day. (Train travel is pretty expensive over any distance, too. An entry level iPad is only about ten times the cost of an ad-hoc journey into London from where I am -- and that's only an hour away.)
- mr_tombuben 3y agoI use an iPad exclusively at home on a couch/in bed. It's really great for low effort media consumption/web browsing, but I couldn't imagine bringing it with me somewhere instead of just taking a laptop. Even for media consumption on a train or airplane, I prefer a laptop because of it being easier to prop up in a cramped space.
- nottorp 3y agoYep. I have an iPad (cheap, not pro) on my nightstand. I take the laptop when traveling because who knows what I'll need it for.
- throwaway2037 3y agoWhy a "cheap" iPad instead of a much cheaper Android tablet?
- Zetobal 3y agoBecause android ignored their tablet UI for years and are now optimising it for folding phones.
- nottorp 3y agoBecause it's been working just fine(tm) for at least 5 years. Maybe more, i forgot how old it is.
- theshrike79 3y agoTablets have been first class members of the iOS ecosystem for a decade. Even more so after the release of iPadOS. Android tablets don’t get any specific APIs or special treatment on Android.
- tzhenghao 3y agoThese days my parents based in Asia use the two iPads I gifted them almost exclusively. They watch YouTube videos, Netflix, Facetime the kids and browse the web on them. The only time my dad boots up my old college MacBook is when he has to do important document editing - never more than once every month. To my surprise, he's even using the iPadOS Files app extensively. We're just not the target market.
- dingus9001 3y agoI'm a physicist in Germany, my supervisor got iPads with Apple Pencils for the entire group, we find it very useful for note taking especially since we can share screen on zoom to use them like digital whiteboards. When I give tutorials I notice at least a quarter of my students are usually using either iPads, remarkable or a windows convertible with pen support
- eru 3y agoI own an iPad but mostly use it at home, so you wouldn't see me using it at an airport or on a train.
- TeMPOraL 3y agoIn US, I hear it's a common "computer for non-tech-savvy people, who you want to set up with once, and have them not bother you for the next couple years" choice. As for the form factor, I do travel with a tablet. More specifically, a 2-in-1 device, with a stylus. An x86 one, though (specifically, Dell Latitude 5290, which has specs like MS Surface, but was 3x cheaper) - because I've learned from experience that iPads and Android tablets are just large phones without the phone call function, and not suitable for any productive use. Meanwhile, my Dell hosts a touchscreen-optimized Windows 10, which hosts a Linux distro, which hosts the actual OS - Emacs. (I also learned to love the Ribbon. On a 2-in-1, it's very obvious what Microsoft was going for, and why it's a good design - for touchscreens.)
- oracle2025 3y agoAndroid Tablets with Mobile Internet are perfectly fine phones. I've used a LTE Samsung tablet exclusively as my only "Smart" phone for a while, and had a Dual-Sim to share the same Phone number as on my "Dumb"-phone, (Nokia 8110 4G) ...
- NoZebra120vClip 3y agoFrom 2015-2019, my only mobile device was an Android tablet with no SIM card. At purchase, I signed up for a Google Voice number, and I sort of got by with VoIP service over WiFi wherever I could. Since then, I've purchased a proper mobile phone, and I transferred my landline home phone over to that SIM card, and it's my main line now. I use my Voice number very rarely. One of the drawbacks to SIM cards is that you can't really get the phone service mirrored or transferred to a regular computer. Sure, you can "link" the phone if it's nearby, but the service itself stays there. I've had a number of times where I'd really like to have voice/SMS service on that number available via computer (some people I know are actually creeped out by my having two phone numbers at once), but what can you do. I haven't traveled since the Before Times anyway, so boarding a plane with devices is the least of my worries.
- masklinn 3y agoI’ve got a fair number of family members who use them as their routine browsing devices. They don’t have laptops tho.
- whynotminot 3y agoMaybe it is an American thing. iPads here are nearly as ubiquitous as AirPods. More for planes than trains though. Most people just read their phone on a train commute.
- smugma 3y agoDo you not know poor or working class parents? Do they not use iPads or other tablets?
- smugma 3y agoMy 80+ year old dad uses his iPad+keyboard 90% of the time. He’ll use the computer when he needs to print or scan something.
- theshrike79 3y agoI’m not American and both my mother and my mother in law (both over retirement age) use an iPad as their only large-screen computing device along with an iPhone. It’s not a “rich parent” thing, it’s a “this device has actual support from the manufacturer for years” thing. Android tablets are still an afterthought with Samsung the only one bravely attempting to bring large screen support to the OS.
- alewi481 3y agoI have one that I use for my grad school studies almost exclusively as an e-reader for textbooks and a notepad. I could similarly just invest in a cheap e-reader device and a physical notepad and it wouldn’t disrupt my studies but I shelled out a little more for a used iPad for the longer than typical device support and because I’m already in the Apple ecosystem.
- MarcusE1W 3y agoMost of my family in Germany have an iPad. In fairness many households I know have one. Especially for elderly people it’s the perfect computer (as in laptop, desktop) substitute.
- pyreko 3y agoCanadian here, iPads are really common amongst (uni/college) students as well, from my experience - they make good notetaking/general course work devices. Off the top of my head I think like 40-70% of students in my classes had an iPad. And as another comment said, iPads are pretty common options here for some people who aren't really power users that essentially want a phone experience, but bigger. I've set up my mom with an iPad + PiHole for home use and she's super happy with it as a video and browsing device that is generally reliable. She does have access to a PC I built as well, but an iPad is much more portable around the house for her (e.g. she needs to follow a recipe while cooking).
- gtani 3y agoMine works great as edoc reader but the pencil doesn't have full mouse functionality and the mechanical switch BT keyboard i need to do non trivial inputs adds a lot of bulk.. so still has a lot of potential.