7 ms·

Only 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 co

Only 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.)

throwaway2037 3y ago
So is a very cost effective way to make use of what might be 2+ hours of every working day. Here is the first mistake. Get rid of the ridiculous commute. Then, you will not need an iPad!
- bemusedthrow75 3y ago
  Two hours of commuting in the south east of the UK is as little as thirty miles each way in the overground part alone. Quite a common commute. Far from a ridiculous one, and if you get a seat, not really very uncomfortable. You can either drive it and do nothing but listen to something relatively simple, or sit in a train and read/work/draw/listen/play games/sleep. (It’s not my commute; I work from home. But I visit clients sometimes; yesterday involved six hours of train/tube travel. I wouldn’t do that every day but I could do it once a week.)
  - googlryas 3y ago
    30 miles is an outrageous commute. To put it another way, there are 2800 square miles of land closer than your job.
    - ghaff 3y ago
      2 hours each way is indeed not a very sustainable commute. I had a 90 minute one about every other day for a bit over a year and I wouldn't have wanted to do that long-term. However, 30 miles is significantly under the average US commuting distance. And, unless you live and work near an urban downtown, 30 miles probably doesn't get you to a lot of appropriate professional jobs. I live in an exurb outside a major metro and my (nominal) office is the nearest tech job I could physically commute to and it barely squeezes in under 30 miles.
      - googlryas 3y ago
        No, the average US commute is 16 miles one way, whereas OP was saying 30 miles each way: https://hbr.org/2021/05/that-dreaded-commute-is-actually-good-for-your-health https://hbr.org/2021/05/that-dreaded-commute-is-actually-goo...
        ghaff 3y ago
        I was basing it on this data: https://www.zippia.com/advice/average-commute-time-statistics/ https://www.zippia.com/advice/average-commute-time-statistic... But, yes, other numbers seem to be lower (and are generally more likely to quote commute time rather than distance which is probably more relevant for most people).
      - bemusedthrow75 3y ago
        Should clarify that I say two hours per day above. I don't think I'd spend two hours going thirty miles, or even necessarily choose a job that involved driving thirty miles every day. But thirty miles in an hour on urban/suburban rail isn't particularly unusual. And this time is time you can use, if you have even a little bit of method about it. I know people who have done all the reading for entire higher education degrees in that period of time. At any rate, the notion to which you're responding regarding the area of possible commute being 2800 square miles is foolish. You have to go to where the jobs gather, and there are all sorts of complex reasons why they don't distribute evenly across that area that a rational person should not spend time weighing up when they consider whether an iPad might be a useful thing for the train. In my case, if I made the commute into London on a daily basis, knocking down the distance to this hypothetical US average of 16 miles might save, I think, about a third of the journey time in practice. It would knock off half of the price of a season ticket, which might be useful. But it would add easily 40% to the cost of a house, which is the overriding concern. And even then I'd still buy the iPad for that journey.
- roland35 3y ago
  Have you tried buying a place in London?? Not sure if this is sarcasm or not!
  - dazc 3y ago
    It's non-intended sarcasm. Lot's of people who work in London spend 2 hours (each way) a day travelling through open countryside in order to have both a decent job and somewhere basic to sleep at night. People who actually live in London tend to be either very rich or unemployed.
- deaddodo 3y ago
  I used to commute 2-3hrs/day living in LA. It was just normal. Now that I can work from home, it irritates me even more that companies want to force that back on us.
  - throwaway2037 3y ago
    The traffic in LA is insane. I never understand why people live there for it. Or they should live within walking / biking distance of their job. Car traffic is hell on your mental and physical health.
TheCapeGreek 3y ago
>We really get crammed into trains. Sincerely, from someone in the third world who has taken UK public transport. You don't. I don't say this to disparage your message, but hopefully to give some gratitude for the nice things you do have over there. I found it most amusing how people would get antsy and annoyed when a train was more than 5 minutes late in the UK. For years of me taking South African trains, if there was any delay worth being mad about, it would've been after 2 hours had passed.
- bemusedthrow75 3y ago
  People here don't really get upset about trains being even ten minutes late. That's normal. And as far as safety is concerned, when every seat is full and there's already very little seat-to-seat distance, the aisle is crammed with people face to back with nothing to hang on to, and the vestibules are all full to the point that people are standing with nothing to support them if the train brakes hard, that is a crammed train. Dangerously so -- indeed, often illegally so. And this is quite normal, routine and unexceptional at commuter times, and that is not talking about the underground, where it is routine to be packed in to the point that someone's nose is against the window (mine was, yesterday). I'm sure there are trains elsewhere that are worse. There's nothing I can do about that; it doesn't really change my observation. (I'm not sure there's a really good point about gratitude here, either, when the people paying for these services where they don't get a seat have to take out substantial loans to afford the annual ticket, whereas you can travel from Cape Town to Johannesburg, with a sleeping car berth, for about 20% more than the amount it costs me to travel an hour into London at off-peak times. But that's a separate point.)
  - masfuerte 3y ago
    Back in the 80s the trains still had guard's vans. When you've stood in the middle of a crammed, unlit, violently shaking box with nothing for anyone to hang on to, a place in the aisle seems like luxury! On the other hand, the intercity seats were more comfortable in those days, the windows opened and you didn't have to wait for the train to stop before you got off.
ghaff 3y ago
I literally can't remember the last time I took a laptop out on a train or a plane. If it's a short trip, I may get by with just my phone (or phone + Kindle) but for longer trips I like the iPad as a media consumption and note taking device even if, to the OP's point, it's not really a laptop replacement. That said, I'm going on a few week--mostly recreational--trip in a bit and I'll just take my phone and my iPad. It will be fine for note-taking at the conference I'm attending and I really just want media consumption and a browser on something bigger than my phone for everything else. An iPad is probably one of my more optional devices but I've gotten almost 10 years out of my current model so it doesn't feel like an unreasonable luxury even if I mostly use it when traveling.
pbhjpbhj 3y ago
Thanks for expanding on your experience. Not commuting, and coming from a relatively poor small city, when I'm on trains I only ever see people on phones and occassionally laptops for people doing actual work.
ngcc_hk 3y ago
Same; except I also do south England to Scotland by train … the one thing is the 4/5g reception or Wi-Fi is really no good. Have to download things before (Netflix) or make sure the book you want to read is actually in the book app. Then 7 hour is ok. Notebook as said is too big.
asdfgeoff 3y ago
> … a seatback tray table, it is generally not the right shape for all but the smallest laptop … As someone who very much prefers having a physical keyboard, the only workable solution I have found for UK trains is an iPad with the Magic Keyboard, whose cantilever design is relatively shallow, and which provides a firm base for balancing on your legs. There is no reason this form factor couldn't be achieved with an android tablet, but it feels relatively uncommon. Most keyboard cases I've seen are only really suitable for stable table/desk scenarios.

throwaway2037 3y ago

So is a very cost effective way to make use of what might be 2+ hours of every working day. Here is the first mistake. Get rid of the ridiculous commute. Then, you will not need an iPad!

bemusedthrow75 3y ago
Two hours of commuting in the south east of the UK is as little as thirty miles each way in the overground part alone. Quite a common commute. Far from a ridiculous one, and if you get a seat, not really very uncomfortable. You can either drive it and do nothing but listen to something relatively simple, or sit in a train and read/work/draw/listen/play games/sleep. (It’s not my commute; I work from home. But I visit clients sometimes; yesterday involved six hours of train/tube travel. I wouldn’t do that every day but I could do it once a week.)
- googlryas 3y ago
  30 miles is an outrageous commute. To put it another way, there are 2800 square miles of land closer than your job.
  - ghaff 3y ago
    2 hours each way is indeed not a very sustainable commute. I had a 90 minute one about every other day for a bit over a year and I wouldn't have wanted to do that long-term. However, 30 miles is significantly under the average US commuting distance. And, unless you live and work near an urban downtown, 30 miles probably doesn't get you to a lot of appropriate professional jobs. I live in an exurb outside a major metro and my (nominal) office is the nearest tech job I could physically commute to and it barely squeezes in under 30 miles.
    - googlryas 3y ago
      No, the average US commute is 16 miles one way, whereas OP was saying 30 miles each way: https://hbr.org/2021/05/that-dreaded-commute-is-actually-good-for-your-health https://hbr.org/2021/05/that-dreaded-commute-is-actually-goo...
      - ghaff 3y ago
        I was basing it on this data: https://www.zippia.com/advice/average-commute-time-statistics/ https://www.zippia.com/advice/average-commute-time-statistic... But, yes, other numbers seem to be lower (and are generally more likely to quote commute time rather than distance which is probably more relevant for most people).
    - bemusedthrow75 3y ago
      Should clarify that I say two hours per day above. I don't think I'd spend two hours going thirty miles, or even necessarily choose a job that involved driving thirty miles every day. But thirty miles in an hour on urban/suburban rail isn't particularly unusual. And this time is time you can use, if you have even a little bit of method about it. I know people who have done all the reading for entire higher education degrees in that period of time. At any rate, the notion to which you're responding regarding the area of possible commute being 2800 square miles is foolish. You have to go to where the jobs gather, and there are all sorts of complex reasons why they don't distribute evenly across that area that a rational person should not spend time weighing up when they consider whether an iPad might be a useful thing for the train. In my case, if I made the commute into London on a daily basis, knocking down the distance to this hypothetical US average of 16 miles might save, I think, about a third of the journey time in practice. It would knock off half of the price of a season ticket, which might be useful. But it would add easily 40% to the cost of a house, which is the overriding concern. And even then I'd still buy the iPad for that journey.
roland35 3y ago
Have you tried buying a place in London?? Not sure if this is sarcasm or not!
- dazc 3y ago
  It's non-intended sarcasm. Lot's of people who work in London spend 2 hours (each way) a day travelling through open countryside in order to have both a decent job and somewhere basic to sleep at night. People who actually live in London tend to be either very rich or unemployed.
deaddodo 3y ago
I used to commute 2-3hrs/day living in LA. It was just normal. Now that I can work from home, it irritates me even more that companies want to force that back on us.
- throwaway2037 3y ago
  The traffic in LA is insane. I never understand why people live there for it. Or they should live within walking / biking distance of their job. Car traffic is hell on your mental and physical health.

TheCapeGreek 3y ago

>We really get crammed into trains. Sincerely, from someone in the third world who has taken UK public transport. You don't. I don't say this to disparage your message, but hopefully to give some gratitude for the nice things you do have over there. I found it most amusing how people would get antsy and annoyed when a train was more than 5 minutes late in the UK. For years of me taking South African trains, if there was any delay worth being mad about, it would've been after 2 hours had passed.

bemusedthrow75 3y ago
People here don't really get upset about trains being even ten minutes late. That's normal. And as far as safety is concerned, when every seat is full and there's already very little seat-to-seat distance, the aisle is crammed with people face to back with nothing to hang on to, and the vestibules are all full to the point that people are standing with nothing to support them if the train brakes hard, that is a crammed train. Dangerously so -- indeed, often illegally so. And this is quite normal, routine and unexceptional at commuter times, and that is not talking about the underground, where it is routine to be packed in to the point that someone's nose is against the window (mine was, yesterday). I'm sure there are trains elsewhere that are worse. There's nothing I can do about that; it doesn't really change my observation. (I'm not sure there's a really good point about gratitude here, either, when the people paying for these services where they don't get a seat have to take out substantial loans to afford the annual ticket, whereas you can travel from Cape Town to Johannesburg, with a sleeping car berth, for about 20% more than the amount it costs me to travel an hour into London at off-peak times. But that's a separate point.)
- masfuerte 3y ago
  Back in the 80s the trains still had guard's vans. When you've stood in the middle of a crammed, unlit, violently shaking box with nothing for anyone to hang on to, a place in the aisle seems like luxury! On the other hand, the intercity seats were more comfortable in those days, the windows opened and you didn't have to wait for the train to stop before you got off.

ghaff 3y ago

I literally can't remember the last time I took a laptop out on a train or a plane. If it's a short trip, I may get by with just my phone (or phone + Kindle) but for longer trips I like the iPad as a media consumption and note taking device even if, to the OP's point, it's not really a laptop replacement. That said, I'm going on a few week--mostly recreational--trip in a bit and I'll just take my phone and my iPad. It will be fine for note-taking at the conference I'm attending and I really just want media consumption and a browser on something bigger than my phone for everything else. An iPad is probably one of my more optional devices but I've gotten almost 10 years out of my current model so it doesn't feel like an unreasonable luxury even if I mostly use it when traveling.

pbhjpbhj 3y ago

Thanks for expanding on your experience. Not commuting, and coming from a relatively poor small city, when I'm on trains I only ever see people on phones and occassionally laptops for people doing actual work.

ngcc_hk 3y ago

Same; except I also do south England to Scotland by train … the one thing is the 4/5g reception or Wi-Fi is really no good. Have to download things before (Netflix) or make sure the book you want to read is actually in the book app. Then 7 hour is ok. Notebook as said is too big.

asdfgeoff 3y ago

> … a seatback tray table, it is generally not the right shape for all but the smallest laptop … As someone who very much prefers having a physical keyboard, the only workable solution I have found for UK trains is an iPad with the Magic Keyboard, whose cantilever design is relatively shallow, and which provides a firm base for balancing on your legs. There is no reason this form factor couldn't be achieved with an android tablet, but it feels relatively uncommon. Most keyboard cases I've seen are only really suitable for stable table/desk scenarios.