Help the Macless: Apple’s iPadOS is a huge update that will enable more people to do without a Mac... or a PC Apple announced iPadOS at its WWDC event in San Jose, giving the tablet its own dedicated operating system for the first time. This is playing with words to some extent (it is iOS 13), but there is no denying the huge range of new features, with over 250 listed on Apple's preview page, some of which are key to making the iPad …
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I am an iPad Pro user. I have had no choice because it is a work thing. I have to carry a Windows laptop at the same time because the iPad sucks at laptop stuff, and I am afraid this update will not change things at all.
I, like so many others, have found that it is rubbish at being a proper laptop because it does not have a proper filesystem, no mouse support, no options for a desktop browser, and it shockingly bad at multitasking. I paid attention to all the changes that iPadOS brings, but I must say that I am not impressed. The above stuff are NOT nice-to-haves, and they are not amazing technological achievements. They are MINIMUM stuff any laptop should have. Apple makes a song and dance about innovating and bringing us some of these things to the iPad, and they expect us to stand up, applaud, and go out and pay $1,200!!! Although this seems to be a change in the right direction, for me it is a total miss.
PS - I just bought my son a Chromebook for $200. It runs Android apps, has a fully fledged Chrome browser, supports a mouse, has a proper filesystem, and has a reliable multitasking environment. My brother bought a Razor laptop for his photo/video editing tasks for $900. So why would anyone buy an iPad Pro is beyond me.
1 hrJonL722
"I, like so many others, have found that it is rubbish at being a proper laptop"
Because you are trying to use it like you have been trained (and brainwashed) to use a computer. Users should not have to think about filesystems and such manual tasks.
"supports a mouse, has a proper filesystem, and has a reliable multitasking environment"
Again, you are thinking in terms of what you expect a computer to be. Like in the past when Apple killed the 5 1/4" floppy and used the superior 3 1/2" hard-case disk - outcry "Mac isn't a real computer". Then Apple killed the floppy altogether - oh you can't have a computer without a floppy.
Again Apple has shown it is innovating, far beyond what most people's indoctrination in how to use a traditional computer.
Apple get this right. They have one good way to do things using touch. Some users cannot use touch, so as a concession, mouse facilities are provided.
Note with the Windows pad the keyboard includes a trackpad. Um, for what purpose? Just for sales. Innocent customer comes into store – iPad, no trackpad, Windows tablet - "ooh, trackpad, it has more". Case of more is less.
Apple spends time getting things right and useful.
It's always nice to discover you're ahead of the curve. I was using Bluetooth when Bluetooth wasn't cool, and now I see that I've acquired many of the goodies in this new touted Apple device.
I am apparently of the tech underclass. To wit, I cannot justify dropping $600 on a minimalist ipad. I did find a powerful (Acer Iconia) tablet ($160), 64 GB SD card (Walmart, $20) and folio keyboard (eBay, $20). The tablet has 2(!) micro USBs which means that a keyboard can stay plugged in while charging, Bluetooth, 5gHz wifi, and enough power and speed to stream Netflix. But, I also made a link to the local library, from which I can borrow an ebook, and have it sent to the same tablet as I just borrowed it on.
Pro and con-wise some things do come to mind..
Google spies on me rather than Apple,
China spies on me as well as the NSA,
I have not yet managed to get root on the Iconia, and I will twinge if I brick the sucker trying same,
I have pushed the Iconia, and I can access most of the same information on this (yes, I'm posting on it) as I can with a desktop,
Because it has 2 USBs and I can charge as I type, as the battery ages, I expect I will be able to use this as a mini laptop and thus extend the device life by a couple of years (I will get my money's worth from it)
When I get an ebook, I can flip it and read the book,
I can have Samba access and Google Drive access (and deal with Google bitching that I violated community standards (of my own non-public GD) by trying to use GD to upload a rooting APK, like that stopped me)
Samba access unfettered comes from an Android app called ES File Explorer, which, as geeks know, DEFINTITELY phones home to China
The cat thinks the slightly padded folio makes a good claw sharpener and pillow, and needed to be discouraged from same
Yes, I can use it as a productivity device in the sense that I can access all of my day to day online resources from it,
A few years ago I did an analysis and concluded that I had built the mid-grade Mac (plus extras) for $1,000-$1,500 less than the comparable Mac actual. But I was my own tech support. I was the middle ground between all of this geek ridden setup and Apple class functionality....and to tell the truth, I wouldn't have it any other way. The same rule applies with pushing a mobile device to the limit.
No, it's not my desktop. And since my desktop is a Linux box, that's saying a lot. But I never intended it to be. Yes, I guess that there are some apps for the Mac better written than the Android version, fine.
It is all relative, and I like what I have accomplished.
mistergoodbytes1
"Google spies on me rather than Apple"
Apple does not spy on its users. At least not like Google does, and not with the same intent. (But from the rest of your post, you seem to prove that.)
"It is all relative, and I like what I have accomplished."
That is good. As someone who teaches computer skills now, I'm interested in getting students to do things and understand how computers work ... underneath.
But they are doing so, so that others won't have to. There has always been the 'home kit' assembly people who have computers as a hobby. That is how Home Brew Computer Club worked, but Jobs and Wozniak found they had a hit with people who did not want to solder together their own components. Yes, Linux and Raspberry (and others) allow people to do it themselves – and that's great.
But most people don't want to and should not need to.
It is like C system programmers insisting that C is used everywhere (maybe disguised as C++) – that is system programmers fundamentally admitting they have failed at their job of providing abstractions that don't need 'drilling' through.
Although MacOS has the same Unix underpinnings as Linux, most Mac users know nothing about Unix, yet Android users seem to know about Linux (says me staring at a Terminal bash shell with a bunch of gobbledegook from fighting with MacPorts).
It seems most of the criticism of Apple comes from not understanding this paradigm.
Apple does not spy on its users. At least not like Google does, and not with the same intent. .... Ian Joyner
Do Apple users spy on Google*, Ian Joyner, to discover what they are not hosting and providing to the masses, because it can be easily classified highly sensitive and deeply disruptive, and thus would need to be secretly controlled ...... as best as may be possible in these new times and virtual spaces of today?
And as awkward and dangerous as such an unknown and secrets can so easily be .... one may have to accept, and sooner rather than later allows one to progress significantly faster and further ahead of any and all support/competition/opposition ...... their command is well beyond any traditional established Control Orders/Star Chambers/Elite Executive Officers.
* And all other search engine powered/empowering browsers too, whenever the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth be informed.
And whereas before, conflicts and wars may have all been about securing or denying vital strategic physical resources, ...How Oil Defeated the Nazis ..... future victories are all about applying greater intelligence solutions to established past problems, with ignorance and arrogance, hubris and delusion the common enemy to be roundly defeated and comprehensively deflated.
It is why there always was that certifiable madness to try and control the flow of information and intelligence with the vain exercise of firewalls and desperately ineffective targeted purges after the arrival of the facts, and which result in failed fascist police state operations .... which reveal themselves as simply explained here ....... You’re Under Arrest: How the Police State Muzzles Our Right to Speak Truth to Power
Once future secrets are out in the wild and open, there's no way they can safely and securely be put away into hiding and cold storage again, with one thinking to believe they will remain unknown to all but a privileged few.
What think you be the Leading Current Vital Asset for Capture and Distribution?
amanfromMars 1 - what planet (drugs) are you on. I can't make any sense of your comment. ....... Ian Joyner
Here's a piece of an almighty jigsaw you are missing/discovering, freely shared here, IJ.
That's at least 5G just doing ITs Sublime Internet Networking Thing. And most probably something else even greater, enabling an able and adept progression into alien lands/future plans being surely servered and Registered online for reception and comment from everywhere ..... and to here.
Think of the Node as an AI Lode Register for Immaculate Dream Traders. And that's at least 6G and beyond taken care of with Almighty Open Channels BroadBandCasting Future Decisions from New Novel Stock Options with NEUKlearer HyperRadioProACTive IT Support Facilities with Stay Healthy Stay Stealthy Virtual Utilities Practically Guaranteeing Certain Success ....... with All Missions Accomplished and Ready for Inclusion in Executive Review with Exclusive Previews of Future Plans Live and Enacted, and just as were Ordered and Expected to Perform.
There's a Helluva Lot Going On Out There in Intelligence Spaces, El Regers. However, if things go too quickly too far ahead, be assured there's always been an easy trail left for others to follow and exalt to lead back to a Place of Understanding for ..... another Bite at the Apple/Go on the Game/Spin of the Wheel. :-)
Thus no one is left behind ...... Semper Fi.
And a DARPA/IARPA Program with Easter Eggs would be a Post Modern Western Concoction of an Ancient Eastern Confection Servered by Leaders to All Invited to Follow with Almighty Instructions that Lead.
Well it looks like great game players this time around may do nothing better than take giant leaps of faith and just go along with the almighty rocky ride.
“It is not enough that we do our best, often we must do what is necessary”
Sir Winston Churchill
Wise words, undoubtedly walked by enlightened souls from yesteryear.
My biggest bugbear with iOS has always been the inability to easily select text easily, then cut and paste. Often the screen scrolls/zooms as you try to select the text, or it selects whole paragraphs when trying to select a line or a subset of a line of text.
From the demo on the WWDC keynote, it didn't look like things were yet perfected, it still looked iffy, it certainly wasn't fluid. The guy was having trouble carrying out the demo.
I wanted a bold, adventurous mouse support... dare I say "brave" in Apple parlance. What I got was a timid fieldmouse that hides behind menu settings and isn't fully developed. When I am using my iPad to write a document I use a keyboard, and having to 'gorilla arm' to the screen (something Mac users laugh at Windows for) to move the cursor (with much blind stabbing around to position it accurately) is really frustrating ... having properly implemented mouse support not just 'fake finger emulation' would be a really useful feature (and those complaining about it ... if you don't want to use the damn feature no-one is forcing you, you can still tap away all you like) and would also make apps like Remote Desktop or AnyDesk even more useful because I'd actually be able to use a real mouse on the remote system...
