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Comment by bradleyjg | Hacker News Reader

I work in EdTech. I never thought the ipad ever made sense in the classroom and I'm not surprised that a netbook is beating back the tablet.

Input onto a tablet is clumsy at best. It is essentially a passive device. Yes, you can add an aftermarket keyboard and and an after market stand, but now you have a three part hacked together netbook instead of one that's designed with a keyboard and hinge from the get-go.

Further, tablets are a magnet for damage. A laptop screen can take localized damage and still mostly work. A tabket screen shatters. Plus the laptop screen is set back within the monitor component and the overall center of gravity means that a netbook is more likely to land on the keyboard side.

Finally, the software story is best for windows (web and native plus great management features), decent for chromebook, and worst for ipads.

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Even outside of education, I don't think the iPad is useful for anything other than consumption.

I've seen some creative types using drawing applications on it, which is cool I guess, but for the most part I don't see it replacing a laptop/desktop just yet.

I seriously tried to make an iPad Pro (9.7") work for writing my book (ETA sometime before I die). All the tools I need are there. I fly a lot so the form factor is perfect. I just couldn't stomach the keyboard.

I tried to make the iPad my primary 'travel' device. My problem was the lack of multi-tasking (I was surprised how often I reference the web, or a document when writing an email) and no mouse support. I get that that the iPad is a "Post-PC device", but if you're using a keyboard (by the way, keyboard shortcuts on iPad were terrible) anyway, the mouse is actually a really good, productive peripheral - but Apple ideology doesn't believe in using mice with tablets.

Yeah I've tried to make do with just a tablet when traveling but just can't make it work. Even with a keyboard it's just too clumsy to select things, move the cursor around, etc. And, as you say, multi-tasking.

So I almost always travel with a laptop-like thing (whether a Mac or a Chromebook) and a tablet-like thing (whether an iPad or a Kindle). Frankly, devices are small and light enough today that there just isn't a huge win to paring down to one device that doesn't do some tasks well.

> if you're using a keyboard (by the way, keyboard shortcuts on iPad were terrible) anyway, the mouse is actually a really good, productive peripheral - but Apple ideology doesn't believe in using mice with tablets.

I'm not going to try to make a argument for Android tablets in general (on my third, not buying a fourth), but they actually support all this.

Run up a chroot with Debian and X11 and you can even have yourself a semi-normal Linux desktop inside your Android. With a mouse and keyboard.

It's not great, but when cornered I've actually managed to pull through on a device like this.

I have an irrational hatred of chroots on Android, mainly because it's made Googling for info on running mainline Linux on these devices impossible.

At the point you're using X11 on Android, wouldn't you be better off with a Chromebook?

I'm also interested in Samsung's DeX. We're well past the point where I should be able to carry one device in my pocket and dock into extra peripherals as needed.

Sidenote: of course we couldn't have a standard for dockable devices. So we've got Microsoft's Continuum, Samsung's DeX and whatever MaruOS is doing these days.

> I'm not going to try to make a argument for Android tablets in general (on my third, not buying a fourth), but they actually support all this.

> Run up a chroot with Debian and X11 and you can even have yourself a semi-normal Linux desktop inside your Android. With a mouse and keyboard.

Don't get me wrong, I'm a huge a Linux fan, but calling this "supported" seems like a stretch. Maybe better phrasing would be "this is possible on an Android tablet".

The mouse is a first class supported element on Android (as is wired networking). You can use it anywhere you'd otherwise use touch (in regular Android apps).

Similarly with keyboards: ctrl-c, x and v work just as you expect. As does alt-tab.

This is very different from the iOS story, so just to play on the differences, I was just showing to what extent a Android-tablet can be taken if the need arises. I didn't mean to hint X11 and chroots were officially supported by Google or any vendor.

Ah, okay, I misunderstood. Thanks for clarifying!

To take it even further, if you plug a USB keyboard into a Android-device, the settings menu will even uncover the ability to select a separate keyboard layout for the physical keyboard.

Deep down Android was clearly built to be a general purposey OS.

Too bad they botched the tablet-story.

Not to say that an iPad is the right device for you, but I wanted to share a couple notes in case you ever want to try again:

> My problem was the lack of multi-tasking…

The current iOS does this pretty well. http://www.imore.com/ipad-multitasking

> …and no mouse support.

Okay, now this is more of a stretch. :O) BUT, with a Lighting to USB adapter you can (technically) use both USB mice, and wireless mice that use USB dongles.

No, you can't use a mouse on iOS without jail breaking.

The closest thing is the X1 Mouse and that only works on Citrix.[0]

Ethernet yes, keyboard yes, mouse, no.

[0] https://www.citrix.com/products/citrix-mouse/support.html

music too maybe ?

physical input of symbols can be done, but I like clicky keys.

My kids school district got iPads for all the students. Then they selected a math textbook that didn't work on the iPad.

I'm pretty convinced that the motivations for providing iPads or laptops for each student are almost entirely political and not educational.

How would any book "not work on the iPad"? It seems like whatever math is taught in the book can be done on the iPad (either writing out the problems in a drawing app or using a special purpose one).

Was it some kind of ebook? Is that what you mean?

Correct. It was an online textbook and it didn't work in Safari.

Yikes.

I despise Safari. If they just used Chromium, instead waiting years to merge in the improvements, my job would be so much less frustrating.

I have OSX in a VM just for Safari issues.

Our child has one website that uses flash. I've removed flash from all our other computers except the one computer locked down to use just that.

How a school, and vendor, get away with requiring flash in 2017 is beyond frustrating.

School's online systems tend to be woefully behind the times. Usually online portals and e-textbooks are little more than patronizing nods to the students that have come to accept tech in their lives as a necessity rather than any meaningful attempt at bettering education.

Pearson textbook publisher requires Flash for my kids. So they have Chromebooks for most things, and school-issued laptops for online textbooks.

This madness must stop, but field-tested textbooks are a lot of work. And a lot of $$. Good luck.

Agreed. I use my girlfriend's iPad for watching stuff in bed/couch. It is way comfier than a laptop, but I can't really use it for writing anything longer than a Google search.

To explain why I am so uncomfortable with "I can't use it for more than X" anecdotes:

My grandma couldn't do more than automatically playing DVD on her windows desktop.

My wife can't do more than opening and closing the door on any random semi-truck.

I can't do more than make horrible sounds on a violin.

All of these are only half of the story, and the receiver of the message is supposed to guess the other half perhaps ? But of course, which is the other half ? Is there a point to be made about any of these or is it just a random observation ?

Basically it brings more questions that it answers.

I don't think this comment deserves downvotes.

I tried iPad Pro 12.9" for a primary portable device ... but like many others it was just too clumsy (software was clumsy) for getting stuff done, in particular if one is also dealing with a desktop or laptop with a shared file system.

I really want to disagree with you, but I can't. I primarily use my iPad Pro for note-taking for school, and for carrying around all my textbooks electronically. It's really great for these applications.

Outside of school, I've done a little bit of artwork on it, and it's nice. But that's about it. My daughter draws prolifically, has a Surface and, after trying my iPad for awhile, decided she didn't want me to buy her one of her own.

For myself, the most useful device I can imagine is the MacBook Pro that, by the way, you can remove the screen and draw on it. But I don't want iOS and a cobbled on Bluetooth keyboard. And I'm not holding my breath.

My iPad mini is a great little synthesizer. That's not a very big market, though.

For about $400 (total - iPad + Casio, some wires and software), you can use one to build a portable rig that actually sounds decent (if only I knew how to play better...). Use a "camera kit" (USB hub) to run MIDI in through USB, and an aux cable to run the sound back through something like a Casio keyboard (disabling the Casio's internal noise maker). Start up one of the inexpensive but pretty good synth programs on the iPad and go to it. (A cheap Casio lacks controller knobs, but you can use the tablet touch screen for expression)

Audio latency on Android is generally too sluggish. Have not tried ChromeOS, but I expect it's similar.

Plus, the guys that make the synth programs expect to get paid $5, $10 or $20 (depending), so I don't see this stuff moving over to one of Google's environments, where everybody expects vendors to provide free apps.

Substitute "USB class compliant MIDI keyboard with Aux in" for "Casio", which I said way too many times :-)

The trick is to get/make a patch that makes no sound (e.g. - sample of silence) to abuse the keyboard's "play along with MP3 player" feature. The built-in speakers on these type of $100 to $200 battery operated keyboards aren't very loud, but they work for practice or sidewalk playing.

Well they can replace clipboards. Samsung seems to market their rugged 8" Android model towards logistics and factory floor management.

And in recent years I have noticed a large number of ruggedized Windows devices aiming towards much the same market.

The iPad is decidedly not rugged...

And thus there is a thriving market in third party cases...

They're pretty good for carrying around a bunch of custom "controller" interfaces (in the sense of a MIDI "controller") without needing to pack around hundreds of pounds of hardware covered in knobs and keys. DJs like them.

Also see Bret Victor's talk (https://vimeo.com/64895205) where he does digital puppetry using two tablets: one using direct motion input, the other with a knobs-and-sliders UI for a set of behavior controls.

i dunno..I thought the same until I watched my wife use the iPad Pro. I thought it was a toy (its just not for me) but I was downright shocked when she just walked into a meeting with her Pro and..for the lack of a better term owned it. She brought up her Pro on the big screen and just made it all work. Its not my world, but watching her work it made me realize how little I understand how the world actually uses a product. She makes that thing sing. If I bumped into her in a meeting I'd immediately defer. Its crazy how much work she got with that Pro+Pencil and a display.

Could you go into more details as to what apps she uses on it, and what kind of work she does? What do you mean by "she made it all work"? (very curious about this)

I like it for reading scientific papers and textbooks in PDF form

I think it depends on the person and the requirements. I've written tens of thousands of words on an iPad, used it to do programming exercises for job interviews using Pythonista as well as prototyping bits of work projects and hobby programming, created character sheets for a homegrown tabletop RPG, filled out PDF forms, my kids draw and paint on their minis as well as write fan fiction in Wattpad.

There certainly are limitations due to the form factor and Apple's lockdown of the platform. Pythonista and other dev environments would be a lot more useful with less strict code sharing options. Still, you can do a lot with these things.

Maybe it's because I don't own a laptop, carry the iPad frequently and use it on my daily commute.

...using the on-screen keyboard, or a physical one?

You're wrong about it not being useful for other than consumption. I have a 12.9 inch Pro and a good bluetooth keyboard. I can mostly replace my mac book pro as a server side dev. I have great ssh clients, Coda is a very good editor, a good git client, all the communication tools I need, etc... Mostly it's just making small changes to your workflow to fit the new environment. Lot's of artists and musicians also create on iPads, so it may not be useful to you but others find it useful.

I agree it's not likely to replace laptops in the next couple of years for everyone but plenty of people make it work now.

The big deal with iPads ate my local district was "interactive textbooks". All the books we got never lived up to the hype.

deign to threaten the textbook status quo.. established players do not find value in "disrupting" themselves.

I'm sure that's true. However, I'd observe that interactive multimedia books aren't something that have become a big thing outside of schools either. People obviously consume multimedia but there doesn't seem to be a huge appetite for packaging them up as books in any systematic way.

Interactive textbooks have been pushed by the largest established publishers (Thomson, etc.). This goes back to CD-ROM days.

Welcome to the Brøderbund™ Software Library! Here, you'll enjoy many educational software titles. Including: Dinosaur Hunter 3D, and, JumpStart Kindergarten Deluxe

How many gravy trains have we missed out on?

Interactive textbooks have pretty much always been garbage. Education companies want to pretend they are some Bret Victoresque interactive VR learning experience but instead they are basically just regular textbooks with videos and maybe computer graded homework problems.

A lot of educational software is games as opposed to office software etc where the keyboard is the main / best input device. The iPad has done a lot in schools, especially the K-5 market, for example, see edtech like Osmo. You might not think it makes sense but students especially younger ones are benefiting from it every day.

https://www.playosmo.com/en/

(My mom is a teacher and I've helped her research and adopt a lot of this into her classroom including several iterations of iPads and augmented reality based learning games.)

The k-5 point is a good one. The company I work for and my thinking is focused on older students, in the 7-12 range mostly. But I'd think the fragility of the ipad would be an even bigger downside in that age group.

It's definitely a concern. So far they have just bought very heavy duty cases and I don't think the young students are allowed to transport them. Somewhat surprisingly, I don't believe they've had any broken screens either out of hundreds of iPads (one per child).

What's even crazier is that many of these kids have learned how to use an iPad, gestures, games, etc before they can even read or write.

My daughter has been typing a lot on a chromebook since beginning of second grade. Hand her an ipad and the only thing she knows (and isn't too interested in) is minecraft.

Touchscreen devices are popular in special ed / autism work.

Netbooks are also much more serviceable than tablets. At $20 a pop screens can basically be thought of as a wear item if you've got a large enough fleet deployed.

Let's be honest, most of the best studying time is still spent using pen & paper and exercise sheets. Even in 2017. Let's not fool ourselves, apps don't make you understand things quicker. The exception are very few select educational videos and some Wikipedia pages. Or programming on the PC, since that is much harder to learn without actual tools to run code.

Let's be honest, this comment is full of emotionally loaded language. Let's not fool ourselves, it contains not one iota of evidence to support the core claim.

Schools would have to solve bullying before they can give kids computers. How many tablets get smashed on purpose by shitty children?

I hear some schools used to send students home with backpacks full of hundreds of dollars worth of textbooks even though they knew every book wasn't going to come back. It's called acceptable loss and is a cost of doing business. You can't deny all students access to resources just because there are a few bad apples.

I doubt children realise how expensive textbooks are, and the bullied child won't be as worried about a torn book compared to a broken ipad

When I was in school textbooks weren't expensive and they did get destroyed by little future criminals.

If a bully smashes an iPad or a Chromebook owned by the school, it's no different to breaking any other school property like a microscope. You summon the parents and bill them.

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