New iPad Pro with LiDAR Scanner and trackpad support
apple.com
apple.com
When I add up this new iPad in the minimum 128GB/Wifi/11" config this one is about $400 more than I paid for the Surface Pro + KB cover + MS Pen. (Which is i5/8GB/128GB/Wifi-only)
The Surface has been so much more useful due to it's "real" software ecosystem and ability to just plug devices & memory cards right into it. 4 years on it seems like this new iPad Pro is no better except for even slicker hardware + touchpad.
Not there for me till they fix the software and make it a lot easier to do real world tasks that require working with files on other pieces of hardware you have local.
Some of the use cases like traveling and doing photography or video on the road have just been so much easier with the Surface Pro. Even just doing things like downloading a spreadsheet from the bank. Maybe you can do that now but you couldn't when I had my iPad Pro. Safari wouldn't let you download a file and open it in the app of your choice. So even though Numbers (or Excel) would have been fine to do finances there was no way to get the files. If the bank had made it so the app could generate a spreadsheet and then let you share it with Numbers that would work, but those use cases never got enabled, and there were so many cases like that.
Developer tools are an obvious weak point, but FWIW I sold my Surface to buy an iPad Pro a few years ago and I'm happier with this. Considering an upgrade from 2016 model (9.7" with lightning) to the new ones.
It wouldn't work as my only computer, but I have a much beefier desktop for gaming and whatever workloads the iPad isn't suited for. That list of workloads is getting smaller and smaller though.
And it's not just external storage devices. It was always such a mess.
E.x. with the Camera connection kit on the iPad Pro:
- My Canon 5D worked
- Go Pro cameras did not work
- My external card readers didn't work (which could take the cards from the GoPro), sounds like maybe they fixed this
I could go on and on, Apple chips away a little by little at what works and what doesn't work. But meanwhile life goes on with OSX and Windows where everything just works. I used the iPad Pro for 2-3 years.. stuff just improves glacially on the iPad, that's the issue, they fix like one or two things in a year and you still have a list of 25 things that are a PITA.
Some of this stuff with USB-C is tough. There's no way I'm going to buy a new $3000+ camera to get USB-C for example.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00UUBS0SS
Or if you want to use a card reader, you get one that plugs into a USB-C port and toss it in the bag with the iPad, just like you would with a USB-A card reader and a Surface.
I don't know about the GoPro since I don't have one, but if it's a normal filesystem they ought to show up in the Files app as well.
Since you already have a USB-C MacBook Pro in sounds like either the cable or the reader would work on both devices.
EDIT: slightly outdated from iPadOS Beta 5, but this blog reports that the Files app shows RAW files and can preview them, but doesn't generate thumbnail icons. Not sure whether this is still the case https://numericcitizen.me/2019/08/01/browsing-raw-images-in-...
Does the iPad not support HFS+ and Apple File System?
It's pretty similar to Mac; I believe the supported systems are HFS+, APFS, FAT, and exFAT.
But NTFS is not supported at all (macOS can read but not write) and encrypted drives aren't supported (macOS supports read/write).
It works well with about anything on the iPhone - although some devices require a powered lightning cable.
On iPad, the same devices will all work, but it's a lot fussier about what powered lightning cable you use.
For example - I have a USB-C to lightning cable and a USB-PD charger. If I use those with the camera connection kit, my iPhone will access any USB storage device I've connected. It won't work on the iPad. But if use a USB-A to lightning cable to a 2 amp power supply, the same devices work fine on the ipad. go figure.
Wish they’d just change everything to USB-C, but with them releasing new accessories regularly that charge with lightning, it doesn’t feel likely. Most recently PowerBeats 4 a couple of days ago.
I tried to aggressively go Type C exclusively starting in 2017 and have pretty much been there for about 18 months. There are two devices that need an adaptor which I simply glued onto the cable, but then again a lot of devices have gone completely wireless.
People had the same problem with the 30-pin to lightning transition, ADB to USB type A, the super messy VGA->various kinds of DVI and DisplayPort -> (mostly) HDMI and the like. They've been worth it in the end.
You can do some things well on a iPad pro. But you can do anything on a Surface pro except run MacOS. Well I looked and it looks like some have installed MacOS or used vmware images.
Do we think we'll see full blown MacOS/equivalent on iPads in the next 2-3 years?
As a frontend web developer, I would love for them to cover my use case. A native terminal and desktop browser tools in iPadOS would get me to ditch my MacBook Pro in a heartbeat.
MS has been doing this weird dance where they tried to smoosh two OSes together and created one bad OS. The absolute worst was when Windows 8 first came out, and I keep accidentally getting into tablet mode on my non-touch screen laptop.
Apple is taking the correct course which is to build a new OS from the ground up and adding power. MS made gigantic missteps by trying to force a windowing OS to support touch.
Both are somewhat meeting in the middle, and now Surfaces have gotten pretty decent, but they started out bad.
The other thing to remember is that people buy tablets for touch, and Surface Pros are pretty decent laptop replacements but still so-so as an actual tablet.
It would not ruin the iPad, it would ruin Apple's bottom line.
I don't think that would be a great experience, but if it made the iPad into a stronger competitor to Surface Pro and similar Windows convertibles, it might bring in enough new business to counteract any drop in Mac sales.
Apple has their Handoff feature for moving program state from one device to another, maybe that could be adapted for on-device handoff between a Mac and iPadOS version of the same software.
Which they probably will be because there are maybe three development shops that will spend any time thinking about how to make their Mac interface better optimized for a destktop OS.
Still not saying this is a good idea, but it's an idea. Wouldn't be surprised if Apple were exploring it internally.
But seriously If ipadOS doesn't at least allow for backwards compatibility with the software from MacOS. The iPad will never be a replacement for your Mac computer. It will only be an expensive surrogate.
The windowing OS vs Touch OS is definitely a good point. But here we are coming full circle to adding a track pad to a touch os. Sound like apple is a bit confused about what they're offering also. I can't imagine them ever making the ipadOS on par with the Mac operating system. Unless we can start running any type of code on it. It will be the handicapped device.
The Surface pros make great tablets when you ditch the windows app store and run android APK's on them instead.
In some sense, for many categories of use, the App Store hosts superior offerings to what the Mac App Store does. Panic and Omni offer extremely sophisticated applications that I use on a daily basis. Office is likewise almost on par with the desktop equivalents (for most users, I’m well aware of the limitations in macros and plugins and so forth).
Many developers seem to be taking a “Mobile First” approach these days, and that is driving wind into the iPad’s sails.
I really would be more prudent before dismissing it.
Windows 10 has a tablet mode, but it still sucks compared to Windows 8's "default mode". It is actually better to use tablets in regular, "windowing OS" mode than in Windows 10's tablet mode.
For me Windows 8 is an example showing one can make a decent mouse and tablet UI. Obviously it will be worse than the two, but at some point there is an advantage of having a common UI rather than specialized.
Also, Sidecar works amazingly well. I have found myself using the iPad as a second monitor more and more often. It is seamless and hasn't crashed yet. I recently took both Macbook and iPad on a trip and was loving the second screen. And for Logic Pro X, the iPad can act as a remote to control instruments or settings with indiscernible latency.
But even running a decent terminal requires purchasing an app and setting up mosh on the other side. There's no Esc in their keyboards. There are too many roadblocks and glitches.
I wish I could buy an iPad and simply open a terminal and ssh to my machine of choice.
Right now, it's much easier to buy a Surface Go / Pro. And these run Linux natively really well.
Also, is it that hard for a giant of Apple's size to put a fully fledged terminal in iPadOS?
Of course it isn’t. And that tells you that it’s a deliberate decision not to, because it’s miles from the platform’s intended use by the intended users.
Besides, it would be very confusing for users to have a terminal that can only connect to remote systems (which most people likely don’t have access to), because it’s rather improbable that Apple would choose to expose iPadOS through a shell.
Furthermore, the terminal could be simply running in a little Unix sandbox, like Termux, and that could be a great entry point for kids to lots of different interpreters to learn programming. Not exclusive to remote into other systems.
Even as a learning experience, why give (power)users the ability to acquaint themselves with a generic platform that is not tied to Apple’s own offerings? It makes no commercial or even pedagogical sense.
Try out iSH: https://ish.app It sounds like it’s what you want. Apple won’t be providing anything even remotely comparable for the foreseeable future, I’m sure.
Apple's customers are the >1 billion user install base it has for iOS and more broadly the Apple ecosystem.
Developers will develop great desktop and mobile software because that's the way to reach the incredibly valuable install base where consumer spend is 2x+ that of competing platforms.
You don't win developers purely by giving them nice developer features. You win them by giving them something worth developing for. Part of that is a nice developer ecosystem, but that not enough on its own.
They don't care about those that use macOS as pretty Linux/BSD replacement.
Just like NeXT never did, UNIX compatibility was a means to bring UNIX software into the platform, that was all.
We got disintermediated with the very first iPod. Remember "less space than a Nomad. Lame!"? That was very much the attitude of the crowd you are describing.
I distinctly remember a pry-my-keyboard-from-my-dead-hands attitude when the iPhone came out. It's only benevolence that stops me from constantly reminding the "power user" among my friends that his first reaction was "Not even a stylus?"
While this is true, it doesn't follow that every product they produce should serve developers first and foremost. The Mac is the computer I use for development. The iPad is the computer I prefer to use for photo editing/ sketching/ house planning/ and casual use. If I wasn't a developer professionally, I suspect the iPad would be my "Big" computer.
Because if they did, they wouldn't make some of the silly comments I've seen here.
The device literally has the form factor of a thick notebook when folded inside its robust Logitech keyboard case, connects to the internet over 4G (if no WiFi is available), and is a perfect work environment.
Lots of use cases in many of these professions. In particular, there are a lot of professional artists/ illustrators have switched to the iPad. I also know there is an active community of iPad accessories and software for musicians.
Also, while many of the above mentioned professionals can't move their entire workflow to the iPad, quite of few of them have already moved big portions of their workflows to the iPad.
This isn't a zero sum game. For a lot of professionals there is room in their toolbox for multiple computers.
Not, prevention of minority use cases.
un-prevention, of sorts.
Here we go again with this 'real work' nonsense.
What counts as 'real work' to you? A friend of a mine is a barrister and uses an iPad pro to take and use notes. He's definitely doing 'real work' just fine on his iPad.
I wouldn't use an iPad for this though. The shell's are all a compromise and I'm waiting for a great e-ink display so I can remote from a park / beach / patio.
Even though Wolfram has not (yet? hope always dies last!) released a version of Mathematica for the iPad (meaning, a frontend notebook coupled to an actual onboard computing kernel) they have released a client for “Wolfram Online” (often referred to as “Cloud Mathematica”) offering. This isn’t quite what I would like, as there’s a significant range of circumstances where I cannot rely on network access (such as when flying) but for most other situations it suits the purpose.
Other mathematics-inclined apps allow even greater range of onboard functionality (Pythonista, MathSudio spring to mind).
Upshot: one can most definitely do significant amounts of data analysis on an iPad.
Which is way I had to switch back from OpenBSD (which doesn’t run it) and Linux (which until today’s update, didn’t have HiDPI support) back to Mac OS.
And if real work is just taking notes, then I think you really need to question whether an iPad Pro is the right choice among the iPad lineup.
That's how a barrister does part of their work.
When I develop software I'm 'just writing a program'. But I'm not - I'm forming a mental model of what I want to do and working out how to express it.
You can make any job sound silly by reducing it to its constitutive actions.
This argument pops up regularly on HN and it's always the same - it's all people talking past each other. One half is saying "iPads don't cover as many use cases as laptops" and the other half is saying "but look, my specific anecdotal use case is covered". You're not even disagreeing with each other, just missing the point.
I’ve been using a succession of iPads as my main computing platforms since the first iteration was released ten years ago. Initial releases were a bit of a compromise, but the arrival of multitasking, multi-view, and filesystem access (latterly with iPadOS) have come a long way towards ensuring that I have nothing to miss. The addition of native support for an in-built trackpad further accentuates this trend.
Sure, I cannot develop or compile natively on the iPad, but that is something I do very rarely.
[EDIT: Spelling error corrected in ‘arrival’.]
They work in Linux because they're open package repos, we can add our own tress/signatures in and can have a lot of control over them. App stores are bastardizations of this concept. They offer some additional security for the non-tech user (maybe? It's questionable) but it also makes your devices not your own.
It’s not questionable at all, the App Store has been a cornerstone of the iOS security model for years. You can look at how many millions of Android users are constantly infected because it turns out that most people have zero concept of when to trust a third party or not.
Either way Apple does let you run your own apps if you jump through some hoops with MDM and Xcode and whatnot. So it’s not completely locked down either.
It’s locked down enough that I feel comfortable that the average user would be secure and taken care of when using iOS.
iOS and iPadOS pretty much are.
It's pretty questionable. The most obvious reason iOS has better security than Android is because iOS has far better sandboxing than Android.
I don't necessarily dismiss claims that moderation reduces malware, but I am at least skeptical of those claims. I haven't seen compelling statistics that moderation on the scale of the iOS App Store has specifically made an impact beyond banning a few high-publicity, wildly bad actors. The evidence I have seen suggests that moderation is likely not a scalable solution to malware.
More to the point, what we do know pretty conclusively is that app stores on their own are not a magic bullet. We can look at Windows, Chrome, and Android and see that app stores don't automatically improve security.
I think you can make a strong case that iOS shows why having a locked down OS in general helps -- the restrictions around the filesystem in particular close off entire classes of malware. But I think it's mostly conjecture to try and separate the App Store from those other improvements and credit it in specific.
I've yet to see evidence that those stores actively review apps in the way that Apple does. You never see articles like "my app was rejected from the Chrome store". It's less about having a store and more about having a decent review process.
In any case, there are no silver bullets in security. Not one.
1. The application developer creates a manifest that lists the privileges the app wants, and includes it as part of the code-signing request;
2. Apple’s App Store review team audits the application more thoroughly according to the privileges it has claimed;
3. Apple only code-signs the app bundle if the app stays on the strait-and-narrow;
4. The OS (through Gatekeeper) enforces the content of a code-signed app bundle, and therefore makes any included capability manifest immutable (in the sense that, if you change it, Gatekeeper considers the app considered and won’t start it);
5. The OS (through the capabilities system) enforces the restrictions from any included capabilities manifest on any high-level framework calls.
Note that there’s no actual linkage going on between code-signing and the capabilities manifest, in a way you’d expect from e.g. a Docker image. There’s no real “application sandbox” here. There’s just an Apple signature on the app bundle, telling you Apple saw this app as-is and approved it; and then, separately, an entirely optional opt-in capabilities system for which an app can claim any capabilities it wants.
If you take Apple out of the picture as a central signer, then 1. apps could claim any capabilities they liked, and nobody could tell them different (this is more like Android, where installing something presents you with a list of the capabilities it claims); but more importantly, 2. apps wouldn’t even need to use the capability system at all. Like I said, it’s opt-in; regular binaries run on macOS (and iOS!) just fine without living in an app-bundle with a paired capabilities manifest.
So, the whole security model of iOS (and macOS under Gatekeeper strict mode) comes down to “Apple verifies that apps are doing the right thing at some point.” Without that, there’s pretty much no sandboxing on either OS beyond what little you get from BSD user privileges and Mach port ACLs.
When people talk about app store moderation, they're talking about a moderation team deciding which apps are abusive and which ones aren't. They're not talking about the underlying mechanism of, "there's a system that verifies an app doesn't violate its manifest."
The relevant part of the app store that people in this thread are talking about are the decisions about, "should a specific app that asks for location permissions be allowed on the store?" Code signing doesn't have anything to do with that decision. It's an implementation detail. The important part is not "Facebook is signed to a specific manifest", it's "Facebook's app will be rejected if it's submitted with a manifest that asks for privileges that aren't consumer-friendly."
The decision about which apps are allowed on the store is the part of the App Store that's relevant. When people question whether or not app stores improve security, what they're asking is, "does a centralized malware filter improve security?"
You could have a Gatekeeper model that worked the exact same way as Android, where the Manifest was required and the user confirmed the Manifest. Even in that world, Apple's sandboxing would still be better than Android's, because the capabilities Apple offers in the manifest are more intelligently split up, and can be granted in more limited degrees.
The question is whether Apple's security stats are due to moderation, or largely due to having a better set of permissions. I strongly maintain that there is not enough clear data for anyone to claim that the moderation is objectively the main contributor to those stats.
And that's really the only claim that djsumdog was ever making -- that it's questionable whether every company adding an app store to every platform is actually going to make most people safer.
The only reason anyone bothers with the finickyness of capabilities manifests in the first place, is that Apple forces developers to take exactly the capabilities they need, and rejects apps that ask for more than they need, or ask for capabilities that are too coarse-grained for what they need. Without Apple there to do that human-intelligence-complete task of determining whether an app “needs” the permissions it’s asking for, devs would have a much simpler incentive: to avoid work (and “you must re-approve this app” prompts) by just using as far-reaching of capabilities claims as they can. Just as Android-ecosystem apps do today!
And so you’d have iOS malware that simply asks for permission to rootkit you and then rootkits you (just like on Android), and it wouldn’t look out of place, since everything would ask for those same permissions. (Yes, system-equivalent capabilities like that exist in iOS. Apple doesn’t issue them to third parties, but they exist for the sake of system apps. Without a curator, nothing would stop any random app from putting those root-kit-y capabilities in its list, and then socially engineering people into thinking they were sensible things for said app to need.)
tl;dr: The security of an ecosystem doesn’t just come from its mechanics, but also its economics. If nobody has any reason to “only claim what they need”, then why would they? Right now, Apple (and their rejection of apps that are too coarse-grained in their capabilities requests) is that reason.
That's a reasonable question that at first glance seems to have an obvious answer.
And yet, the web works. The web works brilliantly -- the web isn't perfect by any metric, but it is still almost objectively the most secure general-user computing platform that we have today. There are a lot of reasons for that, including just locking down capabilities in general, but where permissions are specifically concerned:
- The current permissions model that platforms including iOS are moving towards is granting permissions piece-meal post-install. Asking for lots of permissions up-front looks a lot more skeezy in this world, which reduces user trust. I particularly respect that iOS pops up reminders of what permissions you've granted apps, I think that's a brilliant UX move, and I wish other platforms would copy it.
- The more sophisticated model that Firefox/Chrome are starting to play with (and that I suspect more platforms are going to adopt in the future) is that apps can't ask for permissions directly, users need to grant them themselves by going out of their way, which helps cut down on people mindlessly clicking OK on everything that pops up and introduces a UX/development cost for apps that want to enable tons of permissions, because they now need to explain to users what to click on.
- The really sophisticated model that people are looking into for stuff like filesystem access is that the app never knows whether or not a permission was granted. If it asks for location, it gets an incorrect answer. If it asks for access to your media files, it gets a blank folder with nothing in it. Under this model, the app is completely isolated by default, and never knows how many permissions the user has granted it, so it never knows whether or not to ask for more of them.
So this is one of those questions that intuitively points towards moderation, but in practice we're starting to learn that with good UX there are a lot of ways to teach ordinary people to be safe, and there are a lot of ways to restrict apps without encouraging users to circumvent those restrictions.
Of course, I don't think it's impossible that app store moderation helps security. I mean, certainly moderation helps on some level. I suspect it doesn't help as much as people assume, just based on what moderation looks like across the entire industry right now. But I'm not going to die on that hill.
I just don't think people should blanketly assume that's the case. MacOS also has a better security track record than Windows even when you're not running Gatekeeper apps, and even though MacOS doesn't force apps to go through a moderator. Any user can bypass Gatekeeper, but through a combination of multiple factors, MacOS still has less malware than Windows/Android.
People look at iOS and Android and make very strong claims based on two environments that are substantially different on multiple security axes: in terms of sandboxing, in terms of market share, in terms of userbase demographics. There's a lot of stuff at play here, and there are multiple ways that platforms (including iOS) are trying to create the economics you're talking about. Even iOS is not all-in on moderation, even iOS is trying to train its users at least to some degree to think about their own security.
This model has benefits, but it also has a major downside: if the app doesn't know it doesn't have privileges, it can't inform the user of that fact. The user has to realize on their own that the reason their search for a local bakery returned something on the other side of the country is that they forgot to enable location permissions.
The alternative explanation, which has far fewer moving parts and doesn't require an assumption of bad faith, is that the Mac App Store was obvious after the iOS Store success, and so was a major push in security/sandboxing beyond chmod -R 600.
It's five years since SIP was introduced, and none of the dire predictions were correct. The mechanism to disable it has not changed even incrementally. But almost no one bothers to disable it because it doesn't actually stop you from doing anything, while it does seem to be effective at stopping malware.
I'm not really sure what you're talking about but sure.
Apple was hoping they'd introduce the MacStore everyone would flock to it in droves. Unfortunately the revenue sharing scheme and onerous requirements and restrictions put upon the Developers have made it an undesirable distribution mechanism for anything that isn't given away free.
Apple's improvements to MacOS have all been about locking down and protecting the user because for years they claimed it was immune to malware and virus right up until the problem was too big to ignore. The past few releases of MacOS have been reminiscent of Windows Vista.
Apple would love to lock the platform down to be like iOS but the users have spoken with a resounding "f*ck you". So instead they're gradually developing a competing platform that is build from the ground up to be the unprivileged walled garden with a big ass toll booth at ever point of entry.
And you're sitting here taking the Apple approach of deny deny deny right up until you switch and say "it's better this way".
Do you worry about iOS's overaggressive autocorrect?
(I'm just kidding, I know people are actually pretty close to as fast and accurate on mobile vs. desktop/laptop: https://userinterfaces.aalto.fi/typing37k/)
The original argument for tablet computers in the first place was that sometimes you don't need a full-fledged computer, so you pocket $400-500 and get something cheap instead that's a limited but still quality device. And I think that would still be true with the iPad Pro. You want something that's closer to a full computer, with a real keyboard, but you still want to pocket some money.
Except... the pricing is awful.
It's like they designed a product for a real niche, and then stopped thinking about that niche as soon as they got out of the design phase and started working on implementation.
As a point of comparison, even if you hate Windows with a passion, you can get the new Macbook Air they just announced for basically the same exact cost as an iPad Pro + keyboard, and that comes with a full-featured OS. Is a Macbook Air as portable? Maybe not, but it's still pretty darn portable.
You're giving up the pencil, but you're getting a better OS on a computer with better specs. But I guess if you're a digital artist, and you prefer the iPad pencil over the Surface pen or Wacom tablets, and having a full OS doesn't matter for you -- this might be exciting. That seems like it would be a narrow demographic, but what do I know? I'm sure it'll sell well.
The iPad Pro is expensive, but “Pro” implies you want a device that can do things which are useful to professionals.
As a developer, I am better served by an actual MBP for work and a cheap iPad for less-productive tasks, but not everyone is a developer.
It really comes down to form factor and OS.
Of all the product lines Apple has, the iPad is their product line with the most flexible pricing. Everything from the $250 base model up to the iPad Pro at $1000 ($1,350 with the keyboard). If you don't need the iPad Pro, there are three other models below that.
Even their highest priced iPads aren't very expensive. If you are a business buying a computer, it's less than one week's wages for the most expensive iPad.
> It's like they designed a product for a real niche
You have this almost exactly the opposite. The iPad is the mainstream product and the PC is the niche product. The overwhelming majority of people can do everything they need on the iPad. It's the niche users (Developers, Video Editors, etc) who require the additional flexibility a PC offers.
> you can get the new Macbook Air they just announced for basically the same exact cost as an iPad Pro + keyboard, and that comes with a full-featured OS.
Fundamentally, you get a MacBook (or Windows/ Linux) if you need the flexibility of having a desktop PC. A lot of people prefer the simplicity iPadOS offers.
Also, it's not just the most expensive iPad Pro versus the least expensive Mac. If you don't need the pencil or the nicer keyboard, you could get the iPad Air or the base iPad for significantly less.
> but you're getting a better OS on a computer with better specs.
You are confusing more flexible for better. The two operating systems target different purposes. For a lot of people the iPad OS is the better experience. Also, I haven't seen the benchmarks yet, but I suspect that like with the prior generation, this iPad Pro is significantly faster than the base MacBook Air.
Even when you bundle the cost of both the probe and the iPad pro, it ended up being cheaper than the (much less portable) alternatives in the market.
If you're not calling that "real work" I'm not sure what else to tell you.
Quite simply, a lot of the software I want/need is only on iOS. And while, yes, it's more expensive, the cost difference is a drop in the bucket.
If I was still a starving college student, I'd care. But as a professional, I care more about time than saving literally penny I can.
iPads don't run iOS. ipadOS has changed quite a bit from iOS - they are not the same thing.
It really depends what your work is. My iPad is my main mobile computer. I do have a desktop, but use the iPad heavily. At work at various meetings there are regularly 2 to 5 of use taking notes or referring to material on iPads. Some with pencils, others with keyboard cases.
Of course it’s not right for everyone, it just needs to be really good at the things it’s good for. That’s all. If a laptop or Surface works better for you that’s cool.
Even the difference between wacom/graphics tablet and iPad with the pencil is almost night and day, no lag or parallax on the iPads is a huge draw card.
For an illustrator, the iPad is a perfect (digital) tool.
https://www.wacom.com/en-us/products/pen-displays
Have you used a Cintiq much? Would be interested in a comparison of that vs the iPad Pro's. :)
Meanwhile the portability of the ipad and apps like procreate have made the ipad a very compelling tool for artists.
Most professional digital artists I know of use both a large cintiq in studio and an ipad.
There are a trillion comparisons on youtube. Also a contender (but a smaller size) is the ipad air 3 which also has a bonded glass display.
You can get something like an Asus Zenbook 13 for hundreds less, which has a real i7 CPU, supports much more software, has a dedicated GPU, etc. while weighing about the same and having about the same battery life.
There’s a lot of Apple superfans in the world, then…
It probably seems absurd to imagine it would do that thing better than other places where I can do that thing, but it's probably 20 or 30% better at email than my other options.
And I do a LOT of email.
I keep an iPad Pro (with keyboard) to the left, and when I want to do email, I look left and do it there. That keeps me focused on my main windows.
I do think that it would be possible for someone to write an email client that is as efficient as the iOS Outlook app is, and maybe it already exists for non-Outlook, but in my current corporate environment the iPad pro is a lifesaver.
But, somehow, that's not "real work", apparently.
From what I was able to gleam from similar comments over the last few months, I guess "real work" mostly involves regularly swapping hardware components, overclocking the CPU, daisy-chaining a dozen USB devices, micromanaging kernel compile flags, automating the micromanagement of kernel compile flags, aggregating optimisation metrics in a dashboard, running benchmarks, upgrading npm/homebrew/gem/go packages on a daily basis, and reorganising keyboard layout.
As a programmer, I use my desktop.
I came real close to ditching my Mac + Wacom combo for a Surface + external keyboard for my art work a couple years ago, but there was a constant lag problem somewhere between my stylus motions and Illustrator that made it unusable, even after a month of regular attempts to find the one magic setting somewhere deep in the ten different control panels related to Windows' stylus drivers.
How times change.
Google botched Android 3.0 (the first "Tablet" version of Android), and developers mostly didn't bother trying to adapt their apps for tablet screens.
If it hadn't been for Samsung pushing the boundaries with pressure-sensitive screens, pen input (2014 Galaxy Tab pro line), Linux on DeX, and SoC improvements, there wouldn't be an Android tablet market beyond the disposable 7" tabs people buy for their kids.
You can do that now.
I am a heavy user of Cellular connectivity with my iPad Pro. It is my go to device on the road and while travelling, open it up and it just works. It runs a long time on a charge and it has apps that respond quickly for movies, reading, browsing, mapping, and note taking (all things I do while traveling).
The Surface Pro is where I do development (generally in WSL2 these days) once I've arrived somewhere that there is free WiFi and access to AC power. I will typically use it with a USB device or two as well (such as flash drives, wireless connections, and embedded development boards) Its ability to drive a couple of 2K screens and give me a "full up" developer experience is appreciated.
I sketch more on my iPad even though I like the drawing "feel" of the Surface Pro better. The SP feels "clunky" when I try to use it in tablet mode.
When I use them together its generally the iPad for reference materials and background music while I'm writing code on the SP.
And iPads have been outselling Macs on a unit basis for a decade, so even people who buy iPads don't seem to find them suitable for general office/school-type work (as opposed to use as specialty terminals carried by inspectors or mounted on fast food counters).
Some combination of form factor and iOS's "you'll only hurt yourself with tools, so we've replaced them with lots of fun ways to buy entertainment" design ethos has so far failed to make iPad the computer replacement that Apple always claims it is. Instead, it's more of a personal entertainment center.
It's also a bit better than a laptop for digging in and highlighting reading material.
I would not use it as my main PC, though, that's for sure. The apps just aren't there yet.
Web browsing on the ipad pro with a keyboard cover although is pretty good!
Techy use cases like building and running "custom" code are unsupported on a more fundamental level, but I'd call that a special case. Slightly more concerning is how tightly locked-down the app store is.
I agree that Tablet Mode in Windows isn't as good as iOS on iPad. On the other hand, I just want to carry with me one mobile computer/tablet, not two.
Those things the ipad can't do are largely niche (now that working with files is well supported), and are solvable limitations. The software problem on the surface pro is pervasive and unsolvable. They've done their best, but you can't make every piece of software written for Windows suddenly not require the precision of a mouse or suddenly support navigational gestures.
I had a surface book 2, but got rid of it in favor of an ipad pro after using one for a while. I have a desktop that I use for gaming, but I would have that either way for the sheer power of it.
The only thing that the ipad can't do well that I'd use it for is programming. This is not a dealbreaker for me, as I don't like programming on the go anyway, and if I really needed to then I can remote into a desktop to do it.
Software development doesn't feel niche to me. It feels like it should be possible to publish a usable, high quality iPad app using nothing but an iPad.
I'm not saying everyone should be able to build a large application, but you shouldn't be stopped from building things on it, otherwise how will you even get started?
Computers that stop you from inspecting them and learning how they work build a moat between the users and developers of the system. That's the opposite of what I think we should be encouraging.
* Software development, with the best will in the world, isn't really possible on it.
* No quick ways to open up multiple windows, alt-tab between them, snap them side by side etc.
* No mouse support (Admittedly, I tried them a while back, but by all accounts, the mouse support until this update was still bolted on).
* Shitty af file system (Admittedly another thing that is moving in the right direction).
* Woeful stand. The previous folio was a joke, especially at it's price. It was unstable, lacked a trackpad, and personally, I hated the typing feel.
It was all rather disappointing, because I was so tempted by it. A sub-1 kg setup that one could pack in one's bag and forget, with a proper aspect ratio, with touch support, with great battery life, with the Apple quality etc.
Could've been great, but isn't there yet.
By the sounds of the usual complaints my use case is quite uncommon (really I need a fast, multithreaded easy-for-demos device for a specific code base the engine of which runs on Linux/MacOS/iOS). It seems Apple is selling a boatload of iPads so they seem to think that few people want to plug things in. That seems absurd when I talk to my friends, but, well, I'm sure the usage data they get from people (like me) who enable that is telling them otherwise.
As for the Surface: I've seen a couple and the hardware looks quite nice but in terms of weight and usability the MBA has been just fine. I often find myself using my current iPad to do something and then put it down and switch to the laptop. The use cases seem disjoint, partially due to the inherent limitations of each platform vs the other in certain regards, so over the years I've given up on thinking that a unified device would be worth it.
I notice people have commented that some of your objections to the iPad have subsequently been rectified, but the core issues IMHO still remain. Another way to put it is that you now can do many laptop-like things on the iPad but it would hardly be your first choice, especially when it's so easy to switch to another device more adapted to things like filesystem manipulation. But if it's the only device you happen to have on your person you aren't stuck. Maybe Surface can find a way over that hump.
Enter the iPad, which was built from the ground up as a touch interface. but now it looks like they're coming at it from a different directly....a touch interface incorporating mouse/touchpad support.
But, I'm for people using what they want to use. My use/need isn't the same.
At release the Surface seemed ridiculous, adding touch and pen tools to a normal computer. Apple went the other way starting from scratch, touch only seemed the sensible choice.
Now year on year as Apple adds more and more laptop computer into the iPad and it's Mac line lacks any modern input flexibility it's starting to look absurd they went down this route and the Surface line is making more and more sense the further we go down this road.
They keep on adding more powerful/fancy cameras to the rear that people likely under-use in the common case, while the front camera that is commonly used for work, video conferencing, selfies, etc remains on the wrong edge and is under-powered. It is almost farcical with the new keyboard setting the top to the non-camera edge.
The front facing camera should be the premiere camera on the iPad, and should exist on the top and side, with triple microphone array (top, left, and right). Scrap two of the rear cameras to offset the cost.
Also, I used to be 100% remote, and I WFH plenty, so I'm on videoconferences all the time. I do not perceive the need for insanely good cameras for this.
Selfies, maybe, perhaps Instagram influencers need super-high-res selfie photos and movies.
All that being said, maybe there are uses I haven't even imagined for an iPad that has a better front-facing camera than rear-facing camera. But for my current use cases... I would say not.
As to video conferencing, it depends on what you're doing. If you're presenting a meeting and are being projected onto a conference room's TV/projector, the quality matters.
And, guessing, I would imagine people use this sans keyboard >95% of the time. So they gear it for that. Or should they put two cameras on it?
I highly doubt Apple was oblivious to this, but there are always compromises.
As to quality, the quality of this camera is equivalent or better than the overwhelming majority of webcams. Maybe people are doing xxx streams or something, but for a corporate meeting this is about three tiers above the average.
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<=============>What I want from the front camera is mostly good light sensitivity and color rendition. I don't need more than 1080p video on it though. It feels like it should be possible without making it very expensive. If it isn't possible, then for an iPad I'd sacrifice ALL the rear camera functionality for just a slightly better front cam, in a heartbeat.
tl;dr: phone webcams have DMA, laptop webcams are using USB.
I'd say a more likely (and harder to fix) explanation is that the phone ones can be deeper; laptop ones have to be very slim to fit.
In 2017 they did start shipping a 1080p camera on iMac Pros, but that hasn't made it to portables.
I wish there was a way to take notes on my iPad and join the call from my iPad. This it the main thing that keeps me from making the leap 100%.
The front camera is 7MP (close to 4K) and records 1080p. I don't know of any videoconferencing software that uses more than 1080p, and there's always massive compression applied anyways which would defeat image improvements. The quality is more than enough.
There's also very little practical issue with it being on the side when in landscape mode. It just means that your eyes appear to be looking sideways rather than downwards (arguably an improvement, as eyelids don't move down -- much closer to how people actually look in an in-person meeting when not looking directly at you) and that your head is about 10% off-center. So a non-issue. I've never seen anybody even notice it in a conference call, much less complain.
Finally who is taking selfies with their iPad? That's what phones are for. It's too big to hold with one hand.
The common use case for cameras in the iPad Pro is actually the rear camera. iPads are being increasingly used as professional tools in shooting production-quality video as well as all sorts of other commercial applications.
So I think the balance is quite right.
I've had to do meetings and interviews using the front-facing camera in environments where I don't have control over the lighting and the results were not great.
If anything, I think videoconferencing really needs to move towards more abstracted forms of interaction instead of trying to accomplish crystal clear video. Evidently, remote classrooms are finding it easier to do lectures via Minecraft than Zoom or Skype.
With the kinds of advances in deepfakes and realistic looking face rendering we're getting, there isn't as much reason to be sending that much data over the network. You'd need a camera to capture things like writing on a markerboard, but just for conferencing and getting body language pseudo-MoCap would do fine.
Better quality (lower noise) video reduces compression artefacts (or alternatively bandwidth requirements), because video codec doesn't need to waste bandwidth encoding all that high entropy noise.
There is some projects[1] going on but using some non-viable workaround
Open beta, but sadly not released to the App Store yet. Works quite well.
Plus would it really be an "iPad" with you sacrifice the whole security model to allow debugging?
I'm not against it, but I am saying that's quite different from the iPad's current security model. You're giving developers root, maybe with extra steps, but root none the less.
Revoke my warranty, do whatever, just let me use the device I bought!
It's gotta be the most beautiful hardware of a machine I've seen. It's a shame the software is so anti-user.
No you aren't. It's arbitrary code execution in the target app's sandbox which is already doing arbitrary code execution in the first place. You know, the thing that you compiled & ran before you ever attached a debugger? Every iOS app is already doing arbitrary code execution. That's the whole point of apps. And the security model holds up just fine.
iOS's restrictions on JIT'ing is about App Store control, not security.
The security model being that you need to be attached to a Mac to allow debugging? Other than that I'm totally with you. The ipad is far away from being a frictionless, general computation device.
You can install a VS Code "server" on e.g. your Linux developer machine, then connect to it via your VS Code "client" on your iPad. You get local intellisense and the like, but actual execution of code is done on your Linux server.
You can replace Linux server with Windows, or even containers (so you can have your "server" be a local Linux docker image if you're on Windows but want to develop locally on Linux, for example).
I realize this is a higher barrier to use, but I could seriously see using it in this way.
[0] https://code.visualstudio.com/docs/remote/remote-overview
This is a bug with Monaco, Visual Studio Code’s editor component, which does not support mobile browsers.
FYI, there are at least two. The Swift playgrounds app.
And Pythonista, which is actually quite a nice IDE for small projects, and even lets you build GUIs.
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/visualstudio/online/overvie...
maybe it is possible to self-host this as well...
With few exceptions, content creation has not been successful on iPadOS. And for the last ten years, Apple has made building content creation apps systemically more difficult on macOS, e.g., with Notarization, Sandboxing, restricted file-system access, restricting Apple Events, deprecating built-in scripting languages, neglecting AppKit, and replacing WebView with the incomplete WKWebView.
In the current situation, iPadOS has been a dead end, and the Mac is, depending on your perspective, either moving backwards, or at best treading water.
It's not a good situation.
[0]: https://blog.robenkleene.com/2019/08/07/apples-app-stores-ha...
Logic Pro, Final Cut Studio, Motion
Considering the Best Picture Oscar winner was cut with Final Cut, I’d say that’s an “important” content creation app.
I agree that all content creation apps aren’t on the store, but you said “no important” ones, which isn’t factual.
UPDATE: "Parasite" was also edited on Final Cut Pro 7, released in 2009, which is not only deadly commentary on Apple's failure to accommodate content creators on it's own, it also predates not just sandboxing (2011), but the entire Mac App Store (2010).
Are you serious? We should be starting with XCode, I mean, given all the rules and restrictions on the platform, it’ll be shocking enough when Apple finally gets XCode into action.
As for VSCode, I’m not even sure what you’d be compiling onto the device, as Swift or Obj-C in XCode is the only way to end up with a .ipa you can run...
Also you can run js, node, etc just fine right now on an iPad (but not node and that sucks)
It’s like, slow down, let’s get Apple’s own native solution in there before we get a third party one?
If not only to make sure it’s done right?
Currently the App Store’s restriction that it can’t run arbitrary code is the best one.
No.
I suppose if the iPad can't download other binaries to load in the background (like the C# or C++ dependencies), VSCode is never going to come to it.
It's still just a consumption / Etch-A-Sketch device despite all the marketing about how wonderful it is for creation. It's good for making basic music/practicing guitar for me, but other than that my iPad is just for reading/browsing.
Wow. This must be one hell of a keyboard..
The new MBP keyboard is noticeably different in feel from the old scissor-switch keyboard, but not especially so. It's comfortable to type on and I'm happy with it.
This 11 inch iPad Pro has been my main machine since it was released in November 2018, and as such it has been great value for money.
I am a bit of an unusual case since I’ve been using iPads to cover (almost all of) my computing and workflow needs since the release of the first iPad in 2010. iPadOS has given the platform an enormous boost in utility. The new keyboard brings is a step closer to being a zero-regrets laptop alternative (i.e., an option orthogonal to as opposed to in replacement of) a laptop.
I am a bit confused by the usb-c port for pass through charging. I would have thought a great opportunity would be to have the stand be able to wireless charge the iPad while in use but I expect the power requirements of an iPad in use would exceed current standards.
Regardless, the interesting point to me is with keyboard, pencil, and such, the price point overlap with their laptop line makes we wonder about rumors of an ARM chipped line of Macs. Without the processor difference price comparisons are going to be much more difficult to blow off
Looking at the published photos, there doesn't appear to be a mechanical interface along the edge of the ipad to the stand.
https://www.apple.com/shop/product/MXQT2LL/A/magic-keyboard-...
I've never laid hands on an iPad Pro but photos show it has 3 pogo pads on the backside, is that enough to do data and power? I was under the impression that USB-3 required multiple pairs of data wires. Some sort of proprietary signaling?
Maybe it is using wireless power?
It's the same connector since the new one is backwards compatible with the old iPad Pro.
If you google "iPad Smart Connector pinout" you find previous discussion/speculation on the protocol
edit: the announcement specifically says the stand supports "pass-through charging, keeping the USB-C port on iPad Pro free for accessories including external drives and displays". So the pogo pins only have to have enough data bandwidth to send keystrokes, the stand won't give you USB 3 data
/s?
Input accessories are getting pricy.
It's rich hearing mechanical keyboard fans panning Apple keyboards on price.
The sole reason mechanical keyboards are still sold is because some people prefer the feel of them and are willing to pay extra for that finger feel. Similarly, the reason people pay a premium for Apple's keyboards is because people prefer the feel of them. Prior to the butterfly keyboard, it was one of the big reasons people preferred Apple laptops.
Since few of the most die-hard mechanical keyboard fans are willing to haul around their bulky keyboards with sweet Cherry Blue switches, choices for good quality keyboards on the go is fairly limited and the Apple Magic keyboard is high on the list, and yes, people are willing to pay for that experience.
It would be different if this was a device that could switch between MacOS and IpadOS. But it's not. So it really seems like Apple is continually reinforcing the fact that we should be carrying around 30 separate items with us all at once to be prepared when we need to do one particular thing.
I can't wait until Apple gets this stuff sorted around because frankly I"m sick of them doing this stuff. The past 5 years they've been doubling down moving us toward USB-C but also making sure we need like 10 dongles or separate devices for their machines. Whoever is currently in their design team clearly is getting more say in the manufacturing of the devices than anybody in engineering I can say that. They need to make something that saves me time, not something that annoys me just like a PC.
If there is indeed no contact pads, then it's likely they had to develop some custom rf connection just to support the type-c without contact pads (usb 3.0 needs a ton of bandwidth,) and that ain't cheap.
What their keyboards do offer is tighter integration. That’s not a wall, it’s more like growing enticing apples in the orchard within the garden.
Not much different than the situation with upgrades for my Volvo. The Volvo stuff is tightly integrated. OEM stuff sometimes involves compromises, like plugging things into the port and fiddling with bluetooth.
Don't worry, they'll tell you.
(I hailstormed this message on Cherry MX Blues.)
Support outside vim (actually a terminal) is a bit less reliable.
[1]: https://twitter.com/johnsundell/status/1225177084965851137
However, I would appreciate better support for MX Master as opposed to the current solution via Accessibility.
https://www.idownloadblog.com/2020/02/06/ipados-13-4-hardwar...
You can do this with Karabiner on OS X, ililim/dual-key-remap on Windows, and alols/xcape on Linux.
wow. just wow.
He said (a few times): "An iPod, a phone, an internet mobile communicator... these are NOT three separate devices!"
Cant believe it has been 9 years.
There's definitely an Apple tax here, but it's also a premium item, so that pricing doesn't seem ridiculous to me. Also, the existing Bluetooth options will still work, and the Apple Smart Folio keyboard is still an option at a lower price point.
Kind of have to look at it as the whole package. You aren't buying an iPad and a keyboard, you are buying a 10.5" laptop for $1,100.
I went cheap on my older iPad Pro and just use an aftermarket bluetooth keyboard, but I've kept this guy for 4+ years now and spending a bit (Ok a LOT) more and having a really nice keyboard/ case/ trackpad affects the usefulness of the device for the entire time.
Still debating it, still not sure I'm upgrading my iPad yet, but I'm a lot more likely to pay the extra for the nicer setup this time around.
It's not immediately clear which one is better. Depends on how you expect to use it.
For me, I need developer tools, multiple browser engines, and spreadsheets, so I'm going to be on a laptop or desktop as my main computer for a while yet. That's not true of everyone. Many people can use this as their main machine and there are certain advantages to it.
Seems like every generation of iPad & iPad OS makes the Mac a little less relevant. That said... if you need MacOS—for example you are a developer—you get a Mac.
It'll be interesting when Macs with ARM CPUs hit the market. Or for that matter... if they were to release MacOS for the iPad.
Mind you, I work on financial applications so YMMV. I love my Mac -- I wish the iPad was there, but it's not there yet. Great for watching Netflix though ...
I must say; if I could program on it, I probably would not have a laptop anymore. 2 years ago my laptop was being repaired and I had to spend 2 months (don't ask) with my iPad Pro; I worked with Termius + Remotix for developing apps + sites + api's and it works fine as long as the connection is good. I was in HK and the 4g internet is great all over the place, even on the ferry. It's not ideal but it's really quite good.
But man I miss my iPad. My very expensive and high performance toy with the nearly endless choice of very high quality applications and games.
Android tablet apps are plain awful. There are a few good apps on Windows (6 of them and half haven't been updated in 3+ years) and there are always random lags and endless strange issues with Tablet mode. Never mind that a Windows machine often needs to wake up from suspend vs iPad instant on.
What possible nightmare bugs could macOS have that would lead you to this claim? I'm really curious. They'd have to be big ones because I've been developing on Lin/Win/Mac for 6 years and nothing comes close to the pain of developing on Windows.
Honestly, Apple software and machines have way too much magic locked away and hidden. This was acceptable to me when everything was perfect, but those days are gone. I check the Apple support forums from time to time. MacBook keyboards come to mind.
I've had 3 macs over a decade and they've all been flawless. My 2013 MBP is still my trusty workhorse, my Mac Mini handles the living room.
Only issue ever was Catalina when my chinese 32-bit Alfa drivers stopped working, but I had two OSes worth of warnings. And my new iPhone 7 sometimes cannot make calls because the phone app crashes and I have to reboot (bahahahah wtf apple... YOU HAD ONE JOB!!!). SO there's that.
I've got dozens of anecdotal issues with windows though: I still have to sit and wait 60 seconds to see what is in my recycle bin (or any folder with large # files) for Explorer while it does a bunch of bloatware internet checks behind the scenes to tell me things I don't need to know. Or my system randomly grinding to a halt due to upgrades. Or the spontaneous 100% network usage associated with services that require me to get a coffee while they finish (because rebooting will kill an hour). Or the Device Manager that hasn't changed since Win2000. Oh, and I love the advertisements for games in my start menu. Or being able to actually stop windows updates (twist: even dinking with the registry still is undone).
Battle of opinions here, obviously: but the Candy Crush showing up my start menu really sealed the coffin on Windows being a serious platform.
Tough being a product at Google. They remind me of the turtles hatching on the beach and running for the ocean before being killed by the birds.
Light travels 30cm in 1ns. That's not really a very exciting precision at 5m range. That's like 4bit resolution.
Are there any specs aside from this marketing blabber?
Ok... but they actually said "The biggest thing to happen to the cursor since point and click." What, being on an iPad?
Probably something like this:
How do both compare?
Usually, the X version (or in this case, the Z version) is the same architecture as a previous non-letter architecture but with optimized and improved multi-core performance achieved with new components and likely some overclocking. They are also likely optimized to handle workloads differently since they are put in devices that are meant to work differently than a handheld phone.
The X versions seem to be optimized to take full advantage of the larger batteries available in the iPads or for non-battery devices like the Apple TV.
I don't think there are X CPUs that were put in iPhones, so far (I could be wrong, though).
My question was rather how A12z compares to A13. They have already explained many times how A(n) compares to A(n)X.
But they got A12z this time round.
Apart from the iPad 2, new top-of-the-line iPads have almost always shipped with the existing highest-numbered A series chip in an X variant. The single exception was the first iPad Air, which shipped with a regular A7.
So this is indeed the first time that a new high-end iPad has shipped with a lower-numbered CPU than the most recent iPhone.
There are some cool apps that I think you guys would like. They don't have a lot of marketing behind them.. Carnets (offline Jupyter notebook) [free] and a-Shell (interactive terminal) [free].
Took some digging, but note that the new trackpad keyboard is compatible with the 2018 released iPad Pro models. Looks like the keys are bigger, resembling their laptop keyboard a bit more. I really enjoy typing on my smart folio so I hope the experience will be similar!
This is such a frustrating comparison that Apple continues to make. They factor in that most Windows PC laptops are very low-spec and low-price. If you compared performance with similarly priced machines it would likely be a different story.
But come on, Apple. It's not 2001 anymore. You don't need to keep up with the 'us vs them' mentality.
The only "serious" use cases for the iPad, which are actually better on iPad than on Mac are:
- Document review and annotation with tools like LiquidText or PDF Expert
- Sketching and drawing with apps like Paper
- Data collection and demonstration in the field (showing other people stuff, and asking them to enter info)
Anything else you "could" technically do on an iPad is just a dumbed-down version of what we already do better on a Mac. Lots of pretty marketing and very little productivity - I feel bad for the generation of college kids raised on this pretty piece of glass while being deprived of the experience of "real" computing.
Is that just a certain comfort about being able to more closely approach the OS abstractions like file and command?
Importing and editing a single photo is easy, but if I want to work on a whole batch it becomes a pain trying to manage many files using file system.
So far the best solution I've found is to pay for Adobe cloud storage, import my photos to the Lightroom app (thus not polluting my camera roll) and let Adobe sync everything to my desktop where the photos eventually live on an external hard drive.
Side note: Despite this the actual act of manipulating photos on the iPad are fantastic. I love being able to shoot an event and then start editing a couple photos for promotional purposes right then and there. Overall I love my big expensive tablet.
If other people have developed iPad / iOS photography workflows I'd love to hear them!
The desktops are the thing for writing code. This goes for iOS apps, Mac apps, or Posix type server systems. It could be done on smaller screens, but I like leaving the test system on its own screen and keeping log viewing windows visible to notice changes.
Communicating with people and extensive researching are almost exclusive on the iPad with keyboard. It's great for focused tasks and I can plop it down wherever I feel like being.
The MacBook mostly stays in my "had to go out of town" bag. It might go unused for months at a time, but when I'm away from the desktops and need do something code oriented it is invaluable. The versatility is an asset, (currently I've given the room with my home office desktop over to a family member sheltering with us, but a couple displays, a keyboard, a magic pad, and some odd cables and boom, another desktop on demand).
The thing I most dislike about working on the iPad is merrily keyboarding away and using the arrows to scroll, and then I need to poke something on the screen. I wouldn't call it "gorilla arm", but maybe "rhesus arm". My nicely supported arm has to rise and make a fairly accurate hit on the screen without any support, or add the extra step to make contact for accurate motion if it is more than a single touch. Definitely a modern third world problem, but turning touch and drags into simple thumb operations will be nice.
One concern: my iPad Pro 1 smart Keyboard died after 2 years.
I really think it's coming -- one day anyway -- perhaps when the Macs run Arm there'll be iPad's running Xcode
Are there alternative development environments?
I could see myself having a beefy desktop, this iPad with the keyboard, and my phone. But if you're not into the whole AR-scene, the camera seems redundant as I always have my phone with me.
But I guess there's not enough people like me to justify that model...
I'm fine with a backfacing camera. I'm not a fan of a camera that protrudes.
I'd be curious to hear what criteria you're using to make your decision.
The Remarkable2 seems rather expensive at $400 for a monochrome device that isn't as versatile as an iPad, let alone an iPad Pro.
It would enable way more YouTube creators to be able to see properly while they’re recording.
Even with no camera on the back the price would be the same, they may or may not even justify it with improving a different component.
The apps that use the camera are all pretty clunky. If I could just walk around the inside of my house for a while and let it map it out, that would be nifty.
(put on tin foil hat) Then the iPad can track my movement around my house and play ads based on which room I am in.
Example - walks into bathroom and I hear "Try new lemon toilet bowl cleaner."
No, no, no :(
I want to remodel my house. I want to take my device, scan everything, then put replace parts - new vanity in bathroom, try different paints in different rooms, new lighting etc.
After each change, I want to put on my VR device and walk around. Finally, I want to send the changes I choose to a contractor.
"Later this year, Shapr 3D, a professional CAD system based on Siemens Parasolid technology, will use the LiDAR Scanner to automatically generate an accurate 2D floor plan and 3D model of a room which can then be used as the basis to design remodels or room additions like a bathroom or closet. New designs can then be previewed in real-world scale using AR right in the room you scanned."
- How about a "night-vision" app? Without needing a flashlight, you can stumble around a dark room (maybe outdoors at night?) without running into walls.
The iPad screen would act like a flashlight, just you'd be pointing it at your face instead of at the world.
- Cosplayer? 3D scan yourself, you now have a model you can make minis out of.
- Need to replace a simple valve to help treat covid19? This does most of the work for you.
- Game dev? You can scan a real world item, either importing it directly or using it as an outline for an in-game object.
For most high detail or functional things you probably will need to make some adjustments to the scanned model, but it could make the whole process waaay easier.
They're good for tracking and measurement but the data out of them has near zero aesthetic quality especially for its complexity.
Also, just as the Kinect allowed for some makeshift motion capture / animation, maybe the lidar could allow for some makeshift 3D modeling.
That would turn the keyboard and trackpad into a requirement rather than an option. If you want macOS you already have options. The iPad is great because it's tablet first with touch as primary input method.
If only the stores Outside of China were open...
Specs, users, emotion aside at least as a physical device it actually has some style. At last. Thank you somebody inside Apple for not producing yet another round edge, nearly anonymous, soap-bar slab.
But it’s interesting when two things evolve towards each other, but starting from different places. Like comparing bats and birds, or penguins, otters, and fish.
In this case, evolving from a device designed for touch only into touch-first is going to be different from a device that evolved from—let’s be honest—keyboards, punch cards, and the command-line.
It's a smooth setup. I like iOS, but am tired of dragging apps from the dock.
(Note: I use Working Copy as a local git client & editor for times when I'm without internet or when I need to copy to another app. Great combo.)
At this rate we'll have to start comparing tablets like this to laptops like Surface Pro and it's clones (or vice-versa, maybe the Surface is the clone, don't remember exact sequence of events) because the only difference is the OS. And if more 'tablet modes' start emerging from main OS the gap will become very narrow.
To be honest, it's hard for me to think of cases where the tablet is better suited outside of things like digital drawing/painting, and some niche cases like at an expo.
You are right, however, in that long-form typing (say, over 1k words) and serious multitasking (>2 apps, or 2 apps that refuse to side-by-side) will be a real pain on a tablet. However, you can hook an iPad pro up to a standard USB-C dock and use it with a large monitor as well as a standard keyboard. It will never be a full laptop replacement (though if Apple made it possible to run base MacOS I might change my mind), but it's good enough.
* The only websites I've ever had issues with are those that explicitly break the experience.
I think the iPad will be the long term winner here. Legacy OS's are just way too reliant on keyboard / mouse. Having owned a Surface Book, I can easily say that the tablet mode is not workable with the software ecosystem that exists. You can mostly make it function in limited cases, but outside of a small handful of programs built specifically for it the experience is poor.
On the other hand, the addition of a keyboard just makes the iPad even easier to use. Using a mouse is slightly more awkward since you can't use gestures, but you can always fall back to the screen that's right in front of you. The extra precision is overkill, but it isn't painful.
Another layer to add in the tablets' favor: kids these days are growing up using phones and tablets. That's the way they interact with computing technology. It will be increasingly easier to convince these new generations to buy something that's familiar, but with some extra power and utility, as apposed to something that is foreign.
Many Surface devices can run Linux+GNOME natively, and that software UX is at least as workable on a tablet as iPadOS, probably more so. Proprietary apps are lacking, of course (not always a bad thing) but some are available via Flatpak or (in a pinch) Snap.
The bar is extremely high and people aren't going to settle - the notion that they might is just a techie pipe dream.
it's certainly lighter weight than developing on a mac pro (understatement!), but for web development, especially in a n environment where you have staging environments to host services... It gets the job done.
And while this is a matter of taste, when I was working remote, I preferred a lighter, smaller machine for going to cafés.
Then again, I'm exceptionally sensitive to monitor latency when talking, it might be fine for others.
The part they didn't copy is the software, because the Surface is little more than windows on a tablet still. The tablet life sucks, the interaction is poor, the performance slow and buggy (esp in comparison), but Windows makes a great dev OS. It's funny how different they are.
Even developing on it is secondary.
You have Pro apps. Start acting like it.
By their own software definition - this is not a Pro machine.
If I need a Mac to run your Pro software, what makes this device fit into the ‘Pro’ category?
I still feel like my own iPad usage is mostly locked by a weak software ecosystem, and while the hardware is impressive, it still seems like complete overkill for the current ecosystem.
I want to use it more, but the software for things I would have expected on the iPad, like 3D design, music production, etc, are often limited, either by software or connectivity issues.
I've gotten more use out of my Linux notebook running a Windows VM. Which surprised me.
I just get the feeling that the only people really making serious money on iPad apps are games, which are probably just ports of phone apps.
It's an incredible piece of software for the price and I really appreciate them making it affordable for non-professional artists.
I've been priced out of everything Adobe makes, but Procreate and the Affinity apps are fantastic.
This makes me wonder how big the iPad software market really is in comparison. It seems "tethered" to other platforms.
(I follow him for the video side, so I only know Lumafusion)
It's significant because Apogee was a _partner_ and this device shows up on the _Apple store under music creativity_: https://www.apple.com/shop/ipad/ipad-accessories/creativity?...
Keep in mind this $300 device is a brick on the new iPads.
At this point, I'm loathe to purchase anything just to work with the iPad Pro, because these devices work fine and continue to work fine with my other devices.
This appears to work for _electronic_ music just fine, however, but for demos the iPad is a fantastic platform. But now you're left with... figuring it out, I guess.
Seems very similar to the new Pro keyboard!
- use a native build of Firefox without webkit
- have low-latency audio
- do network troubleshooting with MAC address access
- use VOIP with proper background operation & notification
Sorry, Apple, but you created the greatest software/hardware ecosystem in history and then screwed the pooch so badly that you lost me as a customer and a developer.
We can keep complaining about it in 2020, but we certainly shouldn’t suggest that Apple is pulling a U-Turn.
Just get the right tools for your job (that exist for decades, and have been slimmed to down to portable, few mm devices knows as laptops) and don't expect Apple to suddenly make iPad do everything that your job requires you to do.
Apple lost you as a customer and a developer, but it gained few hundred million more, including my parents who now know how to use computers and phones. I don't get people that don't get it.
The vast, vast majority of the hundreds of millions of customers they gained with the iPad aren't doing any work that is even remotely similar to what can be done on a general purpose OS. And furthermore, even if they can do some of the same work - they can't do it with nearly the same efficiency.
The vast majority of iPad users aren't even doing any work on their iPads. They're consuming.
Apple can keep trying to make the iPad appeal to users who need full control over their computer, but it ain't gonna happen until they actually give us full control.
What I meant is, I don't get why people don't understand why Apple doesn't care to their needs of "do network troubleshooting with MAC address access", to extent that they're angry, and say "[Apple] screwed the pooch so badly that you lost me as a customer and a developer".
This is unbelievable thing to say, especially in this community.
Should I stop using Apple as a customer and developer because they're not bringing out native Kubernetes integration to manage my serverless Knative functions on iPad? ...
One would think Apple has explored doing this - putting OSX/macOS on an iPad - given that Microsoft put Windows on the Surface and gained market share as a result.
Why they haven't released any consumer/commercial iPads with a desktop-like operating system, an OS whose first versions were able to run on a 7.8 MHz processor (the Motorola 68000) and 128 KB of RAM, is beyond me. Of course the more recent the OS, the greater the hardware requirements, but I do not see it impossible to "fit" a version of OSX/macOS to a tablet.
Does it all come down to avoiding cannibalization of Macbook Air sales?
I'm sure he will be excited about this if the sensor is that much better.
I don't know if that's sad or good of apple.. Is the iOS ecosystem a unique enabler of procreate?
As an os for a large form factor device, iOS is a JOKE in terms of UX. It's still just a giant iPhone.
Command + [
Just tested and it doesn’t work (to confirm).
Will USB-C be on the next iPhone?
> (the lidar) operates at the photon level at nano-second speed.
Whaddya say!
As someone who had nothing but trouble with the 2018 model because of this, it’s disappointing to see that Apple’s trend of reducing thinness for things such as better battery life (iPhone 11 (Pro)) or better thermals (MacBook Pro 16”) didn’t carry over to the iPad Pro, which arguably suffered the most from its thinness.
The new MacBook Air for $999 would be a lot more appropriate.
1. iPad doesn't have a serious IDE. And syncing your workspace with a local computer is not trivial.
2. Safari for iPad doesn't have a dev mode.
3. However, if you only use terminal and vi, iPad has a great terminal app: Blink. Honestly Blink is better than most of desktop terminal in the market. https://blink.sh/
Working Copy is an excellent Git client and pretty good text editor, Shellfish is great for FTP/SFTP.
Other good editors include Buffer and Textastic. Terminus is a great terminal client (though the pro edition is pricey).
Pythonista is a surprisingly powerful Python environment – with a bit of work I got Django working on it. Codea is the same for Lua. DraftCode is good for PHP, though more limited. Can run Wordpress and other PHP CMSs. There's other apps for JS/Node.
Inspect gives on-device browser developer tools. Not the best but still useful.
Plus, there's iSH, a Testflight-only app that provides a mostly complete Alpine Linux environment. Managed to get Git/Ruby/Jekyll running on it to develop a site locally, though it was slow.
Essentially you need to be able to work from a remote server to do anything that could be considered serious web development.
So prepare to spin yourself up an EC2 instance or a Digital Ocean droplet that you will be working from.
There are some good tools available now -
Working Copy (https://workingcopyapp.com/) is a very good Git client
Blink(https://blink.sh/) is the terminal app you'd need
And I've used a mixture of
Kodex(https://kodex.app/), Textastic(https://www.textasticapp.com/) and GoCoEdit(https://gocoedit.app/)
for my editor. None of these are as good as something like SublimeText or a proper IDE but they are good, basic text editors with FTP/SFTP/etc. integration, code highlighting/folding/auto indentation etc. GoCoEdit I found to be probably the better of those three but they all offer something the others don't.
There's a SQL Client you can use (if you're not that comfortable on the CLI with your chosen SQL server) called SQLPro which I believe is available for MySQL, Postgres, MS SQL Server or you can get one that covers all but it's not especially cheap - £55 a year or £150 one time payment.
I've downloaded and used Dash, which is a documentation app that gives you offline access to API documentation for all your favourite languages and tools.
So there are plenty of tools available - some of them integrate with each other more tightly but I've found you're still really limited in how much development you can do. There's nothing like Docker or Vagrant available, you couldn't run your favourite language locally in a terminal although I recall seeing a PHP parser and a Javascript environemtn available for iOS that gives you some ability to code locally. Nothing you could use for any serious work.
Until Apple gives us the ability to get to the guts of iOS and install our own tools, realistically you're always going to be limited to working off a remote server for any serious work. I think the tools that are currently available are great but are limited. You may find a workflow that gets around the limitations and if you do, please share!
For me, they've always been "kind of neat to have, but not for $2200".
0: https://www.idownloadblog.com/2020/02/06/ipados-13-4-hardwar...
I write and use a browser in my work. Caps lock as backspace makes the most sense. There will be others that will (unnecessarily) argue with me that caps should and always will be escape.
A possible (mainstream) solution is to change the caps to a custom key that’s configured in the initial setup of a device.
But you have a backspace key on your keyboard?
I understand they had to cancel the live show, but not even a promo video...?
This new keyboard thing is amazing. Really expensive but I think I might take the bullet on this one.
With all due respect: KISS.
[OK, I'm going back to my cave now...]
When the 2 converge I am outta here.
My BIL married into our all iPhone family. We regularly harass him about getting one, and I suspect he eventually will.
It's one of their best marketing tactics.
But... why? Are you paid by apple to harass people to buy their products... or why are you doing that?!
That's the marketing slogan for the new iPad Pro.
Indeed, it's not a computer. Anything that does not let me compile and run programs for the platform itself is not a computer, it's a toy.
There's nothing wrong with toys, of course. I enjoy video game consoles, handhelds just as much as I enjoy the iPad.
* first they put fingerprint scanner in the home button, so they could collect fingerprints of all their users.
* then they put FaceID, so now they have a high-res scan of everyones face
* now they are putting LiDAR so that they can scan your whole body, and map all your surroundings.
> adds keyboard
So... a laptop?
Between the 3D front-scanner for Face ID (which, incidentally, worked less well than TouchID did at the time of FaceID launch), the whole touchbar debacle, the UWB radio locator stuff in the latest iPhones, EKG support on the watch, and now LIDAR on the iPad, it seems like Apple is lately really into putting esoteric/novel hardware that nobody really wants or cares about into their newest high-end devices. There's even an argument that the now-debunked butterfly keyboard foray falls into this category (literally nothing was wrong with the scissor/mbair keyboard, as evidenced by the fact that they've returned to it essentially unmodified).
You can make the argument that Face ID/3D front scanner has enough "wow" or utility to be a selling point. I'm not so sure about any of the other stuff, especially the UWB and now LIDAR. This feels like throwing stuff against the wall until something or other sticks—pretty un-Apple, IMO.
I feel like Apple's hit a rough patch in terms of traditional Apple-level innovation; the AirPods and HomePod are mindbendingly great products, but outside of those, "going back to the old keyboard" is the biggest selling point they've shipped really since going all-in on Retina and then Display P3. Everything else user-facing has been incremental (e.g. TrueTone, routine CPU/GPU advances). To be clear, I don't mean to disparage the technical merit of these achievements in any way. It's a major achievement to do what they've done, and there's a lot more of it, across more product lines than ever before in their history, but my iPhone 11 pro maximum mclargehuge is not twice as good as my iPhone 7 was, CPU/GPU increases notwithstanding.
(I'm really, really glad about the T2 boot security that prevents Evil Maid, and the speakers in the new rMBP 16" are astoundingly good, and the 120Hz on iPad Pro is lovely, but this comment is about marquee/headline features.)
Maybe they're just more startuppy now, trying different things in different directions to see what cool technology ends up sticking around. I'm reminded of the time they shipped a bunch of speech recognition launcher/shortcut stuff and voiceprint login out of left field with os9. I still don't "get" where they think they're headed with AR (which is not to say they don't have a cool plan, just that it's not obvious from the outside what, if anything, it is).
I sure hope they've got something big up their sleeve other than the impending AnX CPU macOS laptops.
Tons of stuff the do is incremental, and yes, lots of dead-ends happen. Just look at the history of their mice. Or Newton. Or their tepid ventures into consoles, Macs that doubled as TVs, or CD-ROM drives that were also standalone CD players.
To this end, though: are there any Apple historians, inside or outside of the company?
Serious question. I like the idea and Android users are always running around with "we had that years ago". Well, I don't see that in this case, but would be happy to be told otherwise :)
Apple make beautiful high end consumer electronics. This is the kind of gadget that every IT manager wastes their time accomodating for flash execs. If Apple made professional equipment it would work properly with AD and Azure AD.
* A full-featured file browser. The files app is sort of workable now, but the experience is really bad and certainly not suitable for any kind of professional or power-user usage.
* SMB or any other kind of file sharing. Once again, Apple theoretically supports this now, but in practice it's totally broken and non-functional.
* Video editing. The iPad only supports a few formats and refuses to show high-quality videos (the limit is 100mbps or 200mbps or something).
* High quality video conferencing/streaming/recording. The iPad pro has somewhat-working support for external audio devices (although apps have to support device selection, and most don't), but it has zero support whatsoever for external video devices. This means you're stuck with the shitty built-in cameras (which, no matter what Apple marketing says, are not "pro" or "studio" quality)
* No ability to do any kind of coding or scripting or anything except via SSH to a real general purpose computer
Some things that do work ok:
* Web browsing
* Photo editing (this is actually quite nice, as long as you don't need bulk processing)
* It's a decent SSH thin client, with an app like Prompt
* Note taking
I mostly use my iPad for taking notes and stuff at work, and occasionally for photo proofing/editing. For everything else, I still use my laptop.
Buy better apps. Textastic + Working Copy FTW.
ShellFish, the sftp client by the same developer is also excellent. Genuinely game-changing for working with sftp sites.
* Getting a convenient dock and better physical keyboard. * Surfing on an iPad is probably a lot better and fast experience than a similarly priced computer. * A lot of dedicated apps for most tasks people need. (Youtube, Spotify, Netflix, etc) * People use email/dropbox/similar for sharing files. * File browser definitely needs improvement. Specially for working with email attachments. * As long as you can edit videos recorded with your phone/ipad. * Most people use the built in camera and mic or perhaps a dedicated computer for conferencing. * Getting Excel on it would be sufficient for business programming.
That's why I'm posting this on HN and not Facebook or something.
Everything you mention could be done on a smartphone - no need for this allegedly "computer replacing" iPad.
The people at my company who use Excel absolutely could not do what they do on an iPad.
Most people also don't buy such costly computers, so I'm not sure why do you think a hugely expensive iPad "PRO" would be something meant for "most" people.
The comparable configuration (256 GB/LTE/pen+keyboard) is around ~$670 cheaper for Samsung than Apple.
I.e. Apple: $1049 (11", 256GB, LTE) + $129 (pen) + $299 (keyboard); for Tab S6 bundle I paid £684.25 (before VAT), which makes it around ~$806.
So if by basically the same price you meant almost half the price, then yes, otherwise no.