iPadOS 15
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I've been sitting on $2000 on an Apple gift card I wanted to spend on a top spec M1 iPad Pro to watch TV shows at home and take with me on travels if I need to debug issues in production or come up with a quick fix while sitting in an hotel room or a coffee shop. I was hoping iPadOS 15 would get the device closer to a Mac or make running Docker or VSCode easier without jumping through hoops with VPSs, but alas, seems like Tim Cook doesn't care that he's got a tablet that's incredibly fast, more so than most laptops, and that it's kept back by its amateurish operating system. Does "Pro" mean anything at Apple anymore?
I have a powerful desktop I love, and no mobile computing device are worth my money these days. I don't need a laptop with full keyboard and trackpad when I have a $5000 desktop at home and work outside 2 days a month; tablets have crap hardware if it's not Apple, or have the least powerful OS if you want to stay in the walled Apple garden.
I'll use the gift card to buy my mum and I an iPhone 12 and I'll get an Android tablet with a crap CPU that lets me run whatever I want. I hate having to compromise.
EDIT: clarified why a laptop isn't a viable alternative for me
For me the iPad Pro is a great creative device that is surprisingly capable in a variety of other ways. I use mine for programming with ease but my workflow of using Vim over mosh/tmux in blink.sh supports that. If I was looking for a portable programming machine I'd just buy a MBA I guess.
I think the iPad Pro is great at what it does. It's an excellent portable creative device that can also be used casually. Not everything needs to be targeted towards every use-case.
I tried emacs over mosh for a while. It mostly worked, but there would be occasions when my Mac mini's network dropped and never recovered and then I can't do anything without heading home. Plus I would just have to live with things like shuffling that PDF I made in LaTeX over somehow because I couldn't actually see it.
I prefer the iPad to Macs. I'd rather have the flexibility and portability of a tablet than a laptop. Apple's software holds back amazing hardware with arbitrary decisions. In the end I sold my iPad Pro and switched to Android.
You want to spend $2000 to watch TV at home not on a TV? How would both of these desires not be significantly better satisfied by an M1 Air?
> A laptop is too much
Too much what? The Air costs _less_ than the 13" iPad Pro.
I don't mean price. I mean I don't need a keyboard. A tablet is the perfect form factor for consuming media 99% of the time, and a whole laptop I'd use for 1% of the time ain't worth the money. I need a mobile device I can attach to a keyboard and do "Pro" work 5 hours a month, is that much to ask?
I think it's a bit of a niche use case when that pro work is software development. They can't please everyone - the design is targeted for consumption and art with some rethinking about UI for a tablet device around basic usage that's distinct from a standard laptop OS.
I'd guess for 98% of users that's what they've built and their keyboard attachment allows many of them to do their work like tasks (writing/email and such).
For devs they make laptops and macOS designed for that.
They want the quality bar to be high - they make different products for different purposes.
Besides I don't see how allowing an option to install any OS you want brings down the quality of a product. If you don't want it because you feel it's low quality. Ok that's fine. Just use iOS.
D+ doesn't let you download shows for offline viewing in the browser, only apps. Cover is not an alternative to Comixology because it doesn't work with most Comixology purchases. Kindle desktop app has settings hidden away in the file bar, requiring awkward touches or a mouse to use.
Besides even if that were the case. People have no issue running these "server OS" on their laptops which almost always contain an SSD.
For me the iPad Pro is a great creative device that is surprisingly capable in a variety of other ways. I use mine for programming with ease but my workflow of using Vim over mosh/tmux in blink.sh supports that. If I was looking for a portable programming machine I'd just buy a MBA I guess.
I think the iPad Pro is great at what it does. It's an excellent portable creative device that can also be used casually. Not everything needs to be targeted towards every use-case.
FWIW I like what I've read of iPad OS 15 so far. The multitasking changes should improve things.
I would love, for my personal use, to replace my MBP with an iPad but it just won’t be possible until there is some method for executing arbitrary code, which I see as a requirement for software engineering. Even if they just made Virtualization.framework available so you could spin up a Linux VM so things were totally sandboxed, I would be able to actually use the thing as a computer.
The reason for preferring this over a MBP comes down to several reasons: touch, form factor, pencil support and honest for “everyday” use, iPadOS is better than macOS.
And the Linux distros available there are true ARM64.
Well, it's not high-status enough. Creatives have art gallery showings and groupies and die of drug overdoses on their private planes. No software engineer has ever done this.
There is a reason why Apple is a 2 trillion company, the best in consumer satisfaction and made technology easy and accessible to toddlers and grandparents worldwide.
It never amazes me that HN crowd doesn’t understand this and keeps moaning that the latest iPad doesn’t run Kubernetes. Seriously?!
I can see many non-satisfied customers in this comment section, are their opinions invalid? It amazes me that there's a whole crowd on HN ready to make excuses in every thread for a 2 trillion company, as if they haven't got the resources.
I don't see so many people running to apologise and do PR for free for Microsoft or Google.
It's called a biased sample and has nothing to do with a genuine, general population customer satisfaction.
What makes it more biased is people are complaining about a product that is _NOT_ made for them.
> It amazes me that there's a whole crowd on HN ready to make excuses
(－‸ლ)
I have these discussions every year when a new iPadOS/iPad comes out [1], people complaining they can't run Kubernetes or do troubleshooting with MAC address access on an iPad.
My point is that in marketing (what Apple is genius at), there are such things as product positioning and target market.
Technical crowd often forgets this, and as per comments here, they'd be happy to ram iPad with never ending list of features.
iPad is not made for them. Macs are. Want to get a portable Docker developer machine? Macbook Air is cheaper and lighter than a 12.9 iPad Pro + keyboard.
I'm not making excuses for them, I understand Apple's positioning, and I understand what they're doing from marketing/business point of view.
But the iPad hardware is more than fast enough for my development tasks, and the screen size is large enough (and at home I use an external monitor anyway).
So the ideal device I'd like to buy would basically be the iPad hardware with Mac software capabilities. Obviously the current iPad works for a lot of people, so it would be fine if this was separate product. But it's a bit disappointing that it doesn't exist at all since it seems like it would be a (relatively) small amount of work for a company like Apple now that iPad/Mac hardware is very similar and Macs can run iPad apps.
They actually think that every computing product needs to be built for them and that anyone who doesn't need virtualisation, multiple monitors etc does not have "real computing needs".
https://everymac.com/systems/by_year/macs-released-in-2011.h...
https://everyi.com/by-year/ipod-iphone-ipad-models-released-...
VNC? RDP? Shell? One or more of those plus a local iOS code editing program with remote-file capability, if you can't stand typing input latency? If your desktop's $5,000, and you have it set up the way you want for work, and we're only talking a couple days a month....
It's creative professionals who are using it for audio production, video editing, photography, content creation etc.
Apple sells the Mac for people who want to do software engineering which includes a Terminal, Virtualisation support etc.
Why can't the iPad do software engineering stuff too?
If I were in your shoes, I'd wait for the anticipated Macbook Pro 14/16 with the post-M1 CPU.
I don't need a 14/16 inch laptop to watch TV shows. And there is no touch screen on a MacBook Pro either.
Instead of proper multitasking, virtualization and external monitor support, we just gain new and iPad-only gestures to learn and memorize. The iPads, especially iPad Pros, have become an increasingly complicated method of computing. I thought their emphasis was on making computing more accessible/approachable to everyone.
Holds it back from what?
> Instead of proper multitasking, virtualization and external monitor support,
Why not use a laptop if you want these?
> we just gain new and iPad-only gestures to learn and memorize.
That’s the opposite of what they just announced. The new features can be accessed through visual UI elements which addresses people’s chief complaint about iOS multitasking.
> The iPads, especially iPad Pros, have become an increasingly complicated method of computing.
Less complicated than if they just added all the features of a desktop computer.
Being a full-fledged computer.
> Why not use a laptop if you want these?
What if I want a tablet I can dock and turn into a laptop or workstation? The M1 iPad Pro would be a perfect competitor to the likes of the Surface Pro, if the OS weren't holding it back.
Personally, I like it this way. I can understand why some others would not. For them, there are other vendors making pads that fulfill their needs.
Design and business are not absolute truth.
When I'm not at my desktop computer, I don't see why I shouldn't be able to write an run code on my iPad. For instance, Wolfram already has a working Mathematica kernel on iPadOS and iOS, but because of Apple's rigid restrictions on running code on i-devices, they've only publicly released their CDF player and Wolfram Cloud apps, rather than a full on version of Mathematica. There's no reason for this other than Apple's restrictions.
Because of Apple's restrictions on this, I own both a Macbook Pro and an iPad but this feels artificial and unnecessary. As time goes on, I'm feeling more and more alienated by Apple and likely once my current devices reach the end of their lives, they'll be replaced by something from outside of Apple's ecosystem.
The problem is iPadOS drastically fails at simple tasks all the time - I wanted to print a shipping label the other day that I got in an email - sounds simple? Not on iPad! Tap print, see the AirPrint printer, tap print, and I get a 100% fill UPS label. I could download an app like Pages, drop in the image, setup the formatting then print. But it was literally easier to just open my mac, change one option and press print.
It looks like iOS 15 finally adds print options, but how could this have taken 15 years to have printer options…
I really love using my iPad for whatever I can. But the random missing features and “iPad simplicity” frustrations are incredibly annoying.
Without it the entire App Store review model falls apart as anyone could submit an app that does X and then in reality does Y. And due to the way Objective-C works there are no static analysis tools that can work upfront to fix this.
So they have a choice between losing customers like you and keeping the many more who prefer the way the iOS app ecosystem works.
For safety purposes, presumably code executing apps could just be sandboxed and only interact with the file system in very limited ways and be pretty safe.
On the other hand, the App store is a revenue generating behemoth due to their internal monopoly. I think the reason Apple doesn't allow me to execute arbitrary code inside a container is that they're afraid of people circumventing their App store and distributing money makers like games and such without Apple collecting their cut of the revenue.
Code execution allows you to pretend to be a flashlight app during the app review process, pass any automated tests and then at runtime download code from the web to execute. And since this allows you to add new functionality on the fly pretty soon every app would move to this approach.
This then opens up an entirely new security vector which is hijacking/MITM servers so that you can inject your code in place of the app developer's code. Thus instantly turning that app into one giant code execution farm for Bitcoin mining, DDOS etc.
You can either have an app review process or code execution. Not both.
If Apple wanted to allow arbitrary code execution, they could have an entirely separate category of app for it that includes warning labels, and requires the developer to justify to Apple why their app requires arbitrary code execution in order to function.
If someone submitted a flashlight app that requested this capability they could just deny it. E.g. they could say that the only valid justification for allowing arbitrary code to run is for developer applications that are meant to be running user written code.
Apps in this category could be forced to pay extra to apple in order for Apple to pay for special, ongoing scrutiny for security reasons. They might even do things like require that the app publisher be well recognized and have some sort of provable, good track record of not releasing malware.
Arbitrary execution is not incompatible with review, it makes it harder.
Given that nobody has solved the problem of malware, but Apple does better than anyone else. It’s fairly obvious that making it harder would make things worse.
Having said that, I too would like to see some form of code execution on the iPad.
Obviously, digital documents of the future will have graphs and data that can be manipulated while standing and sharing, and it could be done now if Apple would flip a few bits and remove some restrictions.
It is an exciting future for communication and information exchange, and I’m sure this will happen as people catch up to how great of a user experience that would be (versus sitting and reading documents and manipulating plots on a desktop or laptop) - especially in a noisy environment where standing and movement are necessary.
I'm actually glad the iPad keeps it simple, as every time I try to code or use the files app on my Chromebook, its extremely irritating.
Especially now that the new M1 iPads have so much ram, background tasks won't get frozen nearly as often so that alone will improve the multitasking experience, let alone the new stuff they're adding in iPadOS 15.
Honestly though, I'm fine with it not being a perfect experience, as long as I can actually do it if I need to do it. But I guess apple is saving me from myself by forcing me out of their ecosystem.
(No Objective-C and SwiftUI only).
VMs help developers build iPad apps, they pose no threat to the iPad native app store.
VMs enable experiments, the best of which can be incorporated by Apple into iPad OS.
It works very well in my experience and the stuff they’ve added in iPadOS 15 are great quality of life improvements.
Very happy with the developer beta so far, although it has only been a few hours.
The multi-task gestures - Not much success at all. It shouldn't require a manual and practice to use this.
The only thing I am still trying to grasp is the “shelf” - I see it keeps things like mail compose windows open…but I have been unable to figure out how you are supposed to get back to them later, other than leaving the app and coming back…
For Mail specifically: there's an icon in the lower-right of the sidebar that looks like two squares, one on top of the other- try giving tapping that.
Of course not, why would I when the UI sucks so much? "Use it regularly" can also be translated to mean "use it until you memorize the UI gestures that Apple half-assed". I had an easier time memorizing block syntax in Objective-C. It's like vim, only for multitasking on tablets.
Swipe the middle bar to resize the two windows.
I don’t think that should take more than a few minutes for most people to grasp. Honestly it is even simpler than desktop window management.
Most of my apps are not in the dock. There should be an obvious way to initiate multi tasking that includes selecting any app on your iPad - maybe splitting/resizing your single full screen app by dragging from either side of the screen to reveal the app drawer, where one could select an app to fill the space. Of course there would be conflicts with existing gestures. Just thinking out loud here.
edit: Apparently that's how it works in iPadOS 15 [1]:
> Access to all apps
>
> When you enter Split View, the app moves aside to reveal the Home Screen, giving you access to all Home Screen pages and the App Library.
just give me the normal desktop paradigms for multi-tasking. Don't need some contrived "tablet oriented" pattern developed by some UX person at Apple.
I don't want to learn you sht. I just want it to work. Learn it from the team that developed the swipe up for home pattern.. they got it figured out!
Or, open app drawer, long press safari, use menu that pops up to launch a new window.
Multitasking on iPadOS is not very complicated and the features they announced today are going to make it even easier.
A few hours later, I'll find those windows that flew away shelved in some magical space.
If you actively have safari open it should be in the ‘recent apps’ section of the dock anyways, I don’t think you can turn that off.
Now in 15 there is a button at the top of the window you can press that takes you to the Home Screen to open any app you want next to your current app.
I'm the opposite of the "make it like a desktop!" crowd. I miss iOS 6 and IMO everything since then's been a mixed bag of "OK, that's better" and "no no no you're making it worse". I just want a smart slab of glass that becomes different things. Not another normal computer.
I got fed up with it enough to just turn it off (Home Screen & Dock/Multitasking/Allow Multiple Apps). The modest advantages didn't even come close to offsetting the annoyance of accidentally triggering it then having to stop the workflow to unfcuk Apple's poor UI.
It appears the new Shelf feature will make this more transparent.
After using that combo for a few weeks, I can say it replicates 80% of what I can do on my iMac desktop at similar efficiency (sometimes faster), with most of the missing 20% being coding-related tasks that can be worked-around in the meantime (e.g. GitHub Codespaces). Although this iPadOS update did not shift the bar much on that missing 20% and overall was in line with my expectations, Apple definitely has heard the complaints by now and might try to push some updates into a 15.X release sooner than iPadOS 16.
I'm still pretty happy with my purchase. At the least, the M1 iPad Pro is extremely future-proof for whatever Apple tries to do.
Sorry, but your comment reads like the textbook definition of sunk cost fallacy. There is no proof whatsoever Apple has heard any complaint and will make your iPad closer to the iMac in a 15.x release, nor ever at all.
I'd expect one to be extremely disappointed if their device did 80% of what it could theoretically do, and Apple didn't show any single improvement on that in their yearly conference.
That's why I think the time table will get pushed up for more pro iPad features.
Must be hard for them to screw up this badly.
iPad and iPad OS are designed entirely to siphon money from an existing core user base, while offering the user no freedom or power.
It may be an unbelievably slick consumption product, but it fails miserably at championing what a mobile computing device can be.
So you may think that you know more about product management and how to sell devices than Apple but given their experience it's a pretty tall claim.
Because freedom and power comes with tradeoffs. And many of those tradeoffs which come from multiple app stores, code execution etc are pretty unpalatable to most people.
The amount of people who actually need a multi-user phone/tablet is a fraction of a fraction of the 600M userbase of Apple devices.
Where?
Basically, the OS level interface is there, and you are not allowed to use it if you are neither a school nor an enterprise.
edit: i agree with your “won’t happen” sentiment, its just that this is a pure iOS licensing restriction.
So annoying, with such a powerful machine…
1) list of when apps last accessed location, contacts, photos, etc.
2) list of what 3rd party domains apps contact.
That'll be informative. Can't wait to see what Facebook et al. will say about that.
My money is on no, as this has been the new normal since the release of iOS 13.