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Comment by bitwize | Hacker News Reader

Apple is just built different as a tech company. Even with the limitations their products are vastly, vastly better than the alternatives. It is literally impossible, for example, to get a smartphone from another vendor anywhere near as powerful as the latest iPhone. So people buy iPhones and deal with or work around the limitations.

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Vastly, vastly is ridiculous. An iPad Pro is a bit faster than the Samsung Galaxy Tab and there's some nice iOS apps. But it's not leagues better, it's not like comparing a C64 and modern PC, it's like comparing an i5 with an i9. And the limitations Apple stuffs in place actually makes it worse in some ways. Multi-tasking is just plain old better on Samsung Android with the ability to do radical things like have 4 way app splits, overlapping resizable windows and to top it off it's actually somehow MORE intuitive than multi-tasking on the iPad.

Superior hardware is useless if it can't do the things I actually want it to do.

> Even with the limitations their products are vastly, vastly better than the alternatives.

I could claim that my Pixel which lets me run multiple user profiles (each with its own copy of Gmail, Outlook, Teams settings - which I can switch while at work), run Firefox or any other browser, change default apps, change the default Home app, run a server in the background, a working voice assistant, etc - is vastly superior to anything on Apple's devices. But that would be a very subjective opinion.

And FWIW, the Pixel 7 was MKBHD's phone of the year. So I'd say your claims of Apple's offerings being vastly, vastly superious can be easily contested.

Is that portmanteau of "superior" and "specious"? I almost don't want it to be a typo.

. o O ( Leaving aside how typo-ridden some of my own pose have been. )

Their limitations are features in many ways. I don’t need to run a web server on my iPad, but I’m glad that shitty apps can’t be always running wasting battery to provide advert notifications like they used to on android.

That's fine and well, but it's still not a justification for taking the option away from other users.

I don’t need a justification for other peoples use cases. The device does exactly what I want so I bought it. If I waned a device I could run webservers on, I’d buy something else.

If they changed the advertised capabilities after purchase, that would be different.

The device does exactly what I want too, except Apple directly prevents me from loading the code that I want to run on-device.

> If they changed the advertised capabilities after purchase, that would be different.

The suggestion I'm making does not remove any advertised capabilities. There is no 'difference' to speak of. Again, nobody has given a concrete reason why the things that I want stop you from getting what you want.

Having a long battery life sells more iPads than being infinitely hackable.

You still haven't explained how the two are mutually exclusive.

I disagree for a few reasons. Apple hasn’t taken anything away - the option never existed. This is a meaningful difference up front.

Apple clearly intends to sell a product that delivers a consistent experience, and they do that by refusing to offer some kinds of flexibility.

The moment that flexibility exists, the entire ecosystem changes, and it’s not just about you individually having some option. At that point, it becomes a different product entirely.

I don’t try to take my two wheel drive hatchback off-roading. There are better vehicles for that.

But what good is all that power when you can't run the workloads you want to?

You can do video editing on the iPad which takes advantage of the full power.

You can also do a lot with audio. The touch interface is much better for playing/performing instruments, sequencers, etc. As the processors get more powerful the apps get better.

I don’t understand. If you can’t run the workloads you want why in the world would you buy one?

“But it could! It has enough power! All they would need to do is overhaul the OS, open the file system, and… Well ok it would probably be easier to add touch to MacOS, how hard could it be? Well ok, to do that properly would take a lot of work but I’ve got it all figured out and Apple is stupid for not….”

Every time people complain about how “crippled” the ipad is they inevitably point out some task that is perfectly suited to a laptop. On top of that, the laptops are less expensive and now have longer batteries. Apple has made the ipad very good at touch and pen computing with a very safe, simple OS. If they stick to that paradigm that will preclude running IDEs, servers, databases, and running arbitrary code. Most of the complaints boil down to MacOS not having touch which I don’t understand either but I wish people would just give the crippled ipad narrative a rest.

Sure, doing stuff like compiling code is perfectly suited to a laptop, but taking notes in math class or drawing a diagram is not. A tablet with a keyboard and pen can do it all, the iPad with its limitations can not. Now you need 2 devices when really one could do.

Personally I don't like MacOS, I'd rather iPadOS just dropped the limiters.

There are workloads that do use that power though. Various drawing, graphics, and photography programs make heavy use of AI. What other processor should Apple use for iPads that need that kind of processing? People that complain about power in the ipad have it backwards. Apple puts in the least powerful processor in the ipad it can and still be able to handle the AI demands, screen responsiveness, storage, and other high end processing needs used by creative people.

“What could you possibly need that much power for on an iPad?” Well, Apple put the M1 in it and now it can run Davinci Resolve, handle many more layers in Procreate, handle more tracks/virtual instruments/effects in audio programs, do incredibly fast ML adjustments in Photoshop/Affinity/Pixelmator etc. Who knows what will be coming out next because of the power available?

Apple takes advantage of economies of scale to put a more powerful processor in the ipad and people actually complain about it. In the meantime app developers make better products and people find new workflows that have opened up.

> It is literally impossible, for example, to get a smartphone from another vendor anywhere near as powerful as the latest iPhone

What's the point of having all of that extra power if the pre apple silicon iphones could already run their workload fine? It isn't like it will make the device last any longer because of the planned obsolescence with the battery

What's the point of having the most powerful mobile cpu if the average mobile workload won't come close to ever using it?

edit: Maybe it's because apple is trying to diversify the average mobile workload to cover more use cases. This way people who struggle with a full desktop OS won't have to leave the safe and happy garden

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