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Comment by behnamoh | Hacker News Reader

I’ve owned ipads for a long time and their productivity benefits compared to my Mac and iphone has never improved over the years. This year I’m selling my last ipad and won’t buy again until Apple throws a “real” OS at the thing.

one of the worst things about ios is that files get copied for each app. Say I download a PDF in the Documents app and want to annotate it. As soon as I open it with NoteX, a copy of the PDF is created in NoteX folder. this results in a chaotic situation, in terms of files and hierarchies.

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If apps are still handling files that way instead of being able to open documents from anywhere in your local files, iCloud Drive, it’s on the developer. Hasn’t been the case for years that this is the way files work, you should be able to save them to your Downloads folder (or elsewhere) and open them in whichever app you want.

Give PDF Viewer a look if you want better file handling: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/pdf-viewer-annotation-expert/i...

some apps use the proper api but thats not the norm yet, PDF Viewer uses it correctly

Which apps would that be?

That further proves my point about iOS/iPadOS's limitations. Why can't files be handled like on Linux/Windows/Android/macOS/etc. without having to use iCloud?

Edit: Goodnotes and Notability also have this annoyance.

You don't have to use iCloud. You can use local storage, or any cloud provider, or SMB/CIFS.

would also be nice if webdav could just be mounted. i mean caldav and carddav are supported in base os, whats the problem?

I recall it being supported up until iOS 14 or 15 too, for some reason they just decided to remove it.

I don't know about WebDAV but it does let you mount SMB shares.

If you need WebDAV I think Documents by Readdle will do it, and maybe even makes the share available to other apps though its File Provider. But I'm not sure what parts of Documents are subscription based now since I have a paid copy from before it went subscription.

It even has the option to keep a local copy of folders from network shares so you can use them offline, which is a pretty handy feature if you're working with large files or don't have a cellular iPad.

i'm using documents in free mode for some time, might be worth it if it can really transparently make webdav available to other apps.

You don't need iCloud, in the Files app you explicitly have "iCloud Drive" and "On My <device_type>" as top-level root directories to save files, you can maintain everything local as you wish...

or how about apple never gimped the file handling to begin with? :)

>If apps are still handling files that way instead of being able to open documents from anywhere in your local files, iCloud Drive, it’s on the developer.

Not a problem on a real operating system, everything just works. No need to pray the developer followed this years best practices instead of 3 years ago best practices just to use files in a sane manner. No need to beg a developer to fix it either, because the system was designed in a non-broken way to begin with.

I’d love to know what fantasy world you live in where developers don’t routinely fuck up basic functionality of operating systems by implementing custom versions of things like save & print dialogs.

Because let me tell you, it ain’t this one. Windows & Linux routinely run into this & per your rant… shouldn’t.

Yet they do.

I don’t mind if not every app can read-write literally the only important files on my devices.

For me, after doing a bunch of evaluation I went with buying an old (and very cheap) 2nd hard Surface Pro 3 on Ebay to see if that could possibly do the job.

... and yep, it does even with just Windows on it. Technically Linux can be loaded onto these things, and apparently works pretty well. But, I never got around to trying that out.

About a year later I dropped the damn thing and completely shattered the screen. Still haven't replaced it, but mean to at some point. Again, not with an iPad, but probably a newer generation Surface Pro. And I'll put Linux on it this time. :)

My experience with Linux on on a SP wasn't great. The basic PC functionality is fine, but getting the pen and touch working required a custom kernel and a fair amount of effort. The input latency on the pen, combined with no good writing apps on Linux killed it for me.

Ahhh damn. Didn't know that.

Thanks for the heads up. :)

Full linux as the host OS is probably excruciating. Keeping windows as the host and rely on the WSL2 subsystem seems fine, docker works as well.

Out of curiosity, what are the "good writing apps" on windows? When I last checked windows seemed to have exactly one note, android like 2 apps and iPad like 3 apps.

OneNote

Concepts is good for some things too.

Concepts looks nice and I hadn't heard of it before. The freemium and/or subscription seems like a potential dealbreaker to me, but might be worth a try.

There's a few OneNote of course, Nebo, Noteshelf, Squid which is really an Android app. All of those are on iOS and Android too. Microsoft Journal I just discovered and seems alright.

> until Apple throws a “real” OS at the thing

+ it still doesn't offer user profiles, so it fails to serve as a family device in the living room

Yeah, it's such an obvious use case and so limiting!

There are many limitations with iPadOS, but that isn’t one of them.

That issue was resolved years ago, and any remaining limitations are due to third-party developers not keeping up with evolving standards.

This is probably because those developers haven't added support for opening files in place, which has been available since iOS 9. There are a few other things (e.g. the way you call open/save dialogs) that need to be changed if you want to add support as well.

i like how we are talking about an OS that initially released in 2007, and only got support for "opening files in place" in 2015. What a time to be alive, we can open files in place and all..

gotta give apple credit, while the rest of the world is reduced to lowly CopyOnWrite, they took it one step further, with CopyOnRead.

Given that we're in 2023 this seems like a weird hill to die on.

in 2007 when ios first released, we had the ability to open files without insanities everywhere else. it was total insanity it was not possible, part of the apple thinking that you only do what they 100% say. Who would dare have some video file that isnt in itunes? well certainly not someone the mighty apple cares about. so this lead to movie players also having builtin ftp/smb/nfs clients/servers to be able to access your content, god forbid you could just have files.

so yeah, to have a 2007-vintage API be "legacy that cannot open files properly" is a joke, pretending that it is not, is the apple reality distortion field

What next? Are you going to complain about Windows not supporting more than 8.3 character filenames until 1995?

In 2001 people were still complaining about the pervasive usage of 8.3 filenames due to the legacy of Windows: https://slashdot.org/story/01/03/12/210202/why-are-we-still-...

If a given iPad app is still using a legacy API eight years later, that seems worth complaining about. It might not be Apple's fault so much as it is the app developer's fault, although it is at least indirectly Apple's fault for not introducing a proper file management API from the very outset.

And no one has named the application in question.

i would, but thats a bit more forgivable :)

I had a similar experience, I had iPads years ago, and recently got one again assuming it would be great, but it's just the same as years ago, really needs a proper os upgrade

God I hope your wish never comes true.

I don't understand why a device can't just be for consumption of media. Why is everyone trying to force this to become a computer with an annoyingly complicated navigation UX and the rest of the ceaveats when using a complete OS.

If I ever have to worry about CPU usage or driver issues on my iPad I will be the one leaving. I bought an iPad NOT to work on it. It is my vacation device so work can never call me and ask me to do something quickly

I owned a Surface Go for two days before getting an iPad Mini.

What made me return it was the file save dialog. I bought a device to read and doodle on, two things I used to do on paper. I browse through my sketches by turning pages, and finish the activity by closing the (note)book. Procreate and Google Play Books work similarly.

After a whole day of installing updates and removing bloatware, the Surface wanted me to name and organise my drawings on a filesystem before I could do something else.

My goal was to draw and read, not to use a computer. The Surface wanted me to think about files and updates and the device’s state. My iPad Mini is a book with benefits, paper with tricks.

What app did you tried on Surface? OneNote works without treating files. (as it's also available on iPad)

Yeah, I'm curious too. If you use a desktop Windows app you will of course run into that kind of thing but there is apps like Sketchable available that are like what's on the iPad. Even on the iPad you can run into file save dialogs, from what I remember Clip Studio Paint on the iPad is for better or worse Clip Studio Paint on the iPad file save dialogs and all.

I tried a few. OneNote was good for notes but not for art. None of them felt as good as their iPad counterparts, plus I had to deal with Windows.

They could just buy a tablet based on a real operating system like android /s

Is there one that exists that has 12 hour battery life and not parts of the interface that still goes back to a desktop OS released in 1995?

It’s called iPad PRO, if you want media consumption device iPad will do just fine.

Pro in Apple world means more powerful hardware + extra niceties. Not a different ecosystem.

12.9" pro's the best comic book reading device on the market, by a mile, AFAIK. Comfortable to hold, can display two-page spreads at very nearly full life-size.

It's great for PDFs and sheet music for similar reasons.

Gotta admit, though, if they made a 12.9" non-pro at least $200 cheaper than the 12.9" Pro, I'd have that instead. I don't need the horsepower.

If it is only "very nearly", wouldn't something larger like an s8 ultra be better? Also "by a mile" is a stretch. It might be better but all $1000+ tablets are reasonably close enough to be happy with any of them.

I've used a lot of Android tablets, low end to high, and developed software for them. They're awful. Crashy, glitchy, bad battery life. I don't think we'll see a true iPad competitor until/unless a new OS enters the market—Android's had a long time to get its shit together, and evidently just can't. Wish someone would give it a shot, because I'd love to see that market better-served.

Yeah, yeah and you literally died. This is HN and not reddit, you are better than that.

I have exactly no clue what you mean.

5 years ago I would have mostly agreed with your statements about android tablets, but since then Samsung has created a family of very acceptable tablets imho.

Maybe I'll try one from their newer line at some point. I haven't had a big pile of Android test devices around me on the daily in about 4 years (the consistent "Android's finally good now!" cry with each Android release and major-vendor product launch, followed by that never turning out to be true, for the entire decade I was doing mobile dev before that, is why I'd assumed nothing would have changed by now) so it checks out if they have in-fact finally made a good one (the older Samsung tablets were... not good) I might have missed it.

Last time I was guided by "no really this higher-tier Android thing is finally good, actually" advice was about a year ago, with the Nvidia Shield, though, so I'm... hesitant.

If I see one in a store, I may poke at it, read some reviews, see how their app store's looking these days for categories I care about. Could use a second largish tablet for the kids—or maybe a new one for me, and they can have the big iPad full-time. Having just one decent vendor in the mobile market blows (fucking Apple still won't add multiple profiles/icloud-logins to iPadOS, so annoying) so I'd be thrilled to discover that's changed.

16:10 is an abomination.

4:3 does happen, just coincidentally, to damn-near match the aspect ratio of a 2-page spread on a comic, too (~1.3 width/height on an open comic book, 1.333... for 4:3, 1.6 for 16:10) which means a larger screen in a wider ratio might not actually be any benefit (or not enough to justify the extra weight/unweildiness, perhaps) for that particular narrow use case.

Which, it's a very niche and specific thing, but still, if we're talking "what's the very best device for that exact thing, disregarding all other concerns", having a 4:3 screen ratio's an advantage over all the other common ones.

Because Apple doesn't allow macs to take that form factor.

There is a gap between iPads' convenience and macs' capabilities, we've all been pondering about when and how this gap will be filled, and it doesn't feel like it will ever happen.

Basically what is Apple's equivalent of a Surface Pro ? Until that question has an answer, some will be ranting about iPad OS being too restrictive and others lament the mac not getting touch support.

Not that I disagree with your use-case at all, it seems perfectly valid but…

I’ve owned Macs since 2006 and have never had to worry about driver issues once.

Come to think of it, I don’t really worry about the CPU either since M1.

iPads are not for me but I’m happy that they’re for someone else.

I can't wait for ipads to mature

With M1 this was something that people hoped would happen. But right now all I use my iPad for is binge watching in my bed. I’ve owned an M1 air for a year and that’s literally all I do with it. If I had a TV in my room the utility of the iPad would be zero for me.

>If I had a TV in my room the utility of the iPad would be zero for me.

TV's are cheaper than iPads these days

In practice, this means being able to run MacOS on them. All the hardware is already there, it's just a matter of time until Apple has the "courage" to enable it.

given the botched launch of stage manager I'm not holding my breath

I think we are heading in opposite direction - iPadOS running on MacBook

The issue is not courage. Apple knows that the use cases for the Macbook Air and the iPad Pro significantly overlap. So they use software limitations to avoid canibalising sells of one with the other even if it means making the iPad Pro a lesser product than it could be.

> So they use software limitations to avoid canibalising sells of one with the other

I'm not sure that's the case—Apple has generally not been afraid to cannibalize sales of their devices by their own devices.

IMO it's not about running macOS on it but rather that there is a need for desktop-class features on iPad. Apple doesn't need to run macOS on iPad to add desktop-class features. I'd rather see those features added to iPadOS (as well as visionOS, which is clearly a derivative of iPadOS).

The hardware may be there, but the input models — touch vs. keyboard & mouse — are so fundamentally different that I think it makes sense to present different user experiences.

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