The M4 iPad Pros
daringfireball.net
daringfireball.net
But there’s no way I’d buy one without there being a serious update to iPadOS at WWDC. I don’t expect to ever see crazy productivity & customization on iPadOS, but there’s just so much about the UX of the operating system that makes it much slower and more confusing to multi-task or do complex workflows compared to traditional desktop OS.
Both iPadOS and VisionOS run on super fast hardware, but doing everyday stuff like comparison shopping or planning a vacation feels like trying to swim in a river of molasses. Single app focus tasks like Procreate or watching a movie are awesome - often better - but anything with 2+ windows seems to spend a massive amount of pixels on padding and borders and just feels so frustrating.
The Surface Pro is "good enough" hardware wise, and having a full featured OS means I can run Blender and whatever else I choose.
Control panel with touch is much improved but the 3rd party app ecosystem support for HiDPI and touch sized controls is even worse today since most companies gave up on Windows Store and UWP style apps. In my opinion Windows 10 was a step back in terms of touch UX because the Windows 8 Home Screen / full screen start menu tried harder to be good.
Maybe it’s not Surface but I still have to manually invoke the touch keyboard from the accessibility menu like 20% of the time to type my password to log in after booting up.
For me, Proceate and Goodnotes are killer apps that justify the iPad.
Wacom would shit bricks. :D
Would Blender need some entitlement that Apple is unlikely to grant?
For example, if outside developers had more capability to explore different ways of managing files on an iPad, it's likely that someone would stumble upon a really great way of handling it that gains traction, and that Apple could adopt more widely.
For example, if outside developers had more capability to explore different ways...
...and these 2 sentences from the article:
For the sake of this argument, let’s posit that there exist tens of millions — perhaps 100 million — users who love the iPad for what it is. People who feel empowered, not hamstrung, by how it works, and who have no or very little need for a computer that exposes the complexity of a desktop OS like MacOS or Windows. And that there exist tens of millions more people who enjoy having an iPad to complement, not replace, their desktop computer.
If someone did come up with an iPad competitor that had all of the ease of use, UX simplicity, and ecosystem benefits, but also better enabled power users with something nearer a desktop replacement, then this would simply kill the iPad.
The fact that Apple seems reticent to do this themselves, indicates that there is a kind of organizational blind spot there, driven by self interest. Either that, or there are typical Apple long term plans that we're not fully aware of, and they're taking their own sweet time.
It’s like in Gruberworld you aren’t allowed to have any severe criticism of Apple, you have to find a way to explain it away.
I wish he would be more blunt about the iPad: if you have a specific workflow like drawing, animating, or something else my imagination can’t think of right now, great, it’s a good system for you. But for everyone else that is just looking for a web browser thing for their kitchen or their kids, anything more expensive than the $329 iPad or $500 iPad Air if you must have a laminated screen is overkill. Even better to just buy a previous model because the differences are basically impossible to spot by any normal human who isn’t hunting for specs.
The iPad Pro as a Pro device is still an oxymoron unless you are a very specific person.
The declining iPad sales figures that peaked 10 years ago tell the story best: that it’s still compromised device that isn’t as flexible as a full computer, and that its appeal is not growing as time goes on and the software improves at a glacier’s pace.
All the drawing and touch apps that are on iPadOS would be instantly better if macOS had devices with touch screens. No more fumbling with the Files app. If Apple made a ZenBook Duo-like Mac it would be a much better buy than an iPad Pro.
“Editing on iPad is Hell” by Mac Address: https://youtu.be/gosW702fFg4
He’s basically arguing that despite his full understanding that the iPad Pro sucks for his workflow that the iPad Pro is worth the money because it’s thinner and has a fancy screen.
That’s some apologist bullshit. He’s only focusing on thinness because it’s the only thing on offer with this new update. Because if you are like 99% of people and don’t care about winning a battle of millimeters, you’ll save a bunch of money by sticking with your 2018 iPad Pro model that offers an almost identical experience and performance especially given the limitations of iPadOS. Even the new tandem OLED isn’t that much better than the mini-LED predecessor (Dave2D).
For anyone who hasn't heard of these "tandem displays," they seem to be accomplishing greater brightness and outdoor visibility by layers one OLED on top of the other. It sounds bonkers, but there were those demos of "transparent televisions" last year, so it checks out. Should be pretty exciting if/when these make it to the iPhone and Watch.
I would have guessed that the displays would simply mirror each others' content, but the requirement of an enhanced display controller indicates that the two displays are controlled independently, and the video system is pushing twice as many pixels as the already absurd number necessary for a "retina display." This is all speculation, of course.
But if I'm correct, an M4 Air that lacks the tandem displays ought to be able to drive more external displays than the M3 model.
I get it, you think the iPad should be 'simplified'. That's part of my frustration, but I can work within those limitations. What I find particularly galling is the bugginess of what is supposed to be fully supported. For example, the mouse cursor: occasionally it just snaps to the completely wrong place. Sometimes it'll grab onto the edge of a window, but only when you click. Or it'll just not let you click certain elements at all, like the maximize control on picture-in-picture videos, which you can roll over, but clicking snaps you to the edge of the special PiP window.
None of this has to do with iPadOS limitations or whatever. This is purely just bugged, and four years into iPadOS having mouse support I'm still flabbergasted that Apple not only shipped it in such an unpolished state, but that multiple software updates have not brought a fix for it. I should never have to lift my finger off my trackpad to go touch something on the touchscreen just because the mouse support is dogshit.
iPadOS isn't exactly built for file management, and a lot of older apps don't support it properly. Those are things I can't exactly ding Apple for (mostly), app developers need to fix their shit. But I can ding them for having file management that loves to crash. SMB support - which is crucial to all the video editing workflows Apple wants to enable on iPad - is basically a crapshoot at the best of times. It's very liable to take down whatever daemon is responsible for managing remote shares. When this happens, all file management on the iPad stops working, with apps hanging when they try to present a file picker. Killing and restarting Files does not fix this, and the only way to restart daemons on iPadOS is to restart the whole tablet.
None of this feels like it's simplified, it just feels unfinished.
I still don't want to pick up my laptop after work, I just want real file manager.