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Comment by fetzu | Hacker News Reader

Author buys a tablet, complains it’s too expensive, too powerful, and not a laptop. This makes author angry and complain about a whole other range of tangentially related issues. Author should have done their research and bought a laptop instead. MacBooks are pretty good devices, although they can be a little expensive and too powerful too.

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Well, I was expecting they will make newer iPads more open than previous ones. But seeing WWDC '24 was mostly about AI, just made me think that Apple doesn't care about important issues that people are complaining for years.

I think you are making the wrong assumption that Apple is building the computers that people are vocal about or ask for. Nobody asked for any of the computers they are selling today, but some users have some wishes, sure.

> I was expecting they will make newer iPads more open than previous ones.

Why? Did you seriously expect Apple to make major changes to their product strategy because it's not working out well for you, when clearly it's working out pretty well for Apple? Was there anything underlying your expectation other than wishful thinking?

> Author buys a tablet, complains it’s too expensive, too powerful, and not a laptop.

There is nothing wrong with this expectation. For example, Librem 11 tablet runs a desktop OS without any restrictions. You can use it as a replacement for a laptop.

I had never heard about the Librem and PureOS, interesting.

Microsoft also famously makes tablets that run a desktop OS. I guess my point is that Apple makes it pretty clear from their marketing material that you are getting a tailor made OS for your iPad (hell, they even renamed it to « iPadOS » a few years back), and 30 seconds of research would make it very clear that it is indeed « restricted » in its usage.

If the goal of the author was to have full-fledged desktop experience Apple device, a MacBook Air would have been even less expensive than a tabled with a fancy $350 detachable keyboard. If the goal was a tablet with a full fledged desktop OS experience, there are a lot of options in both Windows and Linux ecosystems.

This mis-purchase just felt like a springboard to complain about a myriad of tangentially related Apple gripes.

> I guess my point is that Apple makes it pretty clear from their marketing material that you are getting a tailor made OS for your iPad

This is not clear at all from their video ads.

> This mis-purchase just felt like a springboard to complain about a myriad of tangentially related Apple gripes.

These complains are quite reasonable, see also the comments here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40349347

I would argue that it is, but then we are in a typical « he said, she said » territory.

I also believe that some of the burden is on the customer when considering a purchase. Nobody ever bought a tractor and then complained it didn’t do 150 mph on the highway.

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