Sent From My iPad
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First thing I tried was uploading some images on it, but can't upload files via USB storage, have to use iTunes for that. I'm a linux user, so had to install windows on VirtualBox and then forward the USB por to virtualized iTunes. After doing that I realize that can't just place files on the filesystem, files are bound to a particular application, so I have to upload the images to an image viewer, and that program "owns" the files. Also apps seem to be isolated from each other, when on Android they often communicate via "intents".
Then I went to the App Store to get some apps to get started, and it asked me to create an Apple Id, I entered the info, then it asked me for credit card number.. I just wanted to get some free apps and skip the credit card part, but it didn't let me continue without it. So cancelled the Apple Id creation, went googling, and after a few tries managed to create the Apple Id account without registering a credit card (you need to download a free app). Seems that it's persuading you to enter a credit card, since the "none" payment option wasn't visible by default. After browsing the store for a while, most of the apps are paid and it's pretty hard to get free apps. You can't really get any decent app without paying, on Android 90% of the apps you'll use everyday are free.
So, overall it feels limited, there is no contact with the underlying filesystem or OS, most apps have very poor or zero configuration, and trivial tasks (like uploading files from your PC) require extra cumbersome steps. Seems to be designed as a device for consuming, a toy, not something you're gonna work with. My desktop computer is far superior than an iPad.
People, typical people, do. not. understand. any. of. those. things. Yes, some people do but most people don't and they don't want to either.
Advanced users of <anything> really need to realize that just because something is simple to you does not mean it's simple to everyone; heaven forbid we try to make things that more people can use and understand.
And I have certainly seen a 'typical' person, who would frequently end up lost having teetered into one of the incredible variety of wrong turns it's possible to take in Windows Explorer - having migrated to a Mac, being brought to near tears of frustration by not being able to arrange things in iPhoto in a way that satisfied her, even after I showed her how to create "albums" to act in a way which is uncannily similar to but not the same as folders, a concept which she does actually understand and use.
(I'm now researching - with no definite expectation of a non-excessively laborious answer - how to export the photos from her iPhoto library into something like their original PC folder structure, so that I can set her up with the highly recommended Lyn and so that she can also manage the photos in the Finder as she really wants to.)
You're correct with everything you say, however, I feel that while you should always cater for the lowest common denominator (which Apple does, very well with iOS). You should also cater for the power user and the ultimate reason I switched out of the iOS ecosystem the only way I could get all the functionality I wanted was by jailbreaking my iPhone, whereas with an Android it's all native (and am glad to say I haven't had to root my Android).
Further to the above paragraph from what I observe in iOS is that it appears that they do not want to progress towards power users, unless I've missed some key developments recently.
In saying this, I've recently purchased a MacBook and I feel that they've done an incredible job with OSX in the regards, it's very easy to use for the novice but allows for a lot of power user functionality (e.g. multiple finger swipes, access to terminal, keyboard shortcuts for things like spotlight).
I think it was iOS 4 that gave apps a filesystem users could directly (through iTunes) manipulate... I'm not sure how to describe it, so take a look at this picture: http://d.pr/i/PGfr - I can drop PDFs (and other files) in that window and the app would see them. It's fast, sine it's using USB. AND, if you plug the iPad to another computer, they can add PDFs too (no need to sync with that computer).
Also, wireless syncing (or syncing with icloud.com) is a big deal IMO.
And interaction between apps (like opening a PDF that's in ReaddleDocs in Adobe Reader) is easy now. Most apps implement a simple "sharing" button that lets you open a file in all qualifying apps.
And Safari... Safari is finally a decent browser. Specially on iPad.
And the whole iClous thing is just magnificent if you have iPhone, iPad and a Mac.
But still, it lacks some of "advanced" features of Android ("intents", for one), and wouldn't have them for at least 13 months (when iOS 7 comes out).
Naives quite happily understand of their files as moveable objects, similar to apples in a basket. In all the hand-holding I've done of naive users, even those people who get thoroughly confused that there's 'left' and 'right' 'clicks' still firmly grasp the basic idea of files.
My relatives and friends are outliers then. Or maybe yours are. But, I don't think it's FUD because I have first-hand experience.
This is not FUD at all. The files/folders concept is one of those things that most people just don't understand.
They're ad-supported. That's a huge difference. I'd rather (and do) pay for the apps I'm supposed to be using everyday (but, the problem is you can't test-drive apps, so you might end up paying $14 for an app that's pure garbage. That's a valid criticism of App Store.).
I strongly disagree. When there is another input method that allows me to rapidly and precisely enter text, then, at that point the keyboard will be a crutch for us old fogies.
I haven't seen anything short of a direct neural interface that can replace a keyboard in the near future. I've tried some of the alternatives, but I didn't see myself becoming fast and accurate enough for them not to be annoying.
To me the only real pain point for using a keyboard is added bulk, but that in and of itself is not a huge deal. In fact when I am traveling and have to use my laptop, I miss having my iMac keyboard with a number pad and additional inputs that don't have to be combined into single keys with multiple functions. There's a reason nobody codes on their phones or tablets- there's no effective way to communicate with it at high speeds.
I'd love to see you edit a photo using just a keyboard.
A Physical keyboard is incredibly limited because it allows us to communicate one of two things to the computer. We can communicate a single character. (ie - a fraction of a word which is a fraction of an idea). Or we can communicate a single pre-defined intent (ie - a function key or shortcut). The way we communicate intents (CTRL-C, ESC, CTRL-ALT-DEL, F5) changes with the application but the Hardware itself doesn't). This is very limiting.
Heh, I'd like to see you edit without one.
Any editor worth his salt will have mapped his shortcuts to sit under his keyboard hand. How is moving a finger 1/4 of an inch in any direction to call entirely new windows/tool/pulgins/etc limiting? What do you suggest as a betting input device?
>The way we communicate intents (CTRL-C, ESC, CTRL-ALT-DEL, F5) changes with the application but the Hardware itself doesn't). This is very limiting.
Could you expand on this? I don't quite get the point your trying to make.
Try using your desktop for a few days without a keyboard and see how limiting that is. There's a reason he only speaks of relying on his iPad when he's away from home. It's not a practical device for productivity.
> My main issue is that I view the physical keyboard as a crutch
(emphasis mine)
Later:
> I’m sure I could get used to the software keyboard — in fact, I see people from time to time who seem faster typing on it than a real one
I have witnessed it myself. Everyone witnessed the same argument a few years ago "oh but you can't possibly type faster on the iPhone soft keyboard than on a real hardware Android/BlackBerry keyboard!". And it turned out, oh yes you can (some people reach in the 80+ WPM).
Now I can hear someone over there who says 'but you can't touch type! you can't possibly be faster!', to which I anwser:
1. how many people really know how to touch type? 2. how many people have a proper keyboard for touch-typing?
The answer is already scarce even among the developer/hacker crowd, when you extend to the myriad of computer users around the world, the answer is hardly any. For a point of reference, the average user types at 33 WPM. I was typing faster than that (~45 WPM) on the iPad on day one.
There are a number of studies comparatively evaluating typing efficiency. This study[0] shows 43 WPM for touchscreen vs 61 WPM for netbook. Excerpt from the conclusion:
These results were not surprising given the familiarity of the
participants with physical keyboards. [...]
Performance on both iPad keyboards was impressive for first-time users.
Some participants said that they thought they would enjoy using
the keyboard on the iPad more if they had additional time to practice.
[0] Keyboard Performance: iPad versus Netbook: http://www.surl.org/usabilitynews/122/ipadtyping.asp
No, I assure you that I believe that the physical kyboard is not a crutch, nor is it going away for many users such as myself for a good long time.
And it turned out, oh yes you can (some people reach in the 80+ WPM).
I suppose if you are typing regular text this might be possible with a lot of practice. My main gripe is that a smooth flat rectangle doesn't provide enough positioning feedback for me. Others feel the same way, though I won't try to speak for the majority.
This study[0] shows 43 WPM for touchscreen vs 61 WPM for netbook.
I must first point out that unless you have tiny hands, a netbook has a poor physical keyboard.
You seem to be arguing two different things.
Most people don't know how to touch type, and they'd do just about as well with an iPad.
My response to that is "maybe".
When you make blanket statements like:
My main issue is that I view the physical keyboard as a crutch
Then you are saying on-screen keyboards are fine for everybody. I disagree with that, vehemently.
When typing with a physical keyboard, I'll sometimes feel that I've made a mistake, and I'll start correcting it right away. Without looking and the part of the screen where I'm entering text.
With an on-screen keyboard, my attention must stay focused on where my hands are in relation to it, and on the text entry itself. I can't feel if I've made a mistake (or typed correctly) I can only see if I've made a mistake.
As a long-time touch typist, this lack of feedback bothers me greatly, and slows down my overall process, not just the text entry itself.
The 11" MBA, on the other hand, is available with 8GB RAM and a high-speed SSD that basically destroys the performance of most laptops with spindle hard-drives.
Ever since I got the 11" MBA, I have not once reached for my iPad. I even toss the MBA into my go bag and tether to my iPhone for light work on-the-go.
Android allows you direct access to the filesystem, documents aren't locked to open in only one app, has processes to allow apps to interoperate, offers shells and compilers which allows coding in multiple languages, allows sideloading of applications, has mouse/touchpad support, monitor output (on tablets with hdmi out), and is generally not locked down to any noticeable degree.
I could almost use my Asus Transformer, with the keyboard dock, as a laptop replacement. If it would only offer window tiling so more than one app would show up at once, and if it had a more robust image editor, then I could probably make the switch full time. The 12 hour battery life would be a nice plus.
Windows 8 RT probably shouldn't even be used in the same sentence as the word "proven".
"Everything" includes all email, web browsing (and reading online tutorials and articles), listening to audiobooks (to be honest I do it more on my iPhone than iPad), managing tasks (OmniFocus is just fantastic), reading books that I would've never read on my MacBook (books like 'JavaScript: The Good Parts', 'Git Pro', 'Head-First C', 'Node: Up and Running' and many chapters of other books).
How do I know that I wouldn't have read these books if it wasn't for the iPad? Because I wanted to read all of these books (or similar books) for the past several years but never got to do so because reading PDFs on a computer is really boring. I was content with blog articles and online tutorials and thought books were something of the past; but I was really wrong. The quality of these books are stunning and I've learned so much that my only regret is why I didn't use my iPad more in the first 5 months (it used to sit on my desk all day long).
Last year I would've recommended the iPad to novice, incompetent PC users. Now, I recommend iPad to everyone. Well, maybe except those who can't live without having direct access to the machine's gut. But even those people can "jailbreak" (or get an Android tablet) and live a happy life.
I've only found it useful when travelling for entertainment, light web browsing etc. Basically a toy.
This post was about iPad being (almost) ready to be the primary computer in some professional tasks and this is worth noticing and mentioning.
Writing, which is in many ways the lowest common denominator of all computing devices.
I think these stories are coming from people who had a perception using the iPad this way was impossible (for their needs) until they actually try it out. Then it's sort of a revelation and they want to share it with the world.
Most likely because MG Siegler is a professional tech writer. If he makes a significant change in how he uses tech, or what tech he uses, it would be surprising for him not to write about it.
I have to say though, I'm a bit skeptical of the tablet revolution. I think the main driving force right now is the fact that a great many people dislike their PCs for reasons having little to do with the form factor.
I've been using this iPad 1 for everything (save heavy duty coding) since minutes after it came out. I just switched devices and went about my life. Nice to see people figure it out ... if years late. Wish others would realize its not novel just because it shows up on the news.
(It could be a good coding platform too if Apple allowed compilers on iOS.)
Bloody hipster. :P
If the future of computing is about being dictated on what I can and cannot do on a device I bought by Apple, I'd rather not see that future. I regret having bought an iPad instead of waiting for something like the Nexus 7. I'm actually going to buy the Nexus once Google decides to sell it in my country but it means I've wasted money on my iPad.
The iPad is a general computing device, it just has a friendly interface that most people can understand. Is an automatic car 'limited' because you can't change gears manually?
Also, jailbreak. You can use shell all the time if you want to.
You can't be serious. You can't import or export code. I don't even consider that fit for a toy because even toys are better when you can share them.
" and a few pretty decent photo editors too"
The way the iPad works compared to android makes it a huge PITA. If you use itunes to import photos from your computers they're going to get resized, and for some reason, you can't delete imported photos on your ipad unless you delete them from your computer and sync with itunes. How about that, for a closed device ? You can't delete content on the tablet unless you do a sync on your computer ? Complete madness.
"The iPad is a general computing device, it just has a friendly interface that most people can understand. Is an automatic car 'limited' because you can't change gears manually?"
Yes. If we race the same car, you with automatic and I with manual gears, I'm going to beat you. For that matter you must be an American, because here in Europe most of the cars sold aren't automatic. No one here believes that getting an automatic car is an upgrade. And having a friendly interface is no excuse for restricting what I can do with the device, Android proved you can do both : give a friendly interface and still be friendly toward those who want to do more than browse the web.
Android has the potential to replace computers, with time. The iPad is a shitty walled garden where you can't even erase a photo you transferred from your computer. I regret having bought this device. But since Apple products tend to keep their value well on the aftermarket because of all the fanboys, selling the iPad 2 will actually bring me enough money to buy a Nexus 7 without having to spend a single cent more. I pity the poor sod who's going to buy that crap, though.
I own three Apple products and I am sick with their antics. No more.
> You can't delete content on the tablet unless you do a sync on your computer
No idea what you're talking about, I manage all content on the iPad/iPhone without touching iTunes, and import photos directly from my dslr using an SD adapter.
I'm not American, where I live most cars are manual. To turn over your argument: 99.9% of the people aren't race drivers.
Anyway, I was just pointing out that there are options, you already have your opinion.
Oh you meant those text editors that can't run code ? I'm not thinking of coda, but anything that can actually run code, like the Python interpreters on iOS. You can't import or export code with those. The fact is, Apple restricts what you can do on your tablet. You can't edit code, run it on your tablet and export or import some. Why would I want to use a text editor on the tablet without being able to run code on it ? I might as well take my laptop instead.
> No idea what you're talking about, I manage all content on the iPad/iPhone without touching iTunes, and import photos directly from my dslr using an SD adapter.
If you transfer them through iTunes they get resized and they can't be removed from the tablet until the next syncing. And I don't see why I would want to use the SD adapter, the first place I'm going to put my photos in is the real computer where I'll develop the raw files with Lightroom and the SD cards are immediately erased for the next shoot. I only put my photos on the iPad to show them around but I find it a pain that I can't even manage it from inside the iPad, deleting and creating albums from iTunes imports. That's typical Apple crap you have to deal with here.
Apple always behaved like assholes starting from their first mp3 players. Where the competitors allowed you to just copy your files over the file system, no big deal, with iPods you have to go through iTunes which is a slow piece of crap for windows users. ( I use windows on my desktop )
Jailbreaking could do the trick but then it means a risk if you send your ipad under warranty, and it means lagging behind updates (some of which could be important, like security updates. It can be risky, look at the fact that an exploit allowed jailbreaking through the web browser in the past.. the same exploit could've been used by anyone to pwn your iPad, so you better install all the updates as soon as they're out.)
I can remember Mark Pilgrim making the same kind of point about OS X in the past, and why he switched to linux, and OS X was far less oppressive than iOS. http://daringfireball.net/2006/06/and_oranges
The whole proprietary database crap is the reason why I will never use iPhoto. I want a photo manager that lets me use the filesystem without much constraints, and a full compatibility with IPTC keywords and all the other metadata standards. I want something I can transfer to a different operating system, or use with a different photo management software without much fuss. I'll have none of that walled garden crap, and that walled crap was already there in OS X with software like iPhoto. For people who want free as in beer software and don't want to pay for something like Lightroom, Picasa is a much better choice [than iPhoto]. Or Darktable for linux users. I actually prefer Picasa's interface over Lightroom, too bad it lacks the advanced features, because Picasa is very friendly for someone who uses the file system. Folder hierarchies are portable and stable over time. IPTC, id3 and XMP metadata are portable and stable. Proprietary databases are not.
I like a lot of things about apple products. I own a MBA in part because it has the best trackpad in the market for example. But there is also too much to hate for me to turn a blind eye to their policies anymore, I just got sick with their software and absolutely can't stand it. The next time I'm in the market for a laptop computer, I'll take the inferior hardware and flimsy software, I'll even bear with stuff like bad suspend, if it means that I'm finally freed from the Apple jackasses. There is nothing compelling me to buy a mac if I can't stand the few mac exclusives and mostly use multiplatform software on it. Guess the Apple brainwashing never worked on me.
It is very obvious that Apple is now nearly exclusively catering to complete consumers and that anyone who uses apple products for advanced stuff are byproducts rather than one of the target audience. They dropped their XServe line, so no more pro servers. Their Mac Pro towers are outdated and they have the audacity to sell them with absolutely shitty graphic cards.. considering the amount you spend for a Mac Pro it's a total rip off. They pissed off a portion of their pro market with Final Cut X, and they pissed off the amateurs who liked the advanced features of the previous iMovie. They dropped their stewardship over OS X java, which is now a good thing because they always took a long time to put out newer versions of the runtime. They are lagging behind a lot on OpenGL support. With Apple, they tell you to jump and you just answer back "How high ?".
The writing was on the wall the day they changed their name from Apple Computer to Apple. They're now making most of their profit off their locked down smartphones. OS X was already kind of my way or the highway, but now with iOS they are reinforced in their belief that they can push the mindset further, which is why we got the appstore on ML, sandboxing issues, gatekeeper, stupid skeuomorphic apps from iOS and full screen apps that behave in a way that make switching between them uncannily like multitasking on the iPad. They're turning my MBA into a gigantic iPad. I can't wait for OS X 10.9 with Gatekeeper always on rather than optional. I wouldn't be surprised if 10.8 was only transitional, to give app developers some time to adjust.
Every time I have to setup somebody's iPad on Windows I feel sick for hours afterwards. iTunes is slow, syncing with Photos folder and Outlook sucks, and the overall experience is dreadful.
But I disagree that filesystem is better than a database that the app uses to keeps track of stuff for you. But again, if I were a Windows/Linux user I would've said the same thing. Things are much better if you live completely in the Apple platform (Mac/iPhone/iPad). In my opinion, you must have the whole package, or none of them at all. If you're not a Mac user, then an Android tablet might be the better choice (they were absolute shit when the iPad came out, but are pretty decent right now).
And yes, the android tablets were absolute shit when the iPad came out, that's why I didn't buy an android tablet even though I was already kinda getting fed up with Apple at the time. I just think I should've waited for a while, wait for something like the newer, Android 4.0 Transformer and now the Nexus 7, rather than immediately buy an iPad 2. I'm torn between the two, the Transformer sounds closer to my ideal, with stuff like a built-in card reader, but the portability of a 7" sounds good to me too.
You're admitting that iTunes isn't really that great even on a Mac. And think about it. It's the only way to put mp3s on an iPhone or iPad (unless you bought everything on the store). I'd rather they just give me a Mass Storage interface to the file system than force me to use some crap proprietary software. iTunes sucks partly because they have to keep it cross platform, meaning it's never going to be a full modern cocoa app on the mac and it's never going to feel right on Windows either and mac libraries are not known for being great for cross platforms apps compared to Qt or Java SWT.
Even if I were to be a full mac user I would oppose this idea of my-way-or-the-highway simply because I find it crucial to be able to QUICKLY move from a platform to the other without any fuss whatsoever if you change your mind or anything like that, and it's something only standard metadata and filesystems hierarchies can give you. I was a long time linux user until I made the mistake of building a desktop that was kinda incompatible, particularly the ATI Radeon that crashes a lot with Gnome 3. It wasn't a pain to come back to windows, and it's never been a pain to switch from Mac OS X on my laptop to windows on my desktop. And I use Rsync to make mirrors on an external usb drive of my data, a tool that works on the three platforms rather well. I have nothing against an heterogeneous environment and I'm not married to a particular OS or software. I'm not a fanboy of any one of them, I use what works best for me at a particular time and particular hardware I bought. Mac laptops are really nice, their trackpad rocks, the suspend works good, they offer good battery use, the unibody case feels solid and not creaky even if you hold it a bit wrong..
I like a lot of things from Apple, I just wish they were actually more open and not just in the open source sense of working on projects like LLVM, but open in the way their devices interact, open in the protocols, open in the way metadata is stocked and shared.. the Mail.app for example used to implement mbox, and one of the things that pushed Mark Pilgrim over the edge was the conversion to a proprietary format. MS loses too on that particular example (mail), but they're getting more open these days with file formats, and while the Open XML process hasn't been without mistakes it's still miles better than the state of iWork. iWork can't even open ODF files, while Microsoft created a plugin for Office that lets it import and export to ODF. I recall Office 2010 supports it natively.
Apple just doesn't give a shit. I don't care as much for "free as in freedom" software as I care for "open protocols", "open file formats", "open metadata". Make closed source software if you want, and sell it for as much as you want, but as long as you support openness, I'll give you the thumbs up. Microsoft made great strides toward this. The way they worked with mono developers was also exemplary and C# truly became crossplatform apart from the GUI libraries themselves (and it's still possible to do so with the old WinForms) and Mono never really lagged that far away when it came to language features and major APIs, and they actually submitted the language to a standard body, and the specifications are free to download, unlike ISO specs. It's hard to think of Microsoft as the great evil the way lots of nerds did, because compared to Apple, they're novices, amateurs, a gentle brand of evil. If Apple had the same stranglehold on PCs the way Microsoft has presently it would literally be a NIGHTMARE.
I refuse the thought of marrying myself to a platform, so I'll never buy into something that locks me in. Hell, even free software could theoretically lock me in if it didn't support stuff like IPTC tags, file system hierarchies and built its own proprietary database for everything to take the photo management example again. Thank god the open source community tends to value a certain form of pragmatism and just follow the path of least resistance rather than "innovate" by building their own crap.
But, personally, I'd really love for them to use more "open" protocols. But, maybe it's not entirely their fault? ePub wasn't great for their dream of ibooks. It would literally take years to "standardize" the new file format through W3C or whoever is controlling ePub. So, they did the only thing they could: creating a new file format. Just like iMessage, FaceTime, iWork, iTunes, ... - I don't mind them doing it, just wish they would "open" their contrived file formats afterwards, so Linux guys could create decent iPhoto clones that we could "rsync" stuff between devices, etc.
Get an Android tablet and live with it for a few months, then see what you think of the iPad.
The other day I got twitter spam directed to my account that was designed to be run on android but not display anything on a pc :(
Even on an Android tablet I would be extremely upset without a keyboard and my suite of applications. I can't even possibly begin to imagine how painful it would be on an iPad. The article from the developer who uses Linode isn't even a good comparison point. As in, the iPad is effectively nothing more than a thin client. A $35 raspberry Pi and a freebie monitor off of Craigslist can do all of that.
Most of the articles can be summarized as: most of the time, tablets are fine for people consuming content. Wifi, Cellular data make access to the cloud trivial. I'm sure if I were writing for my blog named "massivegreatness" then I would be perfectly happy with my Android phone and a keyboard. The notion that keyboards are going away is more of the delusion I expect from MG.
Furthermore, who cares if he wrote this on his iPad? I could write this on my phone without a keyboard, or I could write this on my 11" MBA, or I could write this on an iPad with a keyboard.
(Hint, the MBA is more powerful, and as compact as an iPad+KB.)
This is just parroting. The author specifically says he uses a Macbook at home, and the iPad is now his choice for travel, not his only computer.
A raspberry pi is nowhere near the computing/graphics power, portability, battery life (haha) of an iPad. It doesn't even have a case for christ's sake, what a stupid comparison. Yeah, lugging around a bare motherboard attached to a monitor is just the same.
How's this for a "consumption only device"? http://madewithpaper.fiftythree.com/
edit: I just can't get over the tone of your post, especially given that despite my implication of productiveness and keyboard, you gave an example that explicitly and obviously only requires a stylus.
Sorry about the tone, I just found myself comparing a raspberry to an iPad, couldn't help it. Point stands, an iPad is not just a thin client nor replaceable by one, and perfectly capable of being used for (some kinds of) productive work.
He does not 'only use an iPad':
> To be clear, I’m not going to throw away my laptop anytime soon. I just replaced my standard desktop machine of the past few years, an iMac, with a Retina MacBook Pro. There’s no question that it’s far more powerful than even the current top-of-the-line iPad. And that gap isn’t likely to close for years.
His point is:
> The iPad is my new road machine.
which is precisely the opposite of "tablets are fine for people consuming content"
While you're completely right that the MBA is more powerful, it also costs more, and is less modular (you can't pop off the keyboard). For all those routine tasks that do not require a keyboard (like triaging email) it's a boon when sipping a cup of coffee.
He went with a rMBP and an iPad, while personally I'd do with a Mac Pro, a 13" Air and a 7" tablet. We all have differing requirements, but his point is to report that tablets are part of the productivity toolset today, and one that will increase in the future as they get more refined and capable.