I still remember people saying that the iPad was just going to be a big iPhone and what is the point?
I NEVER understood this. I was one of those people that was immediately excited about the iPad. Being able to lay back in bed and casually browse the web, read magazines, watch movies, play games? On something with a decently large screen, decent battery life and something that wasn't bulky? PLEASE TAKE MY MONEY!!!!
It really surprises me to hear that there wasn't much excitement inside Apple for it. I now have the first generation of the 12.9-inch iPad Pro and it's just about always in my bag with me.
I do think it's a shame you can't really develop apps ON the device. I'm glad the OS is getting more capable with the direction they're taking, so who knows? We might get Xcode one day :)
I use an old shitty netbook for this. I prefer that to my Nexus ... 7? tablet for three primary reasons.
The screen naturally holds itself at whatever angle I set it. If I'm just casually watching a video in bed, I can put my hands back under the covers where it's warm.
It has a keyboard. So the other half of the time, when I'm interacting with the machine in a meaningful way, input is way easier.
There's an entire other world of stuff to do with a full fledged OS. Programming, Steam games, the works, it's all there.
I haven't bought another tablet. It's not really better at anything than my phone.
I had the 2012 nexus 7 when I was in school and I loved it. Used it all the time for just about everything including insane use cases like programming. Then I got my first phone in about 2014 and didn't really have much of a use for the n7. Its just like a phone only slightly bigger but less portable and no 4g. Since then I haven't been interested in a new tablet and it looks like the entire Android tablet scene died.
Its a real shame the android tablet ecosystem has all but died. Android is better these days then its ever been. Highly customizable, you can use the firefox browser with uBlock origin, excellent 3rd party password manager support(much better then iPad). You also have a really nice open-source app eco system. Apps like Termux make it possible for me to basically do my DevOps job from anywhere in the world with a portable folding keyboard. Android functionality is awesome these days compared to iOS. Even the split screen functionality on my Pixel 2 is great compared to my iPad.
I think the problem is that even the best tablet is worse than a cheap shitty netbook. Shitty netbooks can be had for $200. The fancy shmancy backwards folding ones, (into a tablet form factor) aren't that much more.
You know what's better than termux? OpenSSH, tmux, a proper term, a proper tiling WM, in X.org. Or Wayland or screen if that's your thing I don't judge.
Termux is just a linux container, it has OpenSSH, and tmux. Yes I agree that a full linux workstation is better then an android phone, but sometimes I like to go out with friends and family and I might still be on call for work, and I really dont want to have to carry around a bulky laptop. Termux is just an extremely nice thing to have on an android phone and there is no legit officially sanctioned method of doing these things on iPad other then iSH which isnt even fully in the app store yet, its only on testflight.
I completely agree with you. A really good drawing surface with Pencil, handwritten notes + handwriting recogniser, a distraction-free writing environment with a keyboard cover, comic book reader, ebook reader* and light as heck? Also, a display of that quality for that price? Oh yes.
*Reading O’Reilly Safari books only works well on the iPad, I’ve found. Ever since they killed Kindle downloads. In any case, most technical books look better on the iPad anyway.
The apps are still a bit limiting. Eg some bank apps still assume you’re using a phone, but iPadOS’s desktop-like browser does help. What’s more irritating is that some apps, like Gmail, still don’t allow attaching documents from Files. But I suspect they’ll catch up.
Don't get me started on Google! Hangouts, for whatever reason, never got iOS multitasking support like being able to use it in a side panel (and if I recall correctly, the multitasking features got to iOS long before Google started abandoning Hangouts or whatever they're doing with it now). Though to be fair, I really think Apple should have found a way to do this without a requirement from app developers. I don't think it's an impossible task - just look at what Samsung DeX can do on Android without explicit support from existing apps (even if it isn't perfect,).
Somepeople definitely love the device. It depends on what these things mean to you. My iPhone is fine for reading for me. Paperback novels aren't as large as ipads. The column width in a print magazine and newspaper isn't as large as an ipad, it's about as wide as my iphone screen. Text wrap is important for comfortable reading. Therefore, in my eyes, having something larger than it needs to be to actually read is a waste.
Similarly, the web isn't any better on an ipad vs. an iphone; its the same mobile website but with more white space to fill the scale.
I could never stand gaming on a touch screen device, personally. I know people play fortnight on their phones these days, but I can't stand the lack of tactile response with virtual thumb sticks and the fact you have to block the screen with your thumbs to do anything at all. Games tailored to the device, like tap tap revenge, were fun but only for 10 minute spurts.
I get the merit of having a 12" light weight screen that connects to the internet, but apple hasn't sold me on the utility to make it worth dropping the couple hundred bucks, especially when my phone does it all while also being a phone.
There’s no Xcode (yet), but there’s a growing number of coding apps available for iPad and even iPhone. My all-time favourite is Codea, which is a Lua game development environment that exports to Xcode so you can publish your games to the App Store.
"just going to be a big iPhone (...) lay back in bed and casually browse the web, read magazines, watch movies, play games? On something with a decently large screen" -- isn't that just a big iPhone, then? Especially now that the iPhones are fairly large themselves, and mobile layouts are almost universal. I have an iPad, but I've never really found a good use for it. Web browsing, reading, and watching videos I find more comfortable on a phone (or a Kindle) I can hold in one hand. The form factor of the iPad combined with its touch screen means I can never find a comfortable way of holding it long-term.
To me the big draw of the iPad is that it combines the simplicity of a phone OS with a screen that can render large fonts and still be usable. That's great for people with poor eyesight, like my grandparents, who can fit only a few words at a time onto a 5" phone display and who find the Windows interface frustrating (being full of small buttons, accidentally-pressed keyboard shortcuts, things minimizing to the tray, and multiple windows containing multiple tabs). As someone lucky enough to have escaped that problem so far the iPad exists in a strange halfway point between a laptop (large, powerful, keyboard-equipped, capable of running and doing anything) and a phone (comfortable, portable, long-lasting) that's never quite right for the job.
Admittedly I've never used the Pencil which I imagine can be quite nifty.
Eh, I'm still not particularly excited about iPads or tablets in general. Tablets are awkward, to the point that I prefer:
- my phone for casual reading and watching (6" max)
- my Kindle for longer reading sessions
- my laptop for mobile productivity and gaming
- my desktop for serious work/gaming
We mostly use our tablets to distract our kids, especially for long road trips. My wife has started using a tablet for drawing in lieu of a desktop drawing tablet, but that's about as close to "real" use of a tablet that we have.
It works out really well for some people, but I just don't see it.
If you own multiple tablets in addition to a Kindle, a laptop and a desktop computer, I’d say you are significantly more excited about tablets than the average tablet user.
What a strange mindset. I’ve used compilers on the original iPhone itself. My main computer is a core 2 duo MacBook from 09 and the latest Xcode runs fine
About hardware, I used multiple configurations from Snow Leopard and XCode grows to godzilla while years. Xcode eat all free space on my Macbook Pro'18 256G and can crash randomly, lost iPad connection, etc. I don't want to see this on my iPad. I have mac for XCode.
PS: In same words, mac for more serious work, iPad for more creative and less serious work.
I NEVER understood this. I was one of those people that was immediately excited about the iPad. Being able to lay back in bed and casually browse the web, read magazines, watch movies, play games? On something with a decently large screen, decent battery life and something that wasn't bulky? PLEASE TAKE MY MONEY!!!!
It really surprises me to hear that there wasn't much excitement inside Apple for it. I now have the first generation of the 12.9-inch iPad Pro and it's just about always in my bag with me.
I do think it's a shame you can't really develop apps ON the device. I'm glad the OS is getting more capable with the direction they're taking, so who knows? We might get Xcode one day :)