The iPad is now ten years old, and people still have to write articles about how, no, really, you can do real work on an iPad!
In 1994, ten years after the Mac was originally introduced, I got my first computer, a Performa 450. Nobody wrote any articles about how, actually, real work on a Mac is possible. Everybody who had a Mac used it for real work.
There was no need to write articles about how you could use Macs for real work, because for Macs, it was – and still is – actually true.
There are countless people who work on iPads, but the central thread in almost all of the articles and stories about these people is that they involve countless, extensive compromises to make it work – whether that’s resorting to a PC for a lot of tasks, or using complex, hacky Shortcuts to accomplish things any other computer can do without you even thinking about it.
I see no reason an iPad can’t be a full, proper computer that can replace many a laptop and desktop, but Apple will need to put some serious weight behind iOS as a platform. The hardware is more than capable – it’s the software that holds it back. The fact we’re ten years into this thing and there’s still no Xcode for iPad tells you all you need to know about how Apple sees the iPad.
Doing the inverse makes far more sense, adding the tablet like interaction to a full desktop interface like MS did with Surface.
My obsolete ancient low powered laptops, with original XP or even with a hacked together 3rd party Linux or BSD I have on some old MacBook Pros or PowerMacs, far outperform any phone, iOS or Android tablet. It’s just a reality!
Now that laptops are lightweight and have real world 8 to 10hr battery life, my need for a iPad or Android tablet is greatly diminished. I find myself using tablets like this, when I walk between my desk to wherever I have a remote task, I use a tablet in-between, at either end I use a desktop or laptop. It’s like the only functionality useful to me from a tablet is as an on-the-go reference. The digital replacement of a piece of paper or notebook.
Apple resisted bringing in a tablet computer that runs MacOS. I recall Steve Jobs doing an entire presentation on why he refused to do that.
When I first saw the iPad, I said (remember the jokes about wings) that never mind wings, I didn’t think the device had legs. It’s sold massively and I’ve had more than one. But it’s still not a computer you can use on its own for more than basic emailing (there isn’t a full-featured email client for iOS unlike AquaMail on Android) and writing and the like; with a custom Android ROM, you can use Android as the full-featured Unix OS it is.
Then again, Apple are suspicious of general-purpose computing; look at how they have turned the screws on the Mac itself, making it more and more difficult to install and use other OSs on Macs and putting security barriers in front of common operations within Mac OS.
By contrast, I’m using tablets as my main devices.
Last November and December I happened to buy two Windows notebooks and a MacBook, all with i7 CPU. Yet I have hardly used them.
I have had a Surface Pro 3 since it was the latest model. I regarded it the best fusion of desktop and tablet. Yet it keeps gathering dust. I blame that on the i5 CPU that I chose (after reading about heat problems with the i7 edition).
In my strong-felt opinion, the unique selling point of a tablet is the combination of the ease of rotation (portrait, landscape) and the presence of the proper (though basic) virtual controls when needed (and only when needed). Be it a typewriter keyboard (QWERTY, AZERTY, emoji), a piano keyboard, a pair of pinball flippers.
Back in 2011, I loaded a portrait-oriented document onto a notebook for reading. Next day bought an iPad.
One of my new notebooks happens to feature a German keyboard. No problem (until finding that the Linux distros on my bootable microSD-cards expect QWERTY), but it makes me stick with my tablets (mainly iPads). I’m typing this on a large iPad Pro in portrait mode, using its virtual keyboard, even though I have Bluetooth keyboards within reach.
Speaking of keyboards, I had that Surface Pro 3 gather dust along with a Pixel C and a large iPad until I released them from their matching keyboard covers. Another matter of strong-felt opinion: don’t turn good tablets into mediocre notebooks by confining them to a keyboard cover! (I must say that this feeling mainly stems from the in itself good clamshell keyboard I used with that first-generation large iPad Pro.)
In fact, there is one single program that attracts me to Windows notebooks: Total Commander (with plug-ins). For that is what I purchased those new notebooks for: the ease of moving multiple files around.
Yes, my comments stand out by their length.
While I still can’t use the iPad for development, it has become substantially more useful over time. It now has a local filesystem, so I can do things like download a file from the web, and attach it to emails – once a hugely irritating limitation, now resolved. It has (limited) multitasking support now, so I can say read some reference and type a document at the same time – something again I couldn’t do in the past. There are fairly comfortable keyboard cases (like Apple’s own), so it’s now practical for typing up documents, unlike the past.
At this point, for people who just want to send and receive email, produce and share office documents, collect and edit media (photos, video, music), surf the web, and consume content, the iPad works pretty well. I’d say that comprises 80%+ of the general public. As an embedded systems developer myself, it’s still too constrained for me, since I need the ability to compile and execute native code on the device, and interface with arbitrary USB peripherals. However, I’ve been an iPad user since 2010, and I can say that it has become vastly more useful over the past decade.
I work in IT for a fortune 500 in the technology sector and I have never seen an iPad in use, not even during meetings.
I do all my work on my Thinkpad, that said, my household has a bunch of cheap Fire tablets, because they are great Netflix machines! I would say a good laptop & a phone is enough, but a tablet gives you videos on a pillow, in the evening, very comfy!
Ubuntu seemed to have a nice solution but looks like it ended up being vaporware.
I remember the basic idea was that an entire Ubuntu disto was running alongside Android and shared the kernel. Don’t remember if it was X or Wayland or Mir but it was a full blown desktop.
There were video demos of docking it with a monitor and keyboard. They even had some interface between GNU/Userland and Android where you could interface with your text messages, contacts, etc while docked.
This is a case of projected expectations.
The iPad is (and always has been) a consumption device (be that social media or video media). But for some reason people insist it “Should” be able to do x and y and moan when it cant.
*car analogy* Its like buying a car and complaining it cant cross a river. If its a shallow, maybe it can, if its the Amazon… you’ve chosen the wrong tool doing a job it was never designed for *car analogy*
@Adurbe
Of course I have projected expectations. I paid $1000+ for that device, I want it to sprout wings and fly, defecate golden turds, and I want a pony also. I believe that is what people who pay the bloated Apple tax as well as Samsung and other “premium” tablet/phone OEMs, want also.
Adurbe,
Quite right.
I mean, there are times when I want to be able to use my mobile for work because I don’t want to bring a laptop everywhere I go, however the experience always seems to fall short be it android, chromeos, ios. For what it’s worth, the hardware would be adequate, but it’s abundantly clear the software was primarily built for consumption with productivity tacked on after the fact.
Speaking of which, why is it so bloody difficult to do copy&paste on android? Why can’t I position the cursor using arrow keys as do on a PC: home/end/left/right/up/down/ctrl-left/ctrl-right/etc? I barely use the mouse at all for text editing, but at least the mouse is up to the task, unlike finger positioning. Does anybody know of a better way to do this on android? Using blunt fingers for precision input is just stupid. Seriously when I need to copy parts of a url, I think to myself “damn it not today”. It’s such a problem that I end up typing things again over using copy/paste, and that’s saying something given how much of a chore typing on a touch screen is.
I suppose the bigger screen of a tablet could help a bit, but at that point I’d rather just bring a small laptop with a real OS!
The way I see it, iPads and Android Tablets are Consumer devices, and the OS embedded on them justifies that. In that, by design, you cannot be productive to a large degree, but to consume. Reading emails, listening to music, reading ebooks and news are in the consumer category. But typing reports, emails, generating graphs, writing books, code, animation work… That’s productivity, and the touch/swipe nature of the interface denies most of that. Especially the buggy On screen keyboard that takes up a lot of screen real estate . Of course you can suplement that with a clip on bluetooth keyboard, mouse, etc. But this is expensive and impractical to carry with you on a daily basis, and if you leave it at work, you have to think about security of those modular peripherals. even so, you relegate your iPAD or Android tablet to nothing but a dumb screen. I’ve argued this case for years that iPADs will never replace desktops and laptops for real work as it stands. work.
Funny. I had a down Exchange server the other day when I was out of town, not in range of any wifi. My iPad Pro has cellular though. So I pulled out that iPad, fired up my remote access solution, and had that server back up and clear in a few minutes, no problem. I guess that’s not “real work.”
darknexus,
I’ve encountered the same sort of thing myself when hardware goes down. But the DRACs, lantronix spiders and other remote KVMS tend to use java applets or windows software that run under linux/wine too. Ironically it would have been available on IOS if sun had a say, but apple unilaterally banned competition and this is one reason IOS falls short for many professionals: apple is a dictator that detests user freedom.
The hardware is extremely capable, it’s just such a shame when the platform is so restricted and dumbed down. Maybe it’s enough to use a mobile device as a thin client to run software remotely off of a real computer. I’ve done it, it can get you out of a jam when the local OS lacks the tools you need, but this is worse in every way than having a computer that lets you run the applications you need in the first place.
So I don’t think anyone is saying it’s not possible, it’s just worse when you have a choice. Unless it was an emergency and I didn’t have a laptop available, I would use the cellular connection to tether a laptop rather than waste my time trying to work through pathetic mobile platform limitations. Unless you are suggesting it has improved in the past couple of years and that I should take a look again, I have no qualms calling these tablets a pathetic substitute for a work computer.
Even if I thought so and suggested such a thing, I suspect you would come away with the same impression regardless. And it’s not as if the situation with Apple has changed much. However, if you’re up to it, I have a challenge for you. Find me a laptop that can do all of the following:
* Go for several days on a single charge
* Has a built-in LTE modem supporting all major frequency bands in all regions
* is less than 3 lbs to carry
* has a keyboard that doesn’t feel like a cheap add-on
* Can be in a tablet-like standby mode (not fully suspended)
* Requires little to no maintenance on a regular basis
If you can find me that laptop, I’ll buy it. Note that it has to have *all* of the features I listed, no compromises. I haven’t found one yet.
I hate being restricted as much as the next person, and there are times when the limitations of iOS get to me. Yet, for the kind of work I do, it’s the best darned thing I’ve found to be able to work from anywhere, real fast. Don’t think the irony of this hasn’t occurred to me more than once, that my best tool as a sys admin is a locked down tablet when I’m on the go. It’s crazy, but there it is.
darknexus,
You know I’ve already acknowledged that laptops aren’t as portable. I’ve stated repeatedly that I’d rather not have to bring one with me all the time. The biggest problem with mobile devices isn’t the hardware, it’s the software platform, particularly if you allow for an external mouse & keyboard.
The same goes both ways though. If you find me a tablet that fits your criteria and lets me run my software and dev environments, I’d be very interested in that too! Seriously, let me know. I think it’s absolutely fair to say that the majority of IT professionals will find IOS deficient (not to be read as “impossible”) for work.
Sometimes I cannot afford to take a prolonged leave from a computer and wait until I get back home. When I need a platform that puts me in control, that’s not a frivolous luxury, for me it’s a hard requirement. YMMV.
Lenovo IdeaPad D330?
For every valuable and worldly application that becomes available, a thousand others that are crap consume the planets energy budget, it’s a massive problem for consumer devices, the vast bulk of the iPads, iPhones, Androids and ChromeBooks are eating the planet!
cpcf,
O/T, but also bitcoin:
https://digiconomist.net/bitcoin-energy-consumption
The site has many interesting stats, but anyone who cares about carbon emissions and saving the planet (which should be all of us!) probably ought to be critical of bitcoin because bitcoin is mind-numbingly inefficient.