
The iPad Awkwardly Turns 10 - h9n
https://daringfireball.net/2020/01/the_ipad_awkwardly_turns_10
======
jarjoura
As someone who worked on the iPad v1, I can tell you, it was a product built
in search of a problem. It was going to compete against the, then, growing
Netbook market. Steve Jobs thought Windows was going to win that market and
hastily threw a team together to answer for it. However, during several all-
hands, no one except SJ seemed even remotely excited about the product.

"These things will probably sell in the educational market or something."

"Developers will always surprise us, they will come up with use cases for us."

During development Amazon was proving that people wanted E-Book readers. So
when it was clear the iPad didn't yet have a coherent story from Apple, iBooks
was thrown together at the eleventh hour and then SJ went on the attack
against Amazon to push back against the growing Kindle market.

And then Windows 8 happened! People asked Apple (And Tim Cook), will we see
touch-screen Macs? And instead Apple trapped itself in a corner by doubling
down that the iPad was going to forgo running full macOS because something
about people not wanting to touch their laptop screen. So here we are, a
product that launched without a vision, and then hamstrung by ego.

It's true that people who love their iPads, LOOOVE their iPads. So it's a nice
product. It's definitely well made and I love reading the news on mine. It's a
great device to travel with, for sure, yet I agree with Gruber, this thing
will never flourish outside of the niche markets its found itself in.

~~~
Fr0styMatt88
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 :)

~~~
nwallin
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.

~~~
Polylactic_acid
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.

~~~
farisjarrah
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.

~~~
nwallin
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.

~~~
farisjarrah
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.

------
Fiahil
I completely agree with this article. The iPad hardware is absolutely
wonderful, it's light, gorgeous and powerful. I got the latest iPad pro to
watch Netflix in bed and it fills that purpose completely.

However, the OS running on the machine is bad. Very bad. The multitasking is
horrifying. The Files app is unusable (especially if you want to access your
files from an FTP server). You have to use your finger to select a textbox on
the screen before you can use your physical keyboard. Copy/Paste between apps
is a nightmare (mostly because of the really poor multitasking). Sharing your
screen via Airplay is useless except for demoes (doesn't match the target
monitor resolution, nor transform the iPad into a giant touchpad). It doesn't
support multiple icloud/gmail accounts (if you want to share it with your SO).
I can use a terminal and SSH to my raspberry pi, but I can't use git, bash,
node, python, go or rust on it...

Just let met install MacOs instead, it can't be worse.

PS: even having a console-only ubuntu VM would make me happy at this point.

~~~
snapetom
I feel that Apple has lost its way with OS design in the past 5 years or so.
Not at a macro level, but at a micro, "little things" level. Launch anything
Apple-written these days and you'll get a wizard telling you how to use some
new widget - just like any other software by anyone else. I don't think Apple
has ever done that before because features were designed so well, you can
easily figure it out.

Then there are just tons of small decisions that are head scratchers. In iOS
13, they changed when Select/Select All appear, and it's a real pain in the
ass. Early versions of iOS didn't have Select/Copy/Paste because the general
belief was that they had to get it right the first time. They nailed it, but
now they've tweaked it and made it much harder to use.

~~~
amiga_500
Itunes was utterly terrible. My iphone is terrible.

Apple make very, very bad software. And their hardware is overpriced. And they
deliberately make people pay more for accessories like their pointless new
audio port.

Android is superior in every way, except (I'm told) on privacy.

I cannot comprehend why anyone buys apple. I have to have apple for my work
phone, and I hate it. Just today I was wrestling with their dreadful podcast
app to try to figure out how to get it to play the podcasts in the order the
episodes are enumerated in, which isn't the default. I still haven't found the
'playlist' part. Find in page on a web page took me ages to find. I cannot
select the middle of a word. Their auto-correct corrects words that are
nicknames or abbreviations by default to some totally inappropriate word.
Their files app truncates the name, so when I download several episodes of a
podcast, all of which have the format "long podcast name episode #" all I see
is "long podcast name ..." eight times. Moving icons from one virtual page to
another is clunky. The equivalent of a drop down where you have some weird
rotating drum thing is awkward. Adding a contact from a text from an unknown
number was convoluted. There are no timestamps on incoming text messages on
the text app. On and on. Every single bit sucks.

And no I don't want to hear how I can "just do x,y,z, it's easy". Their
software is not intuitive and sucks.

Today at least I got the audio jack to stop constantly disconnecting. The
problem? Lint in the audio jack. Never had that on the old one but Apple
couldn't charge me $10 to connect my existing headphones to their device so I
guess it was worth it.

~~~
aksss
> Find in page on a web page First question is where the F is it, second
> question is why the F did they put it there?

------
koboll
I do digital painting on the side, as a hobby. In that field, the iPad Pro,
specifically the Procreate app, has been revolutionary -- every single famous
digital illustrator, concept artist, and comics artist I follow on Instagram
has one, and they post gorgeous work done on them regularly. It's the only
tool that comes remotely close to challenging the gold standard workflow of
Wacom tablet + Photoshop, and Wacom and Adobe have been feeling the heat,
ratcheting up their marketing efforts to try and attract back budding young
artists to their tools.

On the other hand, the iPad can't seem to actually _replace_ those tools.
Those pro artists still use a Wacom for their professional corporate work. The
problem is less the software, I think, than the limitations the software
forces by nature of the hardware. For professional work, you need as big a
screen as possible -- Wacoms go up to 32". You also need hotkeys for an
efficient workflow. Hunting and tapping through menus on a touchscreen is, by
nature, going to be slower then having your left hand ready to hit the undo
command at a moment's notice. Sure, it might be possible to plug a big
external screen and a full keyboard into your iPad, but at that point, is it
really an iPad anymore? What professional artist would bother buying an iPad
to act as a desktop computer tower when they could buy an actual desktop
computer tower with better specs for cheaper?

So the iPad is about as good as it can possibly be: such a good touchscreen
tablet that professional artists love it in all situations where they're
willing to sacrifice power and flexibility for the convenience of a fully
portable touchscreen tablet. It's not very good at replacing a full
professional art setup on a desktop. But should it really aspire to be? In
other words, I agree with this article, but disagree with its conclusions.
Tablets won't replace laptops not because the iPad isn't a good enough tablet,
but because they're simply never going to be the most efficient work machine
you can buy.

~~~
mdorazio
I'm curious why iPad Pro and not Surface, which from my (admittedly limited)
use has always had digitizer responsiveness and functionality at the same
level, with the benefit of also being a computer with all the normal software
workflow and hotkeys.

~~~
hug
Late to the party, but the answer is almost certainly just ProCreate.

ProCreate (according to my girlfriend, who has a degree in illustration) is
absolutely second to none with regards to completely eliminating the friction
from digital painting.

The toolset & UI/UX feel like someone who had used Photoshop with a Wacom
tablet for 10 years took everything they liked about interacting with
Photoshop and got it right, and everything they hated about Photoshop and
fixed it.

The app itself is _absurdly_ responsive on a 2018 iPad Pro. I don't know if
you saw the Hobbit in the theatres when everyone was freaking out about the
frame rate because it felt too fast? It's like that, but enjoyable. Every
other app on my iPad seems sluggish in comparison, and I don't even know
_how_. (And don't get me started with comparing it to Photoshop, even on a
ridiculously beefy machine with a 144Hz display.)

~~~
eugeniub
This doesn’t explain why people are using either iPad Pro or Wacom + Photoshop
but eschewing Surface + Photoshop.

~~~
hug
Because if you want a device for art on the go, you want ProCreate, which
means not a Surface. (The fact that the iPad Pro has a better screen in every
measurable way doesn’t hurt either.)

If you want something with the grunt to handle a big photoshop project, you
generally don’t want a Surface, you want a proper workstation.

Using a Surface is the worst of both worlds, only really useful if you’re
beholden to doing things in that way for some other reason, like it _needs_ to
be photoshop for interop reasons with other businesses, and it _needs_ to be
done on location.

------
jwr
This is a very good take on the subject. I love the iPad, I use it all the
time. It's an unbelievably good piece of hardware with a number of really good
software applications. It is a surprisingly good thinking and note-taking
tool, it's the best tool (period) for reading datasheets (or any large PDF
documents), it is a great music workstation if you connect a MIDI keyboard
and/or an external USB audio interface. But it is so sadly limited by the user
interface and artificial restrictions that Apple places on the OS.

The worst thing is that the forced over-simplification of the UI features did
_not_ make it easier to use for beginners. I can see many people (including
myself) struggling. So we have been forced into a "compromise" with all the
downside, but none of the upside.

Given how great the hardware is (really, I think this is under-appreciated), I
really hope Apple can get out of that thinking rut.

I also think that the slow iPad sales are directly connected to the mediocre
OS software.

~~~
amelius
> it's the best tool (period) for reading datasheets (or any large PDF
> documents)

Sounds intriguing. How would I go about copying the PDFs that are currently on
my Linux PC onto it, though?

~~~
coupdejarnac
I love that all the proposed solutions here totally suck. If the iPad would
just work as a USB flash drive, all these convoluted transfer methods wouldn't
be necessary.

~~~
chipotle_coyote
"Suck" is in the eye of the beholder, I guess. Between "plug the iPad into the
computer and drag files from your computer onto a folder that's on the iPad's
drive" and "drag files from your computer onto a folder that automatically
syncs to the iPad," I count one less step in the second approach, but I guess
YMMV.

------
0xCMP
As someone who uses his iPad Pro regularly, I love all the multi tasking of
the iPad.

I know many have written that they have issues with multiple windows on the
iPad, but for me it's never been better or easier. My main gripe is keyboard
behavior which is very buggy, but not related to how easy/hard it is to make
and move apps around the screen.

The fact is that the iPad is only useful because of its software. In my case
it'd be useless without Files, Working Copy, Blink, Wireguard, and Screens.
Only 1 of those is built-in and still it's a fairly recent addition. And it's
the latest version on iOS 13 which is really the version which turbo-charged
using many apps together easily. I use these apps to pretty much avoid
directly using my "real computers" as much as possible via VMs or remote
access via Wireguard.

But, I think we're only seeing the beginning of the iPad. I can relate to the
feeling that _" we should have more of what we expected by now"_, but the fact
is that designing these power user interfaces, actually redesigning them for
touch while making them compatible with existing ones, is very difficult.

A great example for HN is how we develop like we're in the 70s with text
terminals and executing commands. Where on the iPad it might make more sense
for the terminal to be rich like a REPL where commands/expressions act more
like the results of a Shortcut (rich data, not just text) or code might be
edited as an AST instead of the text which allows the concept of a "source
file" to go away and instead there be a source database. Instead of trying to
rebuild the editors we had we build something else designed for testing,
iterating, and managing the AST. Dark[1] is a good example of this, but
currently focused on the web.

This is all _way out there_ right now, but it makes me think that the iPad is
still _just getting started_.

[1]: [https://darklang.com/](https://darklang.com/)

~~~
Terretta
Fully agree.

I think Gruber’s dead wrong, and folks should try it for a couple months.
Leave the Macbook or Win10 laptop at home, and force yourself to rewire your
brain into the iPad affordances and apps.

Aside from being able to turn his complaint off:

 _To turn Multitasking features on or off, go to_ Settings > Home Screen &
Dock > Multitasking _then turn off_ Allow Multiple Apps _if you don 't want to
use Slide Over or Split View._

I think it works fine for business and development consumption and creation,
both.

I’ve daily drivered iPad Pro with Apple keyboard for last 3 generations of
iPad 12.9”. It started as an experiment to see if we could move employee
population over for less support costs, and then became a habit because _it’s
just too ideal_ if you’re mobile for travel or even between multiple offices
and meetings.

Each new Macbook model, I get nostalgic for MBP days and carry it around for a
bit, and then realize too many compromises carrying a laptop compared to
carrying or traveling with just the iPad Pro.

I’m on a two week trip right now, with the brand new top of line Macbook Pro
16” with full dev and Adobe setup in my bag. But it only came out of my carry
on once in two weeks, and that was a failure.

Tried to display a web demo, some custom diagramming, and a PowerPoint on
conference room screen from the laptop. Unable to use the enterprise guest
WiFi due to their security proxies, and the hotspot was too slow. Popped the
same USB-C HDMI adapter in the iPad, and showed all the content over LTE.

In a room built for Windows world, people struggled, and failed, to get HDMI
from their HP or Dell or Lenovo laptops working, via HDMI ports or USB-C
ports. Both the Macbook and iPad “just worked” with Apple’s same latest USB-C
to HDMI adapter.

With the always on networking, all day battery life, decent choice of text
based dev tools including code editors, git clients, and terminals like Blink
(mosh) to do git-commit based development/deployment, Citrix and RSA and
enterprise VPN, not to mention full O365 and Adobe suites (though I recommend
Affinity now), it’s hard to figure out what it is I need the laptop for enough
to deal with the PITA of carrying it.

This was not true 10 years ago, but today, iPad Pro can be the sole computing
device even for an enterprise technology executive.

Bonus anecdata, I’ve recently noticed the iPad Pro is what’s used by 80% of
folks in the board room, even though it’s a Windows based enterprise.
_Something’s_ changed.

~~~
dkarl
_folks should try it for a couple months. Leave the Macbook or Win10 laptop at
home, and force yourself to rewire your brain into the iPad affordances and
apps_

Stop using other devices and give yourself a few months to learn the basics?
This is how I used to encourage people to try desktop Linux in 2001.

~~~
Terretta
That’s also how you get habituals to stop complaining O365 isn’t Blackberry
Work, or any other change to a tool that had become ‘second nature’.

You have to unlearn or overwrite the second nature.

~~~
egypturnash
You also have to be prepared for many weeks of the special frustration of not
knowing how to do a thing, or if it even _can_ be done, and of any task
potentially turning into a multi-hour rabbit hole of trying to figure out if
and how to do it.

------
cactus2093
Good points in the article. I also find the model names weirdly confusing, how
did the iPad become the smaller, less powerful variant when the Air still
exists? They did this with MacBooks too, though I think the tiny one may be
discontinued now.

And why is the iPad peripheral system such a mess? The released the pencil 2
which is a significant usability improvement and had every indication of
replacing the pencil 1, but that was years ago and they keep releasing new
pencil 1 only devices, while just calling both of them “Apple Pencil” in many
places. If you want a good pencil now, there’s no way to buy a moderately
specced machine with it, you have to pay for the pro with more compute power
than a high end laptop.

And ipads now have full usb host support, but instead of marketing that as a
perk, they kind of pretend it doesn’t exist by calling it the “camera kit”
like it only has one specific use.

~~~
CarlRJ
IIRC, the Pencil 2 requires different (and likely more expensive) support in
the screen, as well as docking to the side of the iPad and charging
magnetically - both of which raise the costs for the iPad. And then the lower
cost models wouldn’t be so lower-cost any more. It does feel like they could
have thought ahead a little better on that, though. FWIW, the Pencil 1 isn’t a
-bad- stylus - it was hugely praised when it was released, the Pencil 2 is
just a bit better.

As to the “Air” name... they got to where they had a solid low-priced offering
and a “Pro” line with huge prices. And a big hole in the middle. But “iPad
Medium” wasn’t appealing, so they resurrected the “Air” name. (FWIW, writing
this on an iPad Air 3, and I love it - the only real loss for me, from the
Pro, was the “ProMotion” variable rate 120Hz display, and I could live without
that, for $$$ less.)

~~~
wlesieutre
Docking to the side and charging magnetically doesn't just require magnetic
charging hardware, it requires a redesign of the iPad to not have curved
sides. So far that's only the 2018 iPad Pro.

I had figured this would spread to the other iPads ASAP because of the Pencil
2, but they seem happy to drag it out for a couple of years.

~~~
LeifCarrotson
Charging magnetically on the side of the host device is neat, but not
required. A separate charging dock would work too.

~~~
wlesieutre
I don't think that would be a good solution, you'd have yet another oddball
charging widget and if you didn't bring it with you everywhere the battery
would die and you couldn't recharge it.

If anything, I'd rather they put the charging hardware in the front bezel
somewhere, since that's already flat. Not a good place for storage or for
charging the pencil while the iPad is in use, but at least you wouldn't get
stranded with a dead stylus and no charging gizmo.

~~~
LeifCarrotson
That depends where your "everywhere" is. I (like a lot of people) work at the
same desk every day, and I trust the battery would last if I brought the
device home or to a conference or something. Or I could get/bring a spare
charge dock.

~~~
wlesieutre
Charging daily works until you forget to charge it one day at home, bring it
in to work, and it dies before lunch. Or the other way if you keep the charger
at work, forget to charge it one day, and it dies that evening at home.

I have a second Apple Watch charger at work (albeit a cheaper 3rd party one)
for that exact reason. I don't typically need it, but if I forget to charge
the watch some evening and realize that it's at 10% when I get to work the
next morning, backup charger is handy. Wouldn't want to lose this Move streak!

Sure, I could get a spare charger for a second-gen Pencil too, but it would be
a downgrade from the first-gen Lightning charging which doesn't need anything
extra.

------
Maakuth
> How would anyone ever figure out how to split-screen multitask on the iPad
> if they didn’t already know how to do it?

I actually recently got my first personal iOS (okay, iPadOS) device and this
is how I feel about many of the UI features. Touching some side of the screen
triggers this or that surprising feature and I'm struggling to undo what I did
to get back to the business. Maybe what's needed is good old RTFM, but having
heard how easy Apple device are to supposed to be to use, it's kind of
unexpected that so much of this stuff is not that discoverable.

~~~
davedx
> struggling to undo what I did to get back to the business

You'll love this one: to undo (don't think it works for everything, but it
does for typing), shake your device rapidly from side to side.

~~~
Yhippa
Are you serious?

~~~
zulln
[https://developer.apple.com/design/human-interface-
guideline...](https://developer.apple.com/design/human-interface-
guidelines/ios/user-interaction/undo-and-redo/)

> Many apps allow people to shake the device to undo and redo certain
> operations, such as typing or deleting. When initiated in this manner, an
> alert asks the user to confirm or cancel the undo or redo operation.

------
Slartie
The iPad has failed as a general purpose computing device, sure. But it has
succeeded (along with other tablet devices of similar form factor) as a basis
for a large and growing number of single-purpose use cases in various
industries:

\- iPad POS are popular in smaller coffee shops and similar outlets

\- iPad-based document viewing solutions are used by pilots to replace large
bags with manuals for planes that they used to lug around

\- iPads are used for meeting room management solutions, information displays
for customers and similar purposes where one single application is to be run
basically 24/7 on a device with low power and space requirements, but where
certain aesthetic requirements to the app as well as the hardware have to be
satisfied

Granted, iPads don't hold this space exclusively. But so don't iPhones or Macs
hold their respective application spaces exclusively, even though they
significantly catalyzed their genesis.

~~~
flixic
The issue with each of these examples is that hardware advancements barely
matter. $200 Android tablet with a simple enough design works just as well.

Apple doesn't want to participate in such markets. That's why they try to push
creativity narrative, "what's a computer" and so on. iPad can only succeed as
a premium enough product, and that requires software differentiation.

~~~
Nextgrid
iPad succeeds in these examples because it's a consistent environment with
updates.

The problem with the cheap Android tablet is that unless the entire world
standardises on a single model of tablet for these purposes you'd have all
kinds of quirks around hardware, etc. Updates are also another issue even on
premium-priced Android devices, so the cheap one is a lost cause.

~~~
flixic
Updates themselves are an assumption. I imagine a large percentage of cafe
checkout and meeting room booking tablets are never updated once installed.

The distinction here is Appliance vs Computing Platform. And so far many
tablets are seen as appliances, not computers.

~~~
Mindwipe
I doubt it's so much doing updates as it is about support. If they have a
vendor app (like Square on a tablet to take payments) and that abandons older
OS versions to lower technical debt or for security reasons then at least they
can update.

On Android you'd sadly find the lack of kernel compatibility with the chipset
means that ever happens.

------
gnicholas
Gruber is right that the iPad hasn't revolutionized an industry like the Mac
or iPhone. But the iPad was launched smack in the middle of the iPhone and the
Mac, not in the middle of a green field.

The iPhone had competition below it, from feature phones and Blackberrys. But
there was nothing above it. Similarly, the Mac was launched into a very
nascent market, where there were competitors (PCs), but it wasn't facing
competition from above and below in the same way the iPad was.

Perhaps the iPad would have done better and grown faster if it had been made
by a company that wasn't worried about cannibalizing iPhone or Mac sales. But
surely part of the reason the iPad has been as successful as it has is that it
runs the same apps as iPhones and has attracted devs who might not have
otherwise been interested.

~~~
ghaff
The iPad arguably succeeded because it wasn’t a convertible. However, now,
especially given big phones, it feels as if some sort of tablet/laptop
convergence will eventually be the future.

~~~
gherkinnn
I’d argue that the iPad is an excellent chance to downgrade to a less capable
phone.

Get an iPhone ~8 — no need for an 11 in combination with an iPad.

~~~
ghaff
Mostly disagree. The camera progression on newer iPhones is a big
differentiator [for many]. Also I don’t more or less always have an iPad in a
pocket like I do a phone.

~~~
gherkinnn
Camera is true. Speaking for myself, I’m a hopeless photographer and the
iPhone X’ camera won’t save me.

~~~
ghaff
One big difference with the newer phones is low light performance. I have a
bunch of "real" cameras but I so often don't have them with me if I haven't
set out with the explicit intention to take pictures.

>I’m a hopeless photographer

Like anything else you can learn. You may not transform yourself into a great
photographer but learning some simple rules and practicing a bit will take you
a long way. Smartphones have limitations relative to interchangeable lens
cameras. But there's a lot you can do with them.

~~~
monknomo
I am not a natural photographer, but a couple rules I've followed have made my
pictures better:

1\. Light up the thing I'm trying to photograph

2\. Keep the bright light sources behind me insofar as possible (for example,
pictures of a person with the sun behind them are really hard)

3\. Turn on the grid lines and try to get interesting things either on the
lines or where the lines intersect

4\. Line up horizons or vertical lines so the photo is clearly oriented,
unless I'm trying to be disorienting

~~~
ghaff
Probably add rule of thirds. Rules are made to be broken but it's a reasonable
starting point.

ADDED: A couple of other things.

(Usually) have a clear subject of interest. i.e. focus in on something.

Probably related. If you are taking pictures of people, for example, get in
closer.

~~~
egypturnash
"Turn on the grid lines" is basically "rule of thirds".

~~~
monknomo
that's what I was going for without wanting to explain what the rule is

------
lowkeyokay
>By 1994 almost all graphic designers and illustrators were using computers
for work.

The iPad is a great device but, it isn't essential to anything or anyone. If
tomorrow there where no iPads anymore, we would all just get on with our
lives.

~~~
bronco21016
If all of them disappeared into thin air one night then nearly the entire
global aviation system would come to a screeching halt. It’s the device of
choice among air carriers for navigation charts. Paper backup isn’t even
carried anymore. We just carry extra iPads and batteries.

I’m not sure any of the charting apps used by air carriers are even available
on another OS at this point. I’ve never been aware of JeppFD Pro on Android
and I believe they dumped Windows as well.

There are other options of course but as far as I’m aware in the US it’s all
iPads and JeppFD Pro. The feds are familiar with it and a regulatory framework
is created around it so it’s the path of least resistance. And as a pilot, I’d
say most of us are pretty satisfied with it.

~~~
alopex_plenus
so the captain tells us to switch off all electronic devices and then proceeds
to navigate the plane via iPad?

~~~
dewey
They tell you to switch off the device's broadcast functionality ("airplane
mode"). Something they don't need for navigating with an iPad as it's just
offline maps / apps).

~~~
darkerside
Besides, what if they did? You think you need to use your device just because
the pilot is?

~~~
dewey
> You think you need to use your device [...]

No I don't, I just brought that up because OP was confused why the pilot can
use their device while "normal" passengers can't.

------
cm2187
Text selection is the most broken thing to me on an ipad. It makes any kind of
editing pretty much unusable. Great device to browse the web from my bathtub
and watch movies on a plane, but haven’t found any other usage.

~~~
hinkley
I just learned the spacebar trick a few months ago.

I still get “5e” instead of “the” about twice a month. And once in a while I
will be typing and four words to half a sentence will just disappear and I
still have no idea how I’m doing that.

A whole new text entry system wouldn’t go amiss for me, either.

~~~
silveroriole
It would be nice if they fixed the autocorrect learning insane things like
correcting “male” to “Male” and “doesn’t” to “DOESNT”, so I wouldn’t have to
do so much text selection to fix it. My iPhone which is really behind on iOS
versions doesn’t do this but my iPad is awful for it.

~~~
nothrabannosir
Autocorrect on the iOS from four years ago was nothing short of magic. It
would understand the most confused babble and rarely needed any guidance. It
even seemed to get used to my style of typing after a while. Today, it is a
constant battle. It keeps trying to rope in my address book, different
languages I’m not typing in, and arcane words. I correct it every four
sentences at least.

I thought I wanted these features; boy was I wrong.

------
Heliosmaster
From the comments here, I think many people are missing a very important
factor: while we (as technologists) focus on what WE think of the iPad, or
what we can do with it to be productive, this is only part of the picture of
the general population.

In my opinion the iPad has had a tremendous impact within the general
population and (combined with smartphones) got rid of the PC altogether for
the average family. And tablets, especially for the elderly, are a true game-
changer.

My mother, not a technologist at all (she doesn't even have a cellphone)
cannot live without her iPad. Granted that she could do everything with a
smartphone, but the bigger screen of an iPad is particularly good for people
who have a waning eyesight and, in general, might require a bit of a bigger UI
(bigger buttons, etc.).

~~~
Darkstryder
I agree with this. My grandmother (who passed away in 2018 at the age of 91)
tried to get into computers regularly for a decade, starting in the early
2000. We tried a lot of things, nothing stuck. Every device we would give her
would quickly gather dust, unused after a few days.

Then in 2013 she got an iPad 2 and she instantly started using it several
hours a day for the next five years.

In particular, I set it up so I could push new family photographs to her iPad
remotely through iCloud. That was absolutely life-changing for her: now she
was able to see super recent photos of all her children and grandchildren
without having to beg for a printed version. That also worked for videos: for
the first time since the VHS days she could replay family videos whenever she
wanted.

She also liked multiple card games and the iPad was a wonderful device to play
them electronically. The biggest self-service I ever gave myself was to only
suggest games that had a paying version without ads, and pay a few euros to
buy them. The biggest problems with ads for her was that she could sometimes
be a bit sloppy with the touchscreen : when an ad was present it would
redirect her to a random website and she would get lost. The quality of the
iPad touchscreen and that we stuck to ad-free apps allowed her to almost never
get lost like this anymore.

While the iPad may not have been a revolution for the general population, it
definitely changed the world for my grandmother. For that I will be grateful
for this device to exist.

Miss you, grandma.

------
apexalpha
This is excellent. My grandma (89) uses an iPad and iPhone. She can use both
these devices exactly because of the simplicity mentioned in the article.

1\. Open app by tapping it.

2\. Close it by tapping the physical button. (rip)

That's it. And that's why my grandma can use it. The first and only device she
comfortably uses to this day.

People in our (tech) communities tend to overestimate a users ability with
technology.

~~~
qmmmur
Let me recount an experience I heard second hand of a researcher developing
user interfaces for research tools. Keep in mind the target audiences are
people with PhD's and who have to comb through lots of data in order to do
their job. They struggled with _double click_ as a concept. How fast, not
moving the mouse in-between clicks etc, etc. Some people are really virginial
when it comes to anything other than doing things the slowest way possible on
a computer.

~~~
ksec
I would have thought Double Click was something "Death would take care of it"
[1] by now, so may be not.

I remember twenty years ago teaching my parents double click, they then spend
years on computer and they still cant understand it. They have 4 modes in
their mental model, Left Click, Right Click, and Double Click on both Left and
Right. They dont understand when to use which.

A lot of nerds / geeks/ tech people to this day _still_ dont understand what
makes the whole touch screen / iPhone UX so special. Scott Forstall said it
[2] these people just dont get it. The single tap app opening may have been
trivial for most of us, it was a world of difference to 95% of consumers. (
And that is why you should not put these people into consumer tech product
design )

[1] Something Steve Jobs said with regards to people dont know how to use a
keyboard, but I cant find the video with Google. It was during an interview
with Walt Mossberg.

[2][https://youtu.be/IiuVggWNqSA?t=3102](https://youtu.be/IiuVggWNqSA?t=3102)

~~~
throw0101a
> _I would have thought Double Click was something "Death would take care of
> it" [1] by now, so may be not._

Wasn't this one of the reasons why Solitaire was included with Windows 3: to
teach people about using a mouse?

------
killjoywashere
The issue is the entrance into split-view, which should expose the
springboard, not the dock.

The intuitive way to launch a second app would be to slide in from the right
or left with two (three?) fingers, which would expose a compressed view of the
springboard in split view. Then you could access all the apps intuitively (by
swiping to the next page of apps) and launch the second app in the intuitive
click-an-app method. This could even be tiled in a golden-rectangle geometry
to expose a third app.

All you're trying to do is repurpose the slide-right slide-left function to
expose springboard in a new way, which can be done with a multi-finger
gesture.

~~~
zaphoyd
Yes yes yes. I’ve often wondered why they didn’t do this. Having to go through
silly hoops like full exit back to the spring board to launch an app so that
it is available in the dock to pick for split view... why not just use the
springboard in the first place.

~~~
Marsymars
My feeling is that they’ve deliberately avoided gestures that are similar to
Windows 8 tablet UI.

------
pdimitar
As a programmer, I absolutely gave up on the multitasking on my iPad Pro. I
don't use it in such a way and usually don't care. And the very few cases I
wanted to use it like that I couldn't succeed in doing it even after my wife
showed me 3 times (she uses her own iPad Pro in split screen very often and
gotten used to the gestures; and even she makes mistakes occasionally).

Just an anecdote. I am a very technical user and I still got confused by the
multitasking / slide-over thing. So I just ignore it.

~~~
jrockway
I also can't figure it out. I still have some window that appears on the side
and I can't figure out how to completely get rid of it (from my experiments
with multitasking while I was reading the documentation, or at least some
website describing it). I don't know if that's intended but I have no idea how
to use it, so don't.

I had an easier time learning Xmonad back in the day, which might say
something about Apple's UI design these days.

------
wpietri
It seems to me is that his main complaint is that the iPad fell short of what
he dreamed it could do. But I think the problem there is in the dreaming, not
the device.

I have a Samsung tablet, the Galaxy Tab S4. As a consumption device, it's
great. I read books and newspapers; I watch videos and movies; I play the
occasional game. It's great for that. I use my projector way less now, and
don't have to struggle with the awkwardness of phones or laptops for those
tasks.

Like Gruber, I thought it might do more, so I got it with the keyboard case,
and thought about traveling with just that. But I pretty quickly swapped that
for a dumb case and just kept traveling with my laptop when I needed to do
actual work. A real keyboard and a real trackpad are way more effective for
productive work than anything that's going to snap on to a tablet. Conversely,
when I'm just aiming to consume something, there's a lot of hardware and OS
complexity I just don't need.

I think it's telling here that he doesn't say what sort of revolution he
really expects out of the iPad. He doesn't talk about an audience or a use
case the iPad could serve if there were specific changes. Instead it's just a
grumble about an obscure feature and how his grandmother struggles with it. In
my view, tablets have definitely lived up to their potential. It just took us
a bit to figure out what that potential really was.

------
Jemm
My main gripe is that Apple chose to very aggressively kill or sleep apps
running in the background.

I can understand this from a battery perspective but why not give us an option
to let certain apps run in the background, especially when the iPad is plugged
in to power.

As an example, if I start a download in Safari, I can’t use a different app
until Safari finishes the download. I could use split-screen but who wants to
watch a video I split screen.

~~~
fauigerzigerk
_> if I start a download in Safari, I can’t use a different app until Safari
finishes the download._

If true, that's surprising. I thought Safari initiates a background download.

~~~
brandonhorst
It's no longer true since iOS 13. Safari has a full-featured download manager
now.

------
threatofrain
> The iPad was a new class of device, sitting between a phone and a laptop. To
> succeed, it needed not only to be better at some things than either a phone
> or laptop, it needed to be much better. It was and is.

For me the problem of the iPad is that it's merely inconsistently better at a
slew of entertainment/consumption based activities but for everything else
it's worse than any decent laptop. As even consumption-based workflows may
involve intermediate bursts of typing, and just to extend the iPad's range
into more uses I am tempted to have a keyboard -- but then it almost nears the
inconvenience of carrying a laptop.

IMO to be revolutionary the iPad should convince you not to buy a laptop, or
it should be as light as the kindle so that you would consider reading it Star
Trek style for 20-30 minutes per day, as even the iPad mini is a bit weighty.
Right now with the focus on iPad Pro and Air I think Apple is going toward the
former.

~~~
crooked-v
> IMO to be revolutionary the iPad should convince you not to buy a laptop

The key thing sitting in the way of that for me, at least for the most part,
is the lack of true background multitasking. I understand the need to avoid
the battery problems of the Android ecosystem, but there needs to be some way
to take an app and say 'yes, I really want to let this sit active indefinitely
until I intentionally quit it'.

For a simple example, consider an IRC client: it's useless if it drops the
connection every time you turn off the screen or switch to another app for too
long.

~~~
cesarb
> For a simple example, consider an IRC client: it's useless if it drops the
> connection every time you turn off the screen or switch to another app for
> too long.

I believe the "correct" way to do it would be to have a server in the middle,
which keeps the connection alive, buffers the necessary data, and sends a
notification to the device when appropriate. That is, unlike a desktop or a
laptop, a tablet or smartphone is not designed to be a fully independent
device.

~~~
crooked-v
...and that's the problem.

To be less pithy, 'just have a server in the middle' is completely impractical
for some things, because that doesn't always exist.

------
theshrike79
I managed to snag an iPad Pro (pre USB-C model) last summer and bought the
official Apple keyboard for it.

I've been using my MBP less and less ever since. I can cover a good deal of my
normal "laptop" activities with the iPad.

\- I can put the latest CW DC Superhero show I'm hate-watching on from Plex in
picture-in-picture and browse Reddit or Hacker News at the same time \- I can
use Newsblur to check my RSS feeds, Telegram/Discord/IRCCloud to chat \- The
battery lasts me all day, from morning to night \- I can even use Blink.sh to
log in via ssh/mosh to any server to tune some template or adjust script
settings

The only time I actually pick up my MBP is when I need to do some Serious
Coding with a Big Display (or two).

Even my commutes are more enjoyable with synced Plex media and Netflix
downloads, beats looking at a 5" phone screen.

------
caconym_
For me the biggest gap between the iPad and a general purpose computer is the
lack of a sensible, simple filesystem abstraction, and the pile of janky and
inconsistent UI bullshit they apparently think can replace it. My iPad Pro is
great for drawing and writing and browsing the web and watching video content,
which are the things I bought it for, but when I use it I don't feel in
control of my data.

It's really sad, because I love it as a computing device and the missing
pieces are totally arbitrary. It could offer the same user experience it
offers now while still giving me the tools I need to have it replace my
laptops and desktops.

I bought my mom an iPad in 2012 and she is still (!) using it. She loves it.
But she has an iMac too, which as far as I can tell she mostly uses to—you
guessed it—manage files. Or, at least, that's the only part of her workflow
that can't be hosted on the iPad. 8 years later, that's still the case.

~~~
pier25
I also own a Pro and it's a fantastic device dragged down by the OS. Apple
should have made iPadOS from day one instead of forcing an oversized phone OS
into a bigger form factor. We'll see how that turns out in a couple of years.

~~~
caconym_
Yeah, I think "forking" iOS was a fine decision at this point but I really
hope they make the aggressive product decisions that are really needed to turn
it into a practical general-purpose machine for users who aren't just content
consumers.

Also, I don't think they will. But I hope it anyway.

------
tiffanyh
It’s interesting how success & potential is defined.

iPad generates ~$20B/year in revenue with huge margins. [1]

If iPad was a standalone business, it be the 156th largest company in the
world by revenue (Fortune). [2]

How can having a _single product_ where only 155 entire _companies_ are bigger
than it, “not live up to its potential”?

[1] [https://sixcolors.com/post/2019/10/apple-results-64b-in-
reve...](https://sixcolors.com/post/2019/10/apple-results-64b-in-revenue-on-
record-services-income/)

[2]
[https://fortune.com/fortune500/2019/search/](https://fortune.com/fortune500/2019/search/)

~~~
ajscanlan
If the iPad was a standalone business, and had no access to the Apple
ecosystem or brand, do you think it would still generate ~$20B/year?

Obviously we can't know, but the point is success is relative.

Some people might expect better from Apple and so their standard for success
is higher than $20B/year on one of their flagship products.

------
thomasfl
The iPad has slowly revolutionized personal computing. After the music
production apps became available, including Apples own Garageband, the iPad
has become a very common sketching tool for musicians. When the Apple pen and
the Procreate became available, the iPad pro also became one of the most used
tools for painting and sketching. An iPad pro with Apples keyboard, is more
useable for most common day users than most windows based laptops.

~~~
catalogia
> _An iPad pro with Apples keyboard, is more useable for most common day users
> than most windows based laptops._

Do you think a young novice user with such an iPad, rather than a windows or
mac laptop, would be as likely to develop a more advanced computer skillset?
iOS seems easier for common users because it's more regimented, but I wonder
if that same trait might leave less room for creative exploration of the
machine itself. I can't say I have a lot of experience using iPads, so I'm
curious what others think.

~~~
irrational
We have a desktop computer, a few laptops, and a few iPads. I've never seen
any of my kids (elementary school age up to college age) try to creatively
explore the machine itself. I'm a programmer and I've even tried to interest
them in programming. Nope. All they are interested in is Facebook, Instagram,
and other web pages. If it doesn't take place in a browser windows, they have
no interest. But, they aren't even interested in web development! A computer
is just a tool. They have no more interest in looking under the hood than they
do tearing apart the engine of a car to see how it works. As long as the car
gets them from A to Z, that is all that matters. If it breaks, well, that is
someone else's job to fix.

------
classified
> mistakes that need to be scrapped and replaced, not polished and refined.

Jobs' criticisms may have been a bit abrasive at times, but these kinds of
problems seem to indicate that nobody is currently filling that important role
at Apple.

------
wlesieutre
_> Oh, and apps that aren’t in the Dock can’t become the second app in split
screen mode. What sense does that limitation make?_

I've heard people say this before, as if there's no way to use anything but
your permanent dock apps in split screen. But if it's not in the Dock, you
launch it, and now it's in the dock. That's why the recent items section on
the right side exists.

My personal gripe with iOS multitasking is that it's easy to make a second
instance of an app by dragging and dropping (such as Safari tabs to split
screen), but then it's not as easy to close the second copy when you're done
with it. When split screen was a special implementation within Safari,
dragging the last tab from one side to the other would automatically collapse
that side and bring the remaining one back to full screen. Now it leaves an
empty Safari window hanging around.

If you want to close that, you have to make one side or the other full screen,
open the app switcher, and swipe the empty one up off the top.

~~~
bradleyankrom
I’ve had an iPad for over a month now and still can’t figure out how to close
the second app when I am in split screen.

~~~
wlesieutre
You can't close it one at a time when it's in a split view pair, it only lets
you close the whole pair together. If you just want to kill one of them, first
you have to grab the middle divider and push it all the way to one side or the
other to make either app full screen. The other app becomes backgrounded.

Once they're separate, you can close them from the app switcher by swiping
them off the top of the same, same as an iPhone.

------
kerrsclyde
Plenty of iPad use within industry. Using it as more than just a consumption
device.

Yesterday the guy fixing the mobile traffic lights was using an iPad to
configure them / My gym gets me to change my membership plan using an iPad
within a floor standing cabinet.

~~~
k_bx
Ukraine's biggest bank Privat Bank figured that having the system on iPad is
pretty superior to computers, they got LTE, batteries and even camera to make
client's photo. So now their computers are mostly not used.

------
gwbas1c
> The iPad at 10 is, to me, a grave disappointment.

The biggest disappointment to me is that I can't buy a Macbook that converts
into a tablet. I've never owned a tablet, and my wife never replaced her 1st
generation iPad, because there's just too much overlap between tablet and
phone; and between tablet and laptop.

And, as far as multitasking goes: When I do _serious_ work that requires that
kind of multitasking, I need a keyboard and mouse. Furthermore, I'll probably
be sitting in a chair, at a desk, with a giant monitor... Multitasking is just
an absurd use case for a "tablet." Instead, it shows that "tablet" and
"laptop" just need to converge to be the same ^%#$ device.

Windows tablets might suck, but at least you don't have to own two devices!

~~~
dangus
On the contrary, Apple is the only one who has this market figured out.

Ever see anyone at a coffee shop using a Surface Pro in tablet mode? I
haven’t. That’s because the second you sit down to complete tasks for more
than a minute or two you’ll want a keyboard at least if not a mouse, too.

In my view that eliminates productivity as a legitimate use for a tablet.
There’s no way I’d prefer touching my screen to the kind of keyboard and
trackpad you get on a MacBook Pro.

Next up, content consumption. As you mentioned, your phone covers this use
case. I watch videos on the bus nearly every day and never desired a tablet.
If you need that bigger screen, you’ve either already got a computer because
you do productive work, or you buy a cheap tablet because you don’t need all
the extra stuff a computer has, or you’ve got a bigger phone. Why would I
watch content on a tablet when my laptop or TV can do that? A tablet doesn’t
even stand itself up on my lap. I think only kids tolerate consuming content
this way.

Finally, there’s the creative market. Apple has this nailed down with the iPad
Pro. The only other reason to need a tablet over a phone or laptop is to do
digital art. These are probably the only folks who need to buy two devices,
but they’ve needed to buy expensive computer peripherals for ages.

So I think what you’re asking for is for someone to find the really tiny
market who wants their tablet to do full computer stuff but doesn’t prefer a
proper laptop computer, and then make special software modifications just for
them like Microsoft did.

~~~
pcurve
Yeah tablet serves generally different market, but it can also meets needs of
existing laptop users who just want more portable media consumption device,
whether around bedroom, bathroom, or on a plane on business trip where you're
likely to have locked-down work-issued PC.

~~~
dangus
You’re absolutely right. This leads into the four markets that I think the
tablet can sell to:

1\. For kids or secondary throw-around devices (like for travel).

2\. Digital Art and pen-based content creation.

3\. People who won’t otherwise use their phone (in my view, not many).

4\. Point of sale, retail, mobile enterprise computing.

The key here is understanding that it’s not like everyone threw out their
personal computers when the tablet and phone was invented. They just aren’t
replaced as often as phones.

That’s where I don’t think tablets compete well against someone’s existing
laptop. If Apple let the iPad run full macOS software without the App Store
that still wouldn’t convince me to buy one, even if that would be a welcome
change.

So, I guess that’s my overall point here: tablets have to compete with proper
computers and I don’t think they’ve succeeded. The Surface Pro _turns into_ a
proper computer and it’s telling that most people use it as a laptop, not a
keyboard-less tablet.

------
xixixao
The article talks about two different things:

1) Whether the iPad is revolutionary, and how in this respect it compares to
the iPhone and the Mac.

2) iPad’s split-screen UX

The two are not linked in a casual relationship imho. I personally never use
split screen on my Mac (and of course on my iPhone), but this has not
precluded it from being a device I use almost every waking hour.

So to address the first point, the reason the iPad is not as revolutionary is
because being in the middle of the two revolutionary products, it’s shares the
pros and cons of both, in a way that negates each other. So the iPad is not
small enough to be truly portable, but not big enough to be the perfect work
horse. It will never have the same success and impact on the world, no matter
its UX.

------
broodbucket
iPads have complete market dominance in the world of the kiddies. I can't
believe how many there are - big iPads in big cases, young children playing
with some game or watching YouTube Kids. I don't think it's the market Apple
invisioned, but it's a hugely successful one regardless.

I think judging the iPad based on changes they make for power users is near
pointless in terms of its success.

~~~
ekianjo
> iPads have complete market dominance in the world of the kiddies.

Hence it can almost be fitting to categorize them as toys.

~~~
irrational
I use them for real work. Taking notes (the split windows view is awesome for
this - notes app in one window and the book in the other), reading, creating
illustrations and other artwork, etc. I don't think they are a toy at all. I
have a desktop computer and a couple of high end laptops, but I still reach
for the ipad most often.

~~~
ekianjo
I have a very different take. I am much faster with a keyboard and keyboard
shortcuts, and I hate glossy screens. Every time I use an Ipad this brings my
productivity down compared to having an actual laptop. Honestly I cannot say I
have seen people do real work on an Ipad. Just browsing and very short
messages.

------
gnicholas
> _The iPads Pro outperform MacBooks computationally._

Off-topic, but it's an interesting choice to pluralize "iPads Pro", especially
in a sentence where it could easily be singular ("The iPad Pro outperforms
MacBooks computationally"). After all, there aren't different tech specs on
the different iPads Pro (of the same generation). They just differ in screen
size, IIRC.

~~~
CiaranMcNulty
Wouldn't it be strange to compare 'iPad' to 'MacBooks'?

~~~
gnicholas
That’s not what I suggested. There is one processor and RAM setup across all
(current model) iPads Pro. There are multiple processors and RAM
configurations on the various MacBooks Pro (ugh, that sounds terrible to me —
I much prefer MacBook Pros). So if the iPad Pro processor (or whatever metric
he was referring to) is faster than all the MacBook Pro processors, then it
would be perfectly normal to say the one singular is faster than the other
plural.

It would be like saying the iPhone 11 Pro has a better camera than all the
iMacs (which vary by model, but none are as good as the iPhone).

------
sixstringtheory
I've used an iPad Pro 10.2" with smart keyboard for 2 years now, trying to
shift all my non-iOS-development work to it, with some success. I like using
the iPad, and I like using it with multitasking much more than I did before
that existed. I think the criticisms in the article have some merit but I
don't know what better alternatives would be, and didn't see any suggested in
the article. I assume that Apple has worked very hard and thrown away a lot of
less good solutions to arrive where they're at with iPadOS thus far.

The answer to a lot of this should be "open the Tips app and follow the
tutorials," but they don't cover the entire set of possibilities, so a valid
criticism would be that the Tips app should be improved.

A tip for people that might not know:

> apps that aren’t in the Dock can’t become the second app in split screen
> mode.

Not true: on an external keyboard you can execute the same key command you use
for Spotlight in macOS: ⌘ + Space, then you can immediately type the name of
the app you want, and drag it into multitasking from the results. As Gruber
points out with the dual purpose gesture of dragging icons from the dock
(either multitasking or removing from dock), there is one here too: if you
swipe down in the center of the home screen to activate a search, you can't
drag those icons into multitasking. It makes sense because there's no other
app open to multitask with, but the gesture is overloaded nonetheless.

A personal bummer lately is that my $150 smart keyboard stopped working, so
I'm rocking a Magic Keyboard with it currently at my desk. The Bluetooth
connection story isn't perfect, and I don't take it around with me, so when
I'm mobile I just have the dead keyboard cover.

------
DrScientist
The software is important, but the real reason for the iPad's existence is the
physical aspects.

Form is function.

Bigger than phone, touched orientated versus keyboard/mouse mac.

That's also whythe physically 'panic' home button was very good.

Personally the most interesting feature of the iPad these days is the pen - a
way of physically interacting with the computer that's different.

At the end of the day, the 'user interface' isn't just software it's physical.
Whether it be touch, voice, pen, or keyboard.

One of the problems with the more 'advanced' UI features/gestures is that they
don't anchor in the physical - you have no idea it existed or why the software
responded in that way.

------
GolDDranks
I bought my first and only tablet, an iPad, two years back. I havent't much
used it since then. I bet it would be great for reading and watching videos,
but the moment I want to type something, I just become needlessly irritated
and switch back to my MacBook Pro.

It's not just typing on a touch screen; that's awful, but then I bought a
keyboard. But using the Dvorak layout, Scandinavian letters and Japanese input
in my daily life makes iPad just not cut it. It's not a flexible device like a
PC is. I still haven't been able to type the way I'd want to.

~~~
pcurve
Not to be funny, but I had almost 500 subscriptions to youtube channels. On
desktop, Youtube made it deliberately hard to unsubscribe (it used to be
easier), on ipad, the experience is much better. I also find netflix ux less
crappy on ipad than on desktop.

~~~
lobster45
The aspect ratio of the iPad is not great for video which is mostly a
widescreen format. I really don’t like losing so much screen real estate.
Sometimes I prefer my iPhone XS Max to watch a video on than my iPad Air. I
specifically bought a kindle Fire 10” tablet to watch videos. Everything else
on the iPad is superior to the kindle

------
takanori
It’s an $11 Billion dollar hardware business that’s double the size of the
Mac.

IMHO, the biggest innovation is that an enterprise can purchase one of these
interest free for ~$20 / month (no interest) and get a brand new one in 3
years through Apple’s enterprise sales.

Hardware sold as a service. $11B.

I think the focus on multitasking misses the real innovation.

------
notlukesky
The iPad is there for mass consumption as primarily a consumption tool (pun
intended). Power users following the aptly named power law already know the
tricks to use it as a production tool like split screen and multitasking
etc... the masses will not invest the time to learn those tricks because they
don’t need it and their willful ignorance is bliss.

The good thing that the article points out is that Apple’s historical business
model (4.99 price cap) limited productivity tools by capping the prices that
could be charged through the app store. Fair point there. Apple can still
breathe life going forward for developers by rebooting the developer
ecosystem. 10 years on the tablet has just arrived for productivity. That is
still a fraction of iPad consumers. Prosumers are a minority and the only ones
demanding landscape view and split screen apps.

I work for an IAM consultancy and the password manager we recommend to our
clients and that I use is SAASPASS and one of the reasons is that it supports
multitasking, landscape view and split screen. Split screen is great for
Authenticator codes and password management. But the masses probably don’t
care at all for these features. Although AutoFill has solved some of these UX
issues with most apps and websites.

If anyone is interested in an iPad friendly Authenticator and Password Manager
see here:

[https://saaspass.com/](https://saaspass.com/)

~~~
SahAssar
You posted the same comment and I asked you for a comment on your affiliation
with saaspass here, but got no reply, any chance you will get to that?

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22173634](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22173634)

It might be good to clear this up.

------
twsted
I agree completely with Gruber's analysis:

the multi-tasking, drag&drop, split-screen interface is very complex and
confusing even for me, who have been using the iPad for ten years.

~~~
Brave-Steak
> the multi-tasking, drag&drop, split-screen interface is very complex and
> confusing even for me, who have been using the iPad for ten years.

I use my iPad Pro's multitasking stuff daily and it still confuses and
infuriates me. Who came up with this stuff?

------
xg15
(warning, rant follows)

I wonder if the trend to confusing designs has something to do with the recent
rise of "use case centered" UI design.

My impression is that many graphical designs in the past were designed by
coming up with certain fundamental abstractions or metaphors first and then
integrating the different functions of the software into it: That way, we got
windows and standard widgets which function the same way everywhere, no matter
which particular application makes use of them. We also have abstractions like
"files" or "desktop icons" that a user can interact with in a consistent way
independent of application.

This way of design has pitfalls: You can choose the wrong metaphors and paint
yourself into a corner, you can overvalue consistency to the point the UI
becomes cumbersome to use or you can find that a new feature doesn't fit into
your abstractions and you have to shoehorn it in. However, what this design
guarantees is that the user has some basic tools to orient themselves, without
needing to consult a manual for everything or remember some random onboarding
popup that appeared a week ago when the user had completely other things on
their mind.

I feel today, UI design has shifted away from common abstractions to the point
it's almost seen as an anti-pattern. Instead, the design process is started
with assembling an exhaustive list of "use cases" or "user stories": The app
is supposed to enable the user to do the tasks on the list - and _only_ those
tasks. Then, every item on the list is passed, one-by-one to the UI team, who
add a button, gesture or other affordance to perform _exactly_ that task.
Finally, users are watched via telemetry to see if they are using the app as
intended and if any additional tasks must be added via the above procedure.

This method of design does have advantages: The most common tasks are easy to
access, even if they are, by themselves, complex procedures involving
different components (such as "make a photo, color-correct it, upload it to
Twitter and refer to it in a tweet").

On the other hand, everything that falls outside ymthe immediate attention of
the developers becomes ridiculously hard to do or even impossible: Take the
above photo, but _zip_ it, then send it in an email? Sorry, you need an app
for that. Take a photo, color-correct it and send it to mastodon? Sorry, not
integrated. Etc, etc.

To be honest, I have no idea if modern UI design really is done like this, but
it very often feels that way. I really wonder if a return to some well-dosed
consistency wouldn't improve a whole lot of things both for casual _and_ power
users.

------
throw0101a
The iPad (and tablets in general) have really changed the game when it comes
to flying. So many private pilots use e-charts nowadays: I'd love to see the
sales figures on paper charts over the last decade.

Even commercial crews (CPL, ATPL) are using them, and no longer have to lug
around booklets.

For 'redundancy' people often don't use paper, but have multiple electronic
devices as well.

------
ibn_khaldun
The main gripe of this article seems to be focused on a single issue. But it
is a valid point. But it is sort of strange to see this article boil down to
the author's displeasure with just this one issue. To be honest I never was
aware that you could only pull apps from your dock into split screen because I
really only use those apps for that function. There is a comment buried toward
the bottom that suggests a very nice solution to the problem.

There is also another comment buried toward the bottom questioning why
everything has to be "revolutionary", which I agree with. I find that the iPad
is a cozy fit for most people's personal and professional workflows and the
fact that it's Apple keeps everything cohesive. What revolution is it supposed
to spark? It is a companion, a bridge, so to speak, between two pieces of
equipment that the author has already acknowledges as "revolutionary" on their
own.

~~~
oneeyedpigeon
I agree that the iPad doesn’t have to be revolutionary. I agree with the
author that hardware-wise, it just about is, but software-wise it falls short.

The article may be mainly about one issue, but it's an important one. Apple
has made a horrible mess of multitasking on the iPad, which not only causes
frustration with that product, but also should make us wary about the future.

I personally never (literally never) want multi-windowing on my iPad: it's
only an iPad-mini, so multi-windowing isn’t very practical anyway. All I need
is a single toggle to turn it off, and any gripes essentially disappear. But I
have to have it, even though I actively don’t want it. So I have to,
periodically, work out how to exit multi-windowed mode, because it’s very easy
to accidentally enter it. And exiting it is NOT easy - pretty sure one time I
just gave up, put the iPad down, and did something else instead, I was that
frustrated.

------
zapzupnz
Something I haven't seen in the comments yet: do we think that Apple now
referring to iPadOS by a separate name means future releases will slowly-but-
surely (in typical iterative Apple fashion) morph the iPad experience to
address not only Gruber's complaints but some of our own?

I'm actually surprised by a lot of HN's failure of imagination — "I can't
imagine why you would want an iPad when you could use an xyz", often
translating into "I don't believe an iPad could _ever_ become abc".

And yet, against all odds and despite its relative decline in sales, the iPad
marches forward, stands strong despite its flaws, and defies the naysayers of
2010 and 2020.

To give my own answer to my question: I prefer optimism over pessimism,
myself.

------
mark_l_watson
The solution is simple: ability to set in System Preferences whether to enable
split screen and floating second window.

Personally, I really like the split window support but to be honest I had to
practice the gestures for opening and closing second windows.

Off topic, but my big complaint about my iPad Pro is that the physical buttons
for volume control, etc. are placed differently than my iPhone 11 Pro. This
always makes me pause when switching devices because I like to think of my
iPhone and iPad to sort-of be the same device as far as apps and most use
cases. Apple, place the hardware controls in the same locations. Also, the
menu bar on Safari is different on the two devices. I wish Apple would fix
that also.

~~~
moomin
The volume thing annoys the heck out of me as well. I'm constantly having to
stop and reason out which button does what. Never have to do that on my
iPhone.

------
nallo
I actually use iPad for coding nowadays. It is of course slower than using a
keyboard but also a quite relaxing and fun way of programming.

~~~
rhlsthrm
What type of code do you write on iPad? Do you ssh into something to make it
run?

~~~
shmoogy
I ssh, and I run a vscode server, and jupyter notebooks from my iPad.

Let's me query sql, full programming, normal IDE for NetSuite stuff I need to
work on. It's great

------
zweep
I remember discovering iPad split screen more than a year into owning one. It
was like magic, then I didn't know what I had done to invoke it. I started
trying random stuff looking for the incantations and eventually gave up and
Googled it.

------
octokatt
Industry hasn't caught up yet with the iPad, because it's a very different
tool.

But you can see it start to happen. An iPad is becoming the default point of
sale system in a lot of places. My wife works with autistic kids; he doesn't
have a computer, he has an iPad so he can go from recording behavioral data to
YouTube in a fluid motion.

The iPad stumbled because it was supposed to be a consumer device, and then
developers and users realized it filled a niche for a lot of creation tasks,
and Apple has been playing catch-up ever since.

------
gdubs
Can’t believe it’s been 10 years. The iPad launched my app development career.
My girlfriend at the time (now my wife) bought the first generation iPad for
me so that I could finish developing an app. I felt that I had missed the wave
with iPhone apps, and the iPad was a new opportunity. The result was
Polychord.

From day 1, the iPad was a great format for music making. But it’s fun to look
back and remember that back then it didn’t have MIDI, and Audiobus would be
some time to follow.

------
MengerSponge
I can't believe I'm the first to metion LiquidText! It's the reason I bought
an iPad pro, and more than a year later I don't regret it.

If you have to collect information from a bunch of disparate documents, make
comments, and share your collected thoughts, LiquidText is the absolute best.

[https://apps.apple.com/us/app/liquidtext/id922765270](https://apps.apple.com/us/app/liquidtext/id922765270)

------
pintxo
As no one has brought it up yet. Playing civilization on the 12 inch iPad Pro
is awesome. Unfortunately it's a drain on the battery.

------
d--b
> “It’s just a big iPhone” was the most common initial criticism

> The iPad has been a spectacular success, and to tens of millions it is a
> beloved part of their daily lives, but it has, to date, fallen short of
> revolutionary.

Yes, well it has fallen short of revolutionary, probably because it's just a
big iphone, (or a laptop without keyboard). There was no new paradigm here.

------
readhn
Awkwardly turns 10? Poor title choice!

Every household in USA has one ipad or wants to have one. (360million total
sold in usa - so 1.1 ipad per person).

360,000,000 ipads x $400 (example average price) = $144B in sales !!!

There is nothing Awkward about that. They crushed it!

ongrats to Apple for making a great product for media consumers!

------
trey-jones
Ten years ago this was a good reminder that what I want is not necessarily
what the majority want. Make that "definitely not what the majority want". I
thought the iPad was a stupid idea that I had no use for. I still feel mostly
that way (though I think it could be handy for easy page turns in music).

Obviously I was wrong about it being a stupid idea, and I'm happy to own that.
I've built several apps specific to iPad over the years, and I'm going to
start another one today.

I _do_ also think that iOS has fallen behind Android in several important ways
in the last 2 or 3 years. Not in every way, but things like the Keyboard on
iOS drive me crazy. Can't speak for iPad OS. Today will be my first experience
with that.

~~~
jsight
Aren't keyboards (finally) replacable on iOS, though?

~~~
Marsymars
It drops back to the system keyboard sometimes - in my case, that difference
was too jarring to make a non-stock keyboard practical to use at all.

------
julienb_sea
The core problem with ipad is it's not going to be able to compete with a
laptop + desk setup for productivity. Laptops are complicated machines, and we
take for granted the extent to which we are attuned to using a laptop. The
speed with which we can fly around a laptop and get things done is staggering.
Ipad has too many limitations in UX to really compete. You can in theory
accomplish pretty much all the same things, and it might be more fun and more
pleasant of an experience. But for complicated work, with a variety of
applications, how can an ipad compete with 3 large screens, a full keyboard
and trackpad, and a full suite of consistent well supported hotkeys?

------
davedx
The iPad could have been a new Dynabook. Alan Kay was actually fairly
impressed with it when it came out. Unfortunately I agree with Gruber, it has
really failed to live up to expectations. Missing a hardware keyboard is quite
a big deal I think.

~~~
simonh
Oh grief no, an integrated hardware keyboard would kill everything that is
great about the iPad. We have compact mobile devices with keyboards already,
they're called laptops.

------
w-m
> The iPad has been a spectacular success, and to tens of millions it is a
> beloved part of their daily lives, but it has, to date, fallen short of
> revolutionary.

Why does everything have to be revolutionary? Pretty much everybody I know who
has an iPad love using their device. It's a wonderful tool for media and web
consumption, it just works for that use case very, very well. It can be used
effortlessly, for multiple hours a day. Does it really have to do more?

Personally I just don't use split-screen apps on the iPad, but I'm not the
least inconvenienced by the feature being around, behind some strange gestures
I don't really bothered to learn.

~~~
Brave-Steak
> Personally I just don't use split-screen apps on the iPad

I think that's the problem. As somebody who uses splitscreen all the time,
it's utterly painful. It's a great feature, but whoever designed it from a
usability-standpoint was, quite frankly, retarded. The problem is that it
could be _so much_ better, even revolutionary, but it stumbles on the
implementation of features like this.

------
dangus
I’m surprised that John Gruber hasn’t just turned off split screen for his
mom:

Settings > General > Multitasking and Dock > Allow Multiple Apps (Off)

> But if I could go back to the pre-split-screen, pre-drag-and-drop interface
> I would.

I think you can, check your settings.

------
brailsafe
As far as I can tell, visual artists love the ipad pro. I still have my ipad
3, and it serves it's purpose for reading content and looking at stuff. I've
done the same on an Ipad pro, and damn that screen is smooth, but can't think
of anything to use it for that would remotely permit me to spend the $$$$$ on
it. The software gets in my way and is just bad. Somewhat pathetically, Safari
still doesn't support WebGl2 either. The cost approximates a pretty good gear
setup for any other more constructive hobby.

------
icanhackit
The iPad as a portable computer suffers from the same problem cameras do - the
best camera is the one you have with you, and in that same way the best
computer is often the phone in your pocket.

------
Causality1
I'm in love with the idea of the ipad/tablet but they just don't work for me
in practice. Either I'm out and don't have anything on me but my phone or I'm
at home and already have my computer in front of me. Ipads just don't work as
replacement computers for me. I can't manage my media and document archives. I
can't create bootable USB drives. I can't maintain a folder full of installers
for necessary software. I just don't feel in control on a tablet.

------
obelos
Sure, getting apps into multitasking mode is hard, but have you tried to get
an app _out_ of multitasking? Especially a “Slide Over” window? Just when you
think you've banished it, you open the host app again and the slide over app
revivifies. It's maddening. Every time I accidentally get an app into this
mode I have to search the support docs for the magic sequence to make the
window finally go away. I love my iPad, but a couple aspects are unambiguously
terrible UX.

------
egdod
My biggest annoyance with my iPad is accidentally opening links in a new
Safari _window._ Sometimes that happens when I’m just scrolling and didn’t
mean to open the link at all. So now you have multiple Safari windows that are
completely undiscoverable. To switch between windows, you have to swipe up
slowly and pick the one you want.

I have literally never wanted multiple windows of the same app on my iPad. But
it keeps happening.

I’m a computer guy. I shudder to think what this is like for my grandmother.

------
hyperpallium
An ipad/tablet is halfway between a laptop and a phpne, amd worse than either.
For a while, phones got bigger (phablets), but any bigger and they don't fit a
pocket, nor usable one-handed. The _convenience_ of a phone form-factor is
overwhelming.

Rhe next big thing going to be VR/AR/glasses, but have stalled. It might be
foldable displays, but I think they'll suffer the same fate as tablets, for
the same reasons. Convenience is kimg.

------
Andrew_nenakhov
Fun thing is, it is very easy to do a convenient multitasking on iPad that a
toddler would understand:

Just make a multitask button in slide up menu or dock, which, when press,
would present a user with his own home screen and an overlay titled "Select an
app", maybe with slight clarification, "the launched app will be run next to
your current app". Maybe not the best solution, but way better than the
current one

------
SllX
Reality is actually more exciting and more boring. Apple sold about $20B worth
of iPads last year alone and it has a sizable install base for all these
services Apple is pushing: TV+, Arcade, News+, Apple Music, iCloud, etc.

There’s a lot to criticize about the software, it is actually very easy to
criticize the software for not doing the things you want it to do because it
seems like it _ought_ to be able to, and there is obviously a better way to do
the thing you want to do if Apple would only do X, Y, and Z and stop doing A
and B to hold it back.

Here’s where reality gets really boring though: iPads are _only_ tablets, and
_only_ of the stuff in your bag, leave on a table or have it permanently
docked in some kind of kiosk variety. That lends itself to being a bit better
at some applications than others, but there‘a some applications it will always
be downright inferior to compared to a laptop or phone. It’s not going to fit
in my pocket better than my phone, and it’s not the entire self-contained
package that my laptop is, nor does it have the benefit of always being
plugged into a wall socket being able to draw essentially unlimited power that
my desktop has. I could try to replicate some of the benefits of those devices
with some creative planning and a big enough pile of money with some mixed
success, but in exchange for not being as good for certain applications, it is
absolutely top tier for reading and drawing. It’s all about the trade offs you
are willing to make.

If what a tablet is better at is more important to you than what a laptop is
better at, and the few things you would prefer to do on a laptop can still be
done on a tablet, you _might_ make the tradeoff to spend more money to have
both, or you _might_ make the tradeoff to save some money and only have the
tablet. Neither is a bad choice to make.

Putting it that way is boring though, and it doesn’t play into the narrative
that we’re only going to have one or the other at some far flung point in the
future and tablets are the predestined winner of that zero sum game, you know,
just like how we _only_ have GUIs these days and positively _no one_ uses what
we once called the command-line interface.

In retrospect the above comment is less a direct response to Gruber’s article,
and more a response to a broad swath of sentiments expressed here in this
thread and across the part of the web that spends too much time talking about
Apple. It should be understood as such anyway.

------
ArmandGrillet
I always wonder if ipadOS should have a permanent dock or not, it would reduce
the screen space but makes split-view much more discoverable.

------
mensetmanusman
I have been using some version of an iPad since the day it came out. Version 1
is still alive and kicking and being used by our 3 year old, so far, it has
been the most robust :)

Pros: biometrics / security / immediately usable to check email

Cons: software has started going all SAAS and Apple allowed developers to
upgrade and break previous versions to force users on to SAAS versions

------
tenant
Nobody I know bothers with a tablet anymore. Everything they formerly did on
the tablet they now do on their phone. And most of the iPhone users I know
have now switched to Android, mostly Samsungs. Myself being a bit of a
cheapskate have a motorola moto and I think it's great. Tim Cook is a very
lucky man. He earns an eye watering salary, for what?

~~~
bluedays
Yeah, it's the opposite for me. I do nearly all of my computing on my iPad,
and almost none on my phone. I also switched from Android (I was an early
adopter, and originally bought the first G1 when it came out) to iPhone
because the longer I used Android the more it felt hacked together.

------
bnjms
Lots of good discussion here about the state of iPad tablets.

My SO is returning to school and wants a tablet for school. She likes her
iPhone. Is the iPad ready to be a primary note taking solution? I have seen
its note taking app used to great effect but how is external keyboard support?
Does anyone use an ipad in uni as their primary input device?

~~~
schwartzworld
For this use case, why not a laptop? Any chromebook or inexpensive laptop
would work fine for taking notes.

~~~
bnjms
I think mostly because she wants a touchscreen and already has an old laptop.
Hand written notes are often easier since they seem to tap into the brain
differently.

And while her wants are primary, the chromebook system is awful. I could never
encourage use of a chrome book for anything except something managed like a
school.

------
victor106
Well written article. I love Gruber's realistic take on Apple more than when
it seems like he is a fanboy.

>and apps that aren’t in the Dock can’t become the second app in split screen
mode. What sense does that limitation make?

I think that hits the nail on the head. I just couldn't believe that somehow
Apple settled on this UI interaction for multitasking.

------
fortran77
Imagine how powerful an iPad could be if you could run GNU/Linux well on it:

[https://ipadlinux.org/](https://ipadlinux.org/)

Instead of iOS, Arch GNU/Linux! It's too bad that even old iPads haven't been
figured out enough to bring first-class GNU/Linux support to these machines.

------
clircle
As a statistician, and collector of statistics textbooks, the iPad had made my
life (marriage) much better! I can download all the books I want, and have a
(typically) better reading experience on the iPad, and I don't need to expand
the number of book shelves in my apartment. Big win for me!

------
mikehall314
I don't think I can substantively disagree with anything said here. Though I
can think of a few places where iPad has revolutionised things; most notably
point-of-sale. Especially for small businesses, I commonly see iPad and other
tablet form factors used for retail point of sale.

------
garrickvanburen
Within weeks, I sold the iPad v1 I bought the day it was released and I
derided the iPad from that day on.

Fast forward to today, iPad Pro has been my primary device for pushing 2
years.

With a keyboard and multi-tasking it’s a far more flexible, collaborative, and
portable compute experience compared to my MacBook.

------
theriddlr
It's good value for money due to its lifespan. My family's iPad 2 is 8 years
old and still going strong. Daily game-playing and web surfing sites still
compatible with the old version of Safari. Whereas my Samsung Note tablet died
after 2 years and wouldn't charge.

------
dirktheman
Our iPad 2 (bought new in 2011) is still being used on a daily basis by our
kids. Battery life is still more than sufficient and it's not too slow to run
some games, YouTube or Netflix. I think it's the longest we've done with a
single electronic device ever!

------
frankzen
I hear people junk talk the iPad all the time but I love mine. I rarely open a
computer at home because of the iPad. A lot of times I don't even turn on my
TV and just use it as my mini TV. It's basically a laptop in a truer sense of
the word IMHO.

------
audiodude
> How would anyone ever figure out how to split-screen multitask on the iPad
> if they didn’t already know how to do it?

Or if this article hadn't just taught me how to do it. Be right back, about to
go multitask on my ipad for the first time...

------
egypturnash
God I hate the multitasking, all I ever did with it was accidentally open
Safari links in a new window I couldn’t get rid of instead of open them in a
new tab when I mis-tapped. I turned that _right off_ about a day after
updating.

------
chadlavi
> But the Mac’s “When do I click, when do I double-click?” issue has confused
> untold millions of non-expert users for decades.

I mean. Does it really, still? If so, that's horrifying as a technologist and
sad.

------
ngcc_hk
I recently bought 3 ipad (and two e-ink one) as a replacement of book and
reference. The ipad is great as it can be used and sync ... it works great
with my MacBook Pro.

It is a good part of the ecosystem.

------
shams93
It's become a platform for music production. A lot of music apps like
beatmaker3 only exist on the iPad. It's replaced the computer for me as my daw
system for music production.

------
CivBase
> Turns out, “just a big iPhone” was a fantastic idea for a new product -
> music to tens of millions of iPhone users’ ears.

Was it?

I've never personally been interested in tablets, but my perception is that
they're not especially popular. Over the last few years, I've rarely seen them
being used for anything other than mobile video machines for little kids. A
lot of people _bought_ the iPad, but very few people appear to regularly _use_
one.

I'm aware that the iPad extremely useful for some people. I'm just not
convinced it's the breakout success this article paints it as. My personal
experience and observations show that it is more of a niche product.

------
sneak
> _The iPads Pro outperform MacBooks computationally._

How quickly Gruber falls in line with the propaganda machine the moment that
official guidance (Airpods Pro) comes out. :D

------
rusk
Any chance we could get a Ctrl-F type function?

I'm enjoying the mental training of learning to scan text for keywords myself,
but from time to time this is a feature that I miss ...

~~~
itsaride
You mean the “find on this page” function? Type a word in the search bar on a
page then scroll to the bottom of the overlay that pops up.

~~~
dredmorbius
The advantage of a keyboard-initiated search is that it works in all apps (or
damned well should).

Mind: on Android, with a keyboard (bluetooth), poor app support is
frustratingly apparent. Even where basic keyboard input is recognised, obvious
things don't work as expected.

In Pocket, the backspace/delete keys won't delete tags.

In PocketBook (an eBook reader), hitting space when entering a search term
(which cannot be initiated with Ctrl-F) ... scrolls forward in the document.

Etcetera, etcetera, etcetera...

~~~
rusk
yes android physical keyboard support is completely useless.

I bought one of those foldy keyboard android tablets thinking I could use it
as an _about the house_ small laptop, but the issues you describe, and yet
others, made it an utterly futile exercise.

------
bsaul
ipad + youtube ( or twitch) has replaced TV for many people, and ipad is
definitely a game changer in some niche professional markets where autonomy
and keyboardless makes it a true alternative to paper (any people taking notes
while standing).

i think the most lacking features are related to pencil interactions ( which
still can't be used to enter text in iOS text fields easily), but i feel it's
really slowly getting there

~~~
jannes
Hilariously the pencil can't even be used to switch apps. You need to swipe
from the bottom with a finger for that.

------
altitudinous
An article written by a technologist. Only 1% use multitasking.

Software is absolutely the strength.

The extraordinary social impact of iPad on education, bringing technology and
books to the masses, especially the _non technical_ , education and
entertainment to the young (who can use this device even before they can
read), the elderly and most importantly the enablement of the disabled are the
greatest achievements of the iPad. This is the device of the 2010's.

Focussing on something like multitasking in the OS is really narrow and misses
why this device even exists.

~~~
wmeredith
You should talk to some teachers about the iPads impact on education. Teachers
hate the devices in their classrooms. It makes their job much harder.

------
totaldude87
One recent thing that i hate about latest iPadOS is the automatic readable
mode for websites.. you cant just put readable mode on all sites :|

------
40acres
iPad is an excellent consumption device, I never quite saw the appeal in
productivity based add-ons. A few years ago my MBA died and I was quite slow
in getting a replacement due to financial commitments. As a cord cutter w/o a
TV my iPad was my main source of video entertainment and I was surprised that
I didn't miss my Air as much as previously thought.

------
pcurve
part of the problem is, apple is refusing to make the basic window bar control
needed to facilitate multi-tasking and exposing its funcionality, because that
would create interface clutter and reduce perceived simplicity of the UI.

Instead they're inventing all sorts of hidden gesture based workarounds.

They're no longer targeting ipad for new users.

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Four8Five
I gave up doing any meaningful, multi-tasking work on the iPad. Now it just
sits as a $1000 Netflix / Email machine.

~~~
mensetmanusman
I would try to set up Remote Desktop. It is amazing how nice it is to have
high powered computation available on a light weight, long battery life
machine. Simply VPN / VNC in, and you are set to go. Also, iOS 13 supports any
Bluetooth mouse, so that may help as well.

------
esch89
Good article. Shows the importance of being able to steer in a different
direction + change despite past successes.

------
myt6fore
John Gruber craves the power of keyboard macros on his iPad. He apparently
thinks that's not possible as iPad's main power is one-state mode (and it
truly is a remarkable tool that way). There's always a learning curve with
artificial interfaces. Standard way to bridge this is use of metaphors. The
problem with iOs on iPad is that iPhone was it's metaphor...

------
jxdxbx
Slide Over is one of the best features out there. And it’s as simple as can
be. You get what amounts to a mini iPhone available on command. And split
screen is not only very useful, I think it’s a fundamentally better
multitasking model that the traditional desktop OS for screens under 23” or
so.

I agree that adding apps to multitasking seems to baffle people. But this
seems like it can

~~~
zaphoyd
Speaking of mini iphone... I have so many iPhone only apps that I wish I could
run in the “mini iPhone split” next to whatever else I am doing rather than
forcing them to take over the whole screen with an iPhone sized picture in the
middle.

~~~
scarface74
That was intentionally. Apple wanted iPhone apps to suck on the iPad to force
developers to make an iPad app. If developers can get away with just shipping
an iPhone app and still have a decent experience they will.

------
dredmorbius
The tablet form-factor, battery-life, screen display, and wifi connectivity
make it a potentially incredible tool -- yes, between a phone and a laptop,
but also able to instantly convert between protrait and landscape modes, be
tossed in a bag, propped up on a lap.

With the addition of a folio-type keyboard and self-supporting tip-up mode,
there's little the device cannot do from a set of basic laptop functionality.
And yet it's still a fully-capable touch device.

Where failure enters is in the accessories and peripherals (especially
keyboards), and of course, the OS and apps.

At which point I think I'm going to end up re-writing the rant I'd composed
nearly three years ago, so I'll just link it:

[https://ello.co/dredmorbius/post/lqgtwy_rhsfbdh5cdxb1rq](https://ello.co/dredmorbius/post/lqgtwy_rhsfbdh5cdxb1rq)

TL;DR:

1\. Standardise form factors so keyboards Just Freaking Fit.

2\. Offer a true and robust shell and Linux userland, with filesystem access.

3\. Provide real apps with full keyboard support.

4\. Uncripple the OS.

I'm looking at PineTab and Purism's tablet offerings with interest.

2-in-1 laptop designs ... _might_ work, though the additional hardware and
fragility strike me as large liabilities.

~~~
AgloeDreams
On #2, I've been really impressed with using ChromeOS's 'Linux Shell' I
actually went out and bought a Chromebook Pixel LS and have been able to
easily replace my work MacBook with it, love the 3:2 display and bits of the
cleverness. Lenovo has a new tablet hybrid that might meet your needs. The
Android App keyboard support sucks but the Linux stuff works great and for
just content browsing and web work, Chrome OS comes pretty close to iPadOS or
a Mac, it's very much a two headed monster of sorts.

The problem with competing with the iPad is just how hilariously advanced
Apple is in the category of basic use. It's shocking really just how good the
technical engineering side of their work is. The iPad Pro honest to goodness
runs at 120 FPS with a less than 10ms pencil input response rate in a 6mm
package with Core i7 Level CPU performance at ~$650. Microsoft can't currently
match those numbers in a Windows based product, Google couldn't come close
with the pixel Slate. Apple's $330 product outperforms the average laptop so
doing something competitive in open source levels for under $200 is hard as
heck to impossible just for things like 'open an app' and the bar is so high
due to phones, people expect touch to compete with a $1000 phone (and
rightfully so, they are great!).

~~~
dredmorbius
The Lonovo Yoda (?) is one option I've looked at.

E-ink devices another. The Remarkable Tablet, updated to 128 GB - 1 TB
storage, might work.

------
tuananh
ipad pro is such a nice device but the iPadOS is still so limited.

if ipadOS is 50% capable as macOS, the ipad pro would be a dream machine for
web developer.

------
jedberg
Almost every comment in this thread can be summarized thusly:

"I wish I could install my own OS/Apps on my iPad to solve the problems I
have".

------
oflannabhra
Gruber has some good points, but I think in some ways he misses the forest for
the trees.

The iPad is essentially, at this point, a two-mode device. There is the simple
paradigm, screen-as-app mode inherited from the iPhone. Then, for power users,
there is the multitasking paradigm with Flyover, Split Screen, Drag & Drop.

The multitasking paradigm is _not_ meant to co-exist with the simple one, and
it is not meant to be discoverable. I agree with Gruber that there is work to
do here to make it better, but iPad _can 't_ drop the simple paradigm, because
many people use it that way. So anything more that the iPad offers has to
build on top of and integrate with that paradigm.

That is really a huge challenge. It's not often that challenges like that come
along. In desktop computing, lots of things are un-intuitive or at least not
intuitively discoverable, such as right-clicking for context menus or keyboard
shortcuts. We all don't consider them that way because we are so used to them,
and we almost never meet someone who hasn't ever had to interact with them the
first time.

I'd also argue that the simple paradigm iPhone and iPad offer has made
computing more approachable to great swaths of people (not even considering
things like cost, etc).

Yes, iPad multitasking is not perfect. But I think they are at least on the
right track, and I am thankful they have protected that approachability.

------
aj7
Multitasking? Huh?

You’re missing the iPad business model. You’re not allowed to do anything
(except maybe wash the dishes or get dressed) when the iPad is showing an ad
that gets you free something.

True multitasking would break the business model of thousands of sites.

~~~
jonplackett
How can this be when you can multitask on a computer anyway

~~~
aj7
What does “on a computer” have to do with using an iPad. My computer is in
another room.

------
swiley
I’d say the iPad is the symbol of everything wrong with consumer computing
devices, I really hate it. The most upsetting thing is that I’m not sure
that’s true, look at the cheap Windows PCs and Android phones: they’re full
frontal active assaults on the users! It’s all terrible!

