Is the iPad a computer? My university doesn't think so

[Aaron_Antcliff]

UGH, lol as I was saying

[cornchip]

I generally find the iPad to be better at doing my most difficult work, that requires a lot of thinking. The Mac (or Windows) is better at a middle band of work that requires efficiently manipulating information artifacts (in IDEs, sound editors, Photoshop, data management software, etc.), where the ratio of thinking to activity is more even. Technical university work requires more of that middle band work.

The iPad is also very good at general communication work, and unfortunately, many universities require communication to flow through software that hasn’t been written for iPad. Between that and the need to perform that middle band of efficient technical work, an iPad is often the wrong choice.

However, at a sensible university that doesn’t saddle its students with bad software, and pushes its students to do as much difficult thinking as possible, an iPad can be the primary computing device, and in a pure liberal arts program, likely the only device with strong outcomes.

[ryanjamurphy]

This has been an even more thrilling thread than I’d anticipated! Thanks all for the discussion and debate. Responding to a few semi-random points below.

@ThatNerd

Correct me if i’m wrong, but here’s a summary:

Thanks for the kind words. That looks like an apt summary, although I imagine it can all be argued the other way too!

@Wolfie

You are implicitly devaluing the equally valid experiences of other people. When you throw in terms like “power user” or complexity without comparative measure you’re elevating your experience and needs over theirs.

Okay, okay, I relent. This isn’t my goal, but I see how my arguments and this one are one and the same.

I do think we need good definitions for terms like “power user”. (For me it’s someone who is using the most of the technology they have. If you imagine a tool as providing a “space” of possible features, a power user’s tool use occupies as much of that feature space as possible.)

But that’s not the point—I was equating general use, undergraduate study, and complex work, which isn’t only false, but also probably a comparison of incomparables. I still think the iPad is not a good choice for the kinds of multi-object multi-step processes I describe when discussing complexity above. But I also think that the iPad is certainly a power user tool and there’s clearly folks who can do more with it than I’ve been able to do.

I think the core of our disagreement could be about whether the multi-object multi-step processes—the “information artifacts” @cornchip points to—are a general or specific use case. (The different interpretation is probably due to the scale of our experience.) It’s everything I do, but if it’s not some or most of what most other people are doing, then you’re right, I’m running around with a vermillion fish.

Two more brief apologies:

• Sorry, I did not mean to convey the idea that the iPad has anything to do with being more or less power user. I am largely jealous of what you and others seem to be able to do, hence the continuing outburst. (Yes, this is me whining. It’s not fair! )
• Sorry, yes, I am guilty of using my school’s IT policy as a wedge to drive this discussion.

@webwalrus

Personally, I think that if a legit Chrome port that absolutely lied about its UA (“Google Chrome on a Windows 10 laptop here. iPad? Me? No, I think you have me mistaken for somebody else. I’m a Lenovo IdeaPad.” ) were available for the iPad, a lot of these sites would WORK just fine

You’re so right. I have a bunch of issues with web apps on iPadOS but it’s probably all to blame on the missing Chromium engine and/or the dependence of the web on that engine.

@webwalrus

Most of these use cases where the iPad falls down - for the average person - tend to come from a third party’s dictates that they do X task in manner Y on platform Z.

True! This points toward the need for a kind of task agnosticism: “platforms” (for lack of a better catch-all term) should boil down the ability to contribute as much as possible.

@cornchip

I generally find the iPad to be better at doing my most difficult work, that requires a lot of thinking.

Interesting. I don’t want to drag this thread on, but I’d like to hear more about why you find this to be the case.

I, too, like taking the iPad and a good text editor or Concepts away from my desk to think things through sometimes. In my experience, though, I end up returning to the desk within minutes after I’ve built up some cognitive momentum because the iPad starts to slow me down. It’s an interesting interplay, and I always end up feeling like I would’ve been better off had I not picked up the tablet in the first place.

[jsamlarose]

@ryanjamurphy

In my experience, though, I end up returning to the desk within minutes after I’ve built up some cognitive momentum because the iPad starts to slow me down.

Conversely: give me my iPad, Drafts, Concepts/iThoughts and some Post-It notes, and I’ll be pretty much good to go the rest of the day. Horses for courses, as it’s said.

[wweber]

From a practical usability standpoint, iPads and Chromebooks have the same issue in education – the incompatibility of online proctoring software. Most, if not all, proctoring software requires students use a machine capable of recording their desktop, listening via the microphone, watching via a webcam, while taking a test in an LMS at the same time. Even if an iPad or Chromebook could do all of that, the proctoring software for those devices doesn’t exist yet.

[cornchip]

@ryanjamurphy

Interesting. I don’t want to drag this thread on, but I’d like to hear more about why you find this to be the case.

I, too, like taking the iPad and a good text editor or Concepts away from my desk to think things through sometimes. In my experience, though, I end up returning to the desk within minutes after I’ve built up some cognitive momentum because the iPad starts to slow me down. It’s an interesting interplay, and I always end up feeling like I would’ve been better off had I not picked up the tablet in the first place.

Yes, it’s like that—but instead of using the iPad to build up cognitive momentum (which it’s great at, absolutely), I’m talking about using it to think through something completely, as you’d do with pen and paper (or just staring into space.) Developing a language, an original idea for an essay, a complex organizational problem, writing or dissecting poetry, etc. For people like me, who can’t fully gather their thoughts when seated at a powerful computer with fast Internet, it’s wonderful for those tasks because it speeds up typing/diagramming/drawing, and editing, without introducing many distractions. It also keeps me from escaping from the difficult thinking work into iterative production which precludes a certain depth of work if done too early (unless I’ve time to throw out and redo those prototypes—large projects often don’t provide that, so I really need that early concentration to deliver insights early.)

If it’s something I am just going to bang out and edit as I go along, or I know what I’m doing and am stuck getting started, I agree I’d be wasting my time not just starting on the most productive fastest editor/tool on the Mac.

Edit, sorry, so the point of all this is that there are paths through university where you’re going to do much better work if you can give yourself enough of that more pure thinking and concepting time that I find the iPad to be better at, so I think it’s kind of tragic that LMS make that impossible at many schools.

[zkarj]

@ryanjamurphy

I have a bunch of issues with web apps on iPadOS but it’s probably all to blame on the missing Chromium engine and/or the dependence of the web on that engine.

Oh, it’s the latter. Every time.

An interesting data point for me on iPad versus Mac lately has been Affinity Designer. I can, and do, tweak designs on my iPad and I love that while this is a completely different experience, the result is the same as if I did it on my Mac.

That doesn’t mean I actually like the iPad interface paradigm (as implemented by Affinity products) or that I am as productive, but the true 100% compatibility of the results is so fantastic that I persevere on the iPad because I know at any point I can simply return to the Mac if something gets too hard.

[anon54919170]

Half of the reason schools don’t allow iPads is because of Adobe Flash. Thankfully, time is ticking…

Adobe just released the last Flash update ever