And Apple sees the Mac as the oldest, most responsible child that holds the family together if you go all in on Apple devices.
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Seems to me that the right tool for you (and the category of work you do) is the Mac not the iPad. Your described workflow and technical needs are normal in your profession, it’s not complex in the context of your profession. And Apple makes a computer for you called the Mac.
As many have said, the meaning of Pro might also be better read as premium: AirPods Pro, iPhone Pro. It’s the premium device of that category. And currently the iPad category runs an OS that is not a fit for your job.
We have different definitions of “all due respect”. I never said users shouldn’t ask for more. What I said was that Apple is not obligated to accommodate all users, all workflows. They sell a computer with an OS that will work for some and not others. The limitations and features are known variables, use what works for you.
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It’s the way of the tech enthusiasts’ world, I’m afraid. Talk in a Linux forum about all the key software you need or want that’s not available on desktop Linux and plenty of people will tell you that it doesn’t matter or you’re just not seeing how easy it is to work around it.
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And to whatever extent that Pro actually means professional in the case of the iPad, Apple is targeting it to pro artists and designers, not pro programmers and sys admins.
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@Denny, it’s like the Four Noble Truths of Apple products:
(1) Tech life is suffering
(2) Desire for “the next thing” causes suffering
(3) Suffering ends with the attachment to desire
(4) Choosing the Apple device that currently meets your needs, not the one that could potentially meet your needs someday, is the path to liberation from suffering.
My favorite example of this is the Arch Linux install guide, which insists that a command line disk partitioning utility is no more difficult to use than a set of menus or visualizations of things like partition structures.
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I mean, I use the Mac. I made a decision long ago that the Mac was my daily driver, not the iPad. But I can still wish that the iPad made accommodations for more of the work I do, because it’s a nice machine.
Apple is in a conundrum because they invented the modern computer as we know it. Then they claim the iPad reinvents it, but it is nowhere near as capable as what it supposedly is meant to replace. Their own words from the genesis of the iPad Pro: “we see the iPad as the future of computing.” If it’s the future, the Mac is the past, and the iPad can’t replace it yet.
It is not unreasonable to ask for more, and Apple’s place as the inventor of both the Mac and the iPad, as well as the company who has stated the iPad is their “clearest vision of the future of computing,” sort of does obligate them to do more with the iPad. And that’s where we very strongly disagree on this.
Edit to add: I don’t even care that the iPad didn’t get more power user features this year. Whatever. But on an infinite timeline, they’ll get to it eventually, and arguing that they shouldn’t do it because they’re not obligated to is essentially stating the iPad is done and dusted and perfect and at its final form. That’s not true for any computer.
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I don’t recall Apple claiming to reinvent the computer or that they explicitly said it was to replace the Mac. But yeah, Tim Cook, back around 2015:
“The iPad is the clearest expression of our vision of the future of personal computing.” Then in 2017 the famous ad with the young student “What’s a computer”.
Apple clearly wanted to push the iPad beyond its initial, more basic version and to expand the roles it could fulfill. And I agree that it’s not unreasonable to ask for more for the iPad.
But Apple still offers the Mac. They didn’t take it away and force you to choose an iPad. That’s the key.
Simply put, I think Apple sees the iPad as it did in 2010 when Jobs announced it. Not an iPhone, not a Mac. It’s in the middle. It does more than the iPhone but is not as open as the Mac. For all the changes in hardware and iPadOS made over 14 years, it still sits in that middle area and that’s where it will stay.
But again, a key point, Apple still offers the Mac. They’re not forcing anyone to use the iPad or only the iPad.
And I think it’s important to note, Apple is still expanding the capabilities of iPadOS. Stage Manager, external display support, cursor support before that, etc. It’s a long list of improvements. It’s not like they have not made significant improvements. They really have. It’s just never enough to please everyone and for every improvement new requests are made, the goal posts are moved. And that’s fine.
My biggest complaint with the complaints is the tone of the conversation. Just one notable example, John Gruber a few months ago calling the iPad a baby computer. The conversation over the years has just, sadly, become so snarky, negative and often is also riddled with inaccuracies.
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This is not something I have never seen on the Files App. So, I suspect you are confronting some kind of wonky settings problem, a bug, or perhaps, a faulty file provider that you have active. I’ve had luck fixing issues like this (when they persist beyond the basic app or iPad resets) by resetting my settings. I once had a problem with a kind of weird error of this category (I.e., totally unexpected behavior from the Files App) and it was because of a problem with one of the File Providers. I disabled that file provider and it straightened out the issue. Maybe one of these options will help straighten out this issue for you. I’d be pulling my hair out if that happened to me.
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The new calendar month view is my favorite. I’ve been waiting for this forever!!
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They’re probably right that it’s as easy to use once you know how to use it, but it’s a lot harder to learn and to remember how to use if you don’t use it regularly.
Visualizations of partition structures also make it easier to understand the reality of what’s happening on the disk and to spot errors and deficiencies. Most people who want to try Linux should use something like gparted, just like most people who want to use desktop Linux should probably not use Arch.
Look, I think we agree on most of this at this point. But there are well known, well documented limitations on iPadOS. I don’t care that they didn’t go away this year, but folks are allowed to be optimistic and then sad when reality comes crushing down on them.
I am very happy with macOS. Even if my issues with the iPad were all fixed tomorrow, I’d still make the Mac my primary workstation. But I’d be very happy to have a 2lb portable computer that can take on all sorts of other personalities as needed.
As it is, the only hope for folks like me who need a Mac is that Apple releases a 2lb MacBook at some point. I would like to use an iPad for more stuff! It’s not a baby computer; it’s a good computer unreasonably held back by its overprotective parents well after it’s entered its teens.
I know I can just use a Mac, and I do just use a Mac for everything outside of sketching and attaching the iPad to my rowing machine for Fitness+ stuff, but that’s besides the point of the complaint. The point of complaint is that I like the machine and want it to do more. I’ve listed what I can’t do with it, I’ve said that I like it, and never once did I (or anybody else in this thread that I can recall) call it a baby computer or make it snarky.
This goes both ways, of course: you’re allowed to be upset about the tone of folks who wish the iPad did more. But on the other side, folks are allowed to be upset that they feel infantilized by iPad fans even more than they do the iPad itself.
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I am in agreement with the thought that advanced features could be added to iPadOS using selective discovery/selective reveal so it wouldn’t complicate the experience for most iPad users that do not need nor want more capability.
But I think that misses the point - the ease or difficulty of implementation does not drive strategy.
So those that are trying to tell Apple why they could add more advanced support without losing other users are probably overlooking the reality of how product decisions are made and resources are allocated inside most corporations - both tech and non-tech.
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On a more disappointing level, it looks like almost all the AI features are missing from the first developer beta.
This is the first time in many years that a lot of features are going to be rolled out later, even after initial product release.
IMHO, looks like the AI push has forced Apple to embrace a sprint-based development process and give up their annual waterfall releases they had clung to while everyone else had moved to more incremental continuous releases.
This is something that gets forgotten way, way too often in IT fields. Learning and remembering are dramatically different things.
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I’m in the minority, but I still think many our current devices will be replaced with simpler tech in the future.
Today we have AI becoming a useful tool and both T-Mobile and AT&T working on bringing satellite conductivity to “everyday cell phones”. That seems to be two important components of what one Apple executive called “a solid cloud computing device.”
This is not a new thing. Apple has been moving in this direction for the last several years. Take a look at the lists of “features coming later” in iOS 17 and Sonoma, for example.
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Somewhat suspect. How did it drop from 21% to 16% in one month? Did roughly a fourth of the users leave in a month??
At one time Big Tech controlled computer resources by putting them behind glass walls only touchable by high priests of computing. Then “personal computers” put the power in plain folks hands, right on the desktop. But the Big Tech conspiracy wanted their powers back and have pushed Cloud Computing and weakened personal devices upon us. Only time will tell the outcome. Will Big Tech win, or will there be a new generation of Gates and Jobs to stir things up?
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This mixes the development process, which may very well have been sprint based for quite some time, with the release process, which has not been. Only the latter is visible to outside observers.
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