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The iPad Is 5 Years Old This Week, But You Still Don't Need One
HughPickens.com writes: Five years ago, Steve Jobs introduced the iPad and insisted that it would do many things better than either a laptop or a smartphone. Will Oremus writes at Future Tense that by most standards, the iPad has been a success, and the tablet has indeed emerged as a third category of computing device. But there's another way of looking at the iPad. According to Oremus, Jobs was right to leave out the productivity features and go big on the simple tactile pleasure of holding the Internet in your hands.
But for all its popularity and appeal, the iPad never has quite cleared the bar Jobs set for it, which was to be "far better" at some key tasks than a laptop or a smartphone. The iPad may have been "far better" when it was first released, but smartphones have come a long way. The iPhone 6 and 6 Plus and their Android equivalents are now convenient enough for most mobile computing tasks that there's no need to carry around a tablet as well. That helps explain why iPad sales have plateaued, rather than continuing to ascend to the stratospheric levels of the iPhone. "The iPad remains an impressive machine. But it also remains a luxury item rather than a necessity," concludes Oremus. "Again, by most standards, it is a major success. Just not by the high standards that Jobs himself set for it five years ago."
But for all its popularity and appeal, the iPad never has quite cleared the bar Jobs set for it, which was to be "far better" at some key tasks than a laptop or a smartphone. The iPad may have been "far better" when it was first released, but smartphones have come a long way. The iPhone 6 and 6 Plus and their Android equivalents are now convenient enough for most mobile computing tasks that there's no need to carry around a tablet as well. That helps explain why iPad sales have plateaued, rather than continuing to ascend to the stratospheric levels of the iPhone. "The iPad remains an impressive machine. But it also remains a luxury item rather than a necessity," concludes Oremus. "Again, by most standards, it is a major success. Just not by the high standards that Jobs himself set for it five years ago."
Playing Angry Birds is much nicer on a larger screen, and DSLR remote shooting is also much easier with a large screen. With tablets being cheaper than smart phones, it is often a no brainer to just have one also.
Because I want to watch videos, view maps, view pictures, read stories, etc. on an itty bitty screen.
Tablets are perfect for quick, portable interaction with the internet...email, web, apps like weather, video, etc.
Phones work, too, but only in a pinch.
Tablets aren't to big. They aren't too small. They are juuust right.
Even if you still don't need one. That's why Apple gets to be the company with one of the highest net worths ever and posts the biggest corporate profits ever. I'm glad to have done my part. My wife's iPad sits next to her MacBook by the bed.
Stand by for Occupy Wall Street to protest obscene profits at Apple's headquarters, in three, two; uh nevermind.
"Now, I doubt any of you would prefer a rolled up newspaper as a weapon against a dictator or a criminal intruder."
"Just not by the high standards that Jobs himself set for it five years ago."
Jobs is dead, and Apple just announced the highest profit for a quarter for any company ever.
They're crying all the way to the bank. =p
A lot of us don't need powerful Core i whatever or AMD Phenom something or anothers.
Most of us could probably get buy with an ARM laptop running some oddball variant of Linux.
Most of us aren't going to because the experience sucks.
Even though my iPhone 6+ is plenty big, it's still not big enough and the form factor sucks for reading. Somehow 4:3 is really good for bashing out screeds on slashdot, reading reddit, facebook, writing email, etc. Not to mention specialized use cases like art creation tools and so forth.
Just because we don't *need* it doesn't mean that it's not worth buying. I love my iPad.
Non impediti ratione cogitationus.
Yes, Apple was only able to sell 21.4 million of these losers in three months. For how many companies would selling 24.1 million of something be cause for writing a negative story?
A smart phone isn't a necessity either. What is the point of this Article? Some people prefer using a tablet rather than a phone. Others don't.
agreed. gaming on the tablet is generally a much better experience over a phone, but with touchscreen laptops, and convertibles a standard tablet isnt for me. I had a kindle fire HD running CM but i found more and more it just sat collecting dust.
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
The portability is nice in the working environment in many situations. Running around 'the factory floor' with a laptop is too clumsy, and fab phones are still to small to view complicated interfaces. I'd like to see kiosks in more coffee shops and fast food places utilize tablets. Also when an intruder breaks into my home I find slugging them with a tablet would be far more effective than hurling a phone at them. I've used it as a snow shovel as well, imagine shoveling snow with a laptop or phone!
How come an iPad is a luxury, but a $700 smart phone isn't?
I make perfectly fine phone calls on my old RAZR 3
I am Slashdot. Are you Slashdot as well?
people replace phones every two years. you can keep an ipad at least twice as long. I have an ipad 2 i bought on launch day with a cracked screen that i plan to use for at least another two years if nothing else as a cheap ereader to carry tech books around.
i will probably buy a refurb ipad air 2 this year when the new version comes out and keep it another 4-5 years as well
Still miss my Asus 901 netbook- Linux, light and took a beating. Easy to travel with, could be used in tight space like plane seats, great battery life and possible to get some real work done. Sigh.
A client in the construction/demolition industry tells me that tablets are popular with those guys.
-kgj
I happen to be one of the people who admires many of Jobs' business decisions and ideas. But he was also known to "overshoot" reality at times, with expectations that went beyond what was reasonable.
I think he was desperately looking for solutions for a "post PC" world, where people would give up traditional computers, in exchange for a superior device. (After all, in the sci-fi "Star Trek" universe, nobody was carrying around a laptop computer, right? The computer was just built in to the environment so you could speak commands to it.)
I really like my iPad, especially since I started taking the train to and from work each day in a 1 hour long commute. It's the ideal device to read the news on, check email, waste time on Facebook, play a casual game or two on, etc. But it's really just a convenience item in the modern world. It's never been anything much more than a big version of Apple's smartphone, without the cellular voice call features.
...2 ipads, a google nexus 7....as well as an iPhone and Samsung Galaxy....
This is because of work, I would not throw away that much money away on tech toys....
And I can honestly say that tablets are kinda bleh....they come in handy when I have no pc, or if I want to read/watch something sitting on a couch somewhere comfortably...
Tbh when a pc/laptop is nearby I always opt to use it over tablets. It is just easier to work on that.
I would say I could live without any tablet. My smartphones however, I could not. And they could, in a pinch fill in for my tablets.
So I guess I agree with the article.
There will always be a market for tablets IMHO, but unless some new development comes along, I do not see them completely replacing computers in the home or office setting. Sure there will be a nice market for them (like for example instead of walking around with papers, clip board, check lists in a hospital setting it could be replaced by a tablet).
I have a 4th generation iPad, and I recently bought my first smart phone, an iPhone 6 Plus. The iPhone is a great device, I'm really glad to have it. But it's not as usable as the iPad. Mobile versions of web sites are usually less useful than desktop versions, and if I request the desktop version of a site on the iPhone, it's usually too small to read without a lot of panning and zooming. Reading things like books and magazines on the iPhone is also problematic.
The iPhone's only advantages over the iPad are (1) more portable, and (2) it's a phone. If I'm at home, I reach for the iPad for looking things up or sending emails. If I'm out, the iPhone is perfectly adequate, but not as pleasant for some tasks - but it's always with me. It's good to have both.
No sig? Sigh...
The first instance I can remember is the old palm top PC's like the HP 200LX. They ran desktop processors with desktop software. But the limitation was the screen and sometimes that required special software. Couple this with nonstandard connectors (no floppy drive, parallel port often required a port replicator) and the utility was limited. Plus rechargeable batteries were not quite mature yet. Next iteration of these gadgets was probably the PDA/Handheld PC. We sacrificed a lot of functionality, including desktop apps, for very little in return. Towards the end of the era of the PDA, some devices were really hampered by a lack of connectivity especially in the wireless field. You had a thing that ran sub-standard apps and had difficulty communicating with devices that ran real apps. Enter the smart phone, which started off life as a PDA and cell phone glued together. Again, applications were limiting and connectivity had almost disappeared except for the wireless bits. You had a card you could pop in and out. The (new) tablet fad continued this trend and abandoned connectivity all together except for wireless communications. It was more slick than the existing tablets which were real computers running real apps with real connectivity. But at the cost of real apps, real ports, and a real operating system. Years on, Microsoft, of all people, is perfecting the tablet form factor giving us our ports, a real OS, and real applications, which is just where we were 25 years ago. Apple is behind by pushing their big ol' iPod touch. But even Microsoft woke up to the fact that most people buy the following accessories with their new tablet: a keyboard and a stand. So we've reinvented the laptop yet again 25 years later only made it more inconvenient to use and more expensive.
Apple did well with what they did to the smart phone, even if that sub-human portion of me misses a physical keyboard. But the iPad is still not something you need when you're better served by a laptop that likely costs less.
I don't get all the sudden shitting on IPAD articles going around this week. You don't need it? It sucks? The Ipad is the best tablet you can buy. That's like not even an opinion at this point. It does what a tablet does better than its competitors. Price could be better, so lets shit on it for that. This is in the same link baiting category of news as console vs. pc, and laptops vs. desktops. Over and over again.
I myself had a few laptops. IBM thinkpad, that super thin light Dell of the mid 2000's, then I got an iPad. Instantly I was like, "no need for a laptop anymore," (I still had a desktop for power using and torrents) they're great. The iPad even got my mom into computers more than she ever was, internet shopping, email, imgur, etc. is all because of my first iPad. They're great devices, relatively affordable and pretty affordable on the used market. Enough people buy one every year and put them in cases that you can find super clean ones in great condition. I just think that iPads have done a lot more for kids and older parents and grandparents than any other computing device has done in the last 5 years.
The author is missing it completely. It all comes down to personal preference and tablet sales numbers speak for themselves. Although many tasks can be accomplished with a smart phone there are are still some things that a phone's relatively small screen is inadequate for. Personally I use my phone more for computing than phoning. To be honest IMO, performance wise, mobile phone communications are nothing more than a glorified walkie talkie. Dropped calls and generally poor performance without a good line of sight relegate smart phones as "a pretty smart walkie talkie", lol. Back to tabs, there are many sites that are simply not optimized to navigate well on a phone. Many times all it comes down to page layouts that work for a large screen are completely horrible on a small screen.
Tablets are useful for reading colored PDF files (e.g. research articles), for which eBook readers are not meant (better for breakable text).If I were to buy a tablet, I would foremost go for battery life, the most important feature for reading.
NB: The message above might reflect my opinion right now, but not necessarily tomorrow or next year.
I don't know who this Hugh Pickens guy is but I bet he's mostly a writer. So I guess he has to write something. So he wrote some stuff which is sorta correct, maybe, and sorta just using "ink" to fill space. It has all the expected characteristics of something placed on a line between two points. For some things it's too x and some things it's not x enough and for some things, it's just right, etc. Yawn.
And how does he know what Steve Jobs was expecting?
Can't speak for the iPad, because the only real interaction I had with one was a day with an iPad 2, which I found a bit heavy. Further, I really do dislike IOS and have since even abandoned my iPhone for a Nexus 5.
That all being said, I do use my Nexus 7 a lot. For me it is the perfect form factor. A 10" tablet is really too big, and my phone is on the smallish size. I pretty much do all my recreational reading, and a fairly large portion of my work-related reading on my Nexus 7, and it's small enough to be rather book-like in size, but large enough that it renders PDFs, ePubs and most web pages fairly well. I'm not going to get that readability out of a smartphone, and a 10" tablet or notebook is just too big.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Is that they don't become obsolete as fast? My mother still uses a iPad 2. I sold my iPad 4th generation to my wife's cousin, and she and I now both have an iPad Air 2. And to be honest, I just sold mine because I could, not because I needed to upgrade to the Air 2. I think the iPad 4th gen I sold will be OK for at least 2 more years. And it wouldn't surprise me if it will get an iOS 9 update. Moreover, it wouldn't surprise me if it will get an iOS 10 update as well.
Perl Programmer for hire
I have an Android tablet (which I'm using right now to enter this post) and an iPad. I've had both for years and I've done some development for them.
People DO use these things to be productive, but they are the exception rather than the norm. Part of the challenge is that even five years in our whole thinking about what an application should be has been shaped by thirty years of desktop and laptop devices. Anything that truly needs a keyboard (like writing this post) becomes cumbersome, even with something like Swype or SwiftKey. Pens suck, unless you're using a tablet with proper pen support (Note devices are great for this) but even then, most people don't currently need a pen.
It's not just the touch thing, though. It's really, really hard to build a good UI for a powerful app, even on a LARGE screen. To do so on a small screen without eliminating "power" features is almost impossible. And those power features are what people really need for productive work. They might only need 10% of them, but if the one they need is missing, that work has to wait until they can get to a larger device.
I don't think this is incurable, but it's hard to argue that writing a long essay on a 10" touch screen with no hardware keyboard is fun. I know people who use an 11" MacBook Air as their primary coding platform, but I know that I'm far more productive sitting at a desk with a properly-sized monitor and keyboard. (My MacBook Pro plugs in to those things if I have to use it for any extended period.)
Productivity is all about removing obstacles to task completion. From that perspective, tablets satisfy a very narrow slice of uses and fail miserably at the rest.
For non-productive tasks, though... I can sit on the couch and look up stuff while watching TV (for those few things I still watch on TV) and the tablet is far more portable for movie-watching, news reading, and light emailing than a laptop, without being as constricting as even the biggest phones are. I don't carry one everywhere but it's definitely one of the things I think of as I'm walking out the door. My kids love tablets (so I regulate their time on them) and being able to video chat with family is a slam dunk.
You don't NEED a tablet but they are useful. They make excellent primary computing devices for people who ONLY have light computing needs. My late 87-year-old grandmother-in-law couldn't use a computer all that well but she rocked on her iPad.
People are never as simple as their stereotypes. This applies equally to Christians, Muslims, and Emacs-lovers.
There's nothing that I use my iPad for that almost any other tablet would not do the job equally well, but no phone has a display that is big enough to comfortably view an entire letter-sized page at once. I tend to read a lot of technical books and articles, and panning around the page to look at various points is disruptive to the experience of understanding the content if there are any illustrations on the page that you need to be able to see while reading the accompanying text to have a clearer understanding of what is being discussed.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
The reason tablets haven't replaced conventional computers is that there are few compelling apps that rely on touch, and the ones that exist are for consumption only. All those commercials we saw in the early days of people doing creative things with esoteric hand motions... yeah, that didn't happen. Not the fault of the hardware, I think, but because those touch-centric content creation apps never really materialized.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
It is far better for video consumption and document reading. Which is what he was claiming it would be better at.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
I'd say many if not most people who have smartphones don't *need* them either. If you have a job that has you on the road constantly, working offsite, etc., then you may need one, but a dumbphone is perfectly sufficient for the average person. We've let companies with slick marketing campaigns convince us that we need a LOT of stuff we actually don't need.
iPad is awesome for reading comics. I have a Marvel Unlimited subscription and I read it on my ipad every night. It's way better then it would be on a phone or laptop.
I also prefer the ipad for causal games (tower defense, light turn based strategy, digital board games) MUCH better than the iphone or laptop.
I know people who have an iPad but not an smart phone or laptop.
I have been seeing a lot of pieces over the last few days interpreting the plateau as some sort of failure, which I find rather perplexing since what it probably represents is simple saturation and a good device lifespan.
There seems to be this almost pathological obsession with constant rapid growth and if something is not on the way to dominating it is somehow failing, usually based off people looking around at others like themselves and considering that the only 'market that matters'.
But in the real world there is more than one type of consumer, more than one use case, and as long as there is enough of a user base to keep production costs reasonable then the segment that is best served by tablets is served by them and the device succeeds. The only time this really breaks down is when the market is small enough that it pushes production prices up like we see with, say, monochrome cameras. The people they work well for love them, but there are not enough such people to keep costs reasonable, so they are commercial failures. On the other hand, DSLRs in general have not 'failed' even though they sit between cheap but goodish smartphone cameras and pricy but awesome MF backs, yet sales have more or less plateaued since they are not exactly 'replace every year' devices.
My iPad 2 makes for a great alarm clock with an air raid siren that's hard to ignore at 4:30AM.
My iPad is more portable than a laptop, but my iPhone is much better. My iPad is better for book-reading than phone or PC, but a Kindle beats it. If I'm in a hurry, I can post to a forum or answer email on it, but my laptop is better. There are a few games that I play on the iPad, but that just puts it in the "fun toy" category.
Slow down, cowboy! It has been 4 hours since you last posted. You must wait another few hours.
I carry a Lenovo Thinkpad Yoga for work, and it's so useful that my wife bought one to be her next 5+ year portable computer.
We need the capabilities of a full-featured computer. I don't want a light machine, I want a full machine. I want to be able to type when I need to type without having to haul around disconnected third-party accessories that I may lose.
She wanted an e-book reader, a movie player, a word processor, a spreadsheet, and something that she could run Visio and ANSYS and Autocad on, so that she could telecommute. The only thing we wish that the Yoga had was a 4G WWAN interface.
To me most tablets are toys, not business machines. I want a business-capable machine.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
It's about ownership and usage. I'd much prefer that my phone stay my phone and me not be doing work on it.
iPads (or tablets in general) are revolutionary as a tool to access data, they're not inherently private or secure, so they've got great prospects to convey data.
This is the same rehash/spin people have been blathering about since it came out.
Having just researched the market, battery life takes a back seat to at least a minimum level of durability. We passed on several tablets because they were just too flimsy for a frequent flyer.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
I don't need a smart phone or a laptop or any of the other gadgets that I do own. But my iPad is damned convenient and gets used every single day.
When I want to check my home energy monitoring system, I have it loaded in my iPad in less time that it would take to walk to my office, turn on my PC, wait for it to boot and login. (And no I don't keep my desktop PC in hibernate mode--I fully power it and all its accessories off to save electricity).
When I want to read a book, I'm not going to squint at a phone screen and certainly not going to wrestle with a laptop in bed or in the airplane seat.
When I want to watch DVRed shows, stream instant video or watch live TV that my wife isn't interested in, I use the Hulu, Amazon or Tivo app--where ever I happen to be. On our last vacation, we took the wife's iPad mini with us and streamed recorded shows from our Tivo at night before bedtime.
And yes, gaming too. Most of my gaming is on the iPad now. Strategy games like FTL, Carcasonne, Cataan, etc. are great on the tablet form factor.
So yes, the author is pedantically correct--I don't NEED a tablet. But guess what? Even at Apple's inflated prices, its a great value proposition.
Congratulations on being a useful idiot.
From the Occupy DC planning meeting of August 2012:
http://youtu.be/z-hc8BjlukI
Here's another one from their own organization meetings with a former NYT "reporter" saying how they don't want to "out themselves" by explicitly stating their goals of overthrowing capitalism.
http://youtu.be/Ogg5wZXyXVQ
http://youtu.be/em4btiNve4Q
"Now, I doubt any of you would prefer a rolled up newspaper as a weapon against a dictator or a criminal intruder."
I need my iPad. For me, it is excelling in a critical role that neither phones nor laptops can fill. As a performing musician, I post the iPad up on my mic stand, and the access to music and lyrics triples (or more) the range of songs I can play. Granted, my use case isn't the most common. But there are actually tons of musical performers, and IME they're increasingly turning to tablets to replace sheet music and chord charts.
Nothing posted to
And do we really need reprints of Slate articles?
It is also worth noting here that there is more to this market equation than *just* Tablet vs. Smartphone. Since Q4 2013, Non-Windows Tablets have surpassed the PC (Windows, Mac, Linux, ...) Quarterly Sales Figures. When one factors in devices like the Microsoft Surface, the Fujitsu Stylistic, Motion Computing, and various other Windows-Only brands, said lead of Tablet PC Devices grows further at the expense of traditional Desktops and Laptops.
One doesn't need to crush Cell Phones or even continue exponential growth to be successful in what Jobs described as the "Post PC World" as Oremus writes in his article. Apple secured for themselves what is effectively 35% of a wholly new market over the past 5 years, where they've previously only been selling 5m PCs a quarter. Other manufacturers like Samsung and Asus too have managed to secure quite large cuts of this new market, as have various "crapgadget" manufacturers for what it's worth. (PCs too have crapgadget manufacturers, so that doesn't feel too much like a new development)
The fact of the matter is that pressure from Android and iOS has pushed Microsoft to take some very exciting risks as of late, and as such are now looking like they may again be a legitimate competitor in both landscapes that are being increasingly pressured by the likes of ChromeOS, OS X, Linux, Android, iOS, Thin Clients, People staying behind on old versions of Windows and the like.
Thirty four characters live here.
To generalize this a little: ifI find myself stuck in line with no reading material, I can read another chapter of a novel on my phone (the Kindle app automatically syncs to my place in the book), but I defy anyone to read a textbook or fill out a tax form on the phone.
This story should have come from the "well-thats-not-very-exciting dept."!
Set your phasers on "funky"!
The iPad Is 5 Years Old This Week, But You Still Don't Need One
Who are you, Mr Headline, to tell me I don't need an iPad? I think most Slashdot readers are more than capable of making up their own minds on this one.
Here is one Slashdotter who does need his iPad.
Less op-ed clickbait, more actual news, please.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
if my ipad mini had the phone app, i would happily get rid of my iphone 6 plus (which i love by the way)
What you don't need is a PC. The majority of PC users don't do anything with their PC/laptop that can't be done with a tablet, and the experience on the tablet blows away the experience on a PC. Saying you don't need a tablet is like saying you don't need a cell phone 'cause your land line works just fine.
Garageband is iPads killer app
I bought an HTC Flyer about a year after it came out. I like my HTC phone, I liked the design of the tablet and its enclousure is still one of the best ever built. I mostly wanted to fiddle with it and programm a little for Android.
Turns out that I used it every day, for real work and leisure on the go. Calendar, docs, portable hotspot, reading, watching movies or short videolectures on the go, listening to music, audiobook, taking notes, playing games, etc. I'm since convinced of the feasibility of tablet computing.
I've recently decommisioned the HTC Flyer after more than 3 years of every-day full-scale use and bought myself a 10" Lenovo Yoga 2 Android with LTE module. Awesome device. Good enclosure, 9600milliamp battery, cost less than half of the inferiour iPad Air 2. It runs for 3+ days without charging and I plan to use it as my primary mobile computing device. Will carry my MacBook Air around less because of this I suspect.
As a result I'm using my 4,5 year old HTC Phone even less, which in turn means its battery runs even longer. On top of that, you can use the Yogas battery to charge your phone - that's a feature they (Ashton Kutcher) actually advertised on the Yogas first presentation.
There are pretty decent web IDEs and PHP environments for android out there.
My 2 cents.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
My Nexus 7 is used every day while the iPad is somewhere probably with a dead battery. The Mini seems to be a better size for reading, but it's just too large for anything other than a TV replacement.
Unless Android tablets have also plateaued or started to decline .. can you actually say we've reached "peak tablet"?
The people I know with tablets prefer them to a phone for the things they do with it.
A friend keeps his Nexus 7 on his sofa so that while he's watching TV if he sees something he wants to Google he has it handy. My mother in law uses her tablet for almost everything she'd use a computer for. I still get a lot of use from my Nexus 7 as well.
I admit, my Android tablet isn't a 'necessity', and may not get used daily .. for there's lots of situations in which it's what I'd prefer to bring with me. When I go on a trip, I bring my tablet because I can still check my email and the like.
Yes, you could use a phone for a lot of this stuff ... but unless you have stats showing that Android tablets are also slowing down, maybe they're just eating into the growth of iPads?
I know more than a few non-techies for whom their tablet is more important than their PC.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
It's the SMARTPHONE that's not the necessity. For >$80/mo given the data plan, I just don't need it. My iPad I pay for once, and can wifi from then on with it. When I need a mobile phone, I have a pay-as-you-go dumb cel phone that costs me $100/yr.
I've used it as a snow shovel as well, imagine shoveling snow with a laptop or phone!
A MacBook Air would make a great snow shovel. Have you seen the front edge? You could slice cheese with it.
Q: What does the "B." in Benoit B. Mandelbrot stand for? A: Benoit B. Mandelbrot
Why? iPads aren't anymore powerful than smartphone. Why would you need to replace your phone after 2 years but not your tablet?
.... = smart phone with bigger screen and bigger battery. better for reading on, better for browsing on, better for video calls, just less portable. Can slashdot please try harder at the apple trolling?
I run: Windows, OS X, Linux, FreeBSD. Just because you have a hammer, doesn't mean everything is a nail.
My partner loves her iPad, which she uses 99% of the time to play games she could be playing on a $60 Android tablet. Sigh.
I fell into the hype and bought the first iPad model. Soon after I realized its basically a media device and simple gaming platform. Although I admit at times I do see the iPad in enterprise and business. Its not what I would call a desktop or notebook replacement. More of a addition that seems to be looking for a real purpose then offering up real solutions.
So I have 2 comments. First I think Apple is a victim of its own success. Firs the tablets last a long time, and well they are the things I tell my very non-tech savvy relatives to buy. They have something that is working for a lot of people, so it’s hard to change or do anything too revolutionary because if you change it too much, you will alienate this huge base.
For me personally, I like the Surface 3 and that type of device. The power and freedom of a laptop, with the ability pull it off the doc and have a pretty good tablet. Sometimes you just need a freaking keyboard and mouse. Also I really like the freedom of the non-locked down tablet. I would be surprised if we don’t see a surface-esk ipad/macbook air in the future.
With most high-end phones having glued-in batteries now, after a couple years the battery is starting to go.
Most people don't use their tablets as much, so the battery lasts longer.
Bluetooth headset/handset and voice recognition would let you keep the tablet in a bag/rucksack/etc. and interact with it remotely.
This is my biggest problem with Android and iOS tablets. The operating systems are built assuming a tiny 4-5 inch screen. Once you have a 10 in screen, there's a whole lot more you could be doing with the device. They both pretty much limit you to a single app at a time. They are both missing key features like mounting network drives, or connecting to printer or other USB device (Android has support for a very limited number of devices). That is why I think the tablet is kind of a stop-gap device that will only be around for a few more years until ultra-mobile devices like the Surface Pro and Lenovo Yoga get a little cheaper so that most people can afford them. Why pay $500 for an iPad that can only do a small number of things if you could get a Surfrace Pro that can do so much more, while not actually increasing the weight or size of the device.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
Indeed.
Steve Jobs didn't envision in a "Post PC" world that the PC would be dead - he noted there will always be a PC, just that they would do things more suited to a PC than trying to clunkily adapt when forced into situations they were not designed for.
You have a smartphone, you have a tablet, and you have the PC. The deal is that each does stuff better than the others. What we used to do clumsily on PCs we did better with tablets and smartphones.
I mean, people like to watch TV away from the TV - pre-iPad, that meant having to watch on a laptop or a phone. The phone was too small, the laptop too big and heavy and uncomfortable.
Or read a book - you could use a Kindle which works, except when you need color Read it on your phone or laptop is not very appealing.
There is not one device that's perfect for all tasks. There are things a smartphone will do better than either a tablet or laptop. There are things a tablet will do better than a smartphone or laptop. And there are plenty of things a laptop will do better than a tablet or smartphone. Sure you can substitute one for the other, but the end result is often sub-par.
Jobs even did the mandatory car analogy - the PC is a truck - a very versatile vehicle that can do tons of things, but to be honest, there are times when a car is far better. And it's why we have a variety of vehicles out on the roads - each has their own place. Sure they could all be replaced with trucks, but the truck can be quite subpar in some respects over a car. Doesn't mean in a "post-truck" world you get rid of all trucks - no, that's stupid. It just means you now have vehicles more suited to different activities.
I bought a Moto G on sale, and I have a cheap cell plan with no data. Works fine 99% of the time.
Last year I bought...Best Buy Deal on iPad Mini = $200....Traded in PS3 for $150...Bought ClamCase Pro for $100 = $150 for Apple notebook which does word processing and spreadsheet which is all I need.
Care killed the cat, but satisfaction brought it back.
Got to admit I haven't looked at a Kindle in a while, but my Nook, which is several years old now, does color.
Of course, my Nook (and I'm pretty sure Kindle these days) is basically an Android Tablet when all is said and done....
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
Unlike smartphones and laptops, the iPad is nearly perfect:
Don't have to squint to see the pr0n, don't have to balance a laptop with one hand.
Just sayin'...
Playing Angry Birds is much nicer on a larger screen, and DSLR remote shooting is also much easier with a large screen. With tablets being cheaper than smart phones, it is often a no brainer to just have one also.
I agree. Traveling with a tablet, unless you need to do work, is so much easier than taking a laptop. Granted, you can get ultra portable laptops and Microsoft Surface that would be close to the same form factor and weight, but they cost much more. I love that I can watch a 3 hour movie on a plane and still have battery life left over to play games, etc.
Might I add that reading magazines like Car and Driver, Motorcycle, or any other graphics/photo heavy reading material is much nicer on a large tablet.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
My ipad is a great toilet reading device, good for when I want to stay occupied for a few minutes reading simple text only websites. Even then, it can barely do that at times. Anything longer or more multimedia rich seems to crash the piece of garbage. A 1MB gif on the page? Loads for 5 minutes and keeps resetting the screen position. Multiple images? Just kinda display them at random, and in random order. Youtube? More like powerpoint.
My shitty (ie. cheap) android tablet does web content way better, and my surface isn't even in the same running as them as it's not in the special Olympics.
You have a smartphone, you have a tablet, and you have the PC.
Except some people don't have the PC. Instead of engaging in productive activities that work better on a PC, they do without. One user predicted that this would happen in five years, but it's happening now.
the laptop too big and heavy and uncomfortable
Even a 10" laptop like the "netbooks" that were in fashion from 2008 to 2012?
Jobs even did the mandatory car analogy - the PC is a truck - a very versatile vehicle that can do tons of things, but to be honest, there are times when a car is far better.
To complete this analogy, someone who can use a car most of the time and only occasionally needs to do these "tons of things" can rent a truck, such as a moving truck from U-Haul or a pickup truck from The Home Depot. Is there a comparable PC rental ecosystem?
Of course, my Nook (and I'm pretty sure Kindle these days) is basically an Android Tablet when all is said and done....
True, Kindle Fire is a tablet running the Fire OS distribution of Android. But I think tlhIngan was contrasting tablets with the e-ink Kindle readers, which are more like the Nook Simple Touch.
I bought an iPad first generation not knowing what I would use it for. And indeed, I did not use it much after the first few days. That was until I started reading comic books and magazines on it. Admittedly, this is the only usage I have found for it and it is questionable just how "necessary" it is. I can also read magazines and comics on my laptop or desktop computers but the iPad format is somewhat better. There was a point when I played the strategy game Neuroshima on it but the recent versions run perfectly on smaller screens as well (iPhone 6).
Why pay $500 for an iPad that can only do a small number of things if you could get a Surfrace Pro that can do so much more
Because the Surface Pro 3 costs even more than an iPad Air, though a Transformer Book or Nextbook is cheaper. And there are plenty of applications that are on iOS but not Windows, such as games and messaging applications. If the game you want to play is exclusive to iOS, or the family member with whom you wish to communicate uses a proprietary instant messaging application that is available only for iOS, Android, and Windows Phone, then a Surface Pro isn't going to be the best choice.
A car, a job, a non-liquid diet.
But they're nice to have. So's my iPad.
and DSLR remote shooting is also much easier with a large screen
You have a tablet with a DSLR camera in it?
#naabhaprzrag, #sverubfr-000, #agi-fcbafberq, negvpyr[pynff*=' negvpyr-ary-'] { qvfcynl: abar !vzcbegnag; }
Hrm. I have the htc M8, a large gaming pc connected to 18tb, and a 50" tv mounted over the bed. I don't use my tablet at all, so I mounted it in the car as a car computer. I hardly ever use my notebook anymore, either.
My wife loves her iPad. She doesn't get on her laptop now unless she needs Firefox to access her work's website. For everything else, she uses the iPad. Shopping, watching movies, trip planning, and so on.
My parents can only use their iPads because they've never use a computer in their life. My mother will try to pinch and zoom on my computer monitor to make pictures bigger.
Do they need the latest iPad every time Apple comes out with a new one? Hell no. My father is perfectly happy on his iPad 3, he gets his news, Netflix, and DirecTV app. My mother is happy on her iPad 4 because she can watch Youtube, music, and looking up new recipes. My wife is fine with her iPad Air, and she's not getting a new one because I just bought that last year.
Only person without an iPad is me. I have no need for them, I get things done on my laptop or desktop. I don't need trimmed down apps, I do need full applications and a real keyboard.
Yes, the portability is a very good thing. Using a cover with a built-in Bluetooth keyboard, I mostly use it like a netbook that has a touch screen. The touch screen allows me to include simple drawings with my notes and provides easy (2D) navigation of PDF "prints" of complex diagrams. Some things, I still need a full laptop, but most meetings, the tablet is much more convenient.
Don't try to out wierd me, three-eyes. I get stranger things than you, free with my breakfast cereal. --Zaphod Beeblebr
I think millions and millions of tablets are used every day, but sales have peaked because the tablets people have already bought are still working fine.
yeah altuogh i have an android tablet it wont replace my laptop orpc but on occasion it replaces smartphone (some games.pdfdocs surfing* the web) *-i really like surfing notsailing not browsing ... surfing ;]
"DSLR remote shooting" makes me think it's a tablet connected wirelessly to a digital interchangeable-lens camera.
The problem comes when one of these iPad-only "many people" comes to need one of the many applications that is not available for the iPad. If he has only an iPad, there's the sticker shock of buying a whole new computer.
So it is natural to have a tablet to do the lazy battery consuming work, besides having a smart phone
No, they have an app like this, which allows them to view the DSLR's viewfinder on a tablet, control various settings, and take pictures. "DSLR remote shooting", in other words.
It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.
Later models of the Transformer run Windows desktop apps. See Transformer Book T100.
I skip each second generation. My mom has my last one, my nephew has my original one. I'm on a three and a half hour bus ride two days a week as I work with teams in two cities, and I love having my iPad. On Sunday night I watched "Princess Mononoke", played scrabble, briefed myself on project materials, laid out some slides for the CIO, and listened to Quirks and Quarks. When I got to the hotel I hijacked HDMI from the back of the hotel tv box, and watched Guardians of the Galaxy. Then I used Microsoft's excellent IOS RDP client to do some work I needed Windows for. I use the RSA software fob and Cisco AnyConnect to get on the corporate network. In short, my iPad meets nearly all of my regular needs. The only thing I wish is that iOS browsers were better supported by Confluence.
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Around 2008 when there was this all netbook craze I've owned E90x (the early one with 4GB+16GB flash storage). For the price and form factor it was OK but it had lots of flaws for me - slow processor (Atom @900MHz as I recall), small and slow storage (onboard 4GB was ok but the additional 16GB sucked) also I needed to plug wacky USB dongle to get 3G Internet acces which was inconviniently sticking out on the side. After few months I've given it to my mother so she could play Mahjong and got Lenovo S10...
Lenovo S10 - best netbook I owned EVER. I've modified it a little - swaped hard drive for slightly faster that I've got laying around, maxed out RAM, bought big-ass china made battery (biggest possible) and expresscard 3G modem that was sticking out just about 1cm on the side. I recall this was the best portable laptop I ever owned (this was pre tablet and pre ultrabook era) - enough power to run Linux decently (Atom @1600MHz, 2GB RAM), plenty of storage (fast 320GB HDD), great connectivity with 3G Internet, 9hr battery life (YES! 9 HOURS!), most of software I use ran localy and for work I was RDPing to my workstation anyway. And it also looked and feeled great reminiscent of ThinkPad industrial design (the later S10 editions were awful).
That was great laptop for that era (early 3G internet, pre-tablet, pre-ultrabook).
A friend of mine still uses it.
The ipad is overpriced, which was easy to get away with when there was no competition. Now that there's competition, apple continues to fail in the pricing game. Android will continue to eat Apple's lunch until they wake up and realize that trying to maintain this luxury image will kill them.
BeauHD. Worst editor since kdawson.
Nearly everyone of my colleagues bought one, fell in love it, realized its limitations and moved back to a phablet/laptop combo.
Nowadays I rarely see one in the wild. Not at coffee shops, not at planes, nor at work or university.
The exception seems to be elementary school when a lot of kids still use one. Even then many prefer an iPod because of portability factors.
Make calls is the only thing that a smartphone does better for me.
Again, for me, the only thing a tablet is better ar is battery life (and maybe portability, when compared to a laptop).
Basically everything, except phone calls and battery life.
I'm still using my Kindle Fire original for much the same reason. The 7" size is not too much bigger than trade paperback size, and it's small enough to tuck into my purse. Amazon keeps my book appetite easily stuffed, too, and it's honestly a good deal for authors who publish via Amazon. A friend of mine who is a novelist said she cleared $40K in three months after the release of her last book. And the royalty checks keep coming regularly, unlike all her traditionally published books where she's lucky to get a check once a year.
Occasionally living proof of the Ballmer peak.
'I don't like tablets and don't think you should either.'
In fact, I ditched my iPhone with expensive monthly plan and laptop for it. I'm down to an iPad and desktop, which covers just about every base I care about.
My iPad is a piece of shit. First and last apple product of mine.
That app is, indeed, for Canon EOS DSLRs-- the EOS M is pointedly non compatible. But it's the Live view that's displayed, not the viewfinder.
Laptops are also cheaper than smart phones. A low-priced touchscreen laptop will be about half the price of a large-screen phone. A dumb phone and a laptop gives you the most computing and screen size for the $$$. But just because you assert that to be the target doesn't mean anyone else sees it that way. The "real" benefit of the iPad is the walled garden. You can tether one to a desk. Put on a corporate app (perhaps for a reception/guest notification) and it's reasonably durable (vs a PC tablet, few of which will survive a worst-case drop 2-feet onto unpadded carpet), and if you need more, it's easy to get another identical one. Actually working on a phone is hard. Much less so on a screen 4x the size (in area, not diagonal). http://www.computerworld.com/a... about $500 for a "decent" touch-screen laptop.
Learn to love Alaska
for me.
Yay, you are unique. but that doesn't add anything to the conversation. Most professional photographers will tell you "the best camera there is, is the one you have with you." The camera on the phone is popular because it's always with you. That's the "value" in the phone. It's so small and convenient that you *always* have it with you.
the only thing a tablet is better ar is battery life
You must not have kids. Or friends. Most tablets can survive a drop from 3 feet onto unpadded outdoor carpet (the standard cheap office carpet, glued to hard concrete, with no padding). However, I've never seen a laptop survive that. Maybe the special ruggedized ones could, but they are always much more expensive and much slower.
Learn to love Alaska
iPad is a single-player device.
The one in my house displays a pop-up when shoes go on sale that my wife wants or whenever a commit hits any of my GitHub projects. Multiply that by about 50 installed apps and this quickly become a device that is not fun for anyone.
But sure, for business users and single people, it is just a big phone.
-- I was raised on the command line, bitch
You have a tablet with a DSLR camera in it?
No, I use the tablet with an app that controls the DSLR remotely. Great for astrophotography where you can sit indoors in comfort on a chilly night.
The only person I know who regularly uses an iPad is also a small plane pilot. It seems like a good solution for that environment. Easy enough to put on the passenger seat or to use in your lap to follow maps and update plans, slides into a backpack, etc. Mostly not being typed on, but you can when you want.
The mini is great for checking email, keeping up with the news, researching nearby attractions, restaurants, making reservations. Ultra-portable and not so valuable that one gets overly stressed out about losing it. Plus it is great for running a sound board while walking around the stage! http://www.yamahaproaudio.com/... I also find that the mini is comfortable to read from for long periods, and nice to hand around to people to show off a discovered web page without worrying they'll accidentally drop it.
As an experiment, make a list of every item you have, but do not need. Examine why you want the item.
I hate articles that leave me feeling like I just wasted 5 minutes of my life reading only to realize it says nothing beyond: "Publish or perish. I must write something."
I kind of want the opposite. I've got a big, capable laptop at home, and several computers at work. When I go out, though, I'm not going to do any real programming or make a presentation or things like that when I'm at a cafe with my wife, or sitting on the train home from work. I'll surf the web, read a paper or play games. A tablet lets me do that just fine.
A small, light laptop has too many compromises; little memory, slow CPU (that gets throttled after more than a few seconds at 100%), small screen and keyboard. And it's still much heavier than the Tablet Z I carry. The tablet is light and thin enough that I really don't notice it in my bag at all.
We're all hunting for the impossible: a matchbox-size computer with the power of a workstation and a 40" screen. Instead we have to compromise. And we all end up with different compromises. I've even thought of cancelling my smartphone and go back to a small, light feature-phone. It's cheaper, more durable and the battery lasts for a week. Use only the tablet for apps.
Trust the Computer. The Computer is your friend.
Actually there is one function a tablet is really good for and the only reason I am in the market for one. A better more interactive remote control for a big screen smart TV. The tablet provides the keypad, the track pad and the touch pad but as yet the interface between the two doesn't seem good enough yet.
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
I'd rather throw a heavy lappy, model M keyboard, etc. at the intruders. Those hurt. ;)
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
Each has its advantages, and despite having both an iPhone and an Android tablet, I am considering adding an iPad sometime in future, as well as a Windows 10 tablet at some point (the latter has to be dirt cheap just to handle some key apps not there on other platforms)
I don't have an iPhone 6 as yet, or else, I could use iPay, which is now supported by 3 of my credit cards. Aside from that, there are several apps on my iPhone 5 that are really useful - FaceTime, Vonage (for international calls), E*Trade (for my investment/banking needs), Costco, FlyDelta (since I'm a Skymiles member through AmEx), and music (since my car stereo system recognizes iPods, but not other music carriers, like a Windows Phone or an Android Phone).
However, there are some other things that I prefer doing on my Android tablet. Most notably, the Kindle app, for all my books. Then I use the various video apps - YouTube, Vevo, et al where the larger screen is preferable. I also do things like WebEx on that (although I found GoToMeeting was a big fail) However, my current tablet isn't upgradable to either Kitkat or Lollipop, which is why I'm considering an iPad as a replacement. I could still use the kindle, but this time, have a whole lot of other iPad apps, as well as FaceTime.
One thing I wish Apple would do would be to provide an ergonomic bluetooth keyboard companion to iOS devices - be it iPhone, iPad or iPod. Reason? It's a lot more convenient to type on that, as opposed to on a touchscreen. Just have the keyboard & bluetooth automatically enabled if one touches a part of an app that would take on into edit mode, and one can use it almost like a laptop. Once editing is done, save/post and exit, and resume using it as a touch device. Also, I wish Apple had a way of assigning non-iPhone phone#s to FaceTime devices that didn't use an iPhone, but instead used iPads.
Android - I think it is a useful phone OS, given that it has almost the same breadth of apps that iOS has, but not for a tablet. For a tablet, I'd prefer either the iPad, or a hybrid Windows 10 tablet that could also automatically transform into a notebook.
What is it you imagine you can do on a 10" netbook laptop that you can't do on a tablet paired with an external bluetooth keyboard?
Anything that requires multiple windows on screen at once. One example is using a calculator that doesn't fill the screen. Another example is putting a source code window on one half of the screen and the output window on the other half.
Or applications that Apple has not approved. One of them is programming for a class or a hobby. Last time I checked, programming on iOS was limited to a small selection of interpreters for dynamically typed scripting languages such as Codea (a Lua interpreter) and Pythonista (a Python interpreter). On a netbook, on the other hand, if I want to use C++, Java, Fortran, 6502 assembly language, or any other language, usable tools are a sudo apt-get install away.
(For the purposes of this post, I'm treating the ASUS Transformer Book, Surface Pro 3, and other Windows x86 tablets as laptops. My objection is not to the tablet form factor but to the restrictions inherent in iOS.)
A Windows laptop starts at $200 (source: hp.com) and should last at least four years if not physically mistreated. You may have to replace the rechargeable battery at the two-year mark, but I don't expect that to cost more than $60. How much does four years of cellular Internet access cost, let alone the EC2 or Azure subscription on top of that?
The display in my Dell Inspiron mini 1012 is even "worse" at 1024x600, yet 120 dpi doesn't cause a problem for my use cases. If you hate 16:9, think of it as two 8:9 windows side by side. And side by side is something you can do on a netbook or x86 tablet that you can't do on tablets that run a phone OS.
I carry an Ipad mini, dell venue 8 pro and macbook air in a cacoon backpack. Once I get to work the ipad mini comes out for music listen. I sleep away from home 3-days a week because of work. When I get to my hotel I'm on my ipad for viewing movies via plex, browsing the web or talking to the wife via facetime. I spend enough time on a pc at work as a developer.
There's Instagram, Vine and Snapchat clients for Windows
...Phone. I visited with Windows 8.1 and got these:
You can use the whatsapp web client on your device so long as you have the app on a smartphone to register.
From the Android download page: "Tablet devices are not supported". I have no smartphone. Is a smartphone still a luxury, or has it become a necessity?
And as I said you can run the Android apps in bluestacks.
Is BlueStacks based on Google Play or AOSP? Android distributions based on AOSP lack Google Play Store and thus cannot download Google Play Store-exclusive applications. In any case, it appears that BlueStacks is something that "everyone's gonna have to install" just as Flash Player and Java used to be; did I miss something in my assessment?
I carry a Lenovo Thinkpad Yoga for work, and it's so useful that my wife bought one to be her next 5+ year portable computer.
I bought a surface pro for work for the same reasons you bought your Thinkpad. When I need to do real work, I need a real computer. But at the same time I wanted the convenience of a tablet for when I needed it. The Surface has the power to be a real computer when I need it and uses standard office applications like microsoft office and has a real keyboard. Its great for taking notes in a meeting.
I tried to use a andoid tablet for this but found it next to useless for when I needed a real computer. I still use my android more than my Surface but now it has been mostly regulated to the role of a data display device. I use it to read ebooks and magazines on. Surf webpages and check email.
Tablets are good tools and have their place but we should never expect them to take the place of a âoereal computerâ when one is needed.
Supporting World Peace Through Nuclear Pacification
I got hooked on Macs and iPhones a while ago. I was never an iPad guy, but when the Air came around, it had the specs to appeal to me. I still resisted, then when the Air 2 came out, I had to treat myself. I love the fuck out of that thing. It's light and fast and lasts for ages and is glorious to look at. I actually have a Logitech bluetooth keyboard cover and there's very little I can't do with it, in terms of leisure and productivity. I'm hooked. Well played, Apple, well played.
for one thing, they actually can make phone calls now
Star Trek transporters are just 3d printers.
and DSLR remote shooting is also much easier with a large screen
You have a tablet with a DSLR camera in it?
I believe the OP was referring to a tethered set up.
Why pay $500 for an iPad that can only do a small number of things if you could get a Surfrace Pro that can do so much more, while not actually increasing the weight or size of the device
Actually there are several reasons. I have both a android tablet and a Surface Pro. I also have a android phone too. The Surface Pro is nice, it can serve as both a tablet and a laptop, but it has limitations where it can't perform ether goal as well as a dedicated machine of that type can. Still as good as the Surface Pro is there are simply several things that pads are better suited for.
There is cost. A Surface Pro can set you back between $900 and $1200 depending on features and accessories. A good pad can be had for as little as $150. A excellent pad can set you back around $500. Mine cost me right at 300 bucks.
Then there is battery life. A Surface has a battery life of around 4 hours. This is good for normal daily use for purposes that its best suited for. With 4 hours I can get in a several meetings worth of notes and power point presentations. I can even get some good office work done before I have to recharge. But when watching movies or reading a books 4 hours is pretty poor.
My android is rated at about 10 hours. Which means almost a full day of reading and watching movies without recharging. Normal use for my Surface requires me to recharge it daily, where with normal use of my android I can get between 2 and 3 days out of one charge.
Touch screen applications are generally better on the android than on the Surface. Application written for pads are written with touch screen interface in mind. Where lots of touch screen apps for the Surface seem to have touch screen added as an after thought. Most of the real powerful programs that you use on the Surface have no touch screen support even added.
While I'm on the subject of apps. There are simply some better applications for certain subject on the pads than there are on the Surface. Ebook readers for one. I have several ebook reads on my pad, nook, amazon, and some 3rd party apps. Without a doubt they are all better for reading ebooks than anything I have found on the Surface.
Same can be said about most small time apps like calendars and calculators. The fact that a great deal of the apps on my phone can also be used on my pad also is a good feature.
Then there is convenience. For certain tasks a pad, or a phone, is clearly more convenient than a Surface. If I want to listen to music on the go, most of the music apps for the phone and pad are much better designed for these purposes. For quick tasks like checking email, the weather, or the news a pad is clearly better. I can check any of these processes in a few seconds on a pad and be done before the Surface has even fully booted. I keep widgets on my lock screen for weather and news. I want to check, I pick it up and push the power button. The screen comes on instantly.
Finally there is weight. While the Surface pro is light compared to a laptop is down right heavy next to my pad. My pad weights next to nothing. The extra weight of the Surface doesn't matter when you're doing laptop work with it but it matters if you are trying to use it for a tablet. After a few minutes of holding it like I would when reading a book my hand gets tired. I've held my android pad for hours with out the same issue because it is light.
Supporting World Peace Through Nuclear Pacification
MINECRAFT. THAT IS ALL.
I use AniMoog, Auxy, Magellan, Alain iMPC, Little MIDI Machine, SampleWiz, Voice Synth, Camel Audio's Alchemy, SIDPAD, iVCS3, WOPR, SynthStation, Soundprism Pro, Arpeggiator Pro, Chordion, Easy Strum, Figure, Sunvox, PixiTracker, Reactable Mobile, Poly, Crystalline, Filtatron, Sequential, Elsa, Oscilab, nanoloop, TweakyBeat, boom 808, and other musical apps. These would be more cumbersome to use in a non-touch device. For this reason, I love the iPad, and I find it to be complementary to my laptop, which runs Ableton Live. Whoops, almost forgot to mention the most useful app, TouchOSC. It is a remote control app for Ableton, with seven built in functions for manipulating the Ableton environment. Love it, and purchasing that allowed me to gain functionality similar to a Liine Lemur without the associated $4000 expenditure for the Lemur hardware. In fact, Liine had to adjust their business model when the iPad started to erode sales for them. So overall I think I couldn't live without my iPad. I have an iPad 3 64Gb, and it suits me very well.
So what you're saying is that programmers need more than an iPad?
Agreed. And with programming classes becoming more widespread in high schools, a lot of parents will have to upgrade their kids from an iPad to at least a Raspberry Pi if not a full-scale PC.
I wouldn't want to program on a netbook either
This is where my taste differs. During freezing or wet weather, I ride public transit to and from work, and in my satchel I carry a 10" laptop on which to work on hobby programming projects.
I said "clients", which you wrongly inferred to mean getting them from the service provider.
I guess I made this mistake because WhatsApp has been fairly aggressive over the past week at blocking third-party clients, and I seem to remember that Snapchat "expressly prohibits" their use.
Watching video is also much better on a tablet. Easier on the eyeballs, for sure. A tablet is also a must if you're going to work on documents of any kind. Too bad that the Google Play Store doesn't make QuickOffice available for tablets.
the cost of my iPad 2 3G service is $15 a month.
How many MB per month is that? If unlimited, then where do you live? And how many MB per hour does RDP or VNC to the EC2 or Azure holding your IDE use?
On top of that, if you I've in an urban centre, you're probably well covered by WiFi anyway.
In my experience, Wi-Fi handoffs are not rapid enough for use while a passenger in a bus or other vehicle.
This is my biggest problem with Android and iOS tablets. The operating systems are built assuming a tiny 4-5 inch screen.
So your problem with the iPad is that you have never used one in your entire life.
Of course news about a fake are Fake News.
Read Slashdot.
(Typed from iPad on couch)