"If the "iPad Pro" goes the way of the Apple television and other heavily rumored, nonexistent products, it's unclear what else Apple may have on tap to reignite sales of its market leading tablet.
Five years after its launch, the iPad finds itself at a crossroads. But while the future of Apple's tablet is currently unclear, the iPad's astounding success remains indisputable."
Sounds pretty defeatist to me.
Force touch would be interesting on something as large as tablet. Very interesting. If they had that, and a digitizer on the large one while keeping it thin, That would be one hell of a new way of interacting with a product.
It think the way Apple thinks about files is fine. They just introduced it before clouds and exploded files/resources everywhere really occurred.
What apple wants is resources/files be tagged correctly and precisely (ideally automatically), they can be anywhere, on a variety of services (even Opendrive, Icloud, Google Drive, Dropbox, FB, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, Pinterest, Reddit, etc). A standard for tagging, various levels of discovery/privacy of internal data need to exist other than the hodge podge things various social media sites expose to the world. Right now, managing all this is an utter total mess. The problem is that all those players want people to spend all their times on these sites, put all their files there to resolve this mess (Apple is also culpable of this...).
If universal tagging/discovery existed you could just create views of those files/resources (these views, virtual containers) could then be accessed by applications/services. You could even create views of google searches That way, you'd always changing the original files/working on one coherent set of data automatically and would not have to keep track of the 50 variants across 10 files systems and 3 sites and back them all up manually. Having physical folders is THAT annoying. I know because I'Ve fot 10 TB of files at home and just keeping track/identifying them takes a LOT of time.
Such a system could even tell you if that photo your deleting on Pinterest is the only remaining version of this photo you have on any storage. Wonderful.
[QUOTE]What apple wants is resources/files be tagged correctly and precisely (ideally automatically), they can be anywhere, on a variety of services (even Opendrive, Icloud, Google Drive, Dropbox, FB, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, Pinterest, Reddit, etc). A standard for tagging, various levels of discovery/privacy of internal data need to exist other than the hodge podge things various social media sites expose to the world. Right now, managing all this is an utter total mess. The problem is that all those players want people to spend all their times on these sites, put all their files there to resolve this mess (Apple is also culpable of this...).[/QUOTE]
Absolutely agree! I've stated here many times in the past that the file system as we know it needs to be completely over-halled and eventually dissappear.
Ubiquitous, Open Meta data, both automatic and mandatory instead of simply naming, that is written to and stays with a file where ever it goes. Whether on your devices, clouds, webservices, or anything in the future, a file, regardless of what format it is, what software was used to create it, or even who created it, will be aware of those places and you will be able to retrieve it... even if you don't remember it's name or anything else about the file.
Example: a Pages document will automatically open all linked objects IF it can find them. Most of the time that means the objects must be in close proximity to the parent doc in the filing system. No longer. With meta data, the parent doc would have enough info to know where to search and find the child objects, even when that object is only "alive" on your Facebook or Pinterest account.
As for the iPad: yup... Apple simply made them too good to be a short term replaced product. I know probably more than 100 people I interact with within a month that use iPads and iPhones for everything and don't even own a computer (anymore). Many of those without a computer have a user account on one of my servers for backups. I don't see or hear from these people for months, most of the time not before I bug them to come into the studio for a backup. More than a few of these folks were PC clients in the past with monthly (weekly sometimes daily!) difficulties with there PCs and finding files was the most prevalent problems. The reason why most people's desktop or finder is a mess is just for this reason alone.
As far as I'm concerned, iPad and iOS is healthier than ever for Apple. It may not have hockey-stick growth curves in the near future to the detriment if investment speculators and analysts looking for a quick 'n easy buck, but for it's users and fans it can only get better by sticking to the plan. As with many of the widely respected "thinkers" in these forums, I also agree that this should be the year of Apple concentrating on the software that make's their beautiful hardware designs so desirable. Software is the next "growth and stabilisation" strategy and opportunity that Apple needs to fully lead in and exploit with it's powerful devices, user base and fans.
For a start - I would like to see them raise the minimum Memory from 16-GB to 32-GB. - without any price increase.
16-GB, simply suppresses the sales of apps, and contributes to making the entry-level iPad poorer value.
I think that Apple needs to provide stronger competition at the lower end.. While I know Apple don't do 'budget' devices.. This is constraining uptake..
ipads are reliable, elegant, slim, fast, you get updates right away (not depending on a chain of selling you spam/adds middle men like g**gle actually is), the app store is clean and safe, the quality of ALL the apps is simply supperior, you can use it for work and home, the hardware is simply outstanding including cpu, gpu, 64bit is there, the programming model is consistent and guess what, developers make an excellent buck on iOS.
For me this was a good article and not defeated or negative. It merely states some facts and put some thoughts around upgrade cycles for different hardware. The irony is the very people who say it is are actually being what they criticise the article for.
An iPad Pro isn't going to reignite sales, but a price drop definitely will. Apple has such great control of the supply chain they have room to drop the price and reach a whole new tier of customers.
MacPad Air - All the power of a MacBook Air and portability of an iPad...
My thoughts on slower sales is just people do not upgrade these as often. A better question is to see how many are still in use in the field. Compare that to other brands and I think a better picture will emerge.
I upgraded from an iPad mini 2 to the iPad Air 2, and I have to say this is the best iPad ever built. It's incredibly fast. The 2 gigs of ram really helps. Very light (almost as light as the iPad mini) Touch ID works great. That being said I wish it had true stylus support for taking notes and markups. I've used lots of stylus including some of the "smart" stylus and they pretty much all suck.
Maybe if the next iPad has force touch they will come out with a proper stylus that works.
The new surface 3 is definitely going to be something I look into. It looks like it might get the work/consumption balance right.
Not true, the Bamboo Stylus Fineline is absolutely fantastic. So much so that I actually prefer using it with my Surface Pro 3 instead of the included Stylus. It's great, try one, works with the iPad, Android devices and Windows.
Absolutely agree! I've stated here many times in the past that the file system as we know it needs to be completely over-halled and eventually dissappear.
Ubiquitous, Open Meta data, both automatic and mandatory instead of simply naming, that is written to and stays with a file where ever it goes. Whether on your devices, clouds, webservices, or anything in the future, a file, regardless of what format it is, what software was used to create it, or even who created it, will be aware of those places and you will be able to retrieve it... even if you don't remember it's name or anything else about the file.
Example: a Pages document will automatically open all linked objects IF it can find them. Most of the time that means the objects must be in close proximity to the parent doc in the filing system. No longer. With meta data, the parent doc would have enough info to know where to search and find the child objects, even when that object is only "alive" on your Facebook or Pinterest account.
As for the iPad: yup... Apple simply made them too good to be a short term replaced product. I know probably more than 100 people I interact with within a month that use iPads and iPhones for everything and don't even own a computer (anymore). Many of those without a computer have a user account on one of my servers for backups. I don't see or hear from these people for months, most of the time not before I bug them to come into the studio for a backup. More than a few of these folks were PC clients in the past with monthly (weekly sometimes daily!) difficulties with there PCs and finding files was the most prevalent problems. The reason why most people's desktop or finder is a mess is just for this reason alone.
As far as I'm concerned, iPad and iOS is healthier than ever for Apple. It may not have hockey-stick growth curves in the near future to the detriment if investment speculators and analysts looking for a quick 'n easy buck, but for it's users and fans it can only get better by sticking to the plan. As with many of the widely respected "thinkers" in these forums, I also agree that this should be the year of Apple concentrating on the software that make's their beautiful hardware designs so desirable. Software is the next "growth and stabilisation" strategy and opportunity that Apple needs to fully lead in and exploit with it's powerful devices, user base and fans.
The iPad or I should say iOS still needs a lot more work in my opinion. First and foremost, iOS needs to able to run multiple apps in the background and not just those select few, it's really about time. Better inter-app communication, when the Share function is selected every app that is installed on the system that understands the apps protocols your sharing from need to appear and not just those that were hardcoded into the app. Example, when I install the Box cloud storage client I want to see it listed under every app when I click Share. I want to be able to select my own default apps, I don't use any of Apples included apps, Apple Mail, I now use MS Outlook, Facetime, not all of my friends and family have an Apple product, so we use BBM and Skype, same thing goes with Safari, I use different platforms so I need a browser that is available on all of those platforms so I can retrieve my links and saved info, I use Opera and Chrome. The fast system toggles needs the ability to add and remove items. Why do I have to log into every Apple service separately, in Android, BB OS, Windows I log in once and than the mail, massaging, etc. are all available but this falls under inter-app communication. File management, sorry but I can't stand that files are saved under each individual app, I want them in one place under a folder called Home where other sub-folders exist for Movies, Music, Documents, etc. This makes finding, backing up, sending, etc. my files a whole lot easier. I've actually created a script in the terminal that copies every file that is created under the 40 plus app folders into the single, old but tried paradigm, Home directory as it still exists under the BSD shell. There is still lots to be done with iOS as far as I'm concerned, these things might not concern you or even the majority but it defiantly does for me. So until a lot of things are addressed I will continue to only use my iPads (I have to own more than one so I can run multiple apps at once) for music creation. Which is fine as it's great for that task but for everything else I still prefer using an Android or Windows tablets.
Wow! What a pleasant surprise seeing your post! I've been quite busy of late and don't participate as often as I used to, but I do quick scan of the posts and comments and haven't seen you in a while. I hope this finds you in much better health(!)... happiness has always been seen as a given with you. With that said, let's get to raising your blood-pressure...
(a) The iPad or I should say iOS still needs a lot more work in my opinion. (b) First and foremost, iOS needs to able to run multiple apps in the background and not just those select few, it's really about time.
a) isn't that true of all software platforms? I don't think there's a perfect OS on the planet. Some are better than others... and others have such glaring holes and/or bugs that their good/superior points get shoved to the side. iOS happens to be very good with just aboutt everything it "claims" to be able to do... and not much else. That seems to be your main complaint.
b) I expect this to happen soon. The A9 will "likely" be more powerful than an Intel M core as far as I'm willing to go into the subject that I'm surely no expert at. Also the Apple graphics engine will probably also keep pace and rocket to another 50% increase of speed and processing power. Although that's just guessing on my part, I think any combination will allow more apps to run concurrently... with of course your pet-peeve of more RAM being available
Better inter-app communication, when the Share function is selected every app that is installed on the system that understands the apps protocols your sharing from need to appear and not just those that were hardcoded into the app. Example, when I install the Box cloud storage client I want to see it listed under every app when I click Share. I want to be able to select my own default apps, I don't use any of Apples included apps, Apple Mail, I now use MS Outlook, Facetime, not all of my friends and family have an Apple product, so we use BBM and Skype, same thing goes with Safari, I use different platforms so I need a browser that is available on all of those platforms so I can retrieve my links and saved info, I use Opera and Chrome. The fast system toggles needs the ability to add and remove items. Why do I have to log into every Apple service separately, in Android, BB OS, Windows I log in once and than the mail, massaging, etc. are all available but this falls under inter-app communication.
Better inter-app communication AND select my own default apps. One at a time please.
I agree with better interapp-comm and I think it is coming. However it is the app/service providers that will have to code their apps as extensions as well as standalone apps.
Apple allowing the setting of default apps might be tricky... and I'm guessing that it's low on their list of priorities. Just because some platforms allow it, doesn't necessarily make it an absolute necessity. Nothing is stopping you from using Outlook, Skype or BBM on an iOS now.... it's just not integrated well.... possibly because the services haven't written an extension yet(?)
File management, sorry but I can't stand that files are saved under each individual app, I want them in one place under a folder called Home where other sub-folders exist for Movies, Music, Documents, etc. This makes finding, backing up, sending, etc. my files a whole lot easier. I've actually created a script in the terminal that copies every file that is created under the 40 plus app folders into the single, old but tried paradigm, Home directory as it still exists under the BSD shell. There is still lots to be done with iOS as far as I'm concerned, these things might not concern you or even the majority but it defiantly does for me.
File management happens to be one of my largest tech interests of late when I have the time. Me personally... I want a completely new way of management, and it has nothing to do with physical folders. You, me and a large number of tech folks are organized after years of experience collecting and filing because we have to be efficient. The average user: not so much... if at all.
Any person doing tech support will tell you that the average persons desktop is on average a cluttered mess. What does that tell you? It tells me that people don't know how to a) make aliases; and b) they are afraid that if they file something (away!) that they'll have difficulty finding it again, meaning: they don't utilize desktop search. You don't know how many hours I've observed people in person or even on tech casts drilling down in folder hierarchies looking for something... and thinking: there MUST be a better way. There actually is, but again.... most people aren't using it or even know what it does and how it can help: meta tagging.
I've written detailed posts here in the past, and if you care about my view you can possibly find them. To summarize though, it's going to take an Apple (or MS) to take a leap and ditch the folder system completely. Oh! Apple already has with iOS. Incredible, but again "on average" it appears that millions of people are enjoying the idea of not needing to "organize" their work/data physically, and it's just always there in the apps that they would expect them to be.
No import, no folder structure that often gets messy itself over time. No. Just as an example, every picture that you've ever taken or saved to a device when you open Photos. That's as easy and user-friendly as it gets. It does hamper 30+ years of experience we techies have in organization, but we are an ever smaller slice of the tech-user pie.
* Note on tagging: just because "folders" are not physically being used... doesn't mean that they can't be represented by folder icons AKA Smart Folders in a tagged loose-pile of data. Think albums, collections, and projects.
** Note on search: the one main reason that Google was able to take over web search in such a short period of time is because it was simple: a search box, and then a list of relevant results. Fast. Efficient. User-friendly. Granted the patented algorithm did add to better results. What Google killed was "directory searches" that were at the time the most prevalent at Yahoo, Alta Vista, Excite, etc. Basically: meta data kicked folder structure to the curb.
Another interesting observation on my part, and I'd love to get statistics on this(!)... is that I large majority of my clients both professional and Average Joe, use Google search to go to their favorite websites every day. No bookmarks, no address bar, just "Google it, and it's normally the first link" is what I hear over and over.
I can only guess that there's millions of people that use the web to get to their daily destinations every day by "Googling it". So I don't believe that I'm "theorizing too far" if that was the way that many people would find far more user-friendly to get to their data/projects, whether on their devices or using a cloud service. Also... both Apple (Spotlight) and Microsoft desktop search is seeing a lot of development and resources over the last couple of years. Microsoft even has went so far as to make it a headline feature with 8.0-8.1 and I expect to remain with 10 (to the derision, condescension and hate from their very own fans!). Spotlight is now in Yosemite front and center rather than "pushed to the side".
I expect both Apple and MS are creating the first steps towards obfuscating the desktop as we know it in the future. At which time Apple OSX will probably be the first mainstream OS to move to the ZFS filing system; which some of us have been waiting for quite awhile already.
So until a lot of things are addressed I will continue to only use my iPads (I have to own more than one so I can run multiple apps at once) for music creation.
Which is fine as it's great for that task but for everything else I still prefer using an Android or Windows tablets.
Heretic portion of post: I recently pulled my old Nexus 7 (first gen) from the shelf and updated it to 5.2. Pretty amazed that it works and it's as far as I can tell, faster and far more stable than previous versions. Loks good too(!) Which is causing me to consider getting a (WARNING! All Fanboys close your eyes or stop reading here!) Galaxy 6 or maybe the coming Note 4 to play with. I expect either/or to be quite popular here in Germany and I should know something about it when I run across clients using one or the other. I'm a mini tech-head in comparison to you... but I like to stay informed and always be available to my clients as the resident genius (even when I'm not one)
Take care... sorry for the long post... nice hearing from ya.... and again I hope your having a healthy and great Springtime!!!
Wow! What a pleasant surprise seeing your post! I've been quite busy of late and don't participate as often as I used to, but I do quick scan of the posts and comments and haven't seen you in a while. I hope this finds you in much better health(!)... happiness has always been seen as a given with you. With that said, let's get to raising your blood-pressure...
Thank you for the kind words. I don't come here much as often as I used to because I'm back home. To much to do in such little time. Though I still take it easy and only do the things that my body allows. I have been driving a whole lot, I don't know if you read one of my earlier posts but my entire familiy pitched in to get my '71 Porsche Targa completey refurbished down to the frame, I mean you can eat off of it. The engine was also replaced with an S type of the same year and now produces a little over 260Bhp. Super fun to drive and is now my favorite thing to play with. Even got a new stereo to boot.
a) isn't that true of all software platforms? I don't think there's a perfect OS on the planet. Some are better than others... and others have such glaring holes and/or bugs that their good/superior points get shoved to the side. iOS happens to be very good with just about everything it "claims" to be able to do... and not much else. That seems to be your main complaint.
Your absolutly right, it just makes me mad that I have this really good tablet that can't do what I've always thought to be the very basics in a modern OS. I had to buy three iPads because I wanted to run three different music apps to create live music. I alread have a wonderful DAW and editing software that surpasses anything a mobile platform can achomplish. What I need is an additional brain for my midi keyboard, a beat machine and something to play the main melody. I know the iPad can easily handle it to, I think Apple is afraid of loosing that appearance of speed and potential battery life. Fine, than just make it a feature you can turn off and on, have a changeble limiter to adjust the amount of apps that can be ran in the background.
It drives me absolutly batty when I'm logged into one of my servers via a terminal app only to have the session terminated when I need to check my email. You know those DJ apps, love them, I get to create my own mixes but I can't listen to those mixes and say surf at the same time, why not, iTunes works. It's just fustrating that's all, iOS can be so much more than what it's offering now[/quote]
b) I expect this to happen soon. The A9 will "likely" be more powerful than an Intel M core as far as I'm willing to go into the subject that I'm surely no expert at. Also the Apple graphics engine will probably also keep pace and rocket to another 50% increase of speed and processing power. Although that's just guessing on my part, I think any combination will allow more apps to run concurrently... with of course your pet-peeve of more RAM being available
I'm really happy Apple finially upped the RAM to 2GB, something that should have been done years ago. I'm hoping for even more RAM though in the future, at least 3GB, would like to see 4GB in the iPad Pro.
Better inter-app communication AND select my own default apps. One at a time please.
I agree with better interapp-comm and I think it is coming. However it is the app/service providers that will have to code their apps as extensions as well as standalone apps.
Apple allowing the setting of default apps might be tricky... and I'm guessing that it's low on their list of priorities. Just because some platforms allow it, doesn't necessarily make it an absolute necessity. Nothing is stopping you from using Outlook, Skype or BBM on an iOS now.... it's just not integrated well.... possibly because the services haven't written an extension yet(?)
This really needs to be fixed I don't want to have to use iCloud for everythng. I expect and reasonable so, that if I install something, every app that understands the app in questions protocols should be listed in the share list. If this violates the walled garden scenario than a set of API's need to be in place in which these apps can communicate better with each other. Hardcoding which apps are allowed to be shared with is not only sloppy but inconsistant. I trully believe Apple gives to much responsibilities to the individual app, look at how iOS handles external displays, it's one of the most inconsistant experiances. The desktop appears as one resolution, this app another and so on and so on.
File management happens to be one of my largest tech interests of late when I have the time. Me personally... I want a completely new way of management, and it has nothing to do with physical folders. You, me and a large number of tech folks are organized after years of experience collecting and filing because we have to be efficient. The average user: not so much... if at all.
Any person doing tech support will tell you that the average persons desktop is on average a cluttered mess. What does that tell you? It tells me that people don't know how to a) make aliases; and b) they are afraid that if they file something (away!) that they'll have difficulty finding it again, meaning: they don't utilize desktop search. You don't know how many hours I've observed people in person or even on tech casts railling down in folder hierarchies looking for something... and thinking: there MUST be a better way. There actually is, but again.... most people aren't using it or even know what it does and how it can help: meta tagging.
I honestly don't care how Apple does it as long as I see all of my files under a single view and am able to easily copy them back and forth to an external USB device, cloud storage service, FTP and NAS. I know there are finially third party file managers that do some of this but the files are still thrown every which way. I don't want to see 30 different app names in a long list in which I have to navigate into, well that is if I can remember which app created the file I'm looking for, than copy it over. I want all Documents under a single pane regardless of which app created it, all videos under another, etc. The way it is now reminds me of those consumers who have a cluttered desktop and filing system.
portion of post: I recently pulled my old Nexus 7 (first gen) from the shelf and updated it to 5.2. Pretty amazed that it works and it's as far as I can tell, faster and far more stable than previous versions. Loks good too(!) Which is causing me to consider getting a (WARNING! All Fanboys close your eyes or stop reading here!) Galaxy 6 or maybe the coming Note 4 to play with. I expect either/or to be quite popular here in Germany and I should know something about it when I run across clients using one or the other. I'm a mini tech-head in comparison to you... but I like to stay informed and always be available to my clients as the resident genius (even when I'm not one)
Take care... sorry for the long post... nice hearing from ya.... and again I hope your having a healthy and great Springtime!!!
You should always get what makes you happy regardless of what others say. I really like Android 5.2, in a lot of ways it's better than iOS, especially stability. I don't know what has changed in iOS but I have a few apps that just refuse to stay up, despite everything I could think of to keep them running. I have yet to see an app crash on my Nexus 9 or Nvidia Shield Tablet. Both of which by the way are pretty fantastic tablets if your also thinking about getting an Android tablet. Also look at the new Sony Z4, very cool. If you decide on a Samsung do yourself a favour and install CynogenMod 12, it's a fantastic Android system and very close to vanilla. Not only will you always have the latest builds but it runs a lot better than TouchWiz, just faster and smoother across the board. I recently bought an Oppo R5 (just for goofing around on) after seeing just how thin it was and installed CM 12 on it. You also have control over things like CPU/GPU speed which helps with games and other CPU intensive apps.
Thank you for the nice post, have a wonderful day.
Comments
But it would need to come with a very good palm rejection system.
"If the "iPad Pro" goes the way of the Apple television and other heavily rumored, nonexistent products, it's unclear what else Apple may have on tap to reignite sales of its market leading tablet.
Five years after its launch, the iPad finds itself at a crossroads. But while the future of Apple's tablet is currently unclear, the iPad's astounding success remains indisputable."
Sounds pretty defeatist to me.
Force touch would be interesting on something as large as tablet. Very interesting. If they had that, and a digitizer on the large one while keeping it thin, That would be one hell of a new way of interacting with a product.
It think the way Apple thinks about files is fine. They just introduced it before clouds and exploded files/resources everywhere really occurred.
What apple wants is resources/files be tagged correctly and precisely (ideally automatically), they can be anywhere, on a variety of services (even Opendrive, Icloud, Google Drive, Dropbox, FB, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, Pinterest, Reddit, etc). A standard for tagging, various levels of discovery/privacy of internal data need to exist other than the hodge podge things various social media sites expose to the world. Right now, managing all this is an utter total mess. The problem is that all those players want people to spend all their times on these sites, put all their files there to resolve this mess (Apple is also culpable of this...).
If universal tagging/discovery existed you could just create views of those files/resources (these views, virtual containers) could then be accessed by applications/services. You could even create views of google searches That way, you'd always changing the original files/working on one coherent set of data automatically and would not have to keep track of the 50 variants across 10 files systems and 3 sites and back them all up manually. Having physical folders is THAT annoying. I know because I'Ve fot 10 TB of files at home and just keeping track/identifying them takes a LOT of time.
Such a system could even tell you if that photo your deleting on Pinterest is the only remaining version of this photo you have on any storage. Wonderful.
Absolutely agree! I've stated here many times in the past that the file system as we know it needs to be completely over-halled and eventually dissappear.
Ubiquitous, Open Meta data, both automatic and mandatory instead of simply naming, that is written to and stays with a file where ever it goes. Whether on your devices, clouds, webservices, or anything in the future, a file, regardless of what format it is, what software was used to create it, or even who created it, will be aware of those places and you will be able to retrieve it... even if you don't remember it's name or anything else about the file.
Example: a Pages document will automatically open all linked objects IF it can find them. Most of the time that means the objects must be in close proximity to the parent doc in the filing system. No longer. With meta data, the parent doc would have enough info to know where to search and find the child objects, even when that object is only "alive" on your Facebook or Pinterest account.
As for the iPad: yup... Apple simply made them too good to be a short term replaced product. I know probably more than 100 people I interact with within a month that use iPads and iPhones for everything and don't even own a computer (anymore). Many of those without a computer have a user account on one of my servers for backups. I don't see or hear from these people for months, most of the time not before I bug them to come into the studio for a backup. More than a few of these folks were PC clients in the past with monthly (weekly sometimes daily!) difficulties with there PCs and finding files was the most prevalent problems. The reason why most people's desktop or finder is a mess is just for this reason alone.
As far as I'm concerned, iPad and iOS is healthier than ever for Apple. It may not have hockey-stick growth curves in the near future to the detriment if investment speculators and analysts looking for a quick 'n easy buck, but for it's users and fans it can only get better by sticking to the plan. As with many of the widely respected "thinkers" in these forums, I also agree that this should be the year of Apple concentrating on the software that make's their beautiful hardware designs so desirable. Software is the next "growth and stabilisation" strategy and opportunity that Apple needs to fully lead in and exploit with it's powerful devices, user base and fans.
For a start - I would like to see them raise the minimum Memory from 16-GB to 32-GB.
- without any price increase.
16-GB, simply suppresses the sales of apps, and contributes to making the entry-level iPad poorer value.
I think that Apple needs to provide stronger competition at the lower end..
While I know Apple don't do 'budget' devices.. This is constraining uptake..
MacPad Air - All the power of a MacBook Air and portability of an iPad...
My thoughts on slower sales is just people do not upgrade these as often. A better question is to see how many are still in use in the field. Compare that to other brands and I think a better picture will emerge.
I would much like new iPads to offer wired ethernet adapter connection!
Perhaps the rumored USB-C port will solve my insomnia;-P
Not true, the Bamboo Stylus Fineline is absolutely fantastic. So much so that I actually prefer using it with my Surface Pro 3 instead of the included Stylus. It's great, try one, works with the iPad, Android devices and Windows.
It works now, just buy the Apple USB to Ethernet connection kit, Apple Lightning to USB Camera Adapter and your in business.
The iPad or I should say iOS still needs a lot more work in my opinion. First and foremost, iOS needs to able to run multiple apps in the background and not just those select few, it's really about time. Better inter-app communication, when the Share function is selected every app that is installed on the system that understands the apps protocols your sharing from need to appear and not just those that were hardcoded into the app. Example, when I install the Box cloud storage client I want to see it listed under every app when I click Share. I want to be able to select my own default apps, I don't use any of Apples included apps, Apple Mail, I now use MS Outlook, Facetime, not all of my friends and family have an Apple product, so we use BBM and Skype, same thing goes with Safari, I use different platforms so I need a browser that is available on all of those platforms so I can retrieve my links and saved info, I use Opera and Chrome. The fast system toggles needs the ability to add and remove items. Why do I have to log into every Apple service separately, in Android, BB OS, Windows I log in once and than the mail, massaging, etc. are all available but this falls under inter-app communication. File management, sorry but I can't stand that files are saved under each individual app, I want them in one place under a folder called Home where other sub-folders exist for Movies, Music, Documents, etc. This makes finding, backing up, sending, etc. my files a whole lot easier. I've actually created a script in the terminal that copies every file that is created under the 40 plus app folders into the single, old but tried paradigm, Home directory as it still exists under the BSD shell. There is still lots to be done with iOS as far as I'm concerned, these things might not concern you or even the majority but it defiantly does for me. So until a lot of things are addressed I will continue to only use my iPads (I have to own more than one so I can run multiple apps at once) for music creation. Which is fine as it's great for that task but for everything else I still prefer using an Android or Windows tablets.
a) isn't that true of all software platforms? I don't think there's a perfect OS on the planet. Some are better than others... and others have such glaring holes and/or bugs that their good/superior points get shoved to the side. iOS happens to be very good with just aboutt everything it "claims" to be able to do... and not much else. That seems to be your main complaint.
b) I expect this to happen soon. The A9 will "likely" be more powerful than an Intel M core as far as I'm willing to go into the subject that I'm surely no expert at. Also the Apple graphics engine will probably also keep pace and rocket to another 50% increase of speed and processing power. Although that's just guessing on my part, I think any combination will allow more apps to run concurrently... with of course your pet-peeve of more RAM being available
Better inter-app communication AND select my own default apps. One at a time please.
I agree with better interapp-comm and I think it is coming. However it is the app/service providers that will have to code their apps as extensions as well as standalone apps.
Apple allowing the setting of default apps might be tricky... and I'm guessing that it's low on their list of priorities. Just because some platforms allow it, doesn't necessarily make it an absolute necessity. Nothing is stopping you from using Outlook, Skype or BBM on an iOS now.... it's just not integrated well.... possibly because the services haven't written an extension yet(?)
File management happens to be one of my largest tech interests of late when I have the time. Me personally... I want a completely new way of management, and it has nothing to do with physical folders. You, me and a large number of tech folks are organized after years of experience collecting and filing because we have to be efficient. The average user: not so much... if at all.
Any person doing tech support will tell you that the average persons desktop is on average a cluttered mess. What does that tell you? It tells me that people don't know how to a) make aliases; and b) they are afraid that if they file something (away!) that they'll have difficulty finding it again, meaning: they don't utilize desktop search. You don't know how many hours I've observed people in person or even on tech casts drilling down in folder hierarchies looking for something... and thinking: there MUST be a better way. There actually is, but again.... most people aren't using it or even know what it does and how it can help: meta tagging.
I've written detailed posts here in the past, and if you care about my view you can possibly find them. To summarize though, it's going to take an Apple (or MS) to take a leap and ditch the folder system completely. Oh! Apple already has with iOS. Incredible, but again "on average" it appears that millions of people are enjoying the idea of not needing to "organize" their work/data physically, and it's just always there in the apps that they would expect them to be.
No import, no folder structure that often gets messy itself over time. No. Just as an example, every picture that you've ever taken or saved to a device when you open Photos. That's as easy and user-friendly as it gets. It does hamper 30+ years of experience we techies have in organization, but we are an ever smaller slice of the tech-user pie.
* Note on tagging: just because "folders" are not physically being used... doesn't mean that they can't be represented by folder icons AKA Smart Folders in a tagged loose-pile of data. Think albums, collections, and projects.
** Note on search: the one main reason that Google was able to take over web search in such a short period of time is because it was simple: a search box, and then a list of relevant results. Fast. Efficient. User-friendly. Granted the patented algorithm did add to better results. What Google killed was "directory searches" that were at the time the most prevalent at Yahoo, Alta Vista, Excite, etc. Basically: meta data kicked folder structure to the curb.
Another interesting observation on my part, and I'd love to get statistics on this(!)... is that I large majority of my clients both professional and Average Joe, use Google search to go to their favorite websites every day. No bookmarks, no address bar, just "Google it, and it's normally the first link" is what I hear over and over.
I can only guess that there's millions of people that use the web to get to their daily destinations every day by "Googling it". So I don't believe that I'm "theorizing too far" if that was the way that many people would find far more user-friendly to get to their data/projects, whether on their devices or using a cloud service. Also... both Apple (Spotlight) and Microsoft desktop search is seeing a lot of development and resources over the last couple of years. Microsoft even has went so far as to make it a headline feature with 8.0-8.1 and I expect to remain with 10 (to the derision, condescension and hate from their very own fans!). Spotlight is now in Yosemite front and center rather than "pushed to the side".
I expect both Apple and MS are creating the first steps towards obfuscating the desktop as we know it in the future. At which time Apple OSX will probably be the first mainstream OS to move to the ZFS filing system; which some of us have been waiting for quite awhile already.
Heretic portion of post: I recently pulled my old Nexus 7 (first gen) from the shelf and updated it to 5.2. Pretty amazed that it works and it's as far as I can tell, faster and far more stable than previous versions. Loks good too(!) Which is causing me to consider getting a (WARNING! All Fanboys close your eyes or stop reading here!) Galaxy 6 or maybe the coming Note 4 to play with. I expect either/or to be quite popular here in Germany and I should know something about it when I run across clients using one or the other. I'm a mini tech-head in comparison to you... but I like to stay informed and always be available to my clients as the resident genius (even when I'm not one)
Take care... sorry for the long post... nice hearing from ya.... and again I hope your having a healthy and great Springtime!!!
Thank you for the kind words. I don't come here much as often as I used to because I'm back home. To much to do in such little time. Though I still take it easy and only do the things that my body allows. I have been driving a whole lot, I don't know if you read one of my earlier posts but my entire familiy pitched in to get my '71 Porsche Targa completey refurbished down to the frame, I mean you can eat off of it. The engine was also replaced with an S type of the same year and now produces a little over 260Bhp. Super fun to drive and is now my favorite thing to play with. Even got a new stereo to boot.
Your absolutly right, it just makes me mad that I have this really good tablet that can't do what I've always thought to be the very basics in a modern OS. I had to buy three iPads because I wanted to run three different music apps to create live music. I alread have a wonderful DAW and editing software that surpasses anything a mobile platform can achomplish. What I need is an additional brain for my midi keyboard, a beat machine and something to play the main melody. I know the iPad can easily handle it to, I think Apple is afraid of loosing that appearance of speed and potential battery life. Fine, than just make it a feature you can turn off and on, have a changeble limiter to adjust the amount of apps that can be ran in the background.
It drives me absolutly batty when I'm logged into one of my servers via a terminal app only to have the session terminated when I need to check my email. You know those DJ apps, love them, I get to create my own mixes but I can't listen to those mixes and say surf at the same time, why not, iTunes works. It's just fustrating that's all, iOS can be so much more than what it's offering now[/quote]
I'm really happy Apple finially upped the RAM to 2GB, something that should have been done years ago. I'm hoping for even more RAM though in the future, at least 3GB, would like to see 4GB in the iPad Pro.
This really needs to be fixed I don't want to have to use iCloud for everythng. I expect and reasonable so, that if I install something, every app that understands the app in questions protocols should be listed in the share list. If this violates the walled garden scenario than a set of API's need to be in place in which these apps can communicate better with each other. Hardcoding which apps are allowed to be shared with is not only sloppy but inconsistant. I trully believe Apple gives to much responsibilities to the individual app, look at how iOS handles external displays, it's one of the most inconsistant experiances. The desktop appears as one resolution, this app another and so on and so on.
I honestly don't care how Apple does it as long as I see all of my files under a single view and am able to easily copy them back and forth to an external USB device, cloud storage service, FTP and NAS. I know there are finially third party file managers that do some of this but the files are still thrown every which way. I don't want to see 30 different app names in a long list in which I have to navigate into, well that is if I can remember which app created the file I'm looking for, than copy it over. I want all Documents under a single pane regardless of which app created it, all videos under another, etc. The way it is now reminds me of those consumers who have a cluttered desktop and filing system.
You should always get what makes you happy regardless of what others say. I really like Android 5.2, in a lot of ways it's better than iOS, especially stability. I don't know what has changed in iOS but I have a few apps that just refuse to stay up, despite everything I could think of to keep them running. I have yet to see an app crash on my Nexus 9 or Nvidia Shield Tablet. Both of which by the way are pretty fantastic tablets if your also thinking about getting an Android tablet. Also look at the new Sony Z4, very cool. If you decide on a Samsung do yourself a favour and install CynogenMod 12, it's a fantastic Android system and very close to vanilla. Not only will you always have the latest builds but it runs a lot better than TouchWiz, just faster and smoother across the board. I recently bought an Oppo R5 (just for goofing around on) after seeing just how thin it was and installed CM 12 on it. You also have control over things like CPU/GPU speed which helps with games and other CPU intensive apps.
Thank you for the nice post, have a wonderful day.