Following the rollout to over 11,000 iPads to the 2018 freshman class, Ohio State University has started to see the benefits of their ambitious program including improvements in grades, higher campus engagement, and the eventual savings of millions of dollars for students.
* * * "This unique program will give students access to the incredible learning tools on iPad, as well as Apple's new coding curriculum that teaches critical skills for jobs in some of the country's fastest-growing sectors," Apple CEO Tim Cook said at the time." I'm thrilled the broader central Ohio community will also have access to coding opportunities through Ohio State's new iOS Design Lab."
One of the things OSU students use the iPad Pros for is coding...
While Apple's Swift Playgrounds App for the iPad is good for teaching concepts and incidental coding, IMO it is not very good for actual code development...
IMO, the iPad Pro would be great for [heavy-lifting] code development if it could run Xcode with an external keyboard/trackpad case.
How to accomplish that brings up an interesting dichotomy:
Should Xcode be ported to the iPod Pro (if it isn't already running there)?
Should macOS be ported to the iPod Pro (if it isn't already running there)?
...typin' this on my iMac 5K, while listening' to David Bromberg singing "I like to sleep late in the morning" in stereo on paired HomePods... Nice!
The only coding related app and workflow that I've found to work reasonably well on the iPad is Pythonista. Running a "heavy lifting" XCode, Visual Studio, or Eclipse style software development app on the iPad Pro would be very regressive and widely spurned by serious programmers, in my opinion. Multi-monitor support, massive storage, massive memory, and lots of cores are must have features for nearly all serious programmers.
It’s hard to imagine Apple abandoning the name ‘MacBook Air.’ It has such a positive history and recognition for Apple. It is a great marketing tool no matter what the actual hardware might be.
It’s hard to imagine Apple abandoning the name ‘MacBook Air.’ It has such a positive history and recognition for Apple. It is a great marketing tool no matter what the actual hardware might be.
While i I know this puts me in the minority I’m really hoping that Apple has ARM based Mac Books and Minis in the wings. The Mini because I will never buy the current iMacs and the Mac Prois stupidly expensive for my needs.
Apple has 90% of a ARM based Mac Mini built...it's called the Apple TV.
So far we have seen no indication that they want to let us use either the aTV or iPad as a full laptop replacement or home server.
That doesn't mean they never will but makes it real real unlikely in 2018.
Hum. Are you suggesting the aTV might run some version of macOS, and add a few USB ports for a mouse and keyboard? Intriguing.
I've often found myself wishing for a very basic version of macOS. While the current version has lots of features I'm sure appeal to many, I long ago decided there were many things it could do that I didn't ever need or want. Somewhere in the systems prefs, a pane that has a list of features with a toggle: on/off.
While i I know this puts me in the minority I’m really hoping that Apple has ARM based Mac Books and Minis in the wings. The Mini because I will never buy the current iMacs and the Mac Prois stupidly expensive for my needs.
Apple has 90% of a ARM based Mac Mini built...it's called the Apple TV.
So far we have seen no indication that they want to let us use either the aTV or iPad as a full laptop replacement or home server.
That doesn't mean they never will but makes it real real unlikely in 2018.
Hum. Are you suggesting the aTV might run some version of macOS, and add a few USB ports for a mouse and keyboard? Intriguing.
I've often found myself wishing for a very basic version of macOS. While the current version has lots of features I'm sure appeal to many, I long ago decided there were many things it could do that I didn't ever need or want. Somewhere in the systems prefs, a pane that has a list of features with a toggle: on/off.
It is near certainty they have a version of MacOS that runs on ARM.
aTV 4K has an A10X which is speedy enough to run the MacOS. You can already attach a USB keyboard to it so adding a mouse is pretty trivial. It already can support 4K.
Add a 2TB Fusion Drive to that package and it'd be nice little Home Server capable of local storage of media, backups, etc.
Put an A12 in there and it should be able to run the iPad version of Photoshop, iMovie, LumaFusion etc to edit photos, movies, and so forth.
There's a bunch of reasons ($$$) why they wouldn't want to go this route but very few technical ones.
Both of these are based on assumptions that Apple is incapable of updating Lightning to support USB 3.x (Lightning currently supports USB 2.x), which his much more important than supporting USB-C. USB-C is just a physical port.
Apple could reveal Lightning 2.0 that splits the 8 contacts into 16 (allowing for more data lanes, i.e. higher bandwidth), but also make it backwards compatible with Lightning 1.0. (similar physical connector and port). Anyone who needed USB-C would simply buy an adapter. iPad is the best selling tablet on the market, Apple is not going to give up Lightning licensing revenue - 3rd parties will support and pay for it just as they always have.
I think you're correct about USB-C being on the charger end of the cable and Lightning being enhanced on the device.
I expect Lightning to be able to carry USB 3 speeds and that to be supported by Apple's custom chips in new devices (the hardware in this year's iPhones might already be capable of this?). Remember that the Lightning connector is "soft" in that it configures its pins once it has identified the currently connected device (so it doesn't need to remain reversible once it's connected); it already supports the power protocol usually used over USB-C so it can exploit higher-power chargers.
While i I know this puts me in the minority I’m really hoping that Apple has ARM based Mac Books and Minis in the wings. The Mini because I will never buy the current iMacs and the Mac Prois stupidly expensive for my needs.
Apple has 90% of a ARM based Mac Mini built...it's called the Apple TV.
So far we have seen no indication that they want to let us use either the aTV or iPad as a full laptop replacement or home server.
That doesn't mean they never will but makes it real real unlikely in 2018.
Hum. Are you suggesting the aTV might run some version of macOS, and add a few USB ports for a mouse and keyboard? Intriguing.
I've often found myself wishing for a very basic version of macOS. While the current version has lots of features I'm sure appeal to many, I long ago decided there were many things it could do that I didn't ever need or want. Somewhere in the systems prefs, a pane that has a list of features with a toggle: on/off.
It is near certainty they have a version of MacOS that runs on ARM.
aTV 4K has an A10X which is speedy enough to run the MacOS. You can already attach a USB keyboard to it so adding a mouse is pretty trivial. It already can support 4K.
Add a 2TB Fusion Drive to that package and it'd be nice little Home Server capable of local storage of media, backups, etc.
Put an A12 in there and it should be able to run the iPad version of Photoshop, iMovie, LumaFusion etc to edit photos, movies, and so forth.
There's a bunch of reasons ($$$) why they wouldn't want to go this route but very few technical ones.
While i I know this puts me in the minority I’m really hoping that Apple has ARM based Mac Books and Minis in the wings. The Mini because I will never buy the current iMacs and the Mac Prois stupidly expensive for my needs.
Apple has 90% of a ARM based Mac Mini built...it's called the Apple TV.
So far we have seen no indication that they want to let us use either the aTV or iPad as a full laptop replacement or home server.
That doesn't mean they never will but makes it real real unlikely in 2018.
Hum. Are you suggesting the aTV might run some version of macOS, and add a few USB ports for a mouse and keyboard? Intriguing.
I've often found myself wishing for a very basic version of macOS. While the current version has lots of features I'm sure appeal to many, I long ago decided there were many things it could do that I didn't ever need or want. Somewhere in the systems prefs, a pane that has a list of features with a toggle: on/off.
It is near certainty they have a version of MacOS that runs on ARM.
aTV 4K has an A10X which is speedy enough to run the MacOS. You can already attach a USB keyboard to it so adding a mouse is pretty trivial. It already can support 4K.
Add a 2TB Fusion Drive to that package and it'd be nice little Home Server capable of local storage of media, backups, etc.
Put an A12 in there and it should be able to run the iPad version of Photoshop, iMovie, LumaFusion etc to edit photos, movies, and so forth.
There's a bunch of reasons ($$$) why they wouldn't want to go this route but very few technical ones.
All that software is designed for touch, for one.
No, The pocket sized mobile hardware was designed for touch. But, the software was derived from MacOS where, like the file system, the cursor was stripped out because it was not needed on a pocket sized mobile hardware device. The OS wasn't "designed for touch" the hardware was.
Would a sufficiently more powerful iPad mean we might get a sufficiently more capable iOS for that iPad? One hopes (and no, I don’t mean taking a step backward with mouse support and an MsDos file system).
ADDING mouse support would be a step forward not backward. It would remove the constraints that block the iPad from being what Apple promised it to be: a real computer. It will be there in time. It's when, not if.
It is a real computer. As is my iPhone. different form factors have different use cases and merely being different (a touch-based tablet) doesn’t make it not a computer. Nonsense.
Not if you have to do "real" work on it -- rather than merely playing Fortnite or FaceBooking on it.
I teach high school science and have been using the 12.9" iPad Pro as my only computer for the past 3 years. I would grant you that the first couple of years with it was very frustrating at times as I tried to adjust my workflow making it very difficult to do 'real' work. But with the introduction of iOS 11 things got a whole lot better. Like orders of magnitude better. It is far closer to be doing what most people need (even for their professional uses) than you may think. I personally am really interested in what this new beast of an iPad is going to be able to do as I am itching to upgrade. I do have to say, if you are looking for something to simply replace what you are currently using and want little to no disruption to your workflow, then I agree that you will be disappointed. But if you allow yourself to re-imagine how you do things, you may find that the frustration of making this transition really begin to pay off. I for one am not sure I will ever need a Mac again...
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I've often found myself wishing for a very basic version of macOS. While the current version has lots of features I'm sure appeal to many, I long ago decided there were many things it could do that I didn't ever need or want. Somewhere in the systems prefs, a pane that has a list of features with a toggle: on/off.
aTV 4K has an A10X which is speedy enough to run the MacOS. You can already attach a USB keyboard to it so adding a mouse is pretty trivial. It already can support 4K.
Add a 2TB Fusion Drive to that package and it'd be nice little Home Server capable of local storage of media, backups, etc.
Put an A12 in there and it should be able to run the iPad version of Photoshop, iMovie, LumaFusion etc to edit photos, movies, and so forth.
There's a bunch of reasons ($$$) why they wouldn't want to go this route but very few technical ones.
I expect Lightning to be able to carry USB 3 speeds and that to be supported by Apple's custom chips in new devices (the hardware in this year's iPhones might already be capable of this?). Remember that the Lightning connector is "soft" in that it configures its pins once it has identified the currently connected device (so it doesn't need to remain reversible once it's connected); it already supports the power protocol usually used over USB-C so it can exploit higher-power chargers.