Here are the five biggest iPad Pro problems, because no device is perfect

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• Reply 1 of 124

  luxuriant Posts: 36member

  November 17, 2018 4:30PM

  You seem to need a laptop.

  

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• Reply 2 of 124

  luisfrocha Posts: 43member

  November 17, 2018 4:48PM

  Baby steps. In my opinion, this is all prep work for moving the Mac line away from Intel processors, but at the same time, trying to see what works with consumers and what doesn’t. I do agree, though, that prices have escalated too much. Why would one want a fully-specced iPad Pro (with all its limits) for practically the same price as a full-fledged MacBook Pro (without the iPad’s limts)?

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• Reply 3 of 124

  georgie01 Posts: 437member

  November 17, 2018 4:52PM

  Apart from that, having a trackpad or mouse is another fundamental requirement to making a computer a computer, as it's much quicker and easier to navigate and move files around. There are so many things on a computer that are tough to accomplish with touch controls alone.

  To me this is classic problem people have shifting their computing perspective to see the iPad as a real computer replacement. It’s sort of like switching between automobiles—you don’t say the Hyundai Elantra is not a ‘full’ car because you can’t accelerate to pass other cars as quickly as a McLaren P1. Instead you adapt your driving style to compensate for the differences, which inherently means accepting and adapting to limitations. Undoubtedly if everyone grew up driving a McLaren P1 people would resist the Hyundai Elantra as a ‘real’ car, saying you can’t do this or that with it.

  I’m not meaning to say you can do everything on an iPad, but you also can’t do everything on a ‘full’ computer. But that doesn’t make either less of a real computing device. I can’t write this post on my computer because I’d never casually take my MacBook Pro as I’m out and about. If everyone grew up with iPads and didn’t know anything about desktop/laptop computers, we’d undoubtedly think they were too cumbersome and overly complex to accomplish most tasks.

  

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• Reply 4 of 124

  mplsp Posts: 4,101member

  November 17, 2018 4:56PM

  luxuriant said:

  You seem to need a laptop.

  That's the problem - Apple is pushing the iPad as a 'real' computer that is capable of replacing a laptop, and it is priced higher than many laptops, so people are expecting it to perform as such.

  

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• Reply 5 of 124

  retrogusto Posts: 1,155member

  November 17, 2018 5:04PM

  Apparently it also stops working if you bend it more than about 30 degrees. 

  

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• Reply 6 of 124

  georgebmac Posts: 11,421member

  November 17, 2018 5:20PM

  georgie01 said:

  Apart from that, having a trackpad or mouse is another fundamental requirement to making a computer a computer, as it's much quicker and easier to navigate and move files around. There are so many things on a computer that are tough to accomplish with touch controls alone.

  To me this is classic problem people have shifting their computing perspective to see the iPad as a real computer replacement. It’s sort of like switching between automobiles—you don’t say the Hyundai Elantra is not a ‘full’ car because you can’t accelerate to pass other cars as quickly as a McLaren P1. Instead you adapt your driving style to compensate for the differences, which inherently means accepting and adapting to limitations. Undoubtedly if everyone grew up driving a McLaren P1 people would resist the Hyundai Elantra as a ‘real’ car, saying you can’t do this or that with it.

  I’m not meaning to say you can do everything on an iPad, but you also can’t do everything on a ‘full’ computer. But that doesn’t make either less of a real computing device. I can’t write this post on my computer because I’d never casually take my MacBook Pro as I’m out and about. If everyone grew up with iPads and didn’t know anything about desktop/laptop computers, we’d undoubtedly think they were too cumbersome and overly complex to accomplish most tasks.

  That's a NO from me:   I have no desire to squeeze and modify my requirements to fit Apple's products.  If I can perform them better for less $ on a Lenovo I will do so.  
  
  While you are quite correct that we may not miss the laptop form factor if we had never seen it, for many tasks, it is superior to performing them on even the most capable tablet.  And I for one am not willing to go backwards.
  

  

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• Reply 7 of 124

  outdoorappdeveloper Posts: 1,293member

  November 17, 2018 5:34PM

  A locked down operating system like iOS is perfect for consumers but it is useless for professional users. Apple is all about telling users what they need. They are actually surprisingly good at it. Unfortunately that entire business model falls apart when you consider the professional market. Professionals are not interested in what Apple or any other company thinks is best for them. They need to do actual work and complete tasks. Let's say that one of those tasks is to scan the local network to determine what devices are attached. If iOS prevents apps from seeing the actual MAC addresses of those devices then the iPad Pro becomes useless to professionals that need to do that. This is just one example but iOS is full of limitations like that which are entirely created by Apple. Apple should either produce a professional version of iOS or allow any iOS device to be put into "pro" mode with fewer protections but no restrictions on how that device can be used. It should allow users to side load apps, access all of the hardware via the SDK without limitations and do anything the owners of those devices need to do. Only then can Apple call a device "Pro" and target professional users.

  edited November 2018

  

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• Reply 8 of 124

  entropys Posts: 4,415member

  November 17, 2018 7:09PM

  It should just work. If you have to do a work around, the concept is compromised. Then add the escalating prices on anyone wanting anything other than base config. Well, TBH the base config has no doubt impressive margins already, so it is galling. Like far too many Apple products, the iPad Pro has become too expensive to recommend.
  
  i honestly can’t recommend the iPad Pro. Very regretfully. The basic iPad with the old pencil, with its stupid charging solution, is the iPad I have had my workplace switch to from iPad pros. The constant war I have with the Apple Hating IT department to have iPads at all, means I really don’t need the extra lead in the saddle bag of the iPad Pro price. Actually, rather than lead in the saddle bag, maybe it’s plutonium in the saddle bag. Apple product prices is always the first weapon IT use against my use case.
  
  Then IT moves to file management arguments (I have no answer here), and connectivity to local printers and presentation hardware. The day Surface comes with built in GPS it’s game over.

  edited November 2018

  

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• Reply 9 of 124

  mcdave Posts: 1,927member

  November 17, 2018 7:21PM

  IOS has shortcomings for sure but to run back to tired and, in many cases, fraught solutions from the 80s isn’t what I’d expect from AI or Apple.
  
  Yes, the files app needs more advanced control around file localisation (and renaming, bulk copying & moving) but to run back to plugging in HDDs or Flash drives isn’t moving ahead in information management.
  
  Yes, running all photo imports via Photos is nonsense & double-handling and inefficient.  They shouldn’t  just add another “drive” for people to complain about and not move forward but an API to allow access from other Apps for Cloud service ingestion?  And get rid of the location: “on my iPad/iPhone”.
  
  Adding RAM serves a purpose. If that purpose is already met, don’t add RAM.
  
  If I hear another “where’s the mouse” article, I’m going to scream, iOS should never have a mouse.  I really don’t get the external screen, I just don’t.
  
  The industry is packed with clueless attempts at Touch with MS dipping their toe in an Samsung running back to a desktop config with DeX.  I really hope Apple doesn’t become one of them but they’d better come up with some big .1 iOS ‘fixes’

  edited November 2018

  

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• Reply 10 of 124

  mac_128 Posts: 3,454member

  November 17, 2018 7:22PM

  georgie01 said:

  Apart from that, having a trackpad or mouse is another fundamental requirement to making a computer a computer, as it's much quicker and easier to navigate and move files around. There are so many things on a computer that are tough to accomplish with touch controls alone.

  To me this is classic problem people have shifting their computing perspective to see the iPad as a real computer replacement. It’s sort of like switching between automobiles—you don’t say the Hyundai Elantra is not a ‘full’ car because you can’t accelerate to pass other cars as quickly as a McLaren P1. Instead you adapt your driving style to compensate for the differences, which inherently means accepting and adapting to limitations. Undoubtedly if everyone grew up driving a McLaren P1 people would resist the Hyundai Elantra as a ‘real’ car, saying you can’t do this or that with it.

  I’m not meaning to say you can do everything on an iPad, but you also can’t do everything on a ‘full’ computer. But that doesn’t make either less of a real computing device. I can’t write this post on my computer because I’d never casually take my MacBook Pro as I’m out and about. If everyone grew up with iPads and didn’t know anything about desktop/laptop computers, we’d undoubtedly think they were too cumbersome and overly complex to accomplish most tasks.

  With respect to the mouse, it’s not a matter of perception, it’s about real ergonomic productivity impact. Apple is marketing and selling the iPad with an attached keyboard to operate in a manner similar to a MacBook. Ironically, Apple has said it won’t make a MacBook with a touch screen because it doesn’t make sense for the customer to lift their hands off the keyboard. Yet this is exactly what Apple requires on the iPad hybrid. Moreover, even in touching the screen, it doesn’t allow for fine edit controls with fingers, and adding the Pencil to the equation is even more ridiculous, as that now requires not only lifting ones hands off the keyboard but picking up and putting down a Pencil, which while in use has no physical support to help control the finely tuned maneuvers it otherwise makes possible (as when using it on a flat surface).
  
  When adding external monitor mirroring, the whole thing falls apart completely as the customer then not only has to take their hands off the keyboard, but also their eyes off the monitor, and basically return to the iPad for navigation. So Apple has all but created a Mac replacement, except for the ability to navigate the screen without taking ones hands and eyes off the accessories which use with the iPad is being marketed and sold. It just makes no sense, and is fairly hypocritical vis-a-vis Apple’s position on touchscreen Macs.

  edited November 2018

  

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• Reply 11 of 124

  mcdave Posts: 1,927member

  November 17, 2018 7:26PM

  OutdoorAppDeveloper said:

  A locked down operating system like iOS is perfect for consumers but it is useless for professional users. Apple is all about telling users what they need. They are actually surprisingly good at it. Unfortunately that entire business model falls apart when you consider the professional market. Professionals are not interested in what Apple or any other company thinks is best for them. They need to do actual work and complete tasks. Let's say that one of those tasks is to scan the local network to determine what devices are attached. If iOS prevents apps from seeing the actual MAC addresses of those devices then the iPad Pro becomes useless to professionals that need to do that. This is just one example but iOS is full of limitations like that which are entirely created by Apple. Apple should either produce a professional version of iOS or allow any iOS device to be put into "pro" mode with fewer protections but no restrictions on how that device can be used. It should allow users to side load apps, access all of the hardware via the SDK without limitations and do anything the owners of those devices need to do. Only then can Apple call a device "Pro" and target professional users.

  Apple should focus on creating products for professional customers, not those who support them.  That’s MS’ model and the real customer loses.

  

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• Reply 12 of 124

  mcdave Posts: 1,927member

  November 17, 2018 7:30PM

  
  

  GeorgeBMac said:

  georgie01 said:

  Apart from that, having a trackpad or mouse is another fundamental requirement to making a computer a computer, as it's much quicker and easier to navigate and move files around. There are so many things on a computer that are tough to accomplish with touch controls alone.

  To me this is classic problem people have shifting their computing perspective to see the iPad as a real computer replacement. It’s sort of like switching between automobiles—you don’t say the Hyundai Elantra is not a ‘full’ car because you can’t accelerate to pass other cars as quickly as a McLaren P1. Instead you adapt your driving style to compensate for the differences, which inherently means accepting and adapting to limitations. Undoubtedly if everyone grew up driving a McLaren P1 people would resist the Hyundai Elantra as a ‘real’ car, saying you can’t do this or that with it.

  I’m not meaning to say you can do everything on an iPad, but you also can’t do everything on a ‘full’ computer. But that doesn’t make either less of a real computing device. I can’t write this post on my computer because I’d never casually take my MacBook Pro as I’m out and about. If everyone grew up with iPads and didn’t know anything about desktop/laptop computers, we’d undoubtedly think they were too cumbersome and overly complex to accomplish most tasks.

  That's a NO from me:   I have no desire to squeeze and modify my requirements to fit Apple's products.  If I can perform them better for less $ on a Lenovo I will do so.  
  
  While you are quite correct that we may not miss the laptop form factor if we had never seen it, for many tasks, it is superior to performing them on even the most capable tablet.  And I for one am not willing to go backwards.
  

  Sometimes you have to step sideways to move forwards.

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• Reply 13 of 124

  strangedays Posts: 13,166member

  November 17, 2018 7:32PM

  There’s a whole lot of nonsense in this opinion piece, but this is the absolute most absurd:
  
  having a trackpad or mouse is another fundamental requirement to making a computer a computer,
  
  ...yyyyeah. That’s not a requirement for a computer, at all. Do we really need to enumerate the huge list of computers sans mouse? Ironically, it was mainframe computer techno-priests who decried PCs as not being real computers, and then PC techno-priests decrying mouse+GUI machines as not being real computers. 
  
  Congrats - you’re the new techno-priest decrying the new thing is not like the old thing. 
  

  edited November 2018

  

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• Reply 14 of 124

  strangedays Posts: 13,166member

  November 17, 2018 7:34PM

  (and DEAR LORD this forum editor SUCKS. has the staff ever tried to use it on an ipad? ever? it’s IMPOSSIBLE to select text with the on-screen selector handles, the textbox auto-selects the entire paragraph ever single time. And half the time the cursor vanishes completely until the window is closed and re-opened. there must be foul javascript at play, as this never happens on any other site.)

  edited November 2018

  

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• Reply 15 of 124

  macplusplus Posts: 2,118member

  November 17, 2018 7:37PM

  StrangeDays said:

  (and DEAR LORD this forum editor SUCKS. has the staff ever tried to use it on an ipad? ever? it’s IMPOSSIBLE to select text with the on-screen selector handles, the textbox auto-selects the entire paragraph ever single time. And half the time the cursor vanishes completely until the window is closed and re-opened. there must be foul javascript at play, as this never happens on any other site.)

  Use a mouse 
  
  That forum editor is there for a reason 

  edited November 2018

  

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• Reply 16 of 124

  canukstorm Posts: 2,784member

  November 17, 2018 7:39PM

  OutdoorAppDeveloper said:

  A locked down operating system like iOS is perfect for consumers but it is useless for professional users. Apple is all about telling users what they need. They are actually surprisingly good at it. Unfortunately that entire business model falls apart when you consider the professional market. Professionals are not interested in what Apple or any other company thinks is best for them. They need to do actual work and complete tasks. Let's say that one of those tasks is to scan the local network to determine what devices are attached. If iOS prevents apps from seeing the actual MAC addresses of those devices then the iPad Pro becomes useless to professionals that need to do that. This is just one example but iOS is full of limitations like that which are entirely created by Apple. Apple should either produce a professional version of iOS or allow any iOS device to be put into "pro" mode with fewer protections but no restrictions on how that device can be used. It should allow users to side load apps, access all of the hardware via the SDK without limitations and do anything the owners of those devices need to do. Only then can Apple call a device "Pro" and target professional users.

  Sounds to me like you want macOS on the iPad Pro

  

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• Reply 17 of 124

  strangedays Posts: 13,166member

  November 17, 2018 7:43PM

  MplsP said:

  luxuriant said:

  You seem to need a laptop.

  That's the problem - Apple is pushing the iPad as a 'real' computer that is capable of replacing a laptop, and it is priced higher than many laptops, so people are expecting it to perform as such.

  You’re too late as it already has. Both my parents have given up desktop and notebook computers in favor of iPads. Same use cases. A computing device doesn’t need to be capable of all possible use cases to remain a computing device. Dunno why so many struggle with this simple fact.

  

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• Reply 18 of 124

  strangedays Posts: 13,166member

  November 17, 2018 7:46PM

  retrogusto said:

  Apparently it also stops working if you bend it more than about 30 degrees. 

  Are you people effing serious? What happens when you bend a laptop display in half? Oh yeah, it breaks. Don’t do that.

  

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• Reply 19 of 124

  strangedays Posts: 13,166member

  November 17, 2018 7:49PM

  OutdoorAppDeveloper said:

  A locked down operating system like iOS is perfect for consumers but it is useless for professional users. Apple is all about telling users what they need. They are actually surprisingly good at it. Unfortunately that entire business model falls apart when you consider the professional market. Professionals are not interested in what Apple or any other company thinks is best for them. They need to do actual work and complete tasks. Let's say that one of those tasks is to scan the local network to determine what devices are attached. If iOS prevents apps from seeing the actual MAC addresses of those devices then the iPad Pro becomes useless to professionals that need to do that. This is just one example but iOS is full of limitations like that which are entirely created by Apple. Apple should either produce a professional version of iOS or allow any iOS device to be put into "pro" mode with fewer protections but no restrictions on how that device can be used. It should allow users to side load apps, access all of the hardware via the SDK without limitations and do anything the owners of those devices need to do. Only then can Apple call a device "Pro" and target professional users.

  No, then it becomes what a pro is *to you*. You and I and everyone else are different people with different use cases. I give no craps about MAC addresses and have no use cases for it. But I do care about the tasks my org needs me to perform. And note, we can already sideload apps internally.

  

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• Reply 20 of 124

  jurassic Posts: 94member

  November 17, 2018 7:50PM

  Actually, you can use external drives with iPads (even older iPads). Instead of connecting your drives by USB-C cable, you can connecting them wirelessly! I have a 1TB Seagate drive that has a battery and Wi_Fi built into it. I've been using it for years with my iPads and iPhones. And there are relatively inexpensive flash drives that you can buy, that also have an internal battery and Wi-Fi.

  The cool thing about using external drives wirelessly is that the drive can stay in your pocket, or on a table across the room, while you access files on it with your iPad.

  But, you don't need to buy a new wireless hard drive or flash drive if you already have external portable drives. You can buy a Kwilt (or another similar portable wireless server) and connect your drives to it. Then you can access the files on those drives either locally, or remotely access files on drives connected to your Kwilt and at home while you are away.

  edited November 2018

  

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