sagan_student

hackintoisier said:

Until Apple makes fundamental changes to iPadOS, the M1 chip is a waste of hardware honestly.  The A12z in the 2020 version is just fine.  The only real difference with M1 is the addition of thunderbolt so you can connect to peripherals like 10gbps lan cards, high speed storage, etc. But other than that, there’s nothing about the iPadOS experience that is significantly different on M1 vs the A12x/A12z.  Multi monitor support is still limited to 4x3 and does not scale to the 16x9 or 16x10 aspect ratio of monitors.  iPadOS has some fundamental limitations, even though the hardware itself has been proven to not be limited in that regard, as M1 and A12x/A12z can run the more complicated window manager of macOS.   And we have to tell the truth.  

1. Because the iPad is portable, it gives its users the ability to engage with Apple glass (or whatever it’ll be called) anywhere they go and not be tied to a desk top. Yes they could have a laptop but the laptop is limited as highlighted in point 2. 
2. Using a point and click 2-D input that we see with a mouse and desktop combo in a 3-D interface that is AR/VR would be very limiting. 
3. iOS users are accustomed to already using touch and gesture first interface
4. Having LiDAR on the iPad enables it to read your in air hand gestures without needing additional equipment. So now you can have as much screen real estate as you want with nothing more than an iPad Pro and ‘Apple Glasses’

elijahg said:

Perhaps if you use just two windows then ok - two side by side full screen windows is just fine. But when you have 3 or 4 windows with different content, referencing 2 of them whilst typing into one and seeing the results in another, being stuck with two is a massive chore, constantly having to switch between full-screen apps is much less productive than having the content visible all at once. Switching between full screen apps on iPadOS is slow as well; a quick command-tab on macOS and you're there instantly, the 5 finger swipe on iPadOS just feels sluggish. Then it rearranges the apps such that sometimes you'd have to swipe three times to get to the fourth window, sometimes twice. I can most definitely be more productive on macOS with 3+ windows than I can on iPadOS. 

elijahg said:

I'm pretty sure the disaster that is iPadOS multitasking is a result of Apple's stubborn and persisting attempts to separate the iPad from macOS by refusing to support what has been shown to be the best solution for multitasking over 35 years of computing - namely multiple, overlapping windows. The alternatives for multi-window multitasking on iPadOS seem (and feel) like a horrible, sluggish kludge. They obviously don't have any idea how to make it better without implementing windowing, otherwise they would have done so by now; and I can't see it improving unless someone or something changes at Apple, whereby they allow iPadOS to be more Mac like.

There are so many things I could use an iPad for if it wasn't hobbled by iPadOS, but Apple knows if they allow people to discover the merits of a more open system there's no going back to the obsessive levels of control they have now. But I can't see it changing, and Apple's assumption (or perhaps guise for more control) that everyone that uses a Mac is thick as two short planks and therefore needs protecting from everything including themselves - is resulting in a level of control and restrictions that is becoming more onerous than it's worth for me.

hackintoisier said:

Xed said:

hackintoisier said:

I wouldn’t refer to iPadOS 15’s multitasking features as “polish.” It’s still a mess.  No windowing support, we’re still limited to two apps on screen in split view mode, external monitor support is still a broken mirrored mess that doesn’t use the aspect ratio of the monitor. 

Apple can do so much better than this, I know they can. 

Thank god we don't we don't have to you pointers to constantly resize and drag windows around on a small display.

I don’t know if you’ve ever used Samsung dex, but it has resizable windows, and while it has its quirks, it’s a much much better multitasking experience than the more powerful iPad, in my view. Others may disagree. 

But with dex you have free-form control over the width/height of most windows (some apps have a minimum size beyond which they cannot go below). And it’s easy to use your fingers to resize windows and move them around the screen. When you resize windows, most apps resize in a way where the text doesn’t get too small to read. You can have your web browser to the left, YouTube open in the lower right, have instagram or whatever other app on the screen as well. All this from a Samsung phone hooked up to a usb-c touch screen monitor. You can customize your multitasking layout to your heart’s content. To the extent you haven’t tried Dex, I suggest to use it and compare the experience to iPadOS. 

I’m not saying Apple should copy Dex, but there clearly exists a better and more intuitive multitasking implementation on other tablets/phones.  Apple is an extremely talented company so I know they can do better than what they’ve given us. 

I don’t understand why they put m1 into the iPad only to limit it in the way they have. I guess it’s because Apple caters iPadOS to the minimum specification of iPads, some of which have far inferior processors than the m1 and might be too sluggish with a more multitasking-oriented OS.