The risk with Apple's approach is that companies will think "it's too much work to make a custom UI for such a small market".
I guess time will tell who wins this. Possibly, things will go like they went with Mac OS and Windows: some companies decided to build applications for the Mac, thus forcing others out of the market, and making it easier for them to develop Windows versions. Another possibility is that the way larger market in 2015 vs 1985 and the existence of many existing iOS apps makes more companies decide that developing a custom UI for iPad Pro is worth the effort.
If those business apps [1] take off, IBM gains the solution and the customer, while Apple gains valuable beachhead front property in the war on Microsoft's soil.
The iPad Pro, Pencil, new connector, not to mention force-touch and split screen have a likelyhood of sealing the deal.
For an example, see http://www.pcronline.com/eurointervention/textbook/pcr-textb...:
"Get the iPad application for only $149.99"
Maybe that is just a web site in an app with limited interactivity, but there definitely seems to be competition in that market. The disadvantage of free updates in such markets may be more than balanced by the advantage of very limited ability to resell apps (the easiest way I know to resell apps is to create separate iTunes accounts for each app, and let te buyer set a new password for that account. That becomes impractical soon, of you have tens of apps)
That 3D knee visualization, to me, seems a clear indication of that.
"Our Windows app runs fine on Surface" is a better story than "Our Windows app doesn't run on Surface at all".
Syncing and Backup are tedial tasks most people wouldn't do if they needed to do it manually or configure an external program / service to do it.
(Yes, I understand who the target audience is.)
The less Customers have to know about how technology works the happier they are, and the more successful Apple is.
You're right that as a matter of routine, having recent documents worked with in an app come up on opening it (and an easy visual list of all the files the app has touched) is a great interaction pattern.
That says nothing about whether or not there should be some kind of file browser, or other means for users to become aware and able to interact with files outside an app.
Particularly because at some point, single-app workflows hit their limits, and getting stuff done either becomes a matter of using multiple apps or waiting for an app to grow the new feature you need (the latter of which is not just getting stuff done).
And I'm not just talking about Power Users -- I've seen this happen with my mom (proverbial disinterested computer user), who generally is quite happy to be completely unaware of the file system, but still periodically runs into corner cases where she needs to do something no single app will let her do (usually audio-file related).
This all reminds me of the discussion around hiding URLs in browsers:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7677898
For decades, we had a system where people who didn't care to pay any attention to URL bars could ignore them, and people who were incidentally curious could learn useful things by paying attention, people who needed to discover them could, and people found them regularly useful had them at the ready.
Then somebody who got caught up in a shallow idea of simplicity that neglects utility and discoverability decided they'd make a UX change that was hostile to all of latter two groups. After all... the first group doesn't care, they just want to navigate the web and get stuff done.
The right principle here is to make the simple case easy and obvious, and the more complex case discoverably possible.
Do they want to create an experience that's so simple to use that they're enjoyed by both kids and non-technical grand parents, that's optimized for the most common everyday tasks, e.g browsing the web, shopping, reading news, books, taking photos, finding driving directions, writing emails, etc.
Or do they want to offer a full Desktop OS that's suitable for everyone including devs and power users lets them run server software, multiple windows, anti virus software, network filesystems, development IDE's that enables them to build iOS Apps, etc. For those users they offer OSX on macbooks and iMac's and choose not to complicate their UX on their most popular computing platform - that's quickly becoming most of their Customers primary computing platform.
It's Apple's felicitous focus on simplicity and Customer use-cases that's what's made them the most successful company in the world.
You're confusing simplicity with ease of use. Adding a layer of indirection over the intrinsic file system is not simple, and even ease of use is debatable, since it creates an impedance mismatch by definition.
Nor is there any reason to consider this a zero-sum game. Having advanced features does not deprive the common user of their comfort, as they will simply not make use of them.
I'm of course not the target audience for iPads, but let's not fool ourselves into thinking they're anything but a toy. It takes something much more serious for a new computer generation to usurp its predecessor, and if mobile device manufacturers continue in this fashion, they might win only a technicality - market share. As opposed to the usual test of whether a platform is able to bootstrap its own system software, which iOS and Android emphatically cannot.
iPads have been getting a lot of productivity improvements lately, however many have decided they're just a toy and in doing so have been rather blind to their advance. To just name one, extensions allow inter-app handoff and are quite powerful at this point and well received by iOS devs and power users. Extensions solve the document transfer use case discussed in this subthread, and they don't invoke cognitive load around filesystems. I'm hoping we can use 3d Touch to trigger them from the share button to further improve their efficiency. But that's cool, lets all keep dragging files around with a mouse or typing in terminal and wait where did I save that file I was just working on again?
Another way to think about this is with iOS, Apple is going down the list from most common to least common use cases for end users, whereas over the last several decades with CLI and then WIMP interfaces, traditional PC devs have been going up the list of use cases from most dev-oriented to most end user. Nothing wrong with the results of the latter for development, but it turns out there's a lot more end users than there are devs, and an exposed filesystem is a sacred cow of that the latter approach that can be solved in more than one way for the end user.
> It takes something much more serious for a new computer generation to usurp its predecessor
Mainframe guys said the exact same thing about minicomputers.
How are those things innate to having a hierarchical file system? A straw man if I ever saw one.
Mainframe guys said the exact same thing about minicomputers.
And they were right. Minicomputers didn't take in definitively until they became self-hosting.
Not innate to having an hfs, just innate to using one. Of course you could drag files around with your finger, or tap into subfolders, or use the keyboard, but those are not taking advantage of strengths of the platform. Meanwhile share sheet extensions are well suited to the modern paradigm of touch, social, and cloud, where the target of a file may or may not be a local filesystem or even an app in its strictest sense. This interface represents an alternative to finding files in folders when working between apps, which is where my comparison was directed.
Maybe I misunderstood and you're arguing that iOS doesn't have a hierarchical file system, but thats opposite of what you were complaining about (obfuscated file systems) earlier in this thread. lmk.
> And they were right. Minicomputers didn't take in definitively until they became self-hosting.
Minicomputers were still considered 'less serious' than the mainframes long after they stopped being terminals, and they were capable of far less. Unless I misunderstood and you're arguing that iPads have not yet reached some modern equivalence to self-hosting... and that equivalence must involve an exposed file system... because it must be able to bootstrap its own operating system...? Genuinely confused by this rebuttal, but open to hearing your ideas.
Apple starts from the user experience first and works their way back to the technology. Technology is just an obstacle in order for them to be able to accomplish their desired experiences, it's not something they put front-and-center or use it to limit or influence how and what features are implemented.
Kids can use an iPad without ever needing to know what a File System is, there is no impedance mismatch to them, they're not spending their time thinking about how their multi-layered video that just created is physically stored and synced. They just use an App for a while, switch to other apps, then re-open their app when they want to continue working on it.
Exposing internals like file-system layout means the OS is no longer managing the files, they need to cater for manipulations whilst still supporting transparent cloud backups and syncing, they need to design a completely different UI for power users with lots of features all working with multi-touch yet still have the features power users expect from a Desktop OS, e.g. downloads to be in a central "Downloads" folder instead of being grouped and isolated in the App that downloaded them.
You've at least acknowledged you're not the iPad's primary audience but labelling it as just a toy means you've still failed to realize its appeal. Smart Phones and tablets are becoming the primary computing platform because they empower users to be able to do more, Apps are optimized around use-cases and tasks making them much easier and more enjoyable to use than Desktop software.
I have a lot of anecdotal evidence on how the iPad is the only computing device my parents have ever enjoyed, how after so many years they still can't conceptualize how files and folders are structured, where their documents are saved, how full-screen windows and pop dialogs makes them think their PC is broken.
Even myself as a power user I find lots of apps that are much better on an iPad, inc. more advanced tasks like browsing and comparing real-estate is so much faster and effortless. There's also tasks that you just can't do on a PC or are frustrating enough that you wouldn't bother with, e.g. Making phone or video calls, taking and sending photos, Live Directions and Traffic, paying for coffee, even core tasks like browsing photos, Facebook or the Internet are generally more enjoyable on an iPad.
But ultimately anecdotal evidence is useless as everyone can provide their own to contradict them, the best indicator we have to go with is Sales and by this measure Apple's recent iOS strategy is a lot more fruitful then their decades old Desktop OS strategy - they have no reason to make iPad's more like OSX - they're reaching and empowering more people then they ever have, they're making the technology a transparent implementation detail so much so that iPads are often referred to as a magical pieces of glass.
If you go by sales wouldn't then Android figures indicate that their approach was better?
Are your saying most android devices act like USB cards? I decided to test one of mine and it didn't show up so I don't quite know what you mean by that.
> If you go by sales wouldn't then Android figures indicate that their approach was better?
And if you go by profits it looks like Apple is better. Funny how that works out.
Op had mentioned "Apple starts from the user experience" which users prefer hence they have great sales. I questioned since Android has far better sales. I don't know what profits have to do with user experience. If users preferred Apple approach should it not then have more sales?
As for UX I didn't think it could ever be argued that Android was even comparable to iOS, you can look at the sat ranking for how well iOS is received, or even browser market share where the majority of mobile web is still from iOS - which is a good indicator on how much devices are being used for non-phone features, despite having fewer devices in the wild.
In my opninion Material is way better then iOS. " majority of mobile web " - statcounter, netshare already put chrome/android ahead!
Anyway the point was Apple UI is not always intuitive. I even didn't know that toolbar icons can be long pressed on my mac-pro for a long time!
And drag and drop is the simplest/intuitive way to copy files from medium to another which iOS totally messed it up.
What if, as in the URL example I gave, there are multiple overlapping target audiences?
Of course you optimize the common case. The question is whether in the process you're going to decide to ignore or eliminate discoverability in less common cases. Don't use "audience" as an excuse to be lazy about them.
And both mobile and desktop are general computing devices with a wide range of abilities. Deciding mobile is the PlaySkool version is itself an oversimplification.
> Apple's felicitous focus on simplicity and Customer use-cases that's what's made them the most successful company in the world
One can learn a lot from their success. It hasn't them perfect. They still make some poor or even user-hostile decisions.
Their success does, however, seem to render some people less inclined to think critically about their choices.
But you know, numbers don't lie. iOS is not the dominant design. And guess what I have on my Android? A file manager, going hand in hand with uTorrent and VLC. And guess how I'm copying music on my phone? It's not through iTunes, thank god for that.
That said the iPad Pro is a device that intrigues me, since with the stylus and the keyboard if might actually be more useful than a paperstand.
My question was wrt to source of your stat.
Anyway it seems useless continuing this. I suppose you would come back some other Apple this and that line. I just wanted to know where you got the stat. Since i am not getting any references i assume you made it up.
http://blogs.barrons.com/techtraderdaily/2015/02/09/apple-ha...
Android is simply not dominant.
For attaching whilst composing an email in Gmail (what I use) there's an "Attach" icon that lets you attach photos or files from Google Drive. Whilst Apple's Mail lets you click the cursor on where you want to add the Photo/Video.
If the feature was considered important enough to complicate the UI there'd be an option or optimized App for the task, otherwise no-one thought it was important or cared enough to support it.
Being on an e-mail thread where someone says "hey, can you e-mail over that spreadsheet?" is hardly rare. Things like this are the reason why the iPad has not been a huge success as a productivity tool.
I was referring to all Mail Apps, I don't even use Apple Mail, I use Gmail. Yes Apple decides what's important in their App, Google decides what's important in theirs, Everyone else decides...
> Being on an e-mail thread where someone says "hey, can you e-mail over that spreadsheet?" is hardly rare.
You can still send spreadsheet attachments, open said Spread sheet, hit share attachment, Done. Go back to playing games.
> iPad has not been a huge success as a productivity tool.
So catering for a smaller class of enterprise and power users should be the holy metric Apple should be catering for? Apple has OSX for power users, iOS for everyone else. That strategy seems to be working quite well for them.
On iPad it just DISAPPEARS. You can't upload a file.
That's why every job company has their own app harvesting your data, and it requires scores of bulky apps to get around the simple HTML form omission. Insane.
Does app A's copy get updated with app B's modifications?
I can't imagine shelling out near a $1,000+ for this thing (lets price in the keyboard and other accessories) when I can get a proper Macbook or Surface Pro, both which are much more capable. I imagine this will become the next hot executive toy (I need my twitter and my exchange mail up at the same time, nerds!). It'll sell in predictable low numbers and then one day mysteriously disappear from the Apple webpage with no fanfare.
I feel Apple has painted itself in a corner here. It never bonded OSX and iOS and carefully made them separate products. This probably made sense 5-6 years ago, but unified devices are now practical and affordable. I suspect Apple has a unified OS ready to go soon and is just buying time with this "Pro" to seem competitive. I can't imagine the status quo lasting. What exactly does a mobile OS get me, especially when it needs hardware and RAM on the level of a desktop OS not too long ago? Trying to "keep it simple" is what got Nokia and Blackberry killed. I fear that this industry is destined to just re-invent the desktop, but with sexier devices, in the end.
I'm not one to underestimate Apple, but the past couple years have been underwhelming. Even their much hyped watch is a fairly milquetoast design with a poor value proposition. Or the mobile game has simply matured and there are no more big ideas in this space. Are we at the "gimmicks and minor refinements" stage of this technology?
http://www.zdnet.com/article/microsoft-surface-hits-1bn-reve...
About $1350 for the cellular base model with a keyboard and stylus.
I wonder if Apple will update the iPad air with 3d touch and stylus capabilities?
I actually expected the iPad Pro to support OS X apps; maybe via being powered by a new Apple Ax frankenchip that runs iOS ARM as well as x86 code (another payoff from the investment to custom chip design) and/or by requiring to recompile with the latest XCode for the App Store (a payoff from the long investment in LLVM).
Maybe next year.
Its kinda heresy to say here, but good software is only possible when devs adapt to the platform users choose, not the other way around.
Other non-software features (like battery life and weight) matter as well.
Price doesn't really matter though.
The Surface Pro and iPad Pro is where you'll see the whole "app gap" story inverted. The Surface will have "all the apps" (apps in this case meaning all existing Win32 applications and Enterprise software) and iOS trying to play catch up through partnerships like their one with IBM.
>Very soon iOS apps will match and/or exceed most desktop apps.
I expected that to be true, but we're coming up on 10 years of the Apple App Store and I'm still waiting.
Also I'd actually argue that a ton of iOS apps are better than the desktop equivalents. Touch screen is a new paradigm that is taking us a while to truly master IMO. Also the app store has only been out 7 years so it hasn't been 10. It launched July 2008.
In what context?
[1] http://www.apple.com/ipad/business/it/management.html
[2] http://www.ibm.com/mobilefirst/us/en/mobilefirst-for-ios/
You need Macs to build iOS software. Meanwhile, you can find Visual Studio already being employed in most business IT shops to build custom desktop and web software. I can't remember the last time I saw a job ad for an iOS developer that wasn't for a one-off gig or a mobile apps shop (or a marketing agency).
There's a ton of them and it's a very hot area right now. It's a great time to be an iOS developer.
iOS development is becoming 'just another' language in your stack.
I really wanted to love it but lame battery life in comparison to a three-year old iPad3 and the inability of S Note to ignore my hand motions and not do zooming when I move my hand irritates me. Coupled with worse performance than the iPad3, and I have the LTE edition of the Note. I can only imagine how stuttery and slow the non-LTE edition is (which uses an 8 core chip and got rubbish performance reviews).
Using Google Maps in 3D mode gives me framerates like viewing a compressed VNC session over an SSH link on a Raspberry Pi over a 2G GSM connection. Slow.
If that were true, SP3 should have been a huge hit by now. It's not.
> If that were true, SP3 should have been a huge hit by now.
That doesn't follow.
"Is going to" does not imply "has" and "has" does not imply "has, and also the market in general has already realized and responded to this fact".
EDIT: And after the price is revealed the scales tip a little more in Microsoft's favor. The entry level iPad Pro is the same price as a Surface Pro 3, but has half the disk space and doesn't include the stylus.