People who are mobile (as in floating around an office or travel) whose job tasks are easily attributable to specific applications are very happy with iPads. Ideally, the number of applications they use every day on a traditional PC is less than 5. Examples: Sales, Executives, auditors, policemen, medical professionals, case workers.
We had one group of auditors who literally sent my team a $200 fruit basket in appreciation for their iPads. The card said something like "You changed our lives. Thank you!" Executives spend 95% of their day in mail or approving things... again, perfect use case as long as that workflow doesn't require IE6 :)
If you're a consultant, whose specific tasks may change day to day, a full-stack devops guy using any of 15 tools, or a professional writer churning out copy, than an iPad doesn't work. That's ok... a $500 nailgun doesn't make sense for hanging a picture. We have the luxury of choosing tools these days... in 1999, mobile == 12 lb laptop with cable!
I haven't seen anyone, including Microsoft badged people, using a Surface Pro as anything but a nice laptop.
Were they using a custom made app for their specific task or something like that?
- Pre-boot authentication. - Windows sign-in - VPN two-factor sign-in - Web Portal access - Find your thing.
Best case, that process took 7-9 minutes, at a customer site using guest wifi or air-card in an office building, with a potentially angry customer. Not fun. The typical user does that 5-10 times a day, and in many cases the workers were actually preparing paper reports on their own time to function.
Enter iPad. Access was a snap, and it performed better with marginal cellular connections. Accessing the web portal did still require a two-factor challenge, but that two factor was effective for ALL of their internal access. We used a web browser that gave them a native iPad browsing experience (vs. an SSL-VPN'd IE) and access to several different systems via app.
If you run under any regulation (PCI-DSS, HIPAA etc.) your PC will have to be hardened, have anti-virus, full disk encryption, 2 factor auth for remote connection and tick every other possible "security" box to be compliant.
Mobile well it's easy just have an MDM and do what ever the fuck you want, so if you want to use your laptop from the train in a regulated industry you'll have to stand on one foot, hold the laptop over your head while giving a blood sample to authenticate you and on the other hand you can just hope on your tablet/mobile phone connect to your office using VPN on-demand or even a regular web app (as long as it's SSL because dur-dur security!) and you're golden.
HIPAA endpoints that are used to access, view or input patient data are in scope.
I am a QSA.
A better alternative in a laptop form factor would be a zero client laptop, but they are very niche devices.
I didn't really go into detail about the full use case, they get other benefits from the overall snappy iPad experience in terms of switching apps, etc.
Outside of Microsoft (disclosure: MS employee), I don't see much competition for Apple in the innovative premium tablet space. They still execute well in the phone space, watch seems to be shaping up fine, they are still the only PC maker that is known for producing PCs that can last. The costs don't seem too off from the competition, unless we are talking about Xiaomi or Lenovo, but then the tradeoffs are obvious (no longer in the premium space).
I do see Apple slowing down a bit in innovation. I mean, if iPad Pro was released last year (stylus, yeh!), I might have bought it, but the Surface 3 came out instead, which is quite decent (I won't go SP3 because of the fan). But Apple is still executing well, they aren't making many mistakes. They have built up a loyal fanbase and haven't done anything to betray them yet.
People who depend on tech are usually about the shiny more than normal consumers, who just want to get what they need done. The rabid irrational Apple fanboy isn't grandma, no, it is the young kid working in tech.
This may perhaps reflect the different professional subcultures we're around, but IME "people who depend on tech" are _less_ prone to this (not necessarily the rabid fanboying but the equivalent effect). I think you're underestimating the effect that an unwillingness to do (relatively) in-depth research has on the purchasing decisions of "normal consumers". I.e., "wanting what they need to get done" is a wonderful wish, but it's somewhat meaningless when decoupled from knowing the differences/capabilities of each device. I don't think it's controversial to say that normal consumers put much much more faith in the wisdom of the crowds, and (if they can afford it), Apple products are the beginning and end of their search. The fact that "Android" or even "high-end Android" isn't a cohesive brand to the casual observer means that iPhones seem like a plurality of their cursory data set, even when it's not the majority (which, at least in the US, is pretty often).
Even in 2015, I have people asking me in slightly shocked tones why I don't use an iPhone, and their certainty is always based entirely on social proof (they generally have no knowledge about whatever is I happen to be using).
I cannot count the amount of times I have experienced this phenomena. A couple of years ago, when I first got an android phone, I remember someone say "Ha, you don't have an iPhone, your poor!"... the content of the comment didn't really disturb me, what did was the reasoning which lead the person to generate such a perspective.
Care to break down Apple vs. Microsoft's revenues in tablets? I can't imagine it's within two orders of magnitude, at which point I'd hardly say that Microsoft counts as competition. But maybe I'm wrong about the numbers.
(Granted, you said "pro tablets". I doubt we can get numbers on that, but I think the relevant distinction is "tablets used for work" rather than "tablets with XYZ specs", and in that space too I suspect without data that Apple is far and beyond the leader in terms of revenue.)
> iPad is far from worthless and Apple is far from
> Trivial in the space
> The point is that Apple is no longer the leader/innovator in
> the space
> People who depend on tech to make their living (often) require
> more than intangible benefits, and the competition has now
> caught/surpassed them as far as tech goes
[0] https://chitika.com/insights/2014/q4-tablet-update [1] https://www.globalwebindex.net/blog/tablet-ownership-highest...
I'm not the parent commenter, but from the top...
> Far from trivial doesn't really capture a device that combines being the most expensive with a 75% market share in the US[0] and where US tablet ownership among internet users is 54%[1].
As hinted at by the first part of the sentence you're responding to, this thread is talking about the quality of iOS devices for professional work, not their popularity.
> Oooh, is there (yet another) new iPhone killer out again this month?
The snark here handily hides the lack of substance: once again, the reason there's no iPhone-killer (and I don't anticipate there being one for some time) is a different question from whether there's an alternative better-suited to professional work.
But Apple never created new product categories successfully in the past. People bought Macs in lieu of PC's; iPods in lieu of Discmans/minidisc/other MP3 players; iPhones in lieu of flip phones, candy bars, or blackberries.
They tried to create a new product category with the iPad and get people who don't own a computer to buy one (or buy one in addition to their normal computer purchases). It's been mildly successful so far, but sales have been falling. Apple should probably stick with replacing existing product categories with a well-designed, premium alternative.
Now that iIOS has multitasking it changes in an important way. I wonder if it can be a productivity device now. But its still not great when it comes to balancing more than 2 apps.
http://www.macworld.com/article/1163019/ios_5_new_gestures.h...
If you swipe with four fingers to the left or right, you can move between your two most recent apps. Hopefully iOS9 will make "multi-tasking" even easier.
I think I heard at WWDC that iOS 9 adds support for command-tab, which goes great with a hardware keyboard.
I would still be using my iPad for development, except for the fact that I found the 9.5" screen to be just too limiting. The other reason was that all the bluetooth keyboards require a separate cable for charging, which I hate.
The larger screen and the fact that they keyboard cover is powered by the tablet itself makes this super compelling.
Not for my "every day development" machine, but for use on road trips or so I can go spend some time in the middle of the woods without a full-sized laptop in tow.
Also, the updated screen tech for the pencil hopefully means I don't need to buy a separate Wacom tablet.
Coda[2] for iOS is also very compelling for a number of tasks, most importantly web development with a live preview. Editorial[3] is worth mentioning as well for it's deep customizability and scriptability.
So, the workflow is still pretty reliant on a desktop or VPS somewhere but the tools are becoming much cleaner and more integrated along the newer app communication features of iOS.
[1]: http://workingcopyapp.com [2]: https://panic.com/coda-ios/ [3]: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/editorial/id673907758?mt=8
I basically used the tablet as a terminal to an EC2 instance. vim, tmux, git ...
When I was away from Wifi, it was a good excuse not to think about work.
Editorial is perfect for writing and blogging.
Procreate is awesome for painting(of course it's not PS+Wacom, but it is surprisingly good).
I can use Recorder to record audio for my videos.
And Pinnacle Studio is a surprisingly awesome for editing videos.
Maybe they don't exactly compete with pro tools available for mac and pc, but they are amazing. And Pinnacle/Procreate totally crush everything available on Linux(for my purposes).
From notes, to scripts for clients servers, it just took over.
Being able to quickly sketch, or take a photo of something and add notes too it quickly is super handy.
So WinRT and SurfaceRT struggled. My sister bought one and liked it though.
In a lot of ways the Surface is a laptop with a detachable keyboard and the OS and eco system is still based on that. Apple wants their eco system to develop from a clean touch OS base into productivity areas. Having said that, they are really lagging in this area and the momentum has shifted well away from iPads in the business world.
The Surface might beat the iPad pro, but I do wonder if the either will be the future of productivity compared with a laptop and a tablet.
I picked one up on a curious whim, and often use this language to describe the Surface 3. It really does act like a laptop, all the way down to going to sleep while I'm playing music, and hibernating during periods of inactivity.
My brother-in-law will probably love this iPad Pro as he is a financial advisor and spends a lot of time getting quotes from websites, so he loves his iPad. He hates his MacBook Pro as he says "it keeps too many things open and doesn't shut them down properly" which is indicative of not understanding how apps close on OSX (or bothering to learn), and an interesting side-effect of the 'freeze-dried' app states on iOS for multitasking. I would have thought that OSX > iOS (I find using the iPad frustrating as it is like using a child's toy with no filesystem access) but for "real world" users it is obviously different. Enlightening to me anyway!
Before that he got a bulky Vista laptop that was on sale. He said that he felt silly walking around the airport with it when everyone else had some light tablet.
Obviously there is nothing preventing companies from creating new tablet version of apps for surface as well, but there might be a problem with the corporate "if it works, you won't get a budget to fix it" thinking.