On the iPad, opening a couple more browser tabs and then coming back to the original tab might cause the page on the original tab to reload. This could be very frustrating on sites like HN or Reddit. I might start typing a comment, and in the middle of that need to look up some things to fact check myself or get some references. Do that, go back to the comment--and the damn page reloads, wiping out what I'd typed so far.

Anticipating this, I could "select all" on my comment and copy it, then go do the research, and then come back. If the page reloads then I could just paste the comment back. If I needed to copy and paste something from the other page it was usually safe to do at that point. Just switching between two already loaded pages usually would not trigger a reload.

I never ran into anything like that on SP4. I could pause writing an HN comment and research in other tabs as much as I wanted, and never had the partial comment gone when I switched back.

I don't know if this is because Windows will use a pagefile and/or swapfile when there is not enough physical RAM for everything, or because the SP4 had 16 times as much RAM as my 3rd gen iPad so I simply never got it low enough on RAM, but for whatever the reason browsing worked a lot better the SP4.

Since then I also got a 6th gen iPad (not Pro). It's much better than my old 3rd gen was about this, but still does occasionally force a refresh when witching among tabs.

For what it's worth, Linux is a lot more parsimonious in its use of swap space than Windows, given very similar hardware and use cases.

I pulled out my original Surface RT yesterday and was surprised to find it has aged incredibly well - perhaps better in 2020 than it was in 2012, because it was well ahead of its time.

Windows 8 had so many great ideas and it is an open question if Microsoft had stuck to their guns a little longer and waited for more people to get used to where their cheese moved if Windows 8 might be even more fondly remembered for moving touch UIs forward.

Surface RT was running underpowered Tegra with 2GB ram and still does 60fps on the entire desktop/Start experience.

Have you used the Windows 8 multitasking interface recently?

It's mindboggling to me that Microsoft must have the code for that sitting around in a repo history somewhere and yet tablet mode on Windows 10 is still such a mess even after years.

It really is mind boggling that Microsoft fumbled that so bad - great tech but some really user-hostile business decisions cost them dearly.

The problem was ramming it down the throat of all the desktop users too. I still don't understand how such a big company can make such obviously bad decisions.

It moved a lot of cheese, sure, but it wasn't offering as much an "inferior" desktop usage as people seemed to think it did because they never bothered to learn what it did offer new/different/better.

Simple, resume ego driven development from someone who just want to climb ranks.

Have you tried the WordFlow (swype or whatever it's called on other platforms) method on the keyboard ? Seems to work as well as Windows Phone did, which is pretty damn good.

It's fine as a portable Windows PC to me. Great for travel, does pretty much everything I need, including Visual Studio. iPads are so much more consumption oriented that I can't see myself every needing one in addition to an iPhone.

>If Microsoft invested a bit more in improving the tablet experience, they could really eat some of Apple's marketshare.

They did with WinRT (not the tablet the API, now called UWP) and it failed because they decided to throw away backward compatibility of APIs.

Windows 8 and the Metro design language was my favorite UX by far of the last two decades.

This time, I guess they've decided to throw away the user experience in favor of backward compatibility :-)

This only seems to effect windows, I've been using it with OpenSuse with no such issue.

Swiping seems to be efficient mostly in english. I had a try on android and it was just exhausting while being unforgiving for CJK type input.

Just to say, having a decent keyboard is still important to a lot of people. And Apple has effectively made efforts in this regard to have a good keyboard experience on the iPad.

Haven't used the Windows 10 on-screen keyboard much to be fair. I usually use the Surface keyboard (which has improved a lot circa 2017), but for prolonged work I'll attach a USB keyboard (mostly because I need an ergonomic keyboard to type).

Apple’s Files app solves mostly solves that for me.

https://apps.apple.com/us/app/files/id1232058109

> use ssh

The Blink app solves that nicely for me.

https://apps.apple.com/us/app/blink-shell-mosh-ssh-client/id...

There are also several VNC viewer apps if I need to connect to my Linux workstation for more cpu or graphics intensive work.

The Microsoft stuff tries to live in both worlds, but the ecosystem around the "modern" side is weak.

Everyone is struggling with this stuff, as witnessed by the schitzoid steps to evolve MacOS and Windows.

It’s better but it’s still riddled with arbitrary restrictions. For example when I want to watch a MKV video in iCloud I have to copy the file from iCloud to the folder of the player, then delete. Can’t open iCloud files directly with the player and can’t move either.

On the bright side I am confident by 2025 in iOS we will have the same functionality we had already thirty years ago... with the exception that every piece of software will be charged with the 30% Apple tax.

That open the icloud browser (wierd name)

Cell phones are better. They've figured out obvious things like screen rotation, adaptive brightness, bluetooth audio handoffs, and Android has made some headway with things like darkmode and automatically changing settings when you get into a car, but tablets have lagged behind, and I'm sure there are dozens more tiny things that automatically changed based on the device's context.

This always works fine for me on my SP6.

That would be excellent. iPad needs a local web server capability for development, e.g. to run Jekyll/Ruby or Hugo/golang. Rumor is that upcoming Apple Arm CPU will support hardware virtualization, which could theoretically enable Linux to run in a sandboxed VM.

As for UX, the new iPad Magic Keyboard is a game changer that seamlessly blends tablet and laptop. Now we need to address the iOS gaps (e.g. Xcode, non-Safari browser and mail client) and/or allow dual-boot as you suggested.

One of the problems with MS' approach is trying to get a "one UI fits all" approach which just doesn't work, the usecases between tablet and desktop are too different.

Even Apple hasn't made this mistake and they're all about simplicity and consistency.

I was a big fan of Win8 (was fine with it on desktop as well) but tablet mode on Win10 was a major downgrade and I only ever use Surface in desktop mode, even on the rare occasions I tuck back or detach the keyboard. I still use touch a lot though, sometimes simultaneously with mouse or trackpad.

The tablet mode sucks for anything but basic reading. The touch interface is crappy, the on screen keyboard sucks.

It is a really good laptop... as long as I use it on a desk or table. The non-rigid keyboard makes using it without a desk impossible.

It is a nice, light, laptop for travel, though... but I still need to bring a tablet.

Can you elaborate? Which version? I've been using the Surface Pro 6 and I don't notice a difference with using it on a desk or on my lap.

Also, you are limited in the angle you can have the screen. With a normal laptop, you can open the hinge very wide (like 150 degrees or so) so that you are looking directly at the screen when looking down at your lap. With the non-rigid keyboard, you have to have it fairly close to perpendicular (close to 90 degrees) which means you are looking at a bad angle to the screen when it is on your lap.

Apps might not expose the iPadOS filesystem well (since they've gradually accreted a UX paradigm over the last 10 filesystem-less years), but it actually does work perfectly well to open files from your iPadOS home directory [the thing the Files app exposes] in any app that can handle that file type. You can open video files from Files into VLC; you can open CBRs/CBZs into https://chunkyreader.com/ ; etc.

For getting the files in/out of the iPad, Files can access external disks just fine (I've been using a Samsung USB-C T5 SSD); and Safari (don't know about other browsers) now allows you to save arbitrary files, putting your downloads in a regular Downloads folder within the Files-visible homedir. I'm sure there are other methods as well (e.g. copying files to the iPad's local storage from a storage provider, e.g. iCloud Drive, or Dropbox, or an SFTP/S3 client's host profile; or using a BitTorrent client to download whatever.)

Of course, apps can't access your homedir arbitrarily if they don't have the relevant capability, but that's just good sandboxing—if an app only works with particular files, it should only be receiving capabilities on individual files (through e.g. the Share/Open With action), not capabilities on your filesystem as a whole. The only reason desktop OSes aren't already mostly this way is the inertia of legacy apps.

(There's also nothing stopping a local POSIX terminal emulator app from creating a shared container that other apps like IDEs can write into, if you're wondering. Nobody's bothered yet, but that's because everyone wants to own your eyeballs with fully-integrated single-app solutions, not because it's not technically possible. You could totally build the equivalent of Termux for iPadOS. The only limitation would be that the package ecosystem would have to use the App Store as its package manager, with packages containing executables being distributed as Apple-signed extension "apps." Sort of like how iMessage's sticker-pack "apps" work, or how Photos.app's filter-pack "apps" work; or how Safari's content-blocker "apps" work. Or, come to think of it, exactly like how XCode.app attaches its POSIX tooling into the [read-only] macOS rootfs.)

AFAIK Apple doesn't allow BitTorrent clients to run on iOS devices

This coming from the company who bought SwiftKey is indeed baffling.

Second, ignore tablet mode. It's one of those things developed by underfunded teams. Just use it as what it is, a portable PC. If you configure windows to have >2px thick borders you will not miss 'tablet mode' or whatever it is. Just enable all settings on the quick side bar thingy to toggle auto-rotate and you are set.

And finally, i agree with you on the keyboard. It's sad :( pen writing recognition was supposed to be the saving grace, but it only works minimally OK for japanese and chinese. No hope for english and let alone for other latin languages. and even using with chinese text, the input UI completely kills your ability to use things you would have on a keyboard like shift, shortcuts, arrows, etc.

While a surface is a production device. Since you can actually do something with it except sending emails.

For what it's worth, the iPad feels great in terms of size and construction, it has a fantastic screen and the overall UX/UI is pleasant. Unfortunately, it's not usable as a short term laptop replacement and basic computer tasks are just not possible, especially not offline.

EDIT: of course that doesn't help with the loading of open source software on the device.

Not to say that the iPad Pro is a Windows tablet replacement, to me they’re still very much distinct products right now. iPad OS isn’t (yet?) a macOS replacement for developers and power users.

Loading software from outside the App Store is not going to happen, but they are, slowly but surely, expanding to support other tasks.

If that was non-negotiable why did you even consider an iPad Pro in the first place?

The tablet experience on Windows was horrendous.

Eg: something as trivial as adjusting the display brightness required me to go into Windows settings.

I've never had a Surface Book but I had the Surface Pro 3 for awhile and I'm pretty sure it predated the book.

On the Surface Pro you just slide from off screen to bring up quick settings and then tap the brightness icon. Granted it only had preset values rather than a slider...

Yeah and that was always either too bright or too dark.

I'm glad they added the slider now.

older versions, you had to swipe right, then touch screen icon and slide: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qFYmwnzRpJ0

I primarily like it for the form-factor & build quality, which in my opinion matches Apple level, but I seldom use it as a "tablet". It's more a super-portable laptop for me that can also serve as a convenient way to kick back and consume content.

I, weirdly enough, also like the type cover over standard laptop keyboards. Maybe it's because it's not part of the tablet itself that I find the keys less stiff and as a result more comfortable than on most laptops.