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Re:Turning a MacBook into a touchscreen with $1 of hardware ... by retskrad on Friday December 10, 2021 @04:37AM (#29508114)
Steve Jobs said the iPad is the product he’s most proud of and it seems like Apple shares that sentiment internally. I use both the Mac and iPad and iPadOS is Apple’s best software.

The downside is that it’s not as feature packed because they’re literally reinventing a new computer UI from the ground up. The iPad really is a paradigm shift. MacOS has been around for 40 years. IPadOS only 10. It takes time.

Re:Turning a MacBook into a touchscreen with $1 of hardware ... by thn-gap on Friday December 10, 2021 @05:48AM (#29508466)
I have an iPad (my only Apple device right now) and I'm overall happy with it, but:

* I can't send a picture from Android to iPad OS when I don't have internet: iPad can't receive images over Bluetooth.

* I can't send videos from my Windows10 to the iPad with a simple USB cable without installing iTunes or some other bloated software that I don't (or shouldn't) need. I am not sure how to easily send +100GBs of video otherwise (suggestions appreciated).

It is so sad that this hostile lack of features are an intended thing for such an expensive and "advanced" device, and that my only hope is that EU will threaten with some anti-competitive fine for Apple to do the sane things that would benefit consumers.

Re:Turning a MacBook into a touchscreen with $1 of hardware ... by aigo on Friday December 10, 2021 @08:44AM (#29509727)
> iPad can't receive images over Bluetooth

Christ. We were sharing images over Bluetooth between mobile phones when I was a teenager in about 2005.

Re:Turning a MacBook into a touchscreen with $1 of hardware ... by tinus_hn on Saturday December 11, 2021 @07:12AM (#29520342)
We were sharing pictures using infrared links before that. It sucks, 90% of the time it doesn’t work properly and if it works it’s extremely slow.

That’s why people share their pictures on WhatsApp, Snapchat or whatever.

Apple isn’t going to implement a service if the experience sucks, they’ll implement an alternative that doesn’t suck. Sometimes it’s limited to their ecosystem and sometimes it isn’t. If you don’t like it, use one of the alternatives.

Re:Turning a MacBook into a touchscreen with $1 of hardware ... by jsjohnst on Friday December 10, 2021 @07:33AM (#29509112)
> I can't send a picture from Android to iPad OS when I don't have internet: iPad can't receive images over Bluetooth.

There’s an app for that ;)

> I can't send videos from my Windows10 to the iPad with a simple USB cable without installing iTunes or some other bloated software

There’s simple apps for that too ;)

In the same amount of time it took you type up this comment you could’ve found solutions using your favorite search engine.

Here’s a “free” search term to try:

‘copying videos to ipad without itunes’

Re:Turning a MacBook into a touchscreen with $1 of hardware ... by thn-gap on Friday December 10, 2021 @08:59AM (#29509890)
> There’s an app for that ;)

My specific case was that I didn't have access to internet at that moment, but I hoped that I could transfer with Bluetooth just like I did many years ago with simpler devices.

> In the same amount of time it took you type up this comment you could’ve found solutions using your favorite search engine.

>Here’s a “free” search term to try:

>‘copying videos to ipad without itunes’

I remember trying and not finding anything meaningful. I will for sure try again if you're saying there are ways, but just telling me to search online instead of giving some solution brings me back to the same starting point that I was the first time I tried.

Re:Turning a MacBook into a touchscreen with $1 of hardware ... by smoldesu on Friday December 10, 2021 @11:50AM (#29512057)
Whatever happened to "it just works"? Now it's "here's some search terms to try, do your own research. it's your fault for not anticipating the shortcomings of iOS and macOS!"
Re:Turning a MacBook into a touchscreen with $1 of hardware ... by tinus_hn on Friday December 10, 2021 @06:02AM (#29508552)
The EU will not ‘threaten with some anti-competitive fine’ because Apple doesn’t allow you to send 100 gigabytes of videos to your device without installing the tool they give you for free to allow you to do that.

If you want that kind of experience, get an Android tablet. Or a Surface tablet. You can, because there is competition.

Re:Turning a MacBook into a touchscreen with $1 of hardware ... by thn-gap on Friday December 10, 2021 @09:08AM (#29509972)
You're right.

However, similar to how EU started requiring all smartphones to have the same connector, I would be nice if all smartphones / tables / "generic media devices" were required to support simple file transfer via cable with major OS, without requiring additional vendor specific software.

It's possible that I'm unaware of technical aspects of storage systems today that would make this impossible, but I'd be happy to learn more about this.

I also was completely unaware that iPad didn't allow for such simple file transfers when I bought it, nor the Bluetooth limitation. I don't know up to which point is the user expected to verify basic features that have been widely available for decades before buying a product because the vendor decided not to add it.

Re:Turning a MacBook into a touchscreen with $1 of hardware ... by tinus_hn on Friday December 10, 2021 @09:30AM (#29510238)
I presume you are also unaware that although ‘the EU started requiring all smartphones to have the same connector’ iPhones still charge using a lightning cable?
Re:Turning a MacBook into a touchscreen with $1 of hardware ... by headmelted on Friday December 10, 2021 @05:20AM (#29508332)
iPadOS is frustratingly close to perfect for me, but I rarely use it because of a few trade-offs that part of me really appreciates.

I could develop software on it, but Apple won't let me run arbitrary code on it, even in a sandbox. I get why, and I really appreciate that for everything else I would use it for, but even getting a Linux container running similar to ChromeOS would be something.

It's a surprisingly pleasant experience with the magic keyboard.

Re:Turning a MacBook into a touchscreen with $1 of hardware ... by oleganza on Friday December 10, 2021 @07:19AM (#29509003)
> I get why

Apart from purely political/commercial reasons, I don't see why.

Sandbox and App Store are mutually exclusive reasons for this situation.

Option A: you have good security architecture, so running arbitrary code is safe because all the data is well-isolated and programs cannot mess with each other's data. There is no need to have humans reviewing apps, apart from optional parental controls that people may opt into.

Option B: you don't have good security, so you need to micro-manage app publication and have ability to revoke them, in case an exploit is discovered.

Also, for a development machine, when you run arbitrary 3rd party open source dependencies, build scripts etc, you really want iPad-like security model where each project lives in its own sandbox. But the Unix permission system is an unusable mess, so even if you put your project in a container, your build script can still push to git repo and do other fun stuff outside build folder.

Re:Turning a MacBook into a touchscreen with $1 of hardware ... by tinus_hn on Saturday December 11, 2021 @07:16AM (#29520365)
It is impossible to build a sandbox that protects all user interests if there are no checks and controls.

A sandbox can not protect against things like user tracking or crypto mining and can give no guarantees about what an app is going to do with the private data you are entrusting to it.

Re:Turning a MacBook into a touchscreen with $1 of hardware ... by Jcowell on Friday December 10, 2021 @10:51AM (#29511297)
Why would it not rely on both ? Why would any security measure not have an additional security measure ? In my opinion there is no such thing as a “good security measure”. There are only security measures that haven’t been broken yet.