Chromebooks here too.
https://help.netflix.com/en/node/54816
MacOS is absent, but I'm sure it's not too far off using an Google Chromebook emulator with Google Play Store in UTM if it's a must.
I did consider an emulator in xcode, but that's not quite what I'm after.
Files are so basic...
For instance a phone and a Surface Pro covers 100% of the use cases, there's no gap for a 3rd device. For some this gets down to one device with a Galaxy Fold and DEX.
People might have different preferences and/or be locked in the Apple ecosystem anyway, but we have working products showing things done differently ("think different" was such a good copy)
iPad OS is limited, but it's fine for reading, writing and sketching. It's good to do that on a separate device that is not connected to work stuff. I can bring my iPad in the bedroom because it's just a fancy book.
Windows is also far too needy for this sort of device. I returned my Surface after a day because of updates, notifications, tracking and a complete lack of respect for the user. My iPad is such a calm device by comparison.
Windows is not refined nor optimized for tablet use by any measure, but it actually does the job, instead of showing a cute and extremely refined middle finger half the time.
The breaking point for me was the reader apps, where I'd have a file and just no way to read it, short of taking 10 min on a desktop to somewhat convert it to what the iPad can handle (see below). Since they're also in a pissing match with Amazon, the reading experience is just subpar. What's the point of a simple and elegant interface if I'm still babysitting what's going in there and have to constantly think about work-arounds that also end up clunky and broken ?
> Art and note apps
Adobe suite, ClipStudio etc. are all there, in their actual, professional, full-blown version, and not some compromised "on the go" version. Same for One-note, obsidian etc., there's no lack of them on Windows while it was a fresh market on the iPad.
> ebook reader apps
I think iBooks is the only reader you don't get (is there a web version ? I have no idea).
Granted I buy most of my books on kindle, the in-browser reader works well enough (in the end, I'm full screen turning pages, so makes no difference). I'd argue getting the read the book straight from the page I bought them is pretty great.
I didn't bother with the android subsystem version but it would be an option if there is any limitation on the web part. I also have a bunch of old ebooks and scans from way before there were stores, and of course they were better handled by the windows apps (at some point I was using CloudReader on iOS, and it just disappeared).
Right now it’s inferior not-a-laptop with a touchscreen that you can detach and people still buy it.
For the same reason you carry an "inferior" camera, pda, navigation system, cellphone with very short battery life and undersized movie screen: a smartphone does all that okay-ishly. Or why ultrabooks are vastly more popular than gaming laptops. Convenience and form factor trump "inferior" all the time.
Youtube playback would stop everytime another video starts playing somewhere (additional fun when it's just a video ad that actually had no sound in the first place).
SMB file management is still an afterthought, so you end up needing a plex server dealing with all the complexity the iPad can't deal with.
Browsing is the same, outside of the Safari limitation, extensions are few and tab management a pain in general.
For books and magazine it's kinda the same. It works fine for light use. It becomes frustrating if it's something you actually care about.
In the end, I realized I actually care less about visual polish and more about having complete functionalities, at the price of dealing with Windows and managing a computer instead of an appliance.
This is what made me sell the Surface. I wanted to replace a paper notebook I bring everywhere. What I got was tiny buttons, menus, and a save dialog every time I wanted to close the app. My drawings were not drawings in a sketchbook, but files I had to manually sort and access on a filesystem.
After spending a whole day installing updates and turning off ads and tracking, I couldn't just unwind and doodle. The Surface constantly reminded me that I was operating a computer, not drawing.
> ebooks
The in-browser reader is not a replacement for an offline book reader. This tablet is offline most of the time.
> obsidian
I want to write and doodle, not edit markdown files. Otherwise I'd have no use for a tablet. This tablet replaces a paper notebook.
https://apps.microsoft.com/store/detail/sketchpal/9MVT92NRF5...
Does a pretty good job
Sure, not the most convenient way, but there is no replacing something like pandoc.
> Adobe suite, ClipStudio etc. are all there, in their actual, professional, full-blown version
Speaking of those, does the Pencil still feel somewhat half baked for Apple? The display front panels on iPads aren't "optimized" for pens, like, given rigidity and texturing for front panels. I don't own the iPad kit nor am I a digital artist, but the Pencil as a physical object almost feels like poking acrylic panel with laundry hangars, and most third party feeling among all third party pens. and I didn't understand how they could sell it as a serious thing.
For art apps, Procreate is very good but it's still kinda limited. Windows has the full Photoshop, CSP, Art Rage etc. experiences.
And with WSA you can just grab the Android versions of Kindle or whatever.
And is really respectful of the user to artificially kneecap a device from doing tasks?
but useless as a computer?
I needed to apply for a visa -It can't even handle that simple task!
Like all I had to do, is collaste togesther a few dozen documents (bank statements, utility bills, etc.), merge all them into PDfs and organise pages cronologically. Couldn't even do that.
whats the point of having a great processor in an iPad if it's all wasted.
This is a deal braker for me, handling official documents is a normal thing normal people have to do every day.
Open the PDF (or print the webpage to PDF if needed), tap to insert other PDFs into that one (so assembling / merging the documents).
Drag any pages into the order you want, save the file.
What’s missing?
LOLNO. Many, many people use an iPad as their primary or only nonphone computer.
Sounds like you had a tool chain problem, not an iPad problem.
Yet for all that, I replaced it with a Moto X just 2 years later, and it's the Moto X that I really miss, with its superior voice control and its preference to remain in my pocket, and the little dimple in its wooden back.
I think today's Macbook Air M2 with 360deg hinges, touch and some iPad like UI-mode would be a holy grail for the article author.
Microsoft, for all its qualities, truly does not care about the finer details.
0. 360 MX. This is the least likely. I'm sure Apple has been testing flippable hinges for decades at this point, but even if they could make the best one, they need a marketing reason for users. What's the point in a flippable laptop if you can't use everything when it's flipped like Windows?
1. Running iOS apps. macOS with an ARM chip already runs iOS apps, the problem is that most developers are chickenshit and don't allow people to run their apps on macOS. Apple needs to reverse course and remove the ability to deny running on macOS.
2. Cellular data. By this point, Apple would have done it. There's a valid argument that Apple doesn't want to even entertain negotiations with Qualcomm about how much it would cost them to put modems in their laptops, so I believe our last hope is that the modems currently in development by Apple themselves are someday destined for Apple laptops.
3. Excellent touch response. Every Macbook already has the best touch response in any laptop. Their trackpad is best-in-class. I don't know how Apple could even fail at that.
4. Lidar. What? Why?
0. You bring up some points I fully agree with. Since we’re talking about Apple who can’t do anything mundane, for the hinge let’s just assume they come up with a new tech (maybe a single pivot point and the keyboard spins freely, or a mechanism that detaches it entirely so it can be snapped in flush on the back, or some other solution I can’t imagine yet)
1. Agreed
2. I can’t imagine this would actually stop them if they decided to cannibalize the iPad and build an MX 360
3. Agreed
4. Personally I would probably never use it, but it’s a notable iPad feature and might as well have them all
Obviously the market just isn't there for smaller phones, but I actually think the iPhone 3GS had the best form factor of any phone I've used, and it's smaller screen encouraged information density, which I like.
I say I use an iPhone mini now, and it's true, but only because Apple requires you to use an iPhone with their Watch. I've given up on the phone form factor, and use an Apple Watch with an ear bud and cellular, and keep the phone in drawer most of the time. Actually is was the Moto lineup that got me onto that: they had that short-lived earbud that was marketed as requiring zero screen in order to do all your mobile computing (I never got one though).
You might wonder why one wouldn't just use an Android watch that could do all of it without the bullshit Apple tax across multiple devices. It's for similar reasons for why I didn't end up liking the Galaxy Note, even though it still, to this day, feels like a miracle that they could cram so many features AND so much quality into that device, and that it could legitimately perform in all those categories.
The iPhone mini still feels too big, but at least it's mostly usable with one hand, even if it's not comfortable to do something like pull down the control panel shade on the top right corner with your left hand.
I know I'm just a weirdo though. I thought the Windows Phone UI was brilliant, especially the audio design.
iPad is super handy but I'm not sure a laptop has turn by turn nav, maybe it could via an emulator.
As a programmer with serious mobile experience I fully understand it. But it sound a bit crazy that a powerful and more superior (and open! In both hard and sometimes soft - if with an opensource OS) platform need so _emulate_ an embedded one (mobile, usually at least partially proprietary one) to provide turn-by-turn nav: what appears to be a first-order need of anyone in the modern world.
You can run OSM in navigation mode, I suppose.
I remember the time I was heading south from Syracuse in an area notorious for state police speedtraps when I had pulled alongsides a greyhound and my son had logged into the WiFi on board the bus. The bus driver got pissed at us and got up to 95 mph to shake us. I gave up first but I figured he'd have a lot more to lose from getting a ticket than I would.
However, although the devices might run on ancient stable standard, but that does not mean, that operating system is not playing silly games there. If you had an app that talked to them via serial port, you could throw it away once Microsoft introduced GNSS subsystem.
That said, the point still stands. I did some searching, and Streets and Trips are discontinued. Copilot was bought by Trimble and AFAIK, you can only get the mobile app versions (they still have offline support). I think their truck fleet software will still run on laptops, but are sold as part of a bulk purchase.
I did find MapFactor, which I've never used, as being something that will work on Windows and Linux (via wine) and it provides real-time GPS navigation.
https://www.mapfactor.com/en/products/navigation-software-st...
Quite often they work completely offline, and also cover more information related to topography and driving routes that may not be traditional roads on existing maps. For example, the path to a location in a farmer's field, etc.
I would also say that about 1/3 of people that work primarily from their laptop, and travel a lot (no easy access to a desktop monitor), will probably have an iPad as a second display as well.
On my journey home in a more crowded train I saw half a dozen iPads just from where I was sitting. They are extremely useful devices for train journeys.
Similar to the parent I only ever see iPads in two places, the hands of rich kids in restaurants, and in primary schools.
If you spend a lot of time on public transport, an iPad isn't really that much of a luxury item. It's a really pragmatic choice, and at least in the UK an entry-level or recent secondhand iPad is not much more expensive than the cheapest usable alternative.
Most seats on British trains are not at tables, and while many (by no means all, depends on the operator) have a seatback tray table, it is generally not the right shape for all but the smallest laptop, and the proportions are not such that they work well with convertible PCs that use screen-cover keyboards.
We really get crammed into trains.
An iPad is large enough to read a book or emails even if you are stuck without a seat, the on-screen keyboard is practical enough to write reasonable emails or edit small documents on, watch a film on, etc.
So is a very cost effective way to make use of what might be 2+ hours of every working day.
(Train travel is pretty expensive over any distance, too. An entry level iPad is only about ten times the cost of an ad-hoc journey into London from where I am.)
So is a very cost effective way to make use of what might be 2+ hours of every working day.
You can either drive it and do nothing but listen to something relatively simple, or sit in a train and read/work/draw/listen/play games/sleep.
(It’s not my commute; I work from home. But I visit clients sometimes; yesterday involved six hours of train/tube travel. I wouldn’t do that every day but I could do it once a week.)
However, 30 miles is significantly under the average US commuting distance. And, unless you live and work near an urban downtown, 30 miles probably doesn't get you to a lot of appropriate professional jobs. I live in an exurb outside a major metro and my (nominal) office is the nearest tech job I could physically commute to and it barely squeezes in under 30 miles.
https://hbr.org/2021/05/that-dreaded-commute-is-actually-goo...
But, yes, other numbers seem to be lower (and are generally more likely to quote commute time rather than distance which is probably more relevant for most people).
But thirty miles in an hour on urban/suburban rail isn't particularly unusual. And this time is time you can use, if you have even a little bit of method about it. I know people who have done all the reading for entire higher education degrees in that period of time.
At any rate, the notion to which you're responding regarding the area of possible commute being 2800 square miles is foolish. You have to go to where the jobs gather, and there are all sorts of complex reasons why they don't distribute evenly across that area that a rational person should not spend time weighing up when they consider whether an iPad might be a useful thing for the train.
In my case, if I made the commute into London on a daily basis, knocking down the distance to this hypothetical US average of 16 miles might save, I think, about a third of the journey time in practice. It would knock off half of the price of a season ticket, which might be useful. But it would add easily 40% to the cost of a house, which is the overriding concern. And even then I'd still buy the iPad for that journey.
People who actually live in London tend to be either very rich or unemployed.
Sincerely, from someone in the third world who has taken UK public transport. You don't.
I don't say this to disparage your message, but hopefully to give some gratitude for the nice things you do have over there.
I found it most amusing how people would get antsy and annoyed when a train was more than 5 minutes late in the UK. For years of me taking South African trains, if there was any delay worth being mad about, it would've been after 2 hours had passed.
And as far as safety is concerned, when every seat is full and there's already very little seat-to-seat distance, the aisle is crammed with people face to back with nothing to hang on to, and the vestibules are all full to the point that people are standing with nothing to support them if the train brakes hard, that is a crammed train. Dangerously so -- indeed, often illegally so.
And this is quite normal, routine and unexceptional at commuter times, and that is not talking about the underground, where it is routine to be packed in to the point that someone's nose is against the window (mine was, yesterday).
I'm sure there are trains elsewhere that are worse. There's nothing I can do about that; it doesn't really change my observation.
(I'm not sure there's a really good point about gratitude here, either, when the people paying for these services where they don't get a seat have to take out substantial loans to afford the annual ticket, whereas you can travel from Cape Town to Johannesburg, with a sleeping car berth, for about 20% more than the amount it costs me to travel an hour into London at off-peak times. But that's a separate point.)
That was the Metra BN line in Chicago when I lived there, at least the rush hour departures at around 5:00pm. I was on a train so full that I could not even fully get into the vestibule, I had to push people in with my body so the door could close behind me. Many times the CTA trains were similarly full.
Generally speaking and especially when compared with trams or buses, mainline trains don't really do "hard" braking, though. Though I concede that the jerk of coming to a full stop with the brakes fully applied (during regular braking drivers and/or the train control system will ease off the brakes before stopping) may be somewhat borderline in terms of keeping your stability.
Also try the Tube in London’s rush hour - more like stuffed in than even crammed in. Full armpit-in-the-face experience.
I've also hung out of Cape Town trains because that's the only way to get on - all doors forced open by commuters so we can get a few more people to work.
That said, I'm going on a few week--mostly recreational--trip in a bit and I'll just take my phone and my iPad. It will be fine for note-taking at the conference I'm attending and I really just want media consumption and a browser on something bigger than my phone for everything else.
An iPad is probably one of my more optional devices but I've gotten almost 10 years out of my current model so it doesn't feel like an unreasonable luxury even if I mostly use it when traveling.
As someone who very much prefers having a physical keyboard, the only workable solution I have found for UK trains is an iPad with the Magic Keyboard, whose cantilever design is relatively shallow, and which provides a firm base for balancing on your legs.
There is no reason this form factor couldn't be achieved with an android tablet, but it feels relatively uncommon. Most keyboard cases I've seen are only really suitable for stable table/desk scenarios.
So cost of an iPad isn't a huge concerns at that point
https://www.thetrainline.com/season-tickets/chelmsford-to-lo...
(Source - worked at Google in Android)
I take the laptop when traveling because who knows what I'll need it for.
Android tablets don’t get any specific APIs or special treatment on Android.
As for the form factor, I do travel with a tablet. More specifically, a 2-in-1 device, with a stylus. An x86 one, though (specifically, Dell Latitude 5290, which has specs like MS Surface, but was 3x cheaper) - because I've learned from experience that iPads and Android tablets are just large phones without the phone call function, and not suitable for any productive use. Meanwhile, my Dell hosts a touchscreen-optimized Windows 10, which hosts a Linux distro, which hosts the actual OS - Emacs.
(I also learned to love the Ribbon. On a 2-in-1, it's very obvious what Microsoft was going for, and why it's a good design - for touchscreens.)
Since then, I've purchased a proper mobile phone, and I transferred my landline home phone over to that SIM card, and it's my main line now. I use my Voice number very rarely.
One of the drawbacks to SIM cards is that you can't really get the phone service mirrored or transferred to a regular computer. Sure, you can "link" the phone if it's nearby, but the service itself stays there.
I've had a number of times where I'd really like to have voice/SMS service on that number available via computer (some people I know are actually creeped out by my having two phone numbers at once), but what can you do.
I haven't traveled since the Before Times anyway, so boarding a plane with devices is the least of my worries.
More for planes than trains though. Most people just read their phone on a train commute.
It’s not a “rich parent” thing, it’s a “this device has actual support from the manufacturer for years” thing. Android tablets are still an afterthought with Samsung the only one bravely attempting to bring large screen support to the OS.
I could similarly just invest in a cheap e-reader device and a physical notepad and it wouldn’t disrupt my studies but I shelled out a little more for a used iPad for the longer than typical device support and because I’m already in the Apple ecosystem.
And as another comment said, iPads are pretty common options here for some people who aren't really power users that essentially want a phone experience, but bigger. I've set up my mom with an iPad + PiHole for home use and she's super happy with it as a video and browsing device that is generally reliable. She does have access to a PC I built as well, but an iPad is much more portable around the house for her (e.g. she needs to follow a recipe while cooking).
That's interesting, for me, any texting (usually via whatsapp or signal) is far, far more convenient on the laptop than on the phone, so far that if I expect a longer response, I'll rather find a place to sit and pull out the laptop than try to type all of it on the phone; and for calling people also videocalls on laptop are more convenient for me than the phone, so again, if it's more than a one-minute conversation, I'll rather put down the phone and call them through the laptop.
But in the US at least, people outside those groups typically don't. I don't think you can (easily) send SMS from a laptop as though it were your phone.
(Yes, it could be argued that the two groups in the first paragraph are actually ONE group, since Apple "texting" is silently-to-the-user shifted to iMessaging, i.e. another app.)
Sure you can--at least with Macs. I do it all the time to both Apple and non-Apple users.
I can't answer a call or text my family with my laptop while I'm on the go. I can't plug my macbook into a car to use maps or play music. I can't use my macbook on the beach to take a picture of my child playing in the surf. I can't really use my phone to type out anything shorter than a quick text.
(Caveat, for the pedants: yes, I could do all those things, but with terrible inconvenience.)