Computers

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iPadOS Challenge – Ditching the Laptop for a Week

The issues of file system and persistence from about 15 minutes onwards, are the two I notice most frequently, being a tablet whore from imported from another platform.

How Brad describes the gap between a folder and the photos app as a file system, is a real systemic problem to the operating system. Because traditionally, iPhone doesn’t have a file system for people to go mucking with. And while that’s usually a good thing in my opinion, there are just times when having the whole files thing at your fingertips is productive. Considering that iPadOS 13 is the first time Apple shipped a real file manager, and the Files app actually shipped two years ago, I have some forgiveness for that one. Because let’s be honest, the platform has spent most of its life without any real file system.

The way I look at this is pretty simple. Open app → go browse file crap, isn’t how I want to use my machines. But being able to stuff a file in a folder with special meaning to apps, is a handy thing.

The issue of persistence is a simple reality. iOS, and Android prioritize what you’re doing, and have a history of, by modern standards, very memory constrained environments. One of the things I liked about Android Jelly Bean and the rise of 2 GB of memory was how rare things would get reaped. In Android land, it’s kinda disappeared as an issue as devices begin to have comical levels of memory for a mobile. iOS also works pretty well but occasionally blurps. I mostly see grumbly things in the sense like Evernote → switch app, lock screen, whatever, and then → Evernote again, often my position is reaped. I might be in a previously snapshotted note or I might have to wait for the note to refresh, and have to go reset my cursor position. That gets old, when you’ve got like ten screenfuls of text in a journal entry. To keep your current task fast, you’ve got to reap your previous tasks in some form.

Difference is if you workhorse your desktop: you will grind it to a halt. That’s why our machines now have oodles and oodles of memory, and slow spinning platters are going the way of to floppy diskette. ‘Cuz speed and good over cost. If you’ve ever experienced what true virtual memory trashing is like then you’ll never want to trade a blazing fast system for crap again. Compared to what an iPad offers, you can do a hell of a lot of shit before a modern desktop will have comparable pressure.

For reference, my desktop has three times the memory of iPad Pro, and my laptop has four times the memory installed. My iPad has two to four times as much memory as most iPad models, depending on whether you’re looking at what’s currently supported or production history.

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The Remarkable Tablet Is Better Than the Apple iPad for Taking Notes Hands (and Pencils) Down
http://flip.it/T_MjbI

As much as I would like to see more devices like this, and think the reMarkable is a pretty damned nice offering, I kind of disagree with the conclusion. Based on how well my various pen packing Samsung tablets have worked over the past seven years, and my iPad Pro 11, I expect that most people would get more value out of the cheaper Tab A and iPad models.

Because for comparable cost, you wind up with a general purpose tablet with all the benefits of a widely supported, popularly developed for operating system. What’s lacking is the more paper like experience (overrated, IMHO) and the power efficiency.

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Shortcuts Corner: Creating Multiple Reminders in a Row, Playing Audio on HomePod, and Reading Tech News

Interesting and tempting.

For the most I have been very happy with the Reminders app in iPadOS and the ability to set reminders via Siri. In fact given the rolly scrolly date and time selection controls in the app makes using Siri a better way to configure a reminder like x day of the week / y time of day. Because while the UI in Reminders is neat, it doesn’t lend itself to speed.

Likewise, I’ve kinda wanted a way to issue several reminders in the task→when kind of format. Because doing it from Siri is a pretty smooth affair.

But to be fair, I’m just happy its been less buggy, broken, and frustrating then using Google’s app to speak reminders to my phone, and previous tablets. I’m sure that given enough time: Apple will piss me off as well but today is not that reminder😜.

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https://youtu.be/c2ewLZplxY8

A rather different use case, since my pen computing is more handwriting focused, but I think that this is a darn good video for why tablets and a stylus that isn’t shit, is a good idea.

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Give or take the temptation to call a meeting to discuss the amount of meetings, I think that I’ve gotten my battery’s worth.

My iPad came off charge this morning, and pretty much was my computer for the day. A lot of time spent using Evernote, as a consequence of ~3 meetings, and or already being an integral part of my work flow.

It’s also had to become my email, browser, and terminal on the go. There was really no point undocking my Latitude and hauling a four pound development beast around.

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Things that I consider potential risks, now that I again have a tablet capable of HDMI output:

  • Monitor, and Xbox controller = gaming
  • Monitor, keyboard, and mouse = relaxing.
Typically, my Tab S3 and its predecessors had a high probability of being my device of choice even when sitting at my desk. The main thing that gets me to power on Centauri and use it, is the laziness wires to plug in if I want to share the monitor.
Sadly, Scarlett’s one real failing versus Goldie was the loss of external monitor support. Samsung’s first iteration of USB-C, while welcomed, did not come with DP or MHL alt modes. Which is how Celes, the Chromebook entered the collection of devices I deal with.
Nerine the iPad on the other hand, has external monitor support via DP alt mode, and my USB hub quite the few ports. The risk that I’ll eventually buy yet another Bluetooth mouse, also seems to be incrementing.
What shows no real sign of changing however, is how much I dislike the Mac editing shortcuts. Having had PCs for nearly thirty years, the way you combine arrow keys with modifier keys, while cursing the lack of vi and emacs editing strokes in joe random UI widget, is kind of deeply ingrained by now. Macs, of course do it differently. When you start dicking with the order of modifiers, and which do what, my muscle memory requires a “Are ya really sure?” level of buffering. It will probably be quite a while before that can be eliminted.
On the upside however, I still type at a decently high speed provided that I’m not editing what I insert. Being able to type as fast as I can think, is not a problem. Having to correct for my inability to spell shit is the actual problem. Sigh, that one actually has no real solution. Unless maybe you can make my keyboard provide an electric shock for every genuinely misspelled word, lol. Wait, don’t do that…I’d die.
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Pretty consistently, I’ve never cared much for dragging windows around and stacking them across my desktop workspace. Anywhere, or anytime.

When we made the transition from a ROM/floppy system to a modern hard drive and window based system, monitors in my family were universally too small to care, not to mention Windows 98 wasn’t exactly a sexy multitasking anything at that point.

The thing that’s basically stuck with me is how I tend to favor a central application of focus, and rapid switching to another; like having an xterm and API docs side by side. It’s only been the era of the 20-something inch screen that I’ve really found much use for having my workspace split into two or more applications. It’s kinda rare that I do a one window split with two, or a quartet approach even on a big screen.

Once we get down to much less than 20” diagonal, the value largely disappears from many desktop apps. Rather you end up with something more like 1.5 apps or 1.2 apps on a laptop sized screen. Which usually results in me just maximizing what I’m doing, and using alt+tab to switch actives.

It’s probably little wonder that I prefer the style of window management found on Android tablets and iPads to drawing and stacking crap. Or that when I ask my PCs to do much more than provide a convieniet Xfce session, you’ll usually find me running something like Xmonad—that manages application windows for me.

Because I’ve got better damned things to do with my computers than dragging windows around all day.

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Happy fun times: when you power on your computer, and your Bluetooth keyboard doesn’t want to power on. Being lazy, rather than fetch my trusty USB keyboard I simply used accessibility features to login.

Windows NT decided my Bluetooth dongle was nadda, and only gave a faint blue like power was coming through the port but no goodness. Migrating to a neighboring USB port, and lo and behold: it suddenly lights up. I seem to recall that some ballocks like this, is how it ended up in the port it was in.

I’m pretty sure that the day I believe a Windows desktop ever does Bluetooth, or even USB things well, the deepest levels of hell may have frozen colder than can be measured.

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Mac Stories -Beyond the Tablet: Seven Years of iPad as My Main Computer

Seven years after I started (slowly) replacing my MacBook Air with an iPad, my life is different, but one principle still holds true: I never want to find myself forced to work on a computer that’s only effective at home, that can’t be held in my hands, or that can’t be customized for different setups. For this reason, the iPad Pro is the best computer for the kind of lifestyle I want.

While my tablet life style hasn’t been due to health problems and having started in Android land, hasn’t been so focused on dealing with an operating system limiting my abilities, I really agree with the above excerpt. Particularly the part I have added emphasis to.
Working from Android, I’ve had pretty complete file management since the beginning. As much as I prefer apps and their own data, such as Evernote and Play Music over wrangling files around like the stone ages, it’s nice having comprehensive control. I hope that apps on iOS will become more attuned to the file system, because files are kinda nice for sharing some forms of data between applications. As opposed to cases like my experience setting up a custom alarm tone or wallpapers. Being a fuck ton versions late to the party, I got to miss the lack of a file system part and have arrived for the apps still aren’t used to their being a file system part.
Another perk of coming late to the party, is while I experienced Android’s growing pains for multi tasking, I don’t really have to re-experiences them with iOS. Samsung did the whole split screen a lot of freaking years ago, well before Google mucked with it.
Having only scratched the surface on the shortcuts stuff, I have to admit that it’s a large part of what makes Siri interesting, aside from being less of a pain in my Fi phone then Google’s voice shit. I’ll probably be referencing this article later when I screw with shortcuts more.
Accessories are another thing I find attractive about iPads. Android was pretty quick to bring support for things like keyboards, mice, hard drives, monitors, controllers, etc. Aside from Google Play Services combined with Ethernet breaking push notifications for eons, it’s been a pleasent experience using external devices with Android.
What hasn’t been fun is anything form fitting. Aside from largely generic cases adapted to fit specific models, the options have sucked. Turning an iPad into a clamshell ala EeePad Transformer TF101, has been a thing for years on iPad. Some accessories are easier purchased than made at home, if available to begin with. Not to mention how badly Android needs more than a hardware Specific  S-Pen for those of us who demand a real stylus.
Sometime I also need to play with the external monitor truck noted in the end; really I like the concept, and it basically reflects the fact that I’d like better external monitor support without having to run regular PC shit.
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https://www.cnet.com/reviews/apple-ipad-10-2-inch-2019-review/

While I’m not sure that I agree with the storage comment, I think the article’s parting comment is spot on. Pretty good one.

You see, if your customer thinks maybe they should have spent a few C-Notes more on that faster, sexier model that’s better than them buying your only product and thinking it’s a cheap piece of shit, and that they should have gone with someone else’s product. In that sense options are a very good thing, and the Fruit Co has done well IMHO to offer the basic, mid range, and high end models.

Most tablet goers would probably be best served by the Air and its excellent trade off between price and performance. Most actual people will probably be happy with the cheapest issue, and unless it’s your main computer, odds are no one needs a Pro. All depends on how much you live on your tablet.

Coincidentally, my 90~95 % of the time computer is my tablet and I have a usage around 26/64 GB, or just a bit over 40% storage utilization. On my last Samsung, the 32 GB was just starting to get tight but was still quite effective when you’re not full of games and videos instead of apps and books. While iPads note have decent support for external drives, they do lack the internal micro SD slot common on Samsung tablets.

Personally, I’d like to see tablet computing become more popular but my belief is that you should use what works best for you. That is to say: you do you, and I do me. Not everyone has the same computing needs or preferences, and freedom of choice rocks.