Apple

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Buggy behavior observed:

  1. Apple keyboard stopped inserting characters into Safari.
  2. Can’t move Apple keyboard in floating mode, had to restart Safari.
  3. For a while, Safari wouldn’t drag from dock in order to go split screen.
  4. Split screened Safari and Google News – G.N. would no longer accept input events until I stopped split screen.
  5. Lockscreen in portrait mode, but iPad in landscape mode, until unlocking.
And that’s just since getting home from work. Notably most of these revolve around operating system components, text input, and multitasking: the keyboard, the browser, and an application that embeds the browser.
I guess it’s time to rebootenze the fruity device, again.
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A Decade of iPad
https://flip.it/bBeP6L

Personally, I think that netbooks worked out far better than anyone should have expected; and I feel that the rise of the iPad and Chromebook is due to realizing that you don’t need to make a netbook that is a piece of crap. Nor do you necessarily need to spend several grand of laptop just to update Twitter.

Tablets are a remarkable option that is mostly hamstrung by software and accessories. As a docked machine, it’s just a matter of software. My iPad Pro runs circles around my aging Core i5, but docking an iPad doesn’t change the software into a Windows desktop, nor should it.

I find that tablets tend to serve best when you are doing general computery things rather than highly focused tasks. If you’re a heavy user of keys other than alphanumerical, such as modifier based keyboard shortcuts then you’re not going to like typing on tablets. The more efficient you must be at manipulating text: the more you will require a full sized physical keyboard, regardless of your device’s form factor. Likewise if you need pixel precise interaction, you’re probably going to make a middle finger gesture if anyone tries to replace your mouse or track ball with a touchscreen, lol.

In many cases, throwing a keyboard and mouse, or even an external monitor works far better with tablet or phone like software than desktop like software. Don’t believe me? Try using Windows 95 with only your fingers, and then try using your phone with only a keyboard and mouse.

The whole windows desktop paradigm and software designed around a desktop PC does not adapt to a tablet as well as it did to notebooks. But software that doesn’t suck on a tablet, does not necessarily suck on a delete desktop. Software is what you make of it but hardware determines how you physically interact with it.

Most of the negative aspects of my relationship with desktop oriented software is mired in antiquity. I’m sure we would all have done things differently if you landed an Intrepid class star ship on earth in the 1960s than if you tried to grow CP/M into NT, and a host of other histories.

Most of the negative aspects of my relationship with tablet oriented software is mired in quality. I’m sure bug free software does not exist, and will never be the result of Google or Apple, lol. Typically my groan at my iPad is the buggy operating system, much as with Android my problem tends to be Google’s additional  software.

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Yay, it looks like iPad OS 13.3 fixed the holy-crap-the-packets-are-gone level of lagosity when combining Bluetooth mouse and keyboard. Me thinks this will get some use.

And I’ve yet to cry bugs, bugs, bugs everywhere and not a fix in sight as hard as < 13.2.2~13.2.3. As far as I can tell the only knew issue is the mouse wheel scrolling is broken, and that’s hardly a problem compared to can’t effin’ type ‘it.

Damn it, fruit co!

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Reasons to look forward to a knew iPadOS version: if I connect my keyboard or my mouse individually, they work excellently. If I have both connected: the keyboard lags at a rate of 5+ seconds per character with frequent drops and repretitions.

So basically, Apple seems to have broken the ability to use a keyboard and a mouse at the same time in 13.2.3. Nevermind that that mouse support and productivity are cornerstone goals for iPad OS 13 o/.

On the positive side, disconnecting the mouse fixes the keyboard distruption about as instant as the connection terminates. And restores it as fast as the mouse reconnects.  So unlike most issues I’ve experienced with iOS 13 bugs, reboots aren’t required.

I find this less amusing when you take both the fact that I am more inclined to use my tablets with mouse/monitor/keyboard than most people, and that the touchscreen keyboard vs the physical keyboard is a delta of about 40~50 words per minute in my typing speed. And Apple’s floatly keyboard with the pen input is one of the buggist mother fuckers ever shipped.

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I think I’ve finally found something my iPad truly does better than my Androids, lol.

By in large, my many years of using my Android tablets docked to a keyboard, mouse, and monitor has been a pleasant experience. Enough that the only real beefs I’ve had, have been when apps (read Google’s) break the scroll wheel support. Mostly, it just works(tm).

One sore spot however was anything that involves a pinch gesture. Like trying to zoom in and out on Google Maps, which did not always have eat double tap and slide gestures to it. Everything else worked pretty well.

Well, I think I finally smiled. Apple binds the right mouse button to penning the accessibility menu, which is an artifact I guess, of mouse support being more of an accessibility minded thing then a general feature like Android’s support. But when you open this menu and goto Custom it offers the ability to trigger a pich. Which changes the cursor and left click behavior to let you navigate pinching in multiple axis of movement. It doesn’t suck, although naturally it might be a tad confusing.

That’s kind of cool. Good job, Apple. I know I rarely say that instead of four letter gestures, but this one made me happy.

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To cut down on bugs, Apple is changing how it develops its software

Well, at least it sounds like Apple gives a damn.

The report also says that Apple “privately considered” iOS 13.1 to be “the actual public release” and that the company expected only die-hard fans would update to iOS 13 within the short week between its initial release and the iOS 13.1 update. This is a surprising expectation, given that the company often publicly boasts of how quickly its users adopt new software updates compared to competing platforms.

And that’s just funny when you’ve got your own cult, or several.

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How Steve Jobs saved Apple with the online Apple Store

Not sure if memory lane makes me feel old, or just makes me remember the shopping experience from when we bought our first WebTV back in the mid nineties. I also find the old snap of Dell’s site oddly appropriate, and appealing, as someone that experienced that era of the World Wide Web.

And with regards to our present time? Well let’s just say, Amazon is a big thing now.

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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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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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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.