SWMBO has an iPad, a device that to me seems totally useless and without redeeming value. But there are a lot of people much smarter than I am who think that iPad's are really terrific, so who am I to argue?

Anyway, I think she got it because it was the "in" thing to have, she knows little more about it than I do. But she had me prepare a big group of Mexico pictures to put into the iPad so she can show them when she goes on her trip to Europe. (sample attached)

She leaves tomorrow morning at 3am.

Ummm... the iPad seems to be singularly lacking in USB ports or other devices useful for transferring data. What do I do to move 200+ MB of pictures from my PC into her iPad?

tanstaafl.

iTunes is the normal way of doing it. In your case you will probably be better off with CopyTrans Photo.

And I really couldn't disagree more on your conclusions of how useful an iPad is

Well, it does at least seem useful as a photo viewing device...

Mucking around with the clone tool in your photo editor, again, I see.

No USB??
Doesn't it have an SD card slot or something similar?

Pretty frickin' useless without that, unless one wants to be merely a consumer of other people's content.

Thanks, Andy. That did the trick. But making it work was an exercise in frustration. CopyTrans worked just fine, but fighting the idiosyncrasies of the iPad drove me up the wall.

tanstaafl.

Only a little bit... the picture was a composite of five photos, snapshots, really, without benefit of a tripod, so that there were areas around the edges that had to be clone-filled.

tanstaafl.

My bad. I didn't recognize that long, skinny "iPhone" plug as being USB as well as a charging port.

I just have to keep telling myself, "The iPad is not a computer. The iPad is not a computer..." and I shouldn't expect it to behave like one.

I'm sure that for a lot of people, even most people, the iPad is a wonderful device. To me, for my purposes, it is less useful than a chocolate teapot. (At least I can eat the teapot!)

tanstaafl.

Tablets are wonderful, fantastic media consumption devices, and the iPad in particular...

...BUT... [you knew that was coming]

...I still cannot fathom how anyone considers them a device for productivity.


So that said, your wife should quite enjoy showing off photos to friends. Apple does really well when it comes to photo displaying. I still maintain that this is the best feature of the Apple TV

Yeah, digital photo album seems to be the closest thing to a killer app on tablets, be they RIM Playbooks or those Apple things. Yup, pretty good at showing off photos and saving print costs.

But heavy, expensive, limited connectivity, and no keyboards. Yuck.

Cheers

There is the Apple camera connection kit* that gives you a USB connection and an SD slot for importing photos from cameras. I was guessing that Doug didn't have one of those...

And yes, not having a USB connection/SD slot is a compromise. But of course that is how the world works, hopefully carefully chosen compromises to make up the design of a product as a whole.

Most of my photos get taken when I'm out and about is on my iPhone nowadays, simply because the camera is surprisingly good and I've already got it with me. And creating/editing connect couldn't be easier, I have the amazingly complete iPhoto on the iPhone to retouch and if I want to edit it on a bigger screen I can always squirt a photo wirelessly across to the iPad and use iPhoto there too.

And the "magic" of iCloud means that whenever both my iDevices are on wifi the photos I took on my iPhone get automatically synced onto my iPad.

* not that I've ever felt the need to buy it

Heavy ? Apart from my iPhone the iPad is the lightest computer I own.

Limited connectivity ? Apart from my iPhone the iPad is the best connected computer I own, given it has builtin 3G.

Keyboard ? Has a perfectly usable one thanks.

Take my wife for example. Her iPad has replaced her netbook completely and it actually does more than her netbook did for her.

When she is away for work visits she needs a machine that is:

- as light as possible
- as small as possible (it gets to spend the day in her hand bag)
- is usable for writing up/editing her notes

It meets these criteria well, it takes up less space than the netbook and is a fair bit lighter* . She even prefers the keyboard on the iPad to the cramped netbook one.

But as well as doing what the netbook did, the iPad also does a bunch of stuff that the netbook couldn't. She used to carry a big stack of printouts of the relevant papers when she went away, now she just shoves the PDFs onto the iPad. She also typically doesn't take a book to read, as again she reads on the iPad.

So yes, a tablet really can be a device for improving productivity.

* especially as given the iPad's battery life she doesn't always need to take the PSU with her

Countering my claim that tablets are not good for productivity by saying "they're better at productivity than a netbook" is not a very strong argument And this is coming from someone who liked his netbook quite a bit for a long while.

I define productivity differently, I suppose. I'm thinking of the things I do on a desktop computer, and how they take four times as long, if I could do them on a tablet at all. And yes, reading large amounts of things on a tablet is much nicer, but I completely disagree on the typing part:


I really have to ask what usable means. For a sentence? For a paragraph? For a long email? For a term paper? Personally, anything more than a sentence drives me nuts.

Everyone is going to define productivity differently, different people use computers for different things at different times. I was just describing one way the iPad is a productive device for one person in one situation.

As I said before, every product design/choice is about compromise. My wife could choose to carry around a full size laptop and sure it would be able to do some things better than a netbook/iPad can. But it would come with its own compromises, like being much bigger and heavy for a start. And even then it wouldn't be able to do a bunch of stuff that the iPad can do.

When she gets back to her office she spends most of her time using a desktop PC. But that doesn't diminish the fact that the iPad is extremely productive for her when she is out on the road.



I happily use mine for long emails, forum posts and taking a few pages of notes in meetings, I don't need to write term papers My wife uses it to type up pages and pages of notes when she is travelling.

There is plenty I wouldn't want to type on the iPad, like the majority of my typing, which is code. But then I never claimed that the iPad was a replacement for all my computer related tasks. I still spend most of the day sat in front of a laptop bashing on a physical keyboard.

For me an iPad works in addition to the other computers I use, though there are going to be plenty of people for who the iPad* meets all of their computing needs, including a whole set of people who've never even owned a computer before.

* or even maybe other tablets, if anyone other than Apple ever manages to sell any

And of course one person's compromise is another person's feature.

For example:

To many people the lack of access to the file system on iOS is a massive compromise. To many people the simplicity that it brings is a feature.

My wife hardly ever touches the desktop (mac mini) at home, she pretty much uses her iPad for everything, notes, emails, web browsing.

In fact, when I've gone away with work I'm not even allowed to take it because it's all she uses, so I have to lug the laptop around with me instead - and all I use that for when I'm away with work is web browsing.

Like Andy I use my computer for coding, but then that's the most appropriate device for that particular task, pretty much everything else is done on the iPad (when I have access to it!).

YMMV.

The tablets I've seen have no built-in card slots, no standard USB connection, no ethernet, no keyboard, no VGA out. Many tablets do have HDMI and WiFi, but so do netbooks.

Tablets do have touch screens, and a very sexy UI. +2

They weigh about the same as a decent netbook, but cost more. Battery life is similar: 9-11 hours, not counting standby time.

I've got limited experience with tablets. Some of my pals work for RIM, and have (and Love) PlayBooks. But the only appeal I see from using them are the sexy interface and the awesome photo viewing.

Beyond that, I need a keyboard and pointer to get anything useful done.

I've also got two local buddies with iPads. One was given it for free from a course he took -- he absolutely hates it and has been trying to figure out a use for it. The other guy decided there was so much buzz that "they simply must be great". And has been regretting the waste of money ever since.

On the other hand, my on-line acquaintances (you guys) seem to like these things. Weird. But then, I like netbooks, so that makes me not exactly normal in your view either.

Maybe they appeal a lot more to the would-be wealthy crowd? You know, the folks who buy new smartphones every 2 years or so. For them, a tablet is larger screen for their smartphone? Dunno. Those toys are well beyond my budget range.

I think the tablets are pretty cool and fun to play with, but they just aren't more than a single use (photos) device for me now.

They do not weigh the same as netbooks, unless you have some sort of super light netbook. Taking one at random, the Samsung N110 is 1.2kg from what I can see online. The 3rd generate iPad weighs 0.65kg, quite a difference.

The quoted figures of ~10 hours you'll see for the iPad is while making fairly constant use of wifi. Is your 9-11 hours on the netbook with a similar workload ?

Also, I'm curious, is the 9-11 hours an "out of the box" battery life figure Mark ? Or is it one achieved due your clever "boot to a RAM disk, copy to disk only if something was updated" approach ?

There's a big difference, IMO. On a tablet you're making way more compromises (I also hate not having access to the file system in OSX, BTW). And that's the problem.

I also think that you're reading my posts and every time I say laptop you think I'm talking about a 17" MacBook Pro. I'm actually thinking more along the lines of a MacBook Air. An Air is the same weight as an iPad with a keyboard, but can do so very much more.

And to each his own. You like typing on a tablet and for me it makes me want to punch a wall. How are you typing on it? Like a real keyboard, or thumb typing?

IMO, the most limiting factor of any tablet at this point is storage capacity. The issue is mitigated when you're also using a traditional PC, but as a post-PC device that shouldn't be a requirement. Apple is missing a convenient storage appliance for use with iOS devices from their product mix.

iCloud is not the solution to storing 200GB or 2TB of information.

I should disclose a bias I'm having towards tablets. In general, I'm very concerned about the knee-jerk reaction that everyone seems to be having to the iPad. Don't get me wrong, it's a great device, but I'm worried by all the folks who make it out to be more than it is. It's those people who are influencing companies like Apple and Microsoft to move towards the tabletization of everything and make their desktop operating systems more like tablets.

That scares the crap out of me.

I'm one of the Windows users who will be avoiding Windows 8 like the plague. I know my desktop is still there, but I NEVER want to see that Metro UI on my 30" monitor. And you can laugh and say that it's just Microsoft being reactionary, but from what I've seen it sure looks like Apple is slowly trying to bring the tablet experience into the laptop/desktop world.

And the thing is that for most people: I think it's a good idea. I think half my clients would benefit from a simple computer. But my concern is that these tech companies are so obsessed with the public's reaction to the iPad (selling millions), they don't care if they bulldoze over those of us who want the more powerful desktop experience.

That's why I'm so protective of my "productive" desktop experience. I see it as endangered

I just want to stress again how great I think tablets are for certain things, and I use mine all the time. I just worry that the computer industry thinks it's all or nothing, and that nobody can use a tablet for some things and a real computer for everything else, because if I'm forced to use a tablet operating system for everything I do, I'll go insane. Or start using Linux, which is the same thing (that's for you, Mark)

Sorry for the little rant there. It's something that's been bugging me for a while and I wanted to get it off my chest. I'm interested to hear what you guys think about the issue.

No, on a tablet YOU would have to make more compromises. On a laptop/desktop some (in fact I'd say quite a few) people would be making more compromises than they would on an iPad.

Using a laptop/desktop a user takes on the very burdensome compromises of managing a complex computer setup, dealing with backups and restore, trying not to infect it with malware* etc. This complexity is just as much a compromise to those people as the lack of file system on iOS is to you.

The people I am thinking about who could use the iPad as their only computer are the people at the end of the spectrum where they've never bought a PC/Mac app and have never successfully restored anything successfully from a backup. Such stuff is childs play now in the iPad (the first time you blow away the contents and restore the entire device from an iCloud backup really is compelling).



No, I was certainly not thinking of something as massive as the 17

However, even an iPad + keyboard is a fair lighter than the 13 inch Air + PSU. And that is kind of beside the point, as not a single one of my iPad owning offline friends has felt the need to buy a physical keyboard for it.

We have an external keyboard as I had one for my MacBook, but even though she has played with it, my wife prefers to use the on screen keyboard.



I'm not sure I said I liked typing on the iPad. I said it was usable. Given the choice, with no other factors involved I'd clearly prefer to be typing on a physical keyboard, but of course there are other factors involved.

I type on it like a really keyboard when writing more than a couple of lines, people who are good at it can just about touch type in it, as unlikely as that must sound...

* you're going to say that OSX makes these compromises less painful and yes, it probably does, a bit. But then the people looking to make a $399 iPad their only computer are the people who in the past would have ended up on a $400 PC, not a $1,000 Mac

N.B. in all of these discussions I am talking about an iPad and not a generic tablet. And iPad and other tablets certainly do not bring the same set of benefits and compromises.

It is easy to forget that the iPad has been on the market for less than 2 years...

I share some of your concerns with the tabletization of desktop OSes. Putting Metro as the default UI for laptops/desktops seems like a particularly odd idea.

And if Microsoft are thinking that people are going to use touch screens on laptops/desktops, I think they are badly mistaken.

However, even on the desktop some of the tabletization is clearly the right direction for the sorts of non-technical users we have been talking about. Taking the idiot proof design of the App Store for example is clearly the right thing to do on OSX/Windows.

Just think of the sales the Windows app store could make in the next few years, assuming that Windows users fit an iOS user buying pattern and not an Android user buying pattern

(This is just a quick reply this morning, Andy is doing great at covering most of my position on the subject)


Why don't you have access to your filesystem in OS X? Seems perfectly accessible to me, using Finder or Terminal.


I don't personally see the problem here as long as usability is good. I will say Microsoft does appear to be going too far with Windows 8 and the Metro interface when a keyboard and mouse is present. Too much of it seems to require gestures that aren't very discoverable. But I'll hold off final judgement on the release preview. Been running the Developer and Community betas to keep an eye on the other side. And I do think it works well on a tablet.

As for Apple though, I don't think they are going to far at this point. My OS X machine still mostly works the same as it did when 10.0 came out (or in many ways, much better). Sure, Launchpad is there for users who want an iOS tablet launcher. But it's not forced like what Microsoft is choosing to do. The other "Tablet" features such as auto save and crash recover seem like a good thing to me. And the other tablet feature I can think that they brought over to the Air at least is standby time measured in months. Again, can't really see anything wrong with that. I'm also completely comfortable with the trackpad replacing the mouse for everything outside of gaming on my Mac. That's all I can think of in the way Apple is bringing tablet components to the desktop. They recognize the devices are two separate things, and aren't trying to mash them into one like their competitors.

I'm hoping that the opposite happens with Windows 8. I'm hoping that Windows 8 ultimately gives us usable computers in the tablet form factor: with the full filesystem, functionality, and development environment of a desktop operating system. It's something that Microsoft tried before with pen-screen Windows tablet PCs, but they were bulky, and grafting the regular windows UI onto a pen-input screen sucked. Now they're trying again, and I'm hoping they get it right this time.

I agree that a pure tablet user interface on a full size keyboard/mouse PC is an awful idea, and I'm sure that Metro is going to suck on the desktop for a version or two. But if that's the growing pain, so be it.

Even if Windows 8 crashes and burns in the marketplace, if it at least manages to push someone else (Apple, Android, whoever) to finally make the above possible, then we still come out the winners.




That statement right there cuts to the heart of this whole thing. For many consumers, emails and web browsing are everything. That's why the iPad sells so well. It does the same thing that companies tried to do ten+ years ago with WebTV and the i-Opener, but this time the form factor makes it genuinely convenient and useful for those things.

Me, I want more functionality, because my computer is more than email and web browsing to me. And I'm hoping Windows 8 will eventually let me have that in an iPad-sized box.

I'll say it's actually *most* consumers. Probably by at least an order of magnitude or more. I'd even wager it's above 100 to 1. Who do you think makes up most of Facebook's users for example. And I believe this number is representative strictly of people who were already using a computer.

Now the iPad is opening up computing to people who were not previously using computers, and there have always been more of those. That's enormous potential. I think the numbers over the next two to there years are going to be jaw-dropping.

Windows 8 may very well be reactionary. But MS has seen the writing on the wall and they know that their position in desktop is more than threatened by the iPad. This is a dangerous time for MS, despite their current presence it's not too hard to imagine their near-complete displacement in the next decade.

I love my iPad and use it far more than any other computer, except when I'm at work.

I'll admit, it's mostly for content consumption, but that's what it's designed for, and it turns out is consume more content than I create unless I am at work.

I hardly use my PC anymore at all except to run iTunes and host my video/music library.

Admittedly, I did switch to a PS3 for games or my PC wold get more love (Max Payne 3 today!)

I even steam video through my iPad to my TV using my AppleTV.

Oh, and I'm posting on my iPad right now. It's my primary web browser at work because a lot of my non-work sites are blocked if I use my browser on my dev machine.