Charlie Sorrel for Cult of Mac:
iPadOS is still iOS, but now there are contextual menus, multiple windows for apps, a home screen that isn’t just a blown-up iPhone home screen, and a proper web browser. You can even plug in mice and USB hard drives.
Apple managed a fine balancing act here. If you update to iOS 13 and don’t really think about it, then everything (mostly) works the same, with just extra speed and polish. But if you want to dig in, you will find a whole new computer just below the surface.
MacDailyNews Take: What’s a computer? Apple’s iPad, iPhone, iPod touch, Apple Watch, Apple TV, AirPods, and Mac!
Upgrade to iPadOS 13.1 and check out desktop class Safari. It’s already great and will only get better!
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Fred Mertz” for the heads up.]
BS. An ipad is, and will never be a real computer. It was purposely design not to be
And th airplane was originally designed to carry two people. How did that work out.
The airplane was designed to carry two people.
This ipad pro is more powerful than a G4 powemac. Which was a supercomputer back in the day. How much power does one need? It can go online browsing web pages, play games, edit video, work on photos, ect. You don’t need much to work on office. What do you consider a real computer? That definition is changing. the Apple watch is more powerful than the First iPhone.
Apple watch is more powerful than the first Apple.
It actually is a computer. A real computer too. And everyday it becomes a more integrated component that is the ecosystem and the cloud.
Computes are soooooo last week.
And phones were the flip-type and everyone thought a physical keyboard was needed. Horses once were the main mode of transportation until Henry birthed an idea that changed things. Oh the romance of how things were.
I cannot wait to get iPadOS downloaded and give it a spin! It will be nice to see iPad’s true potential unleashed. I am a little put off by all the noise over dark mode though. I never understood why this is such a big selling point.
iPad Pro is without a doubt a “real” computer. (I have one and use it all the time.) But it is still lacking “Pro” software in the areas of music recording and notation, i.e. apps equivalent to Sibelius, Finale, ProTools, Logic, Digital Performer, etc. If I had those apps, then I could think about ditching my MBP.
With or without Logic Pro, my iPad would never replace my iMac but I don’t need a laptop for mobility.
The software is not yet there. Email, word processing, pdf OCR and editing are not yet close enough to the full MacOS versions.
As an example, changing numbering on iPad MS Word is impossible. PDF expert is good but I’ve found no OCR software or compression to the level in Acrobat DC. The email searching in iPad Outlook is not strong enough and there are insufficient formatting options.
I have used Apple Pages but it handles tables very poorly and it won’t easily allow numbering of paragraphs which are separated by carriage returns.
It is the software that lets the iPad down.
Exactly this.
I agree. One day the iPad will be a complete desktop replacement but it is still a ways off. I look forward to that day as the computing landscape at that time will be a very different and interesting one. But, for now, I’ll still use my iPad for a lot of tasks but for the heavy lifting my MBP and Mac Pro will be just fine for those more intensive tasks.
It hasn’t ever been in dispute whether or not the iPad is a ‘real computer’. It is however, a ‘real computer’ that is not well suited to a lot of tasks just like other ‘real computers’ that aren’t. You don’t saw wood with a stapler. Similarly, I don’t use an iPad for heavy duty work, and I never will. Were this not the case, there wouldn’t be an $8,000 Mac Pro or even an iMac Pro. Sorry, that’s just the truth.
No iOS Finder, no dice.
What about files?
Real computers don’t need other computers to program them.
My guess is that most supercomputers are running code that was written on Macs or PCs and was likely compiled on yet a third computer system… or is it a real computer if its programming relies on other devices? I would also guess that a fair number of coders have used a tablet from time to time. When the codebase is maintained in the cloud, why not?
A supercomputer or a PC “may” be running code compiled on a Mac or PC (to use your term), its not that it “must” be coded on a Mac or PC. They all can be directly programmed “on machine”.
An iPad can only be coded (compiled native code, not anything else) from another computer. Thus it’s an appliance, or more accurately… an “appliance computer”.
This, of course is due to implementation, not some technical impossibility.
Sigh, such a decades old paradigm.
Fundamental truths don’t go obsolete, they are timeless.
I love my iPad Pro. I love iPad OS. But the new desktop is cluttered and ugly. Three differently looking sections and still a nightmare to move icons around. Apple should definitely clean the mess up and reinvent the iPad and iPhone desktop. Or let third party apps do this at least.
All? That’s an elliptical hyperbole. So no.
I bought iPad Pro (11” 2018 512gb) to have a semi-laptop experience with more mobility. I wanted a device I could easily hold onto and deal primarily with PDFs, with bonus (not necessary) of exploring use of pdf annotation with Apple Pencil.
I cannot even download files from cloud, just “waiting to download” in perpetuity until it fails, causing me to waste 30mins each time trying to send someone something. Then I cannot open or view pdf in mail apps, there’s no function or pop up to let me start/designate other apps to access the pdf by “open with”. Missing the context menu, it also means I cannot download the pdf and open it locally using another app of my choosing.
Both file explorer, mail apps, and iPadOS is a complete failure for my purposes. I spent so much money because I believed iPadOS was promising; I never expected a laptop experience to begin with. However all in all, “FAIL”, Utter disappointment. Fail as a “laptop”, fail as an “iPad”/tablet… I might as well go back to editing and viewing PDFs on tiny phones. At least it’s possible there… come on Apple, I had just reasonable expectations and you crushed me. What am I suppose to do with this expensive piece of junk now… Should’ve just went with Samsung even though I hate their user experience.