“Apple keeps saying that the iPad is the best incarnation of its vision for the future of personal computing. With iPadOS, we come close to a muscular alternative to conventional personal computers — but an important feature is missing: Discoverability,” Jean-Louis Gassée writes for Monday Note:
The original Macintosh is a good example of great product. The mouse pointing device took seconds to understand and just few more as it grew buttons and a wheel… Twenty-seven years later, in January 2010, Steve Jobs introduced the first successful tablet computer, the iPad. Ignoring the naysayers, a new Rest of Us population took to the device. The iPad answered the prayers of many: A fun, self-contained computer you could drive with your index finger.
In theory, iPadOS fixes the many shortcomings of previous iOS versions that tried to serve two masters, the iPad and the iPhone. Apple’s iPadOS page is adamant that a world of possibilities is now “ours”… Without getting into the embarrassing details about the klutziness that makes me a good product tester because I tend to do things that knowledgeable users already know how to do, I’m confused and frustrated by all of these “possibilities”…
I compared notes with a learned friend, a persistent fellow who forced himself to learn touch typing by erasing the letters on his keyboard. He, too, finds iPadOS discoverability to be severely lacking. There are lot of new and possibly helpful features but, unlike the 1984 Mac, not enough in the way of the hints that menu bars and pull-down menus provide. It all feels unfinished, a long, long list of potentially winning features that are out of the reach of this mere mortal and that I assume will remain undiscovered by many others.
MacDailyNews Take: iPad can do amazing things, but the way to do many of these things are completely hidden. Apple is certainly trying, but How-To videos are no replacement for thoughtful, intuitive UX design. Regardless, Apple’s How-To videos for iPadOS are useful. Anyone who watches them will likely learn quite a bit:
