Larger screen option, much better screen, better pencil support - not better support, but a much better pencil (this is HUGE for my daughter for example).

It's crazy to me that someone can look at a $350 device and a $1000 device and say there's not room for something in the middle...

Tim Cook's fear of people not buying a full set of Apple devices for each person is the driving force behind not just the lack of multiuser support, but also the overall nerfing of iPadOS.

For the past 5+ years it's been, "This will be the year of real work on the iPad," but they keep circling around it, trying not to make iPads accidentally powerful enough for someone to skip buying a MacBook.

Apple has historically never been good at multiple users at the same machine. Even MacOS is still pretty bad at it. IMO incentives are not aligned here, they want everyone purchasing their own iPad, so i suspect that their strategy is to not invest too much into profile management as it risks cannibalizing their hardware sales.

The stupid thing is that iPad does have this feature natively, but you need to use an MDM (or apple configurator profile) to access it.

I'm still of the opinion that there's a market, albeit a small one, for a "consumer" MDM product for use cases like this, better parental controls, etc. but almost all are for business and come with some kind of minimum device purchase like 30+ devices.

My kids (4 and 6) like to use the iPad Air with the pencil.

Because it has a large screen and my wife uses it as her only computer and uses it with a regular $30 Bluetooth keyboard and mouse

> I don't understand the target audience of ipad air.

For me — 13" laptop replacement with cellular connectivity.

If a 13" version of the base iPad existed, I'd probably get that, but as-is the iPad Air is the cheapest 13" iPad.

It's the cheapest iPad that supports pressure sensitivity on the better apple pencil.

The Air has a better display (laminated, AR coating, P3 colors).

I live in Asia and I see all students using iPads instead of laptops. The limitations of the OS are really not felt by the general public. Whatever you listed doesn't even make sense to them, they buy things based on what they can afford. Every iPad works the same to them.

Ideally Apple would finally do their Surface/2-1 with iPads, but Apple being Apple, rather sell an overpowered tablet, and a Mac laptop to go alongside with it

Some places even do a bundle "discount".

I can say they are used heavily in the construction industry for Autodesk Cloud to render drawings for field workers. Very resource intensive.

FFS I cannot believe this. I went and looked it up, and you’re 100% right. It’s slight, but it’s real.

They spend plenty of time adding "pro" features and apps like Final Cut Pro and Logic Pro, which they wouldn't do unless they wanted people to use them.

I'm willing to bet it's as simple as that no Apple SWEs or anyone who has to edit video or sound uses an ipad for work. As soon as Apple forced some to use one, they'd fix all of the UI problems that make them a nightmare.

I may be an outlier, but multi-user support might make me buy more iPads. Basically, an iPad Air for each major room in the house. Then my wife and I, plus guests, could pick up which ever one is closest.

Today, we just have on each and have to run around the house whenever we want it.

Like 20 years ago OS X server had pretty great support for it.

I worked a university lab and had an account on the lab server. I could walk up to any computer in the lab and login and get the exact same desktop experience with all my files and settings. The computing power was all on the local machine, but it basically mounted my user folder from the server.

That was the only time I worked anywhere with that setup on Macs, but it worked so well. Though it was admittedly not your standard office environment — there were frequent compelling reasons for me to be using different machines in different parts of the lab, and not a lot of compelling reasons for me to use that account from a computer on a remote network.

I found a thread on macpowerusers.com that recommended Jamf or Zoho that both have a free tier for Apple MDM. https://talk.macpowerusers.com/t/mdm-for-family-home/39714/8 I'm kind of curious to try it out on my kids' iPads to make them interchangeable.

"... there's a market, albeit a small one, for a "consumer" MDM product for use cases like this ..."

When my children were younger I used configurator to adopt, and configure, their ipod touch devices. It was a bit of a pain but not too bad.

Anyone can do this - configurator is free and runs on any old macbook ...

Has been for a while, assuming you can get work done on the iPad UI. It doesn't do a normal mouse and there are some limitations to things like screen dimensions.

Works in a pinch but Apple is not going to compete with themselves on this front, they're expecting you to buy a macbook for serious work and an iPad for work in a pinch.

Had no problems connecting iPad Air 4 to external display via USB-C DP. Have not check whether periphery devices work this way though - I used BLE keyboard.

I was about to ask the same. I'd like to get an ipad for the same purpose. The iPad pro can for sure, but I don't want to spend ipad pro money.

Music production is the killer feature that benefits a lot from CPU performance.

I only recently bought an iPad for the first time this year after realizing this was feasible. I’ve always preferred digital music workflows, but hated dealing with a laptop and DAW. iOS supports AUv3 plugins and cross app audio, so it’s pretty much a full DAW experience (I use loopy pro). The form factor forces AUv3 devs to design smarter interfaces.

Plus, I dislike using the iPad for literally anything else, so I’m less likely to get distracted :)

You'd be surprised by the horsepower some games require, my wife plays Love and Deep Space and she recently just bought a new iPad because the game requires some good specs and a LOT of storage space. She's not a "serious gamer" as your parlance.

Ive been using mine since 2018, the ipad pro. If you do any drawing then it’s a no brainer, and that’s why I got it in the first place.

Then it was so good that I used it to travel and to watch videos in bed in place of my computer. If I need to work I’ll take my laptop though.

IMO if you don’t use your laptop to work it doesn’t make sense to use a laptop instead of an iPad.

People complain when Apple doesn't do spec bumps. But when Apple does do spec bumps, people complain again.

I know it's semantics, but Apple has never actually marketed their Air products as lighter than their Pro counterparts. The 11" variant is ~460g.

My iPad 2011 is still going strong, except that my Airpods Pro won't talk with them anymore.

So should I buy a second pair of work-out earphones or a new tablet? A new tablet would give me back access to app store and many apps, which are no longer compatible with this old slab, but at least Amazon Prime Video and most importantly, VLC still works.

They're half a second away from offering an iPad running MacOS (or a tablet MacBook, take your pick). They're baby-stepping their way to this, obviously.

I've yet to figure anything you can do with these but watch videos and play some games; I always end up grabbing the laptop.

In theory an iPad is a computer and then you could run whatever you want on it. So maybe the better question is, why can't you run whatever you want on it?

The flip side here is if I could use an iPad to replace the MacMini on my desk and connect to a monitor with the same support my Mac does I'd most likely have a top end iPad Pro as opposed to my mildly spec'd MacMini M2 and iPad Air M1. I'd literally spend MORE money on that 1 iPad than both existing iPad and Macs I have today.

> trying not to make iPads accidentally powerful enough for someone to skip buying a MacBook.

TBH, if you buy an iPad and their nice keyboard case, it costs almost as much as an MBA. This is one of the reasons I simply cannot justify getting a new iPad these days. The other is that my 8 year old iPad Pro still works just fine, in case I ever need to do iPad-ish things like draw with the pencil.

I mainly use my iPad Pro like a MacBook with the Magic Keyboard and a Razer mouse (I can even play ARC Raiders perfectly on it, streamed from the gaming pc in another room; having a completely silent gaming setup in the living room is amazing) connected.

My macOS muscle memory works most of the time, but there are also quite some details which are slightly different or missing. If they would allow a macOS “mode” on iPad I would choose it over a MacBook instantly for work.

> they keep circling around it, trying not to make iPads accidentally powerful enough for someone to skip buying a MacBook.

Which is really silly, because if someone needs to do actual work they are not going to do it on an iPad no matter how capable it is. The form factor simply does not work for getting work done. Apple has nothing to fear here.

Yeah, everyone I know who owns an iPad for personal use, they also own a laptop. It's possible they use the iPad more than the laptop, but they still need the laptop, which might be a Mac.

I’ve always found this funny because everyone in my family has an iPad and none of us have a Mac.

I could excuse it if the iPad was a $200 novelty like the Amazon Fire tablets, but they're putting M-series chips in them and marketing (and pricing) them like PC replacements.

> Even MacOS is still pretty bad at it.

What problems do you see with multiple users on macOS? I don't use it intensively, but I've never noticed issues.

Apple wouldn't approve a consumer focused MDM provider.

Could not agree more, it's wild my AppleTVs now ask for which profile is using it but the iPad still hasn't gotten this.

yes. Has been possible since at least M1.

Buy M-based iPad, nice monitor, keyboard and mouse. Connect mouse and keyboard to monitor via USB. Then iPad via USB-C/Thunderbolt to monitor. Everything "just works" and you can handle surprisingly high amount of work this way

The iPad 1 was released in 2010

I have two iPad minis, but they're so unfriendly to use they exist only to display home assistant dasboards. It's overkill, but only because I thought they would be good for other things when I bought them.

You're not wrong, but I hate the idea of an entire generation growing up without ever using a full powered computer. (Full powered is the wrong word, more like fully capable computer)

We have an entire generation who only knows how to interact with "usability optimized" interfaces with zero friction and zero learning curve.

Not knowing how to use a regular computer creates a barrier to entry for programming and other computing industries that didn’t exist before.

Artists benefit hugely from the extra horsepower. My brother works in the animation industry and uses an ipad as his primary work device when travelling.

Better chip = better performance per watt = longer batteries for similar levels of performance, running cooler. Also it never hurts the smoothness of the interface.

It just ultimately makes it a nicer device to use.

It's a spec bump, soon they'll introduce M5 powered iPads. More GPU cores, more neural engine cores, more unified memory -- eventually iPadOS features will spring up to take advantage of this stuff. I assume the target audience for this is folks who want to make future-proof purchases or those who likely have more money than sense.

Those are not high end processors? You can get them in apple's most basic laptops. They are just good, but not high end.

I think the big difference why I would go for a pro if I ever replace my mini is ProMotion. It seems like even in this new model you are stuck with the old lower refresh rate which is quite jarring.

Performance wise, even older ipads were well beyond what I need so if you can handle lower refresh rate for sure a better deal.

Same here. I have tried my dangedest to want to need an iPad. Once the new wears off, I just cannot find a use for them.

FWIW, the iPad Air I bought a couple years ago has a small protrusion for the single camera lens, but does not wobble when laying flat and is not really noticeable. This latest iPad Air has a similar design.

Also "upgraders" (11 times, meaning a kind of buyer), that's a new one for me in these introductions.

At least they are not using "affordability"

Lifespan of Apple products continues to amaze me even if it should not.

Between the iPad Air and iPhone 17e it's definitely the "value" day. It will just be a ramp up to the MacBook Pro. Makes a good contrast and marketing scheme.

My iPad Pro must by the model ahead of yours. I just upgraded the OS to v26 and it’s awful - sluggish, jittery, inconsistent typing experience - borderline unusable for a fast work environment. With no downgrade option I’m forced to buy a new one for work and relegate the older device to entertainment or kids use only.

Being stuck on v17 is a feature for the older A-series chipset.

and Claude is remote inference anyway, just an http api

I also have and use this iPad. Mainly for procreate and watching things.

Even at 9 years old, I don't see myself upgrading in the foreseeable future.

Old ipads are great until apps start not working with the OS. I have a 2017 and Disney+ just dropped support for my current OS version and I can't update further.

Yes, exactly. Second this.

I've run nixdarwin + aerospace now for a while on the older macos version and it's insanely how the customized workflow can improve productivity.

Recently I started experimenting with nixos/asahi and it's waaaaay more better than even what I had on macos.

Even JIT-enabled Linux VM on an iPad would make it a perfect travel workstation. Too bad Apple won't let iPad eat the MacBook pie.

Same here. Ours is just a streaming device. Because nobody can really own it. I won't put my password manager on it when the kids can use it, and without that it's near useless. It has my Signal profile so I can transfer stuff (and passwords) to the device but I already feel bad about that. My wife won't put Teams on it because it would bother others and conflict with all other MS accounts. The kids laptops have accounts for all 4 of us.

We switch in apps (ie in netflix). This whole "one person one device" just makes the iPad a shallow consumption device and keeps the laptops for work (and also often for streaming because of this. Btw they are all 2nd hand business laptops running Linux; for the Kids Gnome is very iPad/ChromeOS like and familiar).

It would be so much more useful a device, and maybe we'd even then start buying more, if we could just switch user profiles.

Oh, because it's just a consumption device when we "needed" another one, we got a Xiaomi. Who cares about al the niceties of the iPad anyway when all it does is show video.

I agree 100%. When I purchased my Steam Deck, I was actually surprised that it was so easy to switch between Steam profiles. Last year, my wife and I tried Apple Vision Pro. While we aren't the target audience for a $3,500 headset, we might be tempted at $1,200. But not if each of us needs to buy our own.

It's doubly frustrating as iPads do support multiple profiles! Just education MDM managed iPad only. https://support.apple.com/guide/deployment/shared-ipad-overv...

Playing devil’s advocate the only real device I truly would want to have multi user switching is the Vision Pro due to cost and features . If multiple users were to be added to the iPad would there be enough people to justify the long term use of the device ? I feel like this is a HN filter bubble desire just like small phones .

iPad is the most absurd device ever. It is fully capable of running a full blown general purpose OS, but artificially restricted to be a YouTube machine. Something you give kids in a restaurant to be quiet. Putting an M4 in it is like Apple rubbing our faces in it. Look at this device that could do everything, but can't do anything.

> does it have a camera bulge that makes it wobble?

Yes https://www.apple.com/v/ipad-air/af/images/overview/closer-l... from https://www.apple.com/ipad-air/

If they wanted to provide value they'd add MacOS to their tablets.

Same! Reading through that announcement about MOAR power and AI and all I can think is, "This can't possibly play YouTube videos at me on my spin bike any better than my iPad from 8 years ago..."

I had an even older iPad I was happily using for similar use cases. Until one day a family member bricked it and I needed to factory reset. No big deal, I thought -- nothing important on it. Turns out it needed to phone home to do the factory reset, and since the server it wanted to talk to was no longer up (or perhaps the address changed?) I couldn't factory reset the iPad.

If someone has a work-around I'd love to hear it. Until then, or until Apple changes this design, I think I'm done with iPads. I don't want to pay that much to "own" something that Apple can simply make obsolete by reconfiguring or turning off a server somewhere.

Edit: fix typo

My iPad Mini from 2020 is also surprisingly good today. It's one of those devices that just quietly do their job forever. They are a dying breed.

An old iPadOS means an old safari, which means some of the websites are going to get suspicious. I remember one day not being able to open any Cloudflare website.

I bought magnetic self adhesive tape and mounted in on my fridge. Now it’s the family calendar. So nice.

At this scale, don't companies lock in their prices well in advance instead of paying spot prices?

>hated dealing with a laptop

Can you expand on this, as im having a hard time comprehending. At the least, a laptop is a tablet with a built in stand :). How is a laptop hard to deal with?

It's great, sure. But why release an M4 iPad Pro when essentially no software can make use of the processor power improvements since 2018?

People complained when apple doesn't do spec bumps back in the intel era when their computers were getting legitimately clapped.

It’s as if there are a bunch of different people out there.

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Goomba_fallacy

Are we meant to associate it with "hot air" marketing or what else?

I’d buy a new (or used) tablet. An iPad 10th gen can be had lightly used or refurb for under $200. Or go with the brand new 12th gen that is supposed to be coming out tomorrow at $349 if you’re not on a super tight budget and want it to last you as long as that ancient one did.

Doubt. Apple doesn't see hardware sales as a primary revenue driver, rather they're a rent-seeking company that makes money by being the iron-fisted middleman for the app store. They don't see any benefit from user freedom if it makes them less money in the end.

They're amazing for digital art. That and reading PDFs at near true-life size.

I wonder if something like that is in the works, given touch screen capability coming to Macs, and Tahoe being geared for touch UX...

They _are already_ PC replacements for many of the people who buy them.

I can tell you aren’t optimizing for illustration or 3D drafting. It’s absolutely amazing.

Switching users while changing displays often results in an incorrect resolution. That’s such a basic thing: different users have different preferences for their displays and keyboards attached to the displays. Yet this doesn’t work reliably, as if during some moments the login window just doesn’t want to adjust resolutions.

Specs show that Pro models got Thunderbolt and Air only got USB-C.

Very vague specs.

Can iPad Air USB-C deliver 4k 120hz or how much bandwidth that USB-C got?

It's been possible since the iPad 2.

I used to code HTML/CSS that way back in... 2011?

I made a typo, it was supposed to say 2018.

Unless you had a prototype.

The base model has only 128GB of storage. IMO they are pushing uses to upgrade storage more aggressively than ever. This should make up somewhat for the increased cost of volatile and non-volatile memory.

imo the Pro are for serious creative types who do either 3D modelling, illustration, photo editing, video editing or music.

If you just browse the web and stuff like that you might just get a regular iPad.

I have an iPad for the purpose of 3D modeling in Nomad Sculpt and Shapr3D. It’s an M2 Air, it’s still way overkill, and I’m regularly frustrated at how limited every piece of iPadOS software is compared to the hardware. The dichotomy of prioritizing iPad hardware but iPadOS being arguably their worst actively developed software is baffling.

Maybe there are people out there doing 8k video editing on their Pros, but I’ve yet to meet them.

It's Operations Management 101.

It's cheaper to use an old generation CPU, than the effort needed to design and manufacture a custom iPad-only chip.

Same reason why the Studio Display uses binned iPhone chips.

In theory it improves battery life by doing more for less power. It also future proofs it for future workloads giving it an extended lifespan. Also note that thermals will limit what this is capable of compared to your laptop.

There are some decently powerful apps available, like Final Cut Pro, and there is multi-window support including external displays.

I think the percentage of iPad users actually using this level of processing power is small, but there are some ways to do it.

I do really wish they would just allow running a VM on an iPad though at this point. Running a linux or even MacOS VM would be a nice escape valve for a lot of things that can't be done natively.

Can you explain, why not? If it’s easier for Apple to just maintain a fewer series of chips going forward, why not keep it up to date?

If your question is what do people use it for? Well thats different. iPads have a range of users from people who just browse the internet and will never stress this out, to people who do concept art and CAD who will appreciate the power.

But again, why do people always complain that a device got a spec bump?

I wonder if a big part of it is simplification at Apples end. It’s just easier and more cost effective to make more M4s regardless of where they end up?

Some creative workflows genuinely benefit from the tablet form factor. I often do serious photo editing on the iPad because I have access to Apple Pencil, and, somehow, holding the thing in my hands like an actual physical object activates some different more analog brain region for me than using a laptop / desktop, and it’s helpful to my creative process. Lightroom for iPad is quite capable but it requires some power.

And then visual artists are often using Procreate, and those files can get heavy as well.

Plus, it’s nice to carry my iPad around with me in a sling and work in a cafe whenever I feel like it. I wouldn’t want to do that with my 16” MBP.

That's true of most OEM's. Most phones will be cases so I can at least understand that argument, but I don't think as many tablets are in cases.

I don't think it is technical. Because of their size, they would be hard to hold without covering portions of the screen, if the bezels were thinner. As is, my fat fingers get in the way already.

To each their own, but I would rather have a larger border where I can rest my thumb without causing an accidental press/scroll a few times a day. The software-based rejection is not good enough and I am very willing to go back to the older look of the iPad if offered.

I already have a hard time not accidentally touching the screen while adjusting my hands' position or whatever with today's iPad's "thick borders"

I really like this setup:

iPad + Korg microKEY-37 + KORG Gadget 3 + all a bunch of KORG apps

No subscriptions. Keyboard is wireless but no noticeable latency. In my workflow I pretty much never need more keys but if I do I just use a MIDI adapter and plug a larger keyboard.

KORG apps go on 50% sale several times every year.

I think it's an ergonomic issue. Phones (even the Pro Max size) can be held with one hand or two hands without resting your palm or pinching the edge to hold it. You could but it could cause some erratic behavior.

A tablet though doesn't hold well when just pressing on the sides. So having some place to grab and rest your palm is more necessary here. They probably could go thinner with borders but it's a balancing act of usability and aesthetics. Also have things like the camera to account for and on tablets you don't have to make a punch-hole or teardrop. The iPad Pro's also package in FaceID cameras so it could be a product consistency choice too.

GarageBand is fun, and capable of making surprisingly complex music. Logic Pro is also available on iPad now, but it's only available with a $15/month subscription, so I haven't tried it.

For artists, there are a lot of good tools: Procreate, Art Set 4, Adobe Fresco, Artrage, etc.

Drawing on it is incredible, reading papers work well also but a folding phone is better.

I had the same problem with my M4 Pro. So I sold it.

That's very funny. Bravo.

Sure, there’s a chance. Don’t know why you’re asking, though, because those that know aren’t talking and those that are talking…

The pro has the perfect form factor for sheet music. Absurd over kill in terms of other hardware, but there's really no alternative for musicians (other than paper).

I fucking love my OLED display on my iPad Pro.

ok

I prefer TouchID over FaceID also.

But I'm curious, why does FaceID work less well if the user has poor vision?

Ha, yes. I have a Galaxy A7 lite that is my TV. Much cheaper and has a 500GB SD Card in it as well.

A properly built tablet OS UI would also have those differences in the OS that make it more than just a larger phone screen, which so far seems to be most of what the foldables are doing with a gimmick thrown in here or there.

iPadOS may not fully be to the point of being an OS UI that really utilizes the benefits of a tablet sized device, but it does have elements that are unique to it that would not really make sense on a phone.

That being said, if your tablet use case really is just a larger phone than a foldable would be great. But i know for myself the way I use my iPad it would not be a suitable replacement. Especially not now, maybe in 5+ years once someone figures out how to make an OS that actually manages different ways of interacting with it in different form factors work, but that has yet to happen.

IMHO technology (and price) is just not there yet. I can buy a phone and 2 tablets for less month than a foldable.

I'd love a 10 inch screen in my pocket but maybe in 2035. Nokia imagined this 20 years ago and we're barely there yet.

I wouldn’t put too much hope into foldables, at least not because of Apple’s involvement. They also released the Vision Pro. And there’s still the unsolved(?) problem of the screens getting easily scratched/destroyed if they’re not heavily protected and kept clean. (There are some informative teardown videos, e.g. by JerryRigEverything.)

I can get a foldable phone that extends to a 13 inch screen.

I’d rather have no moving parts in my screen.

I have a hard time justifying buying a trifold when my 13-inch iPad Pro was 1263€ and the Samsung trifold is probably gonna be closer to 3000€ for a 10-inch display. If I assume that it'll be 2999€, you can get a 13-inch iPad Pro (1519€), a Magic Keyboard for the iPad (399€), an iPhone 17 (999€) and still have money left over. And this is straight from Apple.com. It's possible to get better deals elsewhere.

Dunno if Apple's foldable will support Apple Pencil. (For that matter, not sure a touchscreen MacBook would either.) That's one use case for a properly rigid, solid, flat surface.

People take tons of photos and videos on their phones. Download 40 GB of music and podcasts on Spotify. Keep 50 GB of videos in their messages. All at once.

iPads usually aren't used as much for these things. They're used for browsing, streaming, gaming, reading... mostly things that don't take up nearly as much space.

It's not spite, just matching device capabilities to user needs without unnecessary upgrades that will lead to a higher price point.

I use tons of storage on my phone. Not much on my iPad. Pretty much just downloading TV shows before a flight, but 128 GB gives you plenty of hours of that.

I'm not really sure what's spiteful about that

I'd hazard a guess that people use significantly less storage on iPads than their phones. Phones get filled with photos and videos, whereas people use iPads primarily to browse social media and stream videos.

I have an iPhone and an iPad Pro, and I use far less local storage on my iPad than I do on my phone. I know it sounds counter intuitive. I wouldn’t be surprised that this is the norm.

As the sibling says you can turn it off, but even the non-windowed UI is still not well-adapted to the small form factor. Apple doesn’t put any work into it. One can hope that some improvements might carry over from the upcoming foldable iPhone, whose inner display will only be slightly smaller, but I’m not holding my breath.

But the iPad is not a console … it doesn’t even do Steam. All that horsepower to play … a couple of forever titles and that’s it. I have the M1 iPad Air and it has never used that processor to its fullest. I think iPad is just an odd device for most people

What are you talking about? Air literally always meant thin and light. Now they're treating it a premium product between normal and pro instead (see iPhone Air too)

They make those, don't they? They're called MacBook Air?

Perhaps I don't understand it but the encryption security model for MacOS/iPadOS/iOS currently doesn't allow multiple different encryption keys for each user. So any user can decrypt the whole drive and while it does enforce user permissions, the security model can't support true multiuser.

I actually don't know if Windows or ChromeOS support this either but this is certainly something Linux can with LUKS et. al.

As a very simple example, airdrop to macOS with multiple logged in users will frequently pop up the confirmation notification in the user account that is not active.

USB security prompt disappears when multiple MacOS accounts signed in

Still a problem for me, and has been for years, but I may be holding it wrong. https://discussions.apple.com/thread/255929514?sortBy=rank

The solution posted in the discussion is not really secure.

Apple doesn't approve MDM providers in the first place.

Profiles don't work well on Apple TVs at all though. You choose a profile on the device, and then you still have to choose a profile whenever you launch any given streaming app as well. I don't know what changing profiles on an Apple TV actually does.

Can you share more about this experience please? To me, you're still left with apps that are designed for a touchscreen and consumption.

In my household we have two Apple TVs sitting next to each other, and two remotes with the names of my partner and mine on them as most apps don't properly support profiles so that's the easiest solution. If they do that so people buy more devices...it's definitely working.

Don't vendors as big as Apple lock in their prices and contracts years in advance?

The newer CPUs are more efficient and faster. In a mobile format you want the CPU to process everything as fast as possible and then return to a low power mode for battery life.

Apple re-uses the same core across their lineup because it’s cheaper to build 100 million of the same core than to design and maintain two separate CPUs that go into 50 million devices each.

I have an iPad Pro (2018) with A12X processor which at one point was a "holy crap this this is incredibly fast for how thin it is" device.

8 years later the local apps still run fast, but it struggles with web browsing.

Which is to say, you need a fast processor or web developers will out-bloat your device capabilities in a few years.

I'm still upset that they dropped the Smart Keyboard Folio. For me, that was the perfect keyboard case. I was hoping some third party would copy the design and release a new case but it never happened.

Tablets need an edge where you can grip it. Without thicker bezels, it’s harder to hold it without your fingers being on the screen. This is much less of an issue for phone-sized devices.

It runs PlugData, the plugin version of Pure Data! You can easily bring down the best iPad processor with the circuit~ object. ;)

Still subpar, only real DAW available is Logic Pro, the audio stack behaves differently than macOS, no support for VSTs but has support for the AU format.

A friend who I make music together had an iPad that we tried to add to the setup, in the end after some months we chucked it aside and just got a MacBook for our shared studio instead.

What’s wrong hardware wise with the current one?

FWIW, my wife is a student and her ipad has probably helped out her out a lot, for a lot of reasons:

* compact form factor allows her to study anywhere easily, especially on public transportation

* can access the internet almost anywhere

* note taking and drawing diagrams with apple pencil

* communication wit for both personal (imessage) and school study buddies (discord)

* can entertain herself with netflix, youtube, games etc when she wants to wind down

* ai apps like perplexity has helped her a lot with writing and research

She also has a laptop, but is rarely used. She even tends to type on her ipad keyboard. The larger form factor for the pro helps with that too.

Why did you get an iPad if you wanted to run a Linux VM? Wouldn't a Macbook Air have been a better choice?

Wait for the alleged touchscreen MacBooks to drop, possibly this week

looks like never

-you can turn it off globally in settings

-some people use it docked

-if it wasn't available, someone else would be complaining about that

I don't think even Apple knows what they want to do with the iPad.

I could buy the "companion device" niche for a while until iPad OS 26 came along, which took away most of the "touch first" multi tasking and replaced it with a model that heavily favors mouse and keyboard use. I actually use my iPad less now since the update, because I still primarily used it as a tablet, I don't even own the magic keyboard/trackpad for it.

Now it's essentially a gimped macbook, and it's not really clear on where it fits in their product lineup. Is it supposed to be a laptop replacement? A companion device? An art tool? An expensive e-reader? No one, not even Apple, knows.

So yeah, they either need to come up with a clear vision for what it's supposed to be, or finally just let it be a 2-in-1 macbook with apple pencil support.

I was also going to point out how awesome the Steam Deck multi-user experience is:

    1. Turn on Steam Deck
    2. Open Steam on your phone
    3. Scan QR code
    4. Choose whether or not to stay signed in on the Steam Deck

It is such a great UX that makes using the hardware very easy for any random Steam user who picks it up.

I'm sure the security angle would be something a lot of people would bring up, but if iPad had this feature, they could make great use of Apple's Data Protection Classes[1] to ensure that all per-user data is encrypted when that specific user is not logged in and actively using the device.

1. https://support.apple.com/guide/security/data-protection-cla...

From what I hear it works okay at best. You basically want to allocate a subset of iPads to a subset of users. You can't just throw 30 ipads onto a cart and let all 30 students randomly pick them, or you'll be evicting profiles unnecessarily. Would do fine in a small household. You reserve space based on # of profiles you want to cache.

I hate apple. Can't they just add a second bump on the other side? They're being a PITA with this wobble and it's been going on for like 15 years now (iPhone 7 forward)

Yeah, instead we'll have a slightly cheaper MacBook Air, I'm guessing, that still costs more than the perfectly adequate iPad.

In the 1990s we referred to this dilemma as needing a “killer app” to drive an upgrade. Fortunately everything needed more mips, but unless you’re a niche gamer, consumers hit the wall in maybe 2010. Which is why every oem is pushing Ai. Sell moar !! Fill the landfills !!!

How old was the device? I have a Late 2018 iPad Pro and have never encountered anything like this. It still works perfectly fine, and having invested in the nice keyboard case for it, I'm hoping to not have to upgrade for a while longer. It honestly might last me 10 years without breaking a sweat.

Cue my old manager SSH’ing into work machines while on his boat from his iPad - it does happen. Not saying that working on it is the norm by any means, but it’s about on par with “my android phone is logged in to my tmux session on the dev server and I’m cowboy coding from the bar”

You know you can use a standard Bluetooth and keyboard and mouse with an iPad? My wife uses her 13 inch iPad for everything - mostly Zoom, Office, everything web based, and “consumption”. I have an M2 MacBook Air that I bought in 2023 for a side project I was doing when I was in between jobs. I haven’t opened it since. I do the little bit of stuff I do outside of work on my iPad Air 3.

I would absolutely carry an iPad Pro with a dev environment with me on the holidays for emergencies instead of macbook. And I could add a cheap keyboard, mouse, and connect it to TV to get good enough work environment. Or connect it to dock at home, just like I do with the macbook.

Didn’t Apple themselves at some point release an ad with a teenager using an iPad going “what’s a computer”?

They’re pretty aware they’d be cannibalizing their lower-end laptop lineup.

Yeah they should even just let you install macOS if you want, they’d probably sell a lot of overpriced storage at a minimum and people still wouldn’t use them for real work…

I have an iPad and a desktop Mac, no laptop. I like that the more serious stuff stays in one room.

And especially more silly, since they'll soon launch a cheap A-series chipped MacBook. Why can I have multiple users on a $700 MacBook, but not a $1500 iPad Pro?

By a wacom bamboo, costs next to nothing and works without charging the stylus. Of course if you are using it on the go it’s inconvenient.

It's probably the immediacy. You click an app and you get a fullscreen touch UI with no distractions. Quite different to opening a slow-loading DAW and starting up various plugin windows inside it.

iPad music apps are typically priced far lower than the equivalent PC apps, and there's a thriving community of iOS-only development as well.

For me it's the sweet spot between hardware (which is expensive and annoying to cable up) and PC VSTs (I associate my laptop with work). The fact the iPad can also be used for videos/books/drawing/note taking is just a bonus.

Because people will buy it.

I prefer music production on a laptop, so I'm not the target audience here. But it's so easy to pick up the iPad and noodle on a synth for 5 minutes.

And the music you write is infinitely better than the music you don't. Anything that inspires gets extra points for that alone. :)

But that's the thing, most "gamers" aren't the ones that games that normally on Steam are targeting. Mobile Gaming is almost double the size of Console Gaming by revenue. Some people just like having a huge screen for their games.

So you have one laptop per user?

Comments like yours just go on to show how narrow the worldview of many HN users is. Just because you don't know how people are using their iPads doesn't mean iPads "can't do anything". It defies common sense, too. If iPads couldn't do anything, why would people buy them consistently? I can imagine people buying them once because they don't know any better. But iPad is more than 15 years old now.

I feel like you're wrong about this and small phones. Perhaps you're the one in an "everyone on HN must be in a bubble" bubble.

I had this thought until I actually replaced my iPad with the m1 chip.

It was actually better at youtube by being more efficient, I could watch videos for a full day before needing to charge.

> It's one of those devices that just quietly do their job forever.

Except for the battery, which isn’t that easy to replace on an iPad. And apps relying on anything online (including browsers) stop functioning at some point, because you can’t replace the OS or install arbitrary apps.

You should be able to DFU, but when it phones home it'll require a software upgrade

That seems incredibly overpowered for a calendar lol. I imagine doing this with a kindle / e-ink display might also be more energy friendly.

Do you mount it on a stand? my neck hurts just thinking about going through a full workday on an ipad.

>Which is really silly, because if someone needs to do actual work they are not going to do it on an iPad no matter how capable it is. The form factor simply does not work for getting work done.*

Nonsens. The iPad is basically a 11 to 13 (Pro) monitor+computer with an amazing touch screen. Adding the official keyboard folio, or any bluetooth keyboard/mourse is trivial, and it makes for an excellent on-the-go machine. Not different to the 12-inch MacBook (circa 2015) and the older fan favorite 12-inch PowerBook G4 (circa 2003), and I know several devs who swore by them. Linus used and loved one of the latter (with PPC Linux on in his case).

The only issue is the lack of OS level support for some stuff, not the form factor.

Admins, devs working mostly on the Cloud, photographers, and writers already use it for "getting work done", I've seen execs too.

I haven't seen one yet, but theoretically a case that secures the tablet in a holder that has a proper hinge (instead of the typical kickstand style) attached would work. You'd have to weight the keyboard a bit but there's no reason it wouldn't work, and effectively give you the exact same form factor as a laptop.

My dad and my brother use ipad pros for their healthcare business and rarely use laptops. For them, the year of real work happened several years ago. My brother even has a mouse for it somehow.

Working as intended. Even the way you framed it. Every family member has a separate physically distinct iPad, paid for separately. It's never considered that two people might be able to use the same hardware, which is the question here.

I bought M1 pro ipad that ended up being on a windowsill in kitchen as a youtube tv or a again a youtube viewport while rowing, lol. What a waste, but I cannot find a better use for it. User interface also sucks, half the time i have to ask chatgpt to extricate me from some accidental split screen or what not. Kicker is that it needs to be charged almost daily while it is really only used about 30-45 min a day in the morning while my kids m4 air can go for a week.

I’ve been experimenting with a 13” iPad Pro and Mac mini, setup with Tailscale. I love it, minus the general issues you run into with Remote Desktop. That plus not being able to deploy apps unless I’m on the same wifi (as an iOS developer.)

A dual boot iPad would be killer. I would go out and by the maxed out M5 if it was possible. MacOS for workdays, and iPadOS for everything else. That or just finish the last mile of iPadOS (Add terminal access, long running processes, lower level file system access, actual developer tooling.)

Same. Plus with multi-user, I would own multiple size iPads since they instantly become more useful as shared family devices, rather than only being tied to one persons iCloud/messages/email. And more importantly for our old boy Tim - they would be larger storage sizes because they would be logged into multiple users.

$270-$300 (used to be $350?) for the iPad keyboard. I feel like Apple did a good job targeting a user segment that is just happy to spend extra money on gadgets, aside from whoever really needs this laptop-tablet in-between.

I do wonder about this too… I'm cutting 4K video and doing SwiftUI development on an M1 MacBook Air. My current plan is to upgrade next year, but only if they upgrade the screen. An M4 seems like a dramatic over-spec for a tablet.

mobile gaming is much bigger than HN would believe.

A lot of people do in fact, play more than a couple forever titles.

I know multiple weebs that want more powerful ipads to play mobage.

Yeah they should never have tried to copy "Air" from MacBooks, precisely where it meant thinnest/lightest, to the iPad/iPhone line where the products are already thin and light. That has always seemed like a bizarre branding move to me.

If they need a mid-tier brand between entry-level and Pro, just call it Plus. The iPad Plus would make a lot more sense.

On the go video / photo editing is AMAZING on my iPad! More power speeds up some the effects / transition editing. Batch processing, all with a device that has great battery life and is smaller than a magazine. For super heavy stuff, sure, use my Mac, but when I travel and want to be productive on the go, the iPad is awesome!

Remember, the reason the iPad doesn't do Steam is because Apple won't let it. It is perfectly capable otherwise.

Yep on ChromeOS each user's home dir is separately encrypted with their own password.

Yeah, maybe I'm too much of a "real gamer" but my iPad sits unused. The quality (and greediness!) of games on the iOS App Store is often worse than the direct-download console slop.

So the difference is a keyboard? If I attach a keyboard into my iPad, why can't I do all the same?

Facetime too. I shared a laptop with my wife for like 2 years, so it was an ok experience, but we noticed those little things.

I also ended up doing this. With HDMI-CEC powering up the TV and the receiver automatically, then switching to the correct input on any AppleTV remote button press, this is actually a really friction free option if you can stomach buying two devices for the same purpose. I put the remotes in different colored rubber cases (red and blue) to make clear which device is being operated.

At one stage I even had a third AppleTV, that was hooked permanently to a VPN exiting in a foreign country, so I could get TV content and applications restricted to another region I watch a lot of content in. It was so nice to just pick up a remote and instantly have the foreign appleTV experience, rather than juggle VPN apps and foreign Apple Store accounts on the same device.

I’m not familiar with this but interested in trying it. From what I see they do and you need a certificate from them from a Enterprise Developer Account?

If you are using an iPad as a second screen - you get the same app you have on your mac (obviously, iPad just acts as a second screen: https://support.apple.com/en-us/102597).

If you are using an external keyboard and a mouse with it - you will get the same touch UI, yes.

For me quitting preview, or maybe it is settings, resolves it.

They can, and have, revoked certificates for arbitrary reasons.

Do they really do it just because it's cheaper? I thought they did it for each generation to offer the best of that generation; it makes sense for more powerful chips to have more cores and higher capacity, but it doesn't make sense for each core to arbitrarily be less efficient or less performant just because you didn't buy more of them. Especially because this approach makes the base models an extraordinarily high value compared to base models from competitors.

Yeah, devs using top of the line MBPs and taking a “works on my machine” attitude keeps web bloat on a constant incline.

I sometimes wish it were an industry norm for devs (a group of which I am a member) to be required to use a $300 Walmart special laptop for a week every two months.

I agree you won’t find a DAW as powerful, but some of the purpose built DAWs are so much fun. Loopy Pro you can build whatever interface you want via widgets.

And while VSTs don’t run, the AUv3s on the App Store tend to be much cheaper.

If for nothing else, I think it’s an excellent replacement for a guitar effects processor like Helix. Plus everything is backed up / restorable and you don’t have to suffer with a knob-based interface

The Smart Keyboard Folio is great! I got one on clearance a few months ago and use it whenever I'm using the iPad around house/town. (If I'm travelling out of town with my iPad where I won't be able to use my desktop keyboard, I bring my Magic Keyboard instead.)

It's so good that if Apple changes the form-factor of the iPad Air, I'll probably take that opportunity to buy the last Smart Keyboard Folio-compatible iPad Air to stretch my use of it as long as possible. (Though I worry that at that point I'll wear out the internal ribbon connectors eventually.)

This has always bugged me.

- Why is grip a feature of the bare tablet and not part of a case accessory?

- Why is the grip point the flat glass front of the display, instead of anything more ergonomic for actually holding it?

Phones don't do this, not even 7" phablets, nor for holding them horizontally, nor holding them with two hands gamepad-style during gameply. Why do tablets?

Somehow Woot still has a supply of the Smart Keyboard Folio for certain 11" iPads Pro/Air.

My wife is still using an older gen 11" iPad Pro and her keyboard folio stopped working (they fall apart after a few years ), so I took a gamble and ordered one. It arrived in the original, sealed packaging. As far as I can tell, it had never been opened, and it is perfect condition and works great. My wife is very happy. I bought a second one for when this one falls apart.

https://www.amazon.com/Apple-Smart-Keyboard-11-inch-iPad-Pro...

i've been meaning to checkout pure data, this is cool thanks for sharing

:(

> if it wasn't available, someone else would be complaining about that

Really? I genuinely know no one that uses Stage Manager.

Click targets on window controls are too small to ever make sense. Nobody needs this.

wait .. what ... for real? Take my money Apple.

Because they like the hardware? The better question is why Apple pretends these devices can't run VMs.

I bought an iPad for the same reason ~everyone does, for media consumption. But if I could use the hardware to do more interesting things then I'd be willing to spend more on a more powerful model.

> no support for VSTs

yup, that kills it for me

I think they’re very happy to have the 2 parallel product lines; they might overlap a bit but who cares, business is about the numbers, not ideological purity of product lines.

The line they’ll probably never cross is that the Mac can run software in a (mostly) non sandboxed mode, with unrestricted background processes, which means it’ll always be the platform of choice for developers. Those extra restrictions on the iPad makes them more free to push it/experiment with it in the direction they wish (for better or worse, as we’ve seen with all the wonky windowing implementations, although the current one is mostly fine)

I love my iPad for drawing/photography, reading comics, and its extreme portability; I love my MacBook as a developer and as my main productivity machine.

The Apple of the past never thought twice about people complaining about the lack of them implementing something that would be bad UX because they were confident in their design prowess.

It’s the vendors not supporting platform features. Usually, actively avoiding it because they think it’d dilute their brand or some shit.

I solved this by just pirating everything and putting it in Jellyfin with Infuse on my AppleTV. Managing profiles and parental controls (and god forbid you also want actual curation) is just totally broken if you pay money for the content, but if you pirate it, it works. Go figure. Dropped from like seven or eight streaming services at peak to I think two. It’s not worth it for the savings, though that’s a nice bonus (it all ends up in hard drives or electricity anyway, though) but it’s the only way to get sane UX. Friggin’ irritating.

Many apps are missing many keyboard shortcuts that you may be used to if you’ve used the equivalent on the desktop. You’ll need to keep the iPad screen accessible to tap on UX elements. There’s also the issue that shortcuts that do exist may be hard to discover because there’s no menu bar to look in.

Apps can hook into the Apple TV user profiles if they want, but many don't.

The cpu is better but the software is worse and more bloated so they fight against each other

Rumor has it that Samsung hit them with a 100% price increase on RAM and Apple took it without even trying to negotiate

The processor is still fast enough, the ram is too small for modern web apps.

I think its at least 3 years old

Maybe a minor thing, but the largest pro in landscape is just barely smaller than a two-page spread in a comic book, making it possibly the best way to read digital comics.

Though, I personally don’t need all the horsepower and would get lower-end iPads in that size if they existed and were cheaper.

Yes, for minecrafting together ;)

I see where you are going but they are older laptops bought for cheap. But they do an incredible amount of work. And can be (and are) more easily shared because of the different accounts. I.e., my work laptop is upstairs, I use the laptop my daughter usually grabs and log in to find all my stuff (inc password manager).

I think I'd use our iPad more if it had profiles. And my laptop less. For my partner we're consider an iPad over a laptop atm. And then again it would be nice if the kids could also use it. But as-is it would be a single person device.

Small phones are definitely only wanted by a minority. A minority Apple catered too, but I guess has left behind or pushed further out.

I mean, you can take your iPad back to Apple and have them replace the battery, you know. For my current one (a "4th generation" Air) that'd be $120, which is not cheap, but it's cheaper than replacing it for $700 and a lot less stressful than trying to replace the battery myself.

(Having said that, I'm not ruling out replacing it, but I don't think I'll be inclined to do that until they stop updating its version of iPadOS.)

It might be much more energy efficient, but it doesn’t really matter when the annual energy cost is $2 for the iPad

The “point” is very far in the past though. My 2016 ipad still working great for anything online.

I know exactly how it's used. I said in my comment it's used by kids to watch YouTube. By age 4, 58% of children have their own tablet. And YouTube is the #1 app for iPad. This is the majority use case, next to collecting dust on a shelf, or gifts for people's aging parents.

https://www.commonsensemedia.org/sites/default/files/researc...

You don't think an M4 chip, amazing, screen, form factor, quality - all for children to watch YouTube videos with is absurd? TSMC all busy making 3nm chips to be used for watching CoComelon. An amazingly powerful, affordable device that is totally locked out of being used for general purpose computing. That doesn't irritate you?

This is the form factor I want in an iPad (full computer):

https://www.sotsu.com/products/flipaction-elite-16?variant=4...

Just let me use my own keyboard/mouse when I want to use it like a computer. Better ergonomics too as the iPad would be at a good height.

I’m using the iPad Magic Keyboard which is also a stand. So it’s pretty much the same as using a MacBook. I do have the 13 inch. I tried the 11 inch but personally I found that too small to use comfortably like this.

Cue Steve Jobs keynote slide about 1st gen iPad lasting 30 days in standby.

Yeah I feel lucky to have picked one up for $199 back in the day. Still use it, though TBH it's mostly as a second monitor for my MBA, when I'm traveling. I don't work on the iPad itself that much, even though the keyboard is delightful.

I’m not sure this is a good thing..

The sleepyti.me app I've been using for years no longer works on iOS 18+ and now I keep the icon around on my homescreen as a tombstone :(

Is it significantly worse than an iPhone? I've opened up iPhones 4, 5s, 7, 8, and 13 to do home battery swaps, and none were particularly horrid, especially if you'd not passionate about trying to restore the factory water-seal adhesive on newer models.

That sounds like the existing Magic Keyboard for the current iPad airs and pros, can you explain the difference a bit more?

Apple recently had an issue with expired certs they had to remedy. That tends to be their bottleneck now.

the form factor is a problem. Have you ACTUALLY tried using an ipad as a laptop for more than a few minutes? It is top-heavy and falls over all the time. Even if you solve that problem, you now have multiple devices that you must keep charged and with you at all time.

At that point, an actual laptop is simpler.

What's the "somehow" about the mouse? They've supported that for a while now.

We each have our own car too. Hard to share the things people use at the same time.

Remote Desktop is another nerfed thing. Windows is sending around window positions and UI primitives, while Mac still streams terribly compressed and lagging video of desktop, unable to even adapt resolution to client.

Multiuser is already baked in iOS-adjacent operating systems. tvOS offers user profiles on power on.

Hold down the command ⌘ key to view all available shortcuts for the app you’re currently using, and use Fn-m or globe key -m to see a list of all available system shortcuts.

As a developer myself, I respect and understand that it's not their fault that profiles are useless

As a consumer, I don't care whose fault it is that profiles are useless.

Bringing their profit margins down from ludicrous to just absurdly high.

Floating 100% price increase, or did they lock that number in as a ceiling for some period of time?

I'm not even sure I'd only see the fault with the vendors in this case, as I could very easily imagine that feature to be buggy (From Apples side) or not supporting some use cases that they might want, as no large streaming service seems to do it.

It's a bit similar to them not supporting Apple TV's "Continue Watching" feature as they don't want to hand over all their watch data to Apple.

In any case, once you have a good setup the pirating UX is very hard to beat (I'm looking forward to the day that Jellyfin on tvOS has feature parity with Plex, not a big fan of Infuse personally. That's the issue to follow for that: https://github.com/jellyfin/Swiftfin/discussions/1294).

the developer needs to write code to detect the current profile. Most app’s don’t do this, and they explicitly ask a 2nd time. Not apple’s fault.

There are some apps that get this right. Infuse recently added support for this.

This sums up my entire experience with technology progress over the past 40 years.

Good point, also likely 8 years of OS bloat leaving less RAM for the browser.

2018 was iOS 12 which was a very good year for iOS optimization, things have been downhill since then.

I have 4 GB which is typical for these, and admittedly low by modern standards. The 1 TB model had 6 GB but was $1750.

And? What do you expect from a new one?

Not needing to charge as much due to much better battery capacity and/or usage efficiency is objectively a good thing, full stop.

How that additional time is actually spent is a whole separate story, but that's entirely tangential to assessing the impact of battery life improving.

i bought a magic keyboard for my 11" ipad pro and ultimately didn't use it much. it does have a traditional laptop-style hinge, but the way the ipad mounts to the case brings it forward over the keyboard more than with a regular laptop. the hinge also doesn't allow for a very wide range of motion (even compared to macbooks). finally, the center of gravity is really high compared to a laptop which makes it awkward to use as a literal laptop or when lying down.

it definitely looks cool (i could see the design having been inspired by the OG Mac and 20th Anniversary Mac) but works best on a stable surface; plus if you want to use it purely as a tablet, you're left with a big clunky keyboard case to deal with.

the idea of a laptop/tablet combo is cool but i haven't seen the concept executed very successfully from either starting point.

I think they just don't know about the Magic Keyboard.

They changed to sleepopolis.com and you can just make a webapp for it.

I've seen people use their (non-Apple) tablet in the kitchen for recipes. Can't imagine taking my laptop to the kitchen.

I believe it, but it's not something I've ever see in the wild. I have seen people using a trackpad in a keyboard folio, though.

Exactly - any USB mouse via the USB-C connector (or lightning camera adapter before that) works. External displays also work via USB-C.

> Hard to share the things people use at the same time.

Yes, but if it's your goal to have fewer cars, then you'd make an effort not to need to use it at the same time. If that's not what you're trying to do, fine. My wife and I share a car. It's slightly inconvenient sometimes, but really not bad at all. For our particular life anyway.

So here we're talking about iPads. Some families need multiple devices for various reasons. Some don't except for the fact that iPads don't support accounts. No one's saying you would have to use them. But you're not allowed to.

Yeah that just tripped me up trying to recomission a 2012 Macbook Pro.

Couldn't connect to wifi except through a password-less hotspot. Then I couldnt get online because nothing with SSL was working.

I didnt have a pen drive so I had to FTP off another machine, via my phone hotspot. We got there though!

Fwiw, Modern Windows is mostly DWM, and doesn't get the benefit of using GDI primatives for any serious work, so it's also "just" sending compressed video streams. These days it's basically all H.264/5 thanks to GPUs taking over.

I’m pretty sure iPadOS supports multiple profiles on Classroom[0] devices.

[0]: https://www.apple.com/education/k12/teaching-tools/

The iPad Air and iPad Pro are both available in 11" and 13" variants. 30% savings if you want like-for-like storage, almost 40% if you can do with less.

If that rumor's true then Apple has a memory fab hidden somewhere that's going to be revealed soon.

It’s a shitload of glue around the screen, so yes, it’s worse.

https://www.ifixit.com/Guide/iPad+Air+5th+Generation+Battery...

> Hard to share the things people use at the same time.

How many TVs do you have in your living area?

1 car for our family of four seems to work fine for us in the city. Hard to imagine people with different living situations.

I held off a while on giving my youngest child his own iPad because he and his brother were playing nicely together on one more often than not. It turned iPad time into social play-together time.

The one thing Infuse gets me is support for one fairly major audio codec (I forget which one). Have to pay for a license, doubt the official client will ever have it.

The UI is slightly janky out of the box but if you customize it it’s not bad. Key to note is that you probably want to use the “library” menu item for almost everything and drill down from there (that way you can filter by e.g. genre, or order by release date, or whatever, right up front) or else just go over to the entry for the server itself, which gets you a list of top-level items like you see in the Jellyfin web ui.

If you have much stuff at all you need to just ignore top level entries like “movies” or “tv” because (as far as I can tell) they’re just giant alphabetical lists of everything, which borders on useless. I think you can make them not show up at all. You just need search, “library”, and an entry for any server(s) you have to browse them “raw”.

It's not the end user's problem whose fault it is.

40 years from now we won't be able to boot our device until an LLM codes the software on the fly for it. (Each time it boots, of course.)

The traditional expression of this idea is "What Andy giveth, Bill taketh away".

The names are different now, but they were always metonymic.

And of course, those of us in the Motorola/Apple ecosystem didn't have the same problems. :)

Oh shit, I didn’t know they had the 12.9 in a lower spec config these days!

That’ll be what I finally get when I replace my current old-ass pro. Never needed the power, just wanted the size.

They have like 40%+ margin on hardware, even when raw mem chips quadruple in price I doubt they lose more than a few single digit percent of margin and I wouldn't be surprised if they decided to take the hit to keep their pricing the same as they always are.

Keep in mind that before the whole memory price hike crisis they were already charging ~3x what the competition charged for ssd/ram upgrades

Apple is likely a large enough consumer to fully utilize a fab.

TVs are traditionally a shared experience. But even still, I have 2 TVs for every person in my household.

How many phones do you have per person?

An iPhone 13 is also a shitload of glue around the screen, though pulling apart an iPad sized device using suction cups does sound especially hair-raising.

Wait until your kids are older.

I agree with you.

and the end user can blame Netflix, Prime Video, Disney+, YouTube, etc for not delivering the best experience for their customers. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

What's the point here? Then you'll need another car?

Remember, we're comparing to iPads. Apple intentionally hobbles them to induce demand for multiple iPads. This isn't a question of being allowed to own multiple iPads/cars. It's a question of being artificially prevented from owning a single one.

The point isn't that you have to commit to being a single-car household for life. It's that at some points in time, you can be.