I will try this. Thanks.
I picked up a Toshiba Thrive tablet not long ago, and it can do just that. Connect it with a USB cable (cause my baby has ports! :D) and drag and drop files from my PC to my tablet and vice versa. I can connect an external hard drive or flash drive to it and access files via the “file manager” icon.
As tablets go, she’s a bit on the hefty side. About the weight of a comparable sized hardcover book. She’s solid though, and I wouldn’t trade her for anything. Plus having the weight of a book with the leather case makes my kindle app feel like an actual book. 
I believe that it’s referred to as “Private Browsing Mode” in the Settings 
The thing is: you understand the idea of a tablet being like an external drive, and of copying things in, and organizing your files by directories, but lots of people don’t.
It was really surprising to me when I discovered this fact. But it’s true. Lots of people simply don’t understand the traditional hierarchical file system model. Not even a little bit. They fumble through it, but they’re always losing stuff and getting confused.
You can see the impact of this understanding all over Apple’s new designs. Files are associated directly with apps so that you don’t have to know where they are. You can organize apps into folders on your home screen, but you can’t organize the folders into other folders. You don’t get a recursive directory system because the average person simply doesn’t get recursion.
It’s annoying to have to do things a different way, but I’ve found that after the initial shock, I’m actually happier offloading this sort of thing to Apple. I don’t have to care where my movies and music are. They’re in iTunes. I don’t have to care where I put files. When I want them, they’re in the app that made them. Obviously, that’s a personal decision. Not everyone will agree. But I’d suggest that you give it a fair shake. We’re naturally averse to new ways of doing things; sometimes the new ways are actually better.
To the OP: the iTunes app on iOS devices is intended to be used for buying things. It’s the store part of iTunes. Playing music and video are in separate apps. In my opinion, this is a terrible design decision precisely because on a desktop, there’s an app called iTunes that does all three. If Apple was going to split it up, they should have given all three components different names. Doing it the way they did is confusing, and you’re rightfully upset by it.
yeah, the one thing I’ve noticed on any iOS device I’ve spent time with is how crashy Safari is.
Whenever I’m tempted to get an iPad, I remind myself that it’s not a laptop without a keyboard.
I have to stop myself by muttering “Ok… you can wait… can you do Adobe Illustrator on it? No… then you don’t need it…”
It’s a whole new class of device (some weird phone/computer hybrid?) and everyone’s still trying to figure out what it can do. And I guess that includes Apple.
In Africa they don’t have ipads at all.
Ok, they probably do. That’s probably what my parents would’ve told me if I bitched like this about my miraculous little wonder-computer.
My Safari has been super crashy ever seince the 5.0 update last fall. I found an independent browser app (Atomic) that works a lot better and doesn’t crash at all (or at least very very rarely). I highly recommend finding a new browser if you’re having issues w/ Safari.
We have much to learn from them.
[QUOTE=Try2B Comprehensive]
In Africa they don’t have ipads at all.
Ok, they probably do. That’s probably what my parents would’ve told me if I bitched like this about my miraculous little wonder-computer.
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When I was a youngster, my parents used to invoke the “poor (adjective) children in China.” I note that my wife’s iPad is made in China so I guess that the “poor iPad-less children in China” isn’t accurate, although I don’t suppose building them in factories is quite the same as having your own to play with.
MAC NEVER CRASH!
[sticks fingers in ears] la la la la la la la la la
Nuh uh, poptarts are frosted!
I don’t know if it’s my ungraceful fingers or just general clumsiness, but this method has been sort of clunky for me. What I find quicker and easier is to double-tap the iPad’s button, which brings up a row of apps along the bottom of the screen. The most recently opened app is right there, first app on the left. I find this a great way to go back and forth between apps.
I imagine every other iPad user in the universe figured this out long ago, but since it took me about seven months, I thought I’d mention it here as an alternative to the multi-finger swipe. Which sounds oddly dirty, now that I think of it …
I’ll give you $100 for it right now plus 20 via paypal to ship it unless you are near Chicago. In that case ill bring cash since you hate it so much. I hate to see you in such distress, this is the least I can do.
Who, the Africans or my parents?
Anyway, to keep this current and ‘dopey, we should change it to, "Half Man Half Wit doesn’t have an ipad at all! So count your blessings, you could be like that poor soul.’
That’s my mother. We used to keep her pictures in folders on her Desktop, but eventually there were so many that we had to move them into another folder to declutter. It was less work to “find me that picture from Almeria with the embroidered horse blanket” than to explain folders again or send her to her notebook (where it is described) again.
The structure is not exactly rocket science, but it’s too complex for her: the aforementioned picture would be under Desktop -> Pics -> Almeria.
Well, for fuck’s sake, put the thing down and stop crashing the Internet, at least until you figure out what you are doing wrong. I’m trying to get some goddam work done here.
Ya’ know, this was never meant to be true about individual apps! It was always said about the OS itself - no BSOD. Get it?
Of course, all machines crash, even Macs Kernel Panic once in a great while.
I think all Android tablets (and phones) can do that. Though some require proprietary cables. (That’s one reason I like my HTC Flyer - it can be connected to a PC or charger with a standard micro-USB cable.)
The Thrive is somewhat unusual in having a full-size USB port (in addition to a mini-USB port). Of course, the downside is that it’s a bit thicker and heavier than other tablets.
I used to have issues with the Thrive taking forever to scan newly attached USB storage before it could transfer files, but the latest firmware patch seems to have fixed it.
The category is ‘tablet’, and I don’t think it’s too hard to figure how it fits in. Sometimes you don’t want something as small as a phone, and not as big and clunky as a laptop. It’s actually more practical than a laptop for me, as I have a desktop and don’t truly need one – I just like having something to entertain me in bed or on the couch. It’s lightweight, doesn’t require me to be in a sitting position, easily transportable compared to a laptop and is simple to use.
For example, it’s great when traveling for pleasure. There’s no way I would have hauled a laptop to and around Australia, but a loaded-up iPad with plenty of apps and videos wasn’t any heavier or cumbersome than a couple of magazines. I could also easily store all of my travel plans on it, all my hotel confirmation emails and such, and it has a good battery life, too. I even got a bunch of multiplayer games so I could play with my traveling companions when we got bored, too. Handy as heck.
It’s certainly nothing like a regular desktop or laptop, and I don’t expect it to be one. I still use my desktop for things that require a lot of typing, or to save documents, to play most online games, and the like. But the iPad fits in nicely and is a huge convenience. It’s just been great for all kinds of situations – whipping out Scrabble pass and play at a family gathering when folks are getting antsy, or having something to tap a few notes on at a meeting, or having something to entertain a kid for a little while, or whatever. And because of its weight and size, I can take it with me everywhere if I want and it’s no burden.