I'm so conflicted about Apple/iProducts

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

I used to own a MacBook Pro. In a moment of complete stupidity, I gave it away. But I remember it, and man I loved my MacBook Pro. That was a beautiful machine.

So when it was time to buy a new phone, I thought, ''Heck, let’s try iPhone. If one product is so outstanding, the rest must be as well, correct?" I had a Droid at the time. I figured with all the hype, iPhone had to be better.

No. Not even close. The navigation in particular makes me want to dropkick a puppy. The Facebook app sucks. Google Mail integration sucks. Everything about it sucks. The only thing about it that I love is a free navigation app called Waze that uses social networking to help you avoid traffic problems. I don’t even know if they have a Droid app for that, but Waze is great. It has easily saved me hours of commute time.

Then I realized what a dumbshit I was for giving away my MacBook, so I went searching the stores for a good laptop option. I just wanted something smaller and lighter I could use to write my fiction on. I came really close to getting a MacBook Air, but I didn’t understand the concept of cloud storage at the time.

I ended up deciding on an iPad, though I want to make it clear I was never really satisfied with any of my options. I now have a bluetooth keyboard setup, and I started writing using Pages, which is pretty worthless for anything other than writing fiction (Word Processing is probably my single biggest demand when it comes to these kinds of things.) So the experience, from a producitivity standpoint, was underwhelming.

Then I discovered the games. The stupid little addicting games that I have literally spent days playing. My latest obsession is an app called Pocket Frogs. In it, you breed frogs. That’s pretty much it. I swear I can feel the little Pavlovian neurons firing in my brain whenever I hatch a new frog. And God, the in-app purchases! What a clusterfuck that is. I can’t play these games without feeling like a complete fucking idiot for letting them get me, and a horrible person for encouraging this sort of game design.

Well, yesterday I found a Word Processor for iPad that I actually like - Quickoffice Pro. It has Dropbox integration and I successfully wrote and edited my latest grant on it, so I think it’s going to work for stay-at-home job tasks. This launched me into a frenzy of trying to find good productivity apps, and I discovered Evernote, and installed a new web browser called Atomic. I am pleased about that.

And I keep thinking, I use this thing every day and I still don’t know how I feel about it. Looking at different apps today gave me a sense of what is actually appealing about it - there are a lot of interesting things people are coming up with to make our lives easier. The problem is, they all fail in some way. That Word Processing app I found? Doesn’t track changes. Doesn’t have a search text option. I pretty much have to do all major formatting on anothe rmachine. It doesn’t do a lot of things that MS Word does and that would really make my professional life easier.

But are the other options out there any better? When I was searching for my writing tablet solution, there was nothing that really did what I wanted it to do. I used to have a little netbook that was perfect for that kind of thing, it just wasn’t very powerful. Now instead of netbooks we have these weird flat panels that don’t really prop up very easily. And I’m starting to get pretty irritated with all the ways Apple is willing to make its product shittier by blocking other companies from being used with it. And everything’s so goddamned expensive.

But what’s the alternative, really? Other expensive shit, with other irritating flaws. Is there something I’m missing here? I don’t mean to get all existential here, but are we really enjoying this experience, or are we just addicted to it?

2

The “better” option you’re looking for is another laptop, like your MacBook. The iPad was never meant to be a laptop, and the problems you’re encountering are because you’re trying to use it like one.

You bought something that’s designed primarily for web surfing, games, & email and are trying to use it like it’s a full-fledged computer. It’s not. It’s definitely very handy, and has some low-level apps that give you some very basic functionality, but it’s not going to run complex apps like high-end word processors, at least not for a few more years.

3

I don’t understand this criticism and I have an iPad and an iPhone, both of which are configured with my Google Mail account. I don’t see any problems with the integration. And as for the complaints about the word processor and the lack of a track changes feature, I think the iPad is best for watching movies, reading stuff on the internet and so forth, but not so great for creating content.

4

So I have learned. The hard way. Too bad I can’t afford a laptop.

Also, it’s not like I rushed into this decision. I read a bunch of articles about how great iPads are for portable writing, written by writers…

5

Yeah, I thought that was supposed to be the big difference between the iPad and other tablets like the Kindle Fire, that you could create content on it rather than simply consuming it. Because every time I said the major difference was that you were paying a few hundred bucks for a couple extra inches of screen and a camera, people immediately jumped in to explain to me that oh no, the iPad was also good for creating content.

Though I’m a little confused about why you didn’t just buy a netbook, if you primarily want it for word processing. You could have gotten one for half what you paid for your iPad.

6

That’s odd. When I was researching the iPad, I feel like every site I looked at had a big fat warning that it really wasn’t a replacement for a laptop for, you know, getting actual stuff done. I never saw anything about how great it was for writing. No, wait, I tell a lie. I think I did see one article that said that it was good because you could only have one thing open at a time, so it cut out distractions. But generally, my experience did not match yours.

7

You bought an iPad despite everyone posting in the thread you made telling you that your needs could not be met by an iPad.

Sell the iPad and get yourself a laptop.

8

Why does it have to be a Macbook? Any of the resident geeks around here would happily recommend parts to build you a cheap, functional PC and teach you how to assemble it.

Or, one better, ask your supervisor at work if you can be issued a company laptop. If you’re doing work at home, they should really be supplying you with what you need to do your job.

9

You cant afford one now you mean?..cheapo hp laptops (for from my favorite, but they do the job) are orders of magnitude more powerful than an ipad and cheaper.

10

The bummer is the iOS version of Pages isn’t as full featured as the Mac OSX version.

And as other’s have said, the iPad isn’t a perfect replacement for a laptop.

However, it can do a ton of stuff, just fine, for low-computational work like writing. Sometimes it takes finding that one app that fits like a glove. So, as far as word processing goes (besides Pages), what have you tried out?

Also, which version iPad is it? And, did you finally make heads or tails out of iCloud?

Finally, iOS 6 arrived today. May as well install it for some new features (such as native Twitter/Facebook integration now) if you haven’t already. (Settings / General / Software Update…)

11

Incidentally, there’s an Android version of Waze.

12

I don’t understand this talk of Apple/iProducts as some kind of big thing that sucks people in. Seriously, they’re phones/tablets/whatevers same as anything else. Buy one and use it. If you don’t like it, buy a different one next time.

You don’t get this big hullabaloo about other products. Should I buy a Bosch dishwasher or a Miele? What will it say about me as a person? Oh no, I’m so conflicted!

13

You can’t take your dishwasher to the coffeeshop so everyone can see how hip and cool you are with your half caff upside down non-fat mocha no whip and hipster glasses. That’s why, Colophon.

14

Pedantic mode: Android is Google’s phone operating system, Droid is a phone by Motorola which runs Android.

Thanks for turning me onto Waze, there is an Android version, and I’ll give it a try. I’m curious to know whether it gives better traffic information than Google Maps or CDOT.

The games… I’ve not really gotten hooked on any phone games, but my wife would spend hours “poking frogs” or building her elevator, or whatever. I don’t think she’s into any iOS games at the moment. Too many ebooks to read…

A friend’s been going through a similar process. He has a giant Windows notebook, which is a good quality business class model, not one of the big cheap ones. It works well, but is a pain to carry around, particularly in a backpack on a motorcycle. So then he thought he’d get an iPad and keyboard to carry around, but he realized lots of things were annoying to do on his iPhone (like carry around arbitrary files, or read arbitrary external storage) so they wouldn’t be any better on an iPad. So then he thought he’d try an Android tablet.

He ended up with an Asus Transporter, which is an Android tablet that has an attachable keyboard. Android is easier to use than iOS for external storage, and it can run ssh, word processors, and such. But after one trip using only the Transformer, he decided it wasn’t close enough to the notebook experience for what he wanted. Like you, he’d discovered the productivity apps were not up to the task, and being only able to look at one application at a time was really cutting into his productivity. So back it went…

Next he tried an 11" Macbook Air, because he thought it would fit in his tankbag, but give him the power of a full notebook in the size of a netbook. Turned out it didn’t fit in his tankbag, so he decided there was no point in being that restricted in screen size (multiple app thing) if he still had to carry it around in a backpack. Of course, it cost more than twice as much as the Transporter, but was far more powerful. An 11" Air might work for you if, you can afford it, you don’t mind the small screen, and you want a Mac.

As far as I know, the latest trial is a Lenovo Thinkpad T430s. It’s probably most similar to a MacBook Pro in size and specs.

15

Really?

The iOS Gmail integration is pretty terrible. To begin with, if you go to set up a Gmail account and just click on the “Gmail” wizard to set it up, you don’t get mail pushed to you. Your phone has to poll the server, which is either less responsive or less power efficient (or both).

Here’s how you set it up for sync/push email. Hmm, set up Gmail account by selecting Microsoft Exchange. Makes sense.

Having done that, iOS’s mail app (which I’m going to call iMail, though that’s not really its name) doesn’t use the same model of mail that Gmail does. Gmail uses labels and encourages you to archive mail regularly. But, once I archive something, it’s gone from iMail. I can’t even bring it up with search. Searching also takes a really long time before not returning anything.

I have, at this time, two folders in iMail named “Sent Items”, and one named “Sent Messages”. None of them seems to actually contain either all the messages I’ve sent from my phone, or all the messages I’ve sent from my Gmail account in general. Not sure what’s going on there.

There are other things, but they’re more minor.

16

I am actually amazed at how many writers I know that use an iPad with a keyboard for their on-the-road writing.

17

:dubious: If I buy a new dishwasher, it doesn’t mean I automatically have to buy all new dishes and might not be able to make some of my favorite recipes. Change the OS of your tablet/smartphone/laptop/desktop/etc. and that happens.

That being said, fuck, if you hated the iPhone, you shouldn’t have bought the iPad. It’s the same thing, just bigger. Get yourself some flavor of Android phone and/or tablet, and use it with a MacBook Air or whatever the hell their super-light laptop is. I use a PC laptop and own an iPhone and iPad, and they all work together pretty happily, and I love them all. (I will admit I’d prefer it if the rumored MS Office for iOS would come true, since that supposedly shows tracked changes. I need that for meetings that I bring my iPad to.)

18

Droid is both a phone by Motorola that runs Android and a common nickname for the Android operating system. Tell your inner pedant to give this one up - Droid-short-for-Android is here to stay.

19

Yeah, I know. I guess anything that dilutes George Lucas’ trademarks can’t be all bad.

20

Further pedantism: HTC as well as Motorola sell Droid phones; the license to use the name Droid was granted by Lucasfilm to Verizon, which is the carrier offering these phones.