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from the One-OS’s-loss-is-another’s-gain dept.
Submitted via IRC for TheMightyBuzzard
Android O and iOS 11 are both set to release in a matter of weeks, but I'm sorry to say that only one of these new operating systems seem to give tablet users much reason to get excited.
If you want a tablet that offers PC-like productivity and a thriving app selection that bears more native, made-for-tablet apps than it does upscaled or incompatible phone apps, you're probably going to buy an iPad equipped with iOS 11.
And while Android O in general will bring a slew of tweaks that we're excited about, including some interesting features like picture-in-picture mode and faster boot times (all underlined with a promise to make updating easier in the future), Google hasn't made enough changes to impact tablet users in a comparably meaningful way.
Of course, this isn't to say you can't still purchase a capable Android tablet that will likely serve your desired purpose. And yep, it's certainly possible that Google might have a few tablet-specific tricks up its sleeve for the software down the line. But as it stands, iOS 11 capitalizes on Android O's seeming lack of focus on tablet chops in a few key ways, all of which Google can improve on.
Source: http://www.techradar.com/news/ios-11-versus-android-o-on-a-tablet-its-not-even-close
(Score: 4, Insightful) by julian on Friday August 18 2017, @06:36AM (5 children)
I still recommend iOS devices to everyone who asks me. It will guarantee to reduce the amount of time I will have to spend supporting them later. My father's desktop PC runs Linux (Xubuntu, latest LTS release) but he lives 200ft away so I don't have trouble supporting his occasional issues. For everyone else I tell them to buy an iPad, or a Mac if they're a bit more sophisticated. Anyone more sophisticated than that wouldn't be asking me for advice.
For myself, I use an iPhone. I administer computers every day for my job so I don't want another computer to baby. It works, always, and never has to be fiddled with.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by ledow on Friday August 18 2017, @07:48AM (1 child)
I administer computers all day, every day, have for twenty years. Hundreds of iPads, dozens of Macs, hundreds of PCs.
I can't imagine a worst piece of advice, the only redeeming feature is that you can just go "Oh, it's Apple, yeah, nothing I can do, take it back to the shop".
I'm sure that works for some people, but honestly they are the biggest wastes of money ever.
The tech is cheap and under-performing, but irreparable.
Everything that you need to buy for it is twice as expensive and has little substitute, from a charging cable upwards.
Though it can "run Windows"... good luck explaining how to do that to people who don't know what computer to get themselves.
I see Apple as what you buy when you don't know anything, but the Apple looks flash and some people regard them as "ooh... fancy", and you want to buy "the most expensive". It's like the people who can't drive but have an enormous 4x4 monstrosity to take their kid to school in.
I can tell when someone buys themselves an Apple - when those people start emailing documents out, and it's all in Apple Pages format and they have no idea how to save it. So they go buy Office, and then realise it's not quite the same.
And, like all the actual-IT guys I know (i.e. people who manage, repair or service machines) - none of whom would touch an iPhone, iPad or iMac - when they break we just look at shrug. The repair will cost you, we probably can't do it ourselves (iPhone screens are shittily fragile, even when cased, and NOTHING "just opens" - you have to crack open screens to replace drives and all kinds of shit), and if something doesn't work there's almost nothing we can do about it.
Some guy once tried to tell me how much more powerful Macs are. So I ran the same version of MacOS he was running, in a VMWare virtual machine, on an 8-year-old laptop, allocated it the same resources it would have on his Mac, and then used it while it also played a Windows 3D game in the background. It literally out-performed his real Mac still.
Apple are a designer brand. And like designer brands, they have no clue about actual design and think it means "make it look good". People buy it because it looks flash, and others have one because they thought it looked flash, and "look at this, isn't it flash".
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 18 2017, @08:00AM
Thank you. I'm not sure why I read the whole thing, but I feel better now.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 18 2017, @12:16PM
The whole 'it does what I need' mantra is very strange to me these days. Even the cheapest Chinese junk is generally good enough to do its job. I find that what spend all my time is fighting to force device to NOT do what I don't want or need them to do.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by jmorris on Friday August 18 2017, @01:51PM
This reminds me of a tagline from the BBS days:
If he is an idiot I send him to the Mac Store.
When you recommend a computing device, unlike with any other product recommendation, it seems to imply a lifetime support contract for free. The beauty of Apple is you can explain that "Apple stuff is for non tech users like you. No, I don't have one so I can't help you."
But I will never pay for one because that is all you can do, pay. Under no circumstance will you ever own one. Our choices dwindle. Google is now openly Evil, Microsoft is Stupid and a lot of Linux distros are going Insane.
(Score: 2) by Pino P on Friday August 18 2017, @04:47PM
Including people who are learning to program or who program as a hobby? I haven't seen any indication that Apple plans to introduce an iPad counterpart to AIDE [android-ide.com], an IDE for developing full Android apps on an Android tablet. Or ought Swift Playgrounds to be enough for anyone?
Oh.
The one flaw of an iPhone for administering computers is that Settings is the only iOS app allowed to see nearby WLAN access points. There's no public API in iOS for enumerating nearby SSIDs and MAC numbers, which is why the WiFi-Where app had to be pulled from the App Store and Mozilla Stumbler was never added in the first place.